Why Trust Is the Real Currency in Remodeling with Warren O'Shea

0:01John Lee Dumas:Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today we'll be breaking down why trust is the real currency in remodeling. To drop these vibe bombs, I brought to Warren O'Shea and the EO Fire Studios. Warren is the founder of O'Shea Builders, a main-based remodeling firm known for professionalism, craftsmanship, and raising industry standards through education, certification advocacy, and client-first leadership. And today we talk about the turning point, avoiding costly mistakes, relationships over volume, raising the standard, and oh, so much more.

0:35And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Warren and our sponsors.

0:41John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, if you have a high ticket offer and need more quality leads, Nexus Install is designed for you. We'll book you eight to 20 qualified calls each month, then train you to run the system yourself. Email my team at john at eofire.com to learn more and see if Nexus is the right fit for you. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support. Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com.

1:20Highlevelfire.com.

1:22John Lee Dumas:Warren, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hey, Fire Nation. Something that I do that most people disagree with, I would say really to be an unwavering advocate of your policies, your culture. it's really easy to say, you know, I, you know, I'm great at customer service and, you know, we have, you know, transparency and the ability to, you know, do what's right. Saying that and doing that are two different things. You really have to be able to be set up in a way that it helps you do that. For instance, if you're not billing enough, if you're tight to the wire with your finances all the time, when things go wrong, you first tend to think about, oh, what's this going to cost me?

2:29Rather than what is best for our client relationship, what's best for the business, what's best for our branding. So I would say having the money and the resources to really follow through with your branding and your image and your map to success.

2:53John Lee Dumas:Well, Fire Nation, today we're talking about why trust is actually the real currency in remodeling. And I want to talk about the turning point first, Warren, because you spent over 30 years in construction thus far. So when did you realize the industry needed a shift towards more transparency, towards more accountability? With remodeling, you know, and I focus on residential, we're in people's homes. For a small period of time, we're part of their lives and we're intruding in their lives. Even though that they've asked us to be there, we are providing a service. And I think that's where people were forgetting that we're invading in people's houses, and we want to be just the best house guest that you could have.

3:46You know, we've had family and, you know, friends come over and certainly there's, you know, that uncle that may want to overstay his welcome a bit. With remodeling, you know, we don't really, we don't have a choice, but we can choose how the homeowner, the client feels about the remodel. You know, it's tough. It's really, it's really tough. You know, when you're when you're waking up and you're hardly hardly had your coffee yet and the trucks pull in the driveway and you've got people coming in and, you know, making noise, making dust. Even I say that, you know, even if we do everything right, the homeowner is very pleased to have us out of their lives, keeping up and making sure that that we're, you know, being good house guests.

4:41Is everything clean? Asking questions, being proactive. You want to make sure you're doing things right and not just waiting for an underhanded comment or the eye roll or something like that. You want to be proactive on making sure that your client is comfortable and happy with your performance.

5:06John Lee Dumas:Warren, let's talk about avoiding costly mistakes. So what are the biggest mistakes that actually homeowners make when starting a renovation? And how can they avoid these expensive setbacks? I think it's all about expectations. You know, we've grown up in an era when, you know, we've got the 50-minute HGTV show, which I've done several TV shows. And there are, you know, people don't have a really good expectation of what could be wrong. You know, like you said, I mean, I've been doing this 30 years. This is my trade. This is my profession. You know, there are things that are unseen conditions within a house.

5:59But as a professional, there should be, you know, there is a level of acceptance or a level of assumption that there's going to be things wrong. And avoiding that is, you know, that's where people don't have enough information to know. And that's where it's tough with remodeling. They're basically gauging it on, or some of them are gauging it upon things that are not relatable to the actual thing. Their house, every house is different. My house is 230 years old. There isn't another one like it. It has inherent problems with age that a lot of buildings have. But knowing that, you should be able to know, at least as a professional, some expectation of what you'd find.

6:53John Lee Dumas:I want to talk about relationships over volume because it just seems like a lot of times the opposite is the case where it's all about volume and turnover, etc, etc. But you've built your business around long term clients relationships and you don't chase volume. So how has that decision shaped your growth? It's very controlled. I think if you're always chasing, you know, as soon as you have your contract signed for one job, if you're running out and looking at filling, you know, filling your calendar, I think that's where, you know, the gauge of success is not how busy you are. It's how happy your clients are.

