Dennis Oz: Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Remodeler Success podcast where we share real stories and real strategies from leaders in the remodeling and construction industry. Today’s guest, folks, a very interesting session is gonna be here. He has been building and running successful businesses for two decades, starting from a one-man operation, one-man show, and growing into an award-winning showroom, serving clients across Eastern Massachusetts and even Rhode Island. Along the way he has expanded into new ventures, like launching both a cabinet company and a service-based business in recent years, proving that his approach really works across industries. His company even earned a spot on the 2023 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America. So excited to introduce him. Please welcome the founder and the president of Southcoast Kitchen Designs, Matt Arguin. Matt, welcome to the show.

Matt Arguin: Hi, Dennis. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I’m looking forward to this.

Dennis Oz: Oh yeah. Cool. Matt, let’s start with knowing a little bit about you. Could you please introduce yourself?

Matt Arguin: Sure. So, my name is Matt Arguin, obviously, and I’ve been in this industry multiple decades, as you had mentioned. I started as a trade school student in carpentry. I left there and worked for a cabinet maker doing cabinets, countertops, things like that. I was there for about 10 years and felt like it was time to branch out on my own. So I did start my own company, and originally we were a countertop replacement company. It was just myself. And then in 2009, I hired my first employee, and we opened a kitchen design showroom. At that point we were able to offer cabinetry, and we’ve been growing since. We’ve got two locations right now and eight employees.

Dennis Oz: This is perfect. This is perfect. So, there are a lot of listeners here who are really dreaming of being in that position, or they’re already in that position. So folks, today’s conversation is all about Matt’s challenges in the past and the things that he learned along the way. Let’s start. So, Matt, I know that running a business for 20 years means that you have really faced your share of hiring new people. That could be hiring challenges, supply chain issues, maybe in the last decade especially when we had different things going on with the pandemic, COVID, vaccines, and everything, and also changes in demand. Yet you still keep growing. You are always here, you’re doing your work. What’s helped you stay focused and scale consistently, like really scale over that time?

Matt Arguin: Sure. So, like you said, it was challenging. I was in business for the ’08 recession, and ’09 is when I hired that first employee, so I know all about it. It’s really about having a strategic plan that goes out 3, 5, 10 years and sticking to that. That’s like your GPS, and just like when you’re making a road trip, you’re gonna wanna make a few stops here and there. That’s what all those challenges are—they’re stops along the way. But ultimately, the GPS that you’re following—your business plan and your strategic plan—is going to get you there as long as you are focused on that long goal.

Dennis Oz: That’s amazing. That’s perfect. Well, let’s talk about your company a little bit. I know you started this pretty much like a one-man show. I really like saying that because this is a great one-man show, and then now you run a full showroom and a team. You have built your team, and people are working with you, you are completing successful projects. What are the biggest mindset or process changes that really helped you step out of that day-to-day and become a business leader today?

Matt Arguin: Sure. So, early on, I don’t think anybody starts a business and has 8, 10, 12 employees on day one, right? So you’re gonna do everything yourself in the beginning. And then as you navigate your business plan, you want to hire the right people, put them in the right roles, make sure that they’re set up to succeed, and then you have to get out of their way. I feel like once you have the right people in place and you start delegating some tasks from what you were originally doing to somebody else, if you’ve got the right people in the right seat, there’s no need to micromanage. You just let the smart people do their thing and get out of their way. If you find yourself micromanaging, then it’s possible you either have the wrong fit or they’re just in the wrong spot in the company.

Dennis Oz: I think you’re talking about working on the business instead of working in the business, right?

Matt Arguin: Right. Once you get to a point where you have a good team in place and they’re handling the client meetings, all the backend estimating, project management, then you’re able to really focus in on keeping track of your numbers, your key performance indicators, making sure that you are following that GPS and you’re gonna get where you’d like to go. But you cannot get out of the day-to-day without a strong team and a strong process that goes with it.

Dennis Oz: Yeah. Great. Yeah. I’m also glad that you mentioned hiring, because my next question is gonna be about that. I know that hiring for kitchen and bath pros in this industry isn’t really easy. I know NKBA is putting some certification programs in place just to be able to train people. We don’t have universities educating young talent for this industry, but you keep finding people with the design sense, who have client skills, and who have attention to detail—people who are gonna really fit into your team. What’s worked best for you when it comes to finding and keeping top talent in your area?

