238 I Getting It Right, Down To The Details W/ Jeff Currin

May 21

[00:00:02] Chaz Wolfe: up everybody? Chaz Wolf gathering the King's podcast. Today on the king stage, I've got Jeff Currin, my brother. How you doing,

[00:00:10] Jeff Currin: Chaz? What's up man? Everything's good. We're, uh, we're just, we were,

[00:00:14] Chaz Wolfe: we were just talking about our beards. You, you're sweating. Well, we're talking about our beards. Um, for the listeners that are listening on Spotify and Apple, This dude right here has got another great beard.

This is like a, a bearded podcast today.

[00:00:27] Jeff Currin: It is, it is. And I, I take pride in my beard just like you do. So Exactly.

[00:00:32] Chaz Wolfe: I'm thinking that maybe this show, we don't have any sponsored, maybe we should get a beard, uh, a beard oil or some sort of a company, beard company to sponsor this, this episode we're, we're so looking good over here.

[00:00:45] Jeff Currin: Yeah. I got a buddy named the bearded Bricker. He, he takes a lot of pride in his beard too, here in Dallas. So, I think we could

[00:00:51] Chaz Wolfe: probably, can you imagine it would be difficult to keep a beard in that industry? Yeah.

[00:00:56] Jeff Currin: Well, my, my wedding picture back here behind me, almost all of us have beards, so

[00:01:00] Chaz Wolfe: yeah. That's my, that's my people.

I'm gonna have to meet your people. Yes, sir. What, what kind of business do you

[00:01:06] Jeff Currin: have, Jeff? We do residential remodeling, um, we do some commercial remodeling. We do some real estate investing. But our primary business is residential remodeling, kitchens and bathrooms is probably 85%

[00:01:20] Chaz Wolfe: of it. I love it. And you've got a specialty inside of that even.

Right? We

[00:01:25] Jeff Currin: started in tile, that's where we cut our teeth as tile. And, and I think that's what most people hire us for is the detailed tile work. Yeah. Um, you know, really big elaborate showers. A lot of patterns, a lot of deco. You know, the, the fine cuts. The mire cuts. Yeah. All the stuff that, that makes the shower look, you know, premium and, and top notch.

That's, that's our specialty.

[00:01:51] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. You know, it's obviously I'm in Kansas City and you're in Texas, so I, I couldn't have the opportunity to hire you, but we just had, we just had a home built and. It is just, as you just said, one of the highlights of the home, um, as we're taking friends through, or folks that wanna see it, is our master shower from.

I mean, I, and I wouldn't have thought about it cuz I'm not like, you know, I'm in and out for two minutes, like, sh what's a shower to me? You know? Mm-hmm. But people walk in and there's just certain places in the house and this is absolutely one of them where they go, wow. And it's the tile. It's the detail, it's the pattern, it's the size.

It's like the, it's like a grand entrance to the shower. You know, that's,

[00:02:32] Jeff Currin: and that's why people have tile inlays in their entryway. That's why people have big tile mosaic fireplaces and you know, it's just the focal point of a lot of things. The backsplash, all your, all your really luxury things are tile related.

You can have nice carpet, you can have nice wood floors. But the tile is really where the, the luxury comes in, in, in the kitchens and bathrooms.

[00:02:56] Chaz Wolfe: You know, it's so funny that you're saying this and, and, and we don't have to hang on this point for very long, but I think it's good for the audience and also even folks that you know, that listen to this.

When I think about my home now, now that you say it, those keep co those places that I just described, where the WOW comes out. It's those, it's those places that you just said. It's the, it's the master bath with the tile. It's the, it's the kitchen backsplash and it's the tile behind our fireplace. It's incredible.

Yes, sir. It's the details. Yeah, it's the details. Um, and, and like you said, it's the upscale perspective, um, that it works. Bill, you're, you're obviously doing more than that. Um, but, but man, um, it sounds like that's like the hotspot for you. I wanna know. Clients

[00:03:37] Jeff Currin: need more than that. Clients need more than that.

It, that's how you get a lot of your tile jobs, is they don't want to go find a plumber. They don't wanna go find an electrician. They don't wanna go find a painter. They wanna talk to one person. And that one person can do everything. So they hire you to do all of it? Yeah. And again, the, the finished product is the tile work.

That's the most that, you know, the most visible thing is the tile. So, you know, people look for somebody who can do everything encompassing and right. That lands us our really big projects. Yeah. Really, really big

[00:04:11] Chaz Wolfe: projects. So, yeah. And I, I'm gonna, I want to talk about this here in a minute. Um, cuz obviously what you're describing is this natural progression in business.

You got started, you cut your teeth like you said, and then you figured out that there's more to the story of what your capabilities are, what your team can handle you as the owner. Your mindset, I'm sure grew through that process of being able to have this more of a GC perspective. And so I definitely wanna get into that before we do though you've been building this.

