Legacy, Longevity and Lead-Gen with Mans Lumber

Speaker 1 (00:00.386)
founded in 1900. So you’ve withstood two pandemics, two world wars, a housing bust, right? The dot com bust, most recently of global pandemic. So you got to be reinventing yourself and your headquarters caught fire and burned to the ground.

1900.

Speaker 3 (00:16.194)
That’s another crazy story.

Welcome to bull horns and bulls eyes. The podcast where precision meets promotion. I’m Tom Nick. Thrilled to have you join us as we discuss the ever evolving world of sales and marketing.

and I’m Curtis Hays.

Speaker 1 (00:34.542)
Every week, Curtis and I bring our own specific experiences and expertise, along with a special guest who has stories to tell and lessons to learn to share. We’re here to help you with strategies that hit the mark and amplify the marketing. Before we kick off today’s episode, make sure to hit that subscribe button to stay in the loop. And if you find our discussions on Target, leave us a review. Your feedback means a lot to us. Now be ready for insights, tips and conversations that will up your marketing game. It’s bull horns and bullseyes.

with Curtis Hays and Tom Nixon. Let’s rap. Doug and Megahn, welcome to the first ever in studio recording of Bullhorns and Bullseyes. The first ever. We’ll see if it’s the last ever as well. Curtis, now we can see we’re in the same room for the first time.

Right.

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 4 (01:22.286)
We are in the, well, first time on camera. True. We’ve been in the same room together.

Yeah Yeah, but I mean for the podcast I don’t know if the camera can get he’s in full garb right now. We’ve got the boots on let’s see the boots And the cowboy hat so right on brand looking good. You’re looking good Yeah, and we are live in studio at oxy the gold standard in IT Thank you to the generous in kind support from our friends at oxy

the boots.

Speaker 4 (01:51.054)
This is also where the BLTNT podcast is recorded. We are, we are. It’s exciting.

Yeah, we’re in good company today. Yeah, so today we’re going to be talking about a couple different things. We’re going to be talking about a legacy business that has lasted generations celebrating 125 years this year, man’s lumber at home, as well as sort of the how over the years the guard has changed and maybe how the marketing has evolved because our audience and our our bailiwick is marketing and we’ve been partly along for the ride and it’s been exciting and we want to share with our

audience, some of the things that you’ve learned and you’re implemented. first, Doug, president currently, you started in this business as a wee lad, I imagine.

I did, we all started, know, most bands have started when they were 14, 15 years old, sweeping the…

a warehouse and stacking lumber, making sure the wood was nice and straight. you know, was summer times where that was our jobs. And it was fun. We drove truck, did the whole nine yards. But, you know, I’m fourth generation. I’m lucky enough now to be working with my children who are fifth generation. But I worked with my dad. I worked with my grandfather. And then unfortunately, I never knew my great grandfather, who was the founder back in 1900. And back then it was horse and buggy and delivering coal.

Speaker 3 (03:05.684)
Yeah. And they said, hey, you got a horse and buggy. Can you deliver lumber? So then we started a lumber yard. They said, hey, you’re delivering the lumber. Can you have the hardware and the paint? And so then we got another thing. So we’ve evolved. I think it’s a I look back then and I look at us now, we just keep evolving. think you have to keep you you have to recreate yourself very frequently to be successful.

Absolutely. And so if I’m doing my math correctly, everyone knows I’m an English major, but founded in 1900. Withstood two pandemics, two world wars, a housing bust, right? The dot com bust, most recently of global pandemic. So you got to be reinventing yourself and your headquarters caught fire and burned to the ground.

1900.

Speaker 3 (03:50.478)
did well it was that’s that’s another crazy story is that it was 1975 and a guy didn’t like the two by four he got so he came back that night and burned our store down in the front the ironic thing is two years prior he didn’t like his haircut and he burned the barbershop. Oh. Ironic funny but the neat thing of that was it taught us a lot is we burned down and the next day the community.

Wow

Speaker 3 (04:19.361)
You need an office, you need a desk, you want trucks. mean, it was, and it’s because we had given to the community, but it was, it was like the worst time, but everyone came together and made us better and stronger. So, I mean, it teaches you a lesson.

I think that’s what every pandemic and everything you just mentioned has done to me. It’s made the company stronger, better, and somewhat.

