Dan Martell - Meet my Brother - Pierre Martell @ MartellCustomHomes.com

00:00:00.000 Find a mentor in your field as early as possible, because I waited eight years in, right, and made hundreds of thousands of dollars of mistakes, you know, smaller mistakes, but compounded up and lost opportunity, and, you know, it was just very, very costly, versus find a mentor in your field early.

00:00:21.480 we're here with Pierre Martel my brother usually I say my brother from another mother but it's my

00:00:40.100 true brother how's it going man good buddy how you doing I'm doing amazing I really appreciate

00:00:43.900 you doing this I know I get hit up all the time from people asking me um a about you about our

00:00:49.800 family but my background so it's cool to have you on share your story for those

00:00:54.420 that don't know Pierre what do you do like what's your work what is your so I

00:00:59.700 started a custom home building company 12 years ago called Martell custom homes

00:01:03.060 and we build custom homes throughout the province cool who's your perfect

00:01:07.260 customer like who would you love to get on a call with I think our perfect

00:01:11.040 customer and it's it's changed over the years but for the last five six years

00:01:15.420 have been, I mean, our avatar is Scott. He's 40. He's a professional. So, you know, doctors,

00:01:21.380 lawyers, business owners, that's typically our perfect customer. Got it. And I mean, there's so

00:01:27.660 much stuff I want to ask you. A lot of stuff I'm going to ask that I don't even know the answer to,

00:01:31.080 which makes it a fun question. Why do you think we have such entrepreneurial genes in our family?

00:01:39.480 I think it's just the upbringing. I mean, you know, going way back to our father running a

00:01:44.520 fish and chip wagon and we're peeling potatoes and cutting potatoes and working farmers markets

00:01:49.060 and just kind of, you know, he still had a regular job. Um, he didn't really want to take the risk

00:01:54.640 with his own money aside from the chip wagon, but we were exposed to a lot of different

00:01:59.040 entrepreneurial things when we were young and, and, uh, you know, free labor for our parents.

00:02:04.580 It's interesting. Cause I, you know, I don't even, I never even really considered that, but,

00:02:08.760 But when you say the chip wagon, food truck, like today, food truck culture is a rave.

00:02:15.600 We've been exposed to food trucks since we were young teenagers.

00:02:19.240 Going to the market, seeing other people sell stuff.

00:02:23.880 That's interesting.

00:02:25.060 And then so Mo, our other brother, is a property manager.

00:02:28.760 He has a company.

00:02:29.380 Sue is kind of more of the black sheep where she doesn't like us even talking about business.

00:02:33.460 um and then pretty much all of our friends and a lot of family members are entrepreneurs as well

00:02:38.980 um why I mean when did you first get the sense that you were gonna own a business

00:02:45.000 so going back to that flea market with the food truck um I I realized that there was there was

00:02:52.780 half of the lineup so there was always a lineup they made great fish and chips and that there

00:02:56.060 was half of the lineup that only wanted to buy ice cold pop because it was in the summertime it

00:03:00.200 was really hot and I think I was seven or eight years old and I approached dad and said I want to

00:03:04.920 set up a pop stand beside the chip wagon and just sell ice cold pop so as a you know small and I

00:03:10.280 think I was cute kid we'd go around you know months before and buy figure out who was selling

00:03:16.100 pop on sale at the Jean Coutu in the pharmacies and we would stock up and get hundreds and hundreds

00:03:20.200 of cases of pop and then I got this big barrel and just put ice in it and literally in a day made

00:03:25.600 like $300 as an eight-year-old and I was like this is amazing right dude you got me pumped right now

00:03:31.320 that Max and Noah should be selling cans of stuff in a barrel of ice yeah right so why make lemonade

00:03:37.980 right exactly and it was just like and it was so like you don't need to make the lemonade you buy

00:03:41.880 the pre-packaged pop and you just sell it out the door really quick wholesale and it actually helped

00:03:46.400 the sales on the chip wagon because the lineup became only fish and chips and I was taking care

00:03:51.120 the pop. Dude I didn't know that. Yeah so I think that was number one and then in that same weekend

00:03:59.280 as I was browsing around through this flea market I found a guy that had old Coca-Cola Olympic pins

00:04:04.920 from one of the Olympics. I forget what year it was but Coca-Cola had sets so when you bought cases

00:04:09.740 of pop you would get a pin and there was a full box of these pins and he was asking like $20 and

00:04:15.060 again I think I was pretty cute as an eight-year-old so I was like oh I'll give you $5. He said yes

00:04:20.440 So I went back and made sets and put them like in a cardboard and put it beside my pop's end and sold the sets for $20 a piece and made an additional, I think it was $400 or $500 as an eight-year-old in one weekend alongside of selling the pop.

00:04:35.760 So I think I was hooked from that point on.

00:04:38.200 That was that.

00:04:39.020 And it's interesting because you didn't, in both cases, you didn't make the product, which I love.

00:04:43.000 It was quicker, faster, still great margins, less moving parts.

00:04:47.220 um and i remember like early on you bought i don't know how old were you bought your first car

00:04:52.760 so when i bought my first car i was 12 i believe yeah and uh before i and and the reason i did that

00:05:00.860 is is dad always told us you'll never drive any of our vehicles so i figured i'd have to buy a car

00:05:06.320 at the right price fix it up sell it and keep doing that until the day i was 16 where i could

00:05:10.820 actually have my own vehicle and it'd be paid for yeah um so i i bought and sold 13 or 14 vehicles

00:05:16.680 before the day I turned 16

00:05:18.360 and I finally had kind of a nicer,

00:05:21.040 it was still old, but a nice Mustang.

00:05:23.440 Dude, it was crazy.

00:05:24.240 I remember almost dying in that thing.

00:05:25.400 It was paid for and it was all paid for

00:05:27.520 by buying and selling cars.

00:05:30.000 Oh, I remember.

00:05:31.020 Yeah.

00:05:32.460 Wow.

00:05:33.240 So, I mean, you've always,

00:05:35.760 I mean, it's interesting,

00:05:36.880 like now that I see it,

00:05:37.860 a lot of people watching this,

00:05:38.860 obviously, you know, as a young kid,

00:05:40.280 I was in and around, not around,

00:05:42.780 in a lot of trouble.

