Show 7 with Bill Patrick

Interviews with Today’s Top Remodeling Entrepreneurs http://www.remodelersontherise.com

Show 7: Bill Patrick of EGStolztfus Homes, LLC shares his insights on working with the right people and determining if your working relationship will be a good fit.

Kyle: Welcome to Remodelers on the Rise! I am your host, Kyle Hunt. And alongside me is my co-host Ryan Paul Adams. Ryan, how are you doing today? Ryan: I’m doing well Kyle. How about you? Kyle: I am doing excellent! It’s Friday. Sun is shining 40°here in beautiful Michigan. Ryan: No rain and snow here as well. So we’re good! Good for the day. Kyle: Getting close to spring. So this is Remodelers on the Rise Podcast #7. Let’s get started by introducing today’s guest. Our guest today is Bill Patrick, who is the Division Manager and Senior Designer of the Remodeling Division for EGStoltzfus Homes in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I nailed it, didn’t I, Bill? Bill: You did. Very good, Kyle. Well done! Kyle: So Bill was the founder and owner of William J. Patrick Inc. from 1989 to 2009. They received numerous awards for design work including Remodeling Magazine Big 50 Award for Fine Design. And Bill was also named Remodeler of the Year by the Pennsylvania Builders Association in 2007. And in November of 2009, he joined up with a firm that he is currently with, EGStoltzfus. It is a full-service construction company. They do construction and design of neighborhood homes, residential remodeling, designed homes and they are also involved in commercial construction. So Bill, the focus of this show is really about you, your business and your experience. I just gave a quick intro and I’d like to turn it over to you. If you could briefly tell us more about you personally, your business and how you arrived in your current position with EGStoltzfus?


Bill: Well, I think with a lot of people in our industry, in particular, we show up here without a particular plan or career path in mind. The only thing I was interested in doing after I graduated from Millersville University, a local state school, with a degree in what today is Applied Engineering and Technology focusing on Communications and Design, is wanting to go ski for the winter. So I needed something to do that summer. And a buddy of mine, who dropped out of College, was framing houses. And he’s gone on to be a very successful home builder here in our market. And that fed my winter need by having this great summer job – learning, working hard, and actually seeing how the part and pieces go together as I didn’t learn that academically. I did that for 3 summers. Kyle: Did you get to go skiing in the winter as planned? Bill: I did. I spent one winter working in Quebec for a professor of mine, who retired up there to a ski lodge. I did 80 days. It was a slow slide from there down in skiing. But that was balanced by an increase in building and remodeling. I spent years as a realtor too, which was an eye opening experience for me about the whole process of sales and documentation. But by the end of 1990, I was missing building, designing, creating. I gave up all other pursuits and said, “Hey I can do this. There’s a career here.” Kyle: Excellent! We’ll get into some more of your previous experience. But fast forward to 2009. Share to us kind of your transition from your own business and joining other established firm. Bill: Well like I think the theme of my time with guys today is about relationships. I was able to build on strong relationships through my involvement in the local building industry associations. Actually the President of our company and the son of the founder served as an adviser to me on the board when I was President of the local. He had always been interested and wondering how they could tap into remodeling, in a more strategic way.


There’s about, currently, up to 10,000 projects that we have including residential, commercial and new homes remodeling. Ryan: That’s amazing! Kyle: Wow! Bill: That is quite a bit of people. The vast, vast majorities of them is, of course, satisfied but have buildings that need help. Ryan: It’s interesting, you just mentioned 10,000 projects and before we put you in the hot seat here. Talk to me about Lancaster, Pennsylvania – the area. Is there a lot of money? Is it just growing? What’s going on there? Sounds like you guys are just doing some awesome thing. Bill: Well, that’s a 45 year business. Keep that in mind. EG (Elam Gideon) Stoltzfus started out as a remodeler and a custom builder in 1968. I think the county we’re in, the metro area if you will, has a little bit over 500,000 people. And that has doubled. The population has doubled since 1960’s. So it has grown. We are the crossroads of the mid-Atlantic states here in Central Pennsylvania. When we are talking of a TV market, it’s Lancaster, York and Harrisburg, our capital. So there is about somewhere in the neighborhood of a million and a half to 2 million people in that metro area, which is our primary market. We’ve got to 20 neighborhoods that we are working around that region, which spans around 50 miles and we are on the far eastern side of that. We were just doing some strategic thinking yesterday and how we can expand east 50 miles which would take us almost to the Philadelphia city line. And quite frankly, there’s a lot more money that way. Seems like that market is heated up even more quickly in its recovery that Central Pennsylvania. So very, very diverse economy. We are headed into manufacturing as a percentage of our economy. Agriculture, believe it or not is our #1 economic engine and a lot of logistics because as I said we’re the crossroads of mid-Atlantic states, with the interstates here. Ryan: Excellent!


