“LBM Talks” hosts top professionals from different sectors of the lumber and building material industry to share their expertise, with a heavy emphasis on practical, tactical strategies to help you serve your markets and grow your business.
In this episode, Sally is joined by TJ Shaheen, Executive VP of Builders’ General, who shared his executive level perspective on the value of social media for LBM dealers.
TJ discussed how social media is a great tool to affordably increase brand awareness and it’s potential for LBM dealers to connect with each other. He also shared information about their recent video series that served both their social media profiles and their customers’.
Curious if investing in social media makes sense for you? TJ can help.
Contact TJ at tj.shaheen@buildersgeneral.com.
Please send all podcast inquires to sally@lbmjournal.com
Watch this conversation and more great content from LBM journal via our YouTube channel here.
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Prefer to read about it instead? Take a peek at the transcript below:
(Editor’s note: Transcript is AI-generated and may include some errors.)
Sponsorship
This episode of LBM talk social media is sponsored by PWT. At PWT, you get more than an engineered wood supplier. You get a true partner who’s ready to support your success, coast to coast, that’s something they’re willing to shake on. TJ Shaheen welcome to LBM Talks Social Media.
TJ
You know what? It’s first time, long time, as they say in sports talk radio. So my first time on this show, but a long time fan of the LBM brand. So I’m happy to be here, and I hope I can provide some insightful content for you guys. And looking forward to see where the where this goes. So, yeah,
Sally Traxler-Lacey
I am sure you will provide some insightful content. Just curious. TJ, what, what? What made you you reached out to me. Do you have a particular interest in social media, or what made you kind of interested in coming on? Well,
TJ
I feel like there’s just so much space out there, and for our industry, we don’t do a good enough job filling that void. And I was talking about this with some of my constituents recently. And you know, we are a national industry, really so, and the world has only gotten smaller in that space, right? Especially with social media, you’re able to reach out and really make a lot more connections. LBM strategies does your annual event, and there’s so many more trade shows that go on in between there. But, but you know, the world has gotten smaller, and you’re not living in this little igloo or, you know, globe that you can shake up and down anymore. So it’s good to get out of that and help create your brand, right? So we’re in New Jersey, executive vice president builders general, family owned business for over 90 years, and we have seven locations, four counties. And you know, New Jersey is a densest state as far as most people, in a little short, little, you know, postman image of New Jersey, but, but on a national level, everybody’s reaching out. Everyone’s making connections. You go to trade shows, you develop relationships and and that’s really what it’s all about. Because you need help. You need to you need to be able to tuck and roll in this business for sure.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
Well, we appreciate you coming on and sharing everything you know. So let’s just start out you are, like you said, the Executive Vice President of builders general. So this is going to be great to get more of an a high level picture of social media in the business. So just to start off, how does social media, and you can broaden it out to more digital marketing if you want. But how does that specifically social media kind of fit into your overall business strategy?
TJ
So social media is, is a, it’s a beast, right? It’s it, but it’s more of an onion, right? A beast in that. It’s, it’s, it’s tough to tackle, and onion, there’s so many layers. And we started doing social media, really, when it first kind of started making more of a presence on the on the in the business space, first was Facebook was like, Oh, let me connect with my friends like I haven’t seen forever, let me see my family that, you know, it’s across the country, but then it started to go into the business space, right? Then you had LinkedIn, that came along, Instagram, you got Tiktok and everything in between, right? So it’s all about getting your content in my mind, in my opinion, it’s about getting your content out there, so that you’re front of mind, right? And we sell primarily to, I would say, 90% of our customer basis, contractor professional, right? Builders, remodelers, general contractors. But homeowners need to also see builders general so we’ll do a few years ago, we actually as recent as last year, we’ll do, we’ll go on to job sites with our customers. We’ll do interviews with them, we’ll show their projects, and they can use that piece for their own social media, because a lot of our builders and our customers that I see, they have a presence on social media, but again, they struggle with that, that that piece of just wrapping their hands around it, because it takes so much time, but at the end of the day, we want to make sure that the messages sure that the message is consistent with who we are, what our brand is. And again, like I said, we’re trying to do everything that’s different. We’re not just posting pictures, we’re posting video. A lot of it, you know, I will be involved in a lot of it. I’ll do a lot of the interviews we’re doing, one right now with with one of our homeowners, and our one of. Are very good builders, and we’re showing that process from the beginning of the house all the way to the end. So we’re just trying to add a little something different to do that. But again, it takes myself, it takes our marketing director, it takes all the subs that we work with. And again, we have to be again all working together with the same mindset. And then we’ll schedule things to go out, and then we have the metrics and the feedback on that, all that stuff as well. Every month, we’ll review that to make sure that we’re we’re moving the right direction
Sally Traxler-Lacey
totally. So what does that process kind of look like with the companies that you’re working with? Do you guys have monthly meetings or weekly meetings where you say, Hey, these are some ideas we have. Or are they the ones kind of giving you ideas for content? What does that kind of look like?
