Five Scenes from a Remodeling Business in 2026

Kyle Hunt: Thanks for tuning into the Remodelers on the Rise show. Whether you're listening or watching, I appreciate you being here. If this was helpful, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss the next one. We're putting out new episodes every single week focused on helping you build a better remodeling business with real stories, practical ideas, and things you can actually take and use. If you're on YouTube, hit that like button and turn on notifications so you know when new episodes drop.

Kyle: Before we jump in, a quick shout out to our friends at BuilderFunnel. AI is changing how homeowners find remodelers, and BuilderFunnel is already helping remodelers win big. Their clients are becoming top recommendations in ChatGPT and other AI platforms, generating new referral leads directly from AI search and seeing results like a 400% increase in AI driven referrals for a Charlotte remodeler.

Kyle Hunt: If you're listening on a podcast app, a five-star review goes a long way and helps more remodelers find the show. We've got great links below or in the show notes where you can connect with us, check out our remodelers community and learn more about our coaching and resources. Appreciate you very much. See you on the next episode. All right, welcome to the Remodeler's On The Rise show. I got Paul, I say Jay McManus, because that's how it always pops up on Facebook. ⁓ Paul, you've been on the show more than twice, I think. It's at least three. This is at least three. Could be three.

Kyle: But it's not just leads, they've generated multiple millions for their clients from AI already. If you want your remodeling company to be one that homeowners find first, whether they're searching Google or asking AI, head over to builderfunnel.com slash R O T R. Builderfunnel.com slash R-O-T-R.

Paul: Yeah, that's me. It could be three. Yep. It could be three. It's been a long we've it's been we've known each other many, many years.

Kyle Hunt: many years and I was, I just ran home. ⁓ I cooked some beautiful flank steak for Memorial Day yesterday and had some leftovers. thought that's what I'm going to snag for lunch. And on the drive back, just happened to going through my Apple music scenes from scenes from an Italian restaurant by none other than Billy Joel came on. I said, you don't have any qualms with Billy Joel? No. And he, he quoted the first line, a bottle of white, a bottle of red.

Paul: L Joe?

Kyle Hunt: And the reason it came on, said, ⁓ here's our theme for the podcast today. This song that Billy wrote, ⁓ actually it's a great documentary on Billy Joel. If you're at all a fan, you need to watch this two-part documentary and the scenes from Italian restaurant. had all these fragments of, ⁓ songs and his producers like just put them all into one. And he has like a scene on this top and then it goes over here at different styles. And that's what the podcast today is going to be about. We had originally reached out to Paul saying, Ooh,

Kyle: One proof that AI visibility is driving real business. Builder Funnel has helped their clients generate qualified leads and projects from ChatGPT and Gemini, expand into new markets while attracting higher-end projects, and helped a Jacksonville remodeler become the number one recommendation across AI platforms. Most agencies are still talking about AI. BuilderFunnel is already delivering measurable results with it to the tune of.

Kyle Hunt: your PTO policy and some of the things you're doing from a company culture standpoint, super interesting. Want you to talk about it. Ooh, we also want to go over here on this scene, if you will, and talk about some AI related stuff, talk about some website related stuff. So we're to hop to these different scenes. Scene one, Paul, is to tell people just a quick, quick background on you and how you're doing in 2026 in general.

Kyle: ten million and counting. Visit builderfunnel.com slash R O T R to see how they're helping remodelers like you stay ahead of the competition. Builderfunnel.com slash R O T R.

Paul: so I'm Paul McManus. I own McManus Kitchen and Bath, Tallahassee, Florida. ⁓ we're a design, build, remodeling company, obviously focused a lot on kitchen and bath. I mean twenty twenty six is not going to be our best year. I will say that. Twenty twenty five was our first down year in ten years, as far as no growth. Not down compared to obviously year three or f you know, four or whatever, but ⁓

Kyle Hunt: Dale Hancey. Hmm.

Paul: in twenty twenty six is looking to be worse. so but you know kind of expected we s I mean ⁓ we started we started expecting that beginning of last year. We sort of saw the writing on the walls. So we've we've we've been preparing for it.

Kyle Hunt: Okay. And just seeing a little less on the lead front, a little less on the conversion front. You're talking, he just didn't grow, he kind of held steady or went down a little bit last year revenue-wise?

Paul: Yeah, it went down went down quite twenty percent last year. the yeah, lead flow is just way down. That's it. Conversion rate's not bad. ⁓ lead flow is way down. That's the big the big deal. On all across all channels. ⁓ you know, we've tried a bunch of stuff. Nothing really seems to move the needle right now. Although

Kyle Hunt: Okay. And then, what?

Paul: We get sp we get spurts, you know what I mean? Like we've just last couple weeks, we've had a nice little spurt. So I say it'll be a down year. The thing with so we're on a good year, we're a four million, five, four and a half million dollar revenue company. When you're that size, you know, I can do a five hundred thousand dollars, I can get a five hundred thousand dollar project tomorrow. Right? That makes a that you know, that changes the whole, you know, you get two of those and suddenly your a bad year isn't looking so bad anymore. So you get

Kyle Hunt: Yeah, that is the beauty of the remodeling business is the course can be corrected in a hurry.

Paul: It can, yeah, will it? I don't know.

Kyle Hunt: That's a question. Yeah. And then how have you done kind of mentally thinking about that of going, all right, we kind of step back 20 % of what we were the previous year. Did that, does that cause some heartburn or are you kind of like, look, this is why we save, this is why we set aside dollars. We're going to see it and be.

Paul: I mean we're so in twenty twenty five we sa you know we saw lead flow trending down and so we did ⁓ some people left, we just didn't rehire, we lowered overhead cost. I mean, so we did that eighteen months ago. ⁓ and so we've been running lean for a while, which has you know helped a lot. ⁓ and then yeah, we've well I haven't had to rely on savings to fund the company, but we're we are opening a new showroom. We're switching we're

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm.

Paul: Rebuilding the websites, we're potentially onboarding a new project manager. So we're spending a lot of money. ⁓ but in a good in in a good way, I think the showroom's gonna have a major impact. The and so we're tapping into savings for that. But that's what that savings is there for. You know what I mean? That's why for years and years and years we've been banking that money. So and that's and ideally you're slow.

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm.

Paul: This is the best time to build a showroom from that point of view. We have the time and resources to be able to do that in-house. So that's good. It's just we're not gonna be able fund it from the revenue of the company. We're gonna have to fund it from savings.

Kyle Hunt: Yeah. And as a remodeler who might be listening to this of going, all right, you know, we're seeing some spurts and some starts and stops, but overall we're seeing a little bit of a softer market, a little bit of a trend that direction. How do we know when it is time to maybe tighten up the overhead expenses to cut a little bit? What's your vantage point on that?

