Dennis Oz: Hello everyone and welcome back to the Remodeler Success Podcast, where we dive into the stories behind today’s most successful business leader. So today’s guest started with a really clear vision over a decade ago and build it into a really thriving business that’s now really recognized nationally for both his growth and also.

Specialization. So it’s like, it’s a really niche business. We’re gonna talk about it. It’s a really special business. And, he just took a focused idea, basements only, and turned into a really powerful brand serving across like homeowners across the Maryland and also Virginia, and Washington DC and let’s say Northern Virginia area along the way.

Yeah, he is proven how a niche done right can scale. Millions can scale into millions in revenue and a trusted name in remodeling. So please welcome the founder and CEO of basement remodeling.com. Pavel Abaev, Pavel, welcome to the show. 

Pavel Abaev: Hi, Dennis. Thanks a lot for having me. 

Dennis Oz: Oh yeah. Pavel, before we dive into our questions we have really good questions for, him, folks, just, just stick around.

Could you please introduce yourself a little bit? 

Pavel Abaev: So my name is Pa. Uh, you know, I was, uh, originally born in Russia and I moved to America in 2006. And, uh, pretty much, you know, like, uh, I remember I arrived, uh, to New York, uh, on July 3rd, uh, of 2006. July 4th, I was in Philadelphia. Obviously I remembered that day, you know.

And then, uh, July 5th, I actually went like, you know, my friends, uh, were, were in Philly for like about a month already. They already found a job and like, you know, they just took me to. You know, uh, worked for his, uh, for their roofing for someone they knew, like the, they called the roofing company. And, you know, I ended up in, on the roof, uh, two days after I arrived in America.

Uh, and it’s July 5th in Philadelphia, which is like a hundred degrees and humidity at like 90%. And like for someone who has never experienced anything like that, uh, you know, I was shocked. Yeah. That’s after, after, after a week, um, on the roof. I knew that I’m not doing roofing. 

Dennis Oz: Yeah. Well, interesting story, huh?

Yeah. Well welcome to the show again. Let me, you know, ask you my first question here. Yeah. Well, we see that, you know, you, you scaled an amazing business here. Just wanted to, talk about it a little bit. We know that the scaling business. Across like different, states and also different, disciplines, with brands and warehouses takes really serious systems.

You can’t do that by your own. And, but everybody has this one man show type of moment. So what were the most important moves that you really made to get beyond that one man show? 

Pavel Abaev: Absolutely. I mean, you know, obviously just like a lot of people in the industry, you know, uh, we start out like, you know, from being a helper, we’re learning the trade and then, you know, we start doing bathrooms, we start doing kitchens, we start doing additions, we start doing basements.

But, you know, uh, I just realized, you know, probably like, you know, three, four years into it, like, you know, that special specialization is pretty much, you know, probably like, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s the first step you have to, to, to make. Because if you are trying to, uh, if you’re trying to. You know, do everything, uh, you know, just like every, everything is just kind of gets locked in on yourself and your knowledge because you know, you have to know everything about the bathroom.

You have to know everything about this. You have to know everything about that and the process, even though it seems like it’s remodeling. But, you know, the process for floating installation, uh, you know, in a 5,000 square feet home is very different from a process of, uh, remodeling a, you know, $40,000 bathroom in, uh.

A master bathroom in, uh, you know, a $4 million house. And it’s also a very different process from, you know, remodeling a kitchen in, you know, in, uh, one of the suburban, you know, ne neighborhoods with a lot of check homes, you know, so it’s, it’s extremely, and, and you know, when you don’t have a repeatable process, it’s extremely hard to, you know, build those systems and, uh, uh, build the automations.

So, you know, step one was finding the niche. Uh, the reason why I picked basements is because, you know, it’s, and, you know, it’s not a secret in our industry. Everyone knows that basements is like, you know, it’s pretty much the most desirable project that there can be. Uh, you know, you don’t have to be outside.

You’re not like weather dependent because, I mean, additions can be expensive. Uh, but at the same time. You’re weather dependent and, uh, uh, they can be, you know, a lot more complex. It’s a lot more complicated in terms, in terms of permits. You can do master bathrooms. The, you know, the ticket is high, but, you know, spending, uh, four weeks.

Two weeks in someone’s master bedroom is a lot more challenging for the project managers, for the team involved. And it’s a lot more challenging to have somebody, it’s a lot more challenging for the homeowners to have someone at their home for, you know, two to three weeks, especially their master bed bedroom.

Same with the kitchens. You know, like families are a lot more affected by the kitchens. So, you know, if you look at it like, you know, I did, I did know that I do like, you know, kind of a general contracting type of approach. Meaning like, you know, just, uh. The project management type of projects versus like, you know, roofing windows and siding, which is like another scalable type of, um, in my, you know, home improvement businesses.

So, you know, I knew I wanna do something larger. I wanted, I knew I wanna do something that, you know, uh, entails more design work and more creativity. So, you know, it’s just like, it’s, it’s an answer. You know, everyone that come to like, I mean, everyone wants basements. I mean, that’s, that’s how, that’s all I can tell you.