Great.

Yep, and so fifth generation Megan Mance Curly who heads up the marketing effort. You just brought into the world the sixth generation. I did

Yes, he is the first of the sixth generation born. great. So I mean, there’s no one else that’s pregnant, right?

Speaker 3 (04:54.414)
And Graham and grandpa love him.

I bet. And then you started in the business as a wee lass, I would imagine.

No, no, I didn’t. When I was 16, I started babysitting and I said, dad, I want to work at Mann’s, but the family in babysitting is paying me $6 an hour more. And I said, can you match my pain? He said, no. I said, okay, then I’m babysitting. So no, I did not start at Mann’s. And then when I got to college and I got another nanny job that paid me, and then I said, dad, they’re paying me this much. He wouldn’t match it. So I said, I’m going to just keep nannying until I graduate.

I didn’t start working at Man’s until I graduated college. So at 22 years old, I started working there. And when I came into the business, I was a kind of rotational program where I was rotating through different departments. I started, well, just, you know, everything happens, but I started shadowing around and then I got thrown into the counterceival department because my colleague was going on maternity leave. Then Man’s bought Dilman and Upton.

and they needed some help with collection, so I stayed there for almost a year, and then I started doing facilitation, and then the lady who ran our marketing department gave her two week notice and said, moving to North Carolina, and she had worked at Mann’s for over 20 years at that point. So within two weeks, I was thrown into marketing, and here I am.

Speaker 1 (06:15.694)
So we heard off air why your dad got into marketing. We’ll keep that off air. So, but was it just me or did you have an interest or a background in marketing that said this is the hat I want to wear now?

I had an interest in it. I wasn’t uninterested in it, but Erica, who had worked at man’s prior, she was a forlifer. Like she had been at man’s since she was 17 or 18 years old. And then she wasn’t going to leave until she retired. And then her husband’s job took them elsewhere. So I never really thought there was opportunity in it just because I knew she would be there. but it was something I was always interested in. So

Megan has a creative side of that, or go in the kitchen and bath. So she has a flair for that. And for us, I’m old school. Give me billboards, give me radios, give me flyers. Let’s send out circulars to everyone’s home that no one looks at. I’m old school. that’s when I started when I was 23, 24, I was the marketing person. And that’s what we did. You sent flyers and circulars to people’s homes every week.

It was a lot simpler back then. mean, that’s when I got into this business. It was where do you want to buy your ad or which PR firm are you going to hire? And now here we are, Curtis, you know, the year 2025 and the channels are endless. Right. The audiences are fragmented and you have more things at your disposal, which sounds great, but it’s also more challenging. You’ve got to figure out where to spend a living.

It is more challenging now, but the legacy marketing activities are kind of coming back because we want authenticity, we want tangible things, but the future was basically as we came into the digital marketing side, tracking everything, spending money across various different channels. And I know that was one of the challenges you had, Megan, when we first started talking a couple of years ago is here was another company that you were paying that was

Speaker 4 (08:00.468)
spending money on advertising, but you didn’t know what you were getting for it. So here it kind of feels like that money is going out into the void, similar to the print side of it, where, hey, it’s going to people’s homes, but you don’t know, is that ending up on the refrigerator that they’re going to use it later, or they’re getting thrown right into the trash?

And one thing I should say is he’s very into billboards and radio, which are wonderful, but he doesn’t, he doesn’t know anything about Facebook or Instagram. He thinks Facebook’s called FacePage. so he didn’t even know you could market it through those things. But I’ve embraced it. You have embraced it you’re totally on board.

We’ve got great people. You know, you got to bring in great partners, great vendors. And, you know, we’re lucky to have like you helping us and it’s made us better. And I’m a believer now.

I like our primary focus has been prioritizing marketing channels that we can track that are measurable. And we’ve really done this through performance-based marketing and lead generation initiatives in like since we started working with you.

She’s speaking my language. I said performance marketing.

Speaker 1 (09:07.47)
I not mine. I’m more old school like that. That’s why we’re called Bullhorns – and bullseyes, by the way, because the bull horn is when you broadcast your message to the masses and bullseyes are the things that you guys are talking about, which is tracking, targeting, right? And then you can now understand where that ad spend is going.

