Kadilak Homes

Eric Girouard  0:00

This is bucket talk weekly podcast where people who work in the trades and construction that aren't just trying to survive, but have the ambition and desire to thrive. The opportunity to trade and construction is absolutely ridiculous right now. So if you're hungry, it's time to eat. We discussed what it takes to rise from the bottom to the top with people who are well on their way, and roll up their sleeves every single day.

Jeremy Perkins  0:30

Hi, this is Jeremy and Eric here with bucket talk powered by BRUNT, we have a brand new season for you. And to kick things off, we got Susan and Paul Kadilak of Kadilak homes. But before we jump into that, Eric, what's been going on?

Eric Girouard  0:44

Alright, so we just got off a crazy few days of the anniversary of our first ever NASCAR race with Mason Massey. We had an absolutely crazy Thursday at the garage, which you can talk more about in a second. And then obviously, we went into the NASCAR weekend where we racing the XFINITY race on Saturday, and I was super proud and super pumped. For those of you that don't know we name all of our products here after guys that work in the trades that have helped us build the brand and help us build product. Jeremy, my co host happens actually be one of those which is unusual. The others are lineman city workers, tradesmen, pretty much all walks of life, some folks who were on heavy equipment for a living and so we took every one of the race. We got them down to the pits so we could all watch the race together from the pit box and Mason had a top 10 finish, which was way higher than we all expected. So it was an absolute knockout day. Jeremy, you want to talk a little bit about the Thursday night shenanigans that take the weekend off?

Jeremy Perkins  1:44

Yeah, we had an open garage to kind of kick things off for Mason Massey, as he got into town. We love catching up with him. But it was pretty cool. We had some old bucket talk guests on a lot of people that have believed in us since day one. Had some local supporters come out. And we were you know, throwing some cornhole had a huge barbecue and actually did a pretty cool Hot Dog Eating Contest, which was pretty wild. I've never seen anybody eat so many hot dogs before. It was a blast. Great to hang out with the team great to hang out with our local supporters. Absolutely great to hang out with, you know, some of our bucket talk guests, and, you know, the early supporters and believers and then, you know, as we moved into Saturday, it was super cool to see some of our old friends. We've all got families and careers now. So the times we get together and jam out are a little bit few and far between. But absolutely, it was an insane night. I mean, it went from, you know, eight in the morning till two the next morning, but they were all alive to tell the tale and no major incident. So I'm pretty happy.

Eric Girouard  2:46

All right, let's dive in.

Jeremy Perkins  2:49

Today, we're here with Susan and Paul of Kadilak Homes. Welcome.

Susan Kadilak  2:54

Thanks for having us.

Paul Kadilak  2:55

We appreciate the generosity of your time.

Eric Girouard  2:58

We're excited. We're excited to dig in. So this is unusual. We got local neighbors.

Jeremy Perkins  3:07

This is unusual

Eric Girouard  3:08

this both. So we got folks local to us correct in our spot in person, which always changes the vibe for the better. So we're excited for that.

Jeremy Perkins  3:18

Yep. So for people that don't know where we're out of we're out of Massachusetts and Susan and Paul are out of the Burlington area and just kind of want to go into a little background on how you guys got started, what you guys got into and just give more background, like, as far back as you want to go.

Paul Kadilak  3:35

Susan, I will let you start.

Susan Kadilak  3:37

Okay, so I grew up. My dad was a builder. My grandfather was a builder. So I basically grew up. I say kind of like in the dirt. I don't know why they brought us to job sites. But I remember watching them rolling driveways when I was a kid building houses. My family all came from Italy. So they had us in their writing estimates and on the jobs pretty much our whole childhood. I've been around the trades my whole life. Build My first house when I was 23 just kind of hopped right in and you know, doing kitchen renovations now bathroom renovations building. And then when I met Paul, when do we meet 2006? Six?

Paul Kadilak  4:13

Yeah, that time I was actually a meow and coach for dogs. Actually a lot of trying to teach dogs you know, to really get their inner cat on, you know, they'd be barking. Oh, meow. Yeah.

Susan Kadilak  4:28

That was his dream job. Yeah.

Paul Kadilak  4:29

I mean, it didn't

Eric Girouard  4:30

work out of Cadillac homes at that point, or no

Susan Kadilak  4:34

different now. So a few different companies with the construction company where we do client work is called Pam co construction and that I had when we met. And besides being a meow and coach, he was also doing other things. Let you talk

Paul Kadilak  4:46

about Yeah, I was doing sales and then I was also trying to get on the fire department at that time. The way you get on the department you have to test every year that they offer it so it's like they do police when you have fire when you have to stay on the list. You have to keep taking the test. So I think He took six tests roughly. So it took me about 12 years to actually get on. So from 18 till I was 30 when I got on, so I just get a specific town or region or I mean, it's a very coveted job. Typically, where you live is kind of where they give you like a residence preference type thing. And you get to pick like three, right? You get to pick three or four, right? I think I put Boston I was younger, I'm like, Yeah, I want to work in the city. And they're like, you're number 7000, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, yes, that's not happening

Eric Girouard  5:26

next to the bar.