7:36You know, we'll hire people, more people on, vet them over a period of time, and then we'll take on more jobs. Maybe, you know, part of our ability to, you know, really maintain growth without the volume is also the vetting, the vetting process. uh we you know we have it's a basically it's a courtship in a way you know we ask questions of the homeowner is you know the homeowner uh do they do they answer questions that are um financial based only you know are do they do they is the first thing they ask um hey do we get a contractor discount um now that's uh you know an earmark of somebody who is really just looking at a price point rather than our success rate.

8:36And again, success is based on, for us, it's based on happy clients.

8:43John Lee Dumas:We're going to talk about raising the standard. We're going to talk about investing in the team, standing out in the trades and more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Fire Nation, if you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. That is why High Level is Entrepreneur on Fire's featured partner. High Level gives you a website builder and hosting, funnels and landing pages, email marketing, appointment scheduling, payment processing, course and membership hosting, and so much more. Everything you need to succeed all under one roof. No duct tape, no juggling five platforms, just one clean system for your business.

9:21John Lee Dumas:And their award-winning 24-7 support has your back when you need it most. When you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you also get my exclusive bonus stack. a 30-day free trial, a private 15-minute call with me, JLD, access to my weekly live office hours, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something Execution Roadmap, and more. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Fire Nation, if you have a high-ticket offer but you are not getting enough quality sales calls on the calendar, Nexus Install is exactly what you need. This is a custom LinkedIn client acquisition system built to help you connect with the right prospects, start real conversations, and turn those conversations into booked calls, here is what makes it different.

10:08John Lee Dumas:We do not just hand you a bunch of theory and tell you, good luck. We build the system with you, dial in your audience, sharpen the messaging, run the outreach, and aim to book you eight to 20 qualified calls each month. Then once the system is proven and installed, we train you on how to run it yourself so you are not dependent on another agency forever. If you have a strong offer, a clear result, and are ready for more quality conversations with real prospects, email my team at john at eofire.com, and then we'll set up a call to see if Nexus Install is the right fit for you. Simple, focused, and built for predictable, long-term, quality lead flow.

10:47John Lee Dumas:Warren, we're back, and I want to talk about raising the standard. So the remodeling industry, it lacks a few things, but one thing it lacks is standardization in many areas. So why are certifications, why is education so critical for its future? It runs all the way down from, you know, estimating, quoting, emergency services. I mean, if we're building all these, all the houses the same and to a certain criteria, um uh estimating gets easier quoting gets easier um materials are are more standardized um certainly you know with uh with code uh and and you know fire and everything you know i mean if we our stairs are too steep firemen can't get down uh or get up um uh if there's no handrails or the handrails are open on the end.

11:45A fireman could come down and have their air apparatus ripped off their faces. You know, these things are, you know, we've been building these houses. Maine has some of the oldest housing stock in the country. But even back then, there were standards that needed to be upheld for safety and continuity.

12:11John Lee Dumas:I want to talk about investing in the team because Warren, I feel like this is something that you've done well. I mean, you've actually invested heavily in developing your team as well as, you know, creating and hiring the right team. So how specifically does that translate into better results for both clients and the business? Pay your people. Pay them so well that you kind of feel a little like, you know, should I be doing this? Pay them so well. Give them the benefits that they need. And listen, and you get happy and engaging employees. Your clients see that they're being taken care of. They feel better about their project and their interactions.

12:59They're more open with communication, which is critical in residential remodeling. But, you know, I would say if your employees aren't going back home and glouting over, you know, like what a great deal they have, then you could do better. You know, and it's really about your price point. You know, it's wages, wages increase over the years. So if you're used to sort of, you know, like a$10 an hour position 20, 30 years ago, that's not the price point anymore. So I think for business owners, they really have to kind of take a look at what it is. It is kind of the going rate and look at that going rate and do way better.

13:50Make your employees super happy. That will make for super happy clients.

