Dennis Oz: Welcome to the Remodeler Success Podcast. Today we have a guest who has been a significant figure in the remodeling industry for almost 30 years. I’m talking about three decades. He leads DreamMaker Bath and Kitchen. I’m sure that most of you know that is one of the leading franchises in the industry that offers really robust and support systems and high growth potential to the franchisees to help them achieve stronger margins and a greater success. So under his leadership, dream maker won numerous awards, and he’s also known for his commitment to quality innovation and customer satisfaction. What really excites me today is he also mentors the new remodelers and business owners and shares his insights and extensive knowledge and experience. So that’s why this is a really special episode for me. Please welcome the president and the visionary of DreamMaker Bath and Kitchen, Doug Dwyer.

Doug, welcome to the show.

Doug Dwyer: Thanks, Dennis. It’s a pleasure to be with you today.

Dennis Oz: Yes. Same here. Same here. Thanks so much. Well, let’s talk about a little bit of yourself before we even diving into the industry knowledge and all these questions that I’m going to ask you today. You have been with the DreamMaker for many, many years. When you just starting off, what really initially drew you to the remodeling industry and what kept you really passionate about it?

Doug Dwyer: You know, so for me, , I actually grew up in the franchise industry. So dating back to 1975, right? , when my father first got into franchising, then, so I been in a home service based franchise business.

We had car washes, we had, A lot of different companies, but ultimately grew in a service based franchise and ultimately into a company called Worldwide refinishing, which was tub and tile refinishing, , cabinet refinishing, restoring those type things, and then. As I took the company over, I evolved us in 1995, started moving us into remodeling.

And then ultimately in June 15th, 99, we changed our name 25 years ago to Dream Maker Bath and Kitchen, which is full service interior kitchen and bathroom remodeling. So, that’s what we do today. The passion that drives me is I really, want to impact people’s lives.

I want to make a positive difference in their lives, make a difference. Our tagline from franchisor to our franchisees is strong margins and quality of life. So we want to help our franchisees achieve that. Now they got to work hard to do that, but we’ve got Kind of like we’ve got the race car. We just have to teach them how to drive it and take the corners to be successful.

So, it’s not a magic bullet, but it is a success formula. To growing a business and making it better. And then frankly, from a personal standpoint, my faith really drives me is, , you know, is to love God, love people. And I just want to, , have that come across that I care and want to make a difference in my teams that way.

We have a, I mean, we have a top notch team. I mean, I’ve been blessed with some incredible people that from marketing to, franchise coaching, training, and support that helps, People really do things they’ve never done before.

Dennis Oz: This is, , great to have you here again. And it’s really great to hear about you.

I just want to talk about the history of DreamMaker Bath and kitchen before we even dive in. So what was your challenges in the past that you believe it thought you something And also you can share it. So our subscribers and also listeners can learn from that as well.

What do you think about that? Yeah. So, I mean, there’s plenty

Doug Dwyer: of challenges in business, especially remodeling, right? , all kinds of stuff can happen, but I’m going to take a big picture on this. I kind of take the bigger approach for us. And again, being a franchisor with franchisees in 24 states, over 40 locations, is that the real hard thing and is, you know, we’ve had carpet cleaning franchises and, .

Mr. Electric, electrical franchise. So those are single trades type things with remodeling. You’re dealing with a lot more complexity , than another trade. And I think that’s why a lot of people are attracted to it. They like the creativity, they like the challenge. So with that, it’s not enough , as a company, whether it’s an individual company, for us as a franchise, or it’s not enough just to have Good systems.

How do you train people on that? How do you coach them? How do you set Accountabilities in place so that they deliver excellence and customer service and quality work And so so that was probably one of the biggest challenges So we’ve had , you know many I remember creating in 2008 a thing called a quality assurance stat sheet with , 12 different categories from financial marketing sales design production, etc for And developing that and it was 15 measurements on average per category.

So 180 measurements to say, okay, if you’re going to run an excellent remodeling business, a lot, you have to do right. And now, they’re simple on one hand, but they’re complex because you need to integrate them together. , , so I think as we talk more, from talking with your previous Dennis, , we’ll help fill it.