Jeremy Perkins  5:28

The best part about that whole exam, too, is like, if you get picked for Boston, you got to live in Boston for 10 years before you can even like live out

Paul Kadilak  5:35

you got to be close to like, they typically want you within a certain radius of the town in case there is a fire and they gotta call guys in right, so forth. So I mean, I grew up in Burlington, so I'm pretty tight in there. But you know, some things fell my way. And I ended up getting on in 2008. I think it doesn't meet Yeah, little 14 years now. But so I got on the fire department. And then I was like, I got these golf clubs I bought from my buddy Mike, I'm gonna learn how to golf. And she's like, No, he not going to work. I

Susan Kadilak  6:02

was like, schedule is there 24 hour shifts, you know, so we'd have some days off, right,

Paul Kadilak  6:07

I work to 24 hour shifts a week, so I have some time off. So I was like, I'm gonna learn how to golf. I don't even know how to go, I still don't know how to go.

Jeremy Perkins  6:13

It's actually funny that you say that, because we've had a few people on the fire department that have actually started a whole separate business because, you know, they're two full days on and then they have, you know, the rest of the week off to do whatever. And they start their own business, whether it's being a creator, or whatever. And maker

Eric Girouard  6:29

Yeah, I've seen whiskey barrel maker.

Paul Kadilak  6:32

I mean, I'm fortunate that I get to do the fire thing and get to work with my wife. In all honesty, I'm blessed in that sense, because I always wanted a job that I could help people and feel good about it. And my kids would be proud of me. And then, you know, when she brought me into the kind of the construction world and her love of homes and all that, you know, I fell in love with that, too. So, yeah, I mean, you know, you never know what path things might lead you down to take a chance.

Eric Girouard  6:55

You have to whip them into shape and train him from ground zero.

Paul Kadilak  7:00

You can tell him what you said when you met me. And I said that I build this thing.

Susan Kadilak  7:07

Well, I mean, I figured that if he took the test for 12 years, I said already he's got some potential. He's trainable. I can I can work with perseverance. Right, exactly. So I mean, he came in 2008 That was like the worst. Yeah, yeah, like the worst very humbling time to come. In the toilet. We were doing you know, projects in Boston all structural work a ton of old houses that needed like foundation work, nothing

Paul Kadilak  7:30

Instagram or nothing social media worthy at all

Susan Kadilak  7:35

these houses had like tree trunks holding them up from like, 1895. So that's what he came into. And in this business, you know, he's probably like, why are you doing this?

Paul Kadilak  7:43

She tortured me like put me through the wringer. I remember one job and still Scott from the show we had, we had to dig out a basement by hand and we've rented a conveyer belt, and literally, it was bucket by buckets, filling the bucket, dumping it on there, send it out the window like this. And I was like, this is half brutal, but you know, you think about it. And then guys have been doing that for a long time. They do it all day, every day for more than eight hours a day. And you're like, This is not easy. When I was living

Jeremy Perkins  8:07

in Boston, same deal. I went down the street and I watched a mason who they had all the scaffolding, and they'd lower down a rope and it had a clamp that clamp like 10 bricks together and they pull it up by hand and I'm like, that sucks. Do this all day long. It's just a whole you. It was unbelievable.

Paul Kadilak  8:25

We did demo today in a new project. We thought today we would do a demo on what pulling things apart. And I'm looking at this cast iron plumbing everything I'm just thinking about these guys put in cast iron plumbing, framing by hands, no nail guns, like a real but I mean, that was like real craftsmanship. Like they really learned that the trade so even like Masonry is like almost becoming a lost art. And it's such a shame because there's like so much, you know, beautiful masonry. Yeah. But you know, I came into

Susan Kadilak  8:53

that and my dad was a mason and it is you don't really see a lot of real true Masons anymore where they're really, you know, besides you see a lot of people do like the preformed blocks and stuff but you don't see a lot. Yeah, that do the, you know,

Paul Kadilak  9:06

I mean, it's Italian. You have to wait you're born and bred in Italy. I think she wants to tile every square inch of our house.