TJ
They’re very good at pushing for a pull, right? They want, they want information from us. So we work in that type of fashion where it’s kind of a linear thing where it’s push, pull, or we’ll do something new, and we have all this content, we can push it back to them. But again, it is a it’s, it’s, we try to promote a lot of our vendors, and a lot of our vendors aren’t, aren’t really there just yet. So they may, may have a product that might be showing a mountain scape. We’re not in the mountains. We’re on the Jersey Shore. Doesn’t work for our environment. So it might be like a stick in the desert, like that doesn’t work for us, like we’re in the Jersey Shore. So a lot of vendors are kind of they’re starting to catch up. So the more content that we can get from them, especially with our core products, like Anderson, Weyerhaeuser, the tracks Timber Tech line of decking and our kitchen cabinet companies, the more relevant and recent content that we can use helps it make some helps it make the process so much easier for us, because we can take that, push it and then they have, you know, the people that are waiting for us are like, They like kids you’re trying to feed. They’re like, Ah, here you go. You know, choke on it for like, a month, right? And then schedule it out. So we did some video content, some interviews. And one of the strategies behind all that, it’s like we took four customers, and I said, we have content now for like, say, six months, right? So we’ll schedule our video guy, I’ll usually do the interviews on site with our with our customers, and get them to pull out information from them, because not everyone’s comfortable on camera, so it’s kind of hard to do that. But if you can, if you know your customer, and you can get some information from them, then they start to lighten up, and it becomes very genuine, authentic, organic and and that really kills in that space when we start to see the results on that but, but, but again. So that’s us going out just trying to change the change something new. We can’t rely on certain things all the time. We have to, we have to be the impetus to get a lot of this stuff done. So we’re always trying to look for something new. And yeah, we do collaborate, probably, like on a, I would say monthly for sure, but in between those four weeks, we’ll definitely talk about different strategies. We will take this, we’ll throw that out, whatever it is, you know. So it’s constantly moving. You can’t be static. You have to be dynamic and just well rounded up at the same time. Yes,
Sally Traxler-Lacey
it’s very fast moving. People are on social media every day. And it’s, I mean, you don’t need new content every day, but like, yeah, it’s just fast moving. And it so it sounds like you you work closely with, you know, your suppliers, and also your customers. You guys kind of have this web of content. I saw those videos of your customers on Facebook and LinkedIn. They looked amazing. They were so professional. What was the response to those videos online? Well,
TJ
it’s great, you know, we work with a great crew that puts that all together for sure. Number one, yeah, but the people, you know, it’s the second important thing. So we could be out there, it could be raining, it could be sunny, could whatever they had, everything you needed to make sure that the end game was a perfect production. That’s only half the battle, the next battle, the characters that are involved, right? So whether it was myself or one of the customers, and, you know, getting them to be relaxed, so that it comes through where it’s, where it’s, you know, just a casual conversation. We’re going through a job site. We just want to do, like, a dive into your project, you know, blah, blah, blah. So I try to help, you know, facilitate all that stuff. We also have the relationship. So it’s not like I’m showing up on a job site, like, Who’s this guy? TGI, so we have the relationship. We’re able to do all that stuff, and it makes that, makes that whole process go a lot easier and smoother. And at the end of the day, we have that production done, and our customer can take that, use it for their own social media, which is huge, and also whenever else they want to use it for, put a clip on their website. Because, again, these guys don’t always have the time to do that. And that’s, that’s it, that’s, that’s an opportunity that we see, that we can perhaps help at in some point, some way down, down the line, and then at the end of the day, yeah, the results are there because it’s just, it’s something different, it’s genuine, it’s, it’s it’s just authentic, it’s organic. It’s just, you know, it’s just different. And that’s, I think that’s what people want to see. They don’t want to see these little, you know, pictures, and they’re just frozen in time, all right, what’s the next thing? What’s the next thing? What’s the next thing? Oh, look, we have some video content, video, and it’s huge, but you can’t go forever, right? So it’s got to be, ding, bang, bang, boom. And then you’re gone the next day. Nobody remembers. Nobody remembers, right? So you have to be memorable, right? That’s the thing. Try to be memorable. Try to be impactful, and try to just be able to be there and just be different again, front of mind for your customers and front of mind for the homeowners in the area. That’s that’s a strategy anyway, exactly
