IAM2355 – President and CEO Helps Consumers Educate About Design, Building, and Remodeling

Title: Transcript - Sat, 11 Jan 2025 18:35:51 GMT

Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2025 18:35:51 GMT, Duration: [00:16:52.99]

[00:00:00.88] - Gregg Cantor

We just believe in educating consumers and educating them about design and remodeling and building and about our company. Secondly, and hopefully we're a fit, but we're not a fit for everybody.

[00:00:16.80] - Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs and founders without listening to a long, long, long? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I Am CEO Podcast.

[00:00:44.22] - Gresham Harkless

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gretch from the I Am CEO Podcast and I have an awesome guest back on the show today. I have Greg Cantor. Greg, excited to have you back on the show.

[00:00:52.28] - Gregg Cantor

Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here again.

[00:00:55.43] - Gresham Harkless

Yes, super excited to have you on. Greg is doing so many awesome things, so I'm super excited to kind of delve in a little bit deeper to hear all the things and awesome things he's been working on. And of course before I wanted to do that, I want to read a little bit more about Greg so you can hear about some of those awesome things and Greg is President and CEO of Marie Lampert Design Build Remodel in San Diego, California. Greg's experience in the design and building of homes and custom remodeling spans over 40 years. His four generation family business turns 50 in 2025 and in a very stereotype business category where contractor is a typical reference. Greg, his wife Lisa, CFO and the fourth generation Rachel Cantor Walker VP of Operations truly created a unique custom experience and built a tight knit staff of 23 with a family culture. This vibe is obvious when customers visit their design studios. Greg has been President CEO since 1990 and has worn a lot of hats including project management, sales, marketing, technology and customer service. He also has been very active in media and enjoys the opportunity to educate consumers and mentor and business. So one of the things I absolutely love about Greg is he's been a guest on the show. He provides a tremendous amount of value. But before we were preparing for this I was reading a little bit more about family businesses and according to score, only 30% of family businesses survive the transition from first generation to second generation. So in and of itself he's he and his family and his team have done a phenomenal things. The company's been operating since 1975 and I love love love love love how he got started with his grandfather's company literally doing everything and how that has kind of Bl know to everything he's doing today. So, Greg, excited to have you back on. Are you raised with the IMCO community?

[00:02:38.49] - Gregg Cantor

Thank you so much. And a couple of little housekeeping notes. We're now at 24 people.

[00:02:44.41] - Gresham Harkless

Awesome.

[00:02:45.22] - Gregg Cantor

And I do wear a lot of hats right now because my daughter is on maternity leave since August. She's the VP of operations. So I've been wearing the marketing manager hat and the sales manager hat. And so I've been pretty busy.

[00:03:01.56] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And also the grandfather had as well, too, so that you can't forget about that one.

[00:03:07.12] - Gregg Cantor

Yeah, I'm super excited about my new granddaughter who is Eleanor Flora, and she arrived on September 21st. And we're big Earth, Wind and Fire fans. And so that's a. A classic song by Earth, Wind and Fire.

[00:03:27.11] - Gresham Harkless

Yes. I love it.

[00:03:28.38] - Gregg Cantor

That's pretty cool. And the other thing is my son Adam is engaged to be married in March of 2025. So we're really excited about that as well.

[00:03:38.13] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. Exciting times. Definitely. And, you know, Greg was back on episode number 1331 of our show, and I, you know, I look forward to the time after that and time after that when we'll continue to hear how the family's growing and growing and growing and the team and family are growing as well, too. So I guess I know I touched on a little bit. I know. Before we popped onto this, we were talking about, you know, biggie, big things that you've done related to culture, community, market, more marketing ideas and things you've been testing out than anything else. So what I wanted to do is just hear a little bit more about your story, but also hear more about some of the things you've been working on since we. We had you on the show last.

[00:04:10.19] - Gregg Cantor

Okay, great.

[00:04:12.40] - Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. So could take us through, like, some of the updates of everything that you've been working on.

[00:04:16.58] - Gregg Cantor

Well, so marketing wise, this year is the first year that we've actually assembled an internal marketing team. I've always handled the buying and creative kind of as my own agency with the help of, you know, of other sources. But now we actually have two people, Sabrina and Zalinda on our team. So with that, we've done a lot more marketing from the inside with more social media. We ran email campaigns, pr, we ran a kitchen sweepstakes for the first time, which was hugely successful. It was a lot of work. We, we had about 60 entries and we picked a winner and that winner, actually. So we gave away a kitchen design which usually would cost about $7,500. And that led to us getting a job with this, the winner of a whole house and a kitchen, which we're really excited about. Super nice people. So that was a lot of fun and we're looking forward next year to building that project. They just delivered their first baby, so they're super excited. Also for the second year in a row, we did a 30 minute TV show that aired on local cable here in San Diego. And we also got the opportunity to be part of a community show called Locally 101 where we had segments running there.

