How to Build a Luxury Brand That Sells Custom Homes

Custom home builders get more leads by building a strong brand, consistently posting high-quality content on social media, and optimizing their website for local SEO through regular blog posts.

Branding is important because it builds trust and sets expectations. A professional brand signals to high-end clients that you deliver a premium product and care about the details.

Builders can qualify leads faster by implementing a short phone call before scheduling an in-person meeting. Ask direct questions about budget, timeline, and project scope to ensure they are a good fit.

Yes, blogging is highly effective for home builders. Consistently publishing articles about your projects, materials, and processes improves your Google search rankings and drives organic traffic to your website.

Jesse Sampley (00:32)

Well, I've got the Mark Williams. I'm super excited about this. why don't you tell me, you know, how you got started in the industry, how you knew when you were a builder at heart, but take me back to the very, very beginning for you.

Mark Williams (00:45)

Well, very beginning, my mom was an engineer designer. My dad was a builder. They built about 40 homes a year, completely different than what I do today. I build about four to five high-end projects a year. We're kind of in the probably anywhere from six to 10 million a year in revenue. Most of our homes are anywhere from probably two to eight million per home, but they take multiple years. That's why the per year revenue doesn't add up in those numbers if you're doing math. And I bring it up because my dad did 40 homes a year.

at about the same revenue. so, whether you do high end custom homes or you do production or semi production, like there's multiple paths. so my, had both sides of my family had entrepreneurs and I just didn't know anything else. In fact, no one I knew had a job. Cause I thought as an entrepreneur, everyone is just, you you just work for yourself and that's how the world worked. And so I, in high school, I used to sweep homes for my dad and I knew for sure the only thing I was very clear on is I did not want to be a builder.

I remember early on, the phone ringing like two, three o'clock in the morning when it was raining. And I remember the next day like asking my dad, like, what was that all about? Woke us up. He was like, yeah, someone declined a bill for their roof was leaking. I remember as a little kid, like that's why would anyone choose a job where they could wake you up at three o'clock in the morning because their roof was leaking. obviously,

That was this left a strong impression on me as a kid. That wasn't why I didn't want to become a builder, but I was like, because I really didn't want to do what my parents did. I kind of want to, as a first born, you kind of want to do your own thing. So anyway, in high school, I had a little lawn mowing business. I don't even know if I could drive. I must've been able to drive because I had, because I was, yeah, I must've, because I could pull a trailer. So I must've been at least 16. And I printed off these little green cards that said professional lawn mower.

And I remember hand cutting them on one of those like those dumb things you see in like art class, you you cut like a guillotine. And I went and handed them out to like a hundred people went door to door just saying, Hey, my name's Mark. have a lawn mowing company, and I remember charging a lot. Like I made, I remember one summer I made like $10,000. This is like 1995. Like that was a lot of money for a 15 year old, six year old kid. And we had a lawn mower cause we had, a three acre yard. So I had a beautiful zero.

Jesse Sampley (02:33)

Yeah.

Mark Williams (02:55)

turning radius yard, just paid for gas and that was pretty much it. So I mowed all our neighbors yards and then it started branching out, probably had 15, 20 accounts and did that all through high school, all summer long. just rocked it, listened to Louis the More book tapes on a Walkman cassette player life was pretty good, And then I sold my business, which is kind of

cause like, man, what high school kids sells their business. But I didn't mean it. don't, it wasn't like LLC or it was very unofficial business. Like I basically, this guy said, Hey, wow, you have 20 accounts. I would like your 20 accounts. And I just came up with like, pay me $10,000 and they're all yours. I'll make introductions to all of them and you can have all of them. And that was just that simple. And so anyway, I sold, sold air quote, my company.

And he took it over and I went to school for business and communication. I don't recall anything that I learned. And I got out of college. I'm like, well, now what? And so I went to copier sales because I always, thought, well, obviously I love, I'm an extrovert. Everyone tells me I'm good at selling. So like, I'll just keep doing that. So Rico copiers for Metro sales in Minneapolis. Suit and tie.

And I loved it actually. It was all week sales training class. And a lot of it was, I learned way more about business from my parents watching them than I realized at the time. But from an actual sales person, like I was never trained that way until, this one year of copier sales, but I just remember it was a game. I gamified everything. So it was a, you make a hundred, if you made a hundred phone calls a day, you would land 22 phone calls. And of those 22 phone calls,

You would land six appointments and of those six appointments, three, it was just a numbers game. So I just like learned pretty quick. If I called a lot of people, regardless of my conversion rate, the more I called, it's like going duck hunting. The more lead I put in the air, the more birds I'm going to hit. And so I loved it. It was like, I wasn't going to let anyone beat me at the number of people I called. Cause it's like, that was the one thing like control what you can control.

Jesse Sampley (04:45)

set.

Mark Williams (04:54)

It's probably good advice for me even today. should, I should, I should relist in this podcast because that's good advice. 22 years later. And anyway, so I, I, after a year, I'm like, is this it? Is a guy at the end of the desk who'd been doing it for like 40 years. I'm like, well, I don't want to do what Lenny's doing. Like that, that looks like a soulless journey to the end, a grave, like just put a marker on me and bury me. So my parents had been retired. I'm actually third generation builder, but each generation was broken.

Jesse Sampley (04:56)

You

Mark Williams (05:21)

meaning like it never handed off from one generation to the other. since we're in the Olympics right now, was like a very poorly run four by 100, except nobody had batons to hand to the next generation. And so I had an uncle who was a chiropractor and I said, Hey, do you, do think I should do? And he's like, have you ever thought about being a builder? And I was like, wow, that's a crazy idea. Yeah, I should do that. And so,

Cause my parents never really encouraged me to do it or not to do it. I think they, were very wise and just kind of letting me figure out my own path. A lot of respect for them for doing that. And in hindsight, now that I'm a dad, had, you don't really truly appreciate your parents till you become one. You're like, wow. That's what, that's what that was all about. So anyway, I was, I had a silver Jetta and I was still selling copiers printing off large format. thought I was stealing. was printing off like large format plans of a home I was building, a spec home.

on the company printers. And I was like, I'm just practicing on if I have to do a large format sale or something like that. And anyway, halfway through I'm like, this is amazing. I'm building a house. Like why would I ever wear a suit and tie and sell copiers ever again? I quit my job, ⁓ got a Chevy Silverado traded the four door car for a four door

so anyway, that was that. And I haven't looked back, but that was 22 years ago. So I started when I was 24. And it's been a, I've never been bored in my entire life, but that was, it's been a wild ride, ups and downs and ins and outs. And, I burn out, I mean, all the things. So I've kind of experienced a lot.

Jesse Sampley (06:41)

Wow.

It's

funny, we have a lot of similarities in the way that we kind of grew up too, because my dad, the same third generation, I'm not a home builder, not yet. But I always said the same thing. I was like, man, anything but home building, this is just the worst. This is absolutely terrible. video production and the marketing side kind of drew me over time. And eventually I got back into it a little bit and I've done some renovation projects and built a few.

our own homes. on side, like my grandfather, he had a home building business, but it was like something was missing between like the handoff. And this has always been something that's kind of ached at me is that, you have this compounding knowledge, and you know, somebody learned something, but then how do you transition that into another person?

