Creative Competitors Chris Duncan

Hi, I'm Walt Burton and this is Chris Duncan. And welcome to Creative Competitors. Creative Competitors is a series where we talk about successful competitors in the community. Thomson Burton. We think that the same success principles that apply in one field, whether it's law or business or athletics, apply in all the others. So those same success principles apply in everything. So today we're here with Chris Duncan, Superior Custom Homes and Remodeling and welcome and thanks for the show.

Thank you. And seriously, Walt, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

So just sitting here talking about your background and just as we've gotten to know each other over the last few months, since I've been in Nashville, you are what I would call the quintessential competitor. You got a tremendous background in both business and in athletics, and I think you had a tremendous amount of success at the University of Florida as an athlete.

Absolutely. And in athletics you have to have that perseverance and wanting to strive to be the best you can be. And that same attitude I've actually taken that same belief system, if you will, and putting that into my every daily activity, which is to me running a family and also running a business.

Right. And now I know you're bashful and you probably don't want to talk about just how successful you were as an athlete and as a non track guy. I don't know all these events, but I do know the word All American and I definitely understand the word six time all American. So tell me about the events that you were that you participated in and particularly the ones that you achieved all American status in.

Absolutely. Well, I focused mainly on distance events and in my event I was a miler, 1500 meter runner and steeplechaser. And a lot of people think steeplechase and they coincide that with horse racing. It has nothing to do with it for me. Steeplechase, it's 3,000 meters on the track with barriers and water.

I think most people in the audience may not be necessarily familiar with the steeplechase, but it's the one where the athletes actually jump over obstacles and run through water. And what else does it involve? Those are the two things. Okay, so it seems kind of difficult. I mean, you've got to definitely be, you know, it's more difficult than just running around the track, that's for sure.

Right, absolutely.

So when you were training as an athlete, there were some coaches before you achieved your success that said that you didn't have what it took and that, that you couldn't be a miler. Right. That was one of your main events and you actually achieved the four minute mile at some point, right?

That's correct.

What some people back in the day called the four minute barrier because they thought it couldn't be done.

Right.

But you actually had coaches that said that you couldn't do that. So tell me about that, how that happened and how you use that as fuel in your success.

Not a problem for me. You keep mentioning all these barriers. I'm so used to the barriers that you have steeplechase barriers, you have the four minute mile barrier. You always have those life things where people say you can't do something. For me, I was too tall to run indoors and that's where the mile run is being ran at the NCAA level. Running indoors, it's always tough because you're constantly turning and turning and turning on that 200 meter track. Whereas most people, when you think about the track, an outdoor track is 400 meters. With my height, it was definitely tall and definitely adversity, being compacted with a whole bunch of runners in one little pack. So people always said you're never going to do it, but you did it. But I did it.

And would you say that the same sort of tenacity and self determination and probably to some degree just hardheadedness, not willing to listen to someone telling you can't do something. All those things are what led you to, you know, to succeed as an athlete.

Absolutely. Same thing as growing up. People saw me, I wouldn't make the next level.

Right.

And I was all about, you know, getting out of my current situation of life and trying to go to that next level and try to persevere and. And make the best I could on myself and the people around me.

Right.

My attitude is be as happy as you can be and be positive and do the best of everything you can at your best ability.

And you definitely succeeded in. Yeah. And track, there's no question about that. So congratulations on your success and thanks.

For calling me out on that. I appreciate that.

So from the University of Florida, you moved to Nashville and you worked for a contractor that primarily serviced the hospital industry. Building and remodeling hospitals.

That's correct.

And so that's where you learned the trade of construction. You know, in that case it was for, you know, commercial. Commercial construction in the hospital industry. But. But once you cut your teeth in that and you learn the industry, at some point you decided, I've developed these tremendous skills, I want to go out on my own and see what I can do.

Yeah. For me being in that commercial Industry, it's a lot different than residential. In the commercial, you're dealing with the CEOs of the hospital, the DPOs. And it's more professional right now.

What is a DPO?

DPO is director, purchasing officer. Basically, he's the one that brings all the vendors and subcontractors to the hospital. And that's that person that's going to interact with us and meet with the architects, the state officials.

And I'm sure those guys aren't any pushover, right?

Not at all.

They're probably difficult to please, very detail oriented. And you obviously did a great job with those guys. And now you've taken those same skills into the residential industry. And now you are a co owner and I think director of marketing for Superior Custom Homes and remodeling.

That's right. I focus mainly on sales. Sales and marketing. And like I learned at HCA and hospital building and remodeling, I was able to bring that aspect of dealing with contracts, dealing and interacting with people, coordinating in schedules.

