Hi, today we are celebrating

Eric and Rachel Rivera of

Artistic Flooring and Tile.

Hi guys!

Hey, how are you?

Thanks for joining us.

Thank you.

Our podcast.

Thanks for having us.

We're so excited to have you too.

I'm excited to be here.

Yeah, we want to hear all about your life.

So how did your business get started?

How did you get into flooring and tile?

Honestly, I started doing it

when I was a young teenager.

I always wanted to find a way to, to make

money when I was young, because I always

liked to, , have my own money and, , my

grandmother used to insist on shoveling

driveways, but she also used to want me

to do it for free, so I said, grandma, you

got to have some better ideas than that.

She eventually, , put me with

her son, my uncle, and, , I would

spend the summers of middle school.

I think I started right

around middle school.

, like sixth, seventh grade, I would do

it during the summertime, at least a few

days a week, or at least on the weekends.

And even though it was hard work, yeah,

even though it was hard work, I really,

I really, really seem to enjoy it.

Even as a young kid, I

really, I really enjoyed it.

So, , I started off as...

Was it a kind of an apprenticeship?

Pretty much, pretty much,

I started off hard too.

I started off carpet.

First, which, , some people think

that ceramic tile has got to be

the most strenuous, but it's not.

Carpet is, carpet will wear you out.

It'll have you hunched over.

I mean, it'll ruin your

knees, your back for sure.

Early.

I'm already 44 and I feel okay.

, from, , predominantly doing hard

surfaces, tile, laminate, stuff, stuff.

You can carry one box at a time

instead of a whole, a whole giant

roll of carpet on your neck.

Well, and that thing that they use

to, to put to carpet in place, that

knee that you kick with your knee,

the kicker, it's got a pad, but that

looks like it hurts like the dickens.

And especially, , the first time

I heard my uncle say, , to do

it right, , you gotta feel it.

I was like, yeah, that's, this

isn't, this isn't going to be for me.

I promise you, I'll put all your

patent tax drip down real quick.

Smart boy.

That's right.

He Work smarter, not harder.

Than I made sure I was so

good at it that he would never

want me to install any carpet.

So you really started

in a family business.

I mean, you were, even though it

was your uncle, you were second

generation in a family business.

Did you have like cousins

that were his sons that worked

for him as well or daughter?

Yep.

Yep.

His son, Jason he was younger than me.

So he came.

See, it's crazy because before me,

there was one of my second cousins

who was four years older than me.

And he actually started

with my uncle first.

And then went on to

become an auto mechanic.

That's when I weaseled my way in like,

okay cousin guy is out of the way.

So.

, what about me?

And, , then he's, he's my uncle,

Mike has spent time with a few of us.

There's a couple other cousins that

actually have learned the trade from him.

Some of them went off to have, , to make

wiser decisions from the experience and

some of us are just, I don't know, built,

I mean, I appreciate it, I appreciate

using my hands and being able to be.

Artsy in a way, , pay my

bills at the same time.

And art, , art's always been my thing.

So, art's always been my thing.

So, , I mean, what we do here at Artistic

Surface, Artistic, I say Artistic

Surface, that's my old business name.

Back in New York, yeah.

I had to switch it.

So at Artistic Flooring and Tile, , we

we pride ourselves on doing high end

work and taking on, , those, those

very, very detailed projects that, , can

go wrong with one, one false move.

And that's the artsy side of me that,

that I'm allowed to I don't know, utilize

through my, through my flooring skills.

So and also that's the thing that divided

you from, from some of the cousins that

went in a different direction is that

they, I think, I think I loved it more

because there is, there is a lot of, there

is a lot of strain, , there is, you do,

it is a lot of manual and physical labor.

It really is, I think math wise to,

to be honest with you, Eric really is

a numbers guy and likes to calculate

and, , a lot of like layouts and

like how you do on the job site.

A lot of it has to do with.

Measurements and calculations

and stuff like that.

And you have to do a lot of math and,

and, and adjusting and stuff like that.

So I think that's a strong suit for

him also, and something he likes to do.

So putting those two together for him, I

think is what makes him really enjoy it.

Yeah.

It makes me, makes me want to stay focused

and, , you fight through the pain because

you, you can't think about the pain

as much when you're thinking about the

details and the measurements all at once.

The challenge behind that

makes the day go by so quickly.

, I believe there's two different

types of people in this world when

it comes to work in the workforce.

And I think a lot of us will agree

that there's, there's the person that

there's never enough time in a day.

You say it all the time.

You say it to people that you

work, you work amongst, you say

it to yourself, Oh my God, there's

never enough time in the day.

It's because you're, you're trying

to get so much accomplished that

your days go by really quick.

There's that person, and then there's

the type of person that shows up 10

minutes late every day, is supposed

to be working from 7 to 3:30.

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30, he's pretending to sweep the

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same area he was sweeping a half hour ago.

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That type of person tends

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to have very long work days.

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And could you imagine

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having that skill set?

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And being a construction

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worker at the same time.

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I mean, that's a torturous life.

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I would, I would think, , for some.

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Where for me I don't, I never feel

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like there's enough time, , I've

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had customers, I've had customers.

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Tell me it's getting late and that

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they want to sit down and have dinner.

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Oh, you can come back tomorrow.

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That'd be great.

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So it that that level of engagement

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and getting engrossed in the work and

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really, , just kind of losing yourself

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getting into a they call that flow

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state, , where you you're just so in it,

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you're you kind of lose track of time.

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All of a sudden you look at the clock

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and you're like, it's time to go.

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And weirdly, you're like, not yet.

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I should want to go.

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I've been working for nine hours now.

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I should really, really want to go home.

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Wow.

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If you could bottle that, I can tell,

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I can tell you could sell a lot of it.

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Oh, yeah.

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We need a wrench.

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That's our new business.

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model.

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How many years in tile now?

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You said 44 and you started

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when you were in middle school.

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So what?

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30 plus years.

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I don't know.

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That's a good question because

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tile I've only been doing tile for.

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12, 12 years.

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When you moved to here,

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when you moved to Florida?

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No I've, we've been here two years now.

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Oh, okay.

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Yeah.

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So about 10 years back in New York and

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then two so far since I've been here.

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Okay.

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Yeah, I moved on from carpet in

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my, when I, right around when I

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met Rachel, actually, because when

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I met Rachel, I was still living

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around the corner from my uncle.

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As a matter of fact.

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Yeah.

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So that's kind of when I left it.

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, I didn't, I never wanted to buy a van

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or have to maintain a van and a van is a

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necessity when you're doing carpet, a van

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or a cube truck, you have to have room

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for goods rolls up to 15 feet longer.

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No, there's 12 and 15 foot goods when

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it comes to carpet, you gotta be able

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to lug either one of those sizes around.

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So I'm more of a pickup truck,

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, toolboxes on the back of it.

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Kind of guy.

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So did you go through the wood floor?

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I'm guessing in New York, there's a

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lot of old buildings that have got a

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lot of nice, , wood, hardwood floors.

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Did you also do that?

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A lot more than here.

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So we're, even as a laminate guy,

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which is where I started, laminate is

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like, It's the new version of hardwood.

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Hardwood's an entirely different animal.

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There's a lot more, a lot of more

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responsibilities to come with it too.

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You have to pay, it's, it's, it's real.

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You know what I mean?

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It's a live material.

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, it won't quite, it expands and contracts.

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, where sometimes laminates

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only expand if they get wet.

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Which has been a problem for a lot of

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people in the last 20 to 30 years, which

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is why they've switched to the vinyl

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tile, which also looks like laminate.

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So I've progressed with time, where

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I put in miles and miles and miles,

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let alone square feet of laminate.

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And then eventually ventured on

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to hardwood, whether it be nailing

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it down over subfloors, because we

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don't have only or predominantly

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concrete substrates up north.

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And then eventually, , ventured

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over to even gluing it down over

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concrete, which was good to get that

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experience, not knowing that I was

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going to eventually live in Florida.

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But even with that, there's a lot

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to pay attention to, , you have

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to make sure that the concrete.

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, moisture levels are at a certain, at a

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certain level before you can install it.

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So everything was like a

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more of a slow progression.

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I went from easy to, to a difficult

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level over time with my, my floor

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coverings is what they refer to them.

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All lands that, that can, when you

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say floor coverings, that pretty much

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refers to all, , which was always.

