186. Scaling Smart With Taylor & Mandy Shipp

Welcome to another episode of Professional Builder Secrets. I recorded this episode live at the International Builder show in Las Vegas, but the content is still highly relevant for builders. Today we talked to Taylor and Mandy Shipp from Shiloh Homes and they share their story of implementing WIPA construction slots and other financial systems in their business and the impact it's had on their building company. I highly recommend checking it out. This episode of Professional Builder Secrets is brought to you by Apparatus Contractor Services. Apparatus provides full scope, end to end QuickBooks, Precision Construction accounting and CFO services for residential builders. If you feel like you can't completely trust your weekly and monthly financial reports or you feel like you're flying blind, Apparatus will rebuild and operate your QuickBooks accounting system and give you precision construction accounting capability you can trust. Learn more@apparatus team.com or on the APB Rewards Partner Directory.

A lot of builders, I mean, they'll turn and burn. They want to find a good lot at an okay price. They'll build on it, get in and get out. But you can make more of a profit if you see something that you can actually lean into that weirdness, like if it's really steep or something. You can have a lot of cool topography, landscaping. That's a way to still be able to make a profit and, and make something beautiful out of a lot that probably would have sat there next to the cemetery forever. Now, it's a beautiful home and we.

Want the building construction process with our clients to be fun and fluid and as less stressful as possible because I.

Know it's really hard to do in construction.

It is hard.

Professional Builder Secrets live at IBS Thursday afternoon. It's been a big couple of days. Welcome to the show. Taylor and Mandy Shipp from Shiloh Homes.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you. We're happy to be here.

Great to have you on the show. You've actually been busy. You've been doing the content creation for ibs, I believe.

Yeah, it's a lot more work than you think. We've been running around a lot, got a couple blisters on our feet. We're having fun with it last day.

So we're going to do as much as we can.

Cool.

Finishing strong.

Well, Tyler, do you want to start with a bit of a background on what Shola Homes is, how you got into the business, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, so I was in the production, you know, residential home building industry for about 7ish years. And then I think one day we.

Just, you know, we both come from, like, construction background, families so it was kind of in our nature. But he struggled a lot with the quality that production put out every day. I think it. It almost was set up to where it was impossible for him to do. Really? Quality homes, too.

Yeah, I got burnt out, honestly. You know, it's like, all right, build more, do more, give you more work. We'll give you more money.

Nobody should be running. 70 was 70 houses at a time.

By yourself, and it was exhausting.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

When you.

When you're managing that much, the quality is just not there. It's not. And then you. You can't make it there, or else you will lose your mind.

All right, 60 or 70. 70 homes a year. What was the change that made you want to move away from that?

I don't know. I think it was. It was a combination. I think we. I tend to get burnt out real easily doing the same thing. And so with custom homes, all of our homes are different. We incorporate different unique features in every one of our homes. So if we see something we'll like, we'll just. I'll throw it in on frame real quick.

Yeah, and different locations, too, because in production, you're focusing on one neighborhood for, like, a year and a half with custom. We're all over Central Texas, basically.

Yeah.

All different kinds of lots.

Different locations, a lot of topography. You know, hills, rock.

We just built a house next to a cemetery, so we love a challenge.

Yeah, that's right. It's like, is that kind of your. Your thing to build on weird or strange lots?

I don't know.

It's.

You know, the markets. Everything's so expensive right now. And so we're even, you know, as builders. No builder wants to pay a whole bunch of money for a lot because it just cuts into the profit. So we, you know, I think what we have found that kind of our niche is, aside from a, you know, a price point, is finding weird, unique lots that no one wants to touch.

A lot of builders, I mean, they'll turn and burn. They want to find a good law at an okay price. They'll build on it, get in and get out. But you can make more of a profit if you see something that you can actually lean into that weirdness, like if it's really steep or something, you can have a lot of cool topography, landscaping, and that's a way to still be able to make a profit and make something beautiful out of, you know, a lot that probably would have sat there next to the cemetery forever. Now it's a beautiful home.

And you have to have some sort of imagination and creativity.