Paul: ⁓ so our big ⁓ indicator is ⁓ lead flow, right? We know you could do the math, and you you I'm sure you could do the math on this revenue, close rate, average job size, blah, blah, blah. You can back it up to how many leads you need every month. ⁓ if you go three, four months in a row without getting the leads you need, that's a s pretty much a six-month indicate. Like our our time from initial you know, meeting with a client to sort of job start, four to six months. So

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm.

Paul: When lead flow's down and that's a strong trend, we we can pretty much guarantee revenue's gonna be down in six months. Right. There's no easy gap. We can't we don't do we don't turn around projects in a week. We don't do little jobs. So that's a pretty strong. So yeah, if that starts happening, start cutting now, you know.

Kyle Hunt: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that's a good reminder for everybody listening to this, that the KPIs around your marketing, pay attention to raw leads coming in qualified leads, define what that means. Pay attention to your closing rate. I mean, there's a lot of different ways to measure it, but just start by tracking some of the main indicators there. And like Paul's mentioning the tighter you get that, the more consistent you get that you're going to see trends and you're going to be able to be proactive. when you see trends going one way or another. It is probably the best indicator along, ⁓ is it time to hire? Is it time to release some folks and tighten up our overhead? Pay attention to that. Otherwise you're kind of relying on your gut and sometimes your guts lying to you.

Paul: Yeah, especially when it comes to leads and sales, your gut lies to you all the time. 'Cause it when le if if le if you don't we go you go a week without leads, it can feel like the sky is falling. But if you look at the data and be like, ⁓ but I had we actually the first half of the month I had ten leads. I only need fifteen a month, so actually we're pretty good. It just feels like this week is bad, you know. So that kind of s e yeah, leads bad.

Kyle Hunt: Yes, yes. Mm-hmm. Yes, yes, and that can play with it.

Paul: Better decision making, but and raise your prices. You when leads are good, raise your prices. You know.

Kyle Hunt: Bingo. So that was scene one. I'm going to play into the scene one scene one catching up and a little bit of kind of what Paul's experiencing here in 2026. And we kind of gave a little bit of reminders around some KPI and some leading indicators. See number two, see number two, going into PTO personal time off, somebody asked about I think it was AJ Valentine. Hey, what's everybody doing for PTO? And you started listing out kind of your approach to the way that you're approaching PTO. the way you're approaching other holidays, the way you're approaching your employees' birthdays, a whole slew of things. Walk us through what you do and why you do it in this area.

Paul: Boy. I'm probably not gonna be able to list it all because it's a lot and I don't have it in front of me, but we pretty much everyone gets three weeks PTO. That's just kind of par for the course. I think after a couple years you might get four weeks and after five, four or five years you might get five weeks. ⁓

Kyle Hunt: I got in front of me. I'll let you know if you miss anything. Yeah, let me help you. Four weeks after three years, five weeks after five years.

Paul: There you go. ⁓ that makes sense. Then we and that's time off, which is different from sick leave. And we pretty much just do to keep it simple, we do unlimited sick leave if it's what we call short term sick leave, which is I have the flu for a couple days, ⁓ you know, I'm not feeling well today, you know, three, four days, maybe a week. We don't really care. You know what I mean? If you're sick, you're sick. I don't want you coming in the office if you're sick.

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm.

Paul: We haven't had we haven't run into an issue situation where we've had a long-term sick leave issue, but we would obviously deal with that differently if it was months or something like that. ⁓ everyone gets their birthday off. That's just nice. A cool thing that I learned, I was actually in Vegas and I learned this. I was having drinks with just a random couple, and she happened to be an HR manager. And ⁓ we we take all the paid holidays we take off, Memorial Day, Labor Day, you know, it's like 14 of them. ⁓ But w you don't have to take it on the day. You can actually take that day off within two weeks of that day. ⁓ and people really like they don't use it a lot, but people really like that flexibility. ⁓ you know, when they do need it. So that's that was a cool little, you know, tiny thing, but makes people happy. The goal really is I just want people to have as much flexibility as we can. You know what mean? That's it. I don't want it to be an issue.

Kyle Hunt: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Paul: That they have to worry about time. That's all I care about. I don't want it to be a concern like, Well, if I take this week off, I only have one week left and I know the wife wants to do this and the full I don't want that to be a concern. That's really the goal, you know.

Kyle Hunt: Mm hmm. Yeah, you wrote you wrote in like three days for Thanksgiving, two days for the 4th of July, and we're trying to be flexible with the holidays if it works better.

Paul: Yeah, yeah. All that stuff's pretty I think a lot of that stuff's standard, like you know, for for a lot of companies.

Kyle Hunt: Standard yet, you're pretty generous on several of these.

Paul: Well, a lot of it's just reflecting reality versus, you know, you can say, hey, no, no, you're working July 3rd. Okay. But are you what kind of work are you gonna get out of people at one o'clock on July 3rd? I don't know. You know what I mean? Or what so I mean a lot of it's just, hey, let's just be realistic. Our client I mean, we've found our clients ⁓ like it. Like when we're off on a Friday, clients are like, good, I could use a break too. You know, so I mean people think, ⁓ no, clients are gonna be upset, you're not gonna get done fast enough. But you know, remodeling's you're about to go through one. Remodeling is stressful and annoying to have people in your house every day. When you get a little break, it's like ⁓ thank goodness I get a little break today. No, of course not. Yeah, no.

Kyle Hunt: It's not gonna be stressful or annoying for us. It's gonna be wonderful. My wife thinks it's gonna take one week. Well, it's just gonna take a week to get this bathroom done, right? Yes, honey, yes, yeah.

Paul: Yeah. Bat fortunately bathrooms are easier than kitchens, so you're lucky there. Unless is it your primary? Yeah, so you gotta move out of the bathroom move out of the master. Yes, that's a that's a hassle.

Kyle Hunt: Yes. Yes. Yes. And so they have to come through our bedroom for that. I think the biggest thing she's probably, mean, she's down to two available showers once this one goes down. Either you go down in the basement where there's a 20 year old college age kid doing his thing. It's kind of a nice bathroom, but it also is inhibited by him. Or you go to the other bathroom where three other kids are using it, two with very long hair and they're always yanking hair out of there.

Paul: Crappy shower. Yeah.

Kyle Hunt: So she's just gonna have to step up her game for a couple weeks.

Paul: That's yeah, that's the stressful part of it. You know what I mean? It's the lifestyle disruption. No matter how well you run the project, you know, you're still living in a spare bedroom, ⁓ using your share in a bathroom with your kids and that's you know.

Kyle Hunt: Yes. No, no, no doubt. We'll be all right. We'll power through. ⁓ And then you also wrote down at least one holiday each month. So everyone has at least one three day weekend a month. We had to make up two of our own holidays to make this happen. McManus days.

Paul: Yep. Yeah, if there's not a the if there's not a national holiday, we just say, Okay, we're taking a holiday. Yeah. Three day weekends are nice. Yeah.