And the natural progression should be the business. It's like, hey, if you've got a business that you're able to manage and then hand off three generations, that should grow and grow over time. But it seems like there's always this reset of does it and they're like, hey, this is terrible, don't do it. And there's not really an encouragement to say, hey, here is what the issues that need to be solved. I'm just tired right now. And it's your turn.

to help solve this. But instead, with my own dad, there was a reset to almost like re-figuring things out all over again. And then for us, kind of the same as like, we were never really pushed to do building or construction. It was just, hey, at least you have these skills that you can always use as a backup. You'll always be able nothing else, be able to work on your own house.

Mark Williams (08:26)

That's funny you say that. I met someone the other day Vince Longo. He's a builder down in Atlanta, Georgia. And his daughter ⁓ is good. And he wants to, he's actively trying to pursue his daughter. He said, we'll create a LLC. We want you to do a gap year between high school and college. And then his wife is a real estate agent and he's a builder. And for one year, they just want to, to your point, they want to build a house together, a spec home.

Jesse Sampley (08:31)

Okay.

Mark Williams (08:49)

He'll teach her how to work with trades, how to build a house, how to design it, how to go through permitting, how to run a business. And at the end of it, they will sell the home and the profits from that home will go to her college education. Should she choose to do it? And regardless of what happens, she will know how to run a business. And plus have had a year of life experience before she went to college. Can you imagine showing up to college and being like a freshman and be like, by the way, I actually already had a business for a year, sold the house. like,

Jesse Sampley (09:00)

Wow.

Amazing.

Mark Williams (09:16)

That is such a great idea. Like I so want to do that with my kids. If they know they have to want to do that, obviously. But his point was, is even if she never gets into building, even if she never gets into real estate, she will at some point rent or own a home. She will have to sell a home or rent a home. Like he feels like he's teaching her foundation on top of all the business things she'll learn and relationships.

Jesse Sampley (09:37)

I

was about to say all of those micro things on a sales side, on a communication side, there are so many things that you have to be in tune to, to be able to even get to that in process. And not to mention all of the issues that you have to work through to be able to get there. It's just inevitable.

Mark Williams (09:47)

So I thought it was a

Yeah. So

I thought it was great. I'm like, Vince, that is a great, great story. So I would love to, I'd love to emulate that actually.

Jesse Sampley (09:55)

Man.

I love that we have always, we've got younger kids, but we've always said, something in the, in the rental side, just cause we've got a couple of short-term rentals even now in our, in our conversation, we try to always position things of like, Hey, yes, you can always go do, and you can have a really elaborate job, but always kind of be thinking about, how can I build something that also runs on its own that you're always removing yourself from? and I think there's always a

depending on how you're raised and I was raised this way and it took me a while to kind of de-program my brain, which was like, you're always building a really elaborate job for yourself rather than, and it's like that always comes with its height and its limit and its burnout rather than, you what I had to de-program was, no, I'm going to build something that I really enjoy working in, but I don't have to be in it all the time. And it's actually,

Mark Williams (10:35)

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Jesse Sampley (10:52)

beauty in that and there's also a lot more progression in that because then you've got people around you that you're able to support and you just get a better project overall.

Mark Williams (11:02)

I I agree with you. I I remember it was very sobering. think I was in year 18. So this is four years ago or so. And I was thinking about, we had just won Builder of the Year in Minnesota, which is a cool honor. And I was thinking, I was 18 years in. And let's say, God willing, I was going to do it for another 18 or 20 years. I was like, well, am I going to be able to sell this? So it finally starts dawning on you. Like, what's your exit strategy? And I like what somebody told me. They're you have a job or do you have a business?

And I was, you'd like, most entrepreneurs would like to think that they have a business. And then he posed this amazing question. He said, well, if you left your business for two months, could it survive? And I was like, yeah, I think it actually could surprisingly. but then like at some point it couldn't. And so whatever that is, is it one week? Is it one month? it 60 days? Is it six months? Is it a year? And his point was, is if you can't say yes to all of those timeframes, you don't have a business.

You have a job and he's totally right. Now I've pushed it from let's say two to three months to now 12 months, but mainly because we do high end luxury. So, we're a year in design and then probably a year to a year and a half to build. So right now I've just spent the last year in design, which is really where I spend the majority of my time in sales and design with the architect and designer. And then I hand it off to my production team for project management, project coordination. Like, like right now I have three, four jobs in the, in the works.

Jesse Sampley (11:58)

Yeah.

Mark Williams (12:25)

I could take a year off. mean, I'm not going to, I wouldn't be able to get any new jobs because we don't have anything for sales, but like, we could survive for a year or two, but then I'd come back and I'd be broke and I'd have, who knows if anyone would be still be here working. But anyway, you get the point. only so long you can let the stage coach drive without, the driver there. And so it was really helpful for me. Like I wanted to construct my business so that it is a business and not a job.

Jesse Sampley (12:49)

you probably look back and look at all the things that you had to develop in order to even get there. What SOPs did I have to develop and how much did I have to get out of my brain to even pass this knowledge along? Because you know how to do everything, but unless it's on paper and unless there's some sort of a process, even if you do bring new people in, there has to be some sort of a standardized process.

Mark Williams (13:11)

See, and that

is, would say that's still my weakness. are you familiar with disc assessments? Like personality. like I'm all red and yellow. So which is all driver and visionary. I'm like zero blue, zero green. like, like basically, empathy and like data analytics, like don't exist. It's like, I'm all about the vision, driving these horses to the, the great unknown. That's my job.

Jesse Sampley (13:17)

Yeah, ⁓

Mark Williams (13:34)

I have people on my team that are all blue and all green. So like as a team, we're very well represented. It's pretty common that the owners or entrepreneur leaders are red, yellow. Anyway, the reason I bring it up is my biggest weakness is operations because I, if you give me detailed tasks that just take me five, six hours to just like, expel spreadsheet me, like you are asking me to do the worst thing.

possibly think of it's the worst. If you tell me to start five new businesses, like I'll do that in the next 20 minutes. Like no problem. don't give me a file and say, file this tree down until it's a pencil. Like I will just be crippled by the monotony of it. And so the things that make a lot of entrepreneurs good also make them really bad at certain things because nobody's usually a MacGyver or a Swiss army knife at everything. And so for me, it's, actually do need to.

work on my SOPs because right now I have the best team I've ever had. have four or five people. I've had a couple. I've had probably three really poor hires in the last five years that cost me several hundred thousand dollars and lost either real dollars that I had to write a check to the clients for or in just like basically holes in my ship. I was just leaking money because I wasn't efficient. I've always sort of hired people that were very competent and I realized the other day that I am a much better cheerleader than I am a coach.

And if you're not a coach, this is just dominant on me, like a couple of weeks ago, like I'm really good at cheering you on and say, let's go, you got this. And like, it makes me a good cheerleader. I'm not a good coach because I'm not going to sit down and teach everyone on my team, the task that now I'll model the behavior. Like I'll practice what I preach. And that is a form of teaching, but like I'm hiring competent people to do their but I'm also a bit under the owner fallacy where I think they might have the same drive or same vision I do well.