Dennis Oz: Right. Well, this is great. Thanks so much for sharing this. Let’s dive a little bit, , deeper so we know that now basement remodeling.com is really. Focused brand and it’s really have a really clear niche and I believe that clearly is really a really big advantage. What made you decide to specialize in basement?

I know that you talk about that, you know, having, not being jack of all trades and, but let’s focus more on how being a specified business for basement help you grow. 

Pavel Abaev: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, uh, we, we, we, we, we selected the niche and, you know, we started building out the systems, you know, I mean, like, uh, uh, I started out just building everything out myself.

Using tools like Zapier, you might have heard, you know, just like a basic automations, uh, you know, obviously I’m not talking about the marketing and the SEO and like that’s everyone has to do this, right? It’s like. Everyone has to do this to get the jobs. But in terms of, you talked about 

Dennis Oz: that by the way, pavel because yes.

I have some marketing questions for you folks just sticking around because yes, we are talking about like automations and also marketing automation. It’s coming up next. Just, just not to cut you off, but just, just want to give everyone a heads up that the can stick to the end to it here about what you’re talking about.

Marketing. Yeah, please go ahead. Sorry about that. 

Pavel Abaev: Uh, so yes, so pretty much, uh, you know, like, uh, there’s, I started out building out, I, I started by building out automations and I basically identified, uh, the repeatable processes, uh, and, you know, just started, like, started looking, started looking for ways to basically scale a business.

And in reality, scaling any business comes down to the same process. Uh, you know, you have to start building automations, you know. So, uh, at first couple of years I was doing it myself. Then like about maybe around 2020. Yeah, right around 2020, we had a software engineer like joined our company, uh, which basically, uh, you know, that’s when we really took off.

And in reality, uh, I’ll just, you know, put some numbers out there, uh, in our industry, I would say in our industry, uh, 90% of the companies, uh, they stuck at $5 million or less. Okay. You get to, and I remember myself, you know, I get to 4.5 million, uh, and I was there for like, you know, I was there for three or four years and like, you just think, I mean, there is just no way out because you have to go sell.

Uh, you have to, you have to go sell, you have to go. So, you know, uh, just you don’t have time. So, you know, one that, that’s basically when you realize, okay, looks like I can probably get more jobs, but I do not have, like, you know, I cannot duplicate PAs, so I have to find the ways how to give out those. Tasks that I’m doing myself to different people.

But just hiring somebody and just telling them, you know, okay, you’re gonna go sell, sell basements, it’s not gonna work. So, you know, it all started with the basic Excel, uh, table, uh, with just a basic, uh, you know, formula calculations that then became like a brochure and then that became an app. And right now, like, you know, whatever takes, uh, our competitors, if you talk about the sales process, whatever takes our competitors, you know, uh, anywhere between.

30 minutes and two hours takes our sales, uh, people, uh, between. Five and 10 minutes. 10 minutes at the most, I mean, two, $300,000 proposal they can put together. Okay. Alright. Two to 300,000 proposal is very custom, you know, basement, probably with some structural work underpinning, but let’s say $150,000 proposal, uh, that just, you know, utilizes standard things that people do in their basements.

Everything from, you know, uh, egress window, bedroom, uh, even the basement walk out, adding a door, EE uh, you know, having a nice red bar. Uh, even having a, you know, a movie theater, a platform, all of that stuff, you know, we have built it. We have the, all this calls built into our app. They are. Basically a price for the market and, you know, just building out the app, uh, automating the sales process.

Then, you know, uh, you begin to think, okay, I have somebody who does the sales. I actually like, now if I want to grow further, you know, I can only manage this many projects by myself, but also if I manage projects, I cannot really, uh, concentrate on marketing. So you’ll start thinking about like, okay, how I can automate the.

The production process and, and then, you know, we started automating production process. Like everything from sending out the emails, scheduling jobs, uh, you know, I mean there are like over 180 operat, 180,000 operations happening in our automation system monthly. So, you know, if you divided it’s maybe not, lemme just correct myself.

I think it’s about one 20, it’s 120,000 operations. Monthly divided into 30 is 40,000 operations. And when I say an operation, it’s basic things, you know, generate the email, send an email, pick up the date. I mean, that’s gonna be like, you know, five, five operations right there. But basically, yes, that’s what it is.

Dennis Oz: You don’t need to hire anyone. So 

Pavel Abaev: that’s, oh listen, with AI agents coming into play, uh, we just had a meeting. We just had a meeting. I mean, like our project managers will have to. We’re gonna cut down the time they email by 90%. Okay. Uh, we have a senior project manager, uh, senior project manager role that is, um, that is basically in charge of sitting down every night and putting a schedule for our crews.

This is gonna be, like, this task is going, is gonna be going with like, you know, we build, we are building a custom map that will basically take the data about the projects, data, data about our crews, and, uh, take the data about the test, put it all together. I mean, you know, like this is something that, uh, like this is like pretty much the most complex task of the company.

But anyways, I. Talk too much. 

