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Hey everybody. Welcome to the Patty G show. I’m your host Patty G. We are here with Matthew Holmes of Holmes Building Material. I am super excited to hear his family story. He is not third, but fourth generation owner of this business, kept it in the family. I’m curious to hear his perspective. Of how all that worked as a kid raised in a family business myself. I’m eager to learn the lessons that he’s got within his brain. So before we get to that, when I give a big wonderful shout out and thank you to the amazing folks that make this show possible each. And every week Government Taco Fayala Real Estate, Currency Bank, the bank for business, Lake Men’s Health Center, Horizon Financial, Mercedes-Benz of Baton Rouge and you know, the amazing outfit of the day we’ve got on is brought to you by McLavy LTD.

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Without further Ado, Matthew. Welcome to the show, man. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming on. My outfit is not brought to you by McLavy’s.

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Unfortunately, it’s brought to you by Nike Nike, okay? But we’re not that classy. Okay. We couldn’t get Nike to sponsor the show. We’re not that good at golf. Yeah. So this is the uniform that I wear every single day. Five days a week when I go to work.

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I love it. Because that’s y’all’s. That’s y’all’s blue, right? That’s our blue like L. She’s got their purple Holmes has blue. That’s right. So It goes, Its it is the fit. It’s your fit.

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You walk into the store and everybody knows who works there and everybody knows who doesn’t work there.

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Have you had anybody, we’re like the same colored shirt and like, walk up from behind and like, tap on the shoulders of, hey, I need you in this aisle and they’re like, what do you don’t work here?

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No, but I do go to academy in there, like, oh, do you know? Where the whatever golf clubs are no? Like, man, I don’t work out. Sorry simcha, but they’re out. Well, so it is the same colors Academy. Yeah, pretty much Arlo’s. That’s a good one too.

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Yang Lowes. Blue. Absolutely. So Matthew who? Who are you? And what is home’s building materials? Ah. So I’m Matthew Holmes as introduced. Um. Homes building materials is a locally-owned lumberyard. My family started it. My great grandfather and grandfather and nineteen fifty seven. It was started as a brick and salvage company. Ah. So they would go in and they would tear down old buildings. They get paid to tear him down. They would say the old brick. They would save the old pine beams. They would save literally anything else they could. So when I was working, we still had a little bit of salvage stuff. And I remember, like windows and doors and like screens were a big thing. But I remember there being like used toilets and stuff like that that they would have salvage and their whatever that ten dollar toilet or whatever. It’s gonna be right. So I mean, literally anything that they could save out of the building. They would do it. Um.

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My father, got involved with a business out of LSU in the 80s, mid 80s, which was not a good time to be in the building industry. Interest rates were terrible. Not as bad as today, but that’s not to say, I think 80s and today are yeah, two different things. Yeah. 18 percent and seven percent are two different things, so he got involved, they continue to sell some old stuff, but then, they started moving into, hey, I need a to before to go with this, right? So then they started branching out into new Her products as opposed to Old reclaim products. Some of his buddies that he graduated with would have went to the exons and the Turner’s of the world. So, it really got his foot in with some industrial companies to get the business started and it transformed from homes breaking Salvage into homes building materials and then fast forward in time.

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I’ll work there off and on as a kid, dad was always real big into you need to go like in the real world and go work for somebody else. Right? And really know really is like to get hired and fired and then, okay, so I would always do that in the summertime. So I played Sports through high school and stuff like that. And so in the summertime, when I had time, I would go work for somebody and then I would work for him during school time, right? Because it was just a little bit more flexible went to graduate from Catholic went to LSU. Graduating construction management in 2007, from there, move to Shreveport with my wife, we got married right after college worked in the construction field in Shreveport and then got to come back in 2011 back into the business, right?

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In outside tails at first for a couple of years, I had small kids at that point. And it was a flexible job. Um. And then into management after that. And then Dad retired four years ago. Okay. So he is. He is not involved on a day-to-day basis. We’re partners in the business. Um. He’s more of a silent one, which is he does a great job of that. They travel and they stay busy and stuff like that. So um, so today almost building materials looks like to always call them yards. Lumberyard? Hardware stores. Um. We have a facility on airline highway. That’s nine acres. We have a facility affordable Vardhan Denham springs. That is about two two and a half. And then we actually just opened up a showroom in memory right outside New Orleans to sell windows and doors because that’s one of the things that.

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Usually, it’s not nearly as many deliveries is Lumber, and you can go a little bit further for that stuff, right? So we open up that showroom three months ago. Okay, so you rather, that’s the newest and that Avenger, correct. And then we bought Ed Price, which was on Airline Highway, which is where we currently are. We bought that five years ago. So we moved out of our original store and Grill Springs and hardwood into that facility. Just because it was a Nine Acre facility. It has a railroad track in the back, so we get Lumber off of rail. It’s just a much bigger place and it was built to be a Lumberyard and we’ve never really had that before we always P stuff together. So, it’s concrete and sheds are amazing thing when you want to be in The LumberYard business, right?

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So that’s kind of our story. That’s how we’ve kind of grown up into it and progress throughout the years. I love that. So there’s a lot to unpack there.

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Yeah, the winter like you want to everything even the years all in seven minutes.

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So let’s go pretty spot-on for your time by the way. There you go. So backing up initially to the Salvage side of the business. I’m curious about that. And and I know you probably want to Thought at that point in time out of this tree, but curious to hear what they kind of told you about it because I’m sure, I mean that’s what family businesses do, tell you about, well, the way it used to be or back in my day. So it’s funny. The dad always has stories about like

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Clean and break. So you would go you a tear building down, you get the break back to the orb, but then the brick house mortar and everything else all over and you can’t resell it or stack it like that. So right. Yeah. They just dump it into a pile. And then the lowest people on the totem Pole get to a chipper and a hammer and they chip them. Order off and then they restock all the break to you. So you could actually make it sellable. So like the even profitable it’s probable today, because old brick is real expensive. And there’s only so much overtaking around, this is. And there’s so many old-time beams to go around. So what they did then is very profitable today. There’s just not a lot of people doing it in his more mom and pop shops doing those kind of things. Yeah. Like one offs. I got my Dad. We used to live on, lob Dell, and then I moved out to sunshine, Louisiana, and he got a big born wherever they moved this property. It was non half acres. And so it was like now we’re doing many.

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And in the barn, we transported like 20-foot beams from this old school, or this old church, that he helped tear down and got to keep all this Cypress. And he’s had those beams for 20-30 years and he just kept them because, like, you can’t find this stuff anymore. This reclaim Cypress that was used in construction and carefully taken down.

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I mean, that’s priceless at this point right in the trees that are getting cut at this point or anything like the trees that were getting cut. But then right whether they did you so cut Cypress, it’s just not the same, right? Yeah. So and then around for 200 years, yeah, I mean, it’s not pecky, it hadn’t been sunk in a river. Like, there’s all kinds of different things, right? So I remember him telling me stories about that. It was, it was really interesting and then I remember still having some old stuff as a kid and thinking of like, why do we have this old?

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And then somebody would come in and buy like where is I even old window or like, somebody’s trying to you seem like window sash is that they put mirrors in and they hang them on the wall is decoration. Yep. Right. You open a window sashes? Like that?

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Think people come in and ask that when I was a kid and now it’s I feel like it’s kind of going back that way a little bit from a design standpoint. People are one that old those older elements. I mean I know we would move, we move the powder bricks from one house to another because my mom was like we have to keep these bricks because they’re old Charleston bricks or whatever. Right? I’ve got the little indents or impressions in them. And whenever we moved out to the house throughout now and sunshine, they’re like, we want to redo the patio with bricks and put all these old Tom bricks everywhere and finding them.