Yeah. And then the buyers get a better deal too, because we're not going to sell it for probably what other people would sell it for a normal lot on. So they get a little bit better of a deal if they're willing to live somewhere next to a cemetery or on kind of a steep hill. And so it works out for everybody.

Yeah, but you have to design it just right.

Yeah.

So it's just, there's a lot of planning that goes into it. It might take a little bit longer, but we're getting, you know, process is getting, you know, faster and faster. So that' it's kind of, you know.

Honestly though, I think it's over. Everything fun.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's not boring. Yeah.

Let's see if we can pull this off.

Exactly.

It's like the opposite of spec building or production building.

Yeah, exactly. Because we do, you know, we. I think half of our, half of our builds are specs. We enjoy doing them. Okay. And then so. And then the other half or client builds, which are fun too, but I think with the specs we get to kind of do what we want and get a little bit more creative. Because a lot of our stuff that you've never seen before or you might have seen on what, Pinterest or somewhere else. And then people really don't know what they want until they see it. They're like, oh, I have to have that. So that's kind of what, you know, that's what makes it fun.

That leads me into my next question. What are you both doing in the business? Maybe we'll start with you, Taylor.

I think the better question is what are we not doing?

Yeah, we're in that phase where we're wearing a lot of hats.

Mine obviously is, you know, I have the construction background, so I'm on site, you know, purchasing the finances, handing with the banks, customer relationships and we tag team a lot of stuff. And then Mandy's is more design.

I do, I handle pretty much all of the design from picking out the lots to all of the finishing touches. So design, working with the architects, getting the perfect plans. And I'll also list and sell the houses as well. So I do real estate. What else do I do? I do. And then I do content creation as well. So I have like three or four full time jobs and then we, and then we have three kids. So it's a little crazy.

Girls.

Three girls.

Three girls. Oh, yeah. I'm outnumber for sure. Yeah, yeah. I can't wait till they get older.

How old are the girls?

We have a 2F4 and a 9 year old.

Okay. Okay.

And they keep getting crazier. I thought we would get a calm one eventually, but it's not the case.

Nope. It was not our destiny.

Yeah.

Is that a sign of the James or.

You know, I think it probably is. You're a little bit laid back, so I really thought we would have a calm kid.

But I'm laid back, but I don't like to stay still.

Yeah, they don't like to be still at all.

I get up in the morning and go.

We just focus on empowering them and, you know, letting them be outspoken and confident and I think that is really hard to do as a parent. But in the long run, they're going to be awesome humans, so we'll see.

At least we think fingers crossed.

So it sounds like wearing multiple hats is maybe a challenge you're facing at the moment or.

No, it is a challenge. I remember when I switched over from production building to, you know, custom building, the process was I was going from 100 and I dropped down to 20. Yeah.

Yeah.

So I was in my. I was almost having anxiety attacks because I didn't know what to do with my time.

Yeah.

So I basically had to rewire my brain. I'm like, all right, well, this is structured completely different. It's a little more slow pace. But now we're getting busier and busier. Now it's creeped back up there. Not so much, you know, just on site doing the same thing, but yeah. Doing everything all day.

Yeah.

So we're starting to delegate out. So, like, we're, we're getting to the point where we're taking off certain hats and it's getting a little bit easier, but there's a level of like chaos that we thrive at to where I don't think we could ever be like a hands off owner of a company.

No, it's, you know, I, I enjoy, you know, framing, woodworking, stuff like that. Doing trim, you know, carpentry and then doing, you know, she literally just made six giant light fixtures for an island.

Yeah. I'm a weird art kid that just grew up to do this.

So she's got it, she's got a very good eye on, you know, trending stuff or stuff that, you know, you've never seen before. And like, oh, wow, that's cool. Like, hey, babe, I'm going to make this. And I'm just like, okay, cool.

He finally's given into it though. He Used to be like, we, we don't have time for that. I'm like, okay, well, we're gon make time and it ends up being really cool.

I just stopped arguing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that resonates with, with anyone running a business. And we talk about finding that thing that you love and doing that, but the things that you don't necessarily love or you're not as good at, you find other people to do those things.

Oh, 100%. That's why usually, like real estate, I'm like, that is not my niche. Like, I'll do it, but I don't necessarily want to so kind of step back from that a little.