And you've been very successful, and then now you're even continuing to do it. And my question is, why? Like what's the bigger

[00:04:41] Jeff Currin: picture for you? I'm always looking into the future. Um, I, of course we have to, we have to stare at to the day-to-day stuff, but I'm always thinking bigger and thinking more. Um, we've, we've got a big showroom coming that we're building here in Rockwall.

Uh, so that's, you know, I've had a showroom for 12 years and just the. It's a bigger picture of leaving something for the family and, you know, having something that's, that's gonna be here. I don't, I, we, we've been leasing a showroom and that just, it burns me up every month. I pay rent. It just, it burns me inside.

So, you know, this, this showroom we're building now is the thing that's gonna be left, you know, to the family and make it a, a family business for years to come.

[00:05:26] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. What, what about family has you, I mean, pushing so hard. I mean, obviously I'm sure we can come up with a lot of cliche, you know, things, but like each one of us have that little, that little burning thing inside of us.

And for you family, what does that mean? What does that look like in your world?

[00:05:43] Jeff Currin: Uh, three kids, um, two college graduates. So, you know, the, the idea that they can continue on what we've started and. Yeah. You know, my, my wife works with me, but sh she has her own stuff too. So, you know, we're both very self-motivated, you know, very entrepreneur type people.

Yeah. And, um, the, the two of us when we came together, it really made a team that was able to take things to the next level and, and really push, you know, the, our, our business up the ladder and the type of projects we've been taking recently are, are. Just, it just scaled. Amazing. Honestly. It's amazing.

[00:06:26] Chaz Wolfe: You, you've hit on a point here that, you know, sometimes we get to, um, sometimes we don't, depending upon the guest, but this decision of the spouse or, you know, a partner, significant other y I feel the exact same way, what you just said.

Like, I know that I can run way faster because of my wife, even though like you guys, you know, she's kind of, she kind of does her thing. I kind of do mine, but. The way I see it, that she, she has her lanes, I have mine, and, and I don't need to worry about her. She doesn't need to worry about mine, so therefore we can just run fast, you know, go fast.

Talk about that decision. Like did you, did you, did you meet her and did you know that ahead of time? Was that like you guys met young, like we did, you didn't really have a clue and it kinda just worked out. Like, tell us about that a little bit. No, we, we

[00:07:09] Jeff Currin: were married. We were married six years ago and I think when we met, We, we both had kind of been on our own journey and yeah.

We both had kids and, you know, coming together that it, it just made things exponentially grow. Yeah. And, um, we, we both had our own houses. We, we came together, we built one massive house for our family. Yeah. Uh, I mean, ho honestly, it's, you know, it's 8,000 square feet. We moved both of our parents in. Wow. Um, so it's, Six acres and we just made sure that like our whole family was gonna be taken care of.

I love that. And, and, and neither one of us had a lot of money. It wasn't like we were, we were filthy rich, but being able to come together and use our brains and figure out how to do it. Yeah. Um, I, I think it's made, it's made us both successful and, you know, that, that's what I look forward to is leaving this for our kids and leaving the business for our kids and, you know, just.

Not having, not having to see them struggling. Like I said, they're both college graduates. They both have, you know, they don't have really good jobs yet, but they both have the potential, the older kids have the potential to do all kinds of things, and they both, and they work in the business. Yeah. Our daughter takes the professional photographs after the jobs are done.

Yeah. My son's a really good carpenter. I don't, I don't know where he learned it, but he's a really good carpenter, so That's awesome. You know, having, having those skills and. Being, being business orientated people already. Yeah. Yeah. Whether they, whether they continue our business or not, it, they're gonna be successful and modeling ourselves for them.

I think that's, that's the reward for me. It's not, it's not a monetary reward, it's just the fact that I know that they're seeing us be successful and that they're gonna be successful because of they, what they've seen with

[00:09:03] Chaz Wolfe: us. Yeah. Such a simple principle, but it fires me up just thinking about it. I've got young ones, so we're in different stages, but every decision that I'm making, I'm going, okay, how's this gonna affect the next 10, 20, 40 years?

How, what are my grandkids gonna think about this? You know, that's tough to be able to apply that level of thinking to the day-to-day.

[00:09:23] Jeff Currin: Grandkids, you're making me sweat. That's, that, that's a tough one. So I,

[00:09:31] Chaz Wolfe: yeah, well, you, because it it, for you, it's like, you know, I don't wanna say around the corner, but in, in, in comparison to me it's around the corner and so maybe it's a little easier for me cuz it's still like, Out there, you know, I can talk about it and not have to worry about it anytime soon.

Well,

[00:09:47] Jeff Currin: it's obvious with my gray and, and you're non-G gray that, that I'm a lot closer than you, so hey.

[00:09:53] Chaz Wolfe: But that's a natural progression. You know, like having kids myself, I have been able to have the perspective of the interactions of grandparents, and it has given me a whole nother light of going, okay, here's what I want to be when.

When I'm papa, you know, um, because it's different and, and I love being dad, don't get me wrong, but to be able to, like you said, take what I've been able to do, learn and instill into my children, obviously through, it's gonna look different than to my grandkids, cuz it that's gonna be their job to instill in their kids.