13:55John Lee Dumas:Do you ever have any financial incentives for your team? Like, do you ever cut them in on deals or are they compensated in any additional ways? Sure. And that's where, you know, where the sort of the rubber meets the road. If you just say, well, for instance, we're a company of 15 employees. We have the benefits package of companies that are three times our size. And that's not, you know, doing your best isn't doing your best once and then kind of letting it sit and walking away. Um, um, you've, you've really got to, um, make, uh, you know, design it in to your business matrix on how to remind, uh, both your employees and your clients like every day, all right.

14:47every week, let's say, about why they're, you know, remind them why they chose to work with you. You know, incentives, bonuses, tool loan programs, free education. Those are some of the things that we provide. I've written, you know, help write curriculum for the local, the Southern Maine community college system. And I'm sending my guys to that training. And so, and that's for free. We cop that. Again, I think that you really, for your time, if you're hiring, if you think yourself as a top performer, you need to be hiring top performers and you need to be paying them and as top performers and, and also don't forget the soft skills, you know, you know, the praise is good.

15:40Challenging them is good. Making sure they're supported is good. So it's all those things. But I would say whatever we do, it always starts with employees first.

15:54John Lee Dumas:Let's talk about standing out in the trades. I mean, for entrepreneurs who are in trades or service businesses, what would you say is one principle that they should focus on to build trust and stand out? Do something every day. If you think that you get one trophy and it hangs on the wall and the phone isn't ringing, you're just not doing enough. And I mean, for examples, you know, multiple awards and things like that. Those are great. Those are trophies on the wall. If you don't remind people on a semi-regular basis that of your accomplishments or even your branding and your model, you're not doing yourself a service.

16:43I think, and it's really cheap. I think social media, at times I can't stand it, but it is a useful tool to be present in your community. Remodeling is a community-based sort of thing. There are very few remodeling companies that, let's say, work from one end of the state to the other. So I think being involved and exposing yourself to your community. There are also some extracurricular activities that go well with remodeling. Like I'm president of the local historical society. And because, one, history is important. I think that some of our, you know, a lot of our old buildings are, you know, are getting neglected and torn down and we're losing a lot of our identity.

17:45So it's important to me to to be part of that nonprofit. And in doing so, it's, you know, it kind of creates the whole package. You know, here's Warren working on 230 year old houses, being a member of the Historical Society. And then, oh, look at the awards. You know, these things don't happen overnight. They're slow, methodical, persistent actions that you can take to really build an image for yourself and your company. And I think that the work will follow.

18:23John Lee Dumas:Warren, you've dropped a lot of value bombs, standing out in the trades, investing in the team, raising standards, relationships over volume, avoiding causing mistakes, the turning point in your personal career. If Fire Nation wants to learn more about you and what you have going on and connect with you and maybe have an opportunity to even learn more, what is your call to action for our listeners today? always be on time um everybody's time is important just just uh not just yours but i would say reach happy to um to contact uh be contacted with with questions um my call to action would just be identify who you are as a business you know i mean your your business is it has can have a personality You know, is it smart, astute, professional, or is it kind of fly by the seat of your pant?

19:19You know, kind of doing things as they come. Neither one is wrong. You just, I would say, latch on to, you know, whatever it is that you want to see yourself as. Imagine other people looking at you and your business, and what would you want them to see? What would you want them to think about you and your business? And then, you know, fine tune that and then try to, you know, push or I should say present that image to the community.

19:54John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with W-O and J-L-D today. So keep up the heat. For links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Just type WARN in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up. And Warren, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we will catch you on the flip side. Thank you, John. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Warren for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, are you an entrepreneur on fire who's looking to share your amazing message with the world?

20:29John Lee Dumas:If yes, we are now accepting applications for EO Fire. So to learn more about becoming a guest, visit eofire.com slash guest. And I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Fire Nation, if you have a high ticket offer and need more quality leads, Nexus Install is designed for you. We'll book you 8 to 20 qualified calls each month, then train you to run the system yourself. Email my team at john at eofire.com to learn more and see if Nexus is the right fit for you. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support.

21:09John Lee Dumas:Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com. Highlevelfire.com.