And I think at the end of the day, we just want to provide a product to client or a family that they are proud to call home. Yeah, we don't, we don't build houses, we build homes. Yeah, there's a, you know, different correlation between the two. And, you know, we want someone to feel proud and comfortable and just happy.

Having a hand in that too, I think, is the biggest thing. Because if we were hands off, just pointing fingers, it wouldn't be as special.

Yeah. And we want the building construction process with our clients to be fun and fluid and, you know, as less stressful as possible.

So I know it's really hard to do in construction.

It is hard. And, but I've seen, and we, we've dealt with it too. You know, building our house, you know, going to a design center, picking out all your selections, you got like a 30 minute time slot and then, you know, two months later you're like, what have I done?

Yeah, we live in a production home right now. We're eventually going to be building our own home, but that's going to take some time. So our house, we look at it, we're like, what were we thinking seven years ago? This is crazy because a lot.

Yeah, a lot of stuff does get outdated now. I think it's every, what, five to eight years?

Yeah.

All the colors, all the color palettes.

Switch and we focus on timeless stuff now. So I think that helps a little bit. Like, I love a good neutral things that are not like super trendy, but a little bit more on the timeless side. And I think that's why it works.

Yeah, that's where we are right now.

I had a guest on earlier. I mean, I don't want to go too far into the design trends. I know nothing about it.

And people get heated on it too. Don't. Don't get me started.

But someone From Houzz came on and they had some data around, you know, the. The design trends of what people were remodeling their houses with. And apparently, like, pops of color are the thing at the moment, like in bathrooms as well as, like, front doors and that kind of stuff here and there.

I would say I follow trends very strictly.

It's.

We're a little bit more on the neutral side, just more timeless. I would say that's probably on the trendy side.

I was thinking pops of colors are probably going expire at some time. Pretty soon it will.

And farmhouse is starting to expire, and people are heated about that.

Don't. You cannot bring that up. You will be canceled.

I have Shiplap in my home right now, so I will just preface that.

By saying, so what's the plan for.

You guys in terms of dealing with that. That stress and the fact that you're wearing multiple hats and maybe that you want to overcome that? What's the plan to make things better?

We're really putting a lot of time into scaling and what that looks like and who the right people are to bring into those roles. I think in the beginning, when you're wearing all the hats, you can't really bring people on for just one niche role. So we're bringing on people that can wear multiple hats, and then we'll grow underneath them, bringing on specific people.

But, yeah, I think it's exactly what she said. It's just organizing everything, you know, getting our systems in place so that when we do bring people on, we have something set for them to do and they're not wondering what are they supposed to be doing. So we cross train a lot, just so if, you know, we don't have a sales team and I don't know, you know, if we'll ever need one.

We kind of want people who are like Jack of all trades. I think we can do pretty much anything in our business. We don't want to have people on that have no idea what construction looks like, because then they're not going to respect the work that our trades do. So they're willing to get their hands dirty. You know, it's. It's a better environment to be in, especially if, you know, we need something done last minute. I think every single one of us can jump in and exactly do some.

Labor because there's always fires to put out, you know.

Yeah, at least two a day.

There's been a handful. A handful of times I've had to reschedule with Rick, and he was like, I Was like, I. I can't. I've got to go. Yeah.

Yeah.

So. But, yeah, it's. It's constantly changing. Stuff always flares up, and then it's. Our industry is. It's not the easiest one. Yeah. You know, to manage to be in, because it's, you know, it's, you know, you got up and down, you got nails, you got woods going, you got a whole bunch of just communication back and forth with, you know, the clients.

It's like air traffic control.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So. But hopefully we're doing a better job than that right now.

Cancel.

I'll talk to you more about your relationship with Rick in a second, then we'll. We'll frame up what that is. Rick's your coach.

Yes.

Talk to me more about the hiring process that you. You'll go through to find those people that can wear multiple hats. Because I think there's a lot of builders out there that might be experiencing similar challenges.