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Was like you couldn’t. And they don’t match if you can like dishes. Yeah. It’s time and you can doing all that quickly. Learn what a new brick look like. What old brick? Look like because they did a pizza oven. And I was all new brick on fiber. Every it looks great. Perfect clean. But then everything else was all this old brick and it was chipped and it had texture to it. Yeah. And it was a very cool, eh element of homes that I guess you not many people really are thinking about that when they’re sourcing from somebody like homes, they’re just saying, I want X, Y and Z? And then you all have to figure out you’re going to get this from right. Or we just say, I mean, in the salvage days, you just say, like, this is what I have to take it or leave it right. Well that doesn’t at some point that probably isn’t profitable and doesn’t necessarily pay the bills. So let’s start with some standard dimensional lumber. Um. Let’s get in with some plants and see if we can’t start servicing that, which means the store rural springs is right down the road from Exxon some of the refineries and stuff like that. So that was an easy end. And some of Dad’s.

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But he’s had gone to work for there for them after college, so that was a good way for them to kind of jumpstart that whole process as well. So today breakdown between residential commercial industrial residential is probably 70% commercials, probably 15 and 15 on Industrial as well.

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So residential’s are still still building a lot.

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It’s big chunks, right? Not as much like Everything’s Relative, right? Building a lot is a relative term a lot since win, right? Yeah, a lot, since the first of the year, first of 2022, when everything was red hot in January, February March. No, but nothing has been like that, right? So yes, it’s going to be slower than that, right? It’s funny. What you get used to through covid, right?

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What’s the normal like what was normal again? Yeah, the new Norms. I know we went the refinance route during Kovac has the interest rates were so low. Sure looks like, oh, this is great. This Is The New Normal in the now. You look back at it and I’m looking at three times what I have now. Thank you. Yeah. So, do you really want to move an upgrade and do that when you may be a 3.75? Do you want to go to the some point, two five, right, and it locks you in to where you’re at, but on the flip side, we Start looking around the house. As did many people, I’m sure you can attest during covid. We want to give. We’re rad facelift, right? You know, they, they, they’ve got, they’ve been saving up to do a down payment as they’re going to move to a different house and then interest rates went through the roof. So they still got this cash and they don’t want to travel or whatnot. It was like, we’re dedicating this to a home fund. Let’s do some Renovations. So then they’re in the need for

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Lumber. And everything else? I mean, how is the that renovation market kind of been a renovation? Margaret has been strong and it’s been struggling for a couple of years now. And honestly, I think that that’s commercial to be strong. Remodel work will be strong as well. Just for the same fact of what. We just talked about right like somebody’s not gonna wanna pay seven and a half percent just at some point they will. Because it’ll be the new know will be that you have to unless you just won’t say in your house or forever. But right now that’s not necessarily the case. But I mean, that was the name of the game during covert right. So like a lot of things in the industry changed during covert in our industry specifically, I mean, lumber is traded on the open market, right. So it goes up and down. Just like the price of oil and gas. You can bet on it if you want to. Personally of what we do is in business, you buy low, sell, high rank. Walk walk. Walk me through that. Because I wasn’t aware that. Yeah. Setup.

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Product changes all the time as opposed to something that maybe manufacturers like products that we have like sheetrock Windows Doors.

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These things may have one price increase a year and the first quarter they say hey we’re going up three percent and that’s yearly.

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You can kind of Bank on that. Now during covid they may have had two or three price increases during the year but there are announced their publicized like here it is, she rocks, going up, 3%, 4%, whatever it is, right? Well, Lumber isn’t, there is there is one And publication that dictates pricing on lumber for everyone in the United States. Random links is the publication.

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Today, they come out and they say,

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We’ve talked to these Traders, and lumber is should be trading at this. Now, you have Southern yellow pine of spruce. You have Cedar, you have Doug, Fir you have all these different Pockets, right? Like we’re in a big Southern yellow, pine pocket, just because pine trees are all around us, right? So they may say Lumber like Southern yellow pine should be training at $300, a thousand. So then you I think that’s a good deal. So I say, well I’m a by some right. Okay. So I call and I say, I call a mill and I say, hey, I want to buy some Lumber, it’s $300. And they say, well, I got to include Freight and some profit. So add $15 to rein, them is the verbiage that they give you right? So Random being $300, because random links said that southern yellow pine was 300. So now cost me 315, right? So I’m hoping that I bought it low and then maybe it goes up, right? Maybe it goes up to 385. Then I make a little bit of money well, in

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In covert land that went from like, okay, maybe their swings a fifty dollars. A thousand, which is a couple of dollars for two before, right. Well that went to a swing of like from three hundred to fifteen hundred down to three hundred and we’ve never had anything like that. Right. Summing it was huge spikes. And the Indus entry followed by huge falls, wherein it’s fallen. And it’s gotten back down to pre coded levels currently. But these were huge ups and downs. Um. So we could quote a job and say, like, hey, today’s Tuesday. I’m gonna hold this Thursday afternoon. That’s short. Yeah. And you as a builder? Don’t build a house in three days right now. So thin. How do you prepare? And I mean, that’s what we all thought through? Right. Yeah. And we had build CC on the show back in twenty twenty one. So right during covert. And he’s a commercial builder. They built the ah.

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The new commercial complex right there on Jefferson by writing some like Levi, they put like the new workout gym in there and yeah counter space in there. Yeah, I know what you’re talking about. So he said before they started Bill, how’s it bad? That was bad timing.

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It was poor timing but he said, he apparently has a laydown yard or something. He bought all the lumber for the job of for this bike.

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I gotcha. And so he would essentially purchase in bulk from somebody like her arms and hold it. For projects, right? But they wouldn’t start until they had because they didn’t have the whole supply chain issue which we’ll get into.

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So he would purchase it and hold it until they had a project. And then he had a project he would not like dig one shovel of dirt until they had everything ready to go and supplies to start.

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And that just fascinated me because typically it’s not how it’s normally done, they’ll order consecutively, right? As they go. Correct. And when he told me that I was like, that’s that’s a smart move. But also now you’re becoming a lumber yard where you’re holding all this products hoping that you purchase at the right time and you’re adding another job to your right, another element to your job. So you roll the dice right? Because then they’re going to say well like what do you think Lumbers? Whatever right now five hundred dollars a thousand. What do you think it’s going to do? And I’m like, I think it’s Going to do this, but keep in mind like I have a lot of dollars invested this if I really knew what it was going to do is just like the stock market, right? I’d be all in, it’s something and then I will let you know as a builder and friend, right? Like hey you should buy your stuff now because it’s super low, right?

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But I don’t have a crystal ball either. So I’m just guessing. Sometimes you guess. Right. And sometimes you guess wrong. Right. Here’s the stock trader. But and wood. Exactly. That’s exactly right. This is but in real real product, because you have to take that real product. At some point, sometimes you can delay it from Mills is something that. But at some point, you’d say, ooh, that was a and I had some bad deals like they’re the last two years of like a thought it was low. It wasn’t low. I have to take it in. And then what do you do like? Because what do you do at that point? Well you Mark it down to be honest. Because there’s you’re only I’m only gonna get so much for our commodity, right. So on your phone. Right now, you can Google Home Depot and lowe’s. And you can see how much a two before sixteen. But is or how much a piece of USB is? Right. So if a piso SB is ten ninety nine. Right now I can’t sell Sb at fourteen ninety nine and expect to sell any right.