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Which is always very beneficial to me

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because I was able to be a lot more

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versatile than just any other floor guy.

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, you have your tile setters, you

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have your hardwood men, , and they

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usually, , hardwood guys usually do a

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little bit of laminate, so on and so

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forth, but they really don't do tile.

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And I've never really heard

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yet of people that specialize.

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In tile, but could do carpet if they had.

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Those are, those are like two very

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opposite ends of the spectrum.

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Yeah.

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It's so full.

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Maybe I put you in a, , a more

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fluid or flexible category, I guess.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And it's in regards to the surface that

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you could have, that you could have us

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install or help provide materials for,

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we are very knowledgeable that because

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we have hands on experience installing.

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So, , it's, it's kind of cool

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because it allows me to be, , the

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measure guy at the salesperson.

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The decorator, the installer, the

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accountant, the, , the marketer,

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the networker,, between the two

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of us, we're able to conquer what

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some store owners pay five to 10

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different people to do even more.

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, if they have numerous locations.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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So that gives you, that gives

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you the ability to, to, , stay

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small and get it all done.

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Yeah.

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Correct.

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Yeah.

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Because I would imagine that'll

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become a ceiling of, for growth.

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You'll have to, , , I feel like

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I really have to get to the

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point where I'm bored of it.

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I think I've restricted myself

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and it's almost intention.

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I love doing it too much.

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I'm not ready to just go around and

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do quality control and, , measure

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and estimate, , maybe you have

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to wear more than a t shirt.

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I don't know if I want to do all that yet.

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, I don't care to look that important.

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I still enjoy just being my

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own employee at this point, and

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I can always rely on myself.

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What some family businesses do,

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and I know we're, we kind of, we're

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not off the family, but what, what

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some businesses do is, is decide

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on bringing in outside management.

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, as they're growing, at some point,

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they decide, I've got a friend

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who, they, they had to do that.

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And So, , as you're saying that I'm

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thinking, well, one possibility is you

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could find somebody that that loves

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doing all that stuff and and put them in

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charge, knowing that, , they're working

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for you still and you're still in the

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field and still doing, , doing the work.

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Yeah, after the, there'd have to be

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a lot of trust there because yeah,

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doing the work now, now you need

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really, , the eye of the owner on it.

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I remember you mentioned before about

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not, not only explaining or going

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into detail into what it is that I

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love about what I do, but what else

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I could learn,, what else I could,

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, that I would like to get out of it.

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Which is, , in my mid 40s now, I mean,

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that's something I think about every day.

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How do I eventually progress?

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We believed, Rachel and I, that

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moving down here, not that it was

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our main reason, because it wasn't.

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It wasn't even in the top ten of

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lists of importance, , things that we

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wanted to accomplish when we got down

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here, is there's a lot more down here.

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It's a bigger city.

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And where we're from, we felt like not

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only could we get away from the people

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that helped us grow to who we are today.

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So we didn't have to

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become their competitors.

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I wouldn't want to compete with

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friends or family, limit them.

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Yes.

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Restrict or limit or anything like that,

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or negotiate against so separating myself

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from the people that helped me get.

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Here, which I love and thank all of

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them because majority of them sent

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me down here with very good, , very,

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very nice referral, like two, three

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page letter referrals, explained their

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experience with me over long periods

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of time, which was necessary when it

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came to licensing and stuff like that.

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Test for licensing.

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They wanted you to have, , a lot of

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referrals from well known people.

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So they not only, , gave me opportunities

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to build myself through their

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companies, but sent me off with a

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very nice farewell referrals as well.

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So moving down here, Rachel and I

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believe that we, we would be able to

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take it to that next level and still do.

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It's just synchronizing.

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I guess my question and something that

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I would love to learn is how, how do

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you synchronize having enough work?

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Where you can, this has been

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the biggest thing for me and it

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probably restricts a lot of people.

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How do you get to the point where you

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can synchronize having more than enough

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work coming in, where you can guarantee

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people that you're interviewing and

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hiring at least a 40 hour week, right?

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And there's always enough work for

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in house people, Rachel and I have

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had a few employees and still have

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one as, as we speak right now, but

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how do you attract enough other?

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Reputable companies that want to work

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with you, whether it be subcontracting

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through you or just , conquering

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larger projects like hotels, , we

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used to do them up north and hotels.

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There would be a handful of

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us, , that we're helping.

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Knock that hotel out over

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a projected period of time.

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So otherwise competitors that

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were for this pro for that project

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brought in and all working as a team.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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There'd be like eight floors on a hotel.

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So they put team a team B team C and

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the team that finished first and passed.

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Inspection would be able to move down

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to four or five and so on and so forth.

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What I mean?

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And I always beat them

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to the, to the lobby.

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That's where all the state was

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all the filet mignon, , the,

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the floors, all the units.

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We're just salad guys would like, , you

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got those guys that like to smoke

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off the, the open window area when

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nobody's looking, they can hide

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silly stuff that they got going on.

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My focus was, if I get to two floors

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done before they do I get the entire lot.

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And that's where I really get to

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showcase my talent is in lobby.

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So I have.

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I have infinite pictures of

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hotel remodels that I've done.

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Wow.

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So yeah, you, I mean, I'm hearing,

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you really think like an entrepreneur,

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so we got to get to the family part.

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Oh, you do.

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Yeah.

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I mean, you're, you're thinking like

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a business owner and like Yeah.

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Growth.

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Growth.

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Yeah.

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So long, long term thinking.

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, that's, that's, that's right.

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I love to hear that.

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Thank you.

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So you work with your

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uncle for years and years.

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That was a family.

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So there was family dynamics there.

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What do you, so, , one of the

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questions I like, what do you love

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most about working with family?

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I mean, I know the two of

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you are working together.

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Yeah.

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How's that?

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How does that?

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How did you figure that out?

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And and what do you love most about that?

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And also about just having

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worked with with family?

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Well, basically your whole life.

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Well, I know that coming from, like my

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end, so it works well with the two of

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us because we're on different spectrums.

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He's good on the installation,

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he knows how to do all that part.

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And my background is

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accounting and business.

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So I've always worked for

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the years doing bookkeeping.

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And the business side of business.

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So when we decided to come together,

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it just made sense that we knew how

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to operate the whole business between

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the two of us, because we both had the

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experience, a lot of bad, a lot of bad

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days at the, at the job, , where you

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come home and you settle in, you get

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to sit down and have dinner and stuff.

By 2 00:18:02

And you look each other in the face

By 2 00:18:04

and say, , what point do we just

By 2 00:18:05

get up and do this for ourselves?

By 2 00:18:07

Why am I subcontracting?

By 2 00:18:08

And why are you working?

By 2 00:18:10

And being unappreciated by the

By 2 00:18:11

person that you're working for.

By 2 00:18:14

Yeah.

By 2 00:18:14

Because we kind of, , we know how

By 2 00:18:16

to do the, like I said, the whole

By 2 00:18:17

business aspect between the two of us.

By 2 00:18:19

So it made sense that eventually we would

By 2 00:18:22

really partner up and do it for ourselves.

By 2 00:18:25

I think one of the benefits working

By 2 00:18:27

together as a married couple, also in

By 2 00:18:28

being family, I think just the I don't

By 2 00:18:31

know if excitement is the word, but just.

By 2 00:18:35

Or being proud just that we're

By 2 00:18:38

accomplishing that as, , as a

By 2 00:18:40

family, you don't really get to share

By 2 00:18:43

that, , if you're just working in

By 2 00:18:44

an office with other people coming

By 2 00:18:46

home and, , being excited about

By 2 00:18:47

what you did or anything like that.

By 2 00:18:49

So with us, it's that you

By 2 00:18:50

can enjoy that together.

By 2 00:18:52

I think, I think for not only that,

By 2 00:18:54

it really, for me, I guess, maybe.

By 2 00:18:59

I'm not going to say as a father because

By 2 00:19:00

I don't, I don't want to, I'm not going

By 2 00:19:02

to say that Rachel doesn't feel the same

By 2 00:19:03

way, but no matter what we led by example

By 2 00:19:08

for our kids, no matter what they see it

By 2 00:19:12

every single day, they're witnessing it.

By 2 00:19:14

We're not talking about

By 2 00:19:16

it in front of them.

By 2 00:19:17

We're doing it.