Yeah.

school we started probably 24 years ago advertising Trex decking. We’re one of the largest Trex deck distributors in the whole country and we’re really people go oh Man’s you’re that Trex guy but we started billboards and radio and we’ve done a good job on it and we’ve been consistent. I think the one thing I’ve learned through all this be consistent.

And I think if you’re consistent and you stay the course, you’re found eventually. if you’re whimsical and you go everywhere, I don’t think your message is heard. it’s been strong. And now you take what we did and with what you guys are doing and what Meghan’s doing, and you’re like, yeah, this is really cool.

And yeah, and I think it is like you. My main thing was when I came in, I like to see where my money’s going. so billboards radio, we still do and we love them and we’ll never get rid of them. But I wanted to know like every dollar we were spending, who was the person or what was the audience that it was attracting and coming from someone that is it gets fed ads all the time and often clicks on them. I was like, this is something I can buy into.

Speaker 2 (10:35.788)
where I’ve never passed a billboard and like followed through with what was on the billboard. But whenever like I’ve bought many things off an ad on Instagram or Facebook or clicked on a link and filled out a form. And so it is it was something that I thought would be beneficial to me and having multiple product product categories and just consumers that we wanted to be able to follow through with and.

And we’re, you know what, it’s tough because we have consumers that are in their 20s all the way to their 60s. everyone has a different.

you have a home right? Yeah, we’re there for all homeowners.

think that’s the, I think the word is balance because like you said, some of the old school tactics are coming back. as you’ve demonstrated yourself, staying around for 125 years, you had to stay the course, but you had to evolve. And I think that’s what we’re seeing the smart brands do now is a blend of traditional, blend of data or new tools. how, give us some specifics. What are some of the things you implemented first that maybe the prior generations did not?

Yes, I think it would be

Speaker 2 (11:40.066)
lead generation was something we had never done like through Instagram and Facebook and then SEO and SEM and tracking. Like we track every call that comes in and we convert it, we say if it was a lead or if it wasn’t and then that gets fed back into Google. So this was all stuff that was due to me that Curtis had taught us how to do and how effective and efficient it is and how it’s able, how your cost per lead.

can decrease, but your leads can increase, which has been like mind-blowing to see what Google and the algorithm can do once you start feeding it. You just have to feed it, and then it…

Exactly. Yeah, so Megan came to us and said, we’re spending X per month and we have no idea what’s happening with that money. It’s just going out into the void of the internet. And so are there ways that we can start tracking what we’re doing? And so that’s what we implemented. with Performance Max campaigns and DemandGen campaigns and other things that Google has and the conversion APIs also that Facebook has.

we can inform the algorithms in real time what’s happening. So what was implemented in a sort of simpler sense, like Megan was saying, is as the leads come in, we’ve got a system where the sales team can provide feedback as to whether or not that was a good lead or a bad lead. And then that data is sent back to the tools. We’ve talked about this a lot on the podcast.

And what’s been really interesting about that is when we first started it, we would get calls that would come in that like maybe someone like a word would be millwork. And so someone would call about millwork, but it’d be like some exotic piece of wood from who knows where. like, no, we don’t have that. But as we’ve been feeding the algorithm, the leads that come in for millwork are mill like stuff that we have in stock. Yes, exactly. So it’s interesting to see once you

Speaker 2 (13:26.2)
Give back, once you feed back into the system what you want, it.

That’s where your cost per acquisition goes down, right? You’re more quality leads and you’re not spending on waste. That’s one of the problems with billboards and TV and radio is you’re paying for the waste. So but at the same time, you can’t achieve mass recognition or brand awareness by targeting just specific people. So it’s a blend of the both.

Right.

of Blundes Key.

I do. I have been thinking recently, like it’s a, it’s a huge puzzle and you need all the pieces, but they have to work together like to complete the puzzle. And so we have, I mean, any form of marketing you can think of, have, we’ve done, or we are currently doing at some point. And they really just all work together and you really hope that like that homeowner that saw that billboard will get fed the ad. Like, I mean, you don’t know if that’s the case, but, or get, they see the TV commercial, but they really.

Speaker 2 (14:23.352)
They help each marketing channel helps the other one out.

It’s that marketing mix we talked about in the funnel and awareness and interest and consideration. And then when I am doing a renovation or I need something and I’m like, who was that voice on the radio? Who was that guy? it was Doug. Yeah. And then they think mans and then that’s who they go and search for. Yeah.

