Luck, Lessons, and Lifetime Homes: Taylor Wright on Building 828 Builders in WNC

0:02Taylor Wright:Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Epic Entrepreneurs Podcast, where we are all about helping business owners just like you achieve success. So we don't do fancy smancy. We don't do flashing lights. We don't do a lot of things that a lot of podcasts will do. These are just real stories about real people and their entrepreneurial and business experiences. as we go into their wins, their challenges, and their learnings. So we hope you enjoy it. Hi, everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I am Cliff McRae with Action Coach Business Growth Partners, where we work with local business owners to turn big ideas into real scalable growth.

0:47Today, I'm excited to be joined by Taylor Wright of 828 Builders. Taylor, thanks for being here. And how are you doing today? Excellent. Cliff. I hope you are. All right, right. Yeah, great, great. Yeah, so let's go ahead and jump right in. So for those of you who may not know it yet, this is Taylor Wright. And what is 828 Builders and what problems are you most passionate about solving for your clients? 828 Builders is a, for now, it's a residential home building company. um we've been going at this now for a little over 10 years and you know our passion is just building homes for people that they truly love and homes that are going to last them a lifetime so yeah take us back to the very beginning what what made you say yep i'm doing this i'm starting this business uh well to be honest with you uh it just seemed like a it seemed like an adventure that could give me freedom but also discipline at the same time uh it's sort of what i needed when i was younger was just a a path forward and something that would allow me to work as hard as i wanted to work or, you know, give me the amount of freedom that I wanted.

2:09And that just led to, well, that led to where I'm at today. It's been a long journey. I started out doing landscaping and that led to building fences, which led to building decks, which led to framing and siding, which led to getting a license, which led to, you know, building homes. And, you know, as we look forward, we definitely strong potential to get into commercial, probably most likely for ourself. It's pretty hard working for investors as a builder. Any builder would tell you that, that, you know, when the bottom dollar is what really It matters. Sometimes you got to take shortcuts that you really don't want to.

3:00And, you know, at the end of the day, as builders, we have to be responsible for that. Even if the client wants to, you know, save every penny that they can save at the end of the day, it's, you know, we need to make sure that we have a good product that we're delivering, even if it is, you know, as cost friendly as possible. Okay. So if you had to start again from absolute scratch, you know, no brands, no clients, no safety net, what would you do differently the second time around? I would I would take more chances rapidly. You know, as I'm getting a little bit older here, I realize that, you know, the only things that I haven't been able to achieve are the things that I haven't attempted.

3:51and um i you know i i just don't be afraid to try i guess is what i'm trying to say i i um you know sometimes it doesn't work out and then sometimes it doesn't work out the way you want it to work out but um you you can still make it work it's just going to take a little bit more effort i mean you're never going to know everything about anything and you know you just learn on the fly and be willing to put the hours in. I mean, sometimes things work beautifully and sometimes things just don't work at all. And like I said, you just got to make it work. Okay, okay. So what's a lesson you learned the hard way as a business owner that no one really prepares you for?

4:38Oh, man. So the first job I had as a builder, I got burned on. And I was going to a gym, a local MMA gym, and the owner and I kicked it off. He was the coach. And I told him at the time I was building, I was framing, doing manual labor. And he was asking me, actually, he was asking me to come work for him. I told him I didn't really, I was not the type of person that likes to work for other people in that sense. But anyways, to make a long story short, he told me if I got my building license that he would provide me an investment opportunity that he and I could both do together. I came back eight days later with my certificate.

5:27And, you know, he was like astonished by that. Well, being novice, not really knowing anything about the business side of things, I felt confident that I could build the house. And it was a big project. I felt very confident I could build the house, but I didn't know anything about business, to be frank, especially investments and developing real estate, things like that. So anyways, I was probably 26 at the time, maybe 25. And that was around COVID. And that was just south of$300 ,000 mistake. I didn't know I didn't have a contract I thought that I could trust people that you know I shake hands with you you shake hands with me we look each other in the eye and that is you know that that matters well it does matter to me still but to most people it doesn't and so contract contract contract I have a buddy who I grew up with and we both grew up in western North Carolina I grew up in Buncombe County.