Jeremy Perkins  9:14

It was it was hysterical because we did go up to the Gloucester area and a father son duo they were still going to the mines or the quarry sorry. And hand splitting granite. They're literally like keeping in Granite is a lost art. Yeah. And you know, now it's preformed pavers, you know, go to bed at Ventos and get concrete and just put it in, you know what I mean? So

Paul Kadilak  9:36

it's such a rush, rush rush where a lot of that stuff was like more, you know, didn't have cell phones. They weren't you know, go to the job work all day and focus on what they're doing. Not distractions like things now. It's a shame because I'm like, What happened to us as men along the way, we used to play football with leather helmets, like I'm like, my father was so tough compared to me. I'm such. Like you went to Vietnam. We grew up on a farm. I'm like, what happened? Dad? I'm sorry. But you know, Susan was in the construction, the real estate, you know, she was selling real estate when I met her too. So she was already in kind of encompassed in everything that has to do with the house. So she brought me into it, and then I started falling in love with doing that stuff too. And then we kind of went down this path with Cadillac homes, because I mean, you know, she said, alright, I'll marry you because you have a cool last name.

Eric Girouard  10:25

That's a pretty good name. I agree with that. Yeah, I asked that question. That was stupid earlier. Obviously. It wasn't Kelly combs before she met him but anyways,

Jeremy Perkins  10:32

at that point in time, I googled it and I was like, they're literally building Cadillacs This is great. The Cadillac

Eric Girouard  10:42

so she was like our I got great business here but it would be cool to great name so I'm gonna marry this guy and so that kind of how that worked out. When did that was that like 1011 And what like

Susan Kadilak  10:52

when we switch everything over to Cadillac calm it was probably only a few years ago. It's only three or four years ago that was everything over Cadillac home. So because we had everything under the construction company name before that, and we switched everything

Paul Kadilak  11:06

was getting confusing for people because we don't like Pam Cole was like we always get client projects into that then we bought a house and renovate it and sold it or tore it down, built a new one and sold it that was kind of under Cadillac homes is different insurances, you get to carry stuff, eventually clean it up. Branding wise, it was easier to go Cadillac home,

Susan Kadilak  11:23

can remember a Cadillac and you guys

Eric Girouard  11:25

wanted to make sure you know, you guys just let her know, as you were like, before we go, like, you know, marriage is one thing, Cadillac homes is a different thing. Like that's the business.

Paul Kadilak  11:34

Well, no, I mean, you know, it's different when you're building it together.

Jeremy Perkins  11:38

They say they're still like, it's Perkins farm, but I'm a deed it says Jenny's.

Paul Kadilak  11:49

Listen to me. Sooner or later, you realize you just guessed.

Eric Girouard  11:58

So then you gotta work through the worst of times. You know, a Yeah, it seems like we're kind of starting to get back to days these

Paul Kadilak  12:05

days. But yes, I mean, I never had worked in construction prior, I was handy. But I never was in construction. And there's a lot of pieces to construction, you know, and she knew it so fluently. And so well, she would talk about things and I'm like, it's like, goes off my head, right? I worked with a lot of guys throughout the years, and you learn something from everybody, right? They have a takeaway for you, like a trick, something they do, whatever, you know. So, as we were doing that, you know, she was used to doing things like they did everything on the job, you know, be like, we sheet rock, we do this. And then after a while, I keep saying I'm like, why are we doing that? Why are we having plasterers come in and do that?

Susan Kadilak  12:37

That's where we're getting more projects. It's just, you know, it's impossible to you can't be on every job every beginning. It's like, you know, you could spend all day on a job right? Or, you know, I have many jobs we had remember back then, but now it's like, it's almost impossible to spend an entire day on one party. Yeah,

Paul Kadilak  12:53

I mean, we built around. Yeah, we built our brands, as you grow and you know,

Jeremy Perkins  12:57

grown that I'm dying laughing because we're building out in new office and this guy is up there going. I could paint this room. I could paint this room like you.

Paul Kadilak  13:11

Can Yes, you can be as good as the guy that paints everyday No.

Jeremy Perkins  13:20

literally die laughing. He's up there. He's specking the whole place out himself.

Paul Kadilak  13:24

It always sounds good. Yeah, do this and this, and then you don't have time or, you know,

Eric Girouard  13:29

but I draw the line of electric. It's like we got the pros in for electric demo. We did exterior paint or a core paint and then carpeting. Yeah, but now I'm like, Alright, I can solve the rest.

Jeremy Perkins  13:40

It's not that you draw the line at electric electric dryers line.

Paul Kadilak  13:44

That's true. That's true. So I'm trying to think 2014 that the first flip we did

Susan Kadilak  13:50

the first one that we did, yeah. Yeah.

Paul Kadilak  13:53

I mean, she had done a flipper to pray with her parents didn't go well, in that sense, you know, arguing with her parents that your father wanted dated things and she's like, No. Static and

Susan Kadilak  14:03

I hate that debate. The laundry should be in the basement. I was like, No, Dad. Yeah, not 1882 anymore.