But, um, but to ha to watch that flow through multiple generations and then to be able to like connect with. The next generation below them, my, my kids, my grandkids, you know, like I just get so fired up thinking about that. I don't know, maybe I'm kinda weird.

[00:10:44] Jeff Currin: No, no. I, I can tell you, you know, my, my dad, he worked 45 years for one company, gigantic company, and no college education.

Just got him there, started working and worked his way up the ladder, uh, when he retired. He helped me with my business. He became part of, cuz I, I was a guy in the truck and I had a helper and Right. We were just doing jobs and doing our best and yeah. You know, meeting, meeting new people, trying to grow the business.

And when he came in, he, he took it where I was writing all my invoices on pieces of paper in napkins and he put it on spreadsheets and he started showing me financially what the business was doing and what it needed to do better. And yeah, his, his expertise helped me. Grow my business to where now I can do it on my own.

I don't, I, you know, he's fully retired now. He had a heart attack in January and he is recovered and you know, now I'm able to take over all of it because of his help. Yeah, and you know that, that's something if, if one of your viewers sees and they, they want to bring in a family member, it's gotta be a good family member.

But if they wanna bring in a family member, that's gotta be one of the best things you can do as somebody you really can trust. Whether it's a dad, an uncle, a brother, somebody who's really, you know, tho those family members, they can really help you take it to the next

[00:12:05] Chaz Wolfe: level. Yeah, yeah. As you said, you know, it's gotta be a good one cuz there's obviously the.

Plenty of people out there that say don't partner with anybody, especially family. And then I talk to guys, you know that their whole life has been centered around their brother or their uncle, or like you just said, their cousin, you know, whatever. And, and it's worked out great. So I think there's some definitely some key components there that make it.

Great. Um, but you've kind of given us a little bit of, of how you got started a little bit. You kind of, you inkling that, you know, you were, you and a guy and a truck and kind of just going job to job. Tell us why tile, like, how'd you get started? Kind of give us the very beginning, like why even owning a business?

[00:12:44] Jeff Currin: Uh, I needed the job, you know, honestly, I applied several places and at that time there was not too many people hiring. I wasn't college educated. I had some college under my belt. Uh, but I, I just needed a job and. Guy was willing to offer me 15 an hour, and, you know, it was, it was decent money. So I started just doing tile jobs for him, just cleaning grout and, you know, doing little things.

And then he offered me 25 an hour and at that point I realized, okay, there's probably a lot of money in this because if he's willing to pay me 25 an hour, I, I could probably go do this on my own. And I, I started coaching, football, coaching, my oldest kid, and I met a plumber. I met another plumber, and I met another plumber, and they all needed tile guys.

I said, wait a minute. There's definitely a market for this. I, I never thought, you know, tile's just in the shower. I never thought about what, what the real, you know, money maker was here. And, you know, from meeting all those people. And, and I've always kind of just been a, a, a person who can meet people and just kind of talk to 'em and they wanna talk to me and yeah.

So yeah, just growing it that direction and, you know, I, I, I did, I worked for the tile doctor two years and, and after that I took off on my own. And, uh, it's just kind of been, it's been history after that as far as. You know, it's, we struggled. We, we struggled because when you do good work, everybody wants you.

Yeah. So, you know, if you don't, and you don't get the right people to bring along with you, you really struggle. Right. Because you're chasing behind people. You're fixing things they don't do. Right. Right. Um, you're paying people for nothing. Yeah. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of, uh, Growing pains when you're hiring people in the beginning.

But yeah, once, once you find that good network of people. Most, most of my guys have been with me for five to 10 years. Yeah. Uh, and that's, that's just consistency. That's paying people properly, that's making sure they're taken care of on the jobs and that you do the additional things they need. If they need another bag of material, you make sure they get it.

Yeah. You don't, you don't wait. You make sure they get it. That way their job's finished and. You know, I think, uh, and we, we try to do that as a team. I try to make sure that I have three ladies that work in the office and they're all solid. Like they, they all have good experience in, in construction and, you know, I, I make sure I train 'em well.

That's another thing. I, I promote the education with my, my crew. I make sure they understand what they're using. You know, new products that come out. I make sure that they're trained on 'em. They don't just go out and try it. They Right. They need to understand how to use it. And, you know, I send them to, to classes.

There's a, one product we use is called Slitter. Okay. It's, uh, it's the underlayment, the waterproofing for tile. Which is the important thing. Yeah, exactly. Cause we, we go to a lot of showers and we see a lot of really nice bathrooms and a lot of these showers are not waterproof correctly. And we have to tear out a brand new shower cause it's leaking.

Yeah. So I make sure that my guys are trained with waterproofing and that they do a really solid job with waterproofing and the office understands all the components of it, how to use it, you know, what what's proper and what's improper. Like what, like how to, and yeah. The education is huge with my team.

It really is.