That's unfair to them because it, I'm not saying to diminish what their drive or what it is. I think it's just different. It's, can't really be compared. You're talking about apples and oranges here. I think that we as owners have to be careful that we don't use what drives us and hold other people that same standard. Because I do think if we were to be fair, if everyone was doing how then everyone would be owners. There'd be no employees. Everyone would be the owner of their own company. And, and that's fine. Not everyone should be the owner of their own company. It's not.

Jesse Sampley (15:20)

Mm-hmm.

Exactly.

Mark Williams (15:47)

It's not as great as some people think it's made out to be, nor is it as bad as some people think it is. It's just, it's the right fit for the right person.

Jesse Sampley (15:49)

You

Are you using anything to help with these new hires thing that you've learned along the way to say, okay, maybe we're doing a personality assessment. Maybe we're, asking these questions, anything. So this is a kind of a question more for newer builder Hey, how do I, vet these people properly? cause I don't want to lose revenue. I don't want to write that check to the client and I don't want, and maybe I can't afford the reputation sting if I'm in a smaller market for what that, if that person represents me bad.

What have you learned along the way to help with those new hires?

Mark Williams (16:24)

Well, I would say a few things. One is trust your gut. Every time you go against what your instincts tell you, it pretty much always burns you, number one. Number two, I like referrals. I I like people that reach out to us. They've showed a desire to say like, our brand, like one of the people that works for us now, before we were ever hiring had reached out to us and said, hey, I really am attracted to your company. I'd like to work for you. Like, that's cool. Now we get.

Jesse Sampley (16:27)

You

Mark Williams (16:49)

We get a fair amount of those, which is also really cool. But like I started there, like they, took the wherewithal to A, B looking B to reach out and like they're, they're showing, they're signaling that they have a lot of right characteristics. But now what I do is I refuse to hire anyone in my own company. I let my team hire them because I'm a not that I'm a terrible judge of character. I'm just, I just like people too much. What the thing that makes me a really good cheerleader.

Jesse Sampley (17:06)

Hmm.

Mark Williams (17:14)

makes me a poor at analytics in the sense that like I will cheer anyone on for the best version of themselves, which is great. think we need people like that on our team and in our life and things like that. But the problem is, like, I'll take, I've had, I've had two people on my team that are, have had difficult experiences in their life. And I always, made excuses for them because of like the rough things that they had had in their life. And I'm not saying like, I'm not saying compassion or kindness is a weakness. I don't believe that.

But it does, it blinded me a little bit to like, the problem is they still have to do a job. They still have to be competent and all these other things. And I was so focused on trying to help them be a better version of themselves. But in some ways that's not the job of an employer. Like my wife calls it the savior complex. I think that's being a little harsh. Thanks honey. want the best for people. think it's okay to want.

people to have a better future. And as someone who, hires people, like we are mindful of the people we hire. But now this is long winded answer of basically like, I let my people decide who we hire. And I can't wait to use this line someday if we do hire someone that they don't like, I'm to be like, well, you hired them. Like, it's not, don't look at me. I didn't hire them. And so I that's never happened yet. But I do I do kind of relish the day sometime that they hire someone they don't like years later, then they'll be like,

You know, we don't like, Jackie. I'm like, well, I didn't hire Jackie. did. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, team sort of self selects and sort of, your vibe attracts tribe, your, attitude affects your altitude. And these are all platitudes, but they're also really true. And I think, like attracts like, I mean, of everyone, think of your company as like a magnet. What are you attracting?

Jesse Sampley (18:33)

You have to live with your own decision you've made.

Mark Williams (18:53)

And it, you if you're attracting, if you're attracting terrible talent, maybe you better look in the mirror and like take a, know, kind of do a real self assessment. Like maybe, maybe my true North is off a little bit. But if you're attracting really top tier talent, that that's also probably a good indication that you or your brand is representing something pretty great.

Jesse Sampley (19:11)

Yeah. How important do you think is the brand side of it? know, yes, there's the operation, there's the sales, there's the things that runs the business, but there's also this, the branding side, which is a little hard to put your finger on sometimes. And, you know, I've talked to a lot of builders that are, first generation going into the second generation, these guys have been around for, they've been building for 50 years. Now it's time for their son to take over. And there's a little bit of a...

of this transition of, you know, they don't have much of a brand. They don't have anything online. They've got, a lot of one guy that's done it one way his whole life and don't mess it up because this was the, recipe for success. And then during this handover, kind of have to re-figure out all of these things. So what would you say to, that an older guy that's, he's, trying to make the handover, but he doesn't understand the value of just the

the brand perception when you put out things, you get things back. What's your thought on some of that?

Mark Williams (20:07)

Well, it's two questions. One is what do I think a brand? I'm a huge fan of brand. can, that's a whole nother, I mean, heck that's a whole podcast, but we can talk a little bit about that. I want to touch first on succession planning, which to be fair, I have not done, but I've observed a lot of it and I've interviewed owners the curious builder podcast. And so I've gotten to know a lot of people that are father, son teams, husband and wife teams, I just observed how they operate.

Jesse Sampley (20:14)

You

Mark Williams (20:34)

I think the smartest advice I've ever actually an episode five for me, like early on, like three and a half years ago, Mark Shears is his name. He's a, his whole family is third or fourth generation lumber yard in Minnesota. And they have a family. were trying to keep away from nepotism and self-dealing. do you just doing what they've always done? How do you get new ideas? How do you make sure that the second generation doesn't fail? And.

their family motto, because they had a big company, hundreds of employees, and they just don't want to hand it over to Jack Shear, I don't even know if there's a Jack Shear, but let's just say that is the name, and without some protocol, because you're really doing a disservice then to all the other employees, all the other family members, and the legacy of it. Not that Jack isn't worthy of it, but he hasn't really proved Diddley Squat, other than his blood is the same as your blood, which is not a minor thing, but the business doesn't care. The business doesn't care about your feelings. The business doesn't care about your lineage.

business is black and white. Like, is it going up or is it going down? Is it staying the same? so what their family is, is that you have to work five years for another company and, or get a major promotion. And I think that is genius because, let's say you get out of college, if that's what your path is, or even if it's not, you work for someone else, you get new ideas. Maybe it's in the same field. Maybe it's not.

They had family members that went into lumber yard. They went into like pharmaceutical medical sales and they stayed there because they're like, well, I like this world better. Great. It's better that you learn that now than you came and joined our company. after 15 years, you're like, well, this isn't for me. So it was so wise. think a multi-generational family company having some way it's fine if you want to work with your kids. I think it's a wonderful and there's so much wonderful things that come from it, but everyone benefits if they come.

Intuit of their own path. And, I interviewed a couple, Mike and Andrew Lejeune are their name. They own a glass company and Andrew, the son went and worked for a couple of companies, like 15 years. was in another state leading a whole team of whatever he was leading. And then he came and joined his father and they've worked it out since. And yeah, I think that is a marvelous way to grow your own company.

to really understand the fresh ideas. And I've got to imagine, I haven't been in the situation, but I have to imagine it's also not very easy. And if you've run and company for 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, and now your kids want to come you've been around them a long time, they're going to have new ideas. You're going to have to let them fail. Because I have a series on Thursdays called losers are winners. And I don't think that we learn very much by winning. We learn way more losing.

Jesse Sampley (22:58)

Yeah.