Hopefully I can provide

Dennis Oz: some nuggets. Yeah this is great to hear. Thanks so much for dropping this knowledge here. We also would like to talk about the recent anniversary that you celebrated, and I’m sure that you have significant milestones and achievements along this way.

Can you talk about this celebration and then talk about some of these significant milestone and the achievements along the way? Sure. Yeah. I just

Doug Dwyer: literally got back. This Saturday, last week, we spent the entire week in Fort Worth, Texas, had our 25th anniversary celebration, franchisees from all over the nation.

And the cool thing is that people really love each other. They care about each other. So they, it’s like a business family, not just a team. And although it does take teamwork, right? You have to work hard, but as far as milestones, I’ll, I’m going to go chronological and give you a, just a handful of them. So one of the big ones was back in 2001 is really deciding what gross profit margin we were going to, you know, sell at, because if you don’t, if you don’t decide your economic model, then it’s very hard to make it successful and get the profit that you want out of it.

And you really have to kind of choose a market position. So with that today. We publish our performance in a, what we call an FDD, a Franchise Disclosure Document. In item 19, our average gross profit for our franchisees last year was a 43. 6%. That’s average. The top group was, you know, higher than that, you know, and a little over 50%.

So that’s us. So for us, we’re choosing quality value, professionalism, speed, choice, and convenience. So we’re really focused on the client and delivering full service design, build kitchen and bath interior modeling, or really a relationship sale. So. So that I would say one of the first milestones that we had, , another milestone was just kind of an achievement.

You know, we became, , the first franchise company to become professional remodel of the year with professional remodeling magazine. So that was, you know, the front cover seven page write up. So that was a, A really awesome recognition. , then in 2012, after being in business, uh, ou know, many years, we created a process flow.

, so when a lead comes in the door, how do you take it through sales? How does that interact with producing the job office? How do they support that in accounting? And, and so there’s all these steps so that you know what’s doing with a chronological checklist. So, so that was a real milestone building that system.

And from that We also had an aha is like, why is this one franchise that’s doing a million dollars, got, you know, a strong, a double digit net profit, they take vacations, life’s good. And then you have another location, a dream maker business that’s struggling at a million. And so what we. The big aha that we had in that milestone was that it came down to staffing.

It came down to the structure , and this one company was really staffed to be 1. 2 to 1. 7, not, you know, 1 to 1. 2. And so now we’ve created a, , Stage of growth map to a multi million dollar organization When do you add people on at the right time to maximize profit? You always have to take a step down to take a step up So always takes that step of faith to get there.

So so that was a , really big innovation in our history to get where we are today And I did make a note in 2017, another innovation is in training people. We actually have, , a new franchisee part of the training process, spent a whole week at one of our locations so they can see what’s the general management work look like?

What is sales look like? What is marketing look like? What is the office management and accounting look like? What does it look like in the field of producing work? So. People learn by seeing and watching others do it. There’s many different learning techniques. But that was a highlight in 17th. We’re really stepped up our, , our training to a whole nother

Dennis Oz: level.

This is amazing to hear because, we have a lot of listeners here. They are showroom owners they are sometimes just starting. And sometimes they have multiple places and there is a, pain when you’re growing. That’s something inevitable, that you always have some sort of like a struggle when you’re growing.

And folks, listen, you have ability To really copy and paste this million dollar company vision when you have this kind of systems in place because staffing is one of the things that you may be thinking, just like Doug said, you might be a really successful or if you put the wrong people to the wrong seat, you might be struggling with your growth over the years.

So this is very important golden nuggets, I would say, what I understand is DreamMaker by this way, just ensuring the franchisee satisfaction , you have a group of really happy business owners there, right? I am sure there is a little more behind the satisfaction. How do you ensure this higher standard of quality among your franchises and all your company structure?