Kyle Hunt: They are nice. think I saw you write in this post also of just going, I want my team members to my designer, my production manager, whoever, whoever you have on your team to kind of have some flexibility similar to what I have as an owner. Not necessarily. It's just, it's kind of a mindset thing that I think is different than a way a lot of people look at it. Expand on that a little bit.

Paul: I mean, you said it, that's it. I want everyone to have the freedom and enjoyment of the job that I have. And so yeah, that's just an important I mean, it's important to me, but I mean, it's more important to them. I mean, it takes a people a little while to understand it. You know what I mean? But once they six months goes by, nine month they kind of grasp it. Other people tell them like, no, no, he really doesn't care. Like, you can take the afternoon off if you have a doctor's appointment, you know. ⁓

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm. Hehehe.

Paul: Yeah, we I see great w people increases loyalty. People will work it it balances when something happens and you gotta stay past five. Right. And it balances when a client calls on a weekend and someone has to respond to it because it's some kind of a big deal. ⁓ you know, people just don't have an issue with it, you know what mean? I think it increases ownership, yeah.

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and you have found from a loyalty standpoint, from a longevity standpoint, this strategy paying off.

Paul: I mean, if you talk employee retention, I don't know. Because when you're not a fit here, you're not a fit here. Like we we let more people go in the first three months. Well, I s I tell people when I hire them, you're either here for three months or you're here for five years. That's how it works. It's a very black and white ⁓ kind of thing. And we don't really know until you're here and you've done your job for a few months how that's gonna be. Like I haven't figured out a way to know ahead of time. We've tried lots of stuff.

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm.

Paul: But if you want to look at it from the feedback from staff who are s have have stuck around, yeah, that means they're super loyal.

Kyle Hunt: Yeah, I think for any remodeler listening to this, think just stepping back and doing a good evaluation of what you are offering. It's interesting being in this coaching for 18 years. I remember I was telling somebody this a couple of weeks ago, early on when I started working with remodelers, I guess 2008, 2009, 10, 11, 12, the number of times I kind of heard, well, you know, I grew up in an environment where my boss was, you know, bit of a, you know, push, push, push and You know, you cut your finger off, deal with it, wrap it up, like that type of mentality. And you think of that previous generation, there was a lot of that and a lot. And what's been interesting is over the last 10 years, I hardly ever hear a mindset like that, an attitude like that, an approach like that, because for whatever reason, but here we are in 2026. And I think employers recognize that I need to treat my team as, as great as I possibly can. I need to. know the business side so that I can charge appropriately so I can keep all the labor burden in there for these different holidays. I need to become a better leader, a more effective leader so they can be more productive and efficient. And I want this to be an enjoyable place to work. It's not just about the time off, but it's not about that either. That stuff matters. So take a good, fresh look. You heard Paul's approach, quite generous here, and evaluate that on your own side. And maybe there's one thing you add, like giving them their birthday off. Maybe that's a new... goal that you set for this upcoming business year and business budget. So add some things in, folks.

Paul: I will s I will say ⁓ you the people who still have that attitude are not working with you. Right? Because they're not the kind of people who think about their business in the way that your clients think about the business. You know what I mean? But there are a lot of them still. Most certainly there still are a lot of them in the trade in the trades. But yeah. Well, the good news is it makes it a strong differentiator when you're hiring.

Kyle Hunt: Hmm, that's true. Yeah, I agree. No, no, that's bummer. That's a bummer. That's a bummer to hear. I thought they were just all gone. That's true.

Paul: You know what I mean? So put it in your job description. Let's make it very clear. I got more candidates in the last couple of years than ever before. You know, and I've been running my own business for, I don't know, thirty-five years. the culture fit question, it's direct. The people were just asking it. Like, what's the culture there? Which is a very hard question to answer in an interview. But you can say things like, Well, our time off policy is this. And so that gives you some indicator, you know.

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah. Gives you feel for how we treat people. And then one more thing in this scene is you're considering moving to a four day work week. Tell us about your thoughts there.

Paul: Yeah, we're gonna do it. Yeah. I think we're gonna take advantage of us being slow ⁓ as well and just say we're gonna pull the trigger. That way it doesn't have to interrupt too many projects that are in the middle, you know what I mean? And we start setting expectations in the sales process with clients that, hey, this is how we work. ⁓ I mean, for years all the studies show don't you don't lose productivity and I believe it. ⁓ the we've we have our designers work four days a week now and they love it, but they're working four tens. ⁓ Which works well because they could stay later and clients like to come in later for meetings. ⁓ the challenge with four tens is it doesn't leave a lot of time in the rest of the day for you to do anything else. You know, if you want to go to the gym or shopping or take the kids to whatever they gotta go to, like there's not a lot of extra time. And so I think four eights will be better. I think we'll get just as much done. I think clients will be just as happy. I think it might add a week. to ⁓ you know an eight or ten week project which I don't see as a barrier. ⁓ you know, well, and it might not, because currently when we when we're off on a holiday, sometimes our subs work. So we still facilitate that. You know what I mean? That kind of goes back to, you know, the flexibility. My pro my project managers aren't working, but a sub is, they just have to call in the morning, call midday, and call in the afternoon. That's sort of the agreement. ⁓

Kyle Hunt: Yeah, it's not getting any good.

Paul: And that's a good trade-off. ⁓ I get the day off, but I just have to make a phone call three times a day to make sure things are going smooth. So we would continue to do stuff like that.

Kyle Hunt: Good. See number three is going to be your website. It's going to be kind of a quick scene. And then see number four is going to be AI and see number five is going to be your showroom. Tell me kind of what you're seeing on the website side. If you're a remodeler listening to this, you can even put on your little coaching hat if you want to. You're talking to a bunch of remodelers. You're looking at your website that you've put a lot of time and energy in. You've done heat mapping. You've submitted to, what, you know, you've really thought through. conversion, wording, copyright, etc. Copywriting. What's deal with you redesigning and redoing your website, Mr. McManus?

Paul: Well, it's sort of ⁓ a have to, not a want to, but then we'll take advantage of it at the same time. Cause our our theme builder, we use a theme builder called Divi, and it is built on right currently at level Divi four, version four. And Divi five is a ground up rebuild of the entire platform. So that Divi, the company, or Elegant Themes, has decided to they've they just rebuilt the entire thing and made

Kyle Hunt: Mm.

Paul: some huge, huge improvements. I mean, really just modernized their whole platform from the ground up. ⁓ and it's our websites been on Divi for seven or eight years. And it's just not we they have a migration tool and we we we tested it. You know, we put a staging site up and we had someone migrate it and things are just things break.

Kyle Hunt: Mm.