Yeah. I think right now, the only people we have on staff are family, and we haven't brought on a ton of people. I mean, outside of, like, our trades, but direct in house, our family members, because we want to be able to trust people, and that is something that is hard to do, especially when they're stepping into so many roles. So we're getting there. We'll see. I. I was in management for a really long time, and so I know how scary it can be bringing on personalities of different types, babysitting a whole bunch of guys. Yeah, there's a lot of different emotions and things, and some people don't click with each other, but.

And luckily, with my time in production, you know, and I'm still really good friends with a lot of the big builders, you know, in the nation and stuff, we have a pool of people I can pull from. Yeah, it's almost like, oh, my grand plan, you know, for the last 10 years, but. And it really wasn't. It just kind of worked out that way. I was like, man, I'm going to, you know, make friends with as many people as I can in our industry. So if it does come, I can just pick up a phone and like, hey, you want to come see what we're doing? And, you know, if it's cool, if not.

And I think we're also a little bit set on not being massive. We don't want to hire on a ton of people, then that's when quality is going to start to slip, when we don't have our hands in everything. We don't take on A ton of projects a year because we want to personally be involved in each one. They're definitely bigger projects, but once we start bringing on people that we've never even met before, I think that's when it starts going towards production, and that's not what we necessarily want to do.

Do you think differently?

No, I mean. I mean, I don't think differently. I think it's. It's hard because as, you know, as a young business growing, like, oh, you know, we want to be huge, massive. And it's, you know, I've gone back and forth, but definitely don't want to have. We want to keep the quality that we're doing. Yeah. That's why I got out of doing what I was doing. I think it's going to take us. Whatever's going to happen is going to happen organically.

Yeah. I think it's just. That's the natural progression of a lot of builders. They'll start off doing renovations and then that moves to, you know, doing builds and doing specs, and then it gets to production. I think we want to keep from going there. And I think with that, we may never be nationwide in our side quests or what kind of growth, those bigger lengths, but we'll see.

And I think the biggest thing, too, is, like, it's. People ask us, you know, people have asked us that, and there's a lot of unknowns.

Yeah.

I don't know. You know, our industry is heavily based on the economy, so, you know, lumber prices are high, you know, interest rates are high, low. And then it's, you know, inflation. It's just, you know, there's a lot of unknowns in the future, but luckily we have kind of positioned ourselves to where we're. I think we'll. We're going to be fine.

Yeah, we don't really overthink it either. I think there's a lot of winging it that has gotten us to where we are. When you stop and overthink things, you'll talk yourself out of doing stuff. So we just. We like to wing it.

Yeah.

I mean, we talk about growing safely and securely. Right. Which is what you're talking about.

Right.

I mean, if you try and grow too quickly, it's often it just results in heartache, so.

Exactly.

Yep.

That's where things go wrong. Especially when you're building things that are somebody's biggest investment in their life. You want to make sure that they're protected and the quality is there.

That's not to say you can't do bigger builds like you said, increasing margins, all that kind of stuff while you. While you're doing it, so.

Because we do. I mean, we do do a handful of, like, renovations and stuff like that, but it was just kind of one of those deals. I never wanted to, but they kept falling in my lap.

Yeah.

I'm just like, all right, well, we don't know what the market's doing. And then. And then all of a sudden, all this business comes all at once.

It always happens like that, though.

So what made you start looking for something like APB before you joined us?

Needing to get structured, I think.

Yeah, I think that's what it was. We're on the tail end of finishing a spec home, and we have, literally, blood, sweat, and tears.

Yeah.

This house. So we dumped everything, you know, financially into it, so we didn't have a choice. And then that kind of. It worked out. You know, we got it sold and stuff. You know, there was a lot of risk. So it was a Michelle or. Yeah, Michelle. She reached out to me. Just. It was like a Saturday or Friday or something, and I was doing laundry, and I just happened to answer because I get about 100 phone calls a day from numbers.

Oh, I feel lucky you answered my phone call.

I do.

You're special.

And she was just talking to me, and then I'm kind of like, yeah, this is where we're at. I was like, I need, you know, like, we need help or especially with, you know, the. The background stuff, you know, the organization and forecasting, stuff like that. And it's just kind of. A lot of stuff has happened in the past year, ups and downs.