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Because what we offer is not unique, there’s very few things that we offer that are unique. It’s a commodity, right? Especially when it comes to the dimensional Lumber so then I need to be a 1099. Well, I may be losing money on that right? Sometimes you win. Sometimes you like to solve 89, you’re losing. Yeah, some and some we won some and you lose some and it’s fun. And it’s I don’t need to go to the casino and gamble, right? Because like, you’re just, you’re rolling the dice. Let’s roll the dice with your pride, her money. Then I would ever bring to the casino. I can tell you that.

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That is, that is fascinating. I did not know that that was a component of even like thinking of homes. It’s like well, they just buy all this stuff and they get if the manufacturer I did not realize it was traded on the open market. That’s incredible. It, sure, is, so from the supply chain issue, that happened with the whole wood whenever everything peaked, mmm.

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To think two parts, did you see that coming? And what did you do for it? So we have a bunch of different product categories and everyone’s treated differently, right? So you have Lumber to end and if you think about house, right? So you have a lumber to build a house. That’s one product category. He’d have steel that goes in the foundation, right? And pretty much everybody knows at this point that steel went up and down to. We got really, really expensive. Granted, we’re not building metal houses, but they’re still Steel in it, right. Then you have Sheetrock that we sell, you have insulation, those are manufactured items, and everybody had trouble with manufactured items, right? You have Windows and Doors. Some of that stuff is imported. Some of it isn’t. You have trim and molding. So baseboards, and crowns and casings.

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All of that’s important. Almost all of it. And that was a major issue. So there’s there’s different components to everything that we sell. So those are the items that we sell. We don’t sell. Break will sell stucco, Mccain. Inform anybody about those. But yeah, y’all got completely out of the brick and yeah, thousand hours in like the eighties. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That was the win win over. Dried up and that got me really hard work. Um. Let’s try something different. Um. So on the lumber side of things, lumber was never really difficult to get at certain points. Lumber was hard to get, but hard could have been like. I’m supposed to have it in two weeks and I got it in like three and a half. Okay. Well it’s not the end of the world like we’ll make do sometimes we’re out of stuff. But that’s not uncommon, but it’s not like.

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Hey, I don’t know, mr. Customer I’m out of it and I don’t know when I’m going to get it again, right? Like I’m out of it I should have it in a week or in a couple of days or in what like in a lot of lumber like if you need a 14 foot board and about of a 14-foot board I’ma give you a 16 footer so like I can I can just move up a length and stuff like that you can sub out things and stuff like that. One was difficult was now Lumber was expensive. I’m going to say that but it wasn’t necessarily and hard to get which Begs the question of why was this so expensive? So why was it so expensive, man? That’s a very good question and no one saw that coming and then the thing is like if I show you a graph and it goes up really really high and then it dips down, right? So throughout that period of going up, really, really high, maybe that was three or four months.

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So it starts going up and you go me, I go it’s rising.

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I only want to buy a little bit at a time because I don’t want to buy a whole bunch of it because it’s going up, right? And I don’t want to buy high-priced stuff, you can go down more. Well I should have bought a whole bunch when it started going up because I didn’t know who was gonna go up as much as it actually did. Right. Right.

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So that that was, that was a struggle that we went through, but other product categories, were honestly much harder like Windows because of manufacturing problems because all these people People work in Plants. A lot of the windows we get because they’re vinyl that come out of Houston to Dallas if they’re a little bit higher in and they’re like aluminum clad they look like a wood window. They may come out of the Midwest or Northwest so

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The the clad windows were easier to get just because they don’t go in every house. Right. Like it’s a higher end. Product vinyl windows were very hard to get from like a two week. Lead time to ah. Hey. This gonna take twenty. Six weeks. Twenty six weeks. So went from Tude. And it went from a. Then it went to twelve. But then the problem. Mm is like it was a you. Tell your customer ate it. Then it gets to six. And now it’s not eighteen more as twelve. Well the customer thought it was gonna be eight and now it’s twelve and nobody has any heads up on this right. So it’s a hard hard thing to do. And no one in Louisiana may manufacturers windows like that’s not a thing, right. Okay. So so how how do you communicate that? How did y’all communicate that part about the time delay switch? Because at some point as when you’re seventy percent residential so at some point as a homeowner.

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I really don’t care. What why is my house not moving forward, you know.

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So like how do you as a supplier keep that relation every every homeowner every Builder was in the same boat of they don’t care at all about the issues that are going on. I just want my stuff that was like the first wave of covet. The second wave, everybody got a little bit nicer because they’re like, I just need some stuff. Can you just tell me when I know it’s going to be late? Just tell me when I’m going to get ahead because they’d already been arrested so many times the last year. They’re like and and everybody planned a little bit better. So like 2020, no, one planned for anything because nobody knew what to play in four, right in 2021 in 2022, depending on what time of year were talking about everybody playing a little bit better, right? So then it was a little bit easier, it’s like a tell me the damage. How long is it going to take to get Windows?

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20 weeks. Okay. Well, like, I’m going to pull a permit in three weeks. So I’m going to go ahead and order my windows now, which never happens, right? Like it just it’s crazy. So they started or tried to do a little bit better, right. But it is a hard thing to communicate in the bad thing is we don’t get communicated to so the manufacturer is not calling us going. Hey, we just switch to a six week lead time to a 12 week lead time. So anything that you had in the queue is going to get bumped to 12 now. So it takes us getting the five weeks to say like hey man, my windows are due next week. No, there will be another seven or another six really and he’ll have to call that’s a factual errors at that point. The manufacturers don’t tell you what you’re going to get, okay until it just doesn’t show up, right? Because that part of the problem is they were all short-handed. So everybody’s new so they don’t know what they’re going to produce to like physically gets on a truck and then they’re like oh well this is on your truck this week.

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You know. Yeah. Maybe it’s on your truck this week. Yeah man, we we. We had a new guys. We have no damage. Yeah. We don’t know a. We don’t know the quality. That was bolt and we don’t know. We don’t know how the how the truck is going to get to your place, right? So you say that was an issue. There was like some stuff coming in where you could just look at it. And you’re like, oh, this is there’s got to be like a rookie line somewhere or somebody had to be too many beers or something was going right. Kovan. Brain man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bars and windows. And they’re just crooked. Right like that. Something’s not quite right on that. So quality. Suffered on some manufactured products. Some of them. It was fine. It just took longer. Anything that was imported. Ah is was always a struggle. So a lot of flooring is imported. Um. On scans, that was a struggle. Um. All of your moldings, baseboards crowns casings, that and stuff. Almost all of that’s important. Because it’s all MDF.

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That was a struggle.

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I mean it was in those were ones were like, I don’t know when I’m going to get it. Like I call the manufacturer, it’s sitting on to see can flown out there off the coast of California are off of the Gulf of Mexico. They don’t know when they’re going to unload it, at least at least with wood. It’s here. So like maybe they don’t know when a trucks going to pick it up but that may be like a week delay, right? Not like it’s floating on a ship and they want too much money to unload it right?

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Okay so said the Would wasn’t necessarily the main issue at hand. The time it was, everything else that went with the wood career, you can build the frame of the house.

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You’d be looking at a frame and a, how a lot of money you can build it. You’re gonna pay a lot of money for it and then it’s going to sit because you can’t get any of the finished goods. Yeah. Like I know cabinets, were always a pain in the butt. I, we don’t sell cabinets, but that was a pain in the butt.

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For people to get. So then house doors.

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We don’t do that either, but I heard Peter heard about that. Yeah, everybody, but at least that’s at the very end of the job and finishing the house without a garage door, you can do that. You can you can only get so far without windows and then they just stopped construction, just stops.