[00:05:52.72] - Gresham Harkless

Nice.

[00:05:53.76] - Gregg Cantor

But on top of that we do linear advertising, streaming, Google, Google search advertising, YouTube, lots of social media. And so our marketing is, is pretty comprehensive right now and I'm very excited about it.

[00:06:13.95] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, it definitely sounds like it. And I almost wonder like you had mentioned something like kind of having your internal like marketing organization. Is this something that I guess, have you always said that, hey, this is something that we need to do and it's just kind of started to blossom and grow with the things you've been able to kind of test out or is that something that there was a moment like you're like, we have to do this and happen, or did it just gradually happen over time?

[00:06:36.83] - Gregg Cantor

Well, it kind of just happened organically. And um, the lift on my end, it just got too much for me to handle myself because I was writing copy scripts, doing recordings and coordinating the buys and I mean so many different things. So having two people inside just helps me a lot and we're able to accomplish a lot more.

[00:07:01.31] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And I'm sure that that kind of fueled a lot of the experimentation things you got to test out and see like what worked and what didn't work. And I think a lot of that is probably going to fuel future growth as well too.

[00:07:11.60] - Gregg Cantor

For sure. And I'll say one of the mistakes we made is on the email campaign we didn't realize there are some rules that kind of came into play and we found out the hard way, we got through it and you know, switched gears. But that was I guess probably the biggest learning curve that we had this year.

[00:07:33.00] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And I think that that's such a huge thing, especially related to like trying things out, is that being comfortable with, you know, having that culture of experimentation, of trying out things. And I wonder is that part of like what, you know, is part of the internal culture, like within the organization of being able to be comfortable trying something new, but also like the learning lessons that kind of come from that.

[00:07:57.50] - Gregg Cantor

And I'm always really careful. I've Always been conscious of not intruding on customer or on consumers with text messages and just invasive types of advertising. I just don't like that. I don't like myself when it happens to me. And so we would never do that to potential prospects.

[00:08:20.98] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And that makes so much sense that I think sometimes we forget around marketing and advertising and getting our name out there. Of course we want to make sure that we are, you know, talking about what we do, how we do it, you know, what makes us special. But I think we also have to understand that human part. And I love how you said that. I don't like it myself, so why do I want to do it? Understanding that it's a communication opportunity, not something that you can. You. We want to use to be able to bombard people with, you know, hey, buy this or buy that. Yeah.

[00:08:48.96] - Gregg Cantor

And we just believe in educating consumers and educating them about design and remodeling and building and about our company. Secondly. And hopefully we're a fit, but we're not a fit for everybody.

[00:09:05.51] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And, and I wonder, is that part of like, what I would call like your secret sauce of the thing you feel kind of set you apart is just like an understanding? Of course, like how important the marketing, branding and things that you're doing, but also understanding like who your fit is, who you can serve the best. Do you feel like that sets you apart?

[00:09:22.72] - Gregg Cantor

I would, I would say that you hit that on, on the head. You know, we, we have always been a educator, communicator, and not a sales forward, high pressure type of company.

[00:09:41.62] - Gresham Harkless

Nice. Is that something that is not? I feel like it's not, but you definitely know obviously a lot more if that's something that is not the norm, you know, in the industry where you feel more like, hey, buy this, buy that, rather than hey, let me teach you or let me educate you. Do you feel like that is something that you all do? That's unique.

[00:09:58.19] - Gregg Cantor

It's totally unique, in my opinion. And a lot of times we meet with prospects and they like us a lot and they tell us that they liked us the best, but it comes down to price. And unfortunately, sometimes people find out the hard way that they're not comparing apples to apples, and we always wish them well, but we know that sometimes things don't work out the way they expect because we are very transparent about, you know, explaining everything, making sure that the client knows what the scope of work is, what our responsibilities are, what their responsibilities are, and we don't hold things back. I mean, we make sure that our quotes are comprehensive and that includes things that aren't even delivered by us.

