I had to eat, sleep and breathe it.
Welcome to builder nuggets hosted by Dwayne Johns and Dave young. Hey, our mission is simple, build freedom. We are a couple of entrepreneurs turned business coaches who have dedicated ourselves to helping our builder remodeler clients create the most rewarding businesses in the industry. My co-host Dwayne has been a successful builder and remodeler for over 30 years. He's seen the highs and the lows. From the beginning though, Dwayne has been on a quest to find a better way to run a contracting business. In 2016, he found that better way. That's how I met Dave, a lifelong entrepreneur and visionary who measures his success by the success of those around him. He reached out one day with a formula on how to transform my business and the rest is history. Since then, we've teamed up to help hundreds of contractors like you build better businesses and better lives. Now we've decided to open up our network and share our secrets so we can start moving the needle with you. It's collaboration over competition. Each week, we bring together industry peers and experts who share their stories so that we can all build freedom together.
Our guest today started out as remodeler and subcontractor that took on various small projects, his persistence and appetite for continuous learning, transformed his business, living stone design build into the award-winning custom home and renovation firm that it is today. He is responsible for leading his team general management and guiding clients through the design build process.
(01:24): His dedication to the industry is undeniable. He was elected as president of the Asheville HBA in 2008, earned his accredited master builder designation went on to serve as president of the North Carolina home builders association and was named certified green professional of the year in both 2017 and, and 2018. Not only has he consumed a vast amount of industry knowledge over the years, but he shares it with others as well through the North Carolina builders Institute and other national programs, you will find him facilitating and leading classes on a broad array of
(01:57): Topics. I've had the pleasure of getting to know him over the last several years by attending many of his outstate and in classes. And it's my pleasure to welcome Sean Sullivan of Livingstone design builds from Asheville North Carolina. Welcome Sean.
(02:09): Thank you, Dwayne. It's a pleasure to be here.
(02:11): So your office is actually in a small town called black mountain North Carolina, which I know very well do a lot of hiking and outdoor activities around the area, but Asheville's the larger city nearby. We've kind of mentioned that, cuz I think many of our listeners have possibly heard of that. I mean the growth in that entire area out there has been incredible. Asheville's certainly on the map, my destination for folks all around the world now, what is, what is going on out there? Why are so many people flocking to the area?
(02:37): Well, yeah, we're we serve the Asheville market and we're actually, my wife's office is in west Asheville and, and I'm in black mountain. So the opposite side of town and we opened up a store, Ian Asheville. So we're moving all three offices to that store location to be more central serving that Asheville market within about an hour geographically. But that's kind of where the market has D differentiated itself as geographically is, you know, you're gonna go down the mountain or you're gonna go through the mountains. And so people love coming here to get away because it's removed in that regard. You gotta come up the mountain to, to get here. And once you've arrived, it's just a completely different climate. So people are loving that. They're loving getting out of the the city, whether it's just for a short getaway or if it's to move. And so we've, we've seen a huge influx, especially during this COVID transition. Yeah, for
(03:34): Sure. We've talked to some other builders, even some folks that have been guests on the show over the last year. And some of those areas are certainly seeing lots of growth and it is it's there's beautiful weather, a lot, lots of reasons why people would, would want to go
(03:45): There. Sean, you, you started out as a small remodeler and subcontractor and, and made, you know, the transition or the progress to be, to becoming an award winning custom home builder. Now what did that journey look like for you? Walk us through how you got started and, and what's changed over
(04:03): The years. All right. So yeah, I, I went to college, got a degree in business and promptly became a laborers helpers helper. on a job site. I was the least qualified, most educated did person on the first job site. When I, when I went to work for a builder here in town and learned construction, residential construction, I had grown up doing carpentry. So I, I, I learned residential construction in that atmosphere and it was really good for me. But one day you know, everybody in the office got laid off because this builder was going through some financial issues. And I went straight to another job site and started hanging siding that day and never went home. And that's kind of how I got propelled to work on my own. And we did subcontract labor for about two years. And then we, we basically worked our way into the renovations market. So we did a lot of roofs and siding and trim jobs. And then we started that transition went into basements. And once you start getting into basements, the projects grow and scope as you know. And so I needed to get my license and once we got license, we started building homes and working with architects. And that's kind of how we worked our way up.