[00:16:17] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, and so you kind of just gave, you, gave a struggle and a solution all in kind of like the same um, story there, which I love. The struggle was hiring, which I think everybody can relate to and especially in today's environment. And so you're part, part of your solution to that. You had mentioned paying good, taking good care of them, making sure that they have what they need, make their job as not, it sounds weird to say as easy as possible, but.

They're a professional, let them do what they do, fill in the gaps around that so they can do what they do and not have to be frustrated, is what you're saying. But then the last piece I wanna just kind of hone in on, because the listener is the guy in the truck, or maybe they're a guy and, and five guys with him, with a truck or two.

They haven't hit the million dollar mark yet. And so what they're trying to do is they're trying to pull things from your story here today that go, okay, what do I need to implement today? Or maybe it's a, a, a, a guy running a, you know, um, You know, uh, he's a, he's a dentist, you know, and he's got him and he's got one hygienist, you know, and it's the same.

It's the same. It's the same across the board. Right. And so the last piece, the training piece, you have invested into not only your, your, the, the folks doing the work, but then also the staff in the office that's communicating with the client. You've invested in training. What has been the biggest, I mean, obviously then, then they're trained, but like, What's the outcome of that?

What, like what's the benefit of spending all this time and money and effort into getting them to a professional level? Is what, what I'm hearing you say.

[00:17:45] Jeff Currin: I, I need them to be smarter than the homeowner every time, every time. I want my, my people to be smarter than the client, even. They don't have to act like it, but they need to understand whenever the client has a problem.

They, they either need to answer and solve the problem or they need to be able to contact the right person to help solve that problem. Right. So that, that being them being on site and not having to call Jeff for every single thing Right. Has been the biggest benefit. If, if I wasn't training them well, I wouldn't even be able to be on this call cuz I would just be answering phone calls and I wouldn't be able to do anything else productive.

Because I would just be answering phone calls with problems and how do we fix this and what do we do here and Right. Right. So that's been, that's been the biggest win for me is, is that you train 'em. They can take off on their own if you don't talk to 'em for a whole day, but nothing went wrong. Right.

Everything went smooth and, and they were able to solve every problem.

[00:18:45] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, exactly. So we're, we're gonna get into a couple things here because we're on such a great vein. I wanna keep it right here. The, the mindset of. The, the listener, not because necessarily they're, they're, they want to be limited. They, they, they're listening because they want to be unlimited, but, but their limited thinking is what's got them where they are.

And so we're trying to open it up for 'em. Okay. So what, what I'm hearing you say in all of that is, number one, you had to hire people because if you hire people, they're doing the task, and then they're gonna have questions, which then led to maybe you weren't doing the work, but then now your phone's blowing off the hook with questions.

So it's like this actually this two-step process of being willing to hire, being willing to give it away, being willing to let someone else be the expert, right? Because you're talking about high-end tile, you're talking about, man, if this something messes up, I'm gonna have to come in behind, but, but I'm gonna give that away because if I don't give it away, I can't grow.

I can't open my thinking to a bigger way of thinking. But then right behind that is if you don't train him, do you think he wants to call you all day long? Do you think that that is an environment where he, he constantly doesn't know what to do? No, and he feels great about it. At the end of the day when he, he comes home or she goes home and, and they, and their spouse says, how was the day today?

And they're like, oh, I can't wait to go back tomorrow. I had, I had no idea what I was doing today. I had to call the, the bosses 14 times. Like, no. So then, now, now we're talking about the listener who's like, I can't, I can't keep 'em. I, I, I hire somebody. And then they just, they just leave or they just don't know what to do, like.

It's this place of first they have to hire. Some people are in that place. They just need to go hire. Then there's people who are like, I've tried that and that didn't work. Right. And I'm hearing you say the solution is, get in there, train 'em, spend time, effort, money. You wanna add anything to that? Please,

[00:20:32] Jeff Currin: uh, hire warm.

Where you hire somebody close to you. Now that may be somebody where you, you currently. I, I've seen it very, very well, where you go to a tile store and you find somebody who's very educated in the tile world, but they're not very well taken care of within that business. That would be a warm, warm person to hire somebody.

You know, somebody, you know, they know what they're doing. You can put applications. You can get applications from hundreds of people. You can hire all of them. They may not ever work, but if you hire somebody that you know has experience and you know has. And maybe not all the best experience, but you can, you can, something you can start with and work with somebody who's already knowledgeable.

Um, one of the ladies I hired, she worked with computers. She had nothing to do with construction, but she bought and sold computer parts online. And I knew that that selling, I made her my sales manager because I knew that that selling was in her DNA already and she knew that how to sell. And from there, I just needed to train her how to do the work and yeah, how to, you know, how to sell our how to trans, yeah, how to trans transition from computers to remodeling and construction.

Uh, there's hiring, you know, is the first key once you hire the right people, uh, and then make them all work together because. The three ladies in the office, they can independently call me all day long or they can just talk to each other and help figure out amongst each other. Yeah. You know how to solve different problems, scheduling issues, um, material pickups.

You get, you get materials all in one spot. You can be picked up all at one time for all the jobs. It doesn't have to be. You know, individual pickups for each job. So yeah. You know, figuring out how to streamline things and make things, uh, you know, all in one. Yeah. That's it. It, it's easy at that point. And it sounds easy.