00:05:43.640 So some of these stories are kind of new to me.

00:05:46.680 What have you learned about being an entrepreneur that allowed, like going through all those experiences, how does that show up today in regards to how you build companies or how you grow your business?

00:06:01.620 I think, and I say this often, I credit the street smarts way more than the book smarts.

00:06:07.800 And what I mean by that is just pure hustle.

00:06:09.600 It's just you are going to do whatever it takes to survive, whatever it takes to get to the next level.

00:06:15.280 and you will just if you're willing to hustle and grind harder than the next person and I mean

00:06:20.080 with time you realize it's not necessarily always harder it's smarter so the hard hustle became a

00:06:26.080 smarter hustle but it's definitely goes back to the roots of just doing whatever it takes right

00:06:30.420 buying those pins having an idea and making a display and just really as an eight-year-old

00:06:35.860 like you know getting out of your comfort zone and hustling at the flea market saying Olympic

00:06:40.380 pins Olympic pins you know screaming and hollering and getting these people into your booth

00:06:44.480 where a lot of other eight-year-olds would have been kind of shy and reserved and you know maybe

00:06:49.240 put a sign up but wait till people approach them it was very like outgoing trying to pull people

00:06:53.680 in yeah push on the market um in in the market you serve you're one of the fastest growing largest

00:06:59.020 home builders around land of canada i think multiple cities at this point um what are things

00:07:04.360 when you talked about you know smarter not harder what are things that you used to do that if you

00:07:10.360 look at today you kind of laugh like I can't believe I used to do that that you don't do

00:07:15.020 anymore just from a smarter point of view I think the first thing that comes to mind was in the early

00:07:21.760 days because we had no brand we had no reputation we were truly and I don't know that there was much

00:07:26.740 we could have done differently but we were truly competing on price and when you're competing on

00:07:30.880 price and you don't necessarily have the full margin to you know almost even complete the job

00:07:35.560 you're almost breaking even you're just working like crazy you're working in circles to find out

00:07:40.600 at the end of the year that you know you pretty much broke even so that's not working smarter at

00:07:46.040 all it's definitely working harder but it allowed us to get more customers fast and not necessarily

00:07:52.120 make the money we wanted to make in the first i'd say three to four years but we got a lot of

00:07:56.680 customers really fast name brand did a really good job created the brand and then started bringing our

00:08:03.000 margins up where we needed to so now you know and then and then by doing that you

00:08:07.080 can afford a team and then by affording a team you're working much smarter not as

00:08:10.880 hard and what are things from a team point of view that you used to do

00:08:15.220 yourself that now you leverage your team for that everything so like I mean some

00:08:20.760 people don't even understand this concept well everything what what are

00:08:23.220 some of those exams like what are the low-hanging fruits for people I mean

00:08:25.920 year one through three it was absolutely everything I mean we you know I hired a

00:08:30.840 master carpenters because I wasn't a home builder. I was very well versed in renovations. So I hired

00:08:36.660 a master carpenter and we physically built 90% of the first 10 houses that we ever built. And I told

00:08:42.680 Matt, which was my lead carpenter, Monday to Friday, eight to five, you're my boss. I'll have all the

00:08:48.300 tools set up. I'll have everything ready to go because I couldn't afford to pay them the extra

00:08:52.060 half hour a day, five guys to set up the tools. So I would get there early, set up all the tools

00:08:56.300 and then boom, he'd show up at eight o'clock, tell me what to do, where to go, how to put this

00:09:00.220 together and and then you know at 5 5 30 whenever we closed I would everybody be

00:09:05.800 full throttle working and say okay boys go home and I would pack everything up

00:09:09.640 roll up all the cords do everything so I mean it was from the sales the paperwork

00:09:14.140 physically on site it was absolutely everything and then you fast forward to

00:09:19.060 today because I love doing sales I still do the sales for Greater Moncton and I

00:09:24.380 have area managers for four other cities that do the sales and absolutely

00:09:27.940 everything else I have amazing employees that do, everything else. That's incredible. So essentially

00:09:32.720 you've learned how to trade, you know, buy back time by trading dollars. And look, we didn't prep

00:09:39.460 for this conversation, but I'm just curious, like, you know, I share everything online,

00:09:43.760 but you're my brother, so you see behind the scenes. What do you think, like if somebody

00:09:48.740 asked you the question, what's it like being Dan's brother? How do you answer that? And I could be

00:09:55.340 opening myself up to worms but I mean people ask me all the time and it's it's for me it's

00:10:02.800 extremely motivating because for people that don't know you you you think globally world class

00:10:08.800 all the time and I think that's what helped me in the early days of home building you know I was

00:10:14.320 thinking geez the biggest builder around here is doing x number of houses if I could get close to

00:10:18.640 that that'd be like comfortable and you're looking at me going dude what are you doing right like

00:10:24.080 that's come with me. And I think we jumped on a plane and went to Calgary and did a benchmarking

00:10:29.080 trip and met with a builder that did like eight or 900 homes a year. And my mind was like blown

00:10:34.260 and expanded. So, um, I mean, people that asked me, you know, Dan's world-class, he thinks very

00:10:40.000 large and, um, it's motivating because it allows me to just like, I got to step up my game. So

00:10:45.480 it's a, it's a motivation for me. That's cool, man. I appreciate that. Um, what do you think

00:10:50.740 that we know that maybe i mean i don't want to throw maybe she'll watch the video but like

00:10:57.300 sue doesn't know you know or people that are not on what do you think and even dad love dad

00:11:02.460 best deal like i feel like i got my mba sit in the car listen to him uh talk do deals but what

00:11:08.540 do you think that we learn to allow us to achieve what we have that maybe they haven't yet and i

00:11:14.460 really say yet because i believe there is no limit to when people can decide to start a business etc

00:11:20.020 but what do you think that is? I honestly feel it's the difference between trading time for money

00:11:27.780 or trading value for money. So we've realized that the more value you can bring to the market

00:11:33.220 and to your customers, the more you're going to get financially rewarded for that. And unfortunately,