Doug Dwyer: Yeah, so First of all, you have to set expectations right about what’s expected and what we want delivered, but I really I one of the biggest ways that we ensure it is, We have a code of values that we run the company on and so there’s a code of values. So we make it clear Here’s what we stand about stand for who we are And we go through that and frankly if a franchise a prospective franchisee looking at us You If they can’t get behind our value system and it usually it’s a natural fit they go like, hey, I live that I just never wrote it down You know treating others as we’d like to be treated believing in superior service success as a result of clear cooperative positive thinking communicating Any potential broken agreements at the first appropriate opportunity to all parties concerned.

So so values like that Counting our blessings every day in every way. So in that it’s choosing the right franchisee is probably the single thing that helps ensure because We recruit people that naturally care about people right that and that does it Then you have the systems and the structures and the training and then you measure it, right?

What you measure gets managed and so we we measure through , guild quality is one of the devices that we use , we also measure ourself as a franchisor with a company called franchise business review To make sure are we delivering on leadership and management and systems and training and living out our code of values.

And so the good news is, , you know, so we measure that. So we know we’re in the top 10%. Like we, we know out of 375 franchise companies that pay About 4, 000 a year to do this checking out. We know last year we were in the top 10%. , so that, , again, what measures gets managed. And so that’s, I think Dennis is a really big key.

Dennis Oz: Measuring, managing and improving is just like the perfect flow right there. And thank you so much for sharing this true wisdom with us. Let’s take the conversation to the actual innovative strategies and also technologies that you implemented for DreamMaker, , what tools do you use? You talk about a system that handles the prospects for your clients to have the contact forms and also website strategies. So what are the tools that you believe that is giving you the most benefit right there when you implement to your franchises?

Doug Dwyer: Well, there’s a lot of them. So we are fine. We’re at the stage. We call it a technology stack. So if you think about it like a brick wall, you’ve got all these different bricks, , from the, you know, CAD software that were used to design with the show clients. to estimating software, to your CRM remarketing, , to clients or lead nurturing the leads as you go along to having data, to know your closing ratios, to know where to invest money in marketing and where to back off.

, so there’s all of that. So what, , we’re at the stage of, you know, being in business 25 years is , what we’ve learned is. You work with some of these companies and your data gets kind of imprisoned into their system And it’s hard to get out or it’s or you can’t get all of it out So what we’re doing from an innovative standpoint, which is pretty leading at leading edge at this point is we’re building a data hub It’s also called as a data warehouse.

So it doesn’t matter what in that stack It doesn’t matter which piece of technology we’re using You We’re in the process of creating, , that environment where we own all the data. So even though it goes into QuickBooks or whatever, it’s all going to be owned in this data hub. We’re calling it the dream hub and capturing it all so that we can plug and play over the next 25 years.

And not go through some of the pain that we’ve had the last 25 years and, and be more nimble. Being able to pull up and move to be nimble to transition to stay competitive versus being so rooted in another system that, you know, you got to cut the tree down to make a transition and it’s just laborious and it’s not effective.

And so that, so for us, that’s one of the , big things that we’re working on out, you need all the parts and pieces and you need the excellence in those. And like there’s a simple tool. Well, not simple now that it’s built. It’s simple, but it’s a cashflow projection tool. So

Dennis Oz: it’s become simple, because you’re using it so frequent.

So it’s just, it

Doug Dwyer: was very hard to build and figure out how to build, but a cashflow projection tool based on contracts signed based on retainer sign based on lead flow with with kind of your ballpark on what that Lead is worth so that you could actually project out into the future 90 to 120 days to say, okay Here’s what our cash flow looks like so it also can help you see like oh, you know We’re going to be light in 120 days We need to figure out how do we figure out to fill that versus looking in the rearview mirror We’re using a tool to help project out ahead to help better steer in our organization and protect profitability and also customer service,

Dennis Oz: right?

Well, having all these tools giving extra power to All these companies are trying to achieve, the number one goal is helping our community folks. You are the kitchen designers and also like the showroom owners that you are selling your beautiful products out there.

Your main goal is to create beautiful kitchens and change people lives. And if you just Implement these smart tools to your strategy, you just heard Doug about it. He’s just talking about how they created these bricks and walls of these beautiful structure.

