Tara Dawn - Ep. 33 - How to Run A Profitable Home Improvement Business From 1,000 Miles Away

This is the Wealthy Contractor Podcast brought to you by G4 Marketing. Interviews with today's top home improvement entrepreneurs about marketing, sales, money, mindset, and lifestyle. Now here's your host, Brian Kaskavalciyan. Hello and welcome to the Wealthy Contractor Podcast. This is Brian Kaskavalciyan with G4 Marketing Group, and in Today's episode, I am going to introduce you to my longtime client, Tara Dawn. Now, Tara is the co-owner of Opal Enterprises, an exterior remodeling company out of the Chicago area. And recently, Tara decided to move 1,000 miles away from where her business is and keep the business and run the business from 1,000 miles away. Now obviously, some things had to change in the business in order for Tara to be able to do this. And we talk about those changes and how you too could run a company from 1,000 miles away. This is going to be a real eye-opening episode. Tara is awesome. She's, she's a really cool lady, and I think you're really going to enjoy this episode. So let's get to it. Okay, Tara, welcome to the Wealthy Contractor Podcast. It is great to have you with us.

Thank you, Brian. I'm excited to be a part of your podcast. I've enjoyed listening to them and it's quite an honor to be a part of it.

Well, thank you. So let's start with the beginning. Why don't you give everybody kind of the 60-second version of the Opal Enterprises history?

Oh, well, we've based ourselves out of Chicagoland, specifically the western suburbs. We started off and still do 3 main services, which is windows, siding, and roofing. There's some elements that go along with those main services, but we've kind of always stuck to the recipe. Always our approach to the market Um, was never competing on length of time in business or, uh, price, but rather focusing on the customer's experience. Definitely running the company by the golden rule. Um, and we've been in business for 15 years, so we've gone through several levels of growing pains. And what we're working on now is just continuing to specialize on what we do and who we do that for.

I love the way you put it, who we do that for. Hey Tara, this year, 2017, when we're recording this, how many jobs are you guys going to complete?

This year we're looking at 230, and that's pretty standard. It will fluctuate between 190 and 220 a year.

Okay. And how many people on your, on your team?

So we're located in Chicagoland. We're a true mixture of W-2 employees and subcontractors. We have 8 W-2 employees on our team and then a wide circle of subcontractors that we have consistently worked with over the last many years.

Wow, that's, that's really cool. Yeah, Chicago is one of those markets, right, where subcontracting is kind of what makes sense for most, for most companies.

Yeah, I would love to see how other markets do it. I mean, I— seeing and talking about it is one thing, but living it is another. And, uh, I, living and breathing the Chicago market, I started off in this industry fresh out of college, I got picked up by a siding and windows manufacturer in Chicago. So I saw it, saw the market from a distributor's point of view, and then I was invited to visit many offices and then eventually opened my own contracting business. So all I know is the huge wealth of ethnicities specifically Eastern Europeans that populate the massive Chicagoland area. And it's just how the whole city works is by relationships and by subcontracting. And it's not a negative word. It's not a nasty word. It's just a relationship. And it's a mutually beneficial relationship. Where they understand our goals and they get compensated for the projects that they are able to specialize in on a repetitive basis.

So that's awesome. Yeah, and there's different companies do it different, you know. Some people have only their own crews and only their own employees that install their work, and other companies use blends, and other companies are pure subcontractors. It's whatever works for your business. And in your case, it's worked because your customers have an amazing experience. They keep coming back, you know, they're giving you more and more money, they write great reviews about you. So it, it, it works for you.

Yeah, and we've definitely tried to mix it up. I think the whole Chicagoland area works off of this way, and it's a hard culture to, to change. I think Eastern European men— and not, not being really able to compare them to other ethnicities because I'm naive— but what I know is Eastern European men are very proud of the work that they do. Very— there's a lot of, you know, pride in being a business owner themselves. And it's very hard. It's almost taking something away from them to say, no, you, you must be a W-2 employee. And so it's a hard culture to change. I've tried hiring on W-2 employees, and for whatever reason, um, it's just, it's been a, it's been a hard game.

Yeah. So you've, you've done something very, very interesting. Um, what was it, 2 years ago you guys made a major change in your business? Do you want to tell us what that major change was?

Our major change was to remove ourselves from the business. I have a business partner by the name of Wojtek Opalski. We run the business together and we mutually decided to move out of state. So we've relocated to the state of Colorado, which is where I am from, and it was to benefit our children, to give them a sense of family. It was a hard, hard decision to make. Before we moved, Wojtek and I separately lived within a mile of our showroom and office. And, you know, 6 days a week we lived and breathed the company. It was a very hard choice to make, but we took a look at our children, what kind of lives were they enjoying, what, what would they benefit with family, and the ultimate decision was to provide them with an extended family. And prior to us moving, I'd never played around with being 2 days in the office and 3 days out. We were consistently 100% in the office 6 days a week without fail. And so we just completely removed ourselves and, and relocated.