00:11:39.140 some people that get kind of stuck in a job and they don't want to take that risk, they're just

00:11:42.720 stuck down that road of just trading an hour for a specific dollar amount. And we need those people

00:11:51.160 in the world because we need employees. Yeah. That's interesting. So essentially you're saying

00:11:55.820 that they've... And everybody gets a different level of value creation per hour. So you go to

00:12:02.700 university, you get an education, you're a doctor, you're a guy that frames a house. There's different

00:12:07.840 levels some people stop and other people so even the doctor he might make 800 grand a year but if

00:12:14.900 he doesn't decide maybe I should own the practice or the clinic like there's a there's a limit that's

00:12:20.740 that's a really good way to do that's a really good way of looking at it yeah and I I actually

00:12:25.060 saw this firsthand we built I mean we built for doctors and surgeons all the time and there was

00:12:28.860 a surgeon in particular a general surgeon two seasons ago that we built for it as I was because

00:12:34.780 I do all the sales as I'm meeting him on a regular basis going through the plans and pricing the

00:12:39.000 house uh he's showing up and I'm like you look extremely tired you okay and he goes I just came

00:12:43.840 off like a 36 hour shift and all this stuff and and it was the the exact I mean he made all kinds

00:12:49.580 of money in a year but he worked harder than almost anybody I knew and at the time um he was

00:12:55.780 seven or eight years into his practice into surgery out of school and it was their first

00:13:01.060 family vacation they were taking that July two weeks after and I said you know why haven't you

00:13:05.540 you obviously do well why haven't you taken a vacation he said well it's it's not just the

00:13:09.520 $5,000 it's costing me for the week it's the $20,000 of lost revenue so that was like eye

00:13:14.740 opening so as a business owner if you create a great team and you're creating great value

00:13:20.200 I mean you can do bigger and better things than a lot of the doctors and lawyers and ideally get

00:13:27.400 to a point where the engine produces an outcome

00:13:30.340 without your involvement.

00:13:31.720 100%.

00:13:32.920 Whoa, that's a big unlock for a lot of people.

00:13:34.720 Because you can have a business and still that be the case.

00:13:37.120 Well, I think that's the defi- I mean,

00:13:38.540 having the engine where it does it without you,

00:13:40.920 that's the definition of owning a business

00:13:43.640 versus just being a business owner.

00:13:45.040 There's a lot of business owners that are still just,

00:13:47.580 you know, they're in the grind and they're

00:13:49.280 doing 80 hours a week.

00:13:50.440 Yeah, they got a high paying job.

00:13:51.780 That's right, they got a high paying job.

00:13:53.020 They're still trading time for a return.

00:13:55.520 I mean, in the markets you serve, Pierre,

00:13:58.980 Martell Custom Homes is known as like, even all the trades.

00:14:02.960 I have a lot of guys come to me, the plumbers, electricians.

00:14:05.580 They all aspire to your level of brand awareness and marketing.

00:14:08.700 What have you learned about the fact

00:14:11.080 that you even have Scott, right?

00:14:12.720 You said 44, blah, blah, blah.

00:14:14.720 What have you learned about, on a local level,

00:14:17.660 doing great marketing that actually translates

00:14:20.240 into real revenue and not just sponsoring things that

00:14:24.960 don't really move the needle.

00:14:26.600 So I think it actually, if you back it up,

00:14:30.060 it's not necessarily the marketing.

00:14:31.340 The marketing reinforces who we actually are.

00:14:33.600 But in the early days, we really decided to focus,

00:14:38.880 especially after reading the book by Tony Hsieh, the-

00:14:42.860 Happiness, Creating Happiness?

00:14:45.500 Creating Happiness, yeah, I believe that's the book

00:14:47.440 or something like that.

00:14:48.400 But he goes into very much detail about a customer

00:14:52.740 experience company that just happens to sell shoes. And we're a customer experience company

00:14:57.260 that just happens to build custom homes and apartment buildings. And by focusing on the

00:15:01.700 customer experience and doing a very good job, in the early days, it was high volume, low margin,

00:15:07.940 but we had that in mind. We were always focused on the customer experience. And that gave us

00:15:13.000 word of mouth marketing, which is way more powerful. I'd say it's 50 times more powerful

00:15:18.820 than paid marketing so now with all that word of mouth marketing and such a great reputation now

00:15:23.400 when we do different ads and Facebook marketing people relate back because they know somebody

00:15:28.180 that's built with us or their friend or their sister or brother built with us and it just

00:15:32.660 solidifies all that but it's so it's essentially saying you know if you have an issue with your

00:15:38.000 business don't be quick to go run out there and try to run ads or sponsor things to generate demand

00:15:44.720 And if you haven't started by looking at the business

00:15:48.300 and how you actually even deliver what you do.

00:15:50.740 You have to be delivering world class

00:15:52.360 before you even think about putting money behind acquiring more leads.

00:15:55.820 Yeah, because you'll just waste the-

00:15:57.780 Fix the operations first and make it world class

00:16:00.020 and then put money on leads, yeah.

00:16:01.660 I mean, you've had guys working for you for years and years.

00:16:04.480 So obviously, you've nailed the culture side.

00:16:06.180 What have you learned about becoming a leader

00:16:07.840 that can create that kind of business and outcome?