(05:24): Sean, was this in the, was this in the Asheville area? Western
(05:27): North Carolina or, yeah. So I've had the privilege of building my entire career as an adult in Asheville, before that I grew up as a, a military brat. So we moved all over the country. So I've been all around the world and lived different places in the world, but I've spent my whole adult life in the Asheville market.
(05:46): What were some of the big lessons that you learned as you went through that transition? Did you find yourself hitting little glass ceilings along the way and having to adapt or, or was it just a slow, steady, even progression bigger and bigger?
(06:00): Well, you definitely have your glass ceilings. For example, going from subcontract into remodeling was a scary step because you go from working, you know, a steady pace with established builders to finding your own work as a remodeler and then going from there to bigger projects. That was my biggest challenge was how do we get into the new home market? And I almost hung it up at that point. In 2001, there was a slight recession and I looked at alternate career paths, decided that I wanted to go ahead and pursue building new homes 100% and got licensed and started working with architects. And that was probably the biggest barrier to breakthrough. And then once we did it was really just a matter of applying the concept, the Japanese concept of Kaizen, which is continuous improvement. And every time we do something, do it a little bit better. And so that's our company philosophy. And we have done that every year, year, over year and increased our staff and our profits year over year as a result. So it sounds
(07:04): Like the two biggest shifts were when you went from having somebody, bringing you the business to having a go, go to go out and get the business on your own. And then the second one came when you made the shift or you started to work with architects and, and become part really architecturally driven. Would that be fair to
(07:20): Say? I would say it's very accurate. It's exactly what happened.
(07:24): Obviously you've consumed knowledge. You've you've also got to the point where you, you share knowledge great collaborator. That's one of the big things that we are promoters of here on the show is, you know, not only learning, but sharing that knowledge in the beginning, like in early says, how did you, you, how were you consuming the knowledge? Where were you going to get it? You know, like where were you going for continuous education to learn
(07:44): More? Yeah. For your breakthroughs, your own breakthroughs that you were having. I mean, you can do it all by yourself or you can, you can go out and find it.
(07:52): Yeah. So what I tell my boys that are that are growing up and they've become men now is I had to eat, sleep and breathe it. So back then you could watch television shows where they actually showed you how to build things. I don't know if you remember you know, the old, this old houses and this old house. Yeah. And there was a, there was a spinoff show that was a husband and wife and they were, they were really good at showing that. So I would watch that all the time and any spare time I had, I was reading books. I read every trade book. There was listed in the licensing board, prerequisite for training, masonry books, framing, books, trim books. There was some online research that you could do at that point, but really between the reading and checking out trade magazines, and anywhere I could find the information, I just was a, a sponge until I could build a house from the ground up in my mind and understand how each component fit together. I wasn't satisfied,
(08:49): There were some great ways to collect some knowledge back then. And I remember I was just, I used to, I couldn't wait for the latest issue of fine whole building to come out. Yeah. It was one of my favorites, you know? Yeah. That's where you were kind of consuming it. Who were you collaborating with or when did you start to collaborate? Was that through HBAs? Was it other groups? I know you've I think you've also been involved with some builder 20 stuff. Yeah. So
(09:09): I had I, I joined the HBA in 1997 because our insurance agent lane, how workers compensation worked and how we could get a discount on our insurance, through Bill's mutual insurance. And so I started getting involved with the HBAs and I ended up becoming the local president in 2008. So I got on the ladder around 2003 and started working on committees. And yeah, you just, you're a sponge there. So you're sucking up every bit of knowledge you can from their educational events, their meetings, collaboration with subcontractors and vendors and other builders. And I just, I really enjoyed that the iron sharpening and iron, Dwayne,
(09:50): And I had to laugh a little there because when we asked Eric Anderson in our show last week about his entry into the home builders association, it was very much insurance driven as well. Yep. And, and, and it's kind, it's, it's kind of funny that
(10:04): I think he said it, it started with insurance and a buffet. Yeah.
(10:08): That's that's maybe. Yeah. Yeah. So often people are looking at a, a home builder's association for, you know, what's my return. What's what am I gonna get for this? And not yet at the stage where they're realizing all the benefit comes when you start contributing and developing the relationships and the network. And that's clearly been a path for you to the point where you're at the, the apex of leadership there and education as well. So quite a, quite a ride you've been on from, from insurance to leader.