Paul Kadilak  14:10

Right? She was a little scarred from that. And I kept pushing her insane. We saw the people doing the flips and stuff and like we can easily do this, you know? And yeah, so she was she's approached us things cautiously. She thinks about I jump off the roof into the pool because I'm like, that's cool. You know, so that's why we probably bounced well, but I kept pushing her to do it. So she reluctantly she did she agreed and then we found a house and we renovated it it was in person Okay. Which is crazy. What we paid for it back done.

Susan Kadilak  14:37

165. Now, this was 2014.

Eric Girouard  14:42

What like a pool pool? Patio costs are

Paul Kadilak  14:46

ridiculous, but so we've found the house we've renovated it and then she designed it how it wasn't a client like I want Why'd I want this. I want you know, she designed it how she felt like it's back. Almost. Yeah, first spectaculars when I COVID spec sounds cheap. Yeah, heat spec I hate and hate flip because flips like you flip the middle finger you flip a burger you flip a coin. It sounds cheap, right? Yeah. It's not like we tried to spend money.

Eric Girouard  15:12

There wasn't a buyer waiting. It was let's get this done. And then let's bring it to market.

Susan Kadilak  15:16

Oh, yeah, exactly growing pains.

Paul Kadilak  15:18

We went to the bank and they're like, you want to do what? Like, yeah, good luck. They're like, we're not giving your money. Like, what do you mean, you know, going through that now learning how to do all that so. And we had no some people help us along the way, which is kind of what helped us get in submission we are now but you know, so we did the flip and, you know, took pictures and all that stuff. She had always just done. The design. That's part of it. She just thought that that's what people do. Like, but it's not what everybody does. Yeah, you know, it's I also think that we're pretty good about staying in our lane. Like, we just kind of focus on what we do, not what everybody else is doing. Yeah. So it's like, well, they're doing this and this. It's like, okay, you know, we just kind of, you know, when you focus on the work like the Money Follows, right, because

Jeremy Perkins  15:59

that's actually a good point of view. Gary Vee brought that up a long time ago is like, I don't worry about my competitors. I only worry about what the hell,

Unknown Speaker  16:06like NF T's do, you know? Like non flushable toilet paper, okay. Okay, you know, are you happy?

Jeremy Perkins  16:18

It's wild, though. Nobody, like I heard that comment the other day. And I'm like, You know what, sometimes I can get mad at, you know, the technicians that doing better than me the farm that's doing better than me. Just worry about what you're doing.

Susan Kadilak  16:31

Everybody's on their own kind of journey and on their own

Paul Kadilak  16:35 path. You can take another funding playbook and try it. It might it's not gonna work for y'all. And the

Jeremy Perkins  16:39

best part is, is there's so much business out there, that it doesn't matter. Like we can all work together and still not fulfilled.

Paul Kadilak  16:49

Right, right. pigs get fat Hogs get slaughtered. That's it. That's what we say

Jeremy Perkins  16:53

that my farm we keep them all, we got a petting zoo. Now.

Paul Kadilak  16:57

The cute to stain in your own lane, do what we do. Yeah, we would like argue with clients about things to like, which probably a lot of people don't, but we're like, No, Your kitchen is gonna be better here. And it was an argument of like, passion of making it good for them. But yeah, you know, contractors in general, don't have great reputations. A lot of times, they'll do a lot of like, what's on the plan? I remember one client, I asked them, so why did you guys end up hiring us? You know, after the project was on? And they said, because we knew you weren't going to do it was just on a plan. And, you know, neither of us I think ever thought of it that

Susan Kadilak  17:26way. Who builds a ton the plan?

Paul Kadilak  17:29

Right? Everything works on paper. Well,

Jeremy Perkins  17:30

I think that that's cool that you guys actually rolled that into the real estate side of things too, because we recently sold our home and my wife had same deal built the home and it was unbelievable. And then when the realtor came in, it was like change all the fixtures out paint the cabinets white do this, do that. And it like ripped her soul out. Right? And and I think that like looking at it from a builders perspective, from the homebuyers perspective, from personal built it incorporating all of that I think you can achieve a better product than if you were to just be so focused on one aspect to have at least a little bit of compassion or sympathy. Like, it didn't change the outcome by us painting this or that. But it's just kind of the way you do things and how it's the first impression. Yeah, I mean, having having the whole holistic view of things, right made a better experience.