00:16:11.140 honestly the biggest secret i feel is i go out and find the absolute best i can in the market

00:16:16.960 and we pay them 30 to 50 percent more than anyone else and give them the freedom and flexibility so

00:16:22.340 a lot of our employees and and we actually have a relatively small team we're nine people but we

00:16:27.500 build throughout five cities yeah but how many contractors work for you like that's so we

00:16:31.800 subcontract everything yeah so we have nine people on staff and hundreds depending on the time of

00:16:37.320 year, it's between two to 600 people that's working for us. Um, but because we live in

00:16:42.440 Atlantic Canada and it's seasonal, it gives us that fluctuation without needing to worry about

00:16:47.180 cashflow. So we just subcontract everything out. But what I learned a long time and I made the

00:16:51.300 mistake in the first few years and hiring the wrong person because I was trying to save five

00:16:55.100 or $10,000 a year and this and that. And then over time, it just didn't work out. You have to

00:16:59.040 hire somebody else. Now we just find the absolute best we can pay them above market. And most of

00:17:04.780 employees are Millennials and you got to understand what's important to them

00:17:08.260 what's important to them is a work-life balance and integration so we all

00:17:12.880 actually work remote and I tell them on Friday afternoon if it's plus 30 and

00:17:17.260 you're not on the beach with your family you scheduled your week wrong and you

00:17:21.040 don't ask me to go just get all your work done and go right so it's very

00:17:25.060 flexible in that sense nobody's asking I got a doctor's appointment I want to go

00:17:28.480 to the beach can I leave early on Friday to go on this trip they just do it

00:17:31.820 because they're the best in the industry and they get their work done how long did that take for you

00:17:36.960 to figure out eight years really yeah what happened like what was the circumstance that caused you to

00:17:43.580 say i gotta do this differently you know just hiring the i mean it was eight years of working

00:17:50.160 with somebody and realizing they're not the absolute best and then finally i you know eight

00:17:54.900 years in i found the best i trained the best and the results followed and i said wow and then i

00:18:01.120 slowly started replacing my entire team with the absolute best. And the results just kept

00:18:05.520 skyrocketing. Right. Um, and now that's our philosophy now is hire the best. You're going

00:18:10.700 to pay them a little more, but they're going to make you more than what you're paying them.

00:18:13.640 So 10 plus years, 14 years now, I think there's 12 going on 13. 12. Yeah. 12 years of doing this.

00:18:19.420 I'm sure you've ran into some challenges. What's been like, what's the moment you feel in most

00:18:26.100 recent years, but like, obviously you've come through it that, that has really shaped you the

00:18:30.660 most or that was the most difficult for you to go through would have been in 2012 so in the early

00:18:37.140 days we did kind of semi-detached so a smaller price point really trying to get in condo type

00:18:42.720 yeah people would call them condos or like townhouses so when we started we're very much

00:18:48.540 that's where the market was and it was a huge market and first-time homebuyers first-time

00:18:53.160 homebuyers so we were a young fun company I was 25 years old when I started the company so you

00:18:58.740 know fast forward to 2012 everything's just booming we had two or three great

00:19:02.520 years big volume for this area we were doing three times more homes than any

00:19:07.680 largest builder in the area and got a little bit cocky and said you know what

00:19:12.960 we're going into winter we've had great sales so and we never did this but I

00:19:17.100 said I'm gonna put a whole bunch of spec homes unsold you know speculative

00:19:21.780 building in the ground right before we get ready for the and just so we'd have

00:19:26.520 inventory because we have winter and we have to stop building so we'd have

00:19:29.580 inventory and these sales could continue well the market just stopped overnight

00:19:34.560 and we were focused primarily on the young fun first-time home buyers we

00:19:38.580 built a few custom homes but that wasn't our market so it we immediately needed

00:19:44.040 to make a change and we went from Martell home builders which was young and

00:19:47.940 fun and bright colors and contacted an amazing marketing firm out of Ontario

00:19:53.280 and rebranded the entire company to Martell Custom Homes

00:19:56.360 and had to really take the brand and the customer experience that we've earned

00:20:01.740 and push hard into the custom home market because this other market dried up

00:20:05.700 and we had a ton of inventory that cost us a ton of money to get through.

00:20:09.800 Actually, in fact, we had to turn a bunch of them into rentals for a number of years

00:20:13.380 and we're just starting to sell them now.

00:20:16.160 And there was about a two-year period while we kind of reinvented ourselves

00:20:20.720 and started focusing down the custom home market

00:20:23.380 before we really gelled with it and took off, right?

00:20:27.980 You know, at that time,

00:20:29.140 building a $450,000 house for us was intimidating

00:20:31.740 because that's not what we were doing.

00:20:33.560 We were doing these townhouses, these row houses.

00:20:36.060 And now, I mean, you know,

00:20:37.560 build a couple million dollar house

00:20:39.300 and it's no big deal.

00:20:40.660 Piece of cake.

00:20:41.360 So you had to move up market,

00:20:42.480 but you made the mistake of investing

00:20:44.160 in your current market that dried up over the winter.

00:20:46.960 You had all this inventory.

00:20:48.500 So a lot of people run into this

00:20:49.680 where they buy a bunch of inventory thinking it's a good deal.

00:20:52.540 I'll take some money, buy some inventory.

00:20:54.520 I'll sell it over the next couple of years.

00:20:56.380 You know, if you were into fidget spinners not too long ago

00:20:58.420 and you load it up, you might have been in a world of pain.

00:21:03.740 But what did you learn about yourself?

00:21:06.040 Like what was, what did you discover?

00:21:08.920 What did you have to do to get through that?

00:21:11.380 I think it goes back to the absolute hustle

00:21:14.520 because it was such a tough time

00:21:18.460 that I feel a lot of people might have just thrown in the towel and said, okay, because we had to

00:21:23.760 reinvent the entire business. So it was like, we just sat down and brainstormed. Well, I just sat

00:21:27.920 down and brainstormed and said, what do we need to do? What market is still moving? And the only

00:21:32.380 part of the market that was still moving was the professionals that even in a down market,

00:21:36.420 if they said, you know, a business owner says, I want to build a house, I'm going to build a house,

00:21:40.540 right? So it was the learning. I mean, there's all kinds of learning, but it really,

00:21:46.980 what got us through it was just that hustle.

00:21:49.340 It was just, I'm going to do whatever it takes

00:21:51.240 to switch markets.

00:21:53.320 There's one part of the market that's still moving.

00:21:55.560 There's the only part of the market that I need

00:21:57.580 to be in right now. And how do we get

00:21:59.620 there? Well, our whole brand was young

00:22:01.680 fun. First time homebuyers. First time homebuyers.

00:22:03.940 So we had to rebrand, change

00:22:05.720 the messaging, change the website.

00:22:07.640 So as everything's crashing and

00:22:09.600 we've got all this inventory and it's costing us

00:22:11.600 a ton of money, I had to double down and invest

00:22:13.440 in a marketing firm to rebrand.