Bill: But I didn’t finish my story how I ended here in EG Stoltzfus. Ryan: Yeah, let’s continue on. Bill: So after many casual conversations with Brent, I got a phone call from him in 2009. He said, “Hey! Just checking in on how you are doing. If you ever want to get together and catch up.” Kyle: An innocent call? Bill: Yeah. Exactly. He said, “Let’s do that.” So I said, “Ah, all right Brent. Things are going well.” I have the right size. I had 10 employees and I was down to 4. I was paying the bills and quite frankly, it was the highest gross margin on percentage I had seen in 2009, in probably 10 years in business because we were just very focused on what needed to be done. It was not without some sleepless nights, believe me. I think that’s been endemic in our industry. A lot of people have gained experience through this correction. But, I went home that night and told my wife that Brent, whom she knows as well, called. And she said, “What? He didn’t call just to say hello. You go have a breakfast with him.” So she’s obviously a little wiser in this perception than me. So I went and you know he said, “Is there any chance that you would be interested in making a shift in your career?” I went back and told that news to my wife. She said, “You keep talking to him.” So that was like April and I think, we finalized the absorption, if you will, by October. Kyle: Why? Why did you do it? Bill: A new challenge. It kind of started with nothing but my boot straps. I took it up and was looking at basically, had to right-size the company back 10 years.


I wasn’t really excited about that. You do what you have to do. But in 2007, I think back to what I was doing on a daily basis with a team I had around me and the kind of projects we were working on was exactly what I dreamed of 15 years earlier. And, on the basis of a bunch of speculators, that I had no relationship to or control over, the whole market and the rug was pulled from underneath us. So, this provided me an opportunity to download and outsource if you will, a lot of the things that most business people get into business and find out to their surprise they have to be responsible for. Ryan: A lot of headaches. Bill: Yeah, like why the vans don’t run or who is negotiating health and insurance or cashflow, why we are not compliant with our payroll. So that was the ability to basically show up here to a 60 person corporation and they’ve got all the administrative staff that we could share. Kyle: And I would imagine, focused on the stuff you enjoy the most. Bill: You’re correct. That’s right! Back to relationships, creativity and focus on people. In the process, make people meet their potential. Not just to be in compliance or deal with the logistics that really is an absolute necessary evil. But can be a big distraction. Kyle: I think for the remodelers listening to this, you know, there’s a lot of pride in building our own business – years, blood and sweat to do that. But even recently, Ryan and I both want to start a podcast. Well, it wasn’t until we partnered up and sharing the responsibility and the workload that – boom, it happened quickly. I can think of 2 or 3 examples of clients who I’ve worked with who partnered up with certain people. One of my clients just partnered up with him and I follow him on Facebook and he says “Yeah, I’ve got 5 kids this week.” And I know he only has 3. Well, his new partner has. He took his kids while his partner goes on a little trip. I know a year ago that sharing of responsibility and stress was never a thing. So I wanted to pause there and make people realize that it’s something you can consider when you’re out there.