You can say, you can say anything. It sounds easy, but

[00:22:42] Chaz Wolfe: you know, but you've done it. You've done it. And so you can say that not only, I'm sure there's some difficulty. I know everything we've been talking about has been difficult at stages for me. But I wouldn't go back. I wouldn't stop trying to hire or train.

No, you, you can't, you can't build a business. You, you have a job otherwise. Absolutely,

[00:23:06] Jeff Currin: absolutely. No, there's, once you commit to it, it, if you stop, um, I mean, the only, the only thing could, could really stop me would be a health thing. That would be the only thing that would stop me from doing what I do.

Cause I love it. I love making people's houses look nicer. I love the smile on their face. I love all the messages I get to tell people. Say, you're awesome. Your team's awesome. I love you're this guy or that guy, tho those things are what drives me. I, I hardly even look at the money and the deal because I know as long as we're bidding it correctly, the money's there.

Yeah. You know, we'll, we'll figure that part out. We, if we do our job correctly, The money will be there. Yeah,

[00:23:47] Chaz Wolfe: a hundred percent. Jeff, um, I wanna flip the coin on you. We've been talking a lot about stuff that you've done well and some good decisions that you've made. I love good decisions. I think that our history is made up of, of a lot of good decisions.

Generally speaking. That's why, the reason why we are where we are. But there's always those bad decisions too. So I want you to give us a good example and a story maybe with some good details inside of something that, uh, just wasn't so hot.

[00:24:14] Jeff Currin: Hmm, that hurts. Um, I hired a guy and like I hired a couple guys, so it, it's along that same vein you're talking about of hiring.

Um, I hired a guy and he, he really came in and he knew what he was doing, but he hired the wrong people and he brought in some really bad apples and that, and that happened several times along the way. But, uh, uh, sure. One instance, um, we, uh, we were doing a bathroom and the guy came in and he was doing, he was doing the work.

Everything was going okay with the shower. Um, but one of the guys who was there working with him called me that night and he said, Jeff, uh, I got something to tell you and I, okay, talk to me. It's late, it's nine o'clock. Tell me what, what's up? What would you do if somebody, if you saw somebody steal something on your job?

Hmm. You worked for me. Like, tell me what, what are you, what are you trying to tell me? Right. Um, the guy, the guy was working there today, he took a Rolex. He took a Rolex out of a customer's house. So yeah, I, uh, jumped in the car and I went to his house and we got the Rolex back,

[00:25:36] Chaz Wolfe: retrieved the goods,

[00:25:39] Jeff Currin: and went.

Straight back to the homeowner's house the next morning and put it back where he took it from. And I never told the homeowner, but that's, that's one of the, the, it didn't end bad. But yeah, it's a lot of heartache and a lot of, a lot of things that, you know, I had that guy working for me for, I don't know, four or five months.

He could have did that in many houses. Yeah. Um, and you just don't know about people and how they're gonna, how they're gonna change. That's why I say hire warm, hire people you feel like, you know, uh, and it, it can go bad for those people too, but Yep. You know, the hiring process here, uh, I'll try people out in certain places, but I won't try 'em out in houses that are, you know, million dollar houses where there, where there's a

[00:26:30] Chaz Wolfe: Rolex.

[00:26:31] Jeff Currin: Yes. Yes. And we, we do other kinds of projects too. I, I, I have to make sure I keep our teams busy. Yeah. You know, every, everybody wants to make six figures or seven figures doing what we do like. Right. So, you know, I have to keep them busy and we'll do a, we'll do a, a bank or a hotel, or we'll do something that's, yeah, we'll lower our price point to work in those places.

But our primary business is residential remodeling, high-end remodeling, and, yeah. So,

[00:27:02] Chaz Wolfe: yeah, it's good. I mean, I think that what I've, what I've learned from that, um, scenario really isn't even the, the bad hiring decision because those are gonna come, you're not an ape to it now. It's not like you can't, it's not like you're immune to it, is what I mean to say.

I'm gonna hire somebody in the next 20 years, probably multiple that were. Didn't vet 'em enough, didn't, it wasn't a good fit. They changed their life, circumstances changed, whatever. But what I learned from you in that moment was the speed to action. So the speed to resolve, um, the situation, the conflict, the whatever.

Um, and so that part wasn't the mistake. I think that if you had sat on it that night, if you had, you know, delayed on any kind, I mean, like the urgency that you acted immediately with, um, is what solved the problem.

[00:27:51] Jeff Currin: Absolutely. We, yeah, I could have been arrested. They could have came and drug me out of the house the next day.

I mean, I, right. There's, there's no telling what could have happened had we waited. Yeah. And, you know, we're fortunate the guy didn't sell the thing. He could have went out and sold it for 500 bucks and he Yep. Or whatever he, you know, anything could have happened, but we were able to resolve that. And, uh, And we, we didn't have to break any arms or legs or anything.