00:22:15.560 A full rebrand.

00:22:17.100 Yeah.

00:22:17.960 New site, new name, new logo, new signage.

00:22:21.560 Everything.

00:22:22.240 Wrap the trucks, everything, right?

00:22:24.300 I mean, we're talking huge investment, but it got us through it, right?

00:22:29.380 So instead of kind of bunkering down and continuing to do the same thing,

00:22:33.560 we had to reinvent ourselves and do a full 180 and invest money in a time where,

00:22:38.440 you know, cash was going out, but nothing was coming in.

00:22:41.060 And we had to double down and just trust that if we hustled through all this, it would work out.

00:22:46.740 What's your process for dealing with those moments?

00:22:50.200 Like, I mean, because there's challenges that are always coming.

00:22:51.980 I'm sure there's still challenges that show up in your life.

00:22:54.960 But what's your go-to?

00:22:56.220 Like, if somebody comes to you and says, hey, man, I'm going through a tough time, what's your prescription for them?

00:23:03.920 I mean, going through a tough time, you just got to really think down.

00:23:07.280 I mean, the person I usually go to is you.

00:23:09.460 And if you remember, I was like, Dan, this is what's going on.

00:23:13.020 What the hell do I need to do, right?

00:23:15.500 But when people come to me and say, you know, I'm going through this tough time,

00:23:18.340 it's just go back to your roots, figure out what part of the market might be growing

00:23:23.320 and go in that direction versus, you know, a lot of people get stuck in this wheelhouse

00:23:28.060 of just doing the same thing all the time.

00:23:30.100 They almost get complacent.

00:23:31.600 You know, they're almost not even growing anymore.

00:23:34.000 They're stuck in this.

00:23:34.640 They're not innovating around their product.

00:23:36.000 They're not innovating.

00:23:36.840 They're not doing things.

00:23:37.480 So it's really just, is that the right product you're even supposed to be in?

00:23:40.940 I'm not saying change industries, but look at where other products or other services might be growing.

00:23:47.100 And if it complements what you're doing, go down that road and do some of those things.

00:23:51.280 Yeah, a pivot's not a throw it away and restart.

00:23:53.460 It's one foot firmly planted and twisting a little bit like a basketball pivot.

00:24:00.520 So obviously, you know, we talk a lot about business.

00:24:03.080 It's what I love, you know, the most to talk about, as you know.

00:24:06.320 But if people don't have that, like, what are your suggestions for them?

00:24:10.140 They don't have a brother that.

00:24:12.140 I would suggest for them, and I've done this, is find the best person doing a similar business in a non-competing market and reach out to them.

00:24:25.220 So unpack that a bit.

00:24:27.580 Like, for me, what I did is there's a gentleman in Nashville that does, you know, he's the 17th largest home builder in the USA.

00:24:34.440 And what that means is he builds almost 900 homes a year.

00:24:41.680 And it's crazy.

00:24:42.600 These guys are so willing to help if you ask, right?

00:24:45.460 So I met a sales girl at a conference.

00:24:47.780 I said, would your owner be willing?

00:24:49.220 We flew down to Nashville.

00:24:50.320 We did a benchmarking trip.

00:24:51.500 Now I talk to this guy, and some of the challenges

00:24:54.300 that we have when I say, how would you position this?

00:24:57.200 How would you get through this?

00:24:58.500 We're doing a land development now that we've never done.

00:25:00.540 He does all kinds.

00:25:01.740 Ask him questions.

00:25:02.420 He goes, oh, and he, I mean, it's experience.

00:25:04.700 He says, no, don't do that.

00:25:05.920 Do this.

00:25:06.280 And this is why that would have cost me a hundred grand to learn on my own.

00:25:09.900 Right.

00:25:10.300 So it's really finding the best in a very similar business, but a different market.

00:25:15.080 And because they'll be open to, yeah, there's not competition.

00:25:18.420 They want to help.

00:25:19.220 Yeah.

00:25:19.540 Right.

00:25:19.780 Most business owners want to help if the, I'll tell you, they want to help.

00:25:24.080 If the advice they're giving you, you take action on and you give them feedback.

00:25:28.160 And how did you do that for him?

00:25:29.780 he every time i mean i've talked to him six or seven times in the last couple years he gave me

00:25:34.800 some advice um you know i i would thank him go back implement it and within two or three weeks

00:25:40.280 when i would see what happens i would send him a description of everything that happened why it

00:25:44.600 happened and rethink him again for the advice and you know and then he's like super proud and he's

00:25:49.040 feeling like he's helping so don't just ask for advice and then leave them in the dark give them

00:25:53.920 feedback on how it helped you and how it changed and then they're more open and willing to give

00:25:57.900 more advice moving forward because if you just ping them every time for advice and don't give

00:26:02.240 him a feedback loop eventually he's going to feel like well it's single-sided yeah it's like one

00:26:05.920 sided there's no he's not getting he doesn't even know if what he's telling you is working or not

00:26:10.060 working or right and he doesn't want to take the time to give you advice if you're not actually

00:26:13.860 going to take it there's some business owners that i know that'll ask me for advice and they're

00:26:18.540 smaller businesses and i've been there done that and not to say my advice is the best but it's like

00:26:23.080 you know do this or that and do it really quick or you'll be out of business and then they decide to

00:26:27.340 do something totally different and unfortunately they usually go out of business like it's you

00:26:32.800 know it's it there yeah the you tell them the advice and they don't do anything it's frustrating

00:26:38.600 right they just do something totally different and it's like well i probably don't want to give

00:26:41.940 them any more advice because they're not doing anything even in line with what i'm saying totally

00:26:46.160 what if you look at your daily routine today even going back five years even in not maybe not the

00:26:52.780 beginning because there's always like lack of resources and you got to do things you normally

00:26:55.860 wouldn't do at the beginning but you know rate you know 2011 you know prior to going through that

00:27:00.460 challenge and then rebuilding the business what's the difference between those two days

00:27:05.280 i mean in the early days i was uh you know we didn't have well in the super early days we

