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Episode 30: Dan Hooks on Longevity in the Industry
134 Plays16 days ago
Nate and Kyle sit down with Dan Hooks, president at Party Reflections during the Safe Tenting Standard launch event. Dan talks about the growth of Party Reflections, working with local competition, acquisitions, and managing a multi-location business in a deadline-driven industry.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Under Vinyl' Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
This is Under Vinyl, a rental management media podcast. I'm Nate. And I'm Kyle. And this is what we talk about, tents and everything tent-related. Let's dive in. I'm the one you call when you need a tent up or down.
00:00:13
Speaker
I'm tent rental man, I'm working out all day. Getting mistakes in the ground no matter what they say. From sunrise to the night, make sure everything's right. Yeah, I'm tent rental man, working out all day.
00:00:28
Speaker
All right, we're back again with another episode
Introducing Dan Hooks and Party Reflections
00:00:30
Speaker
here. We are live. Still live We got a great guest today. The man who's allowed us to come here, kind of talk about this whole safe tending standard, everything that we've got going on here at the Party Reflections, Dan Hooks.
00:00:47
Speaker
doing, buddy? Good, great. Well, we are very impressed with your place. This place is amazing. appreciate It's just a beautiful, beautiful warehouse, beautiful everything. so Great staff. Very welcoming.
00:00:58
Speaker
Yeah. Takes big team. Yeah. Well, you got it here too. That's for damn sure. But yeah, tell us a little about yourself and how you got, how Party Reflections got here.
The Birth and Growth of Party Reflections
00:01:07
Speaker
How perfect? This is only an hour. hey Yeah, yeah. so second generation, third generation now actually my kids being here.
00:01:16
Speaker
But, you know, started literally, I've still got the receipt upstairs. but old paint An old fireman was painting chairs by the side of the road. My dad saw him and asked him what was going on and the guy died like a month later.
00:01:28
Speaker
Dad bought the inventory, bought 50 chairs, 50 tables, 500 chairs, an old 52 pickup truck for $5,000. And that's what started everything. What year was that? And so he grew it to but i got out of college we had about twenty five employees and the industry was sort of grew from there charlotte grew we just took advantage of all that growth and and just tried to be there for our customers and kept on growing it so was your thing dad running the place then for a while he was yeah he there's 40 years difference between my dad and my sister and i both adopted okay so there's a 40-year gap so when i was graduating college he was 62 and he was kind of ready ready to get out of business so
00:02:18
Speaker
I'd been working there for summers and high school and college and everything else since I could lift an eight-foot table. I like how that's the standard. I know. yeah Really? Yeah. That was it. If I could lift it by myself. you could swing sledgehammer or lift the table, you're in. I think that's when I first got my paycheck, too. Because before that, it wouldn't be paid. But, um yeah, so went on deliveries.
00:02:41
Speaker
We had a medical division also. And my dad really wanted me to do the medical division. I had no interest in it. What did you rent out of that division? Hospital beds, wheelchairs, that kind of stuff. Because back then it was so expensive to rent, ah to buy a hospital bed or to buy a a wheelchair.
00:02:58
Speaker
Everybody wanted to rent it, but then the cost and
Strategic Expansion and Competition Management
00:03:00
Speaker
everything changed. and So most people got out of that rental business part of So what did your dad's inventory consist of back when he was... We had tents. So in the early 80s, well, graduated from college in 89.
00:03:13
Speaker
We had, you know, That was all anchor products. Yep. 10x10s up to about 30x30, 30x60. No, 30x30s because back then we didn't even have expandable anchor frames. We had just 30x30s. If you wanted put two 30x30s together. No gutter, no nothing.
00:03:30
Speaker
Just push them together. No gutter, just push them together. Pray for no rain and keep going. Yeah. but um So we had a very small inventory, but Charlotte was small. okay The whole industry was small that time.
00:03:41
Speaker
Was it always party rental or was it some tool rental with party rental? Never had tools. Just had the medical, but no tool. Okay. Has the name always been the same? No, the the name was Charlotte Chair and Equipment Rentals first. Okay. That was from 58 to 83. In 83,
00:03:57
Speaker
He broke up the two companies and had medical stay with chairing equipment and had part of him become part of the collections. Okay. Got it, got it. So now fast forward in a little bit, you came out of college, you jumped back in.
00:04:10
Speaker
you become sole owner right then and there? Did you guys partner together? We, um I mean, dad held the ownership. Okay. in his grave right now he's still holding the ownership as a matter of fact in the family trust. yeah But um no, I came in and I had been working up through warehouse guy, truck driver all the way through, dispatcher.
