Industry Pulse (Q1 2026): From Slow Season to Smart Growth: Real Talk from the Field

TRANSCRIPT

William Hanke (00:00)
All right, welcome to another episode of Marketing Panes the podcast where we talk with real window treatment and awning professionals about what’s working, what’s changing and how they’re growing their business. I’m Will Hanke and today’s episode is our quarterly check-in where we zoom out a bit and look at what’s actually working in the industry right now. Today I’ve got two guests.

First of all, Adam Culbreath

Adam is the co-owner of Made in the Shade St. Louis, a Wildwood, Missouri native and a finance graduate from Murray State University. With a background shaped by travel to over 20 countries and studying abroad in Spain, Adam brings a global perspective to his work. Today, he runs the business alongside his brother, combining his entrepreneurial drive with the strong roots in his hometown.

Dustin Yocum is the owner of World Class Window Coverings, serving Contra Costa County, California. With over 20 years of industry experience from manufacturing to retail, Dustin leads a team dedicated to bringing personal relationships, listening to clients’ needs, and delivering world-class red carpet service. His hands-on approach ensures homeowners and businesses get creative, high-quality window solutions every

single time.

Guys, welcome to the show.

Adam Culbreath (01:21)
Thanks for having us.

William Hanke (01:22)
Yeah, appreciate you guys being here. let’s start with something simple. How has Q1 felt for you guys so far? Adam, you want to start?

Dustin Yocum (01:22)
Yes, thank you. Pleasure.

Adam Culbreath (01:31)
Sure, it’s been kind of odd. It was a little bit different than last year, but kind of a more seasonal, know, kind of went back to the general season that I think window treatments have where January, February is generally a little bit slower. And then it picks up once the warm weather hits with, you know, the early spring stuff. So, you we had a pretty slow January, February, but we’ve since made a lot of that up just with the business from this month and last month. So, which is…

William Hanke (01:47)
Yeah.

Adam Culbreath (01:57)
Pretty similar to how we started when I first started the business, know, the first several, couple of years before COVID and all the craziness of the, you know, all that brought, but I would say this one was pretty standard.

William Hanke (02:08)
Pretty standard.

And you’re in the Midwest, so we have four seasons in the Midwest. How about you, Dustin? I know California has one season, Summer.

Adam Culbreath (02:13)
Yeah, all the seasons.

Dustin Yocum (02:17)
Pretty much the weather was pretty consistent. Although we’ve had a lot of rain You know, which is great for us, but a little unusual. But yeah, similar like quarter one’s always a little slower And you know Right now we’re picking up so as it’s getting warmer people are wanting more exterior products We’re getting getting those calls coming in. So actually this month is we’re doing very well

William Hanke (02:24)
Yeah.

Okay, that’s great.

I’ve also heard it’s been really warm in California, unseasonably warm, so that probably drives a lot more of the exterior stuff.

Dustin Yocum (02:46)
Yeah, for March it’s been it’s been insane. yeah, it’s it’s the warmer weather brings brings people out wanting them to spend some money. So it’s been it’s been a good thing.

William Hanke (02:55)
Yeah. How does

your Q1 this year compare to your last year?

Dustin Yocum (02:59)
Well, it’s very different for us just because we merged with a new company. we got, I can’t even compare any numbers to any season we’ve ever had. this is all brand new us since we’ve merged with Winduology.

William Hanke (03:06)
Yeah.

Fair enough, that’s great.

Congrats on that growth, by the way, that’s awesome. What has been taking up most of your attention lately in the business?

Dustin Yocum (03:13)
Thank you,

Most of my attention, honestly, is just trying to generate leads and then put a system in place so that way we could nurture those leads and then handle those leads as they come in. So I think it’s mainly just working with the team and figuring out what we need to do so we can be consistent from start to finish for everybody. And we finally now have that team in place where we can do that.

William Hanke (03:37)
Nice, that feels good.

You got the hiring out of the way, now you just have to work on systems. Perfect.

Dustin Yocum (03:42)
That’s right. That’s right. Every day it’s just improving. That’s I mean, it’s never going to stop.