00:27:13.600 didn't have the resources to hire the employees but after you get some money like what's the

00:27:17.020 routines rituals um habits that you feel you've adopted to allow you to continue performing at

00:27:24.080 the level you're doing now? So, so now, so even 2011, 2012, I was still very, very active on a

00:27:32.840 day-to-day being kind of what I call reactive versus proactive. And I would say the biggest

00:27:37.380 shift between then and now is now I'm looking at larger projects and more strategic. So I still do

00:27:43.720 all the sales, which, you know, takes up 10 to 15 hours of my week. And then aside from that,

00:27:48.020 it's really strategy. You know, where are we going to build this next development, this next

00:27:52.320 multi-unit stuff like that not necessarily involved on a day-to-day with just the housing

00:27:57.200 specifically so i spent a lot of my week on strategy more high-level stuff which is a lot

00:28:02.720 of fun but can also be a little lonely at times because you're kind of alone in the office versus

00:28:08.040 being beside your team right yeah yeah so it's uh it's definitely a discipline what about on the

00:28:14.420 personal side because i know you have an incredible relationship with jess and yeah so

00:28:20.320 So on the personal side, I actually, I get to spend a lot more time with my family.

00:28:25.940 I've got two girls, five and seven, and a beautiful wife, and we travel a lot.

00:28:31.480 So, you know, it's like I do extremely focused work, and then we'll travel.

00:28:38.000 You know, this summer, half of the summer, we were traveling in the RV and going around and doing stuff.

00:28:42.740 And it's neat to have the flexibility to be able to work totally remote.

00:28:46.720 So that's one thing.

00:28:48.100 Our entire team is fully remote.

00:28:49.920 Which is crazy for a home builder.

00:28:51.780 Yeah, yeah.

00:28:52.520 But as long as they, even as a project manager,

00:28:54.600 if he has his laptop and his phone,

00:28:55.940 he can work from anywhere, right?

00:28:57.680 So we're totally, everybody's set totally remote.

00:29:00.220 We're totally paperless.

00:29:01.360 Everything's up in the cloud.

00:29:02.400 I can access any document anytime right from my phone.

00:29:05.240 So it allows me that flexibility

00:29:06.780 that when the kids are off school,

00:29:08.820 I want to spend some time with them, I can.

00:29:11.500 And how, I know that your health is definitely,

00:29:14.900 I mean, dude, you're jacked.

00:29:16.360 You know, people ask me like, man, is Pierre working out?

00:29:18.280 I'm like, yep.

00:29:19.720 You've inspired a lot of people that watch the –

00:29:22.960 you probably don't even know this,

00:29:24.060 but the push-up challenge I'm doing right now.

00:29:25.640 No, I didn't.

00:29:26.000 I didn't even tell you, no.

00:29:26.960 So essentially, max push-up, start adding one extra day, 75 days,

00:29:32.800 essentially to a max of 100 unbroken.

00:29:34.480 Wow.

00:29:34.940 Yeah, so I'm at 49.

00:29:36.640 I think I'm going to do 50 today.

00:29:37.860 Unbroken one shot.

00:29:39.040 Because you told me you did – so I do 200 push-ups every day.

00:29:41.500 I was like, oh, shit.

00:29:42.460 But I don't do it unbroken.

00:29:43.480 No, I know.

00:29:44.240 I mean, that would be bananas.

00:29:45.200 but it was still just inspiring to to know that even on vacation because we

00:29:49.760 were working out and traveling you just crushed me in a CrossFit workout how has

00:29:54.320 that impacted you know your energy levels or you know the way you work or so

00:30:01.100 it's it's been amazing so going going back to when I started was three years

00:30:04.820 ago when you came to my house down the street and said dude you need to come to

00:30:09.680 CrossFit with me and I had like a little bit of a beer belly yeah and and

00:30:13.520 literally two weeks later started CrossFit and I was always at the bottom of the chart every single

00:30:18.440 time but held through and held through and then after about a year of that I actually hurt my back

00:30:22.140 a couple times so I started going to the gym and lifting weights and got into pretty much the best

00:30:26.900 shape of my health yeah the best shape of my life and I find going to the gym and lifting weights

00:30:32.820 is almost therapeutic at this point so I kind of got into the routine I've been doing it religiously

00:30:38.040 five, six days a week for two years now. And when I go, it allows me to disconnect from everything

00:30:44.860 and almost think strategically. So I'll be like pumping out a set of weights. And when I'm done,

00:30:50.980 just the endorphins and the adrenaline and everything, I'll take out my phone and take

00:30:55.120 a bunch of notes of stuff that I need to do. And it just, my, my mind is so clear and, uh, yeah,

00:31:00.580 I just got a ton more energy. I mean, I can run around with the kids and throw them in the pool.

00:31:04.360 when it's-

00:31:05.080 Yeah, and you feel good, right?

00:31:06.440 Yeah, I feel great.

00:31:07.200 Yeah, when you're-

00:31:07.920 It's weird, but it's like, I don't know, for me,

00:31:10.300 it's when I know I do things that most people don't do,

00:31:13.300 when I'm in a position where I'm negotiating partnerships,

00:31:15.900 deals, it's like you just feel like you have

00:31:17.420 a little bit more confidence to it.

00:31:19.480 Yeah, yeah.

00:31:20.900 You mentioned Tony Hsieh's book.

00:31:24.040 I know you're an avid reader.

00:31:26.700 What, you know, somebody's kind of where you were in 2012,

00:31:31.180 because I feel like that's the audience,

00:31:32.520 is they're further along,

00:31:34.160 they're doing a million or two million or whatever,

00:31:35.920 like, you know what I mean?

00:31:36.500 But they just feel like there's a big challenge

00:31:38.700 you have to overcome.

00:31:40.440 What are some of those books

00:31:41.700 that were transformational for you

00:31:43.300 in shifting some of your business mindset,

00:31:46.680 belief, or even personal side?

00:31:48.480 That's a tough one.

00:31:49.580 I've read so many,

00:31:50.740 and sometimes I don't remember the names or the authors.

00:31:53.000 So, you know, there's just so much information.

00:31:55.280 For sure.