(10:39): Yeah. And then from there, I started working with the state HBA and I was a regional vice president. I worked on committees for the state. And then as Dwayne said, I was state president 2015. During that 10 year, I was introduced to NC B I, which is a North Carolina building Institute. And you serve as a trustee when you're on the leadership ladder. And I never came off of that. I've been on that about 10 years and I enjoyed it so much. I became an instructor. That's how Dwayne and I met. And so I still enjoy doing that traveling and educating builders, but I also am part of act a part of NHB and a chairman of the single family committee this coming year 2022, and really enjoy the benefits of networking with builders across the country. And non-competitive markets. We talk
(11:28): A lot about collaboration here and, and you, you certainly are a hard proponent that, and follow that. And out of some of those things that you've learned through collaboration, and one of the points I wanted to get to was we're big kind on vision, making sure that people understand, you know, it's one thing to have a vision, but you've also gotta get your team and, and folks to follow that vision. Are you currently, like, are you following a vision? Did you have a vision you spelled out when you started to build your team to get your team on board we're proponents of EOS, the entrepreneur operating system. There's other things out there. Is there something there that you guys are you know, kind of rally behind? Well,
(12:01): That's a, that's a big question to answer. The EOS makes me think about my builder 20 group. And I've got a bunch of guys in there that follow that EOS our vision at Livingstone is the, we will be the most respected name in custom home building. And that's a lofty goal. Of course you'll never get there, but the idea is that we're all pursuing to be the best that we can individually and corporately. And if we're all trying to be the best that we can, then we're always gonna have that Kaizen principle, which is, you know, just continuous improvement. And so we do that by paying extra attention to our staff and to the, the people that we bring into our culture. And so we follow a philosophy. That's Patrick Lenchi, he's got the ideal team player, if you've ever heard of that.
(12:49): And the ideal team player talks about three traits that you wanna look for in team members. That's are they hungry? Are they humble? And are they smart? And the smart is not book smarts, it's people smart. And so if, if you look for ideal team players to hire, and then you train the people that you've got to be ideal team players, they'll either become that ideal team player or they'll self eject. And when you have a culture of ideal team players, people that are humble, hungry, and smart, you just are set up for success and that's, that's kind of what we've done and what we, what we strive to be.
(13:25): Yeah, that's, that's a really powerful statement there. You know, one of the things that we talk a lot about too is attraction, and obviously you've, you've been doing the right things to attract those types of people, but what sort of things did you do even in the early days of to get those types of people on your team?
(13:41): Well, in the early days, you know, you're just, you're stumbling. You're, you're trying to find people that that number one have skills. And I think that's where usually our interview process stops and falls short. And I think that's the mistake that most of us make even to today when we're hiring is just looking at people's resume. It's so much deeper than that. I taught a, I wrote and teach a class on best hiring practices based around going beyond the, the, just the experience. What, what is that person, how are they gonna fit into your culture? And so there's a number of books that I'll reference in this class and some indexes and some personality tests that we'll take, because you could find a great person and someone with great experience, but their personality and their personal profile, their interests are, are not necessarily suited for the position that you're hiring for, but it could be a different position in your company. And so you, I don't ever want to hire somebody and put 'em in a role that they're not gonna soar in. So it's really identifying where they're gonna soar and then plug them into the company in the right place.
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(15:14): Do you have any specific culture questions that are sort of go to questions that you or your team are asking when you've got somebody in an interview? Well,
(15:24): Yeah, so the, the, the ideal team player there's a website you can go to and there's a test. You can a, you can send your applicants or your team members, and they will, you know, come back with a, a result or a score showing where their strengths and their weaknesses are. And then based upon that, you can ask questions to clarify further, and that is an incredibly helpful, that's one of the tools that we use.
(15:49): There were a few go-tos that you, you had in every single interview that, you know, a real become real, either eye openers for you, or even, you know, take non-starters depending on the, the responses.