Matt Arguin: Sure. So, I can tell you, when I first started with my first employee in ’09, I was a traditional kitchen design showroom. And we’re definitely not that anymore. I think what we do now is where the future is. So, my first hire, he was a traditional kitchen designer, like the NKBA trains people for. A traditional kitchen designer is responsible for meeting with clients, producing the plans, pricing all the cabinetry, ordering the cabinetry, and then fulfilling the orders. That is a lot to ask of one individual. And also, they’re going to be stronger at one aspect of that rather than another.

So what we’ve done is we’ve separated that role very intentionally. We have interior designers that do all the client-facing meetings, help them pick out cabinet door styles, countertops, tile, flooring, plumbing fixtures—all the things that go into the project. From there it goes to the drafting department. Their sole job is to produce plans. We’re using Chief Architect now, which is more of a CAD software than 2020 or Pro Kitchen is on the kitchen design side. So we’re building construction documents—we’re not building kitchen plans. That department strictly does the drafting.

From there, it goes to estimating, and their sole role is to price cabinets, get countertop pricing, hardware prices. So they’re in the quoting and fulfillment phase of it. Then we just follow our process until we get the contract, and then it gets handed off to the production team in a handoff meeting. From there, the project manager handles it with the lead carpenters.

The advantage of this system is that each individual and each department is very focused, specialized, and educated in their one role. They tend to enjoy that role. It’s difficult to find somebody that’s people-oriented, like a kitchen design salesperson who wants to be meeting with homeowners, and then ask them to sit down and do a technical design to make sure that you don’t have any conflicts with appliances and door handles. To them, I find that is boring—they want to continue meeting with a new individual. Splitting the roles this way is very efficient. Everybody has clearly defined roles. They know what they’re supposed to be doing, and in the end, I believe it gives a better product.

Dennis Oz: This is amazing that you are sharing this, because I’m sure that most of the people who are really stuck at some level of their business growth will use this as a big, I would say, eye-opening piece of information. And thank you so much for sharing this one, Matt. Sure. Well, let’s talk about sales a little bit. We hit a wall as remodelers. We hit a wall when we are trying to turn leads into real jobs. We just received something—it could be a referral, could be coming from word of mouth, or could be our website, or maybe they just, you know, came across our display on the road and just walked in. But some of the projects really get stuck in the designer quote phase. Right. I just want to ask you, what does your sales process really look like from the first call to the signed contract, and what’s helped increase your close rate in these operations?

Matt Arguin: Sure. So the most important part is prequalification. When you get a lead through the door, you have to make sure that they are a good fit for your company and also that your company is a good fit for them. You know, some people are looking for cabinet refacing—well, we don’t do that. So a proper prequalification process will make sure that the upcoming meeting is aligned for both parties so that they both receive benefit from the meeting. It’s also very important to know the scope and, if you can get it from them, it’s ideal to know the budget. And it’s always a tough one. Nobody ever wants to give a budget. They feel like they’re at the car dealership, and if they show their hand, then you’re gonna spend every dollar they say they have. So it’s very hard to get a budget. But if you stress that the budget is important to define the scope and also to decide which products they should be in and what level they should look at, it’s important to do that just so that we’re not wasting their time and they’re also not wasting ours. It’s about making sure that, again, we’re aligned, we’ve got the correct scope of work, the correct product level.

So, you know, you could do a good-better-best scenario. If it’s a tighter budget, you’re gonna have to be in the “good” category and maybe scale back the scope. That prequalification is very, very important to make sure that you’ve got a good fit going forward.

What we also do in our sales process is we will do a complimentary consultation with the homeowner, typically at their home. It gives us the opportunity to see the project. We’re able to get some questions about what type of finish they’d like—you know, that good, better, best level—and it gives us the opportunity also to give them a verbal budget.