Dennis Oz: let’s say if you would like to take down the tree in seven hours, this first six hours you have to spend sharpening your saws, let’s put it in this way, in one hour when you have a sharper saw that you will take this tree down there so quick.

That’s what we are doing with the smart tools and smart strategies here. You can Also have your own footnotes over there to just to change your business for better. So that’s the main thing, not to complicate anything, but to simplify, the processes and workflows that you have, and then having more time to do something else.

That’s what Doug is trying to explain here. Once you have more, , automations in place, you have more time and more freedom. Even to think something else because you’re the business owner you got to think outside of the box You cannot do every single task in your business.

You have to delegate smartly these tools are giving you this convenience. So thank you so much for sharing this one. That brings us to another question. Actually, the technology just changes. Let me have AI right now We are talking about so many different things. We definitely need to create a culture Of a innovation and continuous improvement.

How do you guys foster it? Well, you know,

Doug Dwyer: We’re very organized as far as how we run weekly meetings, , by the leadership team or by department and we come up with issues. So we’re always looking at how to get things better. But the other thing that we do, and again, , whether you’re a, you know, individual company with your team, , you want.

There’s group genius there, right? , there’s information you can learn, or if you’re part of NARI or NHAB Remodelers Council, if you’re part of one of those groups, you can learn from people now, , the blessing that we have as a franchise or everybody’s on the same system, so , it’s, , lot more focused and quicker to get, , breakthroughs because you’re not translating, , exterior guy with your interior remodeling business.

Cause it doesn’t all translate. But anyway, the point, so you have to be careful as well, I’m saying there, , because it sounded good, but then once you start implementing it didn’t work because there was a component that didn’t match for you. So we involve our franchisees, we create a franchise, we have a franchise advisory council, and then we create a technology task force that we have.

So we’re always looking at how to improve and get better. And then we’re, , have a vendor task force looking for new vendors and products out there, and then marketing the same thing. , so for , we involve, , the franchisees and I would say, depending on the year 30 to 50 percent of our innovation will come from the group genius, getting together and always.

Going after how do we make this better? So whether it’s us nationally as a franchise or and having that scale or if it’s your own team find ways to find experts and coaches and People that can help you improve your business, you know, read books read trade articles , because you got to find those nuggets and then how do you integrate it and but also I don’t recommend, you know, trying to just Ai’s big and all that but you can overdo you can over innovate and kill profitability, , or just not really be relevant.

You know, it’s like, I try to stay away from magic bullets. It’s really a lot of best practices put together elegantly to run a very strong business.

Dennis Oz: Well, you just said something really important. Overdoing and making things over complicated could be the biggest enemy of your business folks.

So don’t try to go to that route. Simplifying could be the thing that you can always think about . If it’s simple, it’s the best. And when you’re delegating, just like most of the business mentors say, says that you don’t really want anyone to do like a task a hundred percent, just like you, if someone finishes that tasks, 80%, this is a 100% awesome. Simplify your delegations, simplify your tasks, just like Doug said, and this is how you just create this million dollar company vision there. Thanks so much, that was really profound. Thank you so much for sharing this one. Just wanted to take the conversation to the industry trends and your future vision as a visionary.

So that’s one of the questions that I really want to ask you. We have some emerging trends in our industry. And also there are some smartphone technologies, we are always seeing that on different Shows and trade shows. They are sometimes we just get exposed with on social media through Internet.

We are seeing that the technologies are like really growing so fast. What impact do you believe that these emerging technologies will have on our remodeling industry?

Doug Dwyer: well know , on the core of what we do. You know, like a saying, we have to go back to the simplify, simplifying profit . With the millennials coming up.

They are becoming true clients now is talking to one of our larger franchisees out of Springfield, Illinois last week and just talking about technology, specifically talking about lighting and, AI and the controls and, just the aid inside the house. And so now the lighting, , as the sun comes up and it’s more yellow, It’ll read that and have more yellow lighting in your house so that psychologically it really helps you feel like, okay, it’s morning and then as the day goes along, if I got the colors, right, then it’s blue.