Susan Kadilak  18:20

And when we go anywhere, if someone calls us for a project, like we had seven we went to yesterday, they wanted to put three additions on their house, and we were like, Have you thought about maybe rebuilding, and by the time you got this house and put three additions on the house is going to be weird. And you're going to spend as much as you would have if you had started from scratch. And you know, they had a bunch of people in there. And they said, Oh, no one else mentioned that. So for us it because I'm also thinking about, okay, you're gonna spend x amount of dollars, what is it gonna be worth when it's done? Sometimes you're gonna look at a project and we say, hey, this, you know, you're probably going to be overspent, and it's fine. If they go forward with that, knowing that what I don't like is that we go ahead with the project. And then I say, Oh, I wish I thought about this other option. Or, you know, if I knew I was gonna be overspent, maybe I would have done it, right. So like, we have that conversation. Sometimes the answer is you don't do a project and you move or you rebuild, or the project changes. We had someone who called us they want to put an addition on because they need more bedrooms. And I went up on their second floor, and it was this huge, open second floor with two bedrooms. And I said, Well, you have plenty of room if we just reworked this floor plan. They just thought, Okay, we need more bedrooms. So therefore, we need an addition. And so you don't really need an addition. And we ended up putting dormers on and making it work. Yeah, we more look at what's the problem that they're looking to solve that you need four bedrooms, what's the best way to solve that?

Paul Kadilak  19:40

I mean, it's kind of crazy because I watch her talk with clients about you know, she picks her brain on certain things because people like know what they like but they don't necessarily know what they want and they your house. It's so important to you. It's so emotional to you. And you're spending so much money like you know, you want it to be nice and then you don't want to screw it up and have people come over like you Did you do it? You know, it's hard. And people can't always articulate exactly what they want. Because there's a certain language in construction, right? And everybody knows it. And this is how, yeah, ties into what I was saying, when I met her. And she was talking about things and like we talking about, you know, so yeah, as I learned it more, and we beat me with clients, you know, she talked about like, a gay blend, for example, and people just see him like, Do you know what she's talking about? Like, um, like, you know, if you look at the side of the house, it looks like an A, they're like, oh, you know, so it's like, giving them enough education so that they're comfortable with what we're talking about. And they understand it. Yeah, is key because it makes the project more fluid for us. And then they're comfortable to you know, that's when like, I think the videos and stuff when we stopped doing that,

Susan Kadilak  20:37

I mean, videos out about, I don't know, five, five years ago, that really helped our business grow. Because I think especially in our business, we put all of our work out there, a lot of people will follow us for a year plus, before they ever even reach out between the videos and the work we put out there like people know before they call us, do I like these people? Or do I not like these people? And some people might say, Oh, my God, they're annoying, or you know, whatever.

Paul Kadilak  20:58

I'm sure that happens a lot. Probably for me, like that guy's so obnoxious. Sometimes I watch myself and like, I can't even stand myself, right?

Susan Kadilak  21:06

People won't call us we will literally never get that phone call. Right. So it brings clients to us who I think are a better mattress. They know what kind of finish we do. Every once in a while we'll have someone call us and say, you know, we want to do this project. But we don't need all of that. But that's what people call us for people call us because they want the finishes that we do. And you know, for the most part that people know what they're getting. They know who they're going to get on the other end. They know you know, we call Paul the CFO. He is the chief fun officer. As you know, he walked in here tonight with a mullet on.

Paul Kadilak  21:39

Like to be the CEO, the chief entertainment officer. multiple, multiple hats

Susan Kadilak  21:45

up in the C suite. Chief there whenever I get the Amazon alerts on my phone, I don't even look I'm like I don't want to know what has been ordered. I do not want to know what is on my front porch. I don't I literally do not want to know it could be it could be anything.

Paul Kadilak  22:02

Serious prop collection right now.

Eric Girouard  22:05

So I understood you ever run an end and you met Paul, you train them up, got him coached up. Where are you guys like now? Because it sounds like there's some things you guys used to do that you're like, now someone else is going to do that? Because that's not our bread and butter. What do you like to do?

Paul Kadilak  22:19

I think we've always taken control of the projects because we truly want the clients to like love their house. You know, Susan, I don't go out of luck. Because we do love being home because we love our house. She had a coach a few years ago saying we're like, you guys need to make video and she's like, What are you talking about? She's like, you need to do video, you know, she was on the phone with her and my truck and I was at the job and I popped in and I was just being myself. Like

Susan Kadilak  22:41

you need to do something with him. You should probably put them on video. He needs an activity.

Paul Kadilak  22:47

wouldn't talk to show we did a video

Susan Kadilak  22:50

on a video. So Wow.

Paul Kadilak  22:52

So we did a video?

Eric Girouard  22:54

Where were you guys pushing? Was that was that YouTube? Facebook? So yeah,

Susan Kadilak  22:58

so that was actually Facebook, because our business is local. So like, there's so much noise, right? So I thought we should go Facebook because there's I mean, even now, there's not a lot of contractors putting videos out on Facebook, and you could target it. It's local. Like that's where our business is. So I think now we have like over 4 million views on Facebook. For a little over 50,000 followers on Instagram, we have a lot of stuff on Pinterest, we want organic reach within you know, you know, I would say like now today, the projects that we do we purchase properties and we rebuild or renovate them and sell them. So that's part of our business. We still do client work. But we're right now very much a design build firm. So most of the client or I'd say all of the clients who come to us were walking them through from concept to the end through the full design, every single finish layouts, all of that which the women

Paul Kadilak  23:49

love, because there's a female involved, don't want to go finishes, right?