By 2 00:19:20

And at the end of the day, if that's

By 2 00:19:22

all we leave, we leave is, , they'll

By 2 00:19:25

remember me and Rachel for that.

By 2 00:19:27

On top of probably a larger list

By 2 00:19:30

of things, they'll always be able

By 2 00:19:31

to say that their parents worked

By 2 00:19:33

really hard and they really tried

By 2 00:19:36

as hard as they possibly could.

By 2 00:19:37

I think too with that is that they

By 2 00:19:38

get to experience a lot of stuff.

By 2 00:19:40

Like, for instance, in the family,

By 2 00:19:42

like my father growing up, he owned a

By 2 00:19:44

plumbing HVAC company my whole life.

By 2 00:19:47

I did work for him back

By 2 00:19:49

in New York as well.

By 2 00:19:50

, doing some things for him because

By 2 00:19:51

he's a small business as well.

By 2 00:19:53

But just being able to experience

By 2 00:19:56

what it's like to own a business.

By 2 00:19:57

They see me on the phone at night.

By 2 00:19:59

, we, I talk to them about

By 2 00:20:01

what it really takes.

By 2 00:20:02

, being the difference between an

By 2 00:20:03

employee and what it takes to

By 2 00:20:05

actually like own a business.

By 2 00:20:06

And they get to see that all

By 2 00:20:08

the sacrifices you really

By 2 00:20:10

have to make for that.

By 2 00:20:12

Yeah.

By 2 00:20:12

I guess it takes a long time being

By 2 00:20:14

a really good follower before you

By 2 00:20:17

can be a really good leader too.

By 2 00:20:19

And that's something that we'll be

By 2 00:20:20

able to pass on to them is don't

By 2 00:20:21

think that anything can happen

By 2 00:20:22

overnight because it doesn't.

By 2 00:20:24

You have to struggle and you have to

By 2 00:20:27

encounter the trials and tribulations

By 2 00:20:29

of life and whatever it is that

By 2 00:20:31

you want to acquire as a career.

By 2 00:20:34

, along the way, it just everything that you

By 2 00:20:36

experience along the way builds character.

By 2 00:20:38

It's necessary to have really bad days and

By 2 00:20:40

really feel unappreciated and let down.

By 2 00:20:43

It really is.

By 2 00:20:43

That is so wise.

By 2 00:20:47

Oh my God.

By 2 00:20:48

Everybody wants instant everything.

By 2 00:20:50

Yeah.

By 2 00:20:51

Yeah.

By 2 00:20:51

Instant gratification.

By 2 00:20:52

We want to hit that easy button.

By 2 00:20:54

We want to do that.

By 2 00:20:56

That's why they're all in credit debt.

By 2 00:20:57

You know what I mean?

By 2 00:20:58

You don't want to save up

By 2 00:20:59

for anything anymore, man.

By 2 00:21:00

I got two years, no interest on this card.

By 2 00:21:03

Swipe it already.

By 2 00:21:06

And that becomes the mentality.

By 2 00:21:09

Are your kids interested

By 2 00:21:10

in, in the business at all?

By 2 00:21:11

Or have they shown signs or?

By 2 00:21:14

I mean, my daughter's artsy, but

By 2 00:21:17

unlike some, some parents in the

By 2 00:21:20

past, hope their kids take after them.

By 2 00:21:25

You know, all of that.

By 2 00:21:27

I've never been that.

By 2 00:21:28

I actually try to guide them

By 2 00:21:30

in, , to make better decisions

By 2 00:21:32

and not that I made bad decisions.

By 2 00:21:34

It's just, , I'm not a millionaire yet.

By 2 00:21:37

So somewhere along the lines, I

By 2 00:21:38

haven't made all the best decisions

By 2 00:21:40

because I am 44 years old.

By 2 00:21:42

So I like to encourage them to do

By 2 00:21:45

whatever it is that they want to do.

By 2 00:21:48

Yeah.

By 2 00:21:48

And then God forbid.

By 2 00:21:50

This could be a scapegoat for any

By 2 00:21:52

one of the kids, if not all of them.

By 2 00:21:55

And a lot of them have the, like

By 2 00:21:56

I, my artsy, the my art skills.

By 2 00:21:59

Mm-Hmm.

By 2 00:22:00

were passed on by my father.

By 2 00:22:01

My sister has it.

By 2 00:22:02

She owns her own fabulous cake

By 2 00:22:05

making business back in Rochester,

By 2 00:22:07

New York, where people call her.

By 2 00:22:08

And she's getting a hundred, 200.

By 2 00:22:11

sometimes a cake, , and it's

By 2 00:22:13

like, she loves doing it.

By 2 00:22:15

So, , my daughter, she's got that.

By 2 00:22:19

Well, yeah, but so she can see in the

By 2 00:22:21

example of the family, how art is a lot

By 2 00:22:25

more than just, , drawing or painting.

By 2 00:22:26

I mean, art can be.

By 2 00:22:29

In, in laying out a, a tile

By 2 00:22:30

floor and figuring out a pattern.

By 2 00:22:32

Art can be, , decorating, making cakes,

By 2 00:22:35

art, , it's, I guess in the H-V-A-C-I

By 2 00:22:39

mean, , if you were building, , just

By 2 00:22:40

laying out the duct work through a big

By 2 00:22:42

building that could be, , form of art.

By 2 00:22:45

Yeah.

By 2 00:22:45

Yeah.

By 2 00:22:46

You gotta, yeah, absolutely.

By 2 00:22:47

Ken.

By 2 00:22:47

Ken, you gotta really follow that

By 2 00:22:49

blueprint or everything can go wrong.

By 2 00:22:51

Like, I've had large warehouses

By 2 00:22:54

that I was tiling and it's like.

By 2 00:22:57

I have four or five different

By 2 00:22:59

doorways going down a hallway.

By 2 00:23:00

If I start installing my tile, once

By 2 00:23:02

I come around this way and go all the

By 2 00:23:06

way down that hallway and come back,

By 2 00:23:08

I got to tie back in back over here.

By 2 00:23:11

You miss by even a hair

By 2 00:23:15

and your roles are off.

By 2 00:23:17

So there's no room for

By 2 00:23:18

failure on some of these jobs.

By 2 00:23:21

You know what I mean?

By 2 00:23:22

Because you can read a blueprint

By 2 00:23:23

until you're blue in the face,

By 2 00:23:24

, you can stare and stare at it.

By 2 00:23:26

If you can't lay those dimensions

By 2 00:23:28

down and put that grid down

By 2 00:23:30

on the floor, it's over.

By 2 00:23:35

You might put, I, we know why I don't tile

By 2 00:23:38

I mean, you might, you might put

By 2 00:23:39

down a thousand feet, might put

By 2 00:23:41

down a thousand feet of material.

By 2 00:23:43

That's.

By 2 00:23:48

Go to tie back in and fail.

By 2 00:23:49

Oh my God.

By 2 00:23:50

It's something that I think of.

By 2 00:23:52

It's almost like a, like a

By 2 00:23:53

nightmare during the day.

By 2 00:23:55

. Yeah.

By 2 00:23:56

, on those larger projects.

By 2 00:23:57

But the crazy part about it is when I see

By 2 00:23:59

those projects, it's like I gotta have it.

By 2 00:24:02

You know what I mean?

By 2 00:24:03

And that's, that goes back to what we

By 2 00:24:05

were talking about earlier, , with the

By 2 00:24:07

daily challenges that just keep going

By 2 00:24:09

your head, oh my God, it's spend 10 hours.

By 2 00:24:12

, all I was thinking about was how I

By 2 00:24:13

need to get down that hallway and tie

By 2 00:24:14

it back in over here without missing.

By 2 00:24:16

And all of a sudden, 10 hours have gone.

By 2 00:24:20

I mean, you're, this is not about us, but

By 2 00:24:23

you're so in tune with what we, the way we

By 2 00:24:26

work, because we're, we're all about how

By 2 00:24:28

people think, and , how you're thinking

By 2 00:24:30

is, is working very effectively for you.

By 2 00:24:33

And the, , that idea of setting

By 2 00:24:35

yourself a challenge, they, , in, in

By 2 00:24:36

the learning industry, they call it

By 2 00:24:38

gamification, , trying to make somehow.

By 2 00:24:41

Make the learning of material putting

By 2 00:24:44

a gaming aspect into it, whether

By 2 00:24:46

it's earning points or, , setting

By 2 00:24:48

small achievements so that you're,

By 2 00:24:49

you're constantly competing against

By 2 00:24:51

yourself and, , kind of keeping

By 2 00:24:53

score in a, in a very positive way.