He came and he said, it's a peaceful transfer. He said, I, I'm really sorry. I just wanted to show it to my wife.

[00:28:25] Chaz Wolfe: Oh. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm glad she got a look. Yes. Uh, won't be any more opportunities to get a look on these job sites. They,

[00:28:33] Jeff Currin: they have 'em at the jewelry store, so you can take her there.

[00:28:36] Chaz Wolfe: So Uhhuh.

That's right. Okay. So what about nowadays, you know, so that was back then, but what about now when it comes to making decisions? Is there sort of a discipline or maybe a process that you have when something comes

[00:28:47] Jeff Currin: across your desk? Yeah. Um, I think making decisions now is, is. Can we do it or not? Is it a fit or not?

Right? Um, that's step one. You know, every, every lead that comes in, I either field it or I'm part of the discernment on are we gonna use, are, are they gonna use our services or are we gonna, you know, pass on it? And we don't, we don't pass on a lot. We may overbid on some things, but we don't pass on a lot.

Um, it, it's, uh, It's generally how fast does a customer need it? Um, do they have the budget for our, for our services? And you know, from there the league goes in. We schedule an appointment, uh, since Covid, you know, I've been a huge proponent of virtual. Send me pictures, send me measurements, send me specs on your materials, and I'll give you a price.

And it won't be an exact price, but it'll be, it'll be a ballpark to know if we're a good fit. Right. And I don't mind doing that. I may do 10 of those a week just, just by, you know, message. Uh, we have a, we have a lot of realtors we work with. I have a pretty, pretty good size Providence Realty Group in Dallas.

They send me tons of, tons of leads. Yeah. Um, we, uh, we also have several designers we work with. And those generally aren't leads. Those are jobs when they call us, they give us a list of things. This is what we need a bid on, here is what we need. Yep. They, they've already vetted the client, they've already gotten their deposit, they've already worked up the scope of work.

Yep. And then at that point, the client can decide, do they wanna scale down? Scale up, modify. Right. And we work on those projects for up to a year sometimes. Yeah. Where they're, they're pretty extensive jobs and you know, they. They order things that don't come in for six months or a year. Right. They have things cu custom made and, um, oh, you know, those are the, those are the good jobs.

That's our, I'd say bread and butter. Yeah. Where, you know, we come in and we're, we're working, you know, late into the night they clients move out, they go on vacation for three weeks and Right. We work on their, on

[00:31:05] Chaz Wolfe: their home, so, yeah. Yeah, that's incredible. I think, I think that obviously the, the niche that you're referring to is just like where you found home is just this, in this detail.

So you even have it on your shirt. Just the detail, the type of person that responds to detail that likes high attention to detail, you know? Um, I think that those. A lot of people would say, I don't want that client cuz they're gonna be difficult. Um, but I think it can be difficult for somebody who doesn't pay attention.

[00:31:34] Jeff Currin: A absolutely. Um, if lack of supervision, lack of attention to detail or just lack of skill. Yeah. Tho those things will turn you off from doing those kind of jobs. And, and some people don't like to be trapped in a house for three weeks. Some people would rather work on a different job every other day and, and that's fine.

But I, you know, Our niche is, is coming in and making sure that, you know, we take care of every detail down to the, to the corners. Like that, that was our original slogan was details, tile even the corners. Yeah. And, um, love that. I just think, yeah, I just think that, you know, a lot of, a lot of the guys that work with us, they understand that they, they were kind of, of course if you come in, you're, you're hesitant on how we work at first cuz you know, these are big jobs and these are really expensive houses and you got a lot of layers.

When we get approvals, we're getting approval from a designer, from a homeowner. Sometimes there's other trades, other builders involved in this and Right. And, you know, there's a lot of layers to this sometimes, but I'll, I, I think we, we do a really good job of, of communicating group messages and making sure that everybody's on the same page.

[00:32:45] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. Yeah. Communication's huge. You're giving, you're giving so many small things, um, tactically without even knowing it. Um, you, it's been great. You're, it's flowing right outta you, so thank you. I do wanna transition to a speed round. I'm gonna kind of come at you in a couple of different, um, angles here.

I wanna know if you dwindled your entire business down to one metric, what would you track?

[00:33:07] Jeff Currin: One thing that's really hard to track, but I'd track happiness. Okay. Um, satisfaction of clients. Okay, if, if I look back at the 500 last 500 jobs we did, how many of those people were happy in the end, and how many of those people were unhappy at the end?

Uh, and it generally, they're, they're gonna argue about their bill if they're not happy. I mean, that's gonna be the, the, the main part of it. But I would say we're way under 1% on people who are unhappy in the end with their product. Yeah. And you know that, that's the metric I look at is, Are they satisfied?

Right? And ev every job's not a home run, but if you continue to satisfy people, you're gonna continue to grow and continue to get more work and continue to, to keep that. And if, if you're working with somebody and that it just, it fizzles out and you're like, okay, I don't, we don't, we don't mesh anymore.