00:04:34
Speaker
When I got out of college, I sort of went straight into pulling orders and doing all that kind of stuff. But almost immediately um became dispatcher. He had some health issues so he was he was gonna have, he didn't wanna keep doing the business the way he was doing it. So we sorta had a little meeting and they said, well, you know, if you wanna take it over, it's time to step up. So that's what we did. So you stepped up then, and then you became the visionary or how did you decide what you wanted to do?
00:05:05
Speaker
I'm feeling his pain now because of my age, but it's one of those things where you get, risk is a little different. You you deal with risk differently at a certain age. So back then I was 10 foot tall and bulletproof, didn't care about anything. I was ready to go. yeah Unfortunately, he had control of the purse strings. So, you know, he was from the recession, from the depression baby.
00:05:24
Speaker
so If you didn't have cash for it, he didn't buy it. And so, if we were gonna grow, we were gonna have to take on some debt. Because at that point, we were starting to get some competition. Back in the early days, in the 60s and 70s, he was the only game in town.
00:05:38
Speaker
But now we're starting to get some competition, some other good companies coming into play. So we had to step it up and he was just to the point where he didn't want risk it, which is fine. understand. right But we realized that if I was going to keep it going, we were going to have to have some risk and have to do some things.
00:05:53
Speaker
So you're operating four locations now. yeah now How did that expansion look? Yeah, it's it's odd. It was not, there was no strategic plan behind it. It was opportunistic. It really was. It was as a deal sort of came to us, we looked at it, we passed up on some, but we just got lucky with the with the four that we've done that that it worked out.
00:06:15
Speaker
Yeah, and we've we've learned a lot over the years. Which ones to get involved with and which ones not. But, you know, up until we started really growing in 2010, that's when we opened Raleigh first. And the only reason I opened Raleigh was really in competition with Classic, because Classic had taken over stores here in town and they were competing with us from the Raleigh store bringing stuff down here to compete.
00:06:39
Speaker
So I said, well, you're going to compete here, I need to compete up there. So we opened up a Raleigh store. I'm coming after you. Absolutely. Or just write me a check. Call it a day. yeah yeah Can't play defense forever. got to play offense.
00:06:52
Speaker
So then what did you, you know, expand off your dad's inventory and everything else from there. What did you jump into? What was something you felt like you needed to take the business to the next level at that point? It was tinning and nothing against you guys, but you guys were putting up all the 60 wides and above tents in Charlotte. yeah um And structures too. yeah And I hated that because I was like, we're here in town, we gotta able to do that. And nobody was doing it.
00:07:17
Speaker
So that was where we invested a lot of money first right off the bat was trying to get into those markets to keep national competition from coming in as much as we could because we wanted everything. We wanted the stuff underneath the tent and the tents. So you're the local guy. wanted to take care of the local business. I get it. And we fight that a lot in traveling nationally.
00:07:35
Speaker
And I totally get it though. i mean, i do the same thing in Nashville though. And I'm in that same way where I don't want people coming into my market and taking my business. So I totally get it. So what was the first structure that you bought then? And how did you decide on that?
00:07:47
Speaker
we We bought a 25 meter that could break down, Lowe's Burger 25 meter that could break down into a 15 and a 10. So that we would have all the you know options available to us. We just bought that one.
00:07:59
Speaker
Well, it took off and almost immediately was you know, it took us a little time to to get them understanding
Quality and Innovation in Tent Offerings
00:08:06
Speaker
the pricing element to it. But once they realized, you know, you've got the glass walls and the glass doors and all that, it wasn't much of hard sell.
00:08:14
Speaker
Okay, so then did you start just deep diving into the structure after that? We did, and as opportunities came up, we've gotten deeper and deeper into it. I was surprised, really, that the competition didn't do that.
00:08:26
Speaker
They sort of doubled down on more tabletop and that kind of stuff, and we sort of doubled down on the structure of the tents and stuff. And with all the different structure companies, what made you go with Loisberger? Um... You know, i think it's a good question.
00:08:40
Speaker
I knew the quality was there. This was before any of the other none of those guys were were even around. It was between them and Rotor pretty much back in those days. yeah and Because I think I got the first one in like...
00:08:53
Speaker
2005, something like that. So Loesberger just had ah had a good story to tell. actually went to their, after talking to them a little bit, went to meet their people in Germany at that yeah at their plant. And that was just incredible going through that.