By 2 00:24:56

You know, it's, it, it makes,

By 2 00:24:58

it makes all the difference.

By 2 00:24:59

Like you're talking about, I've told

By 2 00:25:01

customers in there, , in their home,

By 2 00:25:03

as I'm trying to close a deal that

By 2 00:25:06

I see there, I see their project.

By 2 00:25:09

As an, as an art project for

By 2 00:25:11

me, it's, it's an art project.

By 2 00:25:13

It's a game that I'm going to be

By 2 00:25:16

there enjoying until it's finished.

By 2 00:25:19

It's a little bit more than just

By 2 00:25:21

finishing it at the time you need me

By 2 00:25:24

to finish it and getting it installed.

By 2 00:25:27

It's so much more than that.

By 2 00:25:29

And it'll show in the end, , and that's,

By 2 00:25:31

that alone is, is closes for me and

By 2 00:25:34

it's the sincere thing to say, , which

By 2 00:25:36

the best part for me is it's like,

By 2 00:25:38

I, I can't, I can't imagine how many

By 2 00:25:40

customers have probably looked me in

By 2 00:25:42

the face and thought maybe there's a

By 2 00:25:44

good chance that he's either a real

By 2 00:25:46

good salesman or he's blowing smoke.

By 2 00:25:49

You know, and I'm telling you, I've

By 2 00:25:50

had, and I've had those, I've had those

By 2 00:25:52

customers that want to put me to the

By 2 00:25:54

challenge too, you know what I mean?

By 2 00:25:55

Like, they're like, Oh yeah, we said

By 2 00:25:57

we were going to do this, but now

By 2 00:25:58

it's going to be on a diagonal and

By 2 00:26:00

it's going to have flowers and it's

By 2 00:26:02

going to be, and it's like, that's

By 2 00:26:05

not what we agreed upon, but okay.

By 2 00:26:07

All right.

By 2 00:26:07

I see where you're going with this.

By 2 00:26:09

You want to try and you want

By 2 00:26:10

to, you want me to put my foot

By 2 00:26:12

in my mouth is what you want.

By 2 00:26:16

You're going to love it.

By 2 00:26:17

Whether you like it or not.

By 2 00:26:19

Are you guys cultivating

By 2 00:26:21

relationships with architects?

By 2 00:26:25

Because I'm hearing the

By 2 00:26:27

stuff you're talking about.

By 2 00:26:28

That's the kind of stuff that

By 2 00:26:29

makes architects just, I want

By 2 00:26:32

to say, wet their pants, right?

By 2 00:26:35

They, they envision these

By 2 00:26:36

things that they, they probably

By 2 00:26:38

can't get somebody to do.

By 2 00:26:40

I mean, I did see one shower

By 2 00:26:41

that, , was incredibly complex.

By 2 00:26:44

And, and it, , the I

By 2 00:26:47

can't describe it all.

By 2 00:26:47

I can't remember it, but it

By 2 00:26:49

it really captured it was art.

By 2 00:26:51

I mean, it captured the idea of

By 2 00:26:52

waves and rain and and and then there

By 2 00:26:55

were pebbles in the in the base.

By 2 00:26:56

, it was it was brilliant and beautiful.

By 2 00:26:59

I know it was somebody a

By 2 00:27:00

lot of work to do that.

By 2 00:27:02

And I'm just thinking with

By 2 00:27:03

what you're describing.

By 2 00:27:05

It seems like architects, , getting

By 2 00:27:06

in there, getting in their head.

By 2 00:27:09

Yeah, because they are

By 2 00:27:11

the ones who do the work.

By 2 00:27:13

They are initially the decorator too.

By 2 00:27:16

So I've always had great relationships

By 2 00:27:18

with people like that back home because

By 2 00:27:20

they, I was one, , of, of others too,

By 2 00:27:23

that could see through their vision

By 2 00:27:24

through, , I could be the hands to

By 2 00:27:29

see out their vision and they can stay

By 2 00:27:31

all clean and dress nice, , keep their

By 2 00:27:34

heads in the books and everything.

By 2 00:27:36

I'm pointing out to you,

By 2 00:27:36

Rachel, is that, are you, are

By 2 00:27:38

you getting to know architects?

By 2 00:27:39

Is that what that meant?

By 2 00:27:41

We have not.

By 2 00:27:41

Not an architect.

By 2 00:27:42

Not architects in particular.

By 2 00:27:43

Designers.

By 2 00:27:44

Yeah.

By 2 00:27:45

Like designers in the construction,

By 2 00:27:47

, designers would be more up our

By 2 00:27:48

speed, I think, because they do

By 2 00:27:50

work with the clients and they do

By 2 00:27:51

make, , obviously they design stuff and

By 2 00:27:53

then we have to, , bring it to life.

By 2 00:27:55

So designers are good.

By 2 00:27:56

I haven't really thought about architects.

By 2 00:27:58

architecture in particular.

By 2 00:28:00

They're more on the building

By 2 00:28:02

side of it, like the framing.

By 2 00:28:04

Yeah, we'll eventually, we'll

By 2 00:28:06

eventually encounter them.

By 2 00:28:08

But that's a good, actually

By 2 00:28:09

look, I could look into that.

By 2 00:28:10

Actually, we worked with an architect.

By 2 00:28:12

We built a house with an architect

By 2 00:28:13

and I mean, he did, he did go

By 2 00:28:15

so far as to lay out the, in the

By 2 00:28:18

plans, the tile in our shower.

By 2 00:28:20

You know, he had these

By 2 00:28:21

little, , art look patterns.

By 2 00:28:24

Oh, I think you call them

By 2 00:28:25

returns or something like it.

By 2 00:28:27

There would be a basic pattern and then

By 2 00:28:28

a hint of that pattern somewhere else.

By 2 00:28:30

I mean, he was, yeah, he was

By 2 00:28:32

in charge of every detail.

By 2 00:28:34

There was no decorator involved.

By 2 00:28:36

Oh, no.

By 2 00:28:36

Yeah.

By 2 00:28:36

Okay.

By 2 00:28:37

That's interesting to know.

By 2 00:28:38

With all due respects to decorators,

By 2 00:28:39

if you have an architect.

By 2 00:28:41

Really don't need a doctor.

By 2 00:28:43

No disrespect to decorators because I

By 2 00:28:45

know you guys are going to say otherwise.

By 2 00:28:46

Yeah, it's a different level if you know,

By 2 00:28:49

it depends on what kind of architect too.

By 2 00:28:51

I don't want to disrespect any decorators.

By 2 00:28:53

And there's some that only

By 2 00:28:54

want to do the big picture.

By 2 00:28:55

Yeah, right.

By 2 00:28:56

Yeah, they're not is art, they're,

By 2 00:29:00

they're, they're book smart,

By 2 00:29:01

they're blueprint smart, they're

By 2 00:29:04

not, , necessary engineering smarts,

By 2 00:29:06

they're not Yeah, actual detail work.

By 2 00:29:09

Yeah.

By 2 00:29:10

Yeah, I guess I that's

By 2 00:29:11

what I was thinking.

By 2 00:29:11

I guess I didn't realize that they did.

By 2 00:29:13

Oh, yeah, and I could say There's a

By 2 00:29:16

commercial and residential too, and

By 2 00:29:18

they may be Commercials gonna tend

By 2 00:29:20

to be a little more cookie cutter.

By 2 00:29:22

I think yeah, I'm I think I'm it is

By 2 00:29:24

commercial and the worst part about

By 2 00:29:27

commercial and it's why I try to stay

By 2 00:29:29

away from it is There's there's no

By 2 00:29:32

appreciation for quality Until the owner

By 2 00:29:38

wants to know why it looks like that.

By 2 00:29:43

Does that sum it all up?

By 2 00:29:44

Can you put everything that comes all

By 2 00:29:47

the meaning where everybody's throwing

By 2 00:29:49

each other under the bus and everything

By 2 00:29:51

that comes with what I just said,

By 2 00:29:53

basically in a nutshell, just broke

By 2 00:29:55

it down in one sentence where I've

By 2 00:29:56

got paragraphs, explaining what I mean

By 2 00:30:00

behind that and how I got to that theory.

By 2 00:30:03

There's and they're always in a hurry.