So this is major, as I've said, you know, 5 times. Have I said that enough times? You know, one thing, it's one thing to say, you know what, I'm gonna work from somewhere else that's not my main office, that's down the road. You know, I'll rent a little office somewhere else where I'm all by myself and I get to do, you know, work on the business, not in the business. And I'll do that a couple days a week, and then 3 days a week I'll be in my office. No, Tara and Voitek picked up and they moved like, how many states away is it? It doesn't matter. It's like thousands of miles away.

It is. It is literally 1,000 miles away.

Physically moved 1,000 miles away and the business still makes money. The business still sells jobs. The business still installs. My, you know, my number one question for you is, aside from the personal side of this, because I know how important that is, let's focus on the business. What has been the best thing that's happened to the business since you've made this move?

Giving my team the permission to do what they were hired to do. Allowing my team to do what they were hired to do. Has to be the number one takeaway that I've learned. Yeah. Prior to our moving and leading up to our moving, I had a very substantial employee. She was my office manager. She was my right-hand girl. I thought I couldn't do my job without her. And in preparation for my leaving, she had asked for more responsibilities and I was afraid to give it to her. And ultimately she left my company And I believe it's because one of her last words to me was, "You're never going to let me do what you hired me to do." So, you know, of course we survived her leaving her company and it was too late, a little too little. If I had learned that lesson a little bit sooner, she might still be with me. But regardless, there's so many great people to join your team. So it was just an eye-opener to step back and not protect your team. I have a tendency to protect my team. I have big shoulders, so I didn't want to put more on their plate. I was willing to take it onto my own. I have high energy levels. I'm capable. And I thought I was protecting people, allowing them to have lives after 5 PM, allowing them to not think about my company on the weekends. But in fact, I was hurting their own career goals and their own pride spots. And they didn't know it until I was able to physically be away from the office.

Wow. So for everybody that's listening, let's think about what Tara said for a minute, because that is something that as entrepreneurs, as hard-driving entrepreneurs, a lot of us don't let the people do the job that they were hired to do. And not only does that, I think, affect the business, but it also affects them and who they are in life and where they want to go and their dreams and their goals and their ambitions. And I think that letting them do their job, the jobs that they were hired for, is— wow, what an amazing answer. I wasn't expecting it, but it makes sense. Well, let's talk about real quick, let's talk about how does it look like logistically, how does it look like you're in Colorado 3 weeks and 1 week in Chicago, is that how it works?

Yeah, there's really no rhyme or reason. I fly into Chicago either on an as-needed basis, meaning I will focus my trips around any marketing events that I'm sponsoring or that the company is a part of. That would lead to more frequent trips within the month. Aside from that, I do try to spend one solid week in the office being present. The way that it's worked out for the last 2 years, because I'm now 2 years into this, I'm in Chicago one out of every 4 weeks.

Great. And when you're at home, like you are today as we're recording this. Are you— you have a home office, I would imagine.

I do. I have a very dedicated workspace, and I still have an incredible work ethic where I'm at my desk, you know, 9 to 5. I hold Chicago hours, but I really have this wonderful mixture of being able to work on actual projects now, my own projects, my own spreadsheets, my own financial reporting, my own understanding of where we've been, where we are, where we're going. I still play a role in admin, and that's something that I'm personally going to be working on to get out of. I have my pulse on things a little too much. I do still answer customer calls and vendor calls, but while I'm here, I have dedicated time to get those pesky things like, oh, one day I'll work on this reformatting, or one day I'll explore this for the company. So I really get to do those. And then when I'm in Chicago, I really try to unplug from the computer, stay out of emails, and just be present. I recognized my role even more this year. I'm a leader and I'm not a manager. I am a manager, but I'm trying to be more of a leader. So when I'm present, I just want to have good energy, good vibes. I want to answer questions. I want to greet customers when they come in our showroom. I want to be an example of how I would like my team. They already do an amazing job, but just continuing to embed that culture. And maybe I'll get my hands dirty and do some filing or help wherever I'm needed so that I feel present and in touch with everything that's going on. Going on in the office. I'll go to job sites, visit with my crews, and I get to be that feel-good person, meet with my homeowners in the field. And then when I come back to my home office in Colorado, it's, you know, get back to those deadlines and grindstones and reportings. I really try to provide a nice mixture.

So you have really given yourself the ability to using an E-myth Michael Gerber term, you've really given yourself the ability to work on your business a whole lot more than before. And you're in your business, but you, you get the opportunity to really spend more of your time on your business rather than in your business.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I remember, you know, I remember visiting you, um, before you made the move. And, um, you know, when, when she says energy level, um, when you meet Tara, you'll see what she means by that. She's awesome and she's so much energy and she's always smiling. And but man, when we were there, you were doing everything— your hands and your eyes and your mind and your mouth and your ears— and you're on everything. Like, you don't miss anything.