00:09:08
Speaker
I went two years ago and it was one of the most beautiful, yeah coolest operations I've ever been to. Yeah, it really is cool. I just see the whole yard full of doors and glass and everything. Watching everything be milled and coming through the machines. It's wild ah they just take this stock of just metal and create everything. think great but yes With all your acquisitions to make your other locations, how are you handling a mix of inventory on the tent side. been a challenge. It's you got we didn't take you through it was actually piping draped off but we've got a large section in the bottom of the building that has probably don't know 3,000 square feet of just anchor tents and we know I walked through that yesterday. Yeah yeah yeah. that's just stuff that we just get we're waiting either to possibly go greenfield it somewhere or if we want to have another location and needed needed some tents to start out with we'd start out with that but
00:09:59
Speaker
since the business that was top tech and and some of the other manufacturers with easier tents to put out those are just sort of they're the ones that through the acquisitions that have just come along yeah We try and sell them occasionally, but... But I have the same issue. You don't want to sell it locally. yeah Right, right, right, right.
00:10:17
Speaker
I love my competition, but I don't want to sell them any tents. No, no. and But everybody has that one room that everything goes to die for a while until you can figure out what to do with it. I totally get that. So when did you move into this location? Because if for people that are seeing this but not seeing this building, and they'll see our tailgate talk where walked around a little bit, this place is massive.
00:10:38
Speaker
So how did you decide to jump into this place and when did you move in here?
COVID-19 Challenges and Adaptations
00:10:42
Speaker
So our last building was 115,000 square feet and we had outgrown it. We were actually running some space outside of it yeah and um found this.
00:10:55
Speaker
December of 2019. Oh great timing. Bought in February 20th of 2020. Okay. So two weeks later the whole world shuts down. yep We were at an empty warehouse so we started moving everything. We were gonna move it a little bit at a time and rent both of them at the same time till we got it all over here.
00:11:13
Speaker
Immediately we shut down that operation, moved everything over here. Our salespeople were at home at the time. Yeah. Just couple of weeks. or about a month and a half. And um so yeah, we we needed more space. We had to have more space. out of parking, truck parking.
00:11:28
Speaker
The building was still okay for a while, but we just couldn't do anything else. We were landlocked. yeah yeah So this gave us the opportunity, a good price. Company was moving out of town. And so it was a good find. did you come into it being growth oriented or you felt like you could fill it up right away? No, we didn't. i wanted to get something that was big enough and we can fill up right away.
00:11:48
Speaker
So we could probably fit in hundred. We probably got 30,000 extra square feet in there. Right. Went up higher and close the aisles a little tighter. So we've got space to grow. But it's just felt it's felt comfortable. We moved in, got everything where we wanted it.
00:12:04
Speaker
So we've been real happy with it. Are you feeding the other locations out of this one? Yeah. Okay. This is the main hub. We've got. 47,000 square feet in Raleigh, 40,000 in Greensboro, and 60,000 in Columbia. okay But they're all pretty tight, so we're already needing to move in Raleigh as far as we're going to have to move because we we're getting kicked out of that place and sold the building underneath us. And we probably need 60,000 square feet to give us a little space to grow and grow.
00:12:34
Speaker
Probably the same in Greensboro. Greensboro has gotten full because we've made several acquisitions in the last couple of years. Do you share labor drivers between all the locations? And how do you do that? do you sub the guys to that location or do you? The labor gets, how does it look on P&L? Yeah, yeah yeah the the the location gets the revenue and so they get the labor associated to that revenue. Okay. Okay. So you can track it back a little bit. Okay. That makes sense. So we don't really break it down to the trucking and all that. Right. not alone but But enough to see what's profitable. yeah Okay. we We basically look at it as one inventory, wherever it is, doesn't matter where it moves.
00:13:11
Speaker
And a lot of times we'll try and leave it where it goes next until it's needed somewhere else. But these other locations are too small sometimes to leave big inventories there. yeah So how do you handle your transfers as far as not just the trucking aspect of it, but the, you know, for POR, running it out of POR, are you writing a transfer ticket to the different transfers? Are you...
00:13:34
Speaker
no and How does the inventory go there and you not get lost and not make its way back home? It's somewhat like a ticket, but it's all internal. So it doesn't it's not an actual paperwork, change your hands. It's almost like an order from one store to the other. But Abby handles all that. She's got four screens in her, one screen, but it's got four quadrants in her computer.