So when that first free consultation is completed, they will receive a verbal budget. I think this is an important part that a lot of kitchen showrooms don’t do, but if you start looking at design-build firms, you see that it’s more common. We do collect a retainer after that meeting. So if we have a good meeting, the homeowner feels like we’re aligned with them, and that our company is a good fit for their project, they will offer a retainer that goes toward their order if they move forward with us. That is required in order for us to do any written estimates or renderings of the space.

So that’s the important part to kick off the next steps. Then we have about a total of three to five meetings to get the contract. Some homeowners need more time, some are very good at making decisions so they can get it done faster. But typically, when we’re almost ready to go to contract and we just need to get our trade partners out there—plumbers, electricians—we want to make sure we get a final quote for those. We do also have another payment point there where we collect 5% of the project total. Generally at that point, both sides have decided it’s a good project, and they’re comfortable making that commitment. That is a courtesy to our trade partners, so we’re only sending them to projects to quote that have a 99% chance of going forward. We’re not wasting our trade partners’ time there.

And then, like I said, you get the contract and now it’s the handoff meeting to the production side. That’s our sales process. We try to keep those five meetings in about a span of 10 to 12 weeks, which seems like a lot of time, but we will not go to contract until every detail is picked—right down to the type of Schluter edge they’re going to use and the grout color on the tile, molding details, everything finalized. We don’t want any surprises. So we probably spend the same, if not more time on the design and selections process as we do to physically do the job. That’s important to us because we want to kick the project off on the right foot. We don’t want to have undecided products that might really affect the final cost. And we also don’t want those undecided items to delay the project. So everything is complete at contract.

Dennis Oz: This is great. Well, you mentioned that you have a really good design software for the design. What do you use for project planning? Do you have any software, or how do you handle the project planning when you are just starting the project? Let’s say when you just charge the customer, get the retainer, then you confirm that it is a good project to start with. What are the next steps on the software side? Are you using any software or how do you handle that?

Matt Arguin: Yeah, so I’ve tried many different software platforms over the years, and we’ve settled in on Buildertrend, which is very well known in the home builder field. Remodelers may not know about Buildertrend, but it’s a very good software. It’s a point-to-point system, right from the first phone call, like you had mentioned, right through to warranty work. At the end of your warranty period, they can submit warranty claims. So it’s an all-in-one customer relationship software, as well as quoting, purchasing, project management, and warranty software. It’s a good end-to-end solution.

Dennis Oz: Great. Yeah. I also heard that most remodelers use Buildertrend because project management software may not be the first thing that you purchase and start running from day one, but I believe there’s a certain point that you need these softwares, especially for running your team and coordinating them, right? It may not be the tool for day one—you just adopt it after a certain level. Is that right?

Matt Arguin: Well, we’ve outgrown some of the other software out there, so yeah, it’s true. Once we’ve landed on Buildertrend, it is actually all-inclusive and the documents are there for our teams. There’s a homeowner portal, so even the homeowner can follow along on the project. We often do second homes, so the homeowners aren’t living there. They like to follow along on that. I believe it’s overall the best solution. But I would advise that if anybody’s looking into a software like that, take it piece by piece.

When we first signed up with Buildertrend, we were strictly using it for project management, and then we expanded it to tracking leads and proposals. Now we’re using it for purchase orders, invoicing to homeowners. If you look at a software like that, that’s very robust, you can get overwhelmed. So you just want to take a piece at a time and use that.

Dennis Oz: Got it. Well, thanks so much for explaining this, because that was one of the most frequently asked questions from our listeners. In the past we got a lot of questions about that, and thank you so much for making it so clear right now. And just folks, I think you’re really learning things from one of the best sources here. So this is the value. I’m sure that you’re enjoying this conversation as much as I do. This is great. Well, Matt, let’s continue. I just wanted to take the conversation to the AI talk. Nowadays, everybody’s talking about it. And you know, we always say ChatGPT or Gemini, different tools. But I just want to ask you, are you using any AI tools in your business right now?

Matt Arguin: Uh, so I tend to be an early adopter of technology, so I do use AI, specifically ChatGPT. And you’d be amazed what you can do with it. I use it for everything. I consider it my personal assistant. I’m using it for business planning, marketing, reviewing email correspondences, fine-tuning and learning from them, and developing my skills there. I’ve used it for transcribing my own notes. Believe it or not, I have terrible handwriting—I can read it, but the AI can’t. It’s quite unlimited what you can do with it. I’ve relied heavily on that in the past, I’d say, nine to 12 months.