By 2 00:30:05

They're always in a hurry.

By 2 00:30:06

That might be really close to that.

By 2 00:30:08

The next question I had, which was, you

By 2 00:30:10

know, is there, is there something about

By 2 00:30:11

being in a family business that you

By 2 00:30:12

know now that you wish you'd known then?

By 2 00:30:16

Back in, you know, when you started?

By 2 00:30:17

I mean, I'll let Rachel touch on that.

By 2 00:30:19

know

By 2 00:30:24

how much, how hard it is to work for

By 2 00:30:25

her husband or with, that's not a joke.

By 2 00:30:31

I think we're in a different

By 2 00:30:32

dynamic back in New York.

By 2 00:30:33

You did technically work together in

By 2 00:30:37

a different aspect as in I wasn't full

By 2 00:30:39

on in the business back in New York.

By 2 00:30:41

When Eric decided to be a business

By 2 00:30:43

owner, so many years ago me doing

By 2 00:30:46

already what I did, , I took that

By 2 00:30:48

on, but I also had my own career and

By 2 00:30:51

he was already established there.

By 2 00:30:52

He knew people, everyone, , knew him.

By 2 00:30:54

So he didn't really have to, he

By 2 00:30:56

wasn't starting from scratch, right.

By 2 00:30:58

He just was.

By 2 00:30:59

Everything just came my way.

By 2 00:31:01

Stepping into the business itself.

By 2 00:31:03

But, already had all the

By 2 00:31:04

contacts in that stuff.

By 2 00:31:06

So coming down here to Florida,

By 2 00:31:08

once we paired up We had to

By 2 00:31:09

start all over in getting to...

By 2 00:31:12

Meet people and get, , clients really

By 2 00:31:15

and ourselves, not only start over,

By 2 00:31:18

but more than start over because I grew

By 2 00:31:22

up where I, where I was successful.

By 2 00:31:24

Yeah.

By 2 00:31:25

So, oh, you're Mike's nephew.

By 2 00:31:27

Oh yeah.

By 2 00:31:28

, and then you get that from the

By 2 00:31:29

distributors and now you're getting

By 2 00:31:30

that from the business owners.

By 2 00:31:32

And there were numerous places and

By 2 00:31:34

locations that he was contracting through.

By 2 00:31:36

So once he moved out of the

By 2 00:31:38

way and moved out of town.

By 2 00:31:39

I mean, it was just already

By 2 00:31:40

kind of there for me.

By 2 00:31:42

So we, moving here, we had to acquire

By 2 00:31:45

things that kind of were given.

By 2 00:31:48

And also having to work closer together

By 2 00:31:50

because now I have to, , back, back in

By 2 00:31:53

New York, he kind of handled everything.

By 2 00:31:56

I didn't.

By 2 00:31:56

Have really much I don't decision

By 2 00:31:59

making I would say I was just doing

By 2 00:32:00

the business side, but now I do deal.

By 2 00:32:03

I'm in the field now also dealing

By 2 00:32:04

with clients and talking to them.

By 2 00:32:06

So then now we have to

By 2 00:32:07

really work closer together.

By 2 00:32:09

As business owners together.

By 2 00:32:11

So I think that's been a different

By 2 00:32:13

dynamic for us, but I think we get along.

By 2 00:32:15

Everyone always says how I, I knew, I

By 2 00:32:17

met somebody and they actually knew a

By 2 00:32:18

client that we worked for and he had

By 2 00:32:20

said to, to this other person how well

By 2 00:32:23

we had worked together on the job site.

By 2 00:32:25

Like that was one of his

By 2 00:32:26

things and he had told me that.

By 2 00:32:28

And I think that's one thing for

By 2 00:32:29

us is that even, no matter how

By 2 00:32:31

things are at home or whatever in

By 2 00:32:33

our relationship, we always work

By 2 00:32:35

very well together and we never, we

By 2 00:32:37

never bring that To the job site.

By 2 00:32:40

So we really enjoy.

By 2 00:32:40

I think we enjoy working.

By 2 00:32:42

I definitely enjoy working.

By 2 00:32:44

Yeah.

By 2 00:32:44

So we, we were together before he decided

By 2 00:32:46

to be his own business owner, really.

By 2 00:32:48

Yeah.

By 2 00:32:49

Okay.

By 2 00:32:49

And me doing what I had done already.

By 2 00:32:51

It was an easy conversion for him.

By 2 00:32:54

He just looked at me and was like,

By 2 00:32:55

I want to own my own business.

By 2 00:32:56

So I knew what that meant for me.

By 2 00:32:59

So, yeah, so that meant for me.

By 2 00:33:01

You knew what you were

By 2 00:33:01

getting into right away.

By 2 00:33:03

Yeah.

By 2 00:33:04

I mean, I had already been

By 2 00:33:05

doing it for other people.

By 2 00:33:06

So I knew all the steps and

By 2 00:33:08

how to really do all that.

By 2 00:33:09

So the, the, the biggest switch for

By 2 00:33:12

me to become a, and I'll be quick on

By 2 00:33:14

this, cause I know this isn't one of

By 2 00:33:15

your questions, what made me convert

By 2 00:33:18

to the business owner was how many

By 2 00:33:21

times I took on a subcontract job in

By 2 00:33:24

which the customer would say that they

By 2 00:33:26

really didn't care for the salesperson.

By 2 00:33:29

Some of the stuff that the salesperson

By 2 00:33:31

had promised them, the measure guy or

By 2 00:33:34

the the estimator, , you're dealing

By 2 00:33:36

with too many different people.

By 2 00:33:37

Leading up to the installation and only

By 2 00:33:39

the installation and the person with

By 2 00:33:41

experience installing can really explain

By 2 00:33:43

how the install Installation is gonna

By 2 00:33:45

go and how well the material wears and

By 2 00:33:48

everything else a salesperson's knowledge

By 2 00:33:50

is only the knowledge that he's receiving

By 2 00:33:52

from a distributor A distributor is always

By 2 00:33:55

gonna talk something up vinyl plank the

By 2 00:33:59

vinyl plank that's flooring Flooring

By 2 00:34:01

that's been going in strong for like the

By 2 00:34:02

last 20 years The stuff they were telling

By 2 00:34:06

the people that were buying it 20 years

By 2 00:34:07

ago, how did they really know for sure?

By 2 00:34:11

How did they really know for

By 2 00:34:12

sure that it was waterproof or

By 2 00:34:15

whether it needed a vapor barrier

By 2 00:34:17

underneath it and so on and so forth.

By 2 00:34:19

So I was like, , these

By 2 00:34:21

customers never seemed to like.

By 2 00:34:23

Any of the experience, except for the

By 2 00:34:25

installation that I had been providing.

By 2 00:34:29

Let me see if I could do a better,

By 2 00:34:33

nice, nice customer experience.

By 2 00:34:38

I mean, that's what I'm hearing that

By 2 00:34:39

you guys are really focused on, on the

By 2 00:34:42

full customer experience end to end.

By 2 00:34:45

Yeah, that's a, that's also a, it sounds

By 2 00:34:47

like a differentiator for you guys.

By 2 00:34:51

Actually, we've, we've heard from

By 2 00:34:53

different people or just, we, , try and

By 2 00:34:56

relate to people just how a different

By 2 00:34:58

experience is with us because we are

By 2 00:35:01

in the beginning to the end , and I've

By 2 00:35:03

already done the majority of things

By 2 00:35:05

wrong too, just to show that I am humble.

By 2 00:35:08

That's a fact I tell, I tell people

By 2 00:35:10

that work for me all the time too.

By 2 00:35:12

Please just hear me out because

By 2 00:35:13

I've already done everything wrong.

By 2 00:35:15

, there's.

By 2 00:35:16

You, you learn by stumbling and struggling

By 2 00:35:19

sometimes, , so not just, not just my

By 2 00:35:21

experience with the customers and stuff.

By 2 00:35:23

I mean, the most exciting part for me

By 2 00:35:25

is that inside and out the flooring

By 2 00:35:28

business, I've experienced every single

By 2 00:35:31

position that would need to be had to run

By 2 00:35:37

a storefront, sell materials and labor.

By 2 00:35:40

The expectations of the customer,

By 2 00:35:43

the expectations of the salesperson,

By 2 00:35:46

everybody from top to bottom,

By 2 00:35:47

because I am now all of those.