Mark Williams (23:07)

you learn, and when you get a scar on your forehead, cause you slipped on the ice, you took a hockey puck to the face, you know, next time you're going to wear a helmet, or you burn your hand on a kettle or you cut yourself with a knife. It's like, these are all things that we hopefully learn from. And so, yeah, I don't know if that answered your question about family.

Jesse Sampley (23:23)

It

though you haven't gone through that exact same scenario, you've kind of experienced the same thing in your own life as far as, I went away and then I came back, you learn things when it's not your cripples you a little bit when you are, because you don't really have that perception someone that is in charge of you, if it's a manager.

If it's a sibling, an older sibling or a father or a mother, like it's just, it's always going to be different. Now, what about the brand? this is kind of a two-part question, but now, now the brand side how important is that to bring in new people? It's multifaceted. The sales side, the recruitment side.

Mark Williams (24:05)

definition of branding might be a little bit different than how you're painting it. So I'm able to speak from my point of view. Like I was just telling this morning, was telling another builder over coffee, it's the example it's easy to look at other people and be Hey, wow. guy looks, a little tired. He's been wearing the same shirt since high school. And sometimes you need your spouse to tell you like, Hey, by the way,

Jesse, your shirt, you've been wearing that, that shirt needs to be, you need a new or you trained for a marathon. lost a lot of weight or you gained a lot of weight. Your clothes don't use this because it's a very easy example to relate to. like I, I've done three brand revisions in my career, in terms of typography, style, and it's more than just a logo. It's color font. It's all kinds of stuff psychologically that it relates to that.

Jesse Sampley (24:44)

yeah.

Mark Williams (24:45)

You need a professional to help you. Number one, like, don't just like do this I mean, sure AI is great, but I mean, who knows what it could do. But anyway, my point is, is work with a team and it's worth every cent. And what my wife told me is like, when I first started actually started with really nice homes. We were starting at like five, 600,000, which is a lot for your first home. But now we're building four or five X that number.

And, but we've always gone where clients have taken us. Like I didn't have aspirations. I didn't have it not to be here. I was just going to go see where my career took me. Like I didn't have like a true North of like, I'm going there and this is how I'm going to get there. Like I kind of just went there through the pure form of like, I'm enjoying this. I like what I'm doing. ⁓ and my curiosity led in all things like, Ooh, this is interesting. I should try this. I, I should talk to this architect or this designer or whatever. It sort of just kept getting bigger and better.

based on my own pursuit of like excellence, if you will, and getting better and better, self-improvement. And my wife one day told me, she's like, your company and who you are today no longer your brand is telling other people you are. It'd be like if you were Mario Andretti, a famous race car driver, driving that hardly goes at all.

Those things just don't line up. got a world-class racer in a really crappy and vice versa. You couldn't have like a top of the line Indy car and like a 16 year old kid, he's going to crash it. Like, the vehicle and the driver kind of need to match skill sets. Never thought about this analogy, but I think it works. And so, when I went through that brand refresh, the other thing that I think architects do a much better job of, same with designers. Early in my career, I took photos of everything, which is fine.

Jesse Sampley (26:13)

I love it.

Mark Williams (26:22)

But like, I took photos of like empty rooms of like homes that I built. Like, I mean, lots of photos. I thought more was better. and I still sort of fall into that category a little bit, but like you look at like an architect's webpage, they'll have like three photos of a house. You always want more. you'll get like one angle of the outside, like a sliver of like a pantry, a powder room, and maybe like some, and you're like, I want to see the rest of the house because I'm a builder. I want to see all of it. I want to know how it's constructed. And their angle is we're putting this out there because our

photos are a currency. how we attract people to our work. They have to call me. They have to sit with me. They have to meet with me. And then I will show them the rest, but only if they take the initiative to come meet with me. And it's a, it was a great illustration when I finally woke up to that fact that, less is actually more and having a story or a narrative, causes people to reach out to you.

curious by does this story end? Like if you had a book that stopped halfway through, you'd be kind of pissed. Like what if you bought a 500 page book and at, and at page 250, like what if reading the Harry Potter books with my daughter right now. Like what if I like halfway through JK Rowling was just like blank pages. And it was like, what, what happens to the rest of it? Like it's great because now they really want more. mean, that's why you have multiple book series. And so kind of going on a long story here, but I think that

is selling for you when you're not there. Brand is telling a story, your story, how you've cultivated, how do you want your clients to perceive you if they haven't met you? And even if they have met you, does your brand align with what that is? And you look around outside of our industries. you look at like Nike or you look at Starbucks or you look at Amazon or any famous company. you could show someone the logo, which is effective. Look, what is their title?

is the catchphrase if you will, like that really usually speaks to core values why is it so memorable? And then ultimately how does their values connect to what you want? It's the same as true with like restaurants and like when you kind of looking around at brand it's everywhere. ⁓ and here's the thing, if you're not aware of it, that actually can be bad too, because meaning your own brand.

Jesse Sampley (28:21)

yeah.

Mark Williams (28:28)

because you are signaling to the world that you're not professional. You're signaling to the world, like if you're a builder, that brand isn't important to you. I can guarantee you that if you want a higher end client, your brand better be important to you. Cause if you don't care about your brand, why would you care about their home? That's what they're thinking. Even if they can't articulate it, that's what they're subconsciously.

Jesse Sampley (28:46)

Exactly.

That's brand perception. A lot of the work that we did on the video production side creating this messaging for who is the audience that I am attracting. I'm from Kentucky, so a lot of the work that we did was with bourbon companies. And every bourbon brand has its own brand, and it is calling to a very specific type of person. And it was all those same things that you've kind of touched on, which is

presenting this in a certain way that attracts the person that we kind of end is going to help us answer all of the questions. What images are we putting out there? What does our logo look like? What is all of these other media assets that we're going to put out there? But then also, what is our cadence? Are we casual? Are we Southern? All of these things start making more sense when you view it from

Okay, the, customer that is going to consume this and they're going to hear from other people, their experience, we want to feed that to those people. We want to feed this to the person that's going to refer us to another person. We're going to feed this to a person that sees this in an ad or that sees this in a magazine or that sees it just while they're organically searching. and then I think another huge part of that is, you you look at these global brands and they've got such significance.

We're talking about builders that are in a very small geographical area most time. like they're not trying to dominate a massive area. sometimes I'm thinking of, some of the builder friends that I grew up with, it's a 30 mile radius that they're trying to dominate. that's when you, when you kind of dial it in, how can I make the most impact for the people within a 30 mile radius?

I think that perception really helps bring meaning to what you do and then what you invest like you were saying earlier, it just carries on for so much. It carries on beyond you.

Mark Williams (30:37)

Well, I think storytelling. I've become a huge fan. I've always loved stories, even as a little kid. I love reading books to my kids. I love a good a story. A story can convey so many things that when we talk, mean, talking sure is a form of storytelling, but like when it's a story, like the arc, we're conditioned. Maybe it's because we read books as a kid, like we're used to stories. Maybe that, I've never thought about it this way, but.

you always have read books as a kid or your parents read them too, or you read them to kids, like we are familiar with a beginning and an end, the hero's arc, the hero's journey, like whatever books you're attracted to, there's, there's a story arc. Otherwise you put the book down because it's boring. And like, honestly, a brand is the same way. Like what's the story? And the story really carries your message of who you are. I, the other advice I'd have to your listeners or anyone for any business, not just building is like, be authentic. Don't try to be me. Don't try to be Jesse. Don't try to be somebody else. Just like be you.