(16:03): Well, with the ideal team player, if somebody's shows that they are hungry and smart, but maybe not as humble, you, you're gonna ask questions around humility to see if you can identify if this person does struggle with humility or not. Okay. That's one of the things that we we use, but one of the, the indicators that I'm thinking of that you're alluding to would be on our application, where we ask, you know, list the last three places that you worked list, the person that you worked for what you liked most about the job and what you like least about the job. And when I read those answers, I usually have a pretty good feeling of, you know, what type of person I'm getting ready to interview. Did they answer that question respectfully, you know, or did they just trash the person that they worked for before? That's usually a good and indicator. That's,
(16:54): That's exactly where I was going with that because there's there are just some telltale things that, that, that come out in these conversations around people being willing to own their own mistakes or shortcomings in previous positions, or do they want to pin it on everybody, everybody else, just as a, as an ex. So
(17:15): Sean, you and I have talked a little bit, even in some of the, during your sessions during some of the breaks around the struggles that we continue to have all have when it comes to the workforce in our industry. And you know, I get involved in a lot of workforce development stuff as well, and with the struggles that we're having in the workforce today it's gonna be so important that we don't focus on, you know, exhausting ourselves, trying to find people that maybe just have the lengthy resumes and skill set. It's gonna be the people with the soft skills that we can take time to train and mentor and, and turn into, you know, the leaders of the future. One of the things we talked about on a previous episode was stop putting all your energy into finding the purple unicorn and, you know, hire the golden retriever puppy that everybody loves and is
(17:57): Easily trained. I agree completely. We use something called the predictive index and the predictive index is scientifically driven data that they've been collecting since world war II on how people think and how people work together. And it shows what your preferences, it shows how you're built, and then it shows how you operate at work and where you soar and where you struggle. . And if you take somebody and you put 'em in a position where they're not soaring, then they're gonna get burned out. And so if you can find somebody early on that fits the role of the position you're hiring for, they're much more suited to stay in that position long term. And so then it's worth training them, you know, exactly how you want to do the project or exactly how you want to do the job. Yeah. And those people
(18:55): That come on and you pour energy into and, you know, elevate them. Those are those ideal teammates that you're talking
(19:01): About. Sean, do you involve the rest of your team in the interviewing process? We we've spoken with a number of builders that are now having their project leaders or other staff members at the table, or doing second or third round of inter interviews around the team. How, how do you guys do it in your office?
(19:19): Absolutely. So we've identified a leadership team in our company and the leadership team is part of making broad decisions like that. And so I will do the initial job search I will recruit the candidates based upon some of these tests and these assessments that I'll send out. And then when I feel like I've got a number of qualified candidates, I will line up interviews and there's always more than one person in the interview. Sometimes there's three, four or five of us and , and usually we just need one interview or we'll do a, a virtual interview and then an in-person interview. But usually you can get enough information between all your screening and your assessments, and then a good in-person interview with multiple people to be able to make some type of, you know, assessment, if this is the right person or not. Do you find
(20:11): That you were as a group genuinely are generally consistent in your and having similar assessments or do you ever have, do you ever have scenarios where, Hey, there's somebody on the team who is just, just feels like, wow, this, I have a completely different assessment of the
(20:27): Situation. Well, when you sit down with the person, you've got all the paperwork, the printouts for the different assessments that we've done in advance of this person, and you combine that with the interview and how they communicate and present themselves. It's usually pretty consistent, Dave. Okay. Occasionally there might be a dissenter, but they'll acquiesce to the, you know, the general consensus, but usually it's, it's pretty consistent. Okay. Yeah.
(20:52): That, that's good. It's probably a Testament to the, the, the prework that you've done and knowing who you want on your team, knowing what's worked in the, in the past, but it's always fun to ask this stuff cuz sometimes you, you get the occasional wild story that, that that's entertaining. So yeah. All right. Well, thanks for sharing that. Yeah.
(21:10): So Sean, you've consumed knowledge, you're sharing knowledge doing a lot of the right things, built a great team for yourself. One of the things we talk a lot about here on the show is, is freedom, freedom in your business, freedom for yourself and others. What, where are you now? What has that done for you? I know you've got some other things going on. That's allowed you to focus on some other things, think a little bit about how the things you've put in place over the years have allowed you and others around you to start enjoying some of those freedoms.