So walk us through the rebrand from a couple years ago. So my understanding, because I actually have a friend who’s a contractor and I knew of the name Manz as a supplier of lumber. Was that always the case and until recently or did you just lean into we need to broadcast more that we serve the homeowner directly?

Man’s started, one thing that’s cool is Man’s has always been changing with the times and with what the market needs. So when it started with any man, the sons, cause Nicholas August started and he had sons that worked for him. Then it went to man’s building centers. And then it went to man’s do it centers because of all the hardware. And then it went to Manslumber and Millwork. And now we’re at Manslumber and home. So it really like through the different stages of

the history, like whatever the homeowners or the builders.

Speaker 3 (15:37.318)
Yeah, we we’ve always been heavily towards the contractor so it may you know man’s lumber like here lump me a lumber you feel it’s a builder yard you feel the contractor is going to come to the yard and But we’re much more than that we really went went home Depot and all these boxes showed up We said we can’t out we can’t fight the pig in the mud. Let’s be a niche So we went to higher end projects and nice displays and like what Dillman has here in Rochester And we do it out in Canton so we said let’s become more of a niche place

And so we couldn’t just be lumber. We wanted to be millwork. But then we said, what is millwork? And so we said home. So really anything you want to improve in your home, we can help you.

I think we wanted to be more inviting to the homeowner because we would always hear like, we didn’t know we could come in there we thought it was just for builders or like we thought it was just for the contractors we didn’t know as a homeowner we could walk in there it was intimidating so we thought that man’s lumber and home soften the name and it shows we’re for the builder and the homeowner we’re for anyone come on in

And we changed the color. We were red, now it’s blue. It’s a friendlier and the font’s different. we worked with a couple marketing people. we all had, it’s funny, because every family member had a little something to say about it. And change is tough. Change is difficult. But we all agreed that, you know,

We need to get the homeowner, but you know Michigan’s a mature market. We’re not in the southeast It’s gonna grow by thousands of homes and we have to we know that we’re gonna go into people’s homes that are Need to remodel not build new and what are we gonna do for it? And that’s just for the next 20 years So Megan and the fifth generation can have a successful business So, you know, I think we have the foresight to change it we’ve had great feedback. Yeah

Speaker 2 (17:20.619)
Yeah, I agree with that.

Let’s get back to the bullseyes a little bit. So the data for the two of you. So maybe talk through some of the things that the data was telling you that you had to listen to and maybe either double down on or move away from or change and evolve.

Yeah, what’s really interesting about how the data works and you’re mentioning like keywords and this experience where yeah, you were getting people who weren’t quite the right fit. It was like the algorithm figured it out on its own. So what Google’s doing now is trying to figure out intent. So we don’t have to guess at the keywords. We’re not putting a thousand different keywords into a campaign. You know your customer really well and you did that research to figure out your branding and those types of things. So by telling Google who your customer is or telling Facebook who your customer is,

It can help you go and find more people who those customers. So it moves from this not search based form of marketing, but an intent based form of marketing and to hit those consumers at the right times, depending on where they’re at in their journey. If you’re doing an awareness campaign, let’s hit them with some awareness that’s at some lower cost. If they’re in the middle of a remodel and they’re looking for somebody, you’re going to pay a little bit more. But Google knows, hey, they’re in an intent purchase based part. That’s that funnel we’ve talked about.

And so then it’s serving those campaigns at the right spot there. So it is a full on marketing mix. And since putting this all together and being able to track it, I I don’t want to, I don’t want to spoil it because we might have some competitors who are listening. But we’ve certainly, you know, driven, we haven’t changed costs at all. That’s one thing we stayed with the costs you were doing before, but the leads have increased and improved. have visibility. We’re making good decisions with where we’re putting our money and

Speaker 4 (19:04.232)
In somewhat of a tough economy, at least as far as it comes from home building right now, you guys are actually doing pretty well, right, Doug?

You know, we had our company meeting here in Rochester two nights ago in Canton last night and we’re up in cash sales. Our charge sales, builder sales, new starts are down probably five or six percent. Our cash sales are up three to four percent. For us, it’s who we’re pushing through the door on the region.