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So, I mean, from a, from a structure and quality standpoint, do you even know what kind of an impact that has on what’s being built for it to just sit there in the weather without the finishing touches on it?

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So, So, it’s funny how people get Builders are very resourceful, right? And so they go okay, you know what? I either had problems with Windows before indoors, or you’re telling me, I’m going to have problems and there’s going to be a 12 week delay.

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So a lot of times they’ll just run like shooting over the holes of the windows. And they’ll put like seeing Thai veg the white stuff on the outside of the house. That’s a vapor barrier. They’ll just cover up all the windows and doors. Right. And then that way there’s nothing getting in the house. They leave one door open to be able to get in now and they can do electrical work. They can do roofing work, they can do, they can get so far. But then inspectors come. And they want to see windows and doors installed in some of those inspectors actually allowed the builder to say, like, hey, you can see where I purchased the windows indoors. They won’t be in another six weeks. I can. We can we continue to move forward. Right. So they couldn’t move forward without windows and doors. No you can’t. You have to get an inspection or with like a building envelope before you can actually close and walls ain’t cheap.

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So you can’t move forward without it but some inspectors would allow them because I like to me another six weeks. Like I here’s where I bought the windows. I bought them 12 weeks ago. I’m still waiting another six weeks. Like, I don’t know what to say. So you can everybody tried to do as much as they could, you know. Yeah. It’s working together. It was easier to work together. The second time the first time was just everybody was mad and it is a tough business to be in to eat by first and second time. What do you mean by that? So 20, so 2020. Rolled around covid happened, restrictions happened construction was deemed an essential business. If you do not recall, construction was deemed that way. And so, were lumber yards and hardware stores because think about hospitals going to be essential business, right? Yes, something breaks in a hospital where you going to, go to fix, whatever breaks in the hospital. You’re going to your, at some point. You need tools or Hardware, right? Yeah. So then a hardware store is deemed on the central business.

[00:28:47.500]
So we went from like not knowing if we were going to have to shut down to being deemed an essential business. And then we’re cotton. We’re trying to control hours and people and stuff like that was going on with business going to be like well then all of a sudden, the floodgates opened up because everybody that was sitting around their house was tired of looking at their neighbors. They wanted a new fence, or they wanted to DIY everything in their house because they were around their house, right? So business, blows up at about that. Same point Building Material, start being hard again. Because this is a business is supply and demand, right? Supply greatly well, Supply stays the same demand greatly increases. What are we going to do? Yeah, you know. So everybody sent around price of a 4×8 sheet of plywood demand just skyrockets, right? The man skyrocketing the supply is the same or worse because suppliers manufacturers were doing the same thing that we were there.

[00:29:41.500]
I don’t know. What’s about to happen? Let me start laying people off or let me start working. Only one shift instead of two. Or maybe they’re doing the same thing. Which the same thing wasn’t good enough because the demand was so high? So then they can’t react. It’s like turning to shit right. Turn into cruise ship takes longer. They are much bigger places. It takes them much longer to go from. I mean, lay people off to. Oh no, I need to make way more product. Well like that’s a hardship to turn. It’s gonna catch a little bit easier for us. You know, um, we flipped the switch a little bit better, but then you have had product to sell as well. Right. Like that was that was the struggle with it. Um. So twenty twenty. The end of twenty twenty was when you really we got hit with supply chain disruptions. Right.

[00:30:27.300]
If you just couldn’t get it, you know, you weren’t going to get it. You just can’t get in. You don’t know when you’re going to get it, right? That’s when everybody gets mad. Everybody’s pissed about the world and they’re at their house, so they know they didn’t get it. It’s not like they were at work, we’re like right? I didn’t even realize, I’m right. So they’re not busy, they’re checking on it all day every day. So that was rough. Then there was a little bit of a lull and then 21 rolls around and now everybody’s trying to prepare better than they had, right? About halfway through 22, you had products coming. You finally like everything that you ordered on see cans came in all at once, and then we have storage issues, right? Yeah. She must Supply then it’s like, I don’t need all of this, all of one’s right. So it’s funny how like the world works. Like the last two and a half years in our industry have been a crazy industry to be in

[00:31:21.100]
From it’s much more than just like a to before is $2.50. Like there’s a lot of backstory to this, you know, and it’s interesting. And we’ve made it through. And now we’re back in normal times and lovers cheap.

[00:31:34.900]
So please come by some as I say, are we really back in normal? Oh what is normal is normal pre-coated was normal?

[00:31:43.100]
Yes, normal Matt, we’re not in normal.

[00:31:46.500]
Okay, so what what? I don’t know where we’re, I don’t know. I’m trying to figure out where we’re at, you know? Where I have no idea where I was. I was that’s why I was coming on the show for that’s good CPA. What normal? Lumber prices off better. Just what business is no good because that’s what I’m trying to figure out what is, what are we doing for next year? So, I mean, it depends. So, before the show, we were talking that

[00:32:06.900]
You listen to of with Brian Houghton on Thursdays. So Brian and I, we’ve had many conversations around the the new normal. What? What is the new normal? What are we in right now? Going out of twenty two and twenty? Three. What are we going into the first quarter of twenty three? The first mall, twenty three. What is normal? And he and I have talked at length about this of having the recession. Here are the impact of the recession being hit and starting to be felt. And I think it may be the case for some industries like I’ve got good friends and hospitality in the restaurant industry. And I’ve been talking with them and they’re like, we’re having certain budgets because we don’t know what’s gonna happen from. Come these economic times, right? But then you talk to people in other industries. They’re saying, well, twenty two is the best year we’ve ever had. And we’re still going strong. So it’s.

[00:32:57.800]
It’s so hard to judge. And by no means am I an economist? But I think we’re in an interesting time right now. I don’t think we’re going to normal time, and I don’t think we’re in covid time. We’re in an interesting time. Yeah. I don’t, I don’t like recessions. I don’t think that. I don’t like the believe in the recession’s just because if you work hard enough, your figure out some way to make it. Are you can always figure out a way to make it correct. If you put enough work and energy into. It’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. And I’ve told Our people are teammates. I’ve told our vendors of like you like what you do our vendors? Like what you did the last two and a half years, that ain’t cutting it in 23. Now you’re gonna have to be way better because there’s product. There’s availability. There’s not a lot of demand.

[00:33:43.500]
And so supplies, high or normal, and demand is low relatively speaking. Then we’re all going to have to do a better job. We’re going to homes is going to have to do a better job right now. Because there’s there’s not as many customers building as many houses are as many commercial buildings, are doing some of the industrial projects, right? So everything that we do, we’re going to have to be better at it. We used to answer the phone and it’s like, hey do you have this? And we say yes. How much do you want? They like, I Want It All which you can’t have. All the but like let’s talk this through right now. It’s like my see now we’re calling say like hey man do you want to buy some of this like I got a lot of it. Yeah. You know. So like the tables have turned and we have to be better at what we do, you know.

[00:34:25.700]
Well and I think that goes to how to differentiate yourself as homes building materials versus the Home Depot’s of the world, right? And before like earlier in the show, you were talking that.

[00:34:36.400]
The pricing is semi, RIT, not regulated. But the pricing is so competitive to where if I look on their website is tonight on and I’m in the store and you got forty nine on, um, doing some math saying, that’s worth a gallon of gas. Yeah. Right. You know, I’ll go elsewhere apart some for cheaper. Because I mean, now there’s the whole big egg dilemma. That’s occurring, you know. The price of eggs are rocketing. So it’s like people are starting to get more price conscientious since a butcher that hole where we’re gonna move on. Yeah. That’s right. They’re nice. They’re they’re worried about the price, you know. And they’re they’re looking a lot more closely at what they purchase for what value. So as a a your lumberyard, you’ve got to really work on, I guess. Looking at how do we service the clients better than the other blue and the orange? Sure in it depends on what your your demographic and new target market is as well. Right. So I will tell you if you asked me, who do we like to sell to.