And I think we just getting busy and feeling like, okay, we have so much we have to get done, but we have to get organized. We really need to prioritize getting those tasks done. So we need help on getting organized and guidance. And I think that's how we ended up getting in contact with you guys.

At the end of the day. It's, you know, we, you know, wake up every finite amount of time to get all the stuff I need, and it's never enough. Ever.

Never.

But I'm also, you know, I'm a father of three girls and a husband, and that's my number one priority.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I'm not, you know, I'm never going to push them out, so I always want to make time for them. So it's, you know, it's a balancing act. Yeah.

Yeah.

And a lot of people say that, you know, you can't balance starting off a company. I Think you can. I think it's just what your priorities, where your mindset is. And that's why I'm, I'm pushing through all day when I can.

We're still going to show up to class parties, you know, but that's great.

I mean, you got to. And you moved into one on one coaching with Rick Moore, one of our executive coaches. How quickly did that happen after you joined membership and what was the thinking behind that?

I think it was fairly quickly. And I would talk to. Michelle called me and I had talked to her. I kind of opened up to her a little bit about. I was very, my emotions were very high at a certain point of like, gratitude. And we had some other things that happened to us at the same time.

Yeah, we went through some family stuff.

And like some, you know, nominations for best builder and stuff like that. And we're just like, wow. Like, yeah. No. And so I'm like, well, what was.

That award again that you guys won? The Best builder in Best Builder in Austin. Yeah, that's right. That's phenomenal. Yeah.

So, yeah.

Shy now.

It's okay. You deserve those flowers.

We like to stay humble as much as we can.

Yeah.

But I don't know, she just, you know, I mean, she. I mean, she sold me on it, but at the same time I needed, like I said, we didn't have. We don't have a full staff of, you know. All right, you're doing purchasing, you're doing. We have an accounting. Yeah, we have, you know, you know, construction, management, all this stuff, like a lot of companies do. We're still small. And so I'm like, all right, well, let me get ahead of it. So when it does come, and it has came that I know how to kind of, you know, manage and with the construction slots and the budgeting and stuff like that, because even marketing, we don't pay for marketing at all.

Yeah, well, I do marketing.

So as far as ads and stuff.

Yeah. I'm like, listen, you probably could pay me at some point, but I think it's one of those things you don't want to. Like, you don't want to do trial and error when it comes to growing your business because that's where things get dangerous legally and all that. So it's like, okay, we need to bring in the A team to help us because we don't want to learn hard lessons through that expansion and getting to where we want to go. That's where things get a little dicey. So I think this has helped out a lot for us.

What do you feel like has been the biggest change for you since joining and working with Rick?

I think more so the. The trust in the process type deal. The confidence more than anything. Now I'm like, all right, I have a better idea. As far as the numbers go, you know, that's what we really dialed into, you know, doing WIPA construction slots and stuff like that.

Yeah.

And then, you know, but, you know, obviously things change as far as scheduling. You know, like, oh, well, we're projected to start this here and then bang. You know, like, oh, yeah. Like, oh, well, we.

Life is always happening. I think. I think personally, just from what I've witnessed from an outside standpoint, because he'll give me updates on everything, but he's mainly in contact with you guys. His viewpoint on so many things has changed for the better. I think there was a big part of time where we just had imposter syndrome and we were just worried if we're going to like, keep building houses and keep getting clients. And now we're at a point where like, okay, we are going to be charging for doing this, this and that because our time is worth something. And he knows that that's true now. And so he's like, nope, they're going to have to pay if they want an estimate on this. I'm like, oh, okay, we're getting somewhere. I'm proud of him.

And it has worked every time.

Yeah. I think the confidence and knowing you're doing the right thing is just super helpful.

You're talking about charging for quotes and stuff.

Yeah. Because we're wasting a lot of time.

Yeah, we were. And I, I mean, I didn't know any different because you hear all the time, oh, we'll give you a free quote. Yes, to me. Yeah. And I'm like, well, actually our quotes to really dial it down, it's going to take us two, three a month maybe to do.

Yeah, it's a lot of work.

We're not building 200 square foot homes. We're building 4,000 to 6,000 squ at home.

Yeah.