(21:37): Yeah. So really it, you know, it starts out with soul survivor, right? You're trying to just survive and pay your bills and then you start to assemble a team and then you gotta worry about providing for the individuals on the team. And then once you, you get beyond that, where you've built an organization and then the organization can, you know, ultimately run itself. If, if you set it up, right, you start looking at the much bigger picture. So you're looking at community, you're looking at your industry as a whole. For us, there was a couple ways that manifested one in teaching really just enjoyed networking with other builders, just like you're doing with this podcast, taking a subject, becoming an expert on it, writing on it and then going around and teaching on it. I enjoyed doing that. B being a green builder, we really discovered that indoor air quality was the hidden subject, the subject that was overlooked and green building.
(22:29): When you ask people about green building, they usually think of, you know, recycling something, buying local, solar power, all those things are important, but really think about in order to build green, you have to build energy star, which means you're building a tight box and now you're breathing everything that is inside that tight box that you just put in there. And how does that affect your health? Well, since COVID people have thought more about that, but they're still overlooking the fact that construction materials are dangerous and can be hazardous to breathe. So you gotta pay attention to that. But even beyond that, we were designing green and building green. And then we were in the keys to our clients. They were moving into the house and they were moving in their own furniture. The furniture's off gassing and they're breathing inside this type box.
(23:13): We just built them. And so we became convicted that, oh my gosh, we we've designed green. We've built green, but we've not taught our clients how to live green. And so we came up with this concept of whole living, designing green, building green, living green, where we explained to our clients, all right, we've built this type box. You've gotta really pay it tension to how it's ventilated, how the environment works and, and everything that you bring into the house. And so we had to go out and we had to find furniture makers that were cognizant of this. And for example, a sofa can poison you six different ways. One piece of furniture, just the food in our sofa can poison you in a lot of different ways. Well, yeah, we ask we ask our clients, do you eat organic? And they go, well, yeah, I go, what are you breathing?
(23:58): So, you know, a sofa, you got the frame, you got the finish, you got the fabric, you got the filler, you got the flame retardant and you got stain repellent, six things on one sofa that you're sitting on. Think about your bed. How long do you lay in bed each day? A third of the day, right? 6, 7, 8 hours. And you're laying on that mattress. Well, what's that mattress made of not only are you breathing it, but your skin is touching it. And so we around vendors that are interested in indoor air quality and using natural products and chemical free or low toxicity or no toxicity products. And so we put together this furniture store because it was too big of a, a subject not to be able to share with our friends that were builders, designers, architects, and realtors.
(24:45): Yeah. That's very cool. So that store is that then that's in collaboration with your wife, correct. That you've opened the store and it sounds like you're gonna have it all together pretty close to your building business all in the same building. Is that correct?
(24:55): Well, because we're both in the trade, Dwayne, we felt like designers were getting snub designers are are the ones that typically instigate furniture packages when you're, when you're bill or remodeling, you know, obviously you have the public and the public is always there, but designers, you know, put it all together for us builders, whether we're part of the package or not. And so we really designed it based around the trade and then educational events. So we really educate people on why they should consider green furnishings and building even over buying furniture. So we opened the store and we're getting ready to open a second location in cashiers. And so that's one of the things that we've been able to do beyond just the building and design business. The other thing that we, that we are, we've just launched this last fall was an initiative just outside. I had built more village called the Asheville design district where there's an established footprint between I 40 and Bilmore states, Swan river road and sweet Creek road, where there's about 60 businesses, small businesses that are all designed related and every great and successful city has some type of design district. And so we've identified the Asheville design district and we're starting to collaborate the 60 businesses together to work together as, as one reason for people to come to the town and to support these small businesses and improve that, that whole corridor.
(26:23): That's great. And you're solving a need, but it's, it's clear just in, you know, in the tone of your voice, that you're pursuing a passion, which is the, the freedom part that we talk about, you know, the fact that you've gotten into a position where you have the time to pursue these things and you're having fun with it, correct. It's not, it's not like you're adding work.
(26:40): No, it's, it's a lot of fun. You're exactly right.