Sally Traxler-Lacey
those more like, what’s the word? Like, really, I’m gonna use say fake, but I don’t mean it like that. But you know, those productions that are really perfect and all that stuff, you know, that’s for TV, that’s for, you know, other things like that. Now, yes,
TJ
staged, rehearsed, whatever, everything we do is pretty much, you know, it’s just, it’s, let’s go. It’s one cut done, and we’re going and, and that’s what you know when you get on TVs, and we’ve done it with with our employees, customers, but when you’re able to just have a casual conversation, and once that starts to go, you got that crack in the dam. You’d be surprised about the amount of information that comes out, and it’s just natural, authentic. And I think at the end of the day, that’s that, that that resonates a lot more than what you’re speaking about, where it’s rehearsed stage and just robotic, you know, it’s like, yes, that’s That’s annoying. I
Sally Traxler-Lacey
mean, the statistics show that authenticity is hugely valued on social media. So I think you guys have it right in the way that you’re going. I mean, speaking of these other marketing channels, you’ve been in the industry for several years, correct?
TJ
In the business? Yes, 30 years in the business,
Sally Traxler-Lacey
yes. So you’ve kind of, and you’ve you’ve also been in marketing, and you’ve kind of watched this evolution. So what, what? What do you think the value compared to several years ago is like the value of, kind of the more modern marketing channels? Well, like social media, yeah,
TJ
well, so when I first started taking over the marketing aspect, I don’t know how long ago it was, but it was just print, right? We had yellow pages, like the yellow book, and that was like, in like, each county of New Jersey had a yellow book, and it was $100,000 at that time to run our AI, just to have a little phone listing in there 100 grand. And there was a couple different like trade magazines, it was you were just throwing dollars away, but you had to, because that’s where everybody else was. And if they needed to look up the lumber supplier, they just say, all right, still in general, but massively expensive. So then as we, as we evolved. So what are you going to do right print? You could do TV, you could do radio and New Jersey. Like I said before, we’re the densest state in the union, and it’s all crack like glass. So you may be able to advertise in South Jersey, but you can’t get to North Jersey. But we’re such a small state, and there’s 10 million New Jerseyans here, 10 million probably at the time, it’s probably like seven or eight, but still the same point, you didn’t have scale. You couldn’t buy the right way, right? So that was frustrating as well, because you just didn’t have that. Now, as we got beyond that social media sort of coming around, as far as the bang for the buck, getting in front of the eyeballs, it’s just you have you pick up so much scale. It’s pennies, it’s cents, it’s dollars, to what you were paying 1015, years ago. But you get so much more effectiveness of your delivery of your message about who you are, what your brand is, when social media started rolling around and again, it’s an evolution, like you said, it’s an evolution in creativity, right? And imagination, you have to you just like I said, I think a lot of times we get stuck in that complacency. Let’s just put something out there, and we’ll see what happens. But it doesn’t work, because it just people are sliding right? They don’t care, all right? Whatever. I’ve seen a window. I’ve seen a deck before. But if you can break that gap where it’s not just a one dimensional, two dimensional, now you’re three dimensional, maybe even four dimensional, where now you’re on a job site with a homeowner or a contract, or you’re interviewing people, you add that whole multi dimensional level now, now you’re, you’re that’s very. Impactful. And I feel like and for and for the cost, whether it’s to production, boosting your post, your your your SEO, Google, all that stuff, you know, you got to throw it. You throw dollars behind it. It’s it pairs, in comparison to what you used to have to do with TV and print and Yellow Pages back in those days. So we gained scale and were able to hit all those media. So like, just Facebook and LinkedIn, we can hit all of New Jersey. You can hit all of the country if you want to. Well, in the old days, if you ran an ad in, like, remodeling news. I don’t know if that’s the left, yeah, but like, that was just, like, wherever that went, I don’t know, but you have to pay like, 25 $30,000 to run an ad for that, you know? So it’s just, it’s crazy. It’s absolutely crazy. So you pick up so much more scale, and you reach so many more people. It’s and you can, you can geo fence, you can target, so it’s so it’s such a powerful tool. But again, you don’t want to spam. You want to be creative imagination and put some thought process behind. What are you trying to do? Like? What is it like? We’re just trying to increase our brand awareness so that we’re front of mind for our customers and our homeowners that we serve in that area. So
Sally Traxler-Lacey