There are other solutions. You don’t have to continue to do the same thing over and over again. You sounded like you were not forced into it but that it presented itself and off you went. So Ryan, why don’t you get into our ext question? Ryan: Yeah, Bill can you share a success quote that you live by and maybe an example or 2 of how you apply this to your life and your business? Bill: I think it’s no more, no truer in any industry or business, our success comes as much from whom we don’t work with for as for who we do work for. I always love to give referrals out to my competition. I’ve been reminded of this a couple of times lately. But innocently because maybe we were too busy or it was too far away. But I would want to take credit for the feeling in my gut when I went to interview somebody or talk to somebody on the phone and qualify them. There was just something there that wasn’t going to be a good fit. And the emotional challenge and component of the business – working on people’s homes, the fact is not everybody’s got the same emotional intelligence as a client or any role in the process – employee or subcontractors to be working on people’s houses that would be a good fit or might be a --- Kyle: headache? Bill: Might be a headache. Kyle: Good, good. Share a story of a time in your journey where you encountered failure if you could. Kind of take us into that time of your life. Tell us that story. Maybe share a few lessons you learned from that. Bill: I am lucky and blessed to not have any huge failure along the way. Maybe I can attribute that to my obsessive compulsiveness and focus on too many details. But at the same time, I talk about that as if it was a gift. And really, if I overuse it, it’s something that I fail by everyday. It’s really in the developing and the trusting, executive abilities that it takes to be a good leader. You get the best people you can afford on your team. And set them up for success with clear boundaries to work within and just get out of their way.


And when I look back and it still happens to this day as I still manage projects myself in the division, I really need to trust the people who are with me. When I think back on some of the folks that I hired and to the guys who didn’t come with me when I was absorbed here in EG, they went out and started their own businesses. I always think of how I could have gotten out of their way when they were working with me so that things could have been a little different, more effective and more rewarding for everybody. Kyle: Sure! Before we got into the phone, you’ve mentioned you were keeping busy this morning with some interviews. You have some hiring process? You hired and interviewed people over the years. Anything you look for in bringing on a great team member? If you can share some thoughts on that. Bill: Well, number 1, would be a values fit – who are you as a business owner and a manager, and what do you value that you take to the market place and serve your customers by your code and making sure that there’s a good values fit with all of your employees. They are going to have different styles. They are going to fill different roles. They are going to have different skills. But in the end, you are going out to fight the same fight with the same goals and underlying integrity. So that’s #1. Number 2 is, of course, aptitude. We are looking to hire right now, thinking of hiring somebody who is young, inexperience, got the values and the right style for a Field Manager and trained them up over the next 2 to 3 years. Or, we find somebody who’s got the skills set and maybe who isn’t good in terms of values fit. Maybe because of their skills set, we are willing to overlook their style difference which the range of average Field Manager or Technician on the field that is quite a broad array of people. I’ve done some personality profiling too, the DISC profile. It is not a stand alone piece. But it breeds good conversation.


Ryan: What about like an IQ test? Is intelligence important? Obviously maybe that leads to other things. Bill: For a field guy, the brilliance is somewhere in their ability to listen and their spatial and tactile genius, you know. So it’s pretty hard to test on paper for guys who are putting pieces together and seeing the end and beginning and all the steps in between. It’s more experiential. Kyle: Sure! So for the remodelers listening, the DISC test, if you are not familiar with that, type in DISC profile test/DISC personality test on Google. And it will pull up for you. I urge each one of you, if you have a key person on your team and for yourself, go ahead. Take that and once you see the results, you’d say, “Ah! That makes sense why that person is rated that way.” I’ve had clients who do this. And you’ll probably make this a common practice as you are hiring. Ryan: So Bill, we talked abut that you haven’t really encountered that big failure moment in your life. How about that big breakthrough? Was that your partnership that came through or was it something else that you want to touch on – that AHA! moment? Bill: Actually, when I think about that pivotal AHA! moment, it came along so long ago. I can’t even imagine how much I didn’t know that when it happened. But maybe that’s why. It was in 1990, at the very first Remodeler Show that was held in Pittsburg. We drove out there to see the keynote speech. This was less than a year when I had determined I was going to do the small business thing. And Michael Gerber who wrote the e-Myth gave the keynote speech. It just opened up the whole idea how businesses work around creating systems which really is a bunch of preset decisions that are supposed to create efficiency and better service. Kyle: Hang on, repeat that description.