Paul: And rather than go back and rather than migrate and then go back to try and fix everything, we just said, well, why don't we just do a rebuild ourselves, native into Divi5, take advantage of all the new tools that are available. ⁓ and so that's really the driving goal, is you know the purpose, is we're just moving to a more modern theme builder. ⁓ and then yeah, but then we'll take advantage to modernize some of the UI, the visuals, you know, but think through some of the workflows. This dovetails a little bit, I don't want to change scenes on you, but into the ⁓ showroom build is we're gonna be adding some services with the new showroom, some new services, some things we haven't done before. And so obviously that changes the workflow of the website as well.

Kyle Hunt: ⁓ way to embrace that, sir. Okay, now hold those, hold those. I did pull up the screen, McManusKitchenBath.com, just even some interesting things of, I think everything you do on here is pretty purposeful of the schedule and estimate is a different color and a little different focus than them. And then also when you just go to the homepage, we've got this how we compare pricing plus timeline and recent reviews that are almost just showing up as almost a sub menu. Talk to about that strategy. What did you find there?

Paul: I mean those just jump you down the page. It's just anchor text. So instead of having to scroll all the way down, you can just click on that. ⁓ I like ⁓ I don't know that I've I haven't heat mapped that or really ⁓ I've done a little bit of testing around that with ⁓ Ugly Baby, which is like the service you can get clients to test your site. But ⁓ I like it. You know what I mean? It brings people down. I think if you can one thing I think about websites, people don't scroll. Like most people will read this top hero and then leave or take an action. if you can get them to click on something like that, it automatically puts them into the middle of the page. I feel like okay, they're now they're more likely to maybe look around a little bit.

Kyle Hunt: Yeah, what's one strategy play in this in this first bit of text? What are you trying to accomplish there?

Paul: I mean the hero is just supposed to tell everybody what you do, what your main differentiator is, and who you're for, right? That's the goal. So we're a modeling contractor. It says right in the we call that the eyebrow, that little top small text, ⁓ and a design center. what's the main benefit we plan and build all in one place? And then who are we for? For people who want professional design and a fully managed experience. So that's that's always that's the goal of every hero. Right? That's what you want. and then

Kyle Hunt: Okay. Yep. Yep. So there's that. And then we get down here of schedule a phone consult, speak with the owner, Paul McManus, right? That is everything's thoughtful here. Get tips and inspiration. Okay, if you're not looking to take action now, you know, here's how you can kind of stay in touch with us right there. Two calls to action, boom.

Paul: Yep, that's it. I mean ideally you answer all their questions right at the top. That's what the how we compare pricing and time. People are landing with a question. You want to give ⁓ as quickly as you can the answer to that question. That's the goal.

Kyle Hunt: Yes. Yeah. So even anybody listening to this, take a look at your homepage and do I know ⁓ what you do, who you do it for, where you do it? Is that ⁓ evident? And then also, I can still see a pretty ⁓ bathroom in the background, but it's also very easy for me to read this lettering. I think that's a key there. What's another favorite part of your website, sir?

Paul: I mean, I really like our website, but if you ⁓ scroll down, ⁓ I really like we just rewrote this section, I really like like you know, putting a little quote in with my image, that's just sort of like to help people connect it to a person. But you know, we've been working for years. You're I know you like story and story brand. The story brand can be so formulaic, it's almost, you know, pointless.

Kyle Hunt: I know you do. I know you do. Yeah. Mm.

Paul: You know what I mean? Like I don't think you need to beat people over the head with that. You know what I mean? In fact, I think that can be detrimental. And if you look at all the big thing for me is how can we say something different than what everyone else is saying? And if you go to most contractors' websites, it's love where you live, you know, we bring we bring happiness home, whatever, some kind of relatively meaningless phrase, and then it's ⁓ you know.

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm.

Paul: Most homeowners struggle with this, and therefore we do this, and that's how we guide you to it's so formulaic. ⁓ so we like to hit people, we we try to like almost like shock people. I like to think of the website as really a bunch of sound bites grouped together, right? And the soundbite tells the story, and if they want to read more, they can. ⁓ and so yeah, that's kind of the idea between the H1s and H2s on on here.

Kyle Hunt: Hmm. Yeah, so folks, that's the and some people are seeing the video version. A lot of people are seeing the audio version, the H1 being the bigger heading, the H2 being the smaller heading. But right as you scroll down, the first thing you see is backorder not included. I wish we would have if you've remodeled before, you've probably heard or said these phrases. Most homeowners assume they come with the territory. They don't. They come with weak design and planning. We design and plan everything before construction begins. So taking a good, for anybody listening to this or watching this, taking a good step back, we did that in the other scene on the PTO side, taking a good step back and looking at your website in a fresh way as well. I think you'll especially find your copywriting as an area of potential great improvement.

Paul: Copywriting is very hard. You know what I mean? It's not not easy. But AI does help, I'll say that. Another thing I'll say about the homepage is you're it has to have like you has to have one message for the whole page. Right? I made this mistake for years, and I see a lot of people make it, is we do so much. Like we do a lot of things. Well, I want to tell you everything we do on the page, but

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm.

Paul: It people's brains don't work like that. You've got to pick a theme. And our theme is literally we we plan everything before construction begins. That's it. That's the theme of the home page. So that every single section reinforces that idea. Other pages can reinforce other ideas, but if you part start telling people like, well, we plan everything and we're really clean. And there you get the project manager on the side every day, and you get designers, and don't we get this like people stop listening after the the second one, you know what I mean?

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm.

Paul: cognitive overload trying to understand your business. So maybe we plan everything before we start isn't the best one. For me, I think it is, you know, but you got to pick yours, whatever what the one thing is. And that's the home page has to have that theme, the one thing that touch touches the pain point you think the majority of your clients have.

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm. good. It's good. There's lot of good stuff in here, folks. ⁓ And then also when you go to his website, click on recent projects, the way that he features his projects, little transparency around exactly what happened, exactly how it went down, ⁓ the exact price, etc. is a great ⁓ best practice. Paul, we got to keep moving. Scene number four, ⁓ AI. Scene four, AI. You were just at the FAST conference. You were up on stage. You were yipping and yapping. ⁓ What were you yipping and yapping about? If ⁓ somebody that there. wanted to know and give us some of your helpful tidbits on your AI ventures these days.

Paul: I mean, I did something at FAST this year that I don't usually do and I t I didn't talk I talked less about specifics, so I'm always really big about talking about specifics. And this year I sort of because AI just changes so fast. I talked a little more about well, how do we build a process or system that prepares us regardless of the changes in the ecosystem? And for me that was

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm.

Paul: ⁓ building what some people would call it a business brain, but for me it's a you know creating a file structure and an organizational structure that's AI that you can point an AI tool at so it can read what it needs to know about you, it can read markdown files for instructions, it can read ⁓ you can you know you can store all your memory. You know, building that to me feels more important than learning any particular tool. ⁓

Kyle Hunt: Hmm.