By 2 00:35:52

So it's really cool to know,

By 2 00:35:53

, sometimes I do credit myself on that.

By 2 00:35:55

As you've really put

By 2 00:35:57

your time in every area.

By 2 00:35:58

I've even worked the backend, the

By 2 00:36:00

warehouse and helped load up other

By 2 00:36:03

installers for 13 months, one

By 2 00:36:04

time, just to do it for extra work.

By 2 00:36:07

So really cool job.

By 2 00:36:11

, you could sell, you could sell

By 2 00:36:12

flooring for 40 years and really

By 2 00:36:15

not know how to install it.

By 2 00:36:16

Sure.

By 2 00:36:17

Not know what it, , how it wears in

By 2 00:36:19

someone's home , outside of, , life

By 2 00:36:23

experience, yeah, because they're,

By 2 00:36:25

, even a, even a salesperson is a, is

By 2 00:36:27

a, is a customer sometimes in life.

By 2 00:36:29

Yeah.

By 2 00:36:30

Right.

By 2 00:36:30

So you know how to treat somebody because

By 2 00:36:32

you know what your expectations are.

By 2 00:36:35

If somebody promises you,

By 2 00:36:36

everything's going to go well and

By 2 00:36:38

everything's going to be beautiful.

By 2 00:36:41

You promised.

By 2 00:36:42

You know, so we'd like to follow

By 2 00:36:46

through with your promise.

By 2 00:36:47

Yeah, you take that seriously.

By 2 00:36:49

Yeah, we do.

By 2 00:36:49

Yeah.

By 2 00:36:50

Because it's your name on the business.

By 2 00:36:51

That's a, yeah, that's, that's one of

By 2 00:36:55

the challenges for family businesses.

By 2 00:36:57

I think is that , you've got that

By 2 00:36:58

founder like, like you, that, you know,

By 2 00:37:01

has done it, been there, it's their

By 2 00:37:04

name on it, and the challenge they face

By 2 00:37:07

is as they grow, or if they're going

By 2 00:37:09

to transition to the next generation,

By 2 00:37:12

they're, they're afraid that, , when

By 2 00:37:15

they, when they, , hand the reins over to

By 2 00:37:17

someone else, or, or they just grow and,

By 2 00:37:20

and, , put other people in the field,

By 2 00:37:22

that they're not going to be doing it,

By 2 00:37:23

and they're not going to be doing it.

By 2 00:37:24

No, I know, that's true.

By 2 00:37:26

But that training aspect and, and, , the

By 2 00:37:28

trusting and also letting people make

By 2 00:37:31

their own mistakes, that, that becomes

By 2 00:37:33

a real challenge for some people.

By 2 00:37:35

And I mean, I mean this, I mean this

By 2 00:37:37

with a hundred percent sincerity.

By 2 00:37:40

If you put the money that you could

By 2 00:37:42

potentially make off of a project on

By 2 00:37:45

the very bottom of the list and switch

By 2 00:37:49

the order of the thought, , like.

By 2 00:37:51

Most, , entrepreneurs or business owner,

By 2 00:37:55

I think from my experience working

By 2 00:37:58

under them, I think they sometimes put

By 2 00:38:01

money in the top three of top 10 for a

By 2 00:38:07

customer, for a consumer's experience.

By 2 00:38:09

Like, if that's what you're thinking

By 2 00:38:11

about most, it makes no sense to

By 2 00:38:13

even think about the money because

By 2 00:38:15

the money you can put last, because

By 2 00:38:17

as long as you cover everything

By 2 00:38:19

else that comes before the money.

By 2 00:38:22

The money's going to be there.

By 2 00:38:23

So why would you ever, during

By 2 00:38:26

any point in someone's project,

By 2 00:38:27

think about money at all?

By 2 00:38:30

It doesn't even make any sense.

By 2 00:38:31

It's a wasted thought.

By 2 00:38:33

You're thinking about something that

By 2 00:38:34

is going to be there, no matter what.

By 2 00:38:37

As long as you accomplish everything

By 2 00:38:38

else, from point A all the way down.

By 2 00:38:42

I told you it was going

By 2 00:38:43

to be a good experience.

By 2 00:38:44

I told you the price

By 2 00:38:45

was going to be right.

By 2 00:38:46

I told you it was insured.

By 2 00:38:48

I told you the installation

By 2 00:38:49

was going to be perfect.

By 2 00:38:51

I told you it was going to

By 2 00:38:52

be done in this many days.

By 2 00:38:54

When all of that stuff happens, they're

By 2 00:38:56

not only paying you what you initially

By 2 00:38:57

agreed upon, you're getting gift cards

By 2 00:38:59

to Publix, you're getting gas cards,

By 2 00:39:03

you're getting, oh my god, can you do my

By 2 00:39:05

daughter's entire inside of her house,

By 2 00:39:08

you're getting, you see what I mean?

By 2 00:39:11

Way more than money that you could have

By 2 00:39:13

made off that project just accomplish

By 2 00:39:16

everything else That's important to

By 2 00:39:17

the to the client first and then the

By 2 00:39:20

money comes naturally man You just

By 2 00:39:23

looks like you're reading my mind.

By 2 00:39:24

This is yeah, I like to say that

By 2 00:39:26

money is a side effect it's a natural

By 2 00:39:28

result of doing doing things the right

By 2 00:39:31

way Yeah doing it the right way and

By 2 00:39:34

doing it as best as you can the way

By 2 00:39:36

you explained it was gonna be Right,

By 2 00:39:39

, that's yeah, that's really important.

By 2 00:39:40

, you manage expectations, you create an

By 2 00:39:42

expectation, then you need to fulfill that

By 2 00:39:45

expectation promise that that sales thing

By 2 00:39:48

of, , over promising and yeah, . Yeah, I

By 2 00:39:52

mean, I would say one thing, yeah, benefit

By 2 00:39:55

from us is like when I people call, , I

By 2 00:39:57

explained to them, the estimator is

By 2 00:39:59

also, , our master installer, he's going

By 2 00:40:02

to be installing also, and people get

By 2 00:40:04

really enjoy that because they know that,

By 2 00:40:06

, they're getting frustrated, they're not

By 2 00:40:07

getting somebody who's just coming in.

By 2 00:40:08

And then later on, just

By 2 00:40:10

sending somebody in.

By 2 00:40:11

, and there's no communication and, , the

By 2 00:40:13

work isn't as good as they were expecting.

By 2 00:40:15

Yeah, I mean, it'd be like going

By 2 00:40:17

to a fancy restaurant and having

By 2 00:40:18

the, , the chef not only cook your

By 2 00:40:21

meal, but bring it and serve it to you.

By 2 00:40:24

, , another thing too is a lot of these

By 2 00:40:26

businesses, especially the ones that

By 2 00:40:28

demand half down, which is the majority

By 2 00:40:31

of business, it's just the way it is.

By 2 00:40:33

Sometimes they're trying to close you and

By 2 00:40:35

book you and schedule your installation.

By 2 00:40:38

And they, they can't guarantee that the

By 2 00:40:41

material is even going to be in on time.

By 2 00:40:44

So that ends up being the initial prop.

By 2 00:40:47

The first thing that affects the customer

By 2 00:40:51

negatively is that the salesperson,

By 2 00:40:55

cause he wants them to close and he

By 2 00:40:56

wants them to put half down today.

By 2 00:40:58

Cause that's part of what he's told

By 2 00:40:59

to do by the person above who's.

By 2 00:41:01

thinking about money all the time.

By 2 00:41:05

That's the first thing that goes wrong.

By 2 00:41:07

, they, Rachel, sometimes this is

By 2 00:41:10

a, for instance, Rachel sometimes

By 2 00:41:12

has some of these designers.

By 2 00:41:15

They send us blueprints

By 2 00:41:16

and stuff like that.

By 2 00:41:16

And they want to give, they

By 2 00:41:17

want me to give them a quote.

By 2 00:41:19

I'm not willing to give you a quote

By 2 00:41:21

based on, I can read the measurements.

By 2 00:41:23

I can read the blueprint.

By 2 00:41:24

No problem.

By 2 00:41:25

I might, I was an apprentice

By 2 00:41:28

to a technology grad.

By 2 00:41:31

So I learned how to read

By 2 00:41:34

blueprints without any schooling.

By 2 00:41:36

It was just given to me because he

By 2 00:41:38

appreciated me and I appreciated him.