[00:10:47.17] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And that ends up being such a huge thing because I almost feel like the word partnership kind of comes up when you're working with and coming to someone's home that you feel like it's not just somebody that's coming in. It actually feels like they're a partner. And by being able to kind of educate, communicate, do all those things, in addition to of course being able to do great and phenomenal work, I feel like it really creates a in your best interest type of environment or feeling when I imagine you're working with your clients.

[00:11:12.59] - Gregg Cantor

You're absolutely right. I mean it's a long term relationship. It's like a marriage. And all the parties need to communicate clearly, continually. And you know, that's something that we're very purposeful about is how we communicate. And it's not just electronic. That's to me the last resource. I mean it's great for documentation, but on a project that can last a year, you have to have face to face regular meetings, regular phone calls, sometimes you know, use Zoom or you know, teams. But there has to be face to face meetings on a regular basis.

[00:11:52.12] - Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something that you lean on that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:12:04.61] - Gregg Cantor

It's a good question. I think that using Apple notes and creating a note for each topic and have an ongoing working document for let's say marketing or for sales or whatever it may be because we handle a lot of things during a day and if you don't write it down then. And what's funny too that I found is when you write it down subconsciously, a lot of those things get handled and you go back to your list and see that you can check a lot of things off, but without that list, a lot less gets accomplished.

[00:12:45.54] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Would you consider that to be your CEO nugget a little bit more word of wisdom or piece of advice? I like to say it might be something, something that you would tell your younger business Alphabet you were to hop into a time machine or potentially your daughter or somebody else that's in, that's looking for mentorship.

[00:12:59.86] - Gregg Cantor

As far as raising your hand or.

[00:13:02.14] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, reading. Raising your hand or is there something else?

[00:13:05.34] - Gregg Cantor

No, I think those are biggies. Is read, read, read. And if you don't like reading, then do books on. Audio books are awesome because. And you can, you know, speed them up, slow them down, repeat if you miss something. And podcasts too, in whatever industry you're in, there's. There's a podcast out there that is beneficial. Yeah, well, you have, I mean, your podcast is awesome. So I mean.

[00:13:38.75] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, well, I, I definitely get to have like awesome guests, like you're so, you know, on the show, back on the show to hear like all the awesome things that you're doing. And what I wanted to ask you now was one of my absolute favorite questions, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And our goal is to have different quote unquote CEOs on this show. So, Greg, what's being a CEO mean to you?

[00:13:55.59] - Gregg Cantor

It's almost like being a father a little different. But I mean my, our team is like our family and our customers are family as well. And so like yesterday we had our weekly meeting, our all team meeting, and we were going over the projects and there was a picture of our customers with their dog and the project manager smiling. That is the most rewarding thing to me as an owner, as a CEO. I mean, that's what we strive for.

[00:14:29.10] - Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. It's that human part. And understanding the why of what you're doing, you know, the how is of course important, but understanding the why that under bedding of that foundational element of the, the actions that you're taking is of being so powerful.

[00:14:41.85] - Gregg Cantor

Agreed.

[00:14:42.87] - Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Greg, truly appreciate that definition. Of course I appreciate your time even more. So I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course how best people can get hold of you find about all the awesome things you and the team are working on.

[00:14:57.11] - Gregg Cantor

Just back to the team. I mean, we're, we have such a great team and culture. We have some tenured people. Deanne that's been with us 15 years, Patty 10 years. We just continue to get better. We're never going to just dog paddle. We're going to always look to exceed and improve. We had a really good year this year, which I'm thankful and blessed about. I was nervous about this year and we hit our goals. It took all of us, all 24 of us to get there and we all celebrated and we're all very happy about it.

[00:15:34.80] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that's a beautiful thing. And for people that want to get ahold of you, what's the best way for them to do that and also find out if they want services where exactly you all serve as well.

[00:15:44.62] - Gregg Cantor

So we're in San Diego, California that we only serve. The San Diego community website is Murray lampert.com and you can google Murray Lampert and get plenty of information. All kinds of different ways to contact. You can find me online easily by typing Greg Cantor. And even if it's a matter of answering questions or getting an opinion, we're here to help.

[00:16:06.79] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And of course we're going to have the links and information in the show notes as well too so that everybody can follow up with you. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

[00:16:14.46] - Gregg Cantor

Thank you very much and I hope you have a great holiday season as well.

[00:16:18.14] - Intro

Thank you for listening to The I Am CEO podcast, powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at imceo. Co. I am CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Want to level up your business even more? Read blogs, listen to podcasts, and watch videos at CBNationCo. Also check out our I Am CEO Facebook group. This has been the I Am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.