Paul: Not that you don't need to play around with tools, but the tools will change. The tools a a really interesting thing with AI, if you've if you've noticed, when it first came out last year, let's say last year is when it first came out, it began getting pretty popular. Everyone was coming out with specialized marketing tools that used AI. ⁓ we can build your website with this. You should use our website builder, use our you know, Instagram post builder. Six months later. They're all gone because it's done natively in the tool now. It's a skill. Then it was, ⁓ we can help you ⁓ build your website. And now it's why we can help you create estimates. But all of these specialized tools, my guess is all gonna be native, and it's all gonna be a skill or a project. It's no, it's it's just so I just I don't like focusing on those too much. They're interesting. ⁓

Kyle Hunt: I'm just gonna keep getting gobbled up.

Paul: But I like to think the key with what the problem AI solves, in my opinion, is it solves search, right? Search is no longer an issue with AI. Right? Keyword search is not perfect and it can struggle. AI search, very robust. So it solves the problem of search. It solves the problem of pattern recognition in your data, because it's very good at that, right? And it solves the problem of organizing your data. Those are its sort of three main benefits.

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm.

Paul: So how do we structure our files and folders and the things we're storing about our business so that we can take advantage of that?

Kyle Hunt: and make it easier for all of your SOPs. I saw something you posted over the weekend of organizing in your different areas of your business and then all of the SOPs and getting that, that's kind of the direction you're talking is one example of it,

Paul: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Making it more a little more AI focused. Like how you label files is different for a computer kind of than for a person. Like spaces can be terrible, like for a computer to read. Spaces mean something like in code. So that's why you see a lot of dashes in code or underscores in between words and code because spaces have a different meaning than for you or I looking at a folder structure. ⁓ so little things like that. But also just thinking about there's

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm.

Paul: There's really there's memory. AI needs memory, so you have to have a repository of everything it needs to know about your business. ⁓ it needs skills, so you have to then those are the S the skills can kind of be the SOPs. ⁓ and it needs to be org and then it needs instructions. When do I go to this memory folder? When do I use this skill? And so how do we build that? You know, and I don't know. We're you know what I mean? We're just that's how I'm thinking about it. And then I learn a little bit more about it, you know, it's every day how I

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm.

Paul: ⁓ I think I want to do it.

Kyle Hunt: When you're at the FAST conference, did you see the company that's doing Natalie? Did you come across that?

Paul: Is that an AI assistant tool or something? I don't think I saw the

Kyle Hunt: Yes, yes. Yeah. And I just did a podcast episode with him, but similar thought of like, man, we need to build up the memory of all of the details of these estimates and scope of works and schedules. And how do we make it easy to take these hundreds and hundreds of projects and data information that we have and make it so that it's easy to ⁓ pattern recognize and organize our data and keyword search and some of the things you just mentioned.

Paul: Yeah. I'm not a huge fan of naming the AIs like Doug or Bob or whatever, but ⁓ I guess it depends. Like I think like I was just talking we're this researching a project management tool and I just talking to them and I was like, here's what I think. I don't want to type ever again. You know what I mean? I should be able to open up my tool and just say, Hey, ⁓ when is ⁓ painting scheduled on the Thompson project? And it will just say, just You know, or say, hey, we get we need to move painting on the Thompson project. Can't be Tuesday. It's gotta start Wednesday. Will you take care of that? Like I don't wanna type anymore. You know, daily there was a cool ⁓ demo of like just doing daily logs by recording a video and then writes the daily log and it doesn't just upload the video, which would be dumb, and then do a transcript. It actually, if I say, ⁓ there's a hole in the wall right here and I'm videoing it, it's takes a screenshot of that hole in the wall and it

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm.

Paul: you know, creates the action item in the daily log and reports it. Like I think these are the workflows that are ⁓ more important. Like how do we you know for years and years and years all we've been doing is adding tasks on people's lists, right? Like I want to send out my postcard to everybody, which is great, but that's another task. That's a to-do has got to go on someone's list. And we keep adding it and adding and adding. How do I automate it? How do I streamline it? So we're spending less time typing, less time, you know

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm.

Paul: checking off to do's and more time focusing on, you know, the stuff that only we can do.

Kyle Hunt: Yeah, I like that. Scene one, 2026 market catching up. Scene two, PTO, making people think about that. Scene three, website. Scene four, kind of a unique angle at some of the AI related stuff. Let me finish ⁓ scene four. What is an AI tool that you're just loving these days? You held up this clicker thing before we started.

Paul: Yeah. ⁓ I haven't even used this yet, but yeah, this little gizmo. I like it because it comes with this little charging thing too, so you get an extra battery to charge it with. But ⁓ this also snaps to your phone if you just want to use it on your phone. But then this is a little magnetic pin if you separate it, so it will just pin to your shirt. ⁓ or it comes with a lanyard if you want to wear it as a

Kyle Hunt: Little lapel. And it's similar in concept to plod, where you would be recording a meeting and then being able to organize it from there, has a similar concept. What's that one called?

Paul: Yeah. Yeah. Very this one's called Soundcore, Anchor makes it. If ⁓ the plot I mean I have a couple plot devices. The two flaws for plot in plot with for me are one, it off it's offline only. So when you're when you get back to the office you have to connect via Bluetooth or via cable and upload it. This is a this device is a live stream right to your phone, so it's immediate. You can see the transcript. ⁓ which is way better in my opinion. ⁓ two, plot doesn't have a physical button, which sounds silly, but this one has a little physical button on it you can push. And so you know when it's on and you know when it's off. And that was an important- I mean I was seeking that out. So many of them don't. ⁓ and the haptic feedback, you know, press and hold, I just find it unreliable. You know what I mean? So I like the physical button.

Kyle Hunt: You had gone on a couple appointments and literally it didn't record and that was annoying.

Paul: Yeah, you think you're recording and then you haven't. Or it started and then somehow accidentally you stopped.

Kyle Hunt: Yeah. Sorry. And then what's And then what's one other AI tool that you're loving?

Paul: Like a fit like there's nothing there physical tools on Levin. ⁓

Kyle Hunt: Well, yeah, or just even, yeah, even the software app or whatnot.

Paul: I mean we're d we're I'm not doing too deep dives. I'm I s I stick with Claude. I use Chat BTT a little bit. I use Gemini quite a bit. I'm still you I'm still a pretty basic AR user. Again, for me it's it's less it's about pri I mean again, same same thing as always. Process. What's the process? How do we incorporate it into the process? How do we improve existing processes, leveraging these tools? You know, not

Kyle Hunt: stab him.

Paul: What's the magic tool that solves all our problems? There isn't a magic tool that solves all your problems. The broken process wins every time, no matter what tool you pick up. So ⁓ it's just how can the process?