00:13:52
Speaker
And she literally just sits there all day long, looking weeks out. to transfer equipment back and forth as efficiently as we can so maybe not in the system so she handles maybe like a google docs or something let's say right no it's in p.o.r all through p.o.r okay so but okay i'm just really curious now so that inventory can transfer to another store so it's not they can be able to look at it whenever they're whenever they're in the sales person's at another store yep it will tell them either it's company short or it'll say it's store short store short then it's short at that location okay they can transfer if it's company short we don't have it period right so there's a different but it'll tell you that it's kind of but if it's store short then they can actually look and see where it is other locations as long as it's available for the dates they can use it they'll put in a sub rental ticket and then she handles it from there
00:14:44
Speaker
and how did you feel the need for the inventories in a different store did you start by moving it all from this store transferring around or did you dive right in and buy inventory for each store well so we've made acquisitions in each location so yeah really those that's where that inventory started you had something small to start off yeah okay yeah and then we just sort of added to it as we were offering new things okay because most of the acquisitions that we did we had more of a depth of inventory and a breadth of inventory. yeah So we would add new dishes or to add new plates or, whatever um you know, chynos, different linens.
00:15:19
Speaker
So you were adding to their inventory but leaving that core that was there. If they needed more and we're always adding to it, we just take With your acquisitions, are you looking at them as you're buying it just to get into the market and that's the easiest way?
00:15:34
Speaker
Or because it fit into your inventory or you wanted their customer base? Because i I would have to assume you could also have just Greenfield and it started. Yeah. yeah yeah Greenfielding, it it's tough. i mean yeah you don't have the We don't have enough extra people to send out there and start a brand new company.
00:15:50
Speaker
So we want to partner with companies that we thought had the same culture, had the same attitude towards customers and everything else, and and just people we could get along with.
00:16:00
Speaker
And so that's how we've we've really looked at a lot of the acquisitions. There's been some acquisitions that we said, there's nothing more than CapEx. We'll take their market share, we'll take their inventory, just get them out of the markets. Most of those people are not going want to jump on board with us, move at a different speed, that kind of stuff. So some have come that way, some have come through literally bankruptcy. It's been a lot of different avenues to So if you're buying and acquiring and now you're getting this inventory, you try to match the inventory that's here or in kind of getting...
00:16:33
Speaker
getting rid of some of the inventory you've acquired over time so that way it doesn't cockil otherwise is you're gonna end up like Kyle over here yeah cocktail tables were the worst because cocktail tables we had so many different brands and you some them had the little knot in it they didn't fit together never failed we started trying to paint them to make that work That didn't work. So we decided let's just get rid of all of them. So we got rid of like a thousand cocktail tables, bought a whole new thousand, split them up, just sold all those other ones off.
00:16:58
Speaker
Okay. Because you had to do that. Eight foot tables, you know, that's not... tables table at that point. Yeah. It was in good shape. Yeah. Well, what have you found to be the biggest challenge as an owner of all these multiple locations?
00:17:10
Speaker
Um... much more time on this. The biggest challenge is still people. It's always going to be people. It's getting the right people and the right seat on the bus and making sure that everything's handled. Because this is, you know how this is, this a deadline-driven business and you can't, you can't. There is no tomorrow. There no tomorrow. We're the only company that can't say we're coming between this time and this time and then, you know, show up whenever we want. Right, right.
00:17:35
Speaker
Yeah. Especially not show up Monday when the event was on Saturday. Yeah. Like fire marshals. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. What is your day-to-day look like now in the business? Not fun at all. Yeah, it's not fun at all. I deal with all the stuff nobody else wants to deal with. Yeah.
00:17:52
Speaker
I do all that stuff on the on the weekends. I'm basically, I'm still, believe it or not, the technical guy because I know more about the technical stuff. Okay. I sort of push the envelope a little more on creative jobs than than somebody else's. My son's starting to get along with that too. where he's He'll try something every now and then.
00:18:13
Speaker
But he'll usually ask me, is this good idea, is this not a good idea? We'll talk about and come up with some some good solution. but yeah I think too many people are just looking for that cookie cutter, this tent will work or that tent will work, but I look at it from, know, we put a floor in there, can we do this, can we go over top of that light pole, whatever it is. Cut this, do this, yeah. Set yourself apart a little bit from box companies. Exactly. Anybody can put up a 30 to 30 in the parking lot. It's all the other stuff.
00:18:40
Speaker
Let's dive into the third generation for a little bit. Yeah. How's that working? You have both your sons working here now? of them working here. It's great. I mean, honestly, as long as we're three not working on the same project at the same time, we're in good shape. um I learned early on that they can't work for me and I probably wouldn't be able to work for my dad either. so So that was fine. Did you have them come in at the bottom?