People always say process and you just defined it in a really interesting and compelling way, in a clear way. Say that again. See if it comes out the same way – now that I have interrupted your flow. Bill: Systems or processed would be preset decisions that are designed to create efficiencies and better service. If you couple them with the discipline to do it on a regular predictable basis, the behaviors if you are applying them, is the recipe. It is your recipe. Ryan: Well said. Kyle: Really well said. Bill: And that notion of the myth, if nobody’s read this, this is old school. There have been so many books since then but the myth still holds true. That most business owners really are not entrepreneurs in the sense that they are scanning the marketplace, seeking opportunities, putting out labor, capital and resources to get a return on their investments. In fact, they are either doing it out of necessity or a large portion of them start a business because they are decent, self-directed managers who think they can do better than their bosses. And the unfortunate thing is, they end up firing their bosses and starting another job and not a business. Unless you get some strategic self-awareness going and learn from your mistakes, you are destined to repeat the same things over and over again. So that’s huge. I remember, I sat down and then ran back and design the perfect systems for everything in the business. Ryan: I think, that’s how it is. It’s constantly evolving. You keep documenting the things you do over and over. Then do it well and improve. I don’t think there is a perfect business. I think, it’s just a matter of continuing to improve where you can.


Bill, is there anything in your business right now or the remodeling industry that’s really exciting you or that keeps you going? Bill: it’s maybe part of life – the arc of life and career. I’m really stoked at teaching and coaching and you know refining as much. I’ve been refining for 25 years. But, doing this within the team. I got 6 passionate people who report to me. Two young guys who are Designers and Project Managers who bring tremendous energy. They are really hitting on their career strides. Their questions, opinions and perspectives, I don’t feel so much that I need to do is I can teach and develop other people. So it’s fun! It’s a ton of fun. Kyle: Awesome! So before we get into the lightning round, one other quick question. You’ve touched on it a couple of times – relationships. Talk about some of the keys you’ve done over time and some of what you’ve done when it comes to giving the client a wonderful remodeling experience, how do you achieve that? What are some of the things that you are implementing or doing to achieve that? Bill: Trying to systemize high quality spoken, written and graphic communications that really just sets expectations. And then be ready to regularly update and reset the expectations. That’s what this business of remodeling just so craves. When we do get complaints, it’s because somebody didn’t know what is going to happen. Somebody made an assumption, somebody didn’t communicate the change. So, we just re-committed to regular meetings whether it’s with our clients, whether it’s a 4-week job or a 4-month job, up until the dry walls go in. Having a weekly face to face is ideal. So many busy people, with two career folks, we’ve come up with a template with an update where you can send report via email and make a follow up call. Ryan: That’s a great idea.


Kyle: Indeed, a great idea. Bill: But where we are at with the schedule, what’s going on this week, who is coming in (the subs, suppliers), how we are doing with changes, when is the next bill due, what can we do to make it less painful. Kyle: Client communication reduces stress, right? We can’t communicate enough. Bill: Just flood them with information. And be there to reload. Kyle: Let’s get into the lightning round questions. We’re going to rapid-fire a few questions at you. And Ryan, why don’t you lead us with the first one? Ryan: What’s the best business advice you’ve ever received? Bill: The best advice I’ve ever received, if you are going to grow, you’ve got to get into some calculated debt. Ryan: Interesting. I’m kind of running into the same thing myself. Wondering how deep to go down that rabbit hole. Any advice? Stick with what you are comfortable with? Bill: I think, it all starts with sales and it translates into cash flow. And you’ve got to understand that it’s no different than investing. You are borrowing from profits you’ve yet to earn. Ryan: Yeah, exactly. Bill: I spent, running up a credit line. I spent quite a few nights thinking about it. But can you, knowing that it’s there, stay focus on the game? Do the behaviors that will deliver to your customer and move forward. Kyle: Speaking of behaviors, can you share one of your personal habits you believe attributes to your success? Bill: A good tasks list.