Dennis Oz: I think the best way to utilize AI in our businesses is to start using it personally. Right?

Matt Arguin: Oh yeah, definitely. I did start with it personally and then I just kept saying, well, what more can it do? Right? I’ve had a couple of bookkeeping things. I’ve even sent it screenshots of my QuickBooks and said, I can’t figure this out—what am I missing? And it can do it. So, I would say it’s probably true with all of the AI services, but the better you ask the question, the more details you give, the better the response is. If you are vague, sometimes the responses are not what you need and not what you’re looking for. So you have to be careful.

Dennis Oz: Well, we are also using a project management tool. Of course, we are a digital marketing agency and we are not like a construction company. We utilize ClickUp—just like most digital marketing companies do. And Matt, I was so surprised to see that ClickUp just implemented ChatGPT inside ClickUp. When you ask questions like what are the biggest bottlenecks today, it really analyzes all the team information and brings you who is struggling with delivering the tasks.

We have ChatGPT and then these systems—I don’t know if Buildertrend has it—but I’m sure these software tools will reach a level where they support businesses with advanced artificial intelligence. I’m sure it’s going to be amazing if you already have, or you will get, these kinds of tools in your project management software because it’s really good to understand and give you a snapshot of your team. I was so surprised to see that.

And one thing I wanted to go back to that you said: using AI as your personal assistant is very important, folks. Yes, just like Matt said, if you cannot use it for yourself, you cannot use it for your business. So start using it for yourself. Just like Matt said, if you don’t understand something in QuickBooks, take a screenshot and put it in there. And if you already trained ChatGPT with your company information, then maybe you’ll get a really decent answer from that.

And thank you so much, Matt, for sharing these golden nuggets with us, especially about AI. The possibilities are endless here—that’s a really amazing opportunity.

Matt Arguin: Yeah, and that’s important too, Dennis. The more you use it, it does learn about your business. It’ll remember conversations from when I first started and it will tailor its responses. It will actually refer back—“Hey, remember when, you know, this conversation”—and it’ll remember it. The more you give it, the more accurate it will be for your specific business. It’s probably a little scary, but the more you give it, the more accurate it becomes.

Dennis Oz: Yes, this is amazing. Thanks so much for sharing that. I’m sure many of our listeners will find it eye-opening when they look at AI and all these AI tools. Thank you, Matt. So let’s take the conversation and shift our gears to marketing. From referral-heavy days to ad-heavy world, marketing really keeps shifting for remodelers and construction companies.

I’d like to ask you this question in two fronts. First: where are you seeing the best return right now when you look at your marketing? And second: what part of marketing is still really the first priority to you?

Matt Arguin: Okay, so first part—you might be surprised by this, but I find that our most quality leads, and most of our leads overall, come from radio. We’re doing traditional radio ads—30- or 60-second spots. I’ve been on the same station since 2016, so nine years now. Radio is really branding. It’s not so much for that immediate lead—you’re going to get some people listening who are ready to start a project now—but it’s really just getting your name out there. So whenever they are ready, they know who you are. They’ve heard you for years. Radio has been really good for us.

Second to that would be pay-per-click AdWords campaigns, Meta ads, things like that. We’re starting to see—reference back to AI—we’re starting to get people commenting that they found us through ChatGPT. That’s an interesting new one. The thing about ChatGPT or AI is you’re not paying to show up there. You have to rank really well and have the reviews for it to promote your business.

What’s really frustrating, I’d say, is still the Google AdWords algorithms and trying to stay on top of their changes. They don’t announce what they do or how they serve results to people. Trying to navigate that so that you’re constantly showing up in the organic side—that just changes so often and they don’t tell you what changes. That’s frustrating.

Dennis Oz: I think what’s changing right now, Matt, just like you mentioned, is that people are using ChatGPT and search habits are changing. That’s what we see. You’re not interacting with a search bar anymore—you’re interacting with a system, a robot, that is giving you answers. Right? And I’m sure you find it really cool. You might have hundreds of people referring your business because you have a legacy in the area for many years, many decades. But now you have ChatGPT on your side talking good things about your business. How cool is that?