[00:35:32.100]
I want to sell to the professional, that’s who I want to sell tea. Now, that’s a very vague term and I’ll go into like, who is the professor?

[00:35:39.200]
Who is the professional Matthew?

[00:35:40.600]
The professional could be on the industrial side, the Professionals of project manager and estimator that needs product, and excellent, right? Okay. The professional on a residential side, could be the Builder that builds 60 houses a year, the custom guy that builds three or four. I’m good with that. On the DIY side, you’re building a deck in your backyard. You’re the Channel and I’m perfectly fine. Selling you the professional a deck package and honestly it’s kind of easy typically, because you come in and you have no idea what you really need and then we get to walk through it and then you get to see some of the value in the service that I can provide, right? Somebody who knows exactly what they need. And it’s just a list on a page, they’re probably more

[00:36:25.700]
Shopping what the number actually is because they know everything that they absolutely need. They’re not looking for anything, right? So, the professional is, our is our customer of choice, is not the only customer that we wait on. I love little miss Sally. That needs to come in, and buy a screwdriver. It just takes a lot of screwdrivers to add up to a, like, a truck of lumber, or a truck of windows and doors and leaves the yard, right? Two different things. So when we’re trying, Trying to get to the professional. That is it’s an interesting. It’s an interesting mindset of what we need to do. A lot of times, delivery is a big deal. We have the biggest delivery Fleet in Baton Rouge between the two yards and that’s a huge deal to have same day delivery have cheap delivery in relative terms nowadays. Like,

[00:37:18.800]
When you’re offering cash customers delivery at thirty five dollars. That’s a pretty cheap delivery. When home depots. Seventy five to one hundred. Right. And they’re gonna get it too. You know, I don’t know for five days. May mean, maybe if you’re like, um, so deliveries a big deal coming in in getting knowledgable people that help you is a big deal. And like, truly want be there. Um the joke about like the uniform thing. But I really do think it makes a difference because no one else has that some other people may have their logo on a shirt and they have six different shirts. And you don’t know what shirt has a logo on from behind or anything like that. Like if you’re walking to the store near your customer, you need help and you see somebody in blue. It’s one of us us. Just say, hey, sir, can you help me with this or hopefully we’re coming up to you saying, hey, you look in confused, right. You look like you’re looking for something. Exactly right. Um.

[00:38:11.600]
So I think that that’s an interesting Dynamic and that’s what sets us apart a little bit for whether you talking to us on the phone, we’re trying to be easy to do business with talk to us on the phone. Give us a credit card, will get you something delivered same day next day at this point that did reach out like during covid that may have been three days and not gonna lie. I think everybody would then want to go in the store. Yeah. So you’re so here’s every demand was looking at you in the store, you walked in the store five feet and you’re like, hey can you give me a screwdriver off of aisle 6 and hopefully I I’d like the right brand that you wanted are walking back, dial 6. After I show it to you one time, right? So, that’s a little bit of what makes us different from from really a professional side. And I contractor side. We’ve got some guys who do estimating for us that our in-house with a computer program, that provides that print.

[00:38:59.600]
In show. Great, three-dimensional. Images of like, this is where the lumber is going in your house because if you’ve ever seen a construction site, it’s muddy. It’s nasty. It’s wet right? The contractor ass like, hey, we sweat, send me on. Oh, I see because we live in Louisiana.

[00:39:15.700]
That’s why it’s always well. Somebody’s building a house down the street for me and I drove by them. Like it’s just it’s exactly as you described. What? Muddy and wet Amaya. Wow. Why is every site like this?

[00:39:24.900]
Always like that. So then we deliver A truck or two trucks of lumber. Well, do you really think the framer, the framer toes were, some of that stuff goes. Right? But does he know where all of it goes, right? So if I can give him a little bit of a roadmap of like, hey, look at these plans. We reproduce layouts on the sets of planes and we have to say like these boards. Go hear these words, go there for Joyce and rafters and how to frame it. Hopefully it makes everybody a little more.

[00:39:55.600]
And then when the framework calls a builder and says, hey, I need ten more of this. The builder says, why do you need to more of that? Because it was laid out and you should have what you need, right. Um. So I have a lot of faith in those estimates. In a lot of times we give a builder an estimate. And that estimate is for sixty five thousand dollars and has all these product categories that we talked about, right? And I know what happens. It’s sixty. Five thousand dollars is plugged into a budget and then they move on right. Because everybody’s busy. Everybody has stuff to do. Do they know? Really? What’s encompassing inside of that in what? We are responsible for right? Um. And so we have to be every lumberyard has to be very good and what they do when it comes to estimating or it’s a real quick way to piss off contractors, if you tell Mummy, sixty five and then have to all the bills get settled. It’s eighty five.

[00:40:48.900]
Where does the 20 grand come from?

[00:40:50.900]
Yeah, that’s a steep jump to. Yeah, I would agree, right?

[00:40:53.400]
Like we, somebody missed something or somebody got something got refrained. Like every building gets built a little differently, right? If you have 10 windows in your house, you should have 10 Windows. You shouldn’t have nine. You should have 11 right? Well yeah, 450 studs. And you have thousands of boards that can get cut. All kinds of different ways, who’s to say, it’s going in, right or wrong. Like, that’s a tough one. In the way that I think it’s supposed to go in. I’m just looking on a sheet of paper, that’s not the real world either. So sometimes I’m wrong, sometimes they’re wrong, sometimes we’re all wrong, right? And we can all be right and it be done different ways.

[00:41:27.800]
Sometimes a customer and residential walks up and goes, you know, I liked how we had a triangle there. Let’s make it an arch.

[00:41:34.600]
Yeah, the customers never will never know. That is the only person who is never wrong, it’s the customer.

[00:41:42.800]
Was that question to cheffy when he comes back.

[00:41:47.500]
He is never

[00:41:49.400]
That’s funny.

[00:41:51.300]
But yeah, so so that’s a little bit. How we differentiate ourselves and, and something like Windows, it takes a long time to get in, right? So something takes now normals like 6 to 12 weeks, to get stuff, which isn’t bad. Some things were a couple of weeks, right? But if you mess up, one thing that has a six week lead time. Like I got you 11 windows but I can get you 12 and the 12th is going to take another six weeks? Yeah. Well, now you got inspection problems. You got water problems, you got. I just want to close this close that window and you you would think, right?

[00:42:21.800]
That’s what we try to do, what Their window above, save some money and you say suck the window above the, the key on the sink in the kitchen. You don’t need that, just close that off. Just close that off their win over the tub. That’s like the focal point not. You don’t need natural light. That’s weird. Yeah, yeah. Natural light in the bedroom, you know, just open the door to the bedroom to get your natural lighting. That’s exactly right.

[00:42:39.900]
Exactly, right. So that’s some of the things that we can differentiate ourselves between other lumber yards between other.

[00:42:47.600]
Home centers or however, you wanna call that? Yeah. I think it’s it’s kind of along the same lines of like what habitat for humanity does. So they’ll like, assemble the walls. They’ll assemble the parts of the roost. When the volunteers get there, they go stand the wall up. Put nails in the floor. Yeah. Stay on that wall up nails in the floor and it’s like, oh, everything’s done. Why don’t you go volunteer service? I’ve done it before. Yes. Yes. Yes. So we sell to him now. And it’s funny. It’s like you always get it. You always get a delivery either Friday or Saturday. Because that’s when the volunteers come. Yeah. Like we know exactly how that works. Yeah. But I think doing that you are providing a service that should make the builder more efficient if it’s right by saying here’s where everything is going gonna go. Here’s how it’s gonna be laid out and do y’all mean.