And prioritizing that tasks list. It kind of goes back to the idea that you succeed perhaps because of the tasks you don’t do as much as you do. In today’s world, it’s just so. I mean, I open up my email, I find myself going down these rabbit trails with these links. Kyle: What book would you recommend to Remodelers on the Rise listeners? Bill: I already mentioned that, the e-Myth. It still applies. I’m sorry if it’s not newer. It’s still fresh. Kyle: It’s timeless. Ryan: Yes! Really is. Bill, we ask each guest who comes into the show to provide something meaningful and useful for our listeners and our audience. Is there anything that you could provide to help other remodelers grow and improve their businesses? Bill: You mean a specific business process or idea or something? For me, it’s the idea of a 4-step process to get into an agreement. A feasibility budget with some kind of schematic design or scope of work. An estimate with a lot of preselects on your part. That you like as you are developing the design. And then, get them involved and go ahead and pick everything. Personalize it before they go to a final design phase. This kind of incremental drafts build a relationship. And if you’re really good, you got them to pay for your service and you are not giving it away free, after they agree that your feasibility budget is good. And then, finally, the 4th step which kind of flushes everything out, you’ve got a contract quality design and agreement. If you got the ability to sell that value upfront and show them how you are going to take them through a process that’s got value. Then, most people would pay for it. Ryan: Yeah, I agree.


As a reminder to our audience, any resource that we talked about today in the show, along with any links or books we’ve mentioned will be available at RemodelersontheRise.com Show 7. Kyle: Excellent! So Bill, this is the final question. Here we go. Imagine you woke up tomorrow morning, you are in the same exact business but you know no one, had no sales, and only $500 of start-up money. And your life depended on you selling something in the next 7 days. You still have the experience and knowledge you currently have. Your food and shelter are taken cared of. But all you have is a laptop and $500. What would you do in the next 7 days to survive and generate new business? And not to sound too dramatic but your life depends on you doing this. Bill: So I know no one. But do I get to pick the community that I get dropped into? Kyle: Sure, yeah! Bill: I want to go to Salt Lake City because my favorite place in the world is the Wasatch Range right there. If I’m going to do this, I might as well go somewhere where I need to relieve my stress, I can be skiing and hiking in the mountains. Kyle: You only got 7 days, you are not going to have a lot of skiing time. You’ve got to get down to business. Bill: But ultimately, it’s going to pay off. So I’ve got my same LinkedIn and Facebook accounts. I got a phone right? In the end, I need to get the word out that my situation has changed and I have enough faith that I can convey my talents as a manager, a designer and a sales person are available to help someone who has a situation they want to change. It’s back to building the relationship. People buy from people they like and trust. If the laptop had the latest version of Chief Architect on it, I would be sailing.


Show up and find people who are probably in the marketplace, who are set up, who need my help. And see where it goes from there. Kyle: I like it. And ski in the afternoons? Bill: That’s right. Ryan: Excellent, Bill. As kind of a parting here, is there anything else you want to share or also, let people know where they can get a hold of you. Bill: They can get a hold of me, actually it’s pretty easy – [email protected]. That’s actually a personal email. And the thing that everybody needs to understand is how much faith they need to muster in something that they are envisioning. How much faith they can garner and hold on to in their business, in their life and what they want to be, how they want to change and carry that forward. There is an energizing aspect to being able to see something that doesn’t exist yet. And whether it is your business or the next project, that creative spark is life-giving and there is a lot of different ways to get there. And everybody needs to understand who they are on their path. Couple of different concepts there. Kyle: We’ve done 7 podcasts so far and I was smiling as you were going through that because it was really true and really solid. I think that’s the deepest we’ve gotten so far Ryan. Ryan: That is. I agree. Kyle: Which was welcome and excellent. So thank you Bill for coming to the show today. We appreciate you sharing your story, your knowledge and your time. Just a friendly reminder to all our listeners, please check out www.RemodelersontheRise.com. If you have a coupe of minutes, click on our iTunes or wherever you have the podcast downloaded and leave a review for us in there.

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The more reviews and ratings we have on there, the better chance other people like yourself will be able to find the show. So we appreciate you all tuning in and thank you again Bill! Ryan: Well done, Bill. Thank you. Bill: Thank you gentlemen. It was a pleasure!

Education

Show 7 with Bill Patrick