00:31:58.460 There was one recently,

00:31:59.780 and it was the, like, two Navy SEALs that wrote it.

00:32:02.520 Oh, um, David Goggins or no, it was the Jocko, Jocko Willinks. Yeah. Yeah. What's his book

00:32:08.060 called? I don't know what it's called. Jocko. I'm so sorry. So like, I don't know most of the

00:32:12.180 authors or the names. I don't remember that stuff. I just remember the content, uh, extreme

00:32:15.680 ownership, extreme ownership. Yeah. So extreme ownership was, uh, like a total game changer.

00:32:20.580 So I enjoyed it so much. We were doing a company offsite that I had the entire team read it before

00:32:25.820 the offsite and explain the things that they they've done in the past that they're going to

00:32:30.240 do differently moving forward based on that book alone um and it's absolutely amazing anything goes

00:32:35.780 wrong in the world it can come back to you right it's you just own it you get through it you put a

00:32:40.340 new system or process in place anybody else 100 yeah and that's how we run the business i mean

00:32:45.340 if there's an issue it's not a people problem it's a process problem so everything we do has

00:32:49.820 process and then we go back and figure out why it happened how it happened fix the process

00:32:54.460 and then the people just manage the process.

00:32:57.740 On the sales side, you're pretty world-class at sales.

00:33:01.200 Again, I give my dad credit for giving us that gene

00:33:05.300 for whatever it's worth.

00:33:08.080 What have you learned about selling that you feel makes you...

00:33:12.220 What's your mindset?

00:33:14.100 I think you've got a call right after this.

00:33:15.400 You said, I need to get on the call with a customer.

00:33:17.440 What do you think to yourself before you get on the call?

00:33:21.500 So I do a few different things.

00:33:23.240 So I do sales, and then we make deals, right?

00:33:26.800 So there's, and even part of the sale is making a deal,

00:33:30.500 and the definition of a good deal is creating a win-win environment in the end, right?

00:33:35.040 So I like that you separate selling.

00:33:36.240 Yeah, it's different.

00:33:37.040 I mean, there's a sale, but part of the sale is getting to a deal,

00:33:39.940 and the deal is creating a win-win that everybody feels extremely happy walking out of the room.

00:33:44.540 So, I mean, going into a sales call or a sales meeting or a sit-down,

00:33:48.300 I mean, most of our sales, we do a 15-minute call even before we sit down just to kind of pre-qualify.

00:33:53.240 just to maximize my time. But going into that meeting, I'm going into a place of service.

00:33:59.320 I'm not going in trying to, oh, I'm going to make X amount of dollars and build your house. I'm like,

00:34:04.060 I know we have the best process and the best team and the best subcontractors in the market to give

00:34:10.200 you the absolute best quality home with an amazing experience. And I want to give you that value,

00:34:15.860 right? So I go in there excited, like I'm going to help you. Not I want to sell you, I want to help

00:34:20.880 because I truly do want to help them.

00:34:22.500 And it just leads to a great bond.

00:34:25.440 And then hopefully everything lines up.

00:34:27.040 And then, yes, we want to use you.

00:34:28.220 And then we build their home.

00:34:29.280 And then my team does a great job delivering it

00:34:32.580 on the experience side.

00:34:33.340 So that's on the sales side.

00:34:35.100 How do you, what have you learned about deal making?

00:34:39.660 That's the funnest part of what I do.

00:34:41.340 Because I mean, I'm negotiating on not just the customer.

00:34:44.340 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:34:44.840 There's land, there's developers.

00:34:46.260 Contractors.

00:34:47.560 Contractors.

00:34:49.260 We're doing an exclusive community right now

00:34:51.180 in partnership with a land developer.

00:34:54.360 Where do you think people make mistakes in doing deals?

00:34:57.060 I think they get too greedy.

00:34:58.400 What does that look like?

00:34:59.820 Well, I mean, in a deal, like I said, it's got to be.

00:35:02.940 And there's always that.

00:35:05.160 So at the end of the day, if everybody feels happy about it,

00:35:08.640 it's a successful deal.

00:35:11.400 But there's also when you're dealing,

00:35:14.020 and most of the times you're dealing, there's a financial.

00:35:16.160 You're dealing on finance, but you're also dealing on terms.

00:35:18.780 So it can be my price, your terms, or your terms, my price, right?

00:35:22.920 So sometimes, depending on a real estate deal, you can afford to pay 10% or 15%.

00:35:28.320 I've seen myself go into a deal and offer the developer 10% more than what he's asking.

00:35:34.280 But then you get your terms.

00:35:35.100 But then I need some terms on my end.

00:35:37.120 And he goes, wow, that's a great angle.

00:35:39.780 I would love to do that.

00:35:40.720 Everybody wins.

00:35:41.580 Everybody wins.

00:35:42.680 And he's saying, wow, I get 10% more, and I just get to hold this for maybe two years,

00:35:46.920 which you you probably have to do anyways but for me it locks in exclusive exclusivity and for him

00:35:53.000 he gets more money so it's it's you know it's those kind of things that i enjoy doing and you

00:35:59.800 know word of mouth obviously works in your favor against you if you've got a good brand reputation

00:36:04.540 especially in the local that's what i've discovered is it's hilarious how many people have a negative

00:36:10.560 brand reputation maybe they don't even know i'm assuming they know but like locks them out of

00:36:16.720 deals I call it the invisible door like it shuts on them they don't even know it's shut because

00:36:20.360 they don't even see it um are are you extra sensitive to that like do you feel like that's

00:36:26.240 something that you're always asking yourself like how you know like is there a perception thing

00:36:31.160 you're always evaluating you're you've got your team now out there doing stuff in the market so

00:36:35.200 you may not even be there like it's either gonna you know how do you how do you think about so

00:36:41.060 I'm your reputation personally I'm super sensitive about that stuff and I believe that it comes down

00:36:45.860 to true integrity and integrity you know my definition is doing the right thing when nobody's

00:36:50.160 looking right um with our subcontractors we have to keep them engaged and happy and very fair right

00:36:58.380 to get them to come back to work and pay them right away with our customers we got to deliver

00:37:02.340 what we said we were going to deliver so that's um for us we always do the right thing regardless

00:37:08.380 of the situation even if it it even if it you know if there's an issue and it costs money we

00:37:14.040 We don't try to weasel our way out just because if we caused it, we fix it, right?