[00:43:33.800]
Do you go so far to even like start marking the boards where it’s like you get those sheets from those assemble packets, 3a’s for bees to seize it. So it’s funny like different markets are all a little bit different, right? If you go further north, where the houses aren’t is complicated to build in the roofs aren’t as funny as of a design. They’re all trusses for roofs, right? So then you’re standing up walls and you put up trusses and then you’re done with it, right? You go a little bit further and you get like, pre-cut Panels. So, we’re like you’re standing up like a whole panel of a wall all at once, as sheathing, studs sheathing, the whole nine yards on it. So people send out. And what that does is if you have four walls in a building and I send you four panels, you don’t have any waste, right? So it doesn’t matter how you cut it, you only have four to go along with that, right? So, it cut,

[00:44:25.200]
He cuts out some of the ways in the fudge factor that you have in all of this and it’s like, hey, I gave you a bid for sixteen thousand dollars. It should you should be able to frame this for 16 thousand dollars because you only have four walls and a roof and I’m giving you all of that for it, right? Louisiana. All of Louisiana is not like that especially when you get the Baton Rouge and further south some of that’s when restrictions right? Like so for hurricanes and things like that, you have to do certain things certain ways because code dictates it, right? A lot of it is architectural and Aesthetics, and you’ve seen houses that are built in Oklahoma. They a lot of times don’t look that good not for South Louisiana, right?

[00:45:06.400]
That’s we were

[00:45:07.600]
Wait. We were just heading to Nashville. We stopped at the new, the new Bucky’s and Mississippi. Yeah. Oh. Housing project around the Bucky’s. And you look at everyone in the houses and you’re like, they are exactly. Yeah. You’re like the sixty fourth house on the right. That’s right. That’s yours when you pull on that street. Right. Like yes, you’re there all exactly the same. But then you go down any street and like Baton Rouge for the most part and no two houses are going to be the same. Oh. We have some of those pockets? Right. Yeah. We we do so happens, and there’s nothing wrong with those are some builders I love doing that. And that’s what people people like to go look at a package and select a B or C. Right. And then boom, it’s done. And the builder knows how to build it. But even a bnc look a little bit better than up. North ABC. We just build things you know. So that’s that’s part of the reason. Why? Some of those things aren’t done down here. Um. And when you get into more cut up houses that have more twists and turns and our pitchers like you just you have to frame them. Eventually you can’t. You can’t use trusses and wall panels.

[00:46:06.400]
Like that. Yeah it’s all got to be personalized at that point. What a great custom custom wheel of custom down here that we do. So being fourth generation of an owner of homes. What was it? Like growing up in a family business atmosphere? You it sounds like your family business atmosphere is a little different than most, which means, like we’ve had Benny’s Car Wash on here and they always talked about going into the business going. With the family and being the next person in line. But it’s almost like your dad was like, no, go work for somebody else or for you even think about coming work for us, which I thought was a great way to handle it to be very honest. And some of those were like four week summer jobs with a builder who was remodeling something. So he needed just a grunt to tear stuff out. And when I was in high school, I was a good grunt. When I was in high school, I worked out perfect. Right?

[00:47:00.800]
Yeah. I mean, I work for bouquet in the blow as an estimator for them for a couple years in college. And then we move to Shreveport my wife, and I for four years, and I worked as a superintendent for homebuilder. So I was on the other side of the desk knowing like, oh, hey, the lumberyards pissing me off because they’re not getting me whatever. They need to be, getting me right? Hey, Dad, ship something to Shreveport Police. Yeah, not exactly. As a little wild side of our running light, but he always thought it was important for me to have some experience in the real world because working in the family business doesn’t isn’t necessarily for everybody have a sister that doesn’t work in the family business. I love her, she’s great, she is great at what she does, she worked in the business. One day with me, I was in sixth grade. She was in ninth grade probably, and she swept floors and I swept floors. And I was last day she ever did it, and she was way smarter me. She went got a babysitting gig and got paid like twice as much money, right? For like the next six years.

[00:47:53.200]
Um. So it’s not for everybody. I think he wanted me to experience something outside of the business and then kind of figured. And I’m speaking form of like, well, if you don’t like that, or you did like the business, if you come back, you can come back. And if you don’t want to like, let’s stay in touch, and we’ll figure out a transition plan right now, one thing that he was very big on and did a very good job. And it was a very smooth transition between him. And I anyone really, really well, um, not. Because I did anything special because he had played it for forever. And he knew this session play knew. And he knew what he wanted to be retired. And he worked really, really hard for a long time, and kudos to him. He does a really good job of saying retired and traveling and data stuff. So maybe one day I can grow up to be like him. Well and I think it’s also.

[00:48:43.600]
The element of how you were brought back in. You know, you said you started an outside sales job and it’s almost like he didn’t because that’s one thing with family businesses that people get concerned about. You’ve got folks that have been with the company for 10-15 years. And then all of a sudden, the story of prodigal son, who come back now. Matthews going to come, he’s going to be CEO, sweep it out from anybody else have an opportunity to go up but it sounds almost like you put you in the fleet was like, you got to work your way up to understand. You got outside experience with everybody else. Who worked for now. You gotta know how we Really work. I agree. It’s look sales. You mean, you got to be able as a business owner, I should be able to sell better than anyone else that works for me because I should have more knowledge about what’s going on in the industry. I should be more confident, that’s just one of those things and without getting out there and doing that, a lot of times you’re not confident in a sales role like we were joking about cold calling or Builders earlier. And what do you need to? Tell me how to do that. Cuz that’s like that person. They got sales skills, right?

[00:49:41.300]
Um, so that was a little bit of what I learned throughout that we have an outside salesman. That works for us today that when I was coming to town dad told everybody like he’s moving micro Shreveport, he can be working. The companies we worked on outside sales so on and so forth.

[00:49:56.500]
And it was probably mixed reviews.

[00:49:59.800]
I’m sure it was, but I just remember one salesman saying, like, you know what, I’m really excited about this because I want to work for this company for a long time. And if Matthew You didn’t come back like the assumption is that he would be taking over at some point and he’s going to pass me up in that journey and he was OK with that because he knows he has stability in the business and in the job that he loves as opposed to me. Not wanting to come back, dad, still wanting to retire and then what happens there, right? Do we sell it?

[00:50:29.900]
Does it go to somebody here and like and then everything goes downhill? Right. And so he saw me coming back is like, oh, this is a really good thing, because now I have stability. I had something that he knows. I have to work for it because I got nothing else to do. Right right. It’s like, what do you? What are you going to do? Yes. I’ve got a business there magically, and that there is a component that is also a true element of being a family business is in the fact of when you see somebody come in the family business, who is a next air next ascendant. You get that sense of comfortability. And that sense of okay, they’re gonna at least continue on for another generation. Right. Right. Or they’re gonna come in and totally botch it and leave one of two ways. Can you get both? But you can do about any in-between. No. There’s no between they’re not gonna do a halfway decent job of running a company. You never say. Oh yeah. That’s my boy. He’s.