00:19:01
Speaker
Oh yeah, oh yeah. And when I say the bottom, they started just like god did. It's funny, we were doing some golf tournaments out of town during the summers when they were out of school. And so they went with me to DC and did a tournament, Colorado and did a tournament. And as soon as they were able to lift tables, they were doing it too. They were even lifting them together and and helping it out. yeah And they just saw it as part of the family. It's what the family did, kind the same way I did.
00:19:24
Speaker
And didn't force them into it. and you know They didn't want to go with us. They didn't have to go with us. They could stay with Grandma and whatever. But they just jumped right in and enjoyed it. They sort of had their own thing.
00:19:37
Speaker
My oldest, brand on Dallas, is the better driver. So he he drives on tractor trailers. He's got a CDL. Kid can drive anything you ask him to drive. He loves the 10 oxes and he loves tractor trailers.
00:19:50
Speaker
And then Brandon was more suited for... managing people and managing projects. and He just got done with the Wyndham Championship. They were up there for about eight weeks finishing all that up. So he just handles those things and does a great job at it.
00:20:04
Speaker
And what does it look like for their trajectory in this? Do they want to take this over? Do they want to be involved? I've talked to him about it. They want to stay involved for sure. yeah They love what they do. They love being outside though. They don't want to be inside. yeah They don't want to be at my desk.
00:20:20
Speaker
The changes the older you get. But you didn't want you didn't want to be at your desk right when you were their age either. Probably not, you're right. Exactly right. um But yeah, I'm just waiting for them to mature and see see how that progresses.
00:20:34
Speaker
right There's plenty here for them to do. But they got the drive and they want to do it. and Oh yeah yeah. Yeah, they both have the drive for sure. that's awesome
Future Focus: Customer Satisfaction and New Products
00:20:41
Speaker
That's awesome. So what way do you see your business going for long-term success?
00:20:45
Speaker
Just staying the course. I think, you know, just making sure that you're keeping customers happy, making the deadlines that you need to make, and staying out ahead of it, making sure you're you're buying what the customers are looking for. What's next, right? It's not about what are you doing now and trying to keep up with your competition. You need to be out in front of them a little bit. so that's what we try and make sure we're responsible.
00:21:05
Speaker
you feel like there's a product out there that you guys have recently purchased that's kind of taking you that next step to stay ahead of it? I think the garden tent. We were early adopters into that. yeahp i think that really helped us a lot.
00:21:17
Speaker
And who do you have? Lewisburgers, Levo. We did it at a 15 meter and a 20 meter. I saw it going down the road. Yeah, we saw it on the highway all the way here. Yeah, Brandon's down there putting it up as a matter fact. While Dallas is driving it down there and Brandon's putting it up.
00:21:33
Speaker
Look at the brothers working together. if They can work together. They can. Yeah. oh But yeah, that's I think that's really opened some doors and it's just like that. you know Structures did the same thing 20 years ago.
00:21:45
Speaker
This is the next evolution of that. And it's just staying out ahead of it. Right, right. that Which is harder now because of Instagram and all these other things. Everybody else and the Pinterest.
00:21:56
Speaker
So obviously we're here for the safe tending standard that ARA is releasing. How have you seen safety change in your tenure in the industry? um A great deal.
00:22:07
Speaker
A great deal. i mean, you know, none of us can say we didn't do water barrels back when everybody thought that was the thing to do, right? So you see the evolution of that. You see the evolution of staking and what's the right way to put a stake, what's the wrong 8-1-1, all these other things that we all sort of dodged or whatever, did what we had to do back in the day.
00:22:27
Speaker
Now they're a commonplace. Now you have to do you know it's It's table stakes at this point to make sure you're doing things right. The concrete aspect of it has obviously allowed you to to put tents where you couldn't put them before because water weight, you knew wasn't going to hold it. yeah That concrete's allowed you to do that. oh But a lot of it too, from from the standard, it's not just about safety. Safety's part of it, but it's a part of to me it's about raising the whole bar for professionalism and everything else so that everybody's playing by the same playbook.
Safety Standards in the Tent Industry
00:22:58
Speaker
We're playing with the you know code officials and those guys, keeping them above board and keeping all of us you know safe and everything else. But meeting them where they where they need to be. yeah And educating them. Yeah, 100%. They don't know what they don't know. Yeah, exactly. As a whole.