And then towards the end of the day, it turns yellow again. And so that the inside of the house with the technology is mimicking the outside of the house, which also just sends messages to our brain and how it functions that, okay, it helps you with these transitions of, I need to wake up or it’s time to go to bed.

And so there’s a lot of creature comforts if you would like that. , so, you know, people like a gen X, like myself or baby boomer boomers. They care about those but not as much as the millennials like they’re expecting you to know about that So there’s some things you’re going to need to know about there’s other things that you got a lot of time to play with So you just need to keep up with the trends to be relevant.

And, , and depending on what market, you know, age group you’re going after. I mean, Gen X, , and boomers are still a huge part of the industry, but you better be paying attention to millennials these day.

Dennis Oz: Definitely. And also these type of generational differences, it’s also bringing some sort of different approach especially Let’s say in a round table meeting when you’re talking about the next kitchen project, or could be a bathroom too, generations may require some different things. What I also see for all these years in the remodeling industry, new generations tend to really asking the challenging questions. The most challenging questions are coming from this generation because they would like to learn. When we go through the older ages, they just look for the trust metric. If they really trust you, that’s what I see among all these things. But you are absolutely right there, especially when you’re thinking about the future and future vision, that’s what I’m going to also ask you, DreamMaker’s perspective for the future for the next 5 to 10 years, and how to plan to achieve those goals and also on the franchises perspective, how do you think they’re going to keep them excited? Just like you keep them excited for many, many years.

Doug Dwyer: So as far as, , like we have a 2030 vision. So really, you know, so looking at the end of 2030, we want to go from 43 locations to a hundred locations. So it’s not just, , numbers, we’re much more about we want to positively impact the lives. Of a hundred, you know, dream maker remodeling business, , families, right?

So not, so the owner, their personal family, their staff, but we also want to plus all the clients they’re going to serve, , in their communities as well. So that’s really a driver for us is, , just making, you know, have like our annual theme this year is counting our blessings, which is based on one of our code of values, which is, We believe in counting our blessings every day in every way.

And so our theme this year, you know, with that counting our blessings, as I’ve talked to our franchisees about, you know, like we all have a smile to give that we can brighten somebody’s day with, you know, so we, So in that case, let’s say our cup of smiles is full economically. We may not have the cup as full as we want, but the point is, let’s get our cup full and overflowing.

We may upgrade the cup once or twice here, but let’s have it be full and overflowing. So what I found is if life’s more than just about, , ourself, it can get just, , you can never have enough. But if your life becomes about making a difference in other people’s lives. , and impacting their lives, man, that, you know, I’ve got our largest franchisee , in 2022.

He did just a little over $7 million and, but what drives him is an orphanage in South Africa that he’s helping these kids. He’s like, you know what? And he was, you know, three or 4 million when he first started down this path. And he is like, you know, I don’t really want to deal with the headaches of more employees and the innovations and everything I’m gonna have to do to get to that next level.

But you know what? I’ll go through a lot of pain to help those kids have a better chance that they would. I mean, this gets me right,

Dennis Oz: right?

Doug Dwyer: You know that they’ll have a better chance and that gets his heart. So that’s the, that’s where the passion comes. Like I’m, I’m 57 years old, but I’m as passionate as ever about building this company.

’cause it’s about making a difference that makes a difference and overflows. And this is what we spent last week about talking about. And we had a showed on a video, we surveyed our franchisees and had. All the different organizations, people helped and it just went on and on and on. This, this one blipped up, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And I had many franchisees come out and say, wow, that was touching. I had one that serves on the school board and he’s like, you know, I get paid 3000 a year to do that’s not a lot, but, , there, there was a guy that lost his son to cancer and he’s got a scholarship program to help other kids. You know what?

think I’m gonna donate that because that challenged me. So, you know, create an environment like that and then people can be excited about it. And, you know, , that, at least that’s part of it. It’s, for me, it’s a huge part of it. It drives me again to come back to, you know, , the biblical verse that says, , love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And then Love your neighbor as yourself. And so it’s really like, so if we can love our neighbor, like, , with our franchisees, love, love my franchisees as a business family, and I do that the best I can try to shake everybody’s hand. When we’re concluding that now, do I have to do that? I don’t, I’ve got a whole team that they’re assigned to work with people, but I know it’s important that’s a little thing I can do to say, you matter.