Dennis Oz: Yeah, no, no, no. This is great. I mean,, you are just talking about so many great things because especially the automations that is a subject that we never covered in the show, folks. I can talk 

Pavel Abaev: about it for, for, for, for four hours. 

Dennis Oz: This is, this is amazing. So we have a hidden jam here, folks.

Definitely. So just stick around. I’m so excited. But, I would like to just, kind of roll back to the beginning of the building a company. Yes. Yep. Automation will come a little later, but let’s say. You would like to hire your and create your team right here. Hiring could be your biggest strength or it could be your biggest bottleneck.

So absolutely, a hundred percent. Yeah. What’s really worked for you when it comes to building that reliable crews and support staff? 

Pavel Abaev: Uh, yeah, I mean, you’re absolutely right. And actually when you started saying that, like, you know, before even when you started saying before the automation, before, I, like I was gonna say, I mean obviously it’s finding the right people.

Absolutely. A hundred percent. I mean, this is like all I can say, like, you know, if you are a business owner, you have to be, and you trying to grow business, you have to be a leader. Okay. And, uh, in terms of how I became a good leader, I mean, I guess maybe I did have some soft skills, but, you know, I started reading, I mean, I just started reading and I just, and the thing is, you know, I might have been reading, I might have not been like, necessarily, okay, wow, I did not know how to do this.

I, but I know now I know how to do this. I was actually reading and learning about myself and I was learning about my strength and, uh. You know, just like, so, you know, first, like it all started with self-development, right? And then, uh, you know, I mean, another thing is consistency. So you have to be prepared.

Uh, and that’s like, I, I hear most of like, you know, because we have, I have a lot of interviews with like, when I hire people for project manager roles, for VP of production role, for sales manager role, these are all the people who basically. These are all those guys. A lot of them are all those guys who basically were at two, three, $4 million a year and they just got burnt out.

They like, I can’t do this anymore. Okay. And they all complain about the same thing. They all say like, you know, before they, I mean, you know, those who got to 5 million, probably they do have a team. But those like who complain about like who, those who stuck at the million or so let’s say they complain about like, I can’t find help.

I can’t find help. But the key here is that the consistency, I mean, you know. And believing in yourself. Because if you think that, like, I just, you know, if you think that I just like, you know, uh, hired somebody and this person became my first employee and then, you know, hired somebody. He, he had, he, he became my second employee.

No, it’s absolutely not like this. You know, people come in. In the end, like, I mean, it’s, it’s 10% of the people you basically try out who that, that, that, that end, that, that end up sticking around for more than two years. And though, and in reality what I’ve learned, those who stick around for a year, like it means that they do have the personality and it means that, you know, we have a, the culture of our company matching their professional culture.

Um, so, you know. That’s like, that’s when we start to actually like, okay, yeah, this person’s actually good. But in reality, like I said, you know, like majority of the people we tried, they do not last, you know, uh, that first year. So, you know, just to everyone out there, you just have to keep on trying and you have to keep on trying and trying and trying and trying and, you know, it’s just one out of 10.

And like, you always, I mean, now I know, now I know my, uh, I, now I know like my, my formula like, like if I’m looking for a project manager, I have to. You know, interview 50, I have to do second round interview, you know, at the office with like, you know, four or five, I have to hire one, and then I have to do it like three or four times to find somebody who’s gonna be really damn good, you know?

That applies to a lot of positions within the company. Obviously, you know, finding people to be a helper for a construction crew is easier because, you know, they are reliable, they’re handsy, they’re smart, and they don’t have like, you know, any bad habits, they’re good to go. Uh, but even, even with help, it’s hard.

Even like, you know, with crew leaders, with lead carpenters. You just have to keep on trying. You just have to keep on trying. And obviously, I mean, using systems, using tools, you know, uh, AI is great right now. Just, you know, generate me a list of questions to ask this, uh, uh, lead carpenter and then like, okay, I had an interview with him, uh, like these are my concerns.

Tell me what should I do? You know? And, uh, like, I mean that, that, I mean, right now, just like everything is so easy, so much easier. But yes, absolutely. Hiring is challenging. It was challenging for me. It is challenging for us. But I always say this is my strongest skill. That’s why, you know, we are who we are because I absolutely love every person who work, uh, for our company.

I mean, everyone is just outstanding. 

Dennis Oz: This is a great culture that you build around your,, brand. And, I’m sure creating great brands like this, like basement remodeling.com. It’s just not like, just basically hiring and firing. Of course, just like you explained that are a thought process behind it.

And thanks so much for just mapping that out for us. That’s really great to hear. Now let’s talk about a little bit of operations and, operational management. Right? How do you start when, when we, you know, there’s, of course we talk about marketing, we talk about lead generation.

I’m not talking about the leads, but I would like to talk about the people who just really say, yes, let’s start and give you a deposit or something like that. Then what happens? What tools do you use and how do you just really handle that enormous type of projects at the same day?

Pavel Abaev: So, Dennis, let me ask you this. Okay. I see what you’re saying. Okay. All right. So basically, um, yeah, we, within our company, we kind of split operations and, uh, operations and production. So I think, uh, what, what, what we mean by operation is basically making sure that all, you know, all of those 20 events that are on the road and they are in a great condition and everything, right?