00:23:15
Speaker
And I think people are scared to call their local fire marshal and ask questions. and But like the gentleman said today, you know you had a project you had some questions on. You said, hey, can you meet me at the site? Let's see if we can make this work. Yeah. yeah and that that Having that relationship with him from the start is definitely the way to go.
00:23:33
Speaker
Because I thought he was going to tell a different story where in the code book it says, over a certain number of people you have to have a 96 inch opening for 500 people right well i considered that door 96 inches absolutely it's not well then one of the fire marshals gets out and measures it it's only like 87 inches because the doors take up part of that eight it yeah eight feet so one of his guys is going by the book and i'm like you know, Jimmy, they don't make 10 foot doors. This is door. So did you take them cookies or bourbon? What did you do? No, luckily we had the PGA Championship coming into town. That was back in 2017. And I said, look, go over there. You're going to have to inspect all those tents. They're the same as our tents.
00:24:16
Speaker
When you go there, you're going to see that this is this is a standard door. understand what the fire department, what the what the fire thing says, but you can't have a 96-inch opening if the doors that they sell are only 87 inches. Right.
00:24:29
Speaker
Put two doors side by side. so You can't do that. Not by the code. Yeah. I don't know else you're going get there because you're fixing to walk into a bus off. Now he came in from not knowing anything about the event side of it.
00:24:42
Speaker
We had had a fire marshal, Dale Carter, that had been here for 20 plus years. And she was fantastic. mean, we worked with her and it was an it was an understanding of what what's the real premise you're trying you're trying to get to safety.
00:24:54
Speaker
But in the meantime, there's common sense. Don't beat us up. Right. Well, sometimes I feel like they think we're purposely trying to do things yeah unsafe, which we're not. Well, unfortunately, like you said before, you get people that don't want to talk to them at all, yeah so they go do it and want to beg for forgiveness later. yeah Well, that's dangerous because now you you don't know what you're doing wrong.
00:25:13
Speaker
yeah Well, I think it's a double-edged sword. You can either open Pandora's box or you sneak around, but the more you sneak around, the more it's going to backfire in the long run, and you're going to get caught up eventually. So I think if you can go to this safe tenant standard and and teach and educate,
00:25:28
Speaker
But it' you just get some of those fire marshals out there that are just not willing to bank. They are. yeah It is what it is. And this is how it is. I mean, I remember being in Kentucky when I was running Bryant's and we had to go sit down and and basically the courtroom and work with them on the codes and the codes committee and everything and create this model codes and everything else, which now the guy died recently and now they don't even adopt the model codes anymore. So it's just like, it's kind of picking and choosing, but if we can create the standard to show them, hey, this is what we're doing and this is where we're going, maybe then they can adapt and they can pick that on and then we can all work together. Yeah.
00:26:06
Speaker
Well, they're dependent on something. and Yeah. So now they haven't had anything other than what they've been given. They open their book and they read it. Yeah. But they also don't understand it. No. They're interpreting it. Each one's interpreting it little bit differently. Their own way. From 25 years ago, 20 years ago, 15 years ago. Everything has been so old, I feel like.
00:26:24
Speaker
And there's been nothing new. Even the code, the model codes. I was looking. Like, we're sending stuff to them and I'm looking. I'm like, this is 2015. What are we doing? And they're like, well, this is what we're going off of. And it's like. Okay, so we need everybody to come together to be educated. We just did a job with Holland Park out in Hot Springs, Virginia, and the fire marshal came for inspection and he flat out looked at us like, to be honest guys, I don't know what I'm looking at right now. I've never seen ah it was a it was a garden today, he's like, I've never seen anything like this, so yeah i don't everything looks good.
00:26:51
Speaker
ah look I get calls all the time, we have to permit permit in Nashville and it has to be at least 25 days out, which is really tough. ah They'll usually show up on a Monday after everything's down say, hey, where's the tent? And it's like, so what do I, what do you and you, and if I call and say, hey, I've got this job, it's going to go out tomorrow or it's going out in five days, can I get a permit for it? No, sorry, you know the rules.
00:27:12
Speaker
It's like, but you're sending the guy out after the event anyway. So yeah do you want me to bend the rules and and and play dumb and do you want me go to go put the thing up and just do it without you? and Or do you want to work together on this and we can come to a standard? So I think the safe tending standard will help and that way we can pass off that information a little bit more. But not only with that aspect, but also our employees.