[00:51:20.900]
He’s doing okay, mediocre, he’s mediocre, he’s out there, he’s running out of the ground. It’s not going to be your next two years or it’s they’re taking it to the next level as they’re really working with a team. Everybody jobs. Well, it’s a really great transition because as a, a child of a business owner, if you’re given that amount of trust, generally, you don’t want to mess up. Sure, because they’ve shown you and you’ve seen the late nights, the missed meals, the Mist events and you’re like, they busted their butt to get to where they’re at and I don’t to be especially when you’re forced generation, you don’t want to be the generation that the business ends with. Yeah. 2’s. Yes, Crush. It’s like wait for like you got to keep this thing going. Right to is like, well they never really got it off the ground. You know, every now and then I get the lowest I’d like, you gotta, you gotta keep working.

[00:52:07.000]
So he should one thing that he said, and it sticks with me and I think I’ve done this is he always wanted to surround himself with people that were smarter than he was right? Because some point he was the young kid coming into the business, right?

[00:52:21.900]
Going like I don’t know everything about this. So I need to learn from others and I think I’ve done a really good job. Our management staff assistant managers just team members in general. Like I think we’ve got, it’s really cool. I mean so we have 100 about Hundred and seventy people. So it’s up to a solution of team members, right? It’s a bunch to sell a little bit of lumber. And basically, two locations, the showroom has half of a person working there, right? So, the majority is, in Baton Rouge and Denham Springs and it takes a lot of people. And it’s a lot of moving parts to manage all those people, but there’s not one person that doesn’t like, it’s not me that does it? It’s the whole team. Yeah, it’s a team effort. So, and with that,

[00:53:04.100]
I think it’s a great segue into certain to wrap up the show where we have a few setlist of questions, I think are gonna go into that. I’m very curious of Arizona. Yeah. We’re gonna go on the fly on this because I completely forgot about that. Set list of nail full disclosure. Perfect. Perfect. So now I’m changing know. Um. So the last set list of questions we have the we ask everybody on the show we begin with what is something you did as a kid. You wish you could still do today, so I’m not going to say that I can’t do it today. It’s just more uncommon. Is team sports? Okay. Like how amazing is it to play on team sports? I don’t care what team it is. I don’t care what sport it is.

[00:53:49.400]
But I think that teaches you a lot about life and how to interact with people and some of the camaraderie and the friends that you make out of it and I mean I could go get on like an intramural league and do like Tara else ACL or something fun like that, right? But in general, I’m not playing team sports anymore, right? That in high school, I never played in college. I was not nearly that good, but that was a great time in my life. Like it taught me a lot. I know I always wish I could go back there and I see See so my daughter does dance, which some of it is team? Some of it is so low, right? And then my son does basketball and a little bit of baseball and football and team sports. And I just, I want them to enjoy it so much. I don’t want to be like that. Dad, right? But I’m like inside, I’m like that Dad. I just hide it. Well, on the outside right now. You should have a great great job, but on the inside, like you better do better. Yeah. Come on. It’s about your game. What’s your? Let’s go.

[00:54:46.300]
Building memories. Yeah, I worry about that on my part because I’ll go to my niece and nephews sporting events and I’m that Uncle. Yeah.

[00:54:54.200]
My I’m way too into this sport verse which I have no skin in the game whatsoever to actually write on my I’ve got got a little, your great-uncle just for going. All right.

[00:55:03.000]
Now I’m like, I’ve got a one-year-old coming up and I’m like, okay, I have to figure out a way to either tone myself down or just fully on embrace it, where we wear it to where I walk while I walk on the field with what, with my up with my boy and they’re like, okay. Great.

[00:55:16.600]
He’s here that guy. Yeah, might be that guy cooler in the state and might be bad guy. I don’t know.

[00:55:21.300]
It just gets it’s like gets in you know you sit on the field and you’re like, okay. Oh, I’m into it. Like Q minutes. He warm up and then you’re like, you’re in it. I do a good job of holding it in.

[00:55:31.300]
Chiesi. I coach some sports when he was or but I can’t. I don’t coach dance and I don’t. I don’t coach any sports right now. And I try I try to stay out of it. I’ve tried to stay out of it peacefully as lucky. Kudos to you on that. Yeah. So what are three lessons you’ve learned along the way? I mean, you’ve worked for outside companies. You worked for your family business. You worked with your sister for a day. So obviously you’ve learned some lessons throughout your career. What are three? So that’s a good one. I’m I’m ah, to ponder this with a little bit, right. Andras. So I did have a ahead. A mentor of mine inch report. And I love the man named Steve Wardlaw. Ah. He he was. Um.

[00:56:14.100]
He was my manager and my direct report when I worked up there and I was building houses and I didn’t know how to build a house at all. Like I knew nothing about building houses and that was my full-time job.

[00:56:25.000]
Like it was, it was terrible. Like, I’ve just graduated college and that was what I was doing. So, I was screwing up stuff left and right, and I’m not going to say the company was working for either and well he will leave them out that those that shall not be named. That’s been a while ago now.

[00:56:38.200]
Like I’m we’re past the, the Louisiana New Home Warranty Act so we’re good. Hey, um. And he told Ha heard him tell a customer one day and I always take this to heart that what’s right is, right? And what’s wrong is wrong and just because you don’t like, it doesn’t mean that it’s not right, right. And it’s it’s less about the saying in more about sticking up for yourself of like, he had a customer that was mad at him about something trivial and he could have given in, but it wasn’t the right thing to do, right? So try to do the right thing.

[00:57:12.300]
In. I think that you’ll succeed in everything will be okay, right?

[00:57:15.100]
And I just, I remember him telling that person that and that didn’t help the situation at all, by the way, but I’d like that is always stuck in the back of my head and it’s like if you know, something’s right, stick up for yourself and you know, something’s wrong. You’ve got a cave early and just get out of it, right. It’s like if you know it’s wrong just get out of it. You’re done, throw it, throw it in reverse and just yeah I just I’m loyal. I’m so sorry I will fix this right now, right? And if it’s not, and if it’s right, I’m sticking to my guns on this one, right? Yeah.

[00:57:42.000]
So that was a huge lesson and it has really taught me. I would say humility just from how he grew up, how he lives today, how we live. I mean, it’s just

[00:57:55.800]
It’s humbling to see how he interacted with his team. And hopefully I do. I’m following those footsteps. I’m doing a halfway. Okay job, right. Um you can ask some people that that work with us to find that out. But Dad was always humble. Um. He was not a yeller. And screamer, that very rarely happened. You knew when Dad was mad. Right. Like you. It didn’t take much. And you knew when he was mad, but he treated everybody with respect, in know, really in a tough industry. Sometimes people are your money. And sometimes you get sideways on things and stuff like that. So it’s ah, it’s not an easy industry to be in. And I’ve never really had somebody say like, oh, hey, your Dad did this to me and I can’t stand him or this happened like everyone has. And everyone has always said good things about.

[00:58:43.800]
Yeah, because he treats people, right? And he’s humble about it, right? So that would be my second thing. I don’t know, we’ll come back to my third thing. After your third question about that, okay, sounds good.

[00:58:56.200]
So my third question is what is something you love about Baton Rouge?

[00:59:03.300]
There is I’ve lived a couple other places, we travel a lot and there’s a lot to love about other places but like why do we always come back to Baton Rouge, right? Like all, it’s not the prettiest scenery. I’m not a hunter, and I’m not a Fisher, really, which is a weird thing to this weird thing. In south Louisiana, Louisiana, weird thing to be, I’m like, in the wrong place, right? But it’s got to be the people, right? Like they’re just, there’s something about the people and when you go other places, it’s not the same. And I know there’s Southern Charm and southern hospitality, and the cooking is great.

[00:59:38.900]
But it’s the way that people interact. You don’t get that in a lot of other places you just don’t. It’s a way that two complete strangers can sit down and talk and and it’d be just like we were friends, right? Like, I don’t know why this works and I don’t know why it works with everybody here, but I can’t say that. That would be the case. All around the country is not everyone has the same, right? So it’s the culture and it’s the people, it’s amazing.