William Hanke (03:46)
It never does

stop. Yeah, the systems get better, but there’s always some sort of tweaking or update or something changes where you got to go back and redo something. How about you, Adam? What’s been taking up most of your attention lately?

Dustin Yocum (03:55)
That’s right.

Adam Culbreath (03:55)
yeah.

Right now, I would say we actually have kind of been actually hiring some installers. So we’ve been trying to implement a little bit more systems with that, trying to train new people for installation. It’s the hardest position we found to fill consistently and to have, you know, redundancy and quality. you know, we’re…

We’re actually losing my installer, which is my dad. He’s actually, he’s been working with us for, he joined us a couple of years after we started our company with my brother and I. And now he’s kind of moving on to another role kind of in the early stages of retirement, which is pretty exciting for him. So now we’re moving towards less family members into the business, which is nice, but also, you know, trying to create some processes where we can actually have people that are, you know, quality installers that can

join into the business, know what to expect, know what to do. So kind of starting to build those processes around them so that way we can grow. Because we’re getting a lot of leads and we have a good salesperson, a couple of good salespeople now, but we’re starting to need to focus on the supply part of the business rather than the demand.

William Hanke (05:05)
Nice. That’s great.

A lot of window treatment dealers are struggling to find installers. How did you guys find yours?

Adam Culbreath (05:12)
We’ve always found them from different methods, but for one, we actually used Indeed for an installer that we’re actually going to be hiring here at the end of this week, actually. But I found them through multiple different methods from other installers just referring us, as well as taking cards from handyman contractors that we liked. Sometimes when you show up to some of these jobs, you’re like,

you know, the fourth or fifth guy that is working on another project in that house while they’re finishing, you know, some space. So, you know, with that, we’ve always just asked for leads and are also just asked for referrals from the client themselves. You know, did you like your guy? Did you like how they did this or that? And a lot of these guys know how to do and install a lot of different products. They actually don’t really mess with window treatments too often is what we find, but they are willing and interested because you can make a lot of money doing it.

You know, and so it can be just a little add on. already have a lot of the tools. So we’ve been kind of pushing people that ultimately have some of have their own business and just want to grow, you know, an extra, you know, an extra thing that they can install to make some additional money. It’s a one day job. so it’s not something that’s going to totally rock their world. They can fill in, they can use it to fill in, you know,

kitchen remodels, bathroom remodeling stuff, if they have a couple days while the drywalls, butters, they’re in or the painters are finishing. So, found that to be kind of a unique fit. We found some really quality guys to do it.

William Hanke (06:31)
That’s a great way to do

it. Are you just 1099 those guys?

Adam Culbreath (06:34)
As of right now, yeah. So, but you know, as they grow and I think a lot of them like it, they see it can be simple, but there’s still enough challenge to what has to be done that there’s a decent amount of experience that needs to know like what you’re drilling into, how to fix stuff, how to cut things down if it’s needed to. But ultimately it’s a lot easier than remodeling a kitchen or a bathroom, you know? So it can be a good fit for a lot of people depending on at what point they’re at in their careers.

So, but yeah, that’s very nice.

William Hanke (07:01)
Yeah, really good. Really

good. Dustin, how about you on the hiring side? Anything going on there?

Dustin Yocum (07:05)
You know, I can relate to the Indeed theme, Indeed thing, and I can also relate to having a struggle finding qualified installers. That was our biggest challenge, I would say, more so two, three years ago, for a good stretch there, maybe four or five years, was hard for me to find anybody of quality that just had the integrity that we expect and the work ethic. So this year, the last couple of years, we’ve…

Adam Culbreath (07:26)
Yes.

Dustin Yocum (07:30)
We have some great installers, even the ones that we took over Windowology, they have a great installer. He’s a lead. Anything we throw at him, could be a high tech motorization job, hardwired, all the way down to drapery. He can do it in exterior. So we actually have a great team right now, a couple great in-house guys, and I use subs as well.

for overflow and actually to handle a lot of our exterior stuff. I’d rather have the guys, if they’re gonna do exterior work, I would prefer them to do exterior work every day. You learn all the tricks of the trade, you can be more efficient, you’re on autopilot with it. So that’s pretty much what we’re doing. We’ve got in-house guys to handle everything we can and then we sub out some of the overflow.