So that’s a, that’s a whole separate, like, you know, if you have an operations director who is kind of in charge for it, um, what you are asking about production, basically, you know. Making sure that the team knows what they do, where to go. Exactly. This is what I’m asking, this is what I’m asking. Exactly.

Yes. This is what I’m 

Dennis Oz: asking. Yes, 

Pavel Abaev: exactly. So yes, exactly. About the, yes. So I mean, obviously it all starts with the project managers. Okay. It all starts with the right tools to put the plan together. Right. So, you know, it all starts with the fact that you have clear contract and clear, clear scope from the, uh, from the, from the salesperson, right.

Then, uh, you, it, it, it, it, it goes into, uh, our scheduling software and just, you know, preparing the Gantt chart and lining up the subcontractors. Uh, and you know, so I mean, obviously this is actually one of the things that we are working on automating right now. It’s a lot of, I would say, I say manual work.

When I say manual work, it means that you have to actually sit down and type in, uh, you know, that messages, who goes where, but. You know, scheduling tools like Buildertrend to help us schedule the subcontractors. Uh, obviously Slack. Uh, just, you know, all, every single project and every, all the information about all the projects, uh, leaves in Slack.

Uh, it’s a messenger for those who doesn’t know, and like we cannot imagine our life without it. Uh, obviously everything’s automated. The sales submitted this, uh, schedule has been, uh, the, the, the project has been scheduled. Uh, we automatically create, like, you know, cloud folders. We automatically create schedule channels.

We automatically invite all of the team members to the proper cha uh, um, um, slack channels. Our permits and operations person automatically gets an invite to start working on the permits. So once again, I mean, it all comes down to the, it all comes down to all of those links that you have to build out there in the cloud, you know, uh, to make sure that like, you know, you have an, uh, a process that never breaks from the point when the salesperson got the lead.

So that saved, so we can, we have a file created in our internal system. And that file, basically we just keep on expanding and growing this file as we go through the process, as we go through the project. And we don’t close this, you know, we do not like move this, this, this file, this lead that became, uh, a project until, you know, they leave a good review.

Uh, and until we get the final payment, you know, so. But, um, just like, you know, uh, proper communication tools and proper, uh, proper. I mean, once again, it’s proper automations. That’s how you make sure that, you know, they know where to go. And, uh, and obviously, you know, just, uh, uh, mentorship and training. I mean, in the end, we work with humans and that’s, you know, one thing I’m kind of like, you know, excited about with all of these jobs that are being replaced, uh, with ai.

I mean, what I know is that, uh, none of my guys out there who are driving the van right now who’s going out there and basically trying to explain the client that, you know, this is like, you know, this is how it’s supposed to be, or. That is basically just repainting the wall for this client. Third time, just because, you know, she thinks it looks different at our showroom versus how it looks in her bedroom.

I mean, like, you know, this, those guys like, they’re gonna have a job for like, at least, you know, I, until the, the way they build houses change, and I don’t think it’s coming because they still built homes today the same, the same day. They’re building them 50 years ago and the homes they built today.

They’re gonna need to remodel their kitchen’s, bathrooms, floors over the next 50 years. So, you know. 

Dennis Oz: Right. Well, this is an amazing, point when you say, by the way, for those who just tuning in today, Pavel mentioned that tools called Slack folks, slack is being used for developing teams, software developing teams.

And as you see right now, you’re seeing that , is a remodeling companies using this. How is exciting this one? Right. And, yeah, this is a great, I would say an implication of like at least, for those who is just using. Like, phone group messages or WhatsApp chat groups or whatever.

When you do that on Slack, folks, everything is recorded. And when I say recorded, you have transcripted because you are sharing information and hey, when you have a month of text messages about your company, you can easily understand who’s the best bottleneck is. AI can easily understand that.

So this is what Pavel really clearly, just explain us and thank you so much about this Pavel. I’m sure that this is a really eye-opening moment for almost all our speakers who are just listening here today. And I’m sorry, look, this conversation is really excited already, so this is an excited conversation already.

Let’s take to the conversation to marketing Pavel and, we know. That basement remodeling.com, you didn’t scale this company with word of mouth? What did 

Pavel Abaev: you 

Dennis Oz: do? 

Pavel Abaev: Um, uh, I mean, focus and the name, I guess, you know, that’s like, you know, I, I came across the domain name like back in 20. 16 or 17.

They were selling it. They were selling it at that time for like, I think $40,000. We were negotiating for about, uh, and you have to understand, uh, 20 16, 20 17 Pablo is not the same. I mean, $40,000 was a, a huge amount of money for me. So we were negotiating for about six months. I negotiated it down to $19,000.

We bought the Nome name and I mean like, basically it just made it a lot easier to promote the brand and promote the, because basement remodeling. You know, Google is smart. For example, you know, for, for, for Google basement finishing and basement and modeling is the same thing. So obviously getting the name, but you know, obviously things like SEO uh, it’s so standard, you know, just building out, you know, a lot of local landings, building out Google, uh, maps presence, to be honest with you, in terms of marketing automation, just because we are such a narrow niche.