totally, yeah, I think that it is such an opportunity. And like, I mean, I kind of grew up with it, so it’s like, I it’s, it’s just always been here for me, but I’m not. Everybody is maybe investing in it, and I think that the companies that are will see it pay off. Like, I was talking to another company a few weeks ago, and they were saying it was their marketing team, and they were saying that you got to go where the people are and where are the people they’re online. So I’m glad that it’s working out for you. And you said that video has been really big, that that video series, so kind of looking into the future. Do you guys plan to do more video campaigns? Do you think you’ll stick to like testimonials, or do you want to get some shots on the job site? Where do you kind of see that vision? I
TJ
want to go, where the people are right now. I think there’s a sale at pennies. There’s a sale of pennies. All right, I’ll be right No, I’m just kidding, no. So I do believe that we can continue to do what we do do, which is video content really well, you can’t do enough of it. We talked offline before we came on air right here, and we were just speaking about this, just the podcast space. It’s not there’s not enough to in our industry, which is, I’m speaking on a national level, even regionally, but, um, but, but for for somebody that’s looking to do a better job, or maybe saying, I don’t know if it’s worth it, well, it is worth it because I can, I can speak to it, especially in our challenges. New Jersey, as far as the expense, it’s very expensive. We’re in the metropolitan market. We’re in a high demand market, right? We got Philly. We got we’re surrounded by Philly, New York City. Those rates compound everything sky high. So for us, social media makes absolute economical sense, or you just have to find the right subs, find the right marketing director, and find again, the right content that that marries up with your with your with your messaging. And I feel that if you can do video content, if you can extend yourself, maybe help one of your again, I would say your VIP accounts, if they’re struggling in that area, maybe offered it to you know, let’s sit down and talk about, where are the shortfalls? How can I help your pains, your needs, your wants, right? What can what can we do as your supplier? Yeah, we deliver building materials, but one of our services can be, help your business become a better business, because if you win more business, hopefully that spills down to us as well, right? I mean, that’s kind of the way partnership works. So if we can help our customers do that and maybe get a little bit more comfortable, maybe we can hook them up, because again, we have great relationships with our our subs that we work with to help deliver our messaging, maybe they could take on more work, right? So maybe we can make those alignments, make those introductions and and help them with it. With a it’s definitely a challenging spot, so if you don’t have the resources, maybe don’t have the time and a lot of speaking to one of our customers. The other day, his kids are coming into the business, and one of them is going to help drive that business, because they know that there’s a shortfall there for them. So a lot of our customers, one of my customers, a very good customer up in North Jersey, says, All I do is my I do it myself on Instagram. I see him all over the place, and I said, you do a great job. And we were doing one of these video shoots on his job site. And. He goes, You know how I got this house? And this house is like a four, four and a half million dollar home. It’s not a small shack, it’s massive. And he goes, I was talking to one of the clients. They were interviewing me to do this project, and they said, well, we don’t, I already know about you. I follow you on Instagram. And he got that job, right? That’s interesting. That’s that’s what helps it, because he’s front of mind in his market, because you can target people just in your space, right? So why wouldn’t you do that? Yeah, so why don’t you do that and just keep doing it? So yeah, he’s building a four and a half million dollar home for somebody that was following him on Instagram, and now is enough of the testimonial for those, for that couple to say, I want you so that that is beautiful, right? And that’s what, but that’s the messaging. We know we’re trying to do the same thing. We want builders general be front of mind so that they were resourced. Come down, take a look at our showrooms. Contractors can send people down so they can make those finishing touches. They’re homeowners, right? And they can keep moving. So that’s, that’s what it’s all about, and and by the way, let’s, let’s jump outside of that as a salesperson. I’m just going to clearly do, like, do a 180 on you as a salesperson. Why aren’t you prospecting on social media? You’re going to gonna show up at a job site. You don’t have an appointment. No one’s gonna take your call. You can show up in trailer. If you look at everyone’s I can’t do this. I don’t have sales. Listen, dude, here’s the deal. Find people that are within five miles of where, where you where you live, where your home base is, yeah, and find the builders, and then you can follow them on social media, and then you reach out to them say, hey, saw your job. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I’m local in the area. Hit me up if you you know, if you want to, maybe we can make an introduction, whatever. So you know, what’s good about that is that that builder not going to answer it that day or whatever, and if he’s actually the one on the other end, right? But if he is, he could do it on his own time. So instead of just showing up to a job site where no one’s got time for you, yeah, now you’re able to do that. And that part of prospecting is is is so valuable to somebody that’s maybe starting off in sales, or maybe hit up slow down in sales, because there are really good results doing that with social media. So if you could use that as a tool, not just about advertising, but promoting yourself as a salesperson, and you hit them on Thursday or Friday when they’re in a good mood, because they know the weekends coming up, right? My cycle, I call it psychological warfare when it comes to to prospect prospecting, for sure, because nobody wants to hear you on Monday and Tuesday, everyone’s in bad mood. Yeah, you get to like, Thursday afternoon, Friday, you have good results. I’ve done it when, you know I was doing, like, yeah, it works people and and you should use it as a tool, because now we’re talking about promoting yourself, not your company anymore, as a salesperson, and especially if you’re in the market, in the trade, you’re not some guy in Bangkok trying to sell, like, you know, a boatload of three plywood or something like that, if you’re in, if you’re in the space in the county, in the town, Hey, I saw your job site, just letting you know I’m here. You know, whatever you got to do. But yeah, it’s a great, yeah, yeah.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
And not only is it that they can respond on their own time, but also it it when you have your own profile and you have your own content, you kind of have your own like gallery, like, that person can then go to your page and check you out, which helps, which might entice them to do business with you, you know, if they can learn some unique things about you and how you can help them, and all that kind of stuff. Yeah,
TJ
so it’s, it’s, you know, we were just talking about like as the, you know, the mass of the of your company. But if you just break it down to the individual as well, again, you just got to stay, stay active, stay fresh. They have an imagination, have creativity, you know, where you can just, you know, be yourself, do something different. And you’ll, you’ll, you’ll be friend of mine, for people, for sure. Yeah,
Sally Traxler-Lacey
I love it. I love how, how into this you are. Because, you know, it’s really simple. It’s not this, oh, social media is some, you know, far out thing. It’s like, no, it’s, you just got to keep putting yourself and your business out there. And this is one easy, easy, kind of cheap, or affordable, you know, way to do it. And I’m curious, we were kind of when we were talking about content, talking about going on the job site, and, you know, everybody’s busy. Have you and your marketing director ever talked about, you know, maybe filming content, like more local to at your shops, you know, where you don’t need to have customers there or anything like that. Do you guys? Have you ever talked about that?
TJ
Yeah, we do do that as well. We’ll do that, you know, with with our employees, we’ll do because a lot of people like. Seeing that, I was amazed to see how many likes we have with, just like a one of our flatbeds dumping a load of lumber on a job site, right? Yeah, people love to see that, because they love to see the trucks and how they work. Because a lot of people see a huge lumber pile, and then they see this house. Well, how does it get there? So, yeah, and then also the employees that have been with us. You know, we have so many employees that have been with us, and we’re very grateful that that their 10 years, the 10 years of our employees, have been 510, 1520, 30, even, 40 years. And it helps our business, because it makes us that much stronger. Our customers get used to and they become part of the family. They their friends. You know, everyone’s got relationships, from the people at the yard working with our customers to the sales people at the counter. It’s they’re not coming in to just buy lumber. They’re in there just to talk smack about the baseball game or whatever. So it’s great to see that relationship involved to that point, and we try to capture that for sure. So we’ll, we’ll go into the each yard, and we’ll either we can do, we’ll do interviews with our people. We’ll talk about our sales manager, who started with us 40 years ago, started to work for us a stock boy, just so he could have some money to hang out with his friends. And here he is, 40 years later, and he’s our sales manager. It’s a great story. Mary put his two kids through college, you know. So there’s a career path for and that’s and again, let’s rotate and pivot here. There’s a career path. And we always talk about workforce development, right, how we can get help during the pandemic. It’s almost like, All right, we don’t need people buying from us. We need people working for us. So when you can tell those stories and have people step up and say what it’s like, that you can develop a career path working for the lumber and building material, a business, right? Like builders general supply, and you start in the yard, like I started in the yard, and I worked myself up to all the way where I got to I did nothing was given. Nothing was you had to earn it, right? So I worked out in the yard, driving a