I care about you , and I want to give you a handshake and a hug. Goodbye. It’s so good to see you so good to have you part of the team So so anyway that gives you at least a little bit of glimpse.

Dennis Oz: That’s a stellar explanation I hadn’t even thought of that way and thank you so much for putting that in this perspective.

This is Wow, yeah, thanks so much for sharing this one. Great. Yeah, let’s change our focus a little bit to the to the marketing operations and , our outreach. So we all know that the marketing, online and offline marketing is actually both important, but especially with the Emerging technologies that we have at the internet and everything for many, many decades that we’re talking about the importance of digital marketing. how do you leverage these digital platforms and reach and engage with customers and also help your franchisees to bring more and more people to their showroom and sell more products?

Doug Dwyer: Yes. So I think, you know, in the digital age that we’re in, right, there’s, there’s an over focus on digital from our perspective, right?

So we’ve created back in 2019, our director of marketing, , Joaquin Arrazzo created our five pillars of marketing. And he’s an expert nationally known in the industry, an expert in design, build. , marketing and so digital is just one pillar. So I think what was his name? I’m sorry. I just missed his

Dennis Oz: name.

What was

Doug Dwyer: his name? Joaquin Arazo. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he worked for a large company that he helped in 1999. He helped grow this company from 13 million at their peak. They got to 52 million. He had to generate 13, 000 leads a year. And he was one of 14 people on his team. So I mean, like this is, that’s not a small, there’s not many companies that size in remodeling period, especially the design build type space.

And so when I say he’s an expert, he’s an expert. He’s not, it’s not kind of sort of, so, , yeah, so, so what we’ve learned is, yes, you need to hit digital, like SEO, you need, you know, , geo targeted service, targeted word density, and , you build things called landing pages. That those are not, you don’t go into the website and navigate to these pages, but it’s behind the scenes that help make you rank, you know, Google’s, you know, the 800 pound girl out there, but helps you rank well with Google or Yahoo, wherever being.

And, you have to invest time doing that. You know, there’s pay per click paid advertising, but then social media is huge. So, you know, getting on social media. So we do a lot, , you know, we’ve got a large, a pretty significant team, , that is helping on that social media. And we hired somebody, , mid last year full time just to support our franchisees getting after the social media and that digital component.

So, but you can’t rely just on one of them. You need like seven proactive marketing techniques. So that’s, that’s, you know, a nugget I would hope you would take away is you need seven, not one, not two. What is the most

Dennis Oz: important one? Let’s focus on one, one of the most, most one or the first or second one.

What do you think?

Doug Dwyer: Well, first of all, you know, like when you’re you’re you’re building a business, , you know In the beginning, right? You don’t have referral and repeat So as you build a company over time, you definitely want to build up the referral repeat But you don’t want to unless you’re finally reached your goal and you’re stabilized.

You don’t want to grow any If you rely too much on referral pete, you’re going to have a weak marketing saw and a weak sales saw So we really don’t want that business coming 50 60 percent co repeat and always stay sh and sales, right? So, , it’s easy to get lazy on then, you know, if the ec not going to do as well b taker, you don’t really h those abilities.

, so with it, it really depends on the location. , , what marketing is going to be most prominent? You know, home shows have had a resurgence and I’ve done real well. I mean, obviously online in some markets, it’s going to be the number one, but it’s not the only one, you know? So if it’s 36 percent of the business and it’s the number one, how about the other 64%?

And that’s where you’ve got to, you know, Focus on these other, you know, face to face marketing, right? Uh, you know, signage. Do you have some good signage out there? Are you, are you doing a good job with that? There’s traditional marketing like direct mail, uh, you know, and knocking the doors, the, the two and the, you know, the two and the three, the two beside the house you’re in and the three across the street.