Kyle Hunt: That's a good, that's a good AI clip of going, look, if your process is tight, if you know, step by step, if you're handing things off cleanly, that beats any AI tool that you can put, put up in front of me. So the idea, and that's been a little bit of, ⁓ a talking point I've been having of going, I think we're exiting the quick phase of AI where it's like, wow, look, it can do that. Wow, look, it can do that. Wow, look, you can do that. And everybody's kind of overwhelmed by it. How about we approach it the way you just described it of like, what problem do I need to solve? How can I improve this process? Now let me take something that's out there and use AI to help solve this problem. And I think the more we start looking at AI and some of these solutions that way, I think we'll get a little bit more traction in implementing it and for it to actually truly help us in a meaningful way.

Paul: Yeah, not for a lot of people they just they gotta create the process first because they st they still don't have it. And that's still the core problem. You know what I mean? Which again, AI can't help with. You can't ask it to start to build the process for you, but

Kyle Hunt: Yes. Yes. Mm hmm. Scene five showroom. ⁓ Paul, people, I've got a lot of showrooms popping up in the different peer group members and people are talking, ⁓ I'm to be able to buy cabinets direct. And we got some more margin going there. We're going to streamline this sales process. People are going to come in and we're going to make a bunch of selections all at once. This is going to be sweet. Talk to us about your showroom plans. You're expanding the size of it, moving to a different building. What are some of the you also mentioned some other services you're offering. Talk to us about.

Paul: Mm-hmm.

Kyle Hunt: your showroom side of things.

Paul: Yeah, so this just ⁓ this is a building I almost bought last year. But then it's a lot of money. More money than I've ever spent on anything in mine. So I s it was I just didn't do it because it made me very nervous. but then it came up for lease and I was able to lease it, which was ⁓ makes me more comfortable. ⁓ yeah, and I really don't think I know I want to co sort of be out of this business in three to five years. So I don't wanna ⁓ I don't know, we'll find it, we'll figure out something.

Kyle Hunt: Made you more comfy. What are you gonna do with yourself?

Paul: But but anyway, there's new showrooms, it's a big step. It's a lot more money. That's the scary part. ⁓ especially in a down year or a down couple of years. And potentially, you know, the economy is, you know, nobody knows. ⁓

Kyle Hunt: Alright. What are you talking about? More money from what to what?

Paul: ⁓ well, it's probably doubles the rent. Doesn't that probably does doubles the rent. Plus, you know, I gotta build it out. That's you know, I'm guessing 150, 200 grand ⁓ to build it out. So yeah, a lot of money. Not only in overhead, but just upfront cash. ⁓ so big deal, but better visibility.

Kyle Hunt: Yes.

Paul: lot more space, a lot more showroom space, a lot more office space, a lot more warehouse space. We get a warehouse and showroom are attached, which is great. ⁓ loading dock, which is great. Don't have one of those right now. and I think ⁓ the ability to now you know I've had a showroom now for 10 years. Maybe maybe nine years. ⁓ you learn a lot, you know, and now we get to start over from scratch, which is that's got that'll be fun.

Kyle Hunt: Hmm.

Paul: and I think it gives us the opportunity to move from a design build remodeling company, so a contractor with a showroom, to you know, more of a remodeling center, right? And so we're gonna add some retail services, still boutique, still probably appointment only, but we're gonna allow our trade partners, some clients, outside designers, to use the showroom. ⁓ So that's a big one. We're actually we're gonna split the company, kind of not split, but we're gonna change the services to three things, I think. We design, you build, or we design, we build, that's current model. We design, you build. So, and it's actually we design and plan, because our core competency is the planning. So, and that's where designers fall short. They can design, not just designers can design, but the execution still stinks because there's no plan. There's no good plan. So we would design and plan. So that's an a value add for the client.

Kyle Hunt: and sell some of the sell the materials.

Paul: And they would they wouldn't have to buy from us, but obviously it would make sense for them to buy from us. or ⁓ the third one would be just come buy your materials from us. With but not with just a random 32-year-old who's sitting in the office chair in the showroom, but with interior designers who've been doing this for a long time and are you know expert in kitchen and bathroom model. ⁓ so we'll kind of have those three channels, if you will. So potential for increased revenue, I'm less concerned about the revenue as I am for just the branding aspect of like, ⁓ these guys are like it. You know what I mean? Like it really strengthens that ⁓ brand pillar of ours. It's like that we take care of everything. You know what I mean? So

Kyle Hunt: And you'd anticipate that first option of we design and build it for you to, and even in a perfect world, it'd still be 75 plus percent of what you're bringing in. Okay.

Paul: ⁓ yeah, I mean maybe ninety percent. I don't know. You know what I mean? Again, I'm not super I mean, if I'm not less revenue interested in that and more, it's more of a branding play. It's more of a relationship builder with our vendors too. If we can once you're retail, vendors, you know, look at you a little bit differently, you know. ⁓ but I don't really know, you know, it's new. Like, you know.

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm. Are there a lot of designers that are coming to you that you would anticipate maybe they're bringing some of the design work and selections already and then that being a potential referral source or no?

Paul: Yeah. We don't do that now intentionally. ⁓ the we experimented with it, we sort of but we just it's a slippery slope because we're designed build. A couple of times in the past designers have sort of come to us with a client and then the client has left that designer and hired us. And that's I don't like that. I don't want that to happen. That's not my choice, you know what I mean? But obviously the designer very upset, but we aren't intentionally doing that. It's just sometimes you see the benefits and ⁓

Kyle Hunt: Yes. That gets all tricky.

Paul: So we want to be careful about that. But I do think with the new showroom, we're gonna open up, we're gonna call it a co-work space for designers. So we're gonna allow designers to use the showroom, use the space, and then maybe add like and I would do that for a small monthly fee, maybe 150 bucks a month or something for the access, but it would come with pretty steep discounts. ⁓ that would be the main benefit. Aside from it, it's the only place in town where you can literally pick everything.

Kyle Hunt: Mm.

Paul: You don't have to go to five different showrooms. We carry it all. So a huge benefit there. Plus an office space that a lot of designers don't have. They work out of their homes. Plus a receiving space they don't have. And we could do value add, like a lot of designers don't do drafting, so we could offer drafting services. We could ⁓ deliver materials versus you know everywhere else they gotta figure that out on their own. ⁓ and I think it opens up the opportunity again to strengthen the brand, provide educational opportunity. You know, for designers and trades, like if we can get them coming in to purchase materials, we can help them purchase better materials, help them understand what the difference between an RTA cabinet that's very pretty but very crappy, and the semi custom cabinet that's also very pretty but ⁓ also well built. ⁓ the different like we won't sell big box store tile and if we can talk about that, you know. I think the opportunity to do that's exciting for us too. For me. I mean, yeah.

Kyle Hunt: Okay. Ooh, it sounds like a new project you're sinking your teeth into.

Paul: I think it could be fun. I mean we'll see. You know, when I opened this showroom ten or so years ago, I had no idea what I was doing. And this is a little bit the same, you know.