forklift, driving a truck, working a warehouse, working sales counter, and many of the managers that have worked for us or or sales people that have worked for us have done this a lot of those same footsteps. So they there’s nothing that they haven’t done that you can tell them all right, do you know how to do that? No, they’ve done it all. So they have the experience behind you can tell those stories and have that pushed out to markets where you need help. It’s powerful because it’s not a Shaheen family members saying, yeah, come work for us. It’s great. It’s somebody that’s an employee that loves working for the business, and they’re going to tell their story how for 40 years, for 30 years, they’ve been able to start a career path right right out of college, health benefits, a steady wage. I know a lot of parents right now that would love to have those kids that are still at home go work for builders general, because they’re gonna offer a paycheck and a start a career path, a 401, K health, dental, like you were in college, like two years ago, and now you have a career path, right So, and maybe that sticks, and maybe that’s your next sales manager, but, but we have to go out there and promote that. And social media again, you can target you can geo fence around your locations to say, hey, we’re looking for some good people. Come join some of our good people. And here’s your stories and those we post on our website for when we were running our career path campaigns for workforce development, because it was a real hard struggle, and it still is, because nobody thinks that the lumber and building material spaces may be sexy enough, maybe around here, they want to work on Wall Street. But guess what? A lot of kids might not have college in their in their future. They don’t want to take on the debt, right? So come work for us out of high school. Next week, I’ll be speaking at high school talking about just this, right, how you can come work for a company that’s family, owned and operated for 90 years, with 170 employees that are families and four counties in New Jersey, and it’s a great story. And we’ll, we’ll share the stories with people that have been with us for 20, 3040, years, because something’s got to be working. And instead of going to college, maybe you don’t want to be settled with debt. Come work for a company that’s going to give you a salary, a full package where mom and dad are gonna be like, thank God he’s out the house, where she’s out the house, and He’s off and running, but at least he’s doing something 40 hours a week, and he’s having success with it. And then once you move up, and you can keep promoted and move up, and next you know you’re that person. It’s putting your kids through college, because you started at a company that appreciates family, because we’re family owned and operated business. So,
Sally Traxler-Lacey
right? So covered all guys, you guys are hitting all the points, like you’re using social media for recruiting. You’re using it to promote your own business. You’re using it to help your customers promote their business. And you were talking about, you know, the stories of your employees, like, there, there’s so much content there, right? And if you’re not, if you’re not grabbing it, then you might be missing out. So you’re totally right. I had a point about you talking about how you were so surprised. Because of how many likes were on that one video of this truck dumping lumber, it’s like that makes a lot of sense to me, because I think that you know, content can fall into several different categories. Like that might be just entertainment, pure entertainment, which is one reason people go on social media when there’s the there’s another category which your testimonials might fall into. Is like persuasion, you know, like, here’s why you should work with us, and you can also, I mean, give that to your customers. So, yeah, it’s like, everything is content. Get out there and just take it and see what you can do with it. And
TJ
you just say, you know, you just have to be like, real deal, right? Like you were saying before stage rehearse. Nobody wants to see that, and they can see right through it. We had rail cars coming in one time into our yard to unload lumber that got a lot of likes. We had one of our employees that was with us for 40 years retire last year, that got a lot of likes. And then he went on to tell a story. He goes, You know what? Working for builders general? He just loved to drive a forklift, and that’s what he did. He did a great job. That’s that made him happy. That’s all he wanted to do. And he’s such a good guy down earth. And he said, You know what, working at builders general allowed me to buy my first car, let me buy my first house, then I got married, then I moved into a bigger house, like, you know, it’s genuine stuff like that that I don’t want to, we can’t tell that story, but have our our employees that can give those testimonials when you’re and for people to see that, I think it’s so powerful, and I’m so we are so grateful again, as a family, to be able to share these stories, because it’s it’s, it means so much more when it’s coming from somebody else. Yeah, and it’s especially when it’s genuine. It’s it’s all great, it’s all good stuff. And we really appreciate the information that that they share, because it’s important to be heard.