And you know, I mean, you have to understand like, you know, we are, we are, we are selling over $10 million a year, uh, by meaning or, or only 300 clients. So basically our closing ratio is about one out, one out of three. So we meet like 360 clients. We sell about 110 hundred, 110. So jobs, and the average job is, uh, about, uh, $90,000.

So we are like, so it’s not like we are getting. Tens of thousands of leads where we actually need like a lot of automation and for example, you know, I’ll be honest with you, like I’m just like, it’s just our industry. If you were in roofing and, and if you were in roofing and siding and windows, if you are basically in a high volume low ticket, I would like, I would talk to you a lot about automations, but I mean, honestly.

I, I, I have to talk lot to you about, a lot about marketing automations, but I mean, at the same time, you know, we do have like, you know, some base level automation. So basically when somebody goes on the website, they fill out the form, like I said, they end up in our BU CRM, uh, we, I mean, actually I’m saying we have no automations actually.

They automatically being our email list, they are automatically being added to our text messaging list. And, and, and then yes, like once we got your email and you accepted the terms, uh, we are gonna be sending you emails for the next five years. Obviously, you know, the, the, the frequency goes down and, you know, for the f fifth year, you’re only gonna get two of them a year.

But I mean, this is basics of EE email marketing, but, you know, so basically helping, uh, uh, helping our, helping our sales people process the leads, building out a custom CRM and, uh, just processing those leads and just, you know, having this in your head and just, you know, just efficiently following up with them.

But I’ll be honest with you, once again. Uh, it’s a, it’s a high ticket, you know, relationship based sale, brand based sale in many cases. So, you know, as much as we want to automate and be as much as we try to automate, um. Uh, I mean, you know, like it all comes down to like meeting a person and, you know, the best marketing is basically having that meeting where our salesperson talks about our company and present our materials and present our proposal that looks more detailed.

Uh, and, um, I mean, more detailed than basically any other proposal for the basement project in the country. I mean, I, I, I’ll, I’ll be honest with like, like we had someone, uh, who said like, Hey, like, you know, we got this company’s proposal and was $10,000 less. Can you send it to us? I, I, I mean, like, and be like, can you send it to us?

Take a look. Our proposal is 10 pages long outlining every single detail. Okay. Their proposal is how many, how long do you think it is? It’s 10 lines long. 10 lines. Frame out the basement, finish drywall, install bathroom, provide bathroom fixtures, install bed. But I mean, like, how are you gonna, so, you know, but I’m, I’m getting off topic.

Uh, marketing and branding. I mean like, you know, market marketing and branding. Basically just pushing the same narrative basement. Finishing basement remodeling, just keep on coming back. You know, um, for example, you know, like as a, as A-C-E-O-I concentrate on marketing for a year. I can let it go for like, you know, six months.

Then I have to dive deep in. And, you know, speaking of people, I’m still like in the process of finding that, you know, right. VP of marketing person, uh, we do have a great, you know, digital marketing person in house, but, you know, marketing is, uh, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s also, I mean, obviously it’s also one of the keys to scaling from one to five, from five to 10.

Dennis Oz: Amazing, and thank you so much. When you look at the, like marketing overall, do you have like an internal marketing team or do you work with an agency or do you have any kind of an approach to that problem? How do you solve it? 

Pavel Abaev: So, uh, like I said, you know, right now we have our in-house, uh, digital marketing specialist who is basically an SEO, uh, genius, uh, who’s been doing this for years.

And like we just do a lot of, you know, in-house brainstorming at the same time, uh, you know, all of the tech SEO and all of like, you know, kind of like a lot of, uh, manual labor involving CEO, uh, SEO, meaning like, you know, writing articles, updating the website. We do have an SEO marketing agency. Uh, uh, and, uh, we are trying different people.

So here’s like what I’ve learned over the years, right? Uh, so. Finding the agency that does everything is never really a good thing. I mean, like, you may hit it off, but if you hit it off, it means they’re gonna be so expensive just because they’re overhead. To have the best of the best SEO guys to have the best of the best meta ads, guys, to have the best of the best, best, uh, because those environments are changing so fast.

If you have to be, if you want to be good at uh, uh, meta ads. You cannot lose the focus. You have to do it every day. And you have to learn about the tools and, and especially right now with ai, I mean, you know, it’s, it’s crazy, but all of those things are available out there. People talk about AI agents, we scroll our Instagram and we see all this stuff.

You know, in our industry, 95% of the, uh, companies not using any of that. You know, it’s, it, it, it is kind of crazy. But yes, I believe in specialization even when it comes to, uh, hiring, like, you know, finding vendors, whether it’s marketing or construction. So, uh, specialized their CO agencies. Ideally, I like when we actually talk to the guy at least once, you know?

The company that hasn’t grown too much, where I actually talk to the guy who started it himself, who might be just like a senior PM or like, you know, just an overlooking, but if I can have the, uh, guy who is in charge, or the guys who are in charge on the call on every call, that’s ideal to me. That’s the key, uh, that I, I always keep those, uh, guys around.