6:36He grew up in Asheville City. But anyways, he's gone off to do things. He lives in France now. His company was one of the top 10 fastest growing companies in Poland a couple of years ago. And anyways, he really put it inside my mind and just my my realm of reality that contracts, we don't do anything as business owners without contracts, even if it seems small, repetitive, sometimes insulting. You know, if in the contracting, general contracting world, if something changes, you need to get your client to sign off on that. I mean, it can be just something as small as a voice recording. I mean, we all have that on our phone, click a button, have the client agree to it, do a voice recording.

7:28But I can't tell you how many times that I've told somebody I was going to do something, I do it. And then at the end of the project, when that bill comes, all of a sudden they forgot that they asked that, or they don't understand why that wasn't originally part of the work or whatever. So contract, contract. Okay. Okay. So what's one common myth people believe about running a business that makes your life now? One comment, man. I would say that a lot of people think that running a business is easier than working for someone. And I say that because I've encouraged everybody that I had a framing crew for a long time, maybe seven years or so.

8:16And I I encouraged all of them to want to grow and do more than just work for me, work towards growing their own business. And anyways, the time came that they felt like they could do their own thing individually, one by one. And they've all come back and asked for their jobs back. But unfortunately, that position is no longer available. So, yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it's. I don't know. it's a lot of, it can be a lot harder to have your own business, but once you get it established and you put the right things in play, it can be a lot easier as well. Okay. Okay. So be honest. Are you naturally more of an entrepreneur or an employee at heart and why?

9:06Certainly more of an entrepreneur. I just have a bit of a rebellious soul. I always have. And And I just like trying to do things my own way. And, you know, I've always had trouble with authority. And I think that having your own business, you know, gives you that freedom to learn lessons the hard way. And, yeah, so, yeah. Okay. All right. So how do you personally handle stepping away from the business? you know, vacations, downtime, unplugging without everything falling apart? I think it's important to have a vision. You work, work, work all the time and you'll get caught up in your business and you really will kind of lose direction.

10:02And it's important to be able to step back and unplug and evaluate what's important, not only in your business, but also in life. If you have a family, if you have religious beliefs, town obligations, whatever extracurricular things that are going on in your life besides business, it's important to make sure that there's a balance there. So for me, it's just spending time with my family and talking with my wife or close friends and loved ones about where we want to be when we're 60 years old and you know sitting on a big pile of cash would be nice but it's obviously not the most important thing so okay so looking back what do you attribute most of your growth to in your business so far um i would say that that would be blessings luck and hard work yeah it's it's uh there was a i was at a wedding and uh it's my wife's grandfather i guess of sorts he was the first black pilot in the united states uh i believe it was one of the big uh flight you know united airlines is what it was well anyways when i was uh at the wedding, everybody was getting lit.

11:32And I had just recently put down drinking and I think he was just sipping on something. But anyways, I was talking to him about my life and what I was wanting and the direction I was moving. And he told me that I kept telling him, I just need some luck. I need some luck. And he said that the definition of luck is whenever preparation meets opportunity. And the way that that hit me was just, I mean, it was life-changing. Those Those words are life changing. You know, like if we work all the time, we can all work all the time, but we all need to get lucky sometimes. So if there's something that you're wanting to do in life, work towards it, even if it's not paying you, even if it's not, you're not getting anything from it, but it's something that you want, you need to start moving in that direction.

12:20And then that way, when the opportunity comes, you'll be ready for it. But if you have no idea what it is that you really want, when somebody comes by and says, hey, would you like to do this? You really won't be ready for that. Okay. When you're building a team, what traits matter more to you than what's on someone's resume? Having a good attitude is definitely going to be at the top of that list. being able to work well with others, being humble, being a team player. I don't really care about somebody's resume so much. What I do is it's not rocket science, you know, and most of the time in life, things are simple.

13:08So it's, you know, just having some key guidelines to follow, a standard operating procedure, and doing that in a team environment where we're all trying to win together. We're all going to eat together. We win together, we win together. If we lose together, we lose together. But at the end of the day, we all depend on each other. Okay. So what's one thing you do intentionally to keep your workplace positive, motivated, and productive, especially during stressful seasons? I put it on my back. If something goes wrong, I try to look at things as what could I have done better? How could I have improved?