Sally Traxler-Lacey
So my final question for you, TJ, which is also an opportunity to just hit on anything else you wanted to touch on, is, what would you say to someone in the LBM industry who thinks that social media is a waste of time, you
TJ
know, every market is different, right? For sure, every market’s different, so but, but still, you know what, like I said at the beginning of this conversation, our world, in the LBM space, on a national level, has become smaller, right? Because of social media. We when I go to the LMC shows, when I go LBM strategies, when I go to any big trade show, whatever the relationships that I form, we stay connected. And it’s we get to the next show, it’s like, alright, TJ, where are you going to be on the floor? Meet me for lunch. I’m like, That’s awesome. Yeah. So So on a I’m just connecting and having relationships with other, as far as for me, other other business owners, executives, is huge. And it just, it just so that’s one example. When it comes to customers, it’s, it’s kind of the same thing, because everyone’s got social media, so why wouldn’t you be doing it, and maybe, maybe, maybe in those areas or surrounding areas, when you’re not in the metropolitan markets, like we are saddle between New York City and Philadelphia, and we’re an hour door to door from here in the Madison Square Garden downtown Manhattan, right? So, but we’re New Jersey, so we have to stay focused right in here, right right in here. But maybe you’re in Kansas or Oshkosh, Nebraska, it may. It might be a little bit more sparse, scarce. Still, you have to do a job, right? Because you’re there for a reason. People need to buy from you for a reason. You’re in business for a reason. So create the demand that people want by getting yourself out on social media, and that starts with brand awareness that matches up with the message that you’re trying to deliver. And if I’m in this area where I don’t think it’s worth it to me, well maybe it just could be a mindset, right? And a lot of times, mindsets need to change for you to see results, and if you’re stuck, then you’re stuck. There’s you can’t change a tiger stripe sometimes. But for me, you just gotta be take some risks. You’re gonna meet some criticisms, for sure. However, if you’re doing it with the right intent, you’re gonna go a little bit further than other people. And I know for a fact when we were down somewhere for something, and we had a bunch of different dealers, and at least four people come came up to me and said, Hey, TJ, what you guys are doing with social media is great. Can we talk about it? Because we’re struggling with it, right? And that was just dealers from the Northeast that I again, from the Northeast retail lumber Association. Then when we get together, and that’s what they said. So when you hear that feedback, that’s that, that’s it just makes you want to do more, like, a lot, lot more. Because, yeah, that’s, that’s just, that’s somebody that’s in your level. They’re not our competitors. But even a lot of our competitors, we all have, like, really good relationships too. But these are other people, I would say, a. One was from New York, one was from Massachusetts, and they made a point to come up to me and said, You’re doing a really good job. And that’s that, that’s, that’s, that’s satisfying in itself to me, so especially because we’re all trying to do the same thing, right? We’re all trying to sell our product to a builder or homeowner and and for us, for here that so that’s what I would say to that person said it’s a waste of time. Well, I guess it’s not because I have dealers coming up to me, saying that you’re doing a really good job doing it. So that should be that should change the mindset, because sometimes you have to, you just have to change it. Just take a risk and maybe get criticized. But guess what? So you do move forward. That’s all you can do. Well,
Sally Traxler-Lacey
I suppose I’ll be meeting you in October in person at LBM strategies. Can’t wait. Yeah, man, me too. See you in Nashville, and thank you so much for sharing everything you know with me and our audience today. Yeah,
TJ
no, absolutely, it’s been great. I’m glad we connected, for sure. And if you ever want to take a look at what we’ve done, go to builders general.com or builders general on LinkedIn, Instagram, and take a look at some of the stuff that we’ve done. Again, nothing’s perfect. It’s been an evolution. It’s a process, but you learn as you move on. And again, you have to take some risks. You have to try stuff that’s different, because if you don’t, then you’re just, it’s just not for you, right? So find somebody that works with you that can do it and is willing to have some courage to go out there and be the face of your company sometimes, if you have to, but just be creative, be have imagination, and just just keep trying new things. That’s all you can do, right? So yes, but thank you very much for having me on your show. I look forward to seeing you Nashville later this year, and appreciate the opportunity to hopefully share some insights about builders general New Jersey. So Thank.