[01:00:06.200]
Yeah, everybody is just They want to help in a way that they can sure and they want to be a part and do their part to do what someone else may need that they have that they can offer, right? so now the third lesson,

[01:00:22.500]
Alright. Ah. Let’s do the third lesson after the fourth question was the fourth pushing this off, man. I know. I know Airlines because people don’t procrastinate. What my mom teach me to have it there? Yeah. We think it actually I don’t know. Keep going with the fourth. Okay. So the first question, what can I do to help you, man? This is helping us right. Like getting the word out about homes building materials. Um my best friend that I lived with for three years in college, we were out of college and he asked me when he’s like, Amy, I need to build a fence in my house. Like can you do that? And I’m like, I can send you the materials. Yeah. It was like, Wiley. That’s that’s what we do all day every day. Like that is like literally. Yeah today, yes. Smashers. Yes. So like, how does my best friend? Not know he’s like, ought to know you’re open to like the public.

[01:01:08.400]
And it’s like, the doors are open 7 to 5 every single day, right? So getting the word out like you’ve already helped write and we try to continue to do that. It’s funny. How many people don’t think? Are they get uncomfortable? Like whew, that’s like a, that’s a big store. That’s a that’s where professionals go to buy stuff. Well, that’s fine and they do, but we’ll treat everybody the same. It doesn’t matter. If you know what you need, if you need to build a fence and you have no idea but, you know, like why 50 feet this way, 50 feet and 50 feet. We can tell you what you need, it’ll be all right. Yeah, don’t, don’t don’t freak out. You know, there’s a lot of hand-holding store. Yeah, that’s right. But I mean, that’s what that’s what were there for. If there was a hand holding and you really do what you needed, you could go shop online from six different people. Right makes us a little different

[01:01:53.800]
So what you’re doing for promoting small, business is great man. I really appreciate it.

[01:02:00.100]
Absolutely, thank you for coming on the show, man.

[01:02:02.000]
No problem. What about my third less about say I’m still going to stick your finger down. We’re not done yet. Don’t ring the bell. My third lesson is probably My kids have taught me patience. Your upcoming child will teach you patience. They are. Yes, I am not a patient person. I’m not patient in business, I’m not patient in sales. Like I like to get the job done. And my kids, even though I may not be patient with my kids either, they teach me patience and they try to keep me patient. So it’s a never going challenge that I

[01:02:44.200]
Which transposes into life reality business. I mean, you have to be patient, regardless. Of what. It is. Sure. You know, we’ve been. We talked about your business. And people may see homes as a great big, successful business. But you’ve been around since the fifties. You know you didn’t start last year. Oh. There’s more. Yeah. Right now. Yeah. It takes time to build something. That’s worthwhile. Take it’s time to create something that people know is a household name or they know in general, you can’t just. I mean, there is a rare exception. But that’s not the norm. So thank you for coming on, man. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Appreciate your time and taken us down. Memory lane. There’s lots of memories. Awesome. The last two years I feel like mostly. Oh no lmao. Like what is normal again like? Ah. This is this has been a rollercoaster last couple of years. It’s fun like it. It makes it a challenge. And it keeps everybody on their toes and not getting too comfortable.

[01:03:37.700]
So I made last month were like we’re all sitting around going like man we could do so much more like this is crazy. Right? Like look of over used to like come on you know Bring it on I think when we look back and somebody make some documentary on this and we analyze the impact it had on people’s work ethic and their drive and what they really thought they had to do to make something become successful, we’re going to surprise ourselves because they’re going to see what type of work ethics could have been born out of covid. And those companies like I’m listening to good to great right now as my audio book, when I work out in the gym that’s got to listen to it. So thinking about his studies that he did in the 70s 80s and 90s I’m like someone’s going to do this for the years of covid and figure out what business is went from good to great because of the work ethic and just the pure tenacity, they built up during that Struggle Bus time frame to become what they’re going to become later. Sure. Yeah. If in five years,

[01:04:33.700]
What do what evolved over those five years that came out of covid.

[01:04:37.900]
Right? What what people took lessons that they had to implement because of the change in the economy, the whole world, that they’re sticking two, twenty three, twenty four, twenty Thirty, whatever year it is and how has that impacted their bottom line.

[01:04:53.600]
We’ve all got to be better this year. We all got to be better than we were last year.

[01:04:57.000]
That’s it. We are going to be better than we were yesterday. That’s right. So thank you, man. Appreciate your time and appreciate you coming on. On means a lot. Perfect. Thank you very much. So absolutely. I thank you. Everybody else for listening or watching the show, whatever form you are consuming us on. I’m very thankful and I know that the guests are as well. Look, guys, gals homeowners, self improvers, whatever you are.

[01:05:19.400]
Homes building materials. Sounds like it’s gonna be right up your alley. Especially if you don’t know quite what you need, they’re gonna be the folks they’re gonna let you know. Exactly what you need for every project. So we’re gonna link them up in the show notes. We’re going to tag them. I’m going to evince math. You get to Instagram and we’re gonna make sure everybody can access everything they need to for homes, building materials. So thank you all so very much. This has been a great eight episode of the Patty G show and a big, wonderful. Thank you to the amazing folks that make this possible each and every week here, a little bit more about each of them right now.

[01:05:47.700]
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[01:06:16.200]
Thank you all. So very much for listening to this episode of The Patty G show brought to you by government Taco. They’re located on the corner of Government Street and Jefferson Highway J is always slinging up a new Taco of the month. So if you’re a frequent or to government taco, let us know in the comments what you thought about this month’s Taco of the month. If you’re not a frequenter, maybe trying out this month’s Taco might just convert. You big thanks over to them a government Taco, for making the Patty G show possible.

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Thank you to Mercedes-Benz of Baton Rouge for making this show. Possible, Nick pentas is a past guest. We love having him on listening to him. Talk about the culture. They have over at Mercedes-Benz of Baton Rouge, is really an incredible thing to hear.

[01:08:04.700]
How they treat not only their employees, but every customer that walks through the door. You are more than just a number to them. They’re gonna give you that white glove. Concierge service. Every step of the way they’re gonna make you feel like family and take what can be a stressful time in people’s life shopping for a car. They’re gonna make it so enjoyable and so pleasurable you’re to want to go back there. Time and time again for every new vehicle. Thank you. So very much for Mercedes Benz and making this show possible. Thank you to our wonderful sponsor lake men’s health center with our the lake physicians, group guys. I know it’s tough to get out and go to the doctor. I know it’s challenging to find time in our busy days. But I promise you sign up to be a part of this group with Dr. Curtis. Jasmine and Dr. Tyler Boudreau. You won’t regret it for several reasons. But most of those being the fact of the time it saves where you’re able to get on the same day. Get that appointment done and spin that time. You need to talk with them. About what? Your health goals and concerns are as well as and.

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And ladies, if you’re shopping for your man, there is no other place in the Baton Rouge area to get your clothing. Whether it’s game day needs every day, needs business attire, formal attire, whatever you want.

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[01:10:03.700]
Thank you so, very much to Currency Bank. I proud sponsor of the Patty G show. If you are looking for a business bank, that Fosters on Three core values, relationships service and Technology Currency Bank is the place for you. They Pride themselves on convenient, accessible and secure online banking resources, where you can manage your account. Balances initiate transfers enroll with East Asians and more via their online portal between the relationships, the service, and the technology, they are going to be that partner with Your business, every step of the way, regardless of what you need Currency Bank is the bank for business owners.