Kyle Hunt: Mm hmm. What's what's a feature or two that you're definitely going to have in the showroom that you kind of learned over the years, whether it be film like, like, for example, some people are like, ⁓ man, we built this showroom, we built these big displays. And, you know, next time around, I think I'm going to go a little bit, you know, this five foot and this five foot show more options. As an example of some things I've heard, what are some things that you're going to be incorporating?

Paul: Yeah. Yeah, so we're a dis what I would call a design center now. We don't have a lot of vignettes, which is those big displays. And I would that's a to me that's the best way to have a showroom. We want to show material options, we don't want to show vignettes. Because how do I know you're gonna like that modern vignette? And then it's out of date in five years anyway, and I gotta redo it and it takes up a ton of space.

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm.

Paul: And so our approach is the cabinetry the cabinetry is functional. It's where the stuff goes, but it also shows off the cabinetry. So it's a little different approach. We ⁓ I mean the way we display our tile and we have these little stands that that that create these little mood boards. ⁓ we're definitely gonna double down on that. ⁓ but mostly just show we're gonna do one thing, cool thing. I'm just I don't know if this is a good idea or not. I think it's a good idea. ⁓ We're gonna have a wet room. So I'm just gonna have a big, it's like a 10, 10 by 10 space almost. And I'm just gonna fill it with shower heads and tub functional. Because one of our biggest, and it'll be, I mean, it won't be like functional, like I can take a shower, because there's gonna be like 15 shower heads on one wall, and you'll get wet. But the one of the biggest pain points we have with clients, shower heads. There's no standard for how that shower head's gonna feel.

Kyle Hunt: Ooh! Mm-hmm.

Paul: And people a lot of our clients we get a shower head and like, you know, I don't like the pressure. And like, Okay, well we can replace it. You know what I mean? So try to try to avoid same with faucets, like you don't it looks pretty, but ha you don't know what the sprayer is gonna look like or, you know, exactly how the pull down part works or

Kyle Hunt: My favorite part of that idea is that plumber is actually going to have a really fun week. You know, he does boring stuff, you know, now it's like, you know what, here's something fun I took on. ⁓ I mean, content wise, yes. Am I going to be able to like push a button one through 15 and just like push number three and boop that turns on?

Paul: Okay, yeah. Yeah. Well, there'll be physic there'll have to be physical valves and diverters for a lot of it because ⁓ but we will do like you know, Kohler has their electronic shower system and Mowen has their electronic shower system. So we'll be able to show those off. But most shower systems just don't operate that way. So we'll have to have so we'll have to have some kind of big long. I don't know how well I don't know how to do it yet. We're gonna figure it out, but it will be a whole bunch of valves and diverters like on a wall.

Kyle Hunt: Yes. That's exciting. Well, I vote for it's a great idea. I mean, it's going to push your budget up there a little bit, but you know, details, details.

Paul: Yeah. And I think we'll Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think ⁓ well we don't have to do it right away. We can just build the room. You know what I mean? Run the plumbing and then build it. So it'll be a process. But and I was thinking it'd be cute we could get people we can get little branded raincoats and like give them to people and be like, All right, we're going in the shower room now. Put on your rubber boots and your raincoat. You know.

Kyle Hunt: I mean, from an experience and a memorable aspect, I like it.

Paul: Yeah, so that's kind of that'll be fun. ⁓ I'm going up to Savannah in a few weeks, I met a guy at FAST who, you know, Tallahassee's got about 200,000 people, our median income is about 52,000. So compared to a lot of other metropolitan areas, relatively poor, relatively small. And I've always felt that kind of caps our growth. You know, we're big, we're one of the biggest, you know what I mean? And we only do remodeling. I mean, we're bigger than a lot of builders. ⁓ And so I've always felt like, you know, maybe that's all you can do is five, six million in Tallahassee. And then I met this guy, he's in Savannah, two town of around two hundred thousand people, median income of around sixty thousand, so very similar. And he only sells cabinets. He's not even a remodeler. Cabinets and closets and stuff. And I can't remember the exact number, but he's doing something like twelve to seventeen million dollars a year. And I was like, only in Savannah? And he was like, Yeah. And I was like, I would have thought that would not be possible.

Kyle Hunt: someone.

Paul: And I was like, I gotta come up and talk to you. And he said, Cool, come up. And I was like, okay. So that's exciting. You know what I mean? And so that up like we don't sell to builders right now. that's another avenue. We've got warehouse space to store, cabinetry. We can sell high quality, all in one vanities instead of the cheap big box store ones, and again do education around that because we have the space. So

Kyle Hunt: It's gonna be real interesting because I think you're even the way that you talk about your website going back to scene three on the website is man, have a message, have a really clear message and pick your pain point. It's interesting, you've been very focused on kitchens, baths, you've been very focused on design, build for that, content around that, examples around that. And this is kind of expanding who you're serving and how you're serving them, which which can work beautifully, but it's almost the opposite of what I see a lot of times where people are going, okay, we do this, this, this, this, and then kind of whittle it down. You're kind of going, all right, we're still gonna do our core thing, but let's see if we can serve this market and that market. And I can hear it in your voice, it's just kind of exciting for you.

Paul: Yeah, I think it's exciting. It could be a giant flop. I don't know. But there's nothing like it around. ⁓ and so I think that's a big benefit. And it's still I still feel like it's still the niche. Right? We're just expand again, like you said, we're expanding who we can serve. Like we can't serve low budget clients right now. We just can't. Not r we can't I'll tell you we can't do it responsibly.

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm. Mm.

Paul: Right. And I obviously only want to do it responsibly. I think with the sh with the expanding the showroom, it gives us the opportunity to do it responsibly and serve the, you know, like the people who make fifty-two thousand dollars a year, which is the majority of the people in our area. You know what I mean? Like it gets old after a while. You can only serve, you know, doctors and lawyers and engineers and trust flight babies. You know what I mean? Like that gets you know, I'm not one of those. Like those aren't my people. I they're certainly nice people and I like my clients, but you know.

Kyle Hunt: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Paul: My people were, you know, more down here in the middle as far as the ones you feel good about helping, you know, are better about helping. So I think it gives us that opportunity.

Kyle Hunt: Hmm. Excellent, very interesting. We'll have to mark your calendars, folks. May of 2028, Paul McMahon is going to come back and say, here's how that new strategy and approach has turned out, folks. I have a feeling, I have a feeling. Yes, yes, it will be, it will be. Oh, we went through some different scenes. Now, people, I like to have a little fun. If you can tell me the couple that is featured in Billy Joel's scenes from an Italian restaurant and you email me.

Paul: May yeah, maybe the sho maybe the shower room will be done by May of twenty twenty thing. We'll see.

Kyle Hunt: the first person email me will be getting some remodellers on their eyes swag. Some might know that right off of the top of their dome, other people might be, they might be Googling it or AI-ing it, who knows? Also the way that Billie says her name in the song, I have always felt very New Yorkie and I always thought it was funny how he said it. So, you're gonna have to look it up, buckle up, because it's like an eight minute song. Paul, you're always a treasure trove of ideas. I liked how we were able to touch on a bunch of different things.