If you hire, I mean, you know, if you hired an agency. Who’s basically a one-man operations, and he’s, uh, you know, uh, he’s, uh, throwing you at his like, you know, uh, admin stuff right away. Or not the admin, I’m sorry to her, his assistant who’s basically not, can’t answer the questions, who’s out there just collecting the questions or whatever.

Like, I mean, this Ron, like, you know, if, if it’s, if it’s a one-man operation, two, three guys, and you are actually not talking to the owner every, I mean, you’re not talking, you’re not having a conversation with this, you know, with a leader of a three people team. Run away from this company, they will never grow, uh, because he’s just, he doesn’t wanna take the focus, he doesn’t wanna take care of his clients.

So, you know, that’s one, that’s one recommendation I would definitely give. Uh, and you know, obviously, and once again, I talk about our, our size companies. If you are a $200 million, you know. Whatever, like a lending a bank or something. Obviously you cannot work with the companies like this. That’s when you go to those best of the best who can ba uh, marketing agencies who work with like, you know, budgets of hundred to two, $300,000 a month, you know?

But right now we speak to the people you know from our industry, and I’m talking about the approach we are using. And, you know, I’m just, that’s what I’m trying to say. Like, you know, just giving advice to those who basically in the same position as, uh, US right now, or like, you know, and, and in reality, in terms of marketing, the approaches hasn’t changed like, you know, 3, 4, 5 years ago.

It’s just like, you know, right now it’s all more, uh, you know, social media, uh, oriented and, you know, you can do a lot of AI tools, but it, it’s funny, the only thing I have to add here is that. Uh, when, when I, when, when we just started seeing, you know, those like, you know, fun, uh, ads, uh, that are trying to, basically they’re a build off of the TikTok, uh, TikTok, um, trends.

They were fun. But, you know, it’s funny, I’ve noticing like, you know, even over the past few months, I mean, just every single company kind of like, you know, at first when you see this funny video. And like, and then like, you know, oh wow. It actually talks about the brand. It was cool. But right now it’s like a lot of companies actually taking a grasp on it.

So, you know, you constantly have to like, you know, you, you like, you have to constantly, uh, just, uh, evolve and, you know, same should be your marketing vendors. Same, should be. Should, should do, you know, the, the people you do your marketing with, like, you know, just the, the, the, it just changes so quickly.

Right now it’s, it’s crazy. 

Dennis Oz: Yeah, you’re right. Absolutely. It’s changing and, you know, even your marketing , I really like your approach because you also created the niche just for basement remodeling. You’re also. Saying that like a company that is focusing just for a SEO just for mad Small 

Pavel Abaev: companies.

Small companies. Small company. I, if it’s a small company, yes. I think they should focus because that’s how they, uh, I mean, you know, like there is a book by, I don’t remember the offer, like it’s called The one thing. I mean, you know, they have a laser focus. That’s how they, so you know. It’s very simple because they have a laser focus.

They just by default no more. And the 30 minutes of, of, of their time, uh, you know, talking about SEO will be, you know, I mean, you got my point. 

Dennis Oz: Exactly. Thanks so much. And I believe it’s one of the, most detailed explanation of how you guys running the marketing. And thank you so much for sharing all these golden nuggets.

Experience and knowledge with us. That was amazing. Pavel. Well, folks, I’m sure that you’re enjoying this conversation as much as I do. Just have a couple of more questions, for my speaker today. Yeah, we’ll be wrapping up right after this one, but let me ask you this, let’s say, , we have started this pretty new, and let’s say we, because , most of our teams are just really start small teams.

And remember the days that you have, one job at a time and then you scale with the systems, with the people. Exactly, yes. What would be. , The best piece of advice. What’s your best advice to someone who’s just starting out, who wants to grow a real company, not just self-employed? What would be your advice to these people right now?

Pavel Abaev: Uh, you know, uh, what I’ve learned through the years, uh, you know, uh, is that, um. Consistency is the key to success. The thing is, you know, I don’t think that I’m successful because I decided to finish basements. Okay. Um, I decided to finish basements because I liked it. It was interesting for me, and you know, that’s why I decided, but I’m successful not because I’m finishing basins, not because of the automations, not because of the people are fired.

Like, I mean, I honestly. Like people who work here, they are probably like, you know, the number one reason for success. Okay. But after this, uh, it is a consistency of, uh, their, of their leader, of the comp, of the person who started the company. Uh. So, you know, just stick to what you like doing. So, you know, you, you already own your business, right?

You’re already like, you know, you, whether you’re self-employed or like, whether it’s an LLC or whatever it is, but you already do something that apparently you like, because you didn’t just went to look for a job or you know, you had a full-time job and you just decided, okay, I just want to quit and I just wanna start something on my my own.

So it means that you kind of like made a decision and you kind of know what you wanna do, right? So next, just make sure that. Don’t get lost. You know, in a way, like, while the don’t get lost, like, you know, in the process, just try to make sure you keep on doing what you like doing and, you know, be consistent.