And the more you are you, like again, your vibe attracts your tribe. And so there are people out there for everyone. I mean, look at comic strips, like when you open up the paper whatever, like there's a comic that everyone identifies with like, oh, like I, I don't know how old you are, but like Kelvin and Hobbes was like my jam when I was a kid. Like that was the best comic strip ever. Or like the far side of these are all like, now it makes me probably old because these don't even exist anymore. I don't know any new comics.

But anyway, the point is like there are certain senses of humor. mean, you could relate to TV shows or sitcoms or comedy. there are certain people that you just sort of like, they get me. That's the same as true as with builders, you know? And so like, we have my other business, Curious Builder, like we have these collectives we are in seven states in seven cities and we have, mastermind groups. And what I tell like even people in my own community in Minnesota, there's 22 builders in our local

We compete against each other in the sense that we all build and remodel in the same area, but we really don't because we're 22 uniquely different people. We're at a different points of our career, different prices, different stratas, different skill sets, different personalities. Even if everything was all the same, the last one is the most critical. who do you want to spend, the next year, year and a half of your life with? I'm telling this to my client. It's like, you're going on a camping trip. You got a camper van set up with your kids. It's like,

think about going on vacation with another family. there's, the Johnson's great. I could go on the road with them, but Ooh, the Williams. Yeah. I'm only good with them for like a night because they drive me crazy. like that's the same as true of, who you choose to work with and who chooses to work with you. Like, do you want to be around these people? And I think that was a question I would have asked earlier on early on. You're like a dog at a dog park. You'll chase any ball because think that's what you're supposed to do.

But I could go back and tell a younger Mark Williams, what to do, it would be like, figure out who you are first, figure out what you want, figure out what your brand is, what your story is, where you want to go, and then create a path, like reverse engineer it, create a path to get there. And who are the clients that are going to get you there? And at the end of the day, like saying no to the wrong client is perfect. Saying yes to the right client is everything.

And then obviously know that there's a gray middle ground that we all fall trap to regardless of your experience, is sometimes you got to take a job just to put gas in the gas tank. And you know, you can't wait for every perfect job. You'll never go anywhere, but you can say no to the bad ones. Like it's no matter what it is, no matter how bad you think it is, it's not worth

Jesse Sampley (34:02)

the no's will lead you to the yes. And I think you brought up a really good point. And I think this is a struggle for some people is this balance between yes, I'm trying to put food on the table. I'm trying to put gas in the gas tank, but then what are these signals for these people that really do take me to this next level or the people that I work well with? What do you think are some good signals that people look consultation?

but you what does that structure look like just so can kind of figure out, who those people are and have a good cadence to where I can refine it over time.

Mark Williams (34:36)

So a couple answers come to mind. One wanna work with good people that value what I do. If you're not willing to pay me for what I do, then you don't value what I value. Like if I'm gonna go buy something, I'm willing to pay for it because I value whatever commodity I'm buying or experience I wanna do. So first off is like, I like professionals because they understand there's a cost of something.

And there is a middle ground that, the classic analogy is, champagne taste on a beer budget, right? Like the people who want that, but aren't willing to pay for it. Like, man, they're everywhere. No matter what class of strata you're in, you just, you really got to be mindful of that. But, and you can still deliver great value, but again, aligning your values is super important. Like if, quality is really your jam.

and someone says, I want to go as fast as possible. They're literally telling you they are not your client because you can't do high quality work super fast. I often joke like, as someone says, they want a lower price. I can't blindfold my painter and get a discount because he does a bad job.

Like that's not how it works. Like I'm not going to cut off 200 grand on your house and tell all my guys, guys on this one, you're going to do sloppy work. Like just run and gun, take off the safety on your trimmer and just spray that thing like Rambo throw up some wood. hope the nails hit and like, you know what we're going to like, no, no, what is good? That's crazy. Plus that story makes everyone laugh. So like they kind of get it, but

There are honestly people that don't know what they're saying and you literally have to just like hit the taboo button in the game and be like, nope, this is not for me. And from the practical structure work, I've used this for years and it's been probably the biggest saver of time early on in my career. we do everything as cost plus. So I show everything to my client and early on in my career, I thought I was like, ⁓ man, if a client knows what I'm making, first of all, show me one rich builder. I don't know any.

Uh, show me one rich real estate agent. don't know any. It's like, we're not making that much money people. If there was a lot more people would be doing it, but we all seem to our clients. I'll think we're making way more money than we do. And we all race to the bottom. So both of those things are really bad combos. stand your ground, charge what you're worth is like when someone comes to you and says, I saw the home that you did for, you know, whoever on your website. Great. That's a beautiful home. We had a, we had a marvelous home. I'd like to build that house, but could we do it for a couple of hundred grand less?

Sure. Let's talk about what things you want to remove out of that house. Like I can't just make that product less. Like that doesn't exist. Like who are, are we in fairy tale land? And so, like that's usually a signal that they like the word value more than I like price. And so they don't value what you do now. It's up to you to explain to them what you do. And then through that explaining, if they understand it, great. I like what somebody said. Like if someone says I'd like to, I'd like to shave off 200 grand.

Jesse Sampley (37:11)

Mm-hmm.

Mark Williams (37:20)

No problem. Okay, Mr. Sampley, let's sit down and let's talk about what you want to remove to get us there because I can build you anything you want for a I might not be able to build you what you want for your price.

And I, and I think you just have to really explain it. That's where like you show the spreadsheet, you show your, your sworn construction statement, you show your visa bill. When you look at it at the end of the month with your wife and you're like, how did we spend this much money? Oh yeah, this, this, this, it adds up. There's usually not a silver bullet. Maybe there's one, but that's about it. And so I think it's up to us to convey the story convey that quickly to the client. But back to the earlier part question, what's the structure.

always do three things with every single client and I've been, I've been doing this for 22 years. So I think I started this probably around 2015. So for about the last decade and it's been the single biggest thing that's helped me. I have a design retainer, so one page sheet. And so I do a 15 minute phone call before I ever meet you. So they come off my website, they come off Instagram, they come a referral, like whatever. I'll schedule a call with in this case, you, Jesse. So I'll be like, Hey, Jesse, you know, Mark, thanks very much for your interest. Hey, before we set up a meeting.

tell me a little bit about your project. What are you in? And I get right to brass tacks. If they can't handle brass tacks, they're not a client for me. They might be a client for you, but that's my qualification. Like I don't want to waste your time and I don't want you to waste mine. I sometimes don't say it like that, but like, let's, let's be clear. like, do you have a budget? Okay. If you don't have a budget, makes it really like, are we even in a remote stratosphere? Like you want a new house. Great. but like in that early conversation, I'll say, you know what my, really my starting price is

Jesse Sampley (38:37)

love it yeah

Mark Williams (38:52)

probably around 1.8 million for a home. know that sound and then I'll just, I'm not apologizing for it. I'm just stating a fact because they might say, man, I was really hoping to build a house for 600,000. Great. That's a great budget. It's just not what I can do. I just can't do it. But I can refer you to somebody in market that can and you shouldn't, they shouldn't, you shouldn't make them feel bad. You're just really, you're like, you're like an airline pilot, saying like, where do you want to go in the world?