And that’s often how we measure marketing.

Because the builder relations are already established relationships and those types of

And that’s a rightful approach. We’re one on one with those guys. So that’s encouraging. I looked at retail, just retail. And it’s up about 6%. And we look at marketing, and it’s totally because of marketing.

Speaker 1 (19:46.83)
And then wholesale size dictated in large part by pipeline, right? would imagine. So if people aren’t buying, then that part would be either static or going down. Was there a particular data point as somebody who wants to see the numbers that you remember seeing something that was like, aha, we need to this this changes everything?

well, I think just the data doesn’t lie. That’s what’s really cool about performance based marketing is you can see exit. Like I think the main thing was how our leads were increasing and our cost per lead was decreasing. We were not spending any more money and the say our cash sales were going up. And so it’s interesting because like we’re a seasonal business. So if we have a rainy week, we’re

slow like because the builders are not going to build in that rainy week. But the walk-in traffic is still strong. The phones calling in are still strong. Like yesterday it was 100 degrees so people weren’t really coming into the yard. the phones I I saw more more phone calls yesterday come in that I’ve seen in a long time. So people were still calling with interest which is cool to see.

They were sitting in their air conditioning cars.

But thinking about what they needed.

Speaker 1 (20:59.33)
Right. The phone is an old school method of communications, right? Can we talk about what you discovered the moment when you were looking at the data and were advertised digitally, but the leads are coming in.

Right. when we’re marketing a website, typically a business wants somebody to fill out a form. And that was the main measure of how you were tracking leads previously were form submissions, both through Facebook, as well as the website. we said, I think the first thing we looked at with your website was you’ve got

seven locations I think that we had on there and from a mobile experience perspective it was like three or four clicks to get to a phone number. And so the very first thing we did was put the phone numbers right in the menu so that somebody hits the menu they’re listed right there the location, the city and the phone number right next to it and I think we had a 75 % increase in call volume as soon as we did that. And then from there it’s really just been tracking

you know, quality and then the other thing that we’re noticing here recently is the Google business profiles. So now, we notice that people aren’t going to the website and then calling the Google business profile. And I was showing you this actually earlier with Google’s change the search result page where the businesses, the local maps are more prominent than your organic listing. So that’s what they’re seeing. And they’re given the opportunity to call in that map.

most recent finding.

Speaker 4 (22:25.954)
versus go to the website and then call. So Google’s even reducing the number of clicks.

70 % of our calls were coming in through our Google.

Correct, three times. From one location. We only tracked one of your locations.

People don’t even make their way to the website, so increasing our Google page and optimizing it.

Yep, that’s the new hack that we’ve been talking about is treating your Google business profile like a social media actually, posting things there because when people do the search result, they’re looking maybe to call you or find a location. What’s the first impression? Is it just a blank page or is it 125 years of business? it whatever? Here’s the finer points of bill work, things like that.

Speaker 4 (23:05.254)
If we stay with phone calls, tell me a little about the story you were saying with the folks behind the phone who have been answering and how much fun they’ve been having with the phone calls.

Our two receptionists, obviously answer the phones and then transfer them over to who is calling. But then they are the ones that go through and determine if the lead is a qualified lead or not. And they are so into it. like enjoy listening because they go back and listen to all the calls in their free time. So they like get really into it and they’re like, that person was so rude. And so they love it. It’s like the highlight of their day. like.

One of them said to me, can you put more money into this so we can get more calls? Yeah, and their engagement is what has really changed the game.

Because of their engagement.

Speaker 4 (23:49.742)
Yep, and you said this to me, Doug, back in almost a year ago, we had a meeting, you said, I want to get my salespeople more involved with the marketing. And I was like, immediately thought of this as one way to do it, is to have them involved from giving us feedback. So we call this closed loop marketing, where sales gives marketing the feedback to let us know what’s working and what’s not. We’re all in it on the success together. And it can be sort of fun, you know, in that process.

Yeah, great job. Yeah. Yeah, very cool.

So here we are 125 years. We got some fun things playing this year, right? What are doing to celebrate?

She’s been playing, I’m just signing the check.

I’m the party planner. We’re having a big anniversary party in September for all of our builders, vendors, past vendors. Every employee are old employees, retired builders, just people in the communities that have had an impact on MANS. So we’ll have a big celebration in September. We’re planting trees in our communities because we’ve cut down a lot of trees.