Just try and it’s like, it’s a golden rule, you know, like a 1%, like the, the power is compounding, you know, even if you’re gonna do 1% better every 10 days, I mean, like, you know, so. That’s, that’s pretty much it, you know, so just, just be consistent and, uh, you know, try to, if, if you decided you’re gonna do bathrooms, you know, just try to only do bathrooms.

Don’t like this. Don’t, don’t try it out. And then, you know, three months later decide, okay, I actually gonna do a be a flooring company. And then, you know, four months later I actually gonna be a vendor. I’m gonna be selling like, you know, I gonna be selling something. Or, you know, like, so, you know, consistence.

And if you ask me if you think that. I did not like hate at some, at certain points of my, of like, of my career. I mean, you know, if I didn’t hate like, you know, what I was doing. I mean, like I had, I was in a crazy situation, you know, like we decided to try to go, uh, do some. General contracting for the commercial, uh, uh, for the, uh, for the, uh, large, uh, for the large developer.

And, you know, we just got, I mean, I’ll be honest with you, 2016, I haven’t been on a job site by then, maybe 2017. I haven’t been on a job site by then, by about two years. I like had project managers and like if I, I would go on a job site like once, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, once per project. And I haven’t hold a hammer like in 2017 by maybe like three or four years, we got this job.

We just got ourself in such a trouble. I was basically, uh, my guys were working, uh, out there during the day and I, myself was coming out there, uh, uh, like at 8:00 PM with couple of guys. And I worked, uh, I was working through the night and then during the day I was also like doing my regular job. So, you know, did I hate myself for doing, taking this.

When I was doing it, like at 5:00 AM sending the floor that like, you know, somebody, uh, poured, uh, poorly, uh, yes, I hated myself, but I’ve learned a lesson and I, and I’ve learned, okay, listen, I have this expertise in home modeling and in basements that I built. By that time, I was doing only maybe for two, three years only.

But I’m like, I’m looking back like, okay, listen, I, I have this expertise. Why do I need to? Try and get ex and expertise. It, it’s construction, but it’s different. It’s the same thing, you know, your ear doctor or uh, you know, your, like, you know, some other kind of doctor, like two different things. You know, if you know about ears, it doesn’t necessarily know about, you know, uh, about the guts.

Same thing here. If I know about basements, it doesn’t mean I know how to, uh, you know, do certain things like, you know, that general contractors in commercial and, you know, multifamily fields do and the other way around. So. Use your expertise, grow your expertise, be consistent, and, uh, don’t give up. 

Dennis Oz: Thank you so much.

This is, one of the most valuable moment of this. And thank you so much for this one. Well, just, one last question. Sometimes, in our show, I know that was a B2B talk, but sometimes we also have. Some customers tuning in. Yeah. And they’re looking for information for basement remodeling.

They came across with this, and then they might be interested in working with you in the area. Of course, , we’ll be doing this nationwide. So our, content is gonna be nationwide. But if they’re , someone in DMV area and looking for basement remodeling, what do you do for them?

And what’s the real benefit of working with basement remodeling.com for these prospects today? Like, you should 

Pavel Abaev: not ask me this question because, because we’re not gonna finish this podcast. Yeah, let’s go listen. I mean, I, I, I’ll tell you this, it, it’s, uh, I’ll just start with this. You know, um, on our social media, uh, we promote ourselves, so based on remodeling is the brand, but on our social media.

And just internally, like even our, even our like, you know, uh, uh, group ma, I mean EE even our iMessage group for the, for the company where we like, you know, just saying Happy Birthday to everyone and stuff. So, uh, it’s called Basement Nerds. Okay. And if you ask Chad GPT, what is Basement Nerds, it’s gonna tell you it’s, it’s a basically a team of, uh, uh, people who are passionate about everything basements, okay?

So if you ask me, why would you hire basement remodeling.com? Because you are simply hiring. The, uh, team of people who has more expertise in this field than any other company? I don’t like, I can’t vouch. I mean, absolutely a hundred percent in DMV, but I just know how many basements we finish. I know how many basements other basement companies finish, but I would say maybe I’ll say like top three expertise in the country.

What it means is like, and it’s not just about. It’s not just about like doing the work or anything. It starts with everything. It starts with putting the proposal the way where your change orders will never exceed more than three, 4%, and it’s only gonna be, if you ask for it, you’ll not exceed three, 4% of your initial, uh, contract amount.

It, it’s knowing that you’re gonna know, like it’s knowing before you start. It’s set, it’s about setting proper expectations, you know, at every step of the way from the salesperson to our pre-construction meeting. Uh, and just going through all of those hundreds of checklists that we’ve built and that are now like built into the automations and stuff.

Uh, it’s, it’s basically knowing that, uh, behind our project managers, you know, our senior project manager been with us since, since 2013. Uh, and you know, he still goes out there and lose, sees basements. I don’t see ba, I mean, I haven’t seen basements like for many years myself in terms of like going out there unless there is like really something really interesting or complex.