00:27:32
Speaker
You know, we we talk about making this a career. i met a lot of guys who work here who've made this their career working for you. yeah and I think that's going to be a big benefit of this program as well. yeah Well, I think it is too. I think the safe this part, of the safety part, to me is just the first stepping stone or second stepping stone, maybe the staking studies, to then that accreditation, looking at as a trade, looking at as a a career.
00:27:55
Speaker
Because until you get there, you know we're It's like the numbers he was given. There's only 20,000 people like us in the whole country. in I mean, that's that's tremendous. That's ah that's a small small amount of trade doing a lot of work. yeah To be fair, I mean, we're involved in just different generations here, but were you given pathway? Was I? Were you? no No. We're just, hey, here it is. Go work in it.
00:28:19
Speaker
stay if you want to, if you don't want to. And now you're like, okay, now I'm here in this position. Well, how did I get here? I couldn't really tell you other than I just dove in and said, give me the damn job. like this yeah You know? And so now being able to give these people the pathway to a career and to, you know, a good lifestyle.
Building a Positive Work Culture
00:28:36
Speaker
What I think is a good lifestyle in this industry is pretty cool. So well it even gives us things to be able to go back and say, well, look, this is the way you were trained.
00:28:44
Speaker
Why don't you, why don't you yeah deviate from that? Why didn't you, do it the way it was told. So how are you leading your guys or your people because I mean I walk around here and everybody looks damn happy and I don't know if you just did something before we got here or whatever. Yeah, it gives my script. Yeah, everybody looks really happy. Walked around with hundred dollar bills the day before. Well and you just got some good guys. You got some good genuine guys that look like they care and women and it looks like everybody cares.
00:29:08
Speaker
How did you get there though? This is not brain surgery, right? You pick the person based on their their their culture, their ability to have a good work ethic, their ability to work in the rain, yeah all those kind of things factor in and even in the warehouse. Oh yeah, yeah. i mean And I don't pick, so that's the other thing too. It's nowadays, their crew their supervisors are the ones that are picking for their crew.
00:29:33
Speaker
Well, they don't want to pick a bunch of yahoo's either. yeah They want to pick somebody that's going to work on their team but be a good part of their team. Absolutely. So that's that's helped. Sure, if we can elevate the supervisor, then that supervisor can then elevate the people below them and get the right people in there.
00:29:48
Speaker
And if there's a bad apple, then they it's it's higher slow, higher fast. So we just talked about this the other day. how are you... If you've got a supervisor out there that you want him to teach and bring somebody up into his role, what are you doing for him to show him the path or to say, Hey, this is your next Because, you know, people this industry, these guys that are out on the road, they don't necessarily want to show everybody what they do in their job because they're afraid they're going to lose their job. So what is, what does that look like?
00:30:16
Speaker
We've tried to assure them that look, everybody in this building is needed. Everybody out the building is necessary. We can't, nothing happens until, you know, you do something in in the building or do something out of the field. yeah so that's the only we've we've always had such a growth mentality i think that sort takes away anybody's fear that that they're going lose their job because no one above that they've never seen anybody above them lose their job and just go off to the wayside they if they left they left because they wanted to leave you know they retired or whatever it is um but as long as you as long as they see opportunities and they see us acquiring other companies i think that just gives that
00:30:54
Speaker
you know, that that energy to them to say they're going to keep going. What's full staff for you right now? yeah About 190. And do you have people that will transfer from to store so they, you know, they go to Raleigh or move to Raleigh or do you feel like, hey, you would be better at my Raleigh store than here? We've had few those. Do transfer around? we've had a few of those. Especially if an opportunity, like you were saying, comes up. it's supervisor here but a manager in Columbia comes up and maybe it's a warehouse manager versus an inventory guy here,
00:31:24
Speaker
He can apply for that and move right now. Do you guys share, like, do you have a structure crew? So they might be in Greensboro doing a structure, but they all came out of here or vice versa? We do. We try and get some education in each of the departments so that if, do you mean Alan when he was here?
00:31:41
Speaker
Yep. Okay. So he's sort of the project manager for Greensboro and Raleigh. Brandon sort of handles here in Columbia. And so what they'll do is they'll look at the the schedules and sort of see who's who's what.
00:31:53
Speaker
Alan can do anything that Brandon can do basically. So we'll just ship equipment up there to him, to the site. He just got done with a golf tournament in Raleigh recently. And that's the thing. It's just we ship equipment up there. They handle it all. He gets his crews to do it and then brings equipment back. Right. People on the right spots on the bus. Exactly.
00:32:14
Speaker
I love it. So what is the key to being an owner and operator of of your size, you think? Um...