Jesse Sampley (38:58)

Love it. Yeah.

Mark Williams (39:19)

You know, you want to go to Paris? Great. That's why it's leaving for Europe. No problem. You want to go to Australia? Dude, you got to go to terminal C. You're on the wrong side. Like let's figure out where we're going people. And then the second one much time do we have to get there? Some people are like, and builders usually we'd like to get started right away. That's mixed signals. because usually there's an expectation of like how fast can we go? so I ask them on time, which I can handle that. And then you ask them about, how did you find me?

And that really is an opportunity to discover like is, which is fine. Is it Google? Is it Pinterest? you following? Like if they know our brand, we've been following you for years. Like I know if they've been following me for years, like they've heard me talk on podcasts. They've heard me so that you understand that they know your people. So anyway, this is all a way of like, if they pass that whatever your 15 minute phone call and you feel good about it. ⁓ then I set up a one hour meeting at my office or if it's a remodel at their home.

And I kind of go through their programming. What are you looking to do? Like more detail. want to see their body language. want to see them face to face. It's kind of a mutual interview. And at the end of that meeting, I have a one page design retainer. They either sign it or they don't. If they want to see me again, they sign it. If they don't, they don't. And I'm okay with it either way. And I say it very non-threateningly. I'm getting pretty quick on this one, but just, I'm really just saying like, Hey,

This is not your final contract. This is just a design retainer. This pays me for my time over the next six months. We have to align an architect, a designer, by the way, you're paying both those people separate, not my contract, but I'll I'll join interview all of them with you. And we'll help build this around your budget. And if they don't own land, that's the first thing we've got to figure out is land. And so anyway, and they are just glad, or my clients are, the ones that I'm trying to identify, they're glad that someone's willing to take the reins.

someone is really organized and has a clear things I'm telling you that I'm gonna do. if that scares you, no problem, I'm not for you. And I'd rather know that right so it's taken me a long time to sort of figure out that, but that has weeded out chasing the balls down the streets for jobs that will never happen, everyone has done.

Jesse Sampley (41:22)

that is so huge for people to say, have to have your own qualifier at some point. doesn't matter where you are in your journey, but you have to have some sort of a qualifier to begin with. And what better way to say, hey, quick 15 minute call, we're going to go through these few things that are really important to us. And then it's either a yes or no, extremely simple. I know you've got a lot of marketing that's out there and I think you brought up a really good point on a branding side.

But what are you using? maybe just touched, real quickly on kind of all the marketing channels that you have out there that, I mean, maybe this will take a while, but you know, even I noticed on your website, like when you go to your qualifier form, that is one, really important question, which is, Hey, how are you finding me? Because I'm going to know, especially if I'm the person know if you're coming from one platform versus another, we're going to have a different interaction just because.

Mark Williams (41:54)

Ha ha ha.

Jesse Sampley (42:10)

depending on the content I either have out there or the way I'm positioned, some of those, real big marketing channels that you have that you're seeing people coming to you?

Mark Williams (42:18)

boy. Buckle up buttercup. There's a lot of them.

I don't even know where to start. mean, honestly, all of them. I have often said that a marketer that happens to build. And so I love marketing. I can spend money on marketing. Like, you know, I'm a marketer's, company's dream. I just, that sounds great. That's how to tie it back to actual ROI is always the trick and I'm not good at it. let's see. I would say do what you enjoy. So for instance, we do a lot of brand work.

Jesse Sampley (42:33)

Yeah

Mark Williams (42:44)

⁓ meaning like, we shoot a ton of video, I'm very comfortable on camera. Always have been, that's part of my personality. if it's not yours, that's okay. There's actually, there's a lot of people that like that and you actually come off great on camera because you're very authentic. Now you might, it might be torture for you to do it's still helpful because it speaks to real people. Sometimes like my kryptonite has always been engineers and engineers, cause they're probably on the disc assessment, blue, green, not red, yellow.

Like they don't like the sales team. They hate, like they don't want to be sold on anything. They want hard data and facts. And that's the exact, mean, I can give it to them now because I know how to navigate it, but matching, there's actually a sales term for it. I'm blanking on how you do it, but it's like personality matching. Like I speak really loud, really fast with a lot of energy. And my job is I whip people's emotion up, which I sell on emotion.

But if you are very calm and very quiet, like I either threaten you, annoy you or irritate you or possibly all three. And so like I have very unsuccessfully learned how to like moderate myself and mute myself like a French horn with like that dumb thing that goes in it to mute it. I do so much brand work, I do a ton of video. I mean, we're posting seven days a week on two different accounts. So that's 14 posts a week. That's way more than

The average person should do can do and probably wants to do and can probably even afford. I've been, I, I pass it through everything. So I like today before we have a flagship home called Misa hoose, which is a whole another podcast, called it's a, it means cozy and Swedish. So we're creating a spec home around a philosophy and a brand that's I'm having the time of my life. And, ⁓ anyway, we spent an hour and a half filming there because I've got 30.

Jesse Sampley (43:57)

And this is a lot on Instagram or is this evenly distributed?

Mark Williams (44:19)

two sponsors or partners on that project. So I'm doing a lot of brand work on like Pella windows or Emser tile or true style or like, so I'm talking about the house, but also sort of like navigating like my partners into like how we did it. It's like storytelling ⁓ with your crafts people. And so I enjoy it. So it's easy for me to do. I'm not saying you I've gotten better at it for sure. mean, three years ago, I wasn't doing this. I had no idea what I was doing.

Jesse Sampley (44:33)

Man I love it.

Mark Williams (44:43)

You can hire this out too. doesn't have to be you. You can hire companies. I've done it all in house before, but now, honestly, I have three Instagram accounts. have Mesa who's smart Williams custom homes and the curious builder collectively. We're probably 21 posts a week. That's a lot. And so I can't handle that. I mean, I have a team that I've hired made it at first to be very clear to your like I started three days a week and my wife did it all.

Jesse Sampley (44:58)

Wow. Yeah.

Mark Williams (45:08)

The good news with that is it really speaks to your voice. was, before AI. it was like very authentic. It was very real. It was great. But as we started picking up more and more brands, it's like paying exchange for goods or for money. Like you have to deliver content for them. And so it just became a lot. Plus my wife has another job, so she couldn't do all of it. So you don't just go from day one and just like, cause I probably spend maybe 30, 40 grand a year on social media marketing, which is a lot.

and so the question is, I getting an ROI in that? I, for sure I am, even if it's not a client, because I'm getting it all paid for with all the different branding stuff I'm doing. I might be way out there compared to some in terms of what we do. Like I just really love selling. like what I love, the only thing I love selling more than my stuff is your stuff.

And so, I don't have to deliver it. don't have to, I don't have to manufacture it. Like I just get to sell it. Like that's what I'm good at. So it's very natural for me to be a brand ambassador. I'm going long winded on this marketing angle. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Jesse Sampley (46:02)

It's okay. Just a one quick aside on this Mesa Hoos. Is that how you say it? Mesa Hoos?