Susan Kadilak  23:53Like we wait, I don't have to go.

Eric Girouard  23:55

Architect like, like, I'm thinking like, I had an empty basement right now. And there's Oh, I get ideas to life, you know, because by the way similar, the plant the house was not built to the plan, change. So no one actually knows what's on that plan what's really down there. So you almost, I'm lame. And so I'm like, someone's got to come here and actually measure everything and understand where the duck were all that stuff. And then you can start to plan. How does that work? Like you're walking like that all the time. So for

Paul Kadilak  24:25

example, if you call us and we showed up, we'd be asking you guys questions. So where are you gonna use the

Susan Kadilak  24:29

therapy session with you and ask you a whole bunch of questions. Starts with tell me all your problems, and then

Paul Kadilak  24:34

we'll be talking to your wife. Yeah, you know, you'd be there like, I'm representing the Navy over there. Right? A lot of people back in the day like we need space if it's a 911 Right, because they're having another baby have parents moving in and then they just put space on the house and then they don't like work that floor plan. farmhouse destruction

Jeremy Perkins  24:53

is just like addition after addition, for need after need.

Paul Kadilak  24:57

Yeah, so it's not thought out and like that's what Susan really thinks about what the needs are for that client. So it's like, you know, she'll say, hey, you know, everybody calls us because they hate something is ugly. My Kitchen is ugly, my bathroom, right? That's a given. That's the rsdl. Any of Willa fortune right, when they call that a standard, right? That is the standard package of something's ugly. Now digging into that, you know, what don't you like a bunch of Well, me and my husband can't cook at the same time. Okay, what else? And then she'll say, Where do you keep your spices? Like, if you go all the way over here? What? Where do you have to keep stuff that, Oh, I gotta go in my basement and get this, you know, so she starts asking the questions that she needs to start drilling into.

Jeremy Perkins  25:35

It's pretty incredible. Because, yeah, it just doesn't happen.

Susan Kadilak  25:38

I mean, well, I mean, you're gonna spend all that money and finish that space. But like, how do you want to live in that space? Like, ultimately, that's the most important thing like, what's the use? Like, if you're done with this project? What do you need to be able to do in that space? Well, you'd be pissed if you spent all that money. And you're like, This is what I imagined. But I have,

Jeremy Perkins  25:55

how much time does it take for you to get this? How much time does it take? Do you agree

Susan Kadilak  25:58

that definitely some planning process up front? And then yeah, I mean, I do have a couple architects that I work with, but for the most part, I draw my own plan. Some of my drawings are pretty ugly. They're like pencil and paper and

Eric Girouard  26:12

PowerPoint right now, guessing the measurements and like, I think that would kick out here. But but then you have to know like, with heating, like there has to be room or there have, you know, like, get to know, which I don't know, some like I'm off by probably a lot.

Susan Kadilak  26:25

Yeah, we do the fall measurements. And I've just always like, if I'm on a jobsite, and we need to draw something out, like I literally grabbed the closest scrap piece of wood and the closest pencil and just draw it out.

Paul Kadilak  26:37

But I mean, that's where you know, the woman and building she brought me into it. So sometimes we'll go to jobs and the wife will be like, we had five contracts, and not one of them looked at me or asked me a question and like really, like, well, this stupid dumb like they should be talking to you because you're the ones driving the project, right? A lot

Susan Kadilak  26:52

of times they find that it's the people on the house whose drive for the project. So we still do client projects. We have the real estate brokerage here in Burlington, I've been in real estate. This is 20 years this year that I've been in real estate and then we just opened up our shop only has swag in it right now. So we're just starting that the next thing and then we have the show where were filming the projects, and we have the show renovation rekindle and we finished season one, and that's good 10 episodes, season two will be out this fall. Yeah,

Paul Kadilak  27:21

we I mean, what led us to the show slack

Eric Girouard  27:24off pretty much half the time. We never

Paul Kadilak  27:27

Underachieving.

Unknown Speaker  27:30

So other than being

Jeremy Perkins  27:30

born into an Italian family that

Paul Kadilak  27:32

builds buildings. First blank, it was a piece of salami.