With different regulations.

And it's so hard to dial that down too, when they just want to quote. But everybody has different taste. Some people have normal taste, some people have very expensive taste. So how can you really throw a close number on that?

She has an expensive taste.

I do.

It sounds like you want to work for clients that have expensive taste as well, though.

Yeah.

I mean. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, that's great.

I would love to listen. It works for design because I know what is going to look nice and high end because I can tell.

I think the big, you know, another big challenge, I know we spoke the other day is, you know, the budget. Hey, I want this. I saw this on here. I want that. I'm like, yeah, I would love to. I, I love installing things I've never seen before, doing new features or cool accents. But everything comes with a price tag.

It's such a guessing game at times, I think, oh, it's a crapshoot.

Yeah, it's, you know, people don't realize and even me, like, oh, this, you know, this fridge is $10,000. Like, what? Like this wood, you know, hardwood is so expensive now.

Like, hey, you'd be surprised. I mean, even just with hardware, one can be like a couple dollars more expensive than another. But you times that by 300. It's a lot more money, you know, if you're putting that much handles and knobs in a house. So all the little things people don't think about, we have to think about. And that's.

It's a lot.

And we focus a lot on the details, too. So some, you know, trim carpenter comes and does all this. Our painter comes. It's a great example. I'll literally, my, hey, you. I will buy you a whole pack of tape. I need you to tape everything off, like crisp lines. And it's just, it's the attention to detail that I think makes the difference, you know, and there's a lot of great builders that do that and stuff like that.

But in the trades too, I will say, because there are, you know, some that are crews, that their job is to work fast, but you can have what's. What are the three Quality, you know, affordability and its cost.

You got good, fast or cheap. Yes. You can only pick two.

Yeah, you can only pick two. And honestly is probably not the one that. Is not the one that you want at all for production. Yes. Because they're going to get it done in an afternoon. But for us, our guys take a little bit longer because it's built on site or they have to get certain materials in. I think that that's a big difference.

We have a lot of stuff built on site, a lot of stuff we do ourselves. Just because even I think, you know, there's something I have in my head. I'm like, all right, this is what I want it to look like, but no one else knows what it is.

It doesn't exist.

Yeah, I get frustrated. I'm like, why don't you know what it is? Yeah, I Need you to know what.

I'm thinking that we're experimenting with different stains because we need it to look a certain way, and nobody knows how to make it look that way.

So I'm working with the painters. I do it this way. Do it this way. Not that doesn't work. Let's do it this way.

Like science class.

Yeah. It's a lot of training on site, but, you know, with the trade, with the trades that we have, you know, they stick with us. So we train them and we pay them. Like. Yeah, they.

They get paid well. They're happy.

But a lot of this quality control and just, you know, setting those expectations so that they know what they're walking into. Cool.

So what's happening next for you guys? What's the plan over the next 12 months?

What are you implementing in the business next 12 months? We got a lot of client bills coming.

Yeah.

We got nominated for best builder in Austin, which comes out next month, so.

It'S not nominated one.

Oh, so sorry.

That'll probably bring on more clientele.

Yeah, for sure.

But I think we are. We're doubling in our work, so it's gonna. A lot of.

That's pretty much in place, right? Exactly.

Yeah.

Coming in. Yeah.

Yeah.

That increasing margins as well.

Exactly. That Hiring expanding. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of what our focus is, you know, slowly expanding without going crazy.

So we. We actually are at the point now it doesn't seem like it because we're not doing a ton of jobs, but we'll turn down a lot of stuff just because it would compromise the quality of our other products. So I don't do anything design outside of Shiloh Homes until probably. I think I'm booked out until the end of this year. Just because the focus needs to be on what we're doing.

Yeah, that's our main priority, so. And then everything else will complex and I'm sure we'll get thrown a lot of other opportunities and stuff our way, but it's just kind of. We're just enjoying what we're doing. So. Yeah. Kind of living in the now.

Yeah, we run off vibes and caffeine, I think, is really it.

Great.

Well, Tyler, Mandy, thanks so much for coming on Professional Builder Secrets today. I love having you and sharing your story.

Thank you. Thanks for having us.