It happens, you know, you work with somebody five years and then. All of a sudden you're not, you're just, yeah, they wanna do something else. You wanna do something else, you're not working with them. That's, that happens. But, you know, the metric of happiness, I, and I don't, besides, besides looking at the invoices and saying They paid, they paid, they paid, they paid, they paid.

Right. Most of those, most of those people were 110% happy. Like, yeah. And referrals is, referrals is probably the other metric too, where, right. How many referrals do you get from your clients because Right. They won't tell their friends if, if you did a bad job. Nope. Nope. They, they weren't satisfied.

They're, they're not, they're not telling the neighbor, the cousin, they're not telling anybody. They're, they'll tell 'em what a bad job you did, but they won't tell 'em what a good job you did.

[00:34:48] Chaz Wolfe: That's right. That's right. Jeff, what, what book would you recommend for a six figure business owner to read? The Bible.

Uh, that's a good one. I like that one.

[00:34:59] Jeff Currin: I, I would, I would say I'm not a huge reader. Uh, okay. J Just because it makes me sleepy, you know? Yeah. I can't, I, I can't make it through a chapter without,

[00:35:12] Chaz Wolfe: uh, I relate to that.

[00:35:15] Jeff Currin: But, but no, I think, you know, the Bible would definitely be one that you can pull a lot of, a lot of parables out of, a lot of things that.

You know, don't make a lot of sense in today's world, but make a ton of sense at the same time where mm-hmm. You know, you find, you find things that, you know, practices like, you know, give something ahead of time. You, you give your clients, you know what, they just something, and they'll take it and say, okay, well thank you for that.

Now I'm gonna give you all the work. You know, I'm, we're gonna do the entire house. Right. You know, and instead of just coming in and, and you know, trying to get the money and run and, okay, I did the bathroom, I'm done. Be the minute I look to be, I look to be these people's contractor for life. Yeah. You know, every time they're looking for something fixed or something.

In, in 2016, we had, and I know this is a little off subject, but we had, uh, uh, Hailstorm hit our city and the hail balls were softballs. Yeah. I had so many clients in our city. Our, our city is 25,000 people or so. I had so many, so many clients in our, in our city, we, we didn't sleep. Uh, and that was literally because family, friends, church members, People I've known for years.

Mm-hmm. And you know, they, they just trusted me with their homes and they, yeah, they put, they put faith in us to come in and, you know, when, when those hell balls came through the roof, it damaged bathrooms, kitchens, floors, furniture, complete guts. The whole city had tarps. Yeah. And I, I know in Kansas City you probably have some, some, oh yeah.

Wicked weather. Um, we do in Texas too. And you know, it's just, I think, I think the, the feeling you get from helping those people and getting 'em back to, you know, whole again. That's,

[00:37:17] Chaz Wolfe: yeah. No, it's good. And, and you can definitely pick that up from the Bible for sure. Yeah. I What do you think about networking and or masterminding with other entrepreneurs?

[00:37:27] Jeff Currin: What do I think about it? Oh my God. That, that's how I grew the business was meeting plumbers. Uh, meeting electricians, then networking with glass guys, shower, shower, frameless, glass guys. Uh, they, they all need that other trade. Yeah, they all work hand in hand. And, you know, you, you talk to the guys who do the work, but talking to the business owners and telling them that, look, we're.

If you're a plumber, you're gonna do 80 jobs a year for us or more. You're you, and we're gonna refer you when we don't want the job when it's just changing out a water heater or you got a slab leak or whatever the problem is. Right. We'll just tell 'em to u call you and use you and you know you're gonna get, you're gonna get tons of work with us.

Just be our referral partner. Yeah. And that, that goes with the. The suppliers as well. When you, when you talk about who provides us with the materials, the tile, the setting materials, the grout, those people will give us as many jobs as we buy from them, right? So if we make home base with one tile company and we buy all our materials with them, every designer that comes in and says, do you know any good tile people?

That's who? That's who. Yeah. So, yep. We try to attend all of their events. I try to have one of, one of our team members at. Every casino night or every barbecue or everything that they're gonna have, I try to have somebody there to make sure that we're represented. Yeah. And that if there's an opportunity to keep, keep our name out there and continue business with somebody, we, we continue, we, we push for that.

Yep.

[00:39:05] Chaz Wolfe: I love the love the mindset there. Last question here for you, Jeff. If you lost it all, what would you do?

[00:39:13] Jeff Currin: Uh, well, if, if you spread it out enough, losing it all is really not an option. Yeah. Um, that's right. It, you know, it, we keep a lot of jobs in progress and I, I guess there's, there's always, you know, if I lost it all, it would be my health.

Cause you know, that, that's the one thing that, what would I do? I somebody. Somebody would've to take care of me. And then I feel like I've taken good enough care of people around me and my family and that I feel like somebody would take care of me because I've done my best for, for them. Yeah. So I think I would be okay.

I, I feel like I've built, built myself up to be okay. Yeah. And

[00:39:57] Chaz Wolfe: uh, but as far as on the business side, if you have, if you have your health intact and you lose it all, you just, it no big deal. Cuz you just do it again. Yeah.