13:51I don't point the finger and blame other people for their faults. That doesn't mean that I don't hold people accountable. I will hold people accountable. But at the end of the day, if something went wrong on my job or in my office or in my environment, my world, my life, I always try to look in the mirror first and see what I could have done differently. And a lot of times when you go into things with that attitude, people are much more receptive to, you know, changes on their end as well. OK. OK. All right. Well, yeah, now we're going to head into what's called the quickfire round. So basically, I'm going to give you I'm going to say one word and I want you to tell me the first idea or first thing that comes to your mind when you hear that word in regards to running your business.

14:44OK. All right. The first word is education. Critical. Priceless.

14:54Next word is inspiration. Everywhere. Nice. next word is commitment discipline nice and that's actually the next word is discipline essential essential risk necessary and the last word is execution oh ginsu okay I like that I like that alright yeah I appreciate that. So, you know, and I want you to be as candid as you can with this next answer. You know, let's say somebody is listening to this episode today. Small business owners listening right now and feel stuck or overwhelmed. What's a piece of advice you'd want them to hear today? Oh, to be frank. Put it on God. That's the. But the biggest trials and tribulations that I've had in my life, whether it be business, you know, relationships at home, relationships at work, relationships wherever, if you take yourself out of it and put it on God, you will take care of it.

16:12And I'm sure that probably not the answer that you're looking for. But frankly, that's been the answer for me. And the more that that is the answer for me, the better everything goes for me. All right. So what's next for 828 Builders? What should people be excited about? What's coming up next for 828 Builders?

16:37Man, we're ready to take over Hendersonville. That's where we're at, Western North Carolina. We're really growing. we finally have everything in line our foundation is set all the pieces are in play and Lord willing we're going to really scale over the next couple of years I think that you know it's definitely a name to look out for and you know I'm hoping to have a big team and have a big community of people that are happy to have us doing the work for them to have the home of their dreams built, a home that's going to last, a home that they'll be proud of, their grandkids will be proud of. And then also on the other end, having a team of project managers, a team of subcontractors, just a big community of people that are happy to be working, happy to be part of our community, to be making this area a better place.

17:51So I think that the name 828 Builders, I'm not exactly sure how far it's going to go, but the limit is just whatever we make it. So I'm just trying to stay out of my own way and see what happens. Okay. So where do you see 828 Builders? Let's say hypothetically, what do you see in your company five years from now? Five years from now, 828 Builders is going to be a multifaceted operation. Right now, we really are just in the building, but I could see us having a development department, a real estate department, a rental department. You know, I have some investors that are interested in doing the real estate thing.

18:50So I think that, you know, we're just going to push it every direction that makes sense. And I'm looking forward to it. Okay, perfect. And finally, what's the best way for someone to connect with you or learn more about what you do? Reach out through email, through text message, through phone call. Really easy to find. You can find us at 828builders.com. We are on Instagram and Facebook, but the easiest way is going to be through our website, 828builders.com. All right. Perfect. Yeah. So, yeah, I really appreciate that. Yeah. Thank you so much, Taylor. This has been fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing your story, your perspective, and the real behind the scenes of building your business.

19:40I really appreciate everything you're doing for the community. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity. Yeah. Thank you very much.

19:49Taylor Wright:Hey, thanks for listening to the Epic Entrepreneurs Podcast. Here's three things that you can do. Number one, remember to subscribe to the podcast. It takes very little effort on your part. It's going to help you and your fellow entrepreneurs. Plus, you guys know how it works. The more subscribers we get, the more cool things we can offer to you. Second, to learn more about growing your business, just download my book, The Coach Approach. It's free for you at giftfrombill.com. That's giftfrombill.com. Hey, and if you'd like more info about growing your business and what we can do to help you grow your business, send me an email directly.

20:37Taylor Wright:Just send it to williamgilliland at actioncoach.com. That's my personal email that I read. No one else reads it first. It's not screened. It's my real email. Just send it to me. I can't wait to talk to you. Hey, and until then, all the best.