Matt Arguin: It’s very good. I’m pleasantly surprised to see those leads coming through from ChatGPT.

Dennis Oz: This is interesting, and thanks so much for sharing this. Well, folks, I think you just learned that SEO is one thing, but right now we also have to make our businesses visible on generative engines—not only search engines. Take this note, because that’s going to be something we’ll be focusing on in the future. That’s very important for us to know.

Thanks so much, Matt. Again, another eye-opening insight. This has been a really long talk—covering marketing, sales, AI, and operational management—and it’s been great. But we are not going to let Matt go, because I have one last question for him.

Most people getting into kitchen and bath think it’s all about design talent or construction skills, and they may miss some of the main points. Without those, it’s not enough to grow a business. So what’s the one piece of advice you would give someone just starting out in this industry?

Matt Arguin: Well, Dennis, I could probably give a few more than just one piece of advice. The first one is: everybody starting out—it’s dangerous to get into the mindset that if I’m cheaper, I’ll grow. Number one is: know what your pricing should be, and hold to it. If you’re constantly selling below your operating expenses, you’re not going to last long. Your cash flow will die, and your business ultimately will follow.

Number two: know your value. And by value, I don’t mean being the cheapest out there. It’s knowing what sets you apart from your competition. The smaller you are, the more advantages you have over a bigger company. You’ve got to really know how to express that to your buyers. So knowing your value—and justifying the investment the homeowner is making—is very important.

Beyond that, as you grow from a one-man or one-woman operation to a larger company, you really need to know how to hire good talent and get them in the right position in your company. Then it’s on you to develop as a leader, to be able to lead them to where you want to go based on your vision and your strategic plan.

Dennis Oz: Great. Thank you so much, Matt. That was an amazing conversation. Well, before I let you go, sometimes—even though this is a B2B talk—some of your ideal prospects, like homeowners just starting their projects, may come across our podcast. That’s normal in this digital world. Sometimes they may want to learn more about you in your area. Could you please talk about what you guys really do at Southcoast Kitchen Designs, what type of projects you help with, and just introduce your business a little bit more?

Matt Arguin: Sure. So at Southcoast Kitchen Designs, we started as a kitchen showroom—that’s why the name. But now we’re a design-build firm, and we focus on interior renovations: kitchens, bathrooms, and whole-house renovations too. One of the easiest ways I describe it is: anything within an existing foundation. We’ve done some additions in the past, but for the most part it’s the interior—from the exterior walls in. We’ll renovate, reconfigure walls. Generally we want a project that has at least one bathroom or a kitchen in it, but we are willing to, and we have done, whole-house renovations—first floor, second floor, right up. That’s our sweet spot.

Dennis Oz: Can we say that clients are in really good hands when they reach out to you?

Matt Arguin: I would like to think so, yes. We do have a well-defined process. One of the things with having a well-defined process is you also need homeowners who see that as a benefit, but who are also willing to follow that process. The process is only as good as the people following it. Homeowners need to follow it too if they’re looking for a stress-free remodel. That’s what we’re trying to deliver: a stress-free remodel with no surprises. It takes everyone being on their game.

Dennis Oz: That was amazing. Thank you so much for sharing all this experience and expertise with us. If someone—a business owner or a prospect—wants to follow up with a question or learn more about your services, what’s the best way? Website?

Matt Arguin: The website, southcoastkitchens.com, is one way. My email, if somebody wants to email me directly, is matt@southcoastkitchens.com. Either way works. Or just type us into ChatGPT and you’ll get the contact information for us.

Dennis Oz: This is amazing. Matt, thank you so much for sharing. And we know that sharing is caring. I’m sure everyone listening here got really good information—maybe even solved one of the bottlenecks in their business or answered a question they’ve been wondering about for a long time. Thank you so much for all this information you shared with us today, Matt.

And folks, that was another episode of the Remodeler Success podcast. I’m sure you enjoyed this episode, and we’ll see you next time. Goodbye.

Matt Arguin: Thank you, Dennis.