So are you doing, are you doing the round five? Are you doing the simple building blocks? So it takes more than one thing to be successful and lead generation.

Dennis Oz: Exactly. Especially when you just talk about Sending snail mails and also postcards to the prospect. Let’s say I just have a really interesting story that I would like to share. The postcard company made a quick research in a given zip code. They sent several postcards about a fake real estate agent that they created. That’s a fake real estate agent. And they sent postcards to these neighbors saying that this is the service and the service that these real estate agent provides.

And then after a couple of campaigns of sending, they surveyed the actual neighbors there and with a picture in their hands, actually three pictures. Two of them was the real real estate agents that they’re really not fake ones, of course, that the current ones. And also the next one was our fake one.

And they said, which one do you know the best? Which one do you think that is the best known agent here? People pick the fake one. Yes, we are talking a lot of emphasis on digital marketing, online marketing, but just like Doug said, there are a lot of life in offline marketing too.

You can also put some QR codes on your physical postcards and make it in a hybrid model. So now you’re going to be Combining your digital and online and offline marketing efforts together. So, as you can see, that is like when you look at the bigger perspective, we are always getting questions there.

And I’m also our followers are asking questions. What’s the best way of doing marketing? There’s not a single answer. Just like Doug said, there is no just like Google ads. There’s no just like social media. It’s a holistic approach to the success. You have to think about different tools and then implement them and you have to know what you’re going to spend your marketing budget wisely.

So thank you so much for sharing this one that was amazing to learn from you. It was a profound, really profound insight. I hope all our listeners today, whoever is watching or listening, You’re getting the actual golden nuggets, just like we mentioned in the beginning, folks.

Thank you so much for being here and joining us today. We would like to wrap up because, I have one of the most important questions, Doug, I would like to ask you your advice. Here we have several listeners and subscribers. Sometimes they are just starting their own, let’s say they would like to open up a business and they don’t have any tools or nothing, right? Or maybe they already started but they are struggling to get their business to the next level. They have some nice walk in traffic, nice referrals, but they’re struggling.

How do you think your smart franchisee technologies and also tools and your approach can help these people to take their business to the next level. Sure. So, , ,

Doug Dwyer: high level. , just to share like, , remember it’s 2015 had a company in, South Georgia in a small town and, , they were doing about 400, 000 a year in remodeling.

It was a home builder before that, but with the great recession, you know, they survived by being in remodeling and ultimately long story short, they came on board with us. And today They’ve, yeah, they’ve close to tripled that business in a town of 7, 000 people. It’s a small small town And they but the big thing is they’ve increased their margins, right?

They followed our systems and tools and process and then another example is a guy in Omaha, Nebraska, and this gentleman converted a 1. 8 million business. So he was already hit. He actually was making good money. His quality of life wasn’t there, but he wanted to get bigger and have a better quality of life.

So he came on board. And, it’s been only a two and a half years or so, but he has, , not only has he grown sales, but more importantly, he’s grown his net profits tremendously. I mean, significant, like, , most of you wouldn’t even believe, , kind of where that’s at. I’m not going to get into specifics of that, but a double digit net profit.

So I’ll put it at that and not a beginning, not at the beginning level either. So what we do with these folks, so this is like, I’m giving you the best I can give you is number one, decide the niche you’re going to go after. You know, are you trying to be a jack of all trades and a master of none, you know, and, and cause it’s hard to market to that.

It’s hard to get a reputation sometimes that, but you could your general contractor, but the hard thing is how do you build a team where you can get really efficient and really profitable producing that work. If you’re always doing something different where we’re doing. 80 percent of our works, kitchens and baths.

And then the other 20%, I mean, it’s all over the place. You know, it could be a basement. If it’s in the Midwest, it could be an outdoor kitchen. It could be a home office entertainment center. It could be all the flooring and the crown molding throughout the house.

Dennis Oz: Could be closets or maybe like some. Like 80 to 20, right?