(26:42): That's cool. That's very cool. We always like to ask this, Sean, that's a little bit of what you're working on now. What else are you excited about? Is there anything, is there a trend that you see in the industry? Is there something happening in the organized home building community or in the industry itself or Hey, just something that you're fun and, or, or you you're excited about that you see as a, a totally fun opportunity to, to share with the, the audience here?
(27:08): Well, the, I think that there's gonna be a lot of changes in the next 10 years in our industry. There's some things that you can clearly see writing on the wall. One of 'em, you know, labor and land availability is shrinking, especially in our markets in North Carolina, right. I mean, we just don't have access to either, so we're starting to build further out. And labor's becoming more of a strain. And so what I think that is gonna do is it's going to increase the likelihood for modularized products. They there's been a, a limitation to, you know, big builders coming into our market because geographically, it's very difficult to build on a mountain slope here with some type of predesigned building system. But I think that we've already got a foundation system that's like that superior walls. You guys probably are familiar with that. Mm-Hmm, , there's another system like that, that we're using up here, but I think that's gonna become more common.
(28:09): I think that as labor becomes more of a challenge, especially as a result of inflation and rising costs, it makes it even more difficult to keep labor here. I think housing is going to continue to get much more exp. And so then what is that gonna do? Well, that's gonna probably shrink the overall builder market. And I think ultimately it's gonna be big box builders and it's gonna be high end custom home builders. And there's probably not gonna be a whole lot in between probably not. I think that, although the there's a huge move to buy things online when you're buying furniture online, it comes boxed up, which means that it's typically gonna be made of from aldehyde board, which is highly toxic. And so when you're looking at put together furniture versus is nontoxic furniture, I think that gap is gonna mirror the same building gap. So high end furniture is going to be on one side and then you're gonna have put together a furniture on the other end and there won't be much in between. So I think there's gonna be some big shifts in the next 10 years. And it's really gonna be a bigger disparity between lower coming, upper income.
(29:28): I think you're, I think you're right. I was, I was reading something the other day on, I, I couldn't believe the number of modular home builders that are actually on the verge of going outta business right now, simply because, well, one they're struggling to get product, but two, they can't get labor. Yeah. You know, that's something that we know we need because it's gonna help reduce the cost and, and time to build some of these things. But a lot of these places, whether it's panelization or modular homes, they're located in rural areas and they're struggling to find people. So I, I think you're spot on. And yeah, the workforce and pricing, it's gonna be a challenge. That's that's not gonna end soon need Michael
(30:02): To fire up that massive 3d laser printer.
(30:05): Yeah. 3d printed homes. Yeah.
(30:08): I mean, that's an option, right,
(30:09): Right. Stuff like that is coming we're we're on the precipice of a massive shift. That's gonna coincide with a gigantic change in the economy all at once, all at the end of this decade, a court to Connor lo car from yeah. From during, during that rowing twenties episode. But sounds like you got your eye on that too, Sean.
(30:29): Yeah. I don't think there's any avoiding technologies is putting a huge play into it. Technologies replacing human interaction and human touch points. And so what is that gonna do? It's just, it's it's a bigger gap to divide, I think.
(30:44): Yeah. And I think the industry has to realize that don't be threatened by it at all. You know, because I mean, you're not in a way, I mean, if you, if you can get things to be penalized marginalized, that's really just moving the jobs indoors and probably moving the conditions of the jobs better, frankly. Sure. You know, that's the way we have to, we have to look at it as something that's gonna be in opportunity. So yep. Sean, you know, always, always appreciated. You're gracious with your time. Thanks for being on here for folks that are out there and would like to learn more or connect with you, how can they find you?
(31:12): Yeah, sure. Livingstone design build.com and@telemaisonco.com are the two companies, but I'm always available through those. And we, we we have a join us tab on those websites and we have people submit things all the time, whether it's for a job or if it's a question. So feel free to use that venue as well.
(31:32): Very cool. Thank you.
(31:34): All right. Thanks man. Thanks
(31:36): Guys. Have a great week. I appreciate you inviting me on your show.
(31:40): Hey, thanks for listening, Dwayne and I love hearing from your stories are inspiring and your challenges can be overcome.
(31:46): Got a cool tip idea for a show problem that you haven't been able to solve, or maybe just struggling to figure out what you need next and where to get it. We can help hit us up@buildernuggets.com and start building freedom.