Is this a spec home to be a spec home or is this more of a almost kind of like a parade home towards like it's an advertising, it's all of it. Love it.

Mark Williams (46:10)

It is. It is.

It's all of it. It's all of it. All of it.

Yeah. We just, I've done, it's about, it's about a six hour podcast to do for real. I've done two one and a half hour podcasts on the curious builder. one with a documentary filmmaker, for about an hour and a half called road mapping. And we're still not done. a, how I got there, what I did, why I'm doing it is very different than how people come to market.

we won't be able to have enough time to go on that one. Yeah. It's super cool. But back to your earlier thing of where do you market? So I pass. So when I do the video content, I do all kinds of with it. So I obviously the nice part is once you've shot it once you can redistribute in infinitely places. it passes through Instagram, Facebook. LinkedIn is a huge one. I've only been active on LinkedIn for about four. I always thought LinkedIn was for like.

Jesse Sampley (46:39)

Well, that sounds super intriguing. I have to look that up after this.

Mm-hmm.

Mark Williams (47:04)

You are a suit and tie and you work in corporate America. think LinkedIn is the single most underutilized marketing platform business owners because I look at my specific know, in the multimillion dollar range that I'm building in, most of those people are not that young because who has that kind of money when they're in their twenties and thirties. So most of them are 55, 60 years old. They're not on Instagram, unfortunately, cause I spent a lot of time and money there. They're on LinkedIn. They're on print ads, which I don't love.

But they're on word of mouth business owners their wives might follow me but the husband's like not even on in social media except to see his grandkids and so You kind of have to cover a little bit of all of this And so anyway, that's one of them. Obviously we are doing a we do art We have artisan home tour and parade of homes like Mesa hoos will be on The parade of homes in Minnesota is the oldest in the country. I think 76 years old. It's it's really old the artisan home tour is about 12 or 15 years old and that's

Jesse Sampley (47:51)

Wow.

Mark Williams (47:56)

homes have to be like two and a half million and there's only like 20 of them on a tour at a time. So you have to pay to go. They're very high end homes, which is really the area we want to, the parade of homes has like 500 homes on tour where like the artisan home tour only has I'd rather be, a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond, between the numbers game. Right. so the in person, like the whole goal of all my marketing and all of it.

Jesse Sampley (48:16)

Yeah.

Mark Williams (48:20)

is to get in front of them. social media has made to obviously get your message out and like, they get a sense of you acting and your homes and what you value. So social media does an amazing job at that. Far better than any other form, other than being in person, of course. And then, but the whole goal with a parade home or an arts and home or a tour home or a show home or whatever home you have where you're bringing people through it is to get people to that home. How do you get them there? Because the home will then sell them. That's all you can ask.

Can I get somebody in my home? It's like, nobody buys a Ferrari. They go test drive the Ferrari. mean, I don't know. I've never actually talked to a Ferrari owner. I think that's what I would do. I think I would go test drive a Ferrari. Um, that seems logical. Yeah. So why wouldn't you want to go into somebody's home and like see it for real? so that obviously moves the needle a lot in most.

Jesse Sampley (48:58)

think I would test drive a car before I bought it. That seems like logical thing to do.

And then

funneling people where? Are you funneling people all to your website to say, this traffic, all this attention, I'm trying to direct this hyper-focus into, I want you to fill out the form, I'm trying to book this 15 minute call to see if.

Mark Williams (49:19)

Yeah, I need to do a better

job. You're that's a good, that's a good insight, Jesse. I need to do a better job of call to action. Cause right now I put a lot out there without a call to action. So that's a big brand play. That's like spraying a shotgun shooting a lot of flack in the air and hoping he hits something, sniper bullet would just be one shot, one kill in this, duck hunting analogy.

the funnel, you need multiple sales funnel. need a big funnel to just get a lot of people. And then as they get down how it journey. So most companies these days don't even list much to the chagrin of a lot of clients. Honestly, they don't even put their phone number on the website anymore because they are training you. And it's very normal now for websites. You have to go through their portal because they want to capture your email. They want to cap because email marketing.

is one of the few things that you own, Jesse, not somebody else. And I was late to the table on that. So having an effective newsletter. So the other thing that I vastly underestimated was blog writing. thought, no knock on people who do read blogs, but I'm not one of them. I read the paper, oddly enough, which is weird. I read books and I listened to a lot of stuff when I exercise, but I don't read blogs. I just, I don't know. That's just not my, always thought that's what my wife does, but like, turns out a lot of people read blogs. And so the main reason

Is Pinterest is the number one search engine up right up there with Google. Like it is a super powerful. So I actually have a blog writer I just on a note taker, like a AI note taker otters what I use. And she prompts me with whatever questions. And we've built into this. used to be once a month, then it was twice a week. Now I do six blogs a month. I do a lot. So four with the curious builder and two with Mark Williams. And so depending on what we're highlighting, and this is also how I've attracted sponsors. Like I'll do dedicated blogs about.

Jesse Sampley (50:46)

Wow.

Mark Williams (50:55)

Hello windows or M's or tile or whoever my long time standing partners are because I don't have to go to a writer. Like I'm writing my own articles. They love it. It's a puff piece for them. But the most important about this is that Google eats this stuff up like Pac-Man eating up the thing that makes them big, whatever that is.

Jesse Sampley (51:13)

I was about

to say, you know who's reading the most of the blogs today is AI because that's what they're citing is all of this stuff. And I'll give you a quick nugget and this may even work good for your workflow. But if you're taking the time to shoot video content and it's already, it may be uncomfortable for some people. If you're already investing the time, that transcription is so underutilized. Take that transcription and then break that into a blog, break it into social posts, break it into as many pieces as you can. Cause you've already said it. You don't have to redo hardly anything.

Mark Williams (51:19)

Right. Yeah.

Jesse Sampley (51:42)

That's where these AI platforms can just reformat it and say, okay, just use exactly what I said, reformat this little way to where it makes a really nice blog post or it makes a good social post, and then, yeah, and then structure your topics on a video form to where AI knows, okay, here is the main topic that we're talking about. Here's the different subtopics. I'm doing it for a plumber now.

Mark Williams (51:53)

that's funniest.

So yeah, no, you're,

you're exactly right. It was blowing my mind. so going back to the blog writing, I, for budgetary reasons, I cut back on blog writing a couple of years ago and we saw a huge decrease in web traffic. then it took a couple of like six months to get it back up to what it was because you need that regular cadence. But now I have people all the time that say I found you on Google. I found it on Google. And I, when I look like we're really highly ranked, but I don't pay for anything on Google. It's all because of how much we're writing.

Jesse Sampley (52:27)

Yeah, it's the power of SEO,

Mark Williams (52:30)

Yeah, it's huge. then like

curious builder, we're doing 104 episodes a year. do Monday episodes and Thursday episodes, one hours on Mondays and 20 minutes on Thursdays. But then to your point, we buried the transcription of this podcast. You have an hour. So this podcast right now is at 57 minutes and 52 seconds. If we ended it right now, you would have 57 minutes worth of words.