Speaker 3 (24:50.542)
Not personally

and we’ve sold a lot of trees. And then we’ll be building duck boxes.

We’re, you know, we love the outdoors. So we’re gonna work with ducks on limited Michigan. We’re gonna build 125 woodbuck, woodbuck. Wood duck. Yeah. So it’s kind of cool. And we did that as kids at our farm in Canada. And because of that, we have this great like flock of wood duck there every year. And it’s just kind of.

Bye.

Speaker 3 (25:18.776)
You one of the things that we live to as a family, one of our things is leave it better than you found it. And so we want to plant trees. We want to create better nature. And we all love the outdoors. very, you know, we spend a lot of our time and passion in the outdoors. So it’s important to us. So that’s where we’re going to put some of our time and focus.

And I’ve seen some of the before and after photos. You definitely leave it better than when you found it in people’s homes as well.

That’s what’s funny. Yeah, that’s kind of, you know, that’s always been our philosophy. But you’re right. It’s it’s what we do every day. Right. And, I was taught it in nature. Like if you go to the stream or if you go somewhere, look behind you, is there garbage? Did you leave it better? And we didn’t. We get a little, you know, kick in the rear end. So we were always trained that way. And it does fit into what we do every day.

And so that’s sort of the back to the generational story is that it’s each one that you know takes on the mantle has to be challenged with leaving it better than they got it. So here we are your fourth generation. And at some point I would imagine you’re handing the baton to fifth generation.

fourth generation.

Speaker 2 (26:18.488)
He’s never gonna retire.

You

But now I will you know what it’s my dad till he would you know he passed a few years ago, to the day And sat at his desk and say hi to the old customers, and that’s one cool thing about like

He was in the office the week before he

Speaker 3 (26:37.408)
I have people come in from three remember you help me with that project 30 years ago, Doug I’m like I do remember that’s awesome. We give each other a hug and like it’s the I don’t I’m getting old for God’s sakes, but no those are that’s the rewarding part of

So I’ll ask you both. So the next 125 weeks and the next 125 years, what do you hope to accomplish at MANS?

You go first. You probably thought…

You know, mine is just everyday make a difference. I think if you take a day at a time, just make a difference that day, help a customer, help an employee, make it better, whatever. We are our own worst. We critique ourselves a lot and we’ve really, we’ve grown a ton in the fourth generation and it’s going to look different. We look different than we did.

25 years ago, they’re going to look a lot different. And maybe it’s not exactly the same, but I think being part of the improvement of people’s homes, my dad always said, we’re not in the lumber game, we’re in the shelter. And everyone, have, you know, clothing, shelter and food are kind of basics. So we’re in the shelter business and how can we help people make sure that they have a great shelter to live in or, you know, work out of whatever it may be. So I think that’s where we were thinking. I’m excited to pass out of the baton. We’ve got good, young kids coming up.

Speaker 2 (27:57.708)
Yeah. think one thing you mentioned was the fourth generation has grown the business a lot. so in the next 125 weeks, I think one of my biggest struggles right now is we have mans, we have Dilman and Upton, we have legendary Millwork, we have integrity component design, we have Michigan Timber and Trust, and we have Curtis Builders Supply. So we have this huge family of brands and these are thing companies we’ve acquired or that we’ve started. And so trying to find the best way to effectively market.

I don’t even know how many companies that is all bring them all together because it’s a challenge. Yeah, it’s a challenge because it’s hard. You have to spend more money because you’re trying to market different companies.

been a challenge. Our growth has been awesome, but probably Mark and that’s been a challenge.

And to make it even more complicated, Man’s Lumber, said, we changed our color to blue, but the builder side is still red. Man’s Lumber in itself has the red side and the blue side.

Think there’s gonna be a follow-up episode

Speaker 2 (29:00.312)
In 125 weeks.

The other cool thing we really will do is help our customers with marketing. I think that that has been really to me once again, like if our customers do well, we do well. So if they win, we win. And that’s always been if they are losing, we lose and we got to figure out how to help them win. So maybe go into that a little bit.

Yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:23.084)
Yeah, I would say our, our custom work, we’re partners. Like they’re not our customers. We’re partners. We want them to succeed. If they grow, we grow. So one thing we realized with a lot of these builders is they don’t have me. They don’t have a marketing person. And so they, they don’t know how to spend their money, where to spend their money. If they should even market most of them, just like put money. Cause they want to be first on Google. Like that is all their dream. And.

So we’ve really partnered with them to figure out how to market their business, when they should spend money, where they should spend money, who they should go to. So Curtis, now you guys help some of our deck builders. So yeah, that has been really cool to partner with them. And we’re in the relationship game. all of our, whether it’s a homeowner or a builder, we want a relationship with them. We want to get to know them. We want to help them, their family. So it’s really been fun to like, there’s a new

deck builder and he’s young, he’s close to my age in his 20s and we helped him with his marketing. He had to hire two new crews because his marketing helped his business grow so much. He needed two full new crews to help build decks, which he was like blown away because he started just old school. He was just going up to people’s doors with a piece of decking in his business card and leaving it on their front porch. And he just needed a little more performance based marketing.

I give you guys so much credit because the construction trades just generally are kind of old school, right? So they don’t, they never studied marketing. They probably don’t have the budget for a marketing firm. But for you guys to embrace these new tools and these new methodology, especially old school Doug over there saying, all right, I’m going to see, you know, have some blind faith and trust. And you’re showing that you get the results and it’s all data based.

Mm Yeah, no, it’s and we’ve done that in our business, too. I give us, you know.

Speaker 3 (31:18.926)
I’m the relationship guy, but I’ve got a cousin Pete who’s our CIO and he’s done amazing. We’ve embraced technology. We have a warehouse management system. We have a delivery system. We track things. We know when we’re on time, when we’re not on time. We know if we’re delivering in full, not in full. We’re trying to make ourselves better so we then can be a better resource for the customer. So the lumber industry is really not heavy tech, but man’s lumber is a leader in our field. So I’m proud of

Proud of that initials and that’s that’s kind of my just final takeaway is even Industries that might consider themselves old-school still need to adopt new methodologies And then just to go back something you said earlier Curtis I don’t know if you have a final thought on sort of coming full circle with old school now new school And then you said now we’re starting to embrace the more old-school seemingly old-school tactics even in the modern

Yeah, I think one of the biggest things that I’m excited about working with Manzon is more the storytelling, right? So they, and this is part of that, right? So there’s 125 year old business, these partnerships that they have, and there’s a lot of good successful stories in there.

that are with their partners and their builders, but also with the homeowners and those types of things. And really, it was just great stories to tell and marketing is a great medium to do that and really embrace the community and be part of that community, which you guys already are. It’s just kind of those stories invite them in to what you guys are building, which is really cool. And then you’re investing in the homeowner as well. I so you got Dillman and Upton and this whole new, tell us real quick about the new show.

Millwork showroom and because we’ve talked and we’re like, hey, how what does Millwork and you asked 10 people you’re going to get 10 different answers. So we have to say what’s Millwork and so you’ve got to really see it. And so we you know, they did a beautiful story model at Dilman Upton and it’s things that you want, you know, you can touch and feel and see and give you ideas and. it’s beautiful.

Speaker 2 (33:10.422)
And it’s just wow. Like it is beautiful. You need to go stop in.

And you’ve got a great staff there that educates the customer and helps them understand their design style and what would fit and all those. And those could be big projects if you’re doing a brand new home, but if you just want to spice up a bathroom or an office or a playroom for the kids.

It’s amazing you can spend a couple hundred dollars on some moldings in a room and it looks it makes it look like you put a $20,000 improvement in it. Yeah, I think you’ve done that yourself. Yep.

Yep. Well, my wife did.

Speaking of writing the checks, we wrote the check. She wrote the check too. And that’s in downtown Rochester? Yes. Awesome. Yeah. Looking forward to see that. Speaking of great stories, the 125th entire story is on your website. Yes. What’s the website address? Easy enough to remember. So thank you guys once again for being here. Thanks again to Oxium, the gold standard at IT for being our gracious host today and our studio audience. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (33:57.39)
at manslumber.com.

Speaker 2 (34:08.19)
All right. Thank you. you.

All right. And thank you, everyone else, for being here in the first ever, hopefully not the last ever live episode of Bullhorns of Bullseyes.