By 2 00:41:41

I can, is it gonna be diagonal?

By 2 00:41:44

Are the pieces three by six

By 2 00:41:45

inch or are they 12 by 24 inch?

By 2 00:41:48

Are they, you know what I mean?

By 2 00:41:49

Are there, is there any inserts?

By 2 00:41:52

Are there, is there any detail?

By 2 00:41:55

We're we're visual people?

By 2 00:41:56

Is it glass?

By 2 00:41:57

Is it porcelain?

By 2 00:41:58

It's more of a visual person.

By 2 00:41:59

Is it cords?

By 2 00:42:00

A backsplash could be made out numerous.

By 2 00:42:02

Is it stone?

By 2 00:42:03

It could be made outta

By 2 00:42:04

numerous different materials.

By 2 00:42:05

That's one I need to walk through.

By 2 00:42:09

I need to see before I can be as fair

By 2 00:42:11

to the customers the customer deserves.

By 2 00:42:14

, to give them the best, best

By 2 00:42:16

estimate that I possibly could.

By 2 00:42:17

It's not only going to be fair to them,

By 2 00:42:19

but fair to me too, , because one thing I

By 2 00:42:21

don't do is, , agree to something and then

By 2 00:42:23

tell the customer later that , especially

By 2 00:42:25

if it's not something that's unforeseen,

By 2 00:42:26

if it's something that I should have,

By 2 00:42:27

if I would have done a walkthrough,

By 2 00:42:29

I would have noticed right away.

By 2 00:42:31

I would have been able to account for it.

By 2 00:42:32

I eat those things.

By 2 00:42:34

Those are the things where I don't

By 2 00:42:35

even mention it to the customer.

By 2 00:42:36

I just reach in my pocket, make it right.

By 2 00:42:40

And that's it.

By 2 00:42:42

But, , you can't

By 2 00:42:43

guarantee stuff like that.

By 2 00:42:46

If you're just looking at a blueprint and

By 2 00:42:47

shouting them out, an estimate, , over

By 2 00:42:49

the phone or through an email, yeah,

By 2 00:42:53

because those are, that's where it starts.

By 2 00:42:56

That's where the headache starts.

By 2 00:42:57

That's where your five stars goes

By 2 00:42:59

to four and then three and so

By 2 00:43:02

on and so forth because you're

By 2 00:43:03

just putting the money up here.

By 2 00:43:06

, all you want is you

By 2 00:43:06

just want them to close.

By 2 00:43:07

You don't know when they're going

By 2 00:43:08

to get that material from Asia, but

By 2 00:43:11

as long as they give me half today.

By 2 00:43:13

We're in business, right?

By 2 00:43:16

Okay.

By 2 00:43:16

So advice that you would give

By 2 00:43:18

others, family businesses, small

By 2 00:43:19

businesses, it sounds like number one

By 2 00:43:21

is, , don't put the money first thing.

By 2 00:43:22

Don't think about the money.

By 2 00:43:24

Think about the customer experience.

By 2 00:43:25

Yeah.

By 2 00:43:26

What, what don't over

By 2 00:43:27

promise, , don't get in a hurry.

By 2 00:43:28

Maybe is that, is that another one?

By 2 00:43:30

Don't rush it by don't rush into the deal.

By 2 00:43:33

No, if someone that's selling

By 2 00:43:35

high end installation.

By 2 00:43:38

Isn't capable of knowing when they

By 2 00:43:41

can go fast and when they can go slow.

By 2 00:43:45

They don't have enough experience.

By 2 00:43:47

There's moments when you're installing

By 2 00:43:49

Tile where you can go really fast.

By 2 00:43:51

And then there's times when you have to

By 2 00:43:53

slow down or you're going to cut yourself,

By 2 00:43:55

you're going to make more mistakes,

By 2 00:43:58

you're going to start wasting material

By 2 00:44:00

because you're making mistakes and because

By 2 00:44:02

you're now frustrated because you were,

By 2 00:44:04

which all stems from going too fast.

By 2 00:44:08

I'm telling you when I got something

By 2 00:44:10

planned on a Friday or something

By 2 00:44:11

like that, especially when I was

By 2 00:44:12

younger, when I actually used to

By 2 00:44:13

have a lot of fun on Friday and

By 2 00:44:15

Saturday before I was raising kids.

By 2 00:44:17

Not that I don't love and , movie

By 2 00:44:19

nights and stuff like that.

By 2 00:44:20

Cause I do.

By 2 00:44:21

But I mean, when I was

By 2 00:44:21

young, , when it was beer 30.

By 2 00:44:23

, cut my finger, shoot myself with a

By 2 00:44:27

Brad now all the time at like three,

By 2 00:44:29

four o'clock in the afternoon.

By 2 00:44:30

Why?

By 2 00:44:32

Because I'm in a hurry, which also, , like

By 2 00:44:34

I said, I've already done everything

By 2 00:44:36

wrong, young man, slow down, you're going

By 2 00:44:38

to shoot yourself with that Brad now.

By 2 00:44:42

Definitely going fast.

By 2 00:44:43

Never, never, never

By 2 00:44:44

helps the project at all.

By 2 00:44:46

I think too, one thing that's big to

By 2 00:44:48

working with family, that's a little

By 2 00:44:50

bit harder than working with people

By 2 00:44:52

that, , that you're just coworkers

By 2 00:44:54

with and setting boundaries, as

By 2 00:44:56

everybody knows, , have managing

By 2 00:44:59

expectations on what one person

By 2 00:45:01

does and what the other person does.

By 2 00:45:03

And kind of just, and also collaborating,

By 2 00:45:05

like we always talk about, just

By 2 00:45:07

making sure that everyone has.

By 2 00:45:10

Some input, I guess, like Eric's,

By 2 00:45:12

like, we're very clear on like what our

By 2 00:45:16

expectations are, like what he's good

By 2 00:45:18

at and what it is that I'm good at.

By 2 00:45:20

Okay.

By 2 00:45:20

I want to, I want to dig in

By 2 00:45:21

on that just a little bit.

By 2 00:45:22

Cause I, this is, this is a key you, you

By 2 00:45:24

said everybody knows and yeah, everybody

By 2 00:45:27

knows that in families, boundaries tend

By 2 00:45:30

to get lax or not, they're not, they're

By 2 00:45:33

not respected and so everybody knows that.

By 2 00:45:35

So it's obvious, but

By 2 00:45:36

what's not obvious is.

By 2 00:45:38

What do you do about it?

By 2 00:45:39

How do you overcome that?

By 2 00:45:40

And I'll just live with, , the, the,

By 2 00:45:43

the frustrations and the problem

By 2 00:45:44

getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

By 2 00:45:46

So what's, what's a key that

By 2 00:45:48

you could share about how you

By 2 00:45:50

guys keep the boundary, set the

By 2 00:45:52

boundaries and keep them clear.

By 2 00:45:54

Yeah, I know for us, we

By 2 00:45:56

know what we're good at.

By 2 00:45:58

I don't try and tell him in any

By 2 00:46:01

way, shape, or form like what to

By 2 00:46:02

do or how to do it or think that I

By 2 00:46:04

have a great idea because I don't

By 2 00:46:06

know, like that's his experience.

By 2 00:46:08

So, and same thing him with me

By 2 00:46:11

like, , he doesn't micromanage

By 2 00:46:12

like my experience and what I do.

By 2 00:46:15

So I think just, just letting the

By 2 00:46:17

people who are good at what they do

By 2 00:46:19

in the business because everybody has

By 2 00:46:20

their, , a little specialty or whatever

By 2 00:46:22

it is, just letting them really take

By 2 00:46:25

charge of what it is that they do.

By 2 00:46:27

I mean, I don't know, it might be

By 2 00:46:29

different dynamics depending on like

By 2 00:46:30

what type of business it is or kind of

By 2 00:46:32

like what everybody's experience is.

By 2 00:46:34

But for us in particular, we're just,

By 2 00:46:37

it's very clear what our roles and like

By 2 00:46:39

what we know and what we don't know and we

By 2 00:46:41

don't try and just overstep that I think.

By 2 00:46:45

I think you just hit on a principle.