Jeremy Perkins  27:38

How would you tell a young person trying to get into what you guys are doing? How would you mentor them and tell them like, Hey, this is the first step. This is what you should do? I mean, because there really isn't that community out there. I mean,

Paul Kadilak  27:49

especially for women in trades, right? Like she was last week keynote speaking for, like professional women and building in an event because there's not a lot of women in the trades. You know, she's on the brag before the you know, Bill's remodeled sociation. in Greater Boston, she's has board seats, like you're a female builder, you're going on that they didn't give a choice, like you're going on the board. Yeah. And she's a legitimate, you know, she has her builder's license, I got my builder's license, you know, so it's like,

Eric Girouard  28:13

positive guys. I'm over

Paul Kadilak  28:14

here. Try it all the time. The females, he said, a drive in the process, right? I've always dealt with her from coming into construction in general. So it's never been a big deal for me. Yeah, you know, so but it's also like, you know, you see how these things turn out and how they change people's lives. It's crazy, because, you know, when we did the first videos, which were horrible, nobody's good on video. If you are, you're an actor or an actress, right? Yeah. So like, you know, we did the videos. And initially, we started with the construction, because she's like, let's just do that. Because if we screw it up, it's not a big deal. And then we'll work on the real estate. Let's get our feet wet that will. So we did that. And then they just kind of snowballed something we didn't think and our revenue went up, I think 60% After the first year of doing video, so yeah, it was a very powerful thing. And then as you put more and more out, you know, I mean, it's flattering. Sometimes people we've had people call us and like his keys, let me know what's done. We have one girl called she literally gives her keys moved out and didn't pick a thing. She's like, Susan, I love everything you do. Do. Yeah. She's like, do you want to see the Thailand thing? She's like, No, like, yeah, literally. So a lot

Susan Kadilak  29:11

of pressure, more pressure for her. Yeah, I would say as a young person starting out like I think back I think I was literally probably just crazy because I don't know, I just I didn't really think about it. I just wanted to build a house. So I was just like, figuring out a way to do it. And I had a client who was a builder. And he was like, Do you need some help? Like I can help you? I was like, Yeah, cool. I just jumped in. But

Jeremy Perkins  29:36

when you were building your first house, was it was it yours to flip? Or was it Yep, yeah.

Susan Kadilak  29:42

Wow. Yeah.

Jeremy Perkins  29:43

So you just found a

Susan Kadilak  29:44

piece of land Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I mean, she's

Jeremy Perkins  29:50all the young listeners out there buy a piece of land and build a house that's

Eric Girouard  29:54

maybe not like a month ago, but maybe.

Susan Kadilak  29:59

So I got my real estate lessons when I was 20. And that was another thing like when I started in real estate, all the other realtors were like, you're not even old enough to drink and I was like, I am not here to drink. That is not what I'm here. Yeah, so I just I don't know, I guess when I was young, I just was like he says I was just,

Eric Girouard  30:15

you can actually, we had we had that with our buddy Mike decides, yes, 19 he was up in high school, running an excavation company 19 out of college running a multimillion dollar. It's like, you can actually afford to go completely bankrupt, right?

Paul Kadilak  30:34

But you didn't think about he just did it? Yeah. And

Jeremy Perkins  30:36

actually, that's the high level here is the fact that like, roll up your sleeves, if you think you can't do it, just do it right, and then see what happens.

Paul Kadilak  30:44

We always talk about us, we would much rather try and fail than wonder later on. Yeah, what would happen if we did that, like, it's so much better to try and fail and failing actually humbles you to try to harder, right? So you're like, I'm gonna crush this one way or another, I will figure it out.

Susan Kadilak  30:59

And I know, like, I'm not built to. I mean, if someone hired me, they would fire me in a second. Because I would be right. And I'd be like, Why are you doing that? No, you need to change. Yeah, I just I would be horrible. I'd be fired in two seconds. I worked at a bank when I was in high school. And I knew in that moment that I was not built for that.

Paul Kadilak  31:16

Yeah, she didn't like the videos, you know. And that's all thing. That is what is changing today, right? Even sales, like every company starts with sales, we talked about sales has completely transformed in the last 15 years, right? It's not about the salesman, hiding the information from you and giving you bits and giving you enough to buy something. It's when people walk in now, they already know the answer. They're trying to find out, you're telling them the truth. Yeah, that's really what it comes down to. Right. And they want to know you as a cop, like, who are you? Yeah, as a company like, besides, okay, we do this, like, who use people like, what's your story, right? Everybody's

Susan Kadilak  31:49

got a story. So it's like, you know, who they're buying from? Right? Yeah,

Paul Kadilak  31:53

people buy from who they like, and they want to know who they are buying them thinking

Eric Girouard  31:56

with you guys, they can find you. You're not going anywhere. With some builders. It's like, once they're done, you're never gonna see him again. They might leave town, but they might not leave town, you just might not ever see him again. They might go to the next town or whatever.