But our senior project manager is the person who’s been seeing basements every day. Every day folks, listen, nothing else since 2013 like so, and, and he has still, he, the amount of basements he has been involved with is over a thousand. Our salesperson, our elite salesperson, Eric Campbell, he’s been a project manager for three years.

He finished 300 basements himself. He managed 300 basements himself before he started going out, and right now he’s looking at three to 400 basements a year. Uh, just, you know, because like I said, they’re selling about, um, 30, 30% of them. So, uh. It’s the expertise, you know, and the funny part is that, uh, we are also a very well established company.

And if we are gonna compare our price to the companies who basically have the same brand presence, uh, in the GMV, but not specialize in basements and who can provide similar customer service, very simple. Because they don’t specialize, they don’t have the efficiency build. We know that their price is usually 20% more.

Okay. It’s anywhere between 20 and 50% more than us. And then, you know, obviously a small, uh, one-man operation, they can out beat us here and there. Uh, and sometimes they come in at the same price. But you have to understand it’s not just this, you know, when you finish your basement, especially if it’s a finished basement, like, you know, in the 1960s, you don’t see what’s going.

You remove those, you remove those walls. And if you have a person who look, who finished like three basements a year, uh, the, you know, like, and he may not even be there himself, uh, one of his guys gonna be there for demolition. There will be a crack in the wall if it’s gonna be our company. I know for a fact there will be at least four or five people who’s gonna go to this job.

You know, before we’re gonna close up the drywall, who has an expertise and who, and not just an expertise. Who has the passion for it and who will tell, uh, the project manager or anyone else that like, listen, this is not looking good. You have to look into this. You should not finish your basement right now.

Um, uh, because of this credit here, we should do an epoxy injections or we should do carbon fiber repair, or we should do a French drain. And you know, like. And that’s one example. Another example, the inspections and permits. When it comes to basements, it’s very different from upstairs because it’s considered, uh, a new space within, uh, an existing structure.

It’s more complex. I mean, you have to understand, uh, we carry our mechanical, electrical, plumbing licenses and as well as general contracting licenses. You know, we, our company personally, not personally, but our company pulls over 400 permits a year, four basements only, and each basement needs about eight inspections.

So, you know, you do your math 110 basements, uh, deep pass, about 880 inspections a year. And then is, we still fail inspections. You know why? Because there are different inspectors. There are new, regular and like you, you know one of the questions Matt was mentioning that you work with a across 20 different counties.

It is absolutely crazy, but every county in Maryland, Virginia, and the DC itself. Have different regulations, they go by different codes. Uh, they, they, and they ask and look for different things during the inspections, during the permits review process. You know, it’s, and just, you know, you’re gonna have a guy who went out there and he, he gave you a prize, but he, last time he did a basement in your locality, you know, in let’s say Howard County was a year ago, or like the last time he did a basement in Montgomery County.

Things has changed. Like, you know, the things that they wanted us to do a year ago is different from what they want us to do. And what’s gonna happen? He gave you a price. It’s really tight. He’s like out there, you know, he fails inspection and he already sees okay, like, you know, I’m basically at the point of like, you know, if, if I, if I’m not gonna charge this $3,000 more for this test that just came up because of the inspector, I’m gonna start like, you know, either not making money, I’m gonna start losing money.

And what happens, it’s not like, you know, the tension, uh, rises. You know, the guy still has to be there in your house for another four, five weeks. But you know, when you have a guy who is working at your home who is not making money. You know, you may be happy that you hired somebody cheap, but you’re not gonna be happy because, you know, like, I mean, he’s gonna be annoyed because he’s not, he knows he’s not making money.

He’s gonna start cutting corners. You’re gonna gonna, you guys gonna go start fighting and in the end, you know, he has, you did try to save $10,000. In the end, you saved 4,000 because still hit you with $6,000 more and change orders and you know, your process was horrible. You exhausted, you are drained.

And, you know, that’s pretty much what it is. So like, you know, I, I, I, and I can just keep on talking like this are just couple examples. 

Dennis Oz: No, no, no. This is so amazing to see how many, at least just looking at the, , permits point, I was sold over there. I was already sold over there. When you talk about the permits, I mean the permits that you got and saying that you’re still failing, and folks, we are talking about a company who doesn’t really make three basements in one year.

You need someone who sees three basements in three hours or maybe in a day, I don’t know, but in a day. Yeah. Yeah. Three 

Pavel Abaev: hours. Three. Three hours a day. Three hours a day. Three, I mean, three basements a day, like two basements a day. That’s how many basements our salespersons, uh, you know, uh, salesperson. See?

Yeah. 

Dennis Oz: That was amazing. And, well, I cannot thank you enough for your participation today. That was an amazing talk. And I’m sure all other listeners today, even a little bit the prospects at the end, if you even catch them, I’m sure the actual value comes from like real world class people like you sharing the things that they learned with us and thank you so much for joining me today.

Right. 

Pavel Abaev: Alright. Thank you so much Dennis. Thanks a lot. 

Dennis Oz: Perfect. That was pleasure. Yeah, of course, of course. That was another episode of Remodeler Success podcast. Gonna see you next time. Goodbye.