By 2 00:46:47

I mean, yeah, the details are going

By 2 00:46:48

to be different, different businesses,

By 2 00:46:49

but I think the principle of going

By 2 00:46:51

with your strengths, knowing your

By 2 00:46:53

strengths or finding people's

By 2 00:46:55

strengths and then letting them work

By 2 00:46:56

to their strengths and not trying to

By 2 00:46:57

make them overcome their weaknesses.

By 2 00:46:59

Yeah.

By 2 00:47:00

Huge.

By 2 00:47:01

And I think that principle is

By 2 00:47:02

applicable just about everywhere.

By 2 00:47:04

Yeah.

By 2 00:47:04

I think too though, having to, like

By 2 00:47:06

I have worked, , we've both worked

By 2 00:47:07

with family before, but we don't

By 2 00:47:09

have the dynamic where we have

By 2 00:47:11

somebody who really wants to try and

By 2 00:47:13

like be the boss of everybody else.

By 2 00:47:15

So, that gets a little hairy,

By 2 00:47:16

I know, and as I've experienced

By 2 00:47:18

before, but, that doesn't really,

By 2 00:47:20

we don't have that dynamic.

By 2 00:47:22

I think, I think, I think I make it

By 2 00:47:24

easy because I know I need her help.

By 2 00:47:27

And I need to make her miserable.

By 2 00:47:30

That's really not going to make any sense.

By 2 00:47:32

I need her.

By 2 00:47:33

She needs me to do the installation

By 2 00:47:35

and do a good job because she's

By 2 00:47:36

continuously building us up

By 2 00:47:38

as good quality installation.

By 2 00:47:40

So if I don't continue to provide

By 2 00:47:42

good quality installation.

By 2 00:47:44

It's not making her job.

By 2 00:47:46

It's making her out to be a liar.

By 2 00:47:48

, it's making her job, , so she

By 2 00:47:49

doesn't ruffle my feathers.

By 2 00:47:50

I don't ruffle hers because it's not

By 2 00:47:52

gonna benefit us in any kind of way.

By 2 00:47:56

Well, it's working because I had

By 2 00:47:58

a floor contractor that I met in a

By 2 00:48:00

networking group, , tell me, Basically

By 2 00:48:05

a competitor of yours in a way, but

By 2 00:48:06

tell me that you are, , true artists.

By 2 00:48:09

I mean, it's just, it's

By 2 00:48:10

really high quality work.

By 2 00:48:12

So, I mean, that's, by

By 2 00:48:15

another , person in your field.

By 2 00:48:18

Yeah.

By 2 00:48:18

That's, that's, you're doing something.

By 2 00:48:21

Eric's amazing.

By 2 00:48:22

And that's one reason it makes it

By 2 00:48:23

easier for me to go out there and

By 2 00:48:24

promote him is because I know he's doing

By 2 00:48:26

such a good job and I totally trust.

By 2 00:48:29

Has capabilities and, , what he,

By 2 00:48:31

what he can, what he can provide.

By 2 00:48:33

So I, I think it's, I drive to get

By 2 00:48:37

stuff perfect, even stuff that's not

By 2 00:48:39

going to turn out perfect no matter

By 2 00:48:40

how hard I try, I just don't know

By 2 00:48:43

when to leave well enough alone.

By 2 00:48:46

I really don't like you and gosh,

By 2 00:48:48

we're going to, we're going to

By 2 00:48:49

need to wrap this up, but I know.

By 2 00:48:50

Yes, sir.

By 2 00:48:52

I'm looking forward to

By 2 00:48:53

getting to know you more.

By 2 00:48:54

But it sounds like you have learned to

By 2 00:48:56

apply perfectionism intentionally where,

By 2 00:48:59

where it fits and where it's effective and

By 2 00:49:02

not in all areas of your life and isn't.

By 2 00:49:07

isn't necessary and isn't reasonable.

By 2 00:49:10

Yeah.

By 2 00:49:10

No, I think that's true.

By 2 00:49:11

Coming, coming, as I call myself

By 2 00:49:13

a recovering perfectionist.

By 2 00:49:14

Yeah, you can spot that.

By 2 00:49:17

Yeah, I've got a lot of

By 2 00:49:18

recovering yet to do.

By 2 00:49:20

, it's, , what really does stink though,

By 2 00:49:21

the honest truth is I don't know that

By 2 00:49:23

any perfectionists, I mean, unless

By 2 00:49:26

they're athletes or musicians, really

By 2 00:49:30

ever become wealthy because honestly,

By 2 00:49:33

I would need at least 10 of me.

By 2 00:49:37

10 people that think just like me

By 2 00:49:39

and love it as much as I do to really

By 2 00:49:43

be able to, to grow and expand in

By 2 00:49:46

a way where I would acquire wealth.

By 2 00:49:49

So I have wealth in family

By 2 00:49:53

and I have wealth in pride.

By 2 00:49:55

And yes, and that is part.

By 2 00:49:57

Wealth is not just money.

By 2 00:49:59

I mean, that's another whole thing.

By 2 00:50:00

But yeah, the debt lets us retire though.

By 2 00:50:04

Our kids, the better college

By 2 00:50:05

is, it lets us afford this gas.

By 2 00:50:07

Yes,

By 2 00:50:12

yes, it's, it's, it's

By 2 00:50:15

money and, and, and yeah.

By 2 00:50:17

Yeah.

By 2 00:50:18

Well, so so we can maybe have

By 2 00:50:21

somebody that wants to, that thinks

By 2 00:50:23

like you, find you and reach you.

By 2 00:50:25

How can people who are listening

By 2 00:50:27

to this podcast or watching this

By 2 00:50:28

video how can they find you?

By 2 00:50:30

Where do you like to be found?

By 2 00:50:31

I know you have a Facebook page, right?

By 2 00:50:33

We do have a Facebook page.

By 2 00:50:35

It is our business artistic flooring

By 2 00:50:36

and tile LLC, and we are actually

By 2 00:50:39

currently building our website.

By 2 00:50:40

So that will be coming soon.

By 2 00:50:42

Yeah, or they can call me.

By 2 00:50:43

We do post everything on Facebook so

By 2 00:50:45

they can take a look at a lot of years

By 2 00:50:47

of experience and everything that's

By 2 00:50:49

on there, Eric has personally built.

By 2 00:50:51

So it's, yeah, so that

By 2 00:50:53

that's your portfolio.

By 2 00:50:54

That's your for now.

By 2 00:50:56

It's your website.

By 2 00:50:57

That's right.

By 2 00:50:58

And we don't we don't we don't

By 2 00:51:00

necessarily need, , employees either.

By 2 00:51:03

, anybody that hears this podcast,

By 2 00:51:05

it feels the way I do by all

By 2 00:51:07

means, please reach out to us.

By 2 00:51:09

I'm sure that we can come up to

By 2 00:51:10

some, , some, some sort of negotiation

By 2 00:51:13

that'll make both parties happy.

By 2 00:51:15

They don't have to work for me, but

By 2 00:51:16

they could, maybe I can help them fill

By 2 00:51:18

some voids in their yearly schedule.

By 2 00:51:20

And, and, and vice versa.

By 2 00:51:23

Yeah.

By 2 00:51:23

Collaboration.

By 2 00:51:24

I love it.

By 2 00:51:24

Collaboration, yeah.

By 2 00:51:25

Absolutely.

By 2 00:51:26

Yeah.

By 2 00:51:26

I love it.

By 2 00:51:26

Yeah.

By 2 00:51:27

Thank you so much for

By 2 00:51:28

spending this time with us.

By 2 00:51:29

This Yeah.

By 2 00:51:29

Thank y'all opportunity to let us, let

By 2 00:51:32

us our, and we hope to get to do this

By 2 00:51:35

again on another area absolutely.

By 2 00:51:37

I was just getting warmed up.

By 2 00:51:40

All right.

By 2 00:51:41

I haven't even cracked the surface.

By 2 00:51:44

This is me with a headache.

By 2 00:51:45

Can you imagine?

By 2 00:51:46

I didn't see that coming yet.

By 2 00:51:48

Could you imagine if I had a

By 2 00:51:50

cerveza or something like that?

By 2 00:51:52

We'd be here all night.

By 2 00:51:53

You'd be like, Eric, it's over.

By 2 00:51:54

Yeah.

By 2 00:51:54

They're like, it's bedtime.

By 2 00:51:57

It's eight o'clock.

By 2 00:51:57

Thank you guys very much.

By 2 00:51:59

Thanks again.

By 2 00:51:59

Oh, thank you.