00:32:24
Speaker
You've got to change with the times. You've got to, and by that I mean you've got to realize there's a lot younger people doing work now than you were doing before. And you've got to figure out a way to to deal with them communication-wise and everything else.
00:32:41
Speaker
You've got to look at the other industries. Because it's not, we're not competing for employees with other rental companies. We're competing employees for Amazon and for construction. Landscaping. Landscaping.
00:32:52
Speaker
You've got to be mindful of all that kind of stuff too and make sure that you're staying on top of being a good business to work for, not a good parking rental business work for, but a good business to work for. And then that way you you get better people. But it's constantly looking at markets. It's constantly looking at, you know, what are the threats that are out there? And i don't think COVID was on anybody's threat board up until...
00:33:14
Speaker
2020 but now you're looking at all the other things. What else can happen? Do you have something big here that is taking a lot of the jobs or somewhere that people are going big manufacturing or Amazon?
00:33:26
Speaker
Amazon's been over COVID Amazon took a lot of guys. Okay. The gig economy with, with, um, you know, DoorDash and that kind of stuff that took some people away. So it's that quick money, that quick cash they can get and no responsibility really. That's easy.
00:33:42
Speaker
But those weren't the employees we really wanted to have anyway. So we'd look for other employees. And this is this is that generation now that I feel like as we want it here and we want it now. yeah And so you have to show them that pathway. And we've never had that pathway, like I said. So now being able to show them that pathway hopefully will set us up for some more future growth and employees and better quality employees and things like that. Or maintaining what we have. In this industry, you know we've got we've got plenty of people that look at their businesses as a business, but really sometimes it's a job. They've created job for themselves.
00:34:14
Speaker
It's the ones that really look at it as a business that they want to try and get themselves out of in the business work and on the business work. Career. onto his Job to career. Yeah, so they can then grow everybody's homes. Right.
00:34:26
Speaker
Well, this has been great. And I know that we can go on here for another hour, but ah Kyle, what you got for our last question here? What's your biggest piece of advice you can give to someone coming into the industry? Just you got a lot of years.
00:34:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think the lessons that I've learned more than anything else is don't bite off more than you. If you try and grow too fast, there's been more companies that have failed by growing too fast than have grown too slow.
00:34:51
Speaker
This is not a quick turnaround business where you're going to get in it and five years from now you're going to be a millionaire.
Advice for New Entrants in the Tent Industry
00:34:59
Speaker
It's not going to happen. Or very rarely does it ever happen. slug, but it's long term. yeah And there's not many not many businesses in the world that can say they've gone through recessions and September 11th, and this.
00:35:13
Speaker
You know, I mean, 70-year-old businesses are just not around that much. But it's an industry thing. It's not just a business. It's an industry thing. It's just a strong industry um that you've got to be in it for the long term. You've got to got look at it long term and just grow steadily. As long as you're growing steadily and taking care of your customers, that word of mouth is going to more than anything else.
00:35:35
Speaker
What's made you want to stay in this? um I just love the business. I love everything about it. Except for the employer thing. I don't like the employer thing. no, ah you know every time you go to a show and you see some new tent that somebody's come out with, you're like, want
Passion for the Tent Business
00:35:52
Speaker
that.
00:35:52
Speaker
I want that for my inventory. You see your friends you haven't seen in yeah six, seven months. thing as you walk into a tent, it's a 50-wide tent. You're like, Yeah, but the 100-wide is whole lot. When I walk into that, like, yeah, this gets me excited. So it's always wanting something bigger. Yeah, absolutely.
00:36:09
Speaker
Well, we appreciate your time today, and thank you for having us at your facility. I mean, if if you guys haven't been here, come here, see it. come Come check this place out. it's It's amazing. It's even got a golf simulator, which I heard was Brandon's.
00:36:23
Speaker
It was Brandon's. Okay. we're going to have to go beat him up to there. Sorry, but he's the one uses it the best. Yeah. That's his stress relief. that's yeah He literally comes in like five o'clock in the morning. He's in there for a couple hours then does the work. i That doesn't sound so bad. yeah so Well, thank you for coming on. Thanks for sharing your information and look forward to talking to you again. Awesome.
00:36:43
Speaker
It's been another episode of Under the Vinyl. Thank you. I'm the one you call when you need to turn up or down. I'm a train of redder man. I'm working on all day. Getting mistakes in the ground no matter what they say.
00:36:56
Speaker
From sunrise to the night, make sure everything's right. Yeah, I'm a train of redder man. I'm working on...