And then you can blind copy that as you likely know, maybe do this and you, and your transcript right on, if you post this stuff on your website or wherever you post it. And our SEO is through the roof. ⁓

Jesse Sampley (53:01)

Because

yeah, you're baked in every single keyword that you're relevant for. Custom home builder, luxury home book. It's fresh. It's consistent. Yeah. It's a beautiful thing. That's what we try to train a lot of people on is to say, let's first do what you're good at and what you enjoy. Let's get a good rhythm and then build on top of that rhythm over time. Because first, if you don't enjoy it, you're not going to do it.

Mark Williams (53:07)

And it's fresh. You've trained Google.

Jesse Sampley (53:25)

You're going to say, okay, I'll do it a couple of times. And then you're just going to find every excuse you can to not do it. So find what you enjoy first and then the metrics and return on investment and all that, that can get dialed in, but also can be a bit of a distraction. If it's like, if you're always just looking at it as, what's per lead, what's my cost per acquisition? That's all I'm measuring. everything else is absolute,

like, well, it's not, it builds a good foundation underneath of you. Man, really great stuff, really great stuff. Well, let's, as we wrap up here, tell me a little bit of the future of Mark Williams, the curious builder. I mean, you brought up a lot of stuff. I encourage anyone listening to, look at all the stuff you have going on, but what's the next five, 10, 15 years look like for you?

Mark Williams (54:09)

Wow. 15 years. That's way out there. I mean, I can tell you what the next six months looks like. I don't know what 15 years looks like. Dang. That's a whole other series of podcasts. I will for right now, there's this term called misogi. It's a Japanese principle of like one thing. And so I read a book a year ago where I do one every each year I do one thing personally and one thing professionally that sort of shapes my for someone that spends most of time looking down the road

Jesse Sampley (54:13)

You

Mark Williams (54:32)

not as much being present. I'm trying to work on being a little bit more present versus looking at 15 years down the road. I got to, month down the road and I have young kids nine, seven, and six. And so, you know, being present with them and like, are important? this year, my two misogi priorities, it actually, they're the same exact ones as I had last year. So this is kind of a layup because I had practiced last year. One is Misa Hoos. So every single day I do something around Misa Hoos.

So I'm either marketing about it. I'm talking about it. Like this podcast, I'm out there shooting content. I'm looking at brand deals. I'm going to the international builder show, talking about it. Like I am maniacal about what I'm doing around Mesa Hoos, is cause for me, we're creating a whole new brand and that brand and that flagship home is really my trajectory for the next five, 10, 15 years because, and again, we don't have time, but the whole house is based on a philosophy of wellness. I didn't want to come to market with just a

5,000 square foot house, four bedrooms, blah, blah. It sounds like a real estate listing and I'm bored already. So like I needed something that was gonna excite me. I needed a story. So I started with a story. I had Misa I went to a brand, my brand team and I said, what do you want? See, I can't even stop myself talking about Misa Hoos. I wanted to go and said, I wanna create a feeling. Maya Angelou has a great quote. My wife says it all the time that you what people say, but you never forget how they made you feel.

And I think a house can do that too. Like a lot of times people come into a home and you're like, Ooh, I love your home. I love the way it just feels different. And like, they don't know how to articulate, but your house conveyed a meaning like all the craftsmanship, all the people, all the love, all the effort you poured into that home. Like when you really care, people can feel it. They certainly can. and if you just mail it in and it looks like vanilla, it feels like it too.

And so like you gotta put a little love into your house or it's not gonna work. Whatever you do, put passion in it. I don't care what you do, but like put passion in it and it'll work anyway. Going back to like I wanted a wellness philosophy. if my, to myself was if I build a house for everyone, I build a house for nobody.

because I'm really good at building, say your house, Jesse, I get to know you, you and your family. And so like all the things that make your house special is because of you. If I didn't have you as my client, like it's just a house. It's not a home. It's not interesting. It's just, that's for me. There are plenty of other people that can do this without a client. I'm just not one of them. So I needed a philosophy to follow that when I came to a decision, the team and I would know what to do. So the philosophy, kind of, basically created a protocol.

for, I guess you want to call it an avatar, like for a client, but like our house, Misa, is like now taken on the form of like a person. And so like, Misa means cozy and Swedish. And the reason we got that is I sat down with Molly Windmiller at Lab, shout out to her in Minneapolis. And I said, I want this house to convey this feeling. It is a cold January night. It is, or sunrise or whatever time of day it is. And the snow is falling. It's quiet out.

I have a warm cup of coffee. Maybe there's marshmallows in it. I have a warm wool, fair boat blanket over my lap. I'm reading a book. I'm reading my Bible. My kid has snuggled up with me. Like I want the house to convey that feeling. And she's like, great. That's what we're calling your house. So we did a bunch. I'm a Scandinavian mutt. I've got, every Nordic blood in me. And so we came up Misa. It sounds good. It identifies on a lot of things and Misa means cozy and Swedish. So that is how we came with up with Misa. Like it just wasn't out of the

Jesse Sampley (57:49)

Perfect.

Mark Williams (57:52)

which is fine. You can come up with a brand for no reason and they figure it out. But for mine, it was reverse. I knew what I wanted the house to feel. So then I reversed engineered what it was going to become. So anyway, there's a long way winded story of saying like my misogi, this Japanese principle is like this year, everything is about Misa because we've licensed it. We copyright it. Like my plan is if I'm in Minnesota and people want a house based on wellness, like I want to be the first person they call. If it's outside my state, like other builders listening to this, like we have a builder in Missoula, Montana that wants to

basically do exactly what I'm doing. Great. No problem. I let me finish this house. Let me document every single thing I've done. So I guess back to your SOPs, I guess I'm going to have to do that. And then I will give that to you. And that's your, that's your playbook to, do Misa Hoos in Missoula. Cause Misa Hoos is a philosophy. It's a guiding so it's in, it keeps evolving. Like this is not a stagnant thing. And that's why I'm so passionate about it. Then the other thing, my personal one is last year,

Jesse Sampley (58:31)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark Williams (58:48)

I trained to run a hundred mile race, cause I got into ultra marathons. Cause my neighbor who actually is the architect designing Misa Hoos. So there's a whole backstory to this whole thing, but it's not time for this closing argument. so I, at mile 66 out in Oregon, wildfires went from 800 acres to 18,000 acres from, Ben to their three sisters. So they pulled us off the course at mile 66. So I sort of decided I got to go back and.

do the dumb race again. So I trained nine months for that dumb race and now I got to do it again. So now my second misogy is to finish what I started. I got to do a hundred mile or I think I'm going to switch races for like October, November, because Mesa hoos is getting in the way of my summer training. So the home is going to be done in June. So I'll be working seven days a week, which is not my normal protocol have, people homes and try to sell the house. And so I'm going to delay some of my training to later in the year. So those are my two things that I'm doing this year. I can't tell you what I'm doing 10 or 15 years from now.

Jesse Sampley (59:16)

my goodness.

Amazing. Well, I love that philosophy too. Like you can have your goals, don't let them distract you from the present love that philosophy. let it be Attainable it will build into I'm sure it'll build into the future just saying hey I'm gonna take this one step at a time not so far out there I'm sure there's some big anchors that are out there, let's live present and let's let's tackle one thing and not

get a quarter of the way through a hundred different Mark, this has been