00:37:18.760 Every single time.

00:37:19.860 And we've done that from the beginning.

00:37:21.340 Our team has the same core values because I tell them, you know, did we cause that?

00:37:25.240 Yes, just fix it, right?

00:37:26.940 There's no question.

00:37:27.660 Just deal with it and do the right thing all the time.

00:37:31.060 What's the most expensive thing somebody else on your team was involved in?

00:37:38.320 It was probably last year where one of my project managers unfortunately set the

00:37:44.200 foundation in the wrong orientation on a lot. What was that cost? I don't know it

00:37:50.580 was probably fifty sixty thousand dollars. Yeah so we had to basically you know

00:37:55.600 we ripped it out and that's that's a good example. I met the customer on site

00:37:59.500 and instead of just trying to convince them that it was a good angle because

00:38:03.700 it was a country. I had a buddy build a house recently and that happened. It was a

00:38:06.400 huge lot right and but they really wanted like this this almost awkward angle and my project

00:38:13.120 manager just it almost didn't make sense so he kind of measured wrong yeah and and still gave

00:38:18.320 them an angle but where he thought it would be because what they wanted almost seemed excessive

00:38:21.680 but when i met them on site and they said the reason we wanted this is because of this this

00:38:25.360 and this and this view from this window and i just looked at them and i said guys i'm not gonna i'm

00:38:29.360 not here to convince you to keep it if you want that angle we're gonna do it wow and i just want

00:38:34.800 you to think about that because they were even telling me i think we can leave it maybe we can

00:38:38.080 live with it and i said i want you to be 110 so you think about it and if you want that angle

00:38:42.800 you're going to get the angle and i got the call that night that they wanted the angle and we

00:38:46.560 ripped it out and did it holy moly dude i've had like you know ten thousand dollar problems

00:38:52.720 challenges um that's always a as a bummer um what would the pier martel of today say to the

00:39:00.320 20 year old Pierre Martel if you could go back and give him advice I'd say find a mentor in your

00:39:07.940 field as early as possible because I waited eight years in right and made hundreds of thousands of

00:39:17.960 dollars of mistakes you know smaller mistakes but compounded up and lost opportunity and you know

00:39:22.780 it was just very very costly yeah versus find a mentor in your field early and I know you were

00:39:29.420 involved in a couple entrepreneurial programs. What was the value you received from being part

00:39:37.100 of those groups? And I know you're still, I think you still travel with them and stuff.

00:39:40.560 I mean, huge value because we were, you know, a round table of, we started as, I think, 12

00:39:45.880 different businesses in total non-competing fields. And through that time, so we've been

00:39:51.080 together 10 years now, the same group. And over that timeframe, unfortunately, you know, three

00:39:57.320 of people went out of business and you got to understand exactly what went wrong.

00:40:01.140 They still show up and share.

00:40:02.400 They still show up and share.

00:40:03.660 And you get more learnings from when stuff goes wrong, as we all know, than when stuff's

00:40:07.520 going good, right?

00:40:09.160 And then there's been, I think, four that have sold their businesses, right?

00:40:13.420 And we would meet every quarter and they'd give us updates.

00:40:17.680 This is what I'm doing to position.

00:40:19.120 These are my potential buyers.

00:40:20.720 I'm working with this broker.

00:40:21.680 So you really get to learn, what does it take?

00:40:23.840 And if you're thinking of selling a business, I've realized, well, you really got to start

00:40:26.840 thinking about it three to four years before you sell and really clean up your books and do this

00:40:31.640 and do that and there's a whole bunch of different points that I would have never learned if I wasn't

00:40:35.380 part of that group until I went to do it myself and probably would have made some mistakes

00:40:39.200 right so it's on both ends and then everything in between the in between stuff's not as impactful

00:40:44.900 but when somebody's going out of business and why or somebody's selling their business you learn a

00:40:48.980 Really good data points. Who did you need to become to be the CEO, father, husband that you

00:40:58.140 are today? I think I didn't have the patience I should have had in the beginning. I was very

00:41:04.660 quick to almost scream at people when they made mistakes because I could do it better.

00:41:10.340 And I've realized over the years that having somebody do something 95% as good as you,

00:41:16.340 but allowing you to leverage your time is better than me doing everything so truly just just grow

00:41:22.580 and lead the team instead of just tell them what to do right really lead them and and coach them

00:41:29.700 um so that's kind of on the business side and on the family side it's just i mean it's the most

00:41:36.200 special thing i've ever done is have a family right and i just want to be the best dad i can so

00:41:40.960 um i'm you know very compassionate i love my children i spend a lot of time with them and

00:41:45.520 that's very different than when I started my business. When I started my business for the

00:41:49.500 first five years, it was 16 hour days, seven days a week. I didn't talk to friends, family. I mean,

00:41:54.280 you'd ask me, Hey, you come to this party. I can't, I can't, I can't go, can't go to the lunch.

00:41:58.440 Right. It was like a full on all in hustle. And I've learned that, you know, spending time with

00:42:03.480 friends and family is way more important than anything else in my life. Where do people, I know

00:42:09.580 you've got profiles on Instagram, but if somebody wants to reach out to Pierre Martel,

00:42:13.960 where should they go uh the easiest place is just on our website martelcustomhomes.com and you can

00:42:19.460 just send message right through there if you and my my cell phone number is right on our website

00:42:23.540 that's pure cell phone you can text them literally my cell phone number's on there yeah uh full and

00:42:28.680 i mean facebook we're all over facebook as well yeah that's awesome dude i really appreciate the

00:42:32.720 time bro thanks man appreciate you thanks for coming on thanks for watching this episode of

00:42:37.500 escape velocity be sure to like and subscribe and leave a comment with your biggest insight

00:42:42.600 from our conversation, be sure to check out the next episode.

Dan Martell - October 24, 2019

Meet my Brother - Pierre Martell @ MartellCustomHomes.com

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