Paul Kadilak  32:08

I mean, you guys can relate to this man. Sometimes we're like water will take the easiest path. Women will fight through the they give birth, they do all the stuff that we would never do. Right? Never give birth. It's just it's think about as men if you had to give birth, we'd be extinct. Right? I mean, we would not do that. We'd be like, No, it's not happening. No way, bro. You're pregnant buddy. Sorry. But I'm saying women have always sorry. Kids have ruined my body. Yes, these aren't beer foods. These are no kids. But it's more of you know, like, women have always like been the charge. Right? It was always like they stay home and work. Do you know and take care of the family. But that is not the case anymore.

Jeremy Perkins  32:51

Is it during COVID? And I don't want that job. No, no,

Susan Kadilak  32:55

I think how much how much like not to

Jeremy Perkins  32:58

get off topic, but it was absolutely humbling. I was like, Oh, who does this like teachers? Like, you can have them? I'm giving them away?

Paul Kadilak  33:08

They don't think about it. They do it? Yeah. She doesn't think like, I wonder if I do this will happen. She just says this is what we're doing.

Jeremy Perkins  33:14

I'm like, okay, cool. That's interesting point of view. Because usually they say we don't think she hasn't been

Paul Kadilak  33:19

wrong. You know, she, she thinks about say that like

Susan Kadilak  33:25

smooth honey. Notes. Women play.

Paul Kadilak  33:30

She plays chess for moves. Calculate and play checkers. Right? She's like, No, you know, so I'm like, Huh? Women seem to be more detailed. And again, they drive a lot of the projects and stuff anyway, like if a wife drives her husband's enough that like, I want this house, this is what we're doing. He's gonna go okay. Yeah. I mean, like, most guys, like the binders. She's happy. I'm happy. You know. So yeah, in her hand holding clients makes it even easier for the women and the husbands because they're like, Okay, it's so hard to be like, yeah, go pick your cabinets. Let me know what you want to put in. And they go and they see tons of cabinets. They just don't you know, you don't do it all the time. It's very hard to do. It's funny, I went through that process. Totally. It's difficult. It's very, very hard. You know, you know, you shouldn't wear brown shoes with a black belt. Yeah, but you're like, Well, what about if I do like maroon shoes with a black belt, though? You know, I

Jeremy Perkins  34:26

went to a lighting store with my wife to pick out all the lights in the house. It was the most disastrous day of our lives. About three years later, I were playing with our kids and we were looking up at the lights and you just don't pay attention to him anymore. And it was like the literally we're fighting over this light. This light districts are super stressful. Yeah, like, is it gonna be bronze? This is gonna be flat black and like, none of that fucking matters.

Susan Kadilak  34:54

I'm like that therapist in that situation. There's no we'll go together

Eric Girouard  34:59

snuggle First chrome really stressed the conversation. No one fucking really knows.

Paul Kadilak  35:05

Can you mix metals? Can I mix the metal? Can it be brushed?

Unknown Speaker  35:10

Can it be polished and brushed? Or happened? No gold handles that

Paul Kadilak  35:15

when people call us to update their house they don't say can you make my house look white trash you want to like current house and a lot of people like I have to steer that they pick cabinets that they like grew up with like, because that's what they know. Yeah, I mean, like, Oh, my parents are these these must be good. No, no, they weren't your parents was we're not gonna put them in your house, you know. So it's just hard because you don't pick them all the time.

Jeremy Perkins  35:36

So we had a really nice like modern house and then we moved to the farmhouse. My son was used to the self closing toilet seat. Oh, yeah. And then a new farmhouse he got

Paul Kadilak  35:49 

downgraded. I mean, even as a business, though, you adapt, you change, like, you know, it's not the like that copy paste for the next 40 year job doesn't

Eric Girouard  36:02

exist, right? You just do black on everything with white exterior and run it like that game is starting to fade out now. It's okay. Polished Nickel and different color changes every like three

Paul Kadilak  36:13

years. Well, that's the thing. She doesn't repeat herself in that way. Like, we've had clients be like, I saw the title and a project can we do? And she's like, No. And they're like, why? She's actually pretty interesting. That's cool. Well, she goes, because that was special for them. It was picked out for them, but we'll find something just, you know, so it's like, then they're like, Okay, you know, so. And it's tough, because contractors, again, they don't have the greatest, you know, reputation sometimes. So it's, you know, we're kind of always fighting that, in a sense, as we put more out there people, you know, follow us and like you said, if they

Eric Girouard  36:41

like to be cookie cutter, then it's like, that's just their that's their playbook.

Paul Kadilak  36:45

Right. That's how we operate. That doesn't mean that tell everybody. So we

Eric Girouard  36:49

could rule a playbook. But at some point that play runs its course. And then it's like, that's out of trend. And you're Lockland us right?