Paul: They can't they can certainly find out the yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna have to look that up 'cause I don't remember.

Kyle Hunt: I think if I'm a remodeler listening to this, there was one or two things that kind of popped out above the rest as far as the strategy goes. If you were to close out this year podcast with either another tidbit of something that you didn't even share or kind of doubling down on what you think might be the most important for people to hear that you've already shared, what would it be, sir? suppose you're not watching the video. He's taking his hand, he's kind of hitting his chest a little bit while he looks up and ponders. Yes.

Paul: thinking Kyle. That's a very deep question. ⁓ I mean I'll say this about AI. you I don't think you can be timid with AI. I think things are moving fast. And I just so I think this idea of like, ⁓ well I tried it once and I didn't really do well much, so whatever screw that stuff. I think that's a huge mistake. I think people who spend a few hours a week or a few hours a day or whatever time you have, like it will pay it's got it's it's a hundred X payback.

Kyle Hunt: Mm.

Paul: Not this week or next week or next month, but over the coming years, I think that's a huge payoff. Right. And I would avoid a lot of people are bolting st AI onto stuff. I would avoid that. I would that's the stuff I would wait on. I would wait on the tools. I would wait on the shiny things. Because a lot of AI is getting bolted onto things that I think just would be unimportant in six months or a year. But you gotta dig in, like they're hard, they're easy to use.

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm.

Paul: Hard to understand, like cloud cowork, hard to understand, right? And that's something that will the UI needs to change and how they think about teaching people needs change, but ⁓ you know, how the difference between cloud and cloud cowork cloud code and cloud design, hard to understand that ecosystem, but that's what you need to focus on learning. And that's when you begin to leverage it for your processes and know, ⁓ I don't want to use Chat GPT.

Kyle Hunt: Hmm.

Paul: for content because this tool is better. I don't want to use Cloud for creating images. One, because it just doesn't create images, so you can't. But you want to start to understand that now and then follow them as they evolve. Because if you wait a year and you start learning from a year, you're gonna be so far behind your com you know your competitors who are learning it now. At some point you won't be able to catch up. At one point, like AI hockey sticks and catching up will be almost impossible, I think. So I would I would stress that just, you know,

Kyle Hunt: Mm-hmm. Okay. Lean into it a little bit.

Paul: dig in. It doesn't have to be good. You can make lots of mistakes. Don't do it for anything important. You know, sandbox it. Just F around with it. But you gotta get you got to get in there, get your hands dirty with it.

Kyle Hunt: Cool, and I thought that was gonna how we wrapped up, but then I was looking behind you. Tell us about one thing that's back on that wall on those shelves, Paul. What's a little memory back there? What's one thing back there that's your... I know, what's one of your favorite things back there?

Paul: ⁓ that's that that shelf is a treasure trove kile. So the digital frame is a cool one. Those are all my images from my travels. So like that's a woman I I probably in Sudan sitting. that's my mom and dad neck next to them. ⁓ the one above, it's probably hard to see, but I just bought that at an art show.

Kyle Hunt: He's looking dapper, I can see. I see red, I see red splotchy stuff and a little green in the background.

Paul: Yeah, it's just really cool. It's just gonna it's probably a little depressing, but it's a really cool slave motif. ⁓ like that it that figure is sort of a a wooden-ish figure, but what it really is, it's a top-down view of a slave ship showing how the slaves were packed in as they were shipped overseas. And then there's like

Kyle Hunt: Mm.

Paul: ⁓ if you could look closer if there's some historical figures like moved in that's a cotton field. That red and white is a cotton field. There's a plantation house in the back. There's just a lot of cool yeah.

Kyle Hunt: Mm. And you were at an art show and saw that and what compelled you to buy it?

Paul: The st the story. I mean, I was looking at it. It's visually a very interesting piece. ⁓ but he had a lot of visually interesting pieces. And then I didn't know that was a slave ship. And he came over, he's like, Do you know what that is? And I was like, Nope. And he's like, Let me explain it to you. And he kind of told me all about it. And we started talking about it. And I was Yeah, man, that's you've kind of made this a good memory. ⁓ so I'm gonna pick it up. And then ⁓ you can barely see this, that little Peace Court deal.

Kyle Hunt: Hmm. That's That's cool. Mm-hmm.

Paul: That's ⁓ some of the people I supervised in the Peace Corps made that for me. It's a monopoly game based around the country that we were in. Zambia. So I mean that's all that's a memory wall. There's tons of stu I could go on and on. There's a ton of stuff on.

Kyle Hunt: Hmm. Yeah, I love that, though. And thank you for sharing that. And number two, ⁓ folks, there's a lot of life beyond business. Like you're talking about even going to an art show. Like get your butt out there on a Saturday morning and go out to that farmer's bar, go out to that art show. Summertime's coming. Ask the artist about that. ⁓ Pull up those memories so you can remember that previous whole venture in their Peace Corps and all the travels you did. ⁓ I think a lot of times we're living dull. think a lot of times we're just kind of living more dull. if we just like, you know what, let's go out there and live a little bit. Let's go to that. Let's buy that. Because that's a memory. Let me pull that, dust that off and put that on the wall. Because when I see it, like that Peace Corps stuff, it brings a smile to your face and it brings memories. ⁓ Get out there and live a little bit, people. And let Paul's little shelves back there remind you of that.

Paul: Yeah. Just remember it's all good cow. Like your business should be a an adventure too. You know what I mean? So if you're spending all your time in your business, this is what I don't like about that stuff. It's a valuable statement. What I don't like about it is it makes people who only are working in their business right now feel bad. Right? But you don't have to feel bad. If that is what is exciting you right now, that's fine. Life has seasons. You know what I mean? I haven't traveled extensively in ten years because I've been excited about something else.

Kyle Hunt: It's all good. That's right. Mmmmm

Paul: If I sell this business or hand off this business in three or five years, guess what I'm gonna do next? You know what I mean? And that's a new season. And so sometimes life has seasons like that. But you're right, you're right. Variety is good. If you're not in my message is if you're not enjoying it, change it. But if you like working till midnight on your business and is serving you, then work till midnight on your business and work weekends and do, you know, don't ignore your kids, don't ignore your wife, you know, obviously. But

Kyle Hunt: That's fair. You know what? Mmm. You know what's nice about that? Yeah. You know what's nice about that is we're both right, So, so fun. Love it. Thank you, Paul. Appreciate your time. Appreciate you sharing what's going on in your noggin and your business and what you're implementing and the examples. ⁓ everybody had a good takeaway and I look forward to, ⁓ giving away a hat based on scenes from an Italian restaurant. Thank you for walking us through those scenes. Or do you want to sing to wrap it up?

Paul: This is true. Life is life is nuanced, Kyle. Yeah. ⁓ I could say bottle of red, bottle of white, that's all I know.