No. Not really. And I still have that connection being in Colorado, the type of person that I am. So physically, here's how it looks like. I can see when everyone's logging on to our systems. We use a CRM, we use QuickBooks, everything's on the cloud, and everything's got an indicator light. So I physically see my team online. You know, I've taken it a little step further and I've put cameras all over in the office. It's not to micromanage anyone, it's just to stay present. It's just the type of person I am. I don't want to forget what it feels like to be on the front lines. And so physically seeing people come into the office, physically reading body language, it's helpful to me. And we personally use Gmail and we use Google Hangouts to stay in touch. So there's literally 5 platforms where we are connected. And there's also another thing that's strange about our company in the, you know, quote-unquote normal look of a business. I have been able to allow some very, very key members of my company to follow some of their personal dreams. By moving away themselves. I do have an employee in the state of Oregon. I do have an employee in the Czech, the country Czech. And, you know, then Wojtek and I are both in Colorado. And we all hold Chicago hours, and we all use these 5 platforms, and we are able to be completely effective within those platforms. It's amazing. But this business could never be completely remote, so it's absolutely important that I have an office, a full-time staff that's present, obviously, in the location that we work in. But it's very, very connected.

Yeah, very cool. I didn't realize that you actually had two virtual, kind of virtual employees.

I do, and they were kind of, they were back of the scenes employees. Anyway, and it's amazing what we can do as far as letting somebody make that decision. You know, I really want to follow my daughter, you know, to her new location, or I really need to be next to my parents in Europe, but I really love my job with OPWL. How do we make this work? And it's just been a wonderful ability to do that with the technology that we're provided. And, you know, I'll tell you this, we just had a TQM meeting And for those that don't know what that stands for, that's a total quality management meeting. And the entire company is, you know, with technology again, we're using video and voice, and we can see each other. And within our systems, we can see our projects that we're talking about. And we're, we still have our meetings every 2 weeks and connect, and we have many meetings throughout the life of our business, but as a rule, we meet as a company every other week. And I feel like my office— well, I was worried that they were going to feel abandoned by me, or they were going to see me as some kind of owner that was off scampering around while they did all the grunt work. I was worried that they would feel I feel that way. And actually, when I have my individual employee reviews, keep learning the opposite over and over. I keep being told, thank you for trusting me. Thank you for allowing me this shoulder and elbow space where I can, yes, follow the processes and procedures that you've laid out, but I still, I feel like I own my position and it's really mine and you trust me. And every time an employee thanks me, I almost fall off my chair because secretly I'm very concerned about them. Did I touch them enough? Did I talk to them enough this week? Did I— was I present enough online? And so I have those secret fears and they reassure me over and over. And it's by far the biggest benefit or lesson that I've taken away from being physically present in my office every day.

Wow. That's so cool. I want to talk to you about— you said earlier about Opal that you didn't want to compete on time in business and you didn't want to compete on price. Now, price is a really big issue. So many companies get price wrong, and so they don't make the money that they should. They are afraid to charge what they need to charge in order to make the profit that they deserve. Tell me a little bit about how you view price and what you've done with Opal to justify charging more than the next guy.

Here's an analogy that I cannot remember where I got it from, but it's still, it's still very present in my mind. When you decide who you're going to serve and you stick to that path, you're going to attract those customers.

Yeah.

So what I kind of mean is the women out there in our world that buy high-end purses, they are always going to buy high-end purses. They're not going to shop for their purse at Target or Walmart. And even when the economy gets a little shaky or something is happening that maybe falters consumer confidence, those women are not shifting paths and now buying their purses at Target or Walmart. They are still staying consistent with their level of purchasing. And knowing early on that you cannot be everything to everyone we made the choice to be this specific contractor to this specific demographic. So our pricing is never meant to be boastful and say, you know, this is who we think we are and this is what we think you'll pay. It's taking a look at the value that our employees, our installers, any subcontractor that they need to do the job well, to do it right, and so that they're happy in their own lives, and so that they want to continue to do this, so that we minimize turnover. You know, mutual beneficial relationships was pounded in my head when I was in college. It must be a mutually beneficial relationship, whatever that relationship is. Pricing our jobs the way we do, we, it's just simple math. What do you need? What do you need? What do you need? And what do I need? And that's it. That's the price. There's no inflation. It's just the right price. And we never feel apologetic about our prices because consumers don't really understand the back end of, well, I want to pay my crew well because he's got a family of 4 and he's a wonderful human and he does wonderful work. You can't get into the justifications to a homeowner, but that really is the reasoning.