Right.

And then also with the management of trades and vendors.

So tell me about Superior. You told me briefly a little bit earlier, a little more about your business. You guys are always a great friend of our law firm. But tell the audience a little bit more about what Superior does.

Superior Custom Homes Remodeling. We focus a lot on not semi custom, but custom homes. So we can do basically anything from start to finish. If you have a piece of dirt, we will turn that dirt and we'll make that to a beautiful custom home. But it takes a lot of your dreams and desires. So if you have a plan or something, or even pictures, we can take that and make that into whatever you want it to be. We also do remodeling. Remodeling the typical bath and kitchen all the way to a full addition or even a full gut of an entire home. It's actually turned out to be very great business because you get to interact with people, which I love to do. And you get to see these people not knowing how it's going to all pull together. But to see their ultimate dreams come to reality and their excitement, their love, it's the best thing. Walt, I gotta tell you, they get so excited when you get to do the final walkthrough and they're just like hugging you and becoming all of a sudden my family.

So I seriously doubt the DPOs and the CFOs of the hospital would give you a hug when you finish the construction.

Not at all. Not at all.

So it's definitely a little bit different experience now.

This is more heartfelt and it's more one on one.

Right. That's great. So tell me a little bit about how Superior has weathered the downturn. Everyone is aware that home building has been through a tremendous, tremendously difficult period the last two or three years. I was working in Atlanta before I moved to Nashville a couple months ago to start Thompson Burton. And one of the clients that we represented was bank of America. And unfortunately, I didn't represent the home builder side. I was representing the lender in trying to help these home builders work through a lot of these distressed loans and just figure out what to do with these subdivisions where people just weren't buying homes anymore. So I definitely am familiar with how difficult it has been to make it through the last few years. So tell me, how has Superior weathered the storm? And it sounds like from our conversation that it's actually really excelled in. And I think you're having a great year and maybe even better than it was before the downturn. So tell me about that.

Absolutely. I want to say that it was just remodeling, but it really wasn't. We actually distinguished ourselves by focusing more on the client. Before, we were doing everything as a shotgun approach, kind of like what you do when you do a custom home building. But now I've got to tell you, it's more. We're focusing more on the client and getting better at what we do, taking our skills and taking it to the next level, providing better products, providing products at a more economical price. More importantly, you're interacting and doing true communication with the clients.

Right.

And when you're transparent with the client, it seems like everything goes a lot smoother.

And it sounds like just from our discussion earlier that what Superior did is when this downturn started and home building started having this tremendous adversity, you refocused your energies on how can we best satisfy the clients.

What are they looking for?

What are our home buyers? What do they come to Superior? What do they expect? And you redoubled efforts and refocused on that. And you listened to your customers and you were telling me earlier that one of the reasons that Superior got into remodeling was your customers changed, their preferences changed because of the downturn. So tell me about that.

Well, customers were no longer looking out to go buy this piece of dirt and building this beautiful home. Now they're taking their existing equity in their homes and saying, hey, we're here for the long haul. We're going to take this home. And I Want to make this beautiful. I love my neighbors, but I just don't love my home. So let's re gut my entire home and make this what I really want to be forever.

Right.

So that attitude has taken it a whole new level for, you know, getting out of that. That downturn.

Right. And probably some of the same principles that helped you succeed in the mile and refusing to listen to the coaches that told you you couldn't succeed. Some of those same principles, again, just that determination and will to win and succeed and compete. Some of those same principles helped you through the downturn and actually to excel in the downturn.

Well, I won't put that in, but I appreciate you saying that. I really enjoy working with people.

So let's talk about. To finish up, let's talk about. So we talked about your success at Florida. We talked about how you got into the construction industry and your success at Superior. You were telling me earlier that you have a vision of what's to come, that you think things are improving and just based on your boots on the ground, that you think things are looking up in the Humboldt industry. So tell me about that.

I do. I think that the industry nowadays is growing. Being that you don't see a lot of houses for sale anymore. You see people building houses now, they're not being scared, they're not holding onto their money. They're basically saying, I'm going to go out and build something and build a dream home. That's huge because it's been for so long that people have been nervous about building or even remodeling. And I got to tell you that we've seen so many good things happen over the last year. I think that in the next two years, I think we're going to start growing to be. I wouldn't say back to where that bubble was, but I want to say we're going to give you the point where people are going to feel comfortable about spending money. I see a really good outlook within the industry and more importantly, within the market.

Great. Well, that concludes our episode of creative competitors. Chris, I thank you for coming on the show and I thank you for letting us come down to your headquarters here in Cool Springs. So appreciate it and thanks very much.

Thank you.