Something that doesn’t really bring the most revenue, but yeah, some small revenue there. So,

Doug Dwyer: so when you, so, so focus on an itch is what I’m trying to say, decide it, and maybe your niche is generalist, but then, you got to deal with the production side of that. You know, we, focus on kitchen and bath cause you have.

A good blend, blend between labor and material. It’s not like a, , when you’re doing an addition is it’s heavy labor, low material, so it’s harder to get the margins. That you’d like to get. So then the second thing is build a budget, great projections and build a plan and choose a gross profit margin.

Like I said earlier, that’s going to make that work. That can, you know, pay you what you’re worth. That can hire quality people to come on staff. They can give world class service to the end user client. And has a strong net profit at the end of the day, you know, built, you got to do the financial discipline stuff.

, and then it’s the, you know, what’s the image, what’s the marketing, what’s the sales, what’s the design systems, the production systems needed to deliver excellence so that you build a great reputation. So, you know, take, you can’t do it all at once. , you know, but that’s, you know, part of reason people come to us.

If you’re, you know, if you’re just at a spot, like, well, I can’t afford to a franchise this or that, but so then just take it in that order that I just listed it off and go after it. Cause, and then lastly, I just, I really want to emphasize this. Most remodelers do not charge what they’re worth. They, you do not, I mean, I’ve talked to at this point, thousands of remodelers don’t charge what you’re worth.

Don’t know what that is. And what I like one consultant said is you need a minimum 50 to 67 percent markup. A 50 percent markup gives you a 33 gross profit. A 67 percent markup gives you a 40 percent gross profit. And if you don’t know what that means. You need to get educated on that, , you know, then if you’re a specialty remodeler, you could be at a 100, 150 percent markup.

So, you know, it’s, it’s all over the place, but. But you want to win win when you’re not charging enough. What’s happening is you’re working too many hours. You’re you are paying the price. Your family’s paying the price, , instead of having the customer pay the price so that you could have quality life.

So that, that’s kind of my, , call to, or, Care for you is, is man, be fair to yourself, , and learn how to sell at a little bit higher margins so that you can have quality life and, and, , and that your family and yourself, , you’re not paying the price, but you can work a 40, 50 hour week , and be paid like anyone else has paid to do a professional job.

Dennis Oz: That was my final question. I’m so, so like glad that you just emphasize the quality of the life when you just , give that information to us. Because folks here, if you are building a great business, you cannot create a dungeon just to increase revenues.

You have to increase the quality of your life. Think about your main purpose. You’re not building a business just to struggle. Work 24 7 for, of course, , sleepless nights are part of it, you can’t sustain it if you just keep yourself without sleep so many nights, right?

It could be a part, a period of your whole entire entrepreneurial journey and at the end of the journey, what you’re trying to achieve is the actual quality of your life, your life goals and , you know, just think about it that you have a great business on site and you have more time to focus on different things, your family and everything.

And as you can see here, here in Remodeler success podcast our goal is not to just to talk about how to increase revenues. This is just like Doug said, this is actually coming down to one thing that we are trying to educate our listeners here. You have to increase the quality of your life with the smart things that you do and smart, partnerships, collaborations, and even investments for your business.

I’m so so glad that we hosted one of these biggest companies in the United States who is giving you all these mentorships and also like the, all the systems ready as a DreamMaker corporation. if someone really would like to have a followup question, let’s say they, maybe they’re interested in learning more, a little more about how to become a franchisee, what’s the next step for these people?

Well,

Doug Dwyer: since I’m here personally, just, you can reach out to me at doug.dwyer@dreammakerbk.com, and DreamMaker has two M’s in it, so it’s Dream and DreamMaker. , so, yeah, welcome to field questions and point you in the right direction, , if there’s a follow up somebody has.

Dennis Oz: All right, folks. so much that once again, that you have just giving us this sharing these, all these, , knowledge and your expertise, , with us, with our subscribers. And, and I really would like to thank you so much on behalf of them. And, , that was another episode of remodeler success podcast. And we’re going to see you next time, folks.

Thanks so much. Goodbye.