Yeah, I love that. And that's how it should be. You know, I was telling before we, we started the episode, you and I were talking a little bit. I was telling you about a client conversation that I had a few days ago, all around profitability. They just wasn't making wasn't making the kind of money he needs to make based on the volume that he was doing and the risk he was taking on and the value that he was providing. And after we talked for, you know, literally like 3 or 4 minutes, I realized his problem was not— he didn't have a marketing problem, he didn't have a sales problem, he had a price problem. And so what I said to him was immediately, you've got to raise your prices. There was a few things in there that we did, but The thing that I also said to him was, I said, be the company, become the company that earns premium pricing. So, you know, don't go and try and be like everybody else and knock out, you know, 500 jobs. Do 400 jobs, but do them really, really well.

Agreed.

And do them at the right margin so that you are making the net profit that you deserve. But, but you hit on it. You hit on it. You said, and I wrote it down because I didn't want to forget because it's the main thing: value. What is the value that you are providing? And one of the values I know about you is that these people, these subcontractors that, that work, that work for you, do take pride in what they do. Now you, as the owner of a business, you could go hire a subcontractor that's cheaper.

Absolutely.

Who does good quality work and, and sell at lower prices. But why? That's not who you are, and that's not who your customer is.

Well, and you just hit it, uh, Brian. You know, I kind of was one-sided on how we price it. You know, what do we want? What do you want? What do you want? But it It really is customer first. If you know who you are and you know what you have to offer, and the way that I had to learn this was, well, I got a heads up or I got a, I got a head start by working for a distributor that sold windows and siding to contractors. So I was able to see, you know, the rainbow of contractors. But, and then the other thing that I also did for myself, and a lot of this comes from, you know, my internship days, when you don't know about something, you have to become a quick expert on it in a very effective way. So for me, it was secret shopping. And that was using, you know, my own home or my girlfriend's houses and letting contractors come to me, or I still do, I call often, I call other contractors, and it's never, never, never to duplicate. It's always to understand my own value and my own differentiation in the marketplace. And once you know who you are and what you have to offer, and that matches up with your customers and what they require of you, then you can be the right price contractor. And, you know, don't get me wrong, we, we still have pricing conversations all the time with anyone that we're working with. But one thing that my business partner has always helped me do is to stay strong with those pricings and those values that we hold, because we all kind of need to be reminded once in a while, because there's plenty of people that will do the job for less. And so we kind of, you know, we can go into those cycles where we feel a little beat down, but that's definitely a value that Voitek brings in, is reminding us who we are, what we do, and why we serve those that we serve. And that's why our pricing the way is the way that it is, because it is the end customer's experience that matters so that we can continue to stay in business 5 to 10 years from now.

Beautiful. Well, Tara, wow, you've got a whole bunch of stuff to think about. And if there's more, you and I can keep going for another couple hours.

Yeah, and Brian, you always get my mind thinking. You're always, you know, getting me to be reflective and look at what's going on. And so I really appreciate that we can have those conversations.

Yeah, definitely. And I definitely love to have you back again. And because we didn't even talk about one of the things that you're awesome at, which is customer experience. We didn't even talk about that. So maybe we can have another episode where you and I talk all about the Opal customer experience because it is unique and it is very well thought out and it's very well executed. Um, so, uh, if you're down for that, always. Yeah, we'll do that another time.

I always enjoyed the guests that you have on as well.

Yeah, thank you. Well, Tara, thank you so much for for sharing your experience. I think that there's a lot here for those of you listening. You may want to go back and listen to this again because there were, there were 5 or 6 just gold nuggets in here. And yeah, that's it. So this is—

All right.

Yeah. So this is Brian Kaskavalciyan with G4 Marketing Group. Thank you for listening in to the Wealthy Contractor Podcast. So until next time, thank you.

Thank you.

All right. So that's it for today's episode of the Wealthy Contractor Podcast. Let me ask you, did it help you look at your business in a new way? Did it spark an idea or ideas you hadn't thought of before? Do you have a list of action items that you can take and implement into your business or your life today? I really hope so. Now before you go, make sure you subscribe to the Wealthy Contractor Podcast so you get access to the latest episodes as soon as they're available. We're always striving to provide you with great content, so you don't want to miss what's coming up. And a favor, I'd really appreciate it if you'd go to iTunes and post a review of this podcast. Let us know how we're doing. And finally, We started The Wealthy Contractor as a resource to help you, the home improvement entrepreneur, regardless of where you are on the wealthy scale, get where you want to go. We want to provide you with the motivation, the confidence, the resources, and the tools so you too can live the life of the wealthy contractor. Now, The Wealthy Contractor is a place where it's okay for you to want it all. In fact, it's not only okay, it's encouraged. So until next time, this is Brian Kaskavalciyan with G4 Marketing Group.