[00:40:06] Jeff Currin: That's I. I have the same mindset with tile work. As with anything that's we, I told you we do a little real estate too.

Yeah. Um, I'm definitely not a slum lore. If we make sure we take care of our houses, we make sure that the people are comfortable. If their AC goes out, you know, fix it right away. Um, and, you know, there's just, there's, there's no way to lose it all when you, when you spread it out, you know, if your, if your dad's okay.

And your cousins are okay. And you know, if everybody's doing well, you're not gonna lose it all. Yeah. Cause you can come right back.

[00:40:45] Chaz Wolfe: You know, the, the mindset that you're, that I've, I've never had the answer given quite like this, but I wanna, I want to use some language inside of gathering the kings.

Obviously, we talk about what it is to be a king and, and even the transition from warrior to king and. Warriors pretty selfish. And, and, and rightfully so. You gotta grow, you gotta be selfish for a minute and you gotta grow the business and you gotta get it to a certain point to be able to think about others.

And that's really where the, you know, the king mindset comes in is that it's about your team, it's about the clients, about the community, church, your family, you know, buying back your time, leveraging resources, leveraging key relationships like this. And so everything that you just said about you've been being a king.

You've been taking care of people, you've been pouring out when you probably didn't have to. You've been pushing the line and taking care of people over here and over here, and putting investment over here and leveraging resource and relationship over here, here and here. And so you're right that if it, quote unquote all fell away, there would be so many deposits that you've made, um, in your people inside of the quote unquote kingdom or even other kings, um, that.

I, I love the perspective of like, bro, I, it wouldn't be a big deal cuz I just call my, I call the, I call the neighboring

[00:41:57] Jeff Currin: king. You know, the, the realtors asked me to get my license. They almost begged me to get my license. Yeah. I'm like, eh, but you can make so much money. Uh, I gotta read a book to do that.

Huh?

[00:42:11] Chaz Wolfe: I need you to make money. When I refer people to you,

[00:42:14] Jeff Currin: I've had, I've had the plumbers try to hire me and I'm like, I, I understand plumbing. I know plumbing, but I don't wanna spend all that time to get a license and then continuing education and all that stuff. I'd rather just hire you to do the plumbing.

Yeah, but those are just you, you just think of all the options you would have if I lost it all. If, if details tiles fell apart and I had no more jobs and nobody wanted to hire me. Well then, you know, I, I would, I would network with somebody else and we would start over again and do it all over again. I mean, that would be the only option.

So, yeah,

[00:42:48] Chaz Wolfe: a hundred percent. And, and you and me would always have an option to, to be some sort of a spokes team for a bearded

[00:42:54] Jeff Currin: company. That is, that is an option for sure.

[00:42:59] Chaz Wolfe: Jeff, you've been incredible. How can the listener connect with you?

[00:43:04] Jeff Currin: That is another way that we market, which we don't spend any money on this really.

I mean, besides, besides, I pay my daughter to do our social media. Right. Um, you know, we Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, TikTok, we, we do all of them. Uh, and it's, I think it's connected with the younger audience. And that younger audience grows up and they're have houses and they love, they absolutely love it.

They've, they've never seen anything like it. And you know, I think TikTok has really exploded. Yeah. And yeah, I think that just the ability to reach each other through social media. Yeah. Details, tile, that's all you have to look for is details. Tile, search, any, any of the platforms, details, tile, and you'll see it.

Um, cool.

[00:43:52] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, you've been, you've been, uh, insightful, uh, purposeful, um, in your answers. You've, you've been a king, my man, and I appreciate your perspective, even just your time here today. Um, we wish you nothing but, but, uh, success blessing on your family, your, your, your, uh, ginormous estate, your business, your team, all of it, man.

I love it. Thanks for being here, Chad.

[00:44:13] Jeff Currin: Hey, Chaz. You know, uh, Kansas City's really not that far. So Whenev, whenever that new house starts to fall apart, you let me know and I'll be there. I'll be there. I'll be there. Hey,

[00:44:26] Chaz Wolfe: look, I got, I got several guys in my mastermind group who are coming here hopefully to do, uh, like a water feature.

And I got another guy gonna, you know, work out some, some, uh, some, some outdoor or things. I don't know what he is gonna put in, but, but yes, yes and yes, uh, we will continue the relationship for sure. Again, thanks for being here, brother. Whatever you need,

[00:44:46] Jeff Currin: let me know.

Host Chaz Wolfe brings on Jeff Currin, a 7+ figure king in the tiling industry. Jeff is the Owner-Operator of Details Tile out of Dallas, Texas. With details always in mind, Jeff focuses on training his people right, and making sure his customers walk away satisfied every single time. In this episode, Chaz and Jeff discuss how hiring family can take your business to the next level, training and educating your crew, empowering your people to problem solve, and resolving conflicts fast. Listen in today to learn from Jeff’s wisdom and experience so you can grow your business now!

Jeff Currin:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/details_remodeling/

Website: https://www.detailstc.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-currin-0b089911/

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