William Hanke (08:09)
Do you guys

tend to see it’s a breed of person that does exterior versus interior?

Dustin Yocum (08:14)
Yeah, yeah, know guys that put up pergolas and do some construction work, usually, that goes hand in hand, the awnings and the exterior screens. But yeah, but our in-house guys can do the exterior. So, I mean, I think it’s just a matter of them seeing it a few times and, you know, doing it wrong enough, long enough, you tend to figure it out.

William Hanke (08:32)
Yeah, yeah,

Adam Culbreath (08:34)
Yeah, I’d agree.

William Hanke (08:34)
go ahead.

Adam Culbreath (08:35)
lot of it’s like tools for us. It’s like what tools they have access to, what tools they bring. It’s a totally different subset of tools sometimes for some of those patio shades or the exterior projects.

William Hanke (08:45)
Yeah.

And I guess the training is a little different as well. How do you guys handle that?

Dustin Yocum (08:50)
I got, we actually have a manager that goes out on site and he’ll oversee everything and he’s seen it from start to finish, you know, for 10 years now. So there’s not a whole lot he hasn’t seen. So that’s usually how it goes. We hire a new guy. We’ll just send him out there for the first, you know, five, 10 installs just to make sure he can oversee everything. And the other ones doing, you know, the heavy lifting, because that’s the main thing with Onyx is.

And exterior is just how heavy those things are. You know, lift them up and over your head so you can be a great installer. But if you don’t have that strength, it’s going to be a challenge. So not anybody can do the exterior work or are willing to do it, I should say.

William Hanke (09:28)
Yeah. Yeah.

Very good.

Adam Culbreath (09:30)
Right? Yeah,

we’ve had, we have same kind of deal. Originally it was my dad that was kind of in charge of the installation stuff. So he would go out and kind of get the guy started, tell him where he needs to be, where he needs to go, what needs to happen, stuff like that. But eventually they get to the point pretty quickly, especially if they’re used to doing a lot of exterior installations that they’ll be able to pretty much look and see where, you know, generally where it’s going to need to be going. And so they get a pretty good idea as to.

how it needs to be mounted and stuff like that. But as far as the weight stuff, actually, we found a mechanical motorized lift actually. I haven’t purchased it yet, but I have some of our other franchisees have actually been working with it they really, really like it. I can post the link or send a link to you Will on it. But it’s a pretty large lift that actually will raise the awnings or the patio shades to

think it’s like 16 feet too if you want to get a big one. That has totally changed a lot of people’s business. It’s a couple grand though, but if you do a lot of exterior projects, mean, especially for a few years, I mean, that can be worth its weight. Honestly, it could probably pay for itself by just avoiding having an extra person on site to have to lift it on both sides. You could have one guy do a lot of it itself.

William Hanke (10:39)
Hmm. Interesting.

Yeah. Send me that link. I’ll put it down in the show notes for sure. Yeah. That’d be great. All right. So Q1, we’re pretty much at the end of Q1 when we’re recording this. It’ll probably go out a couple of days after we’re already into Q2. So what are you guys leaning into more as a business owner in Q2 than you have maybe in Q1?

Adam Culbreath (10:59)
For us, we’re actually really trying to build out our lead boomerang actually. we’ve been with lead boomerang now for about two years, I want to say. And we really want to get the workflow side of our business actually built out more so that we can automate a little bit more too. We’ve actually been incorporating as well lot of AI into our business a little bit. So, we do a lot of our order entry and

I’m quoting to with different softwares, but we’ve never had a real way to make it accurate and to make it where we can double check ourselves. So we’ve built actually an AI tool to basically where we can send reports and use that to cross check basically what we’ve been doing. So, and it’s already saved us a little bit of money just in the beginning, since we’ve just started this, it was like last week is when I built it. So.

It’s pretty exciting stuff, so I’m excited to continue to build it out. There’s a lot of tweaks that come with it, but it’s overall pretty simple.

William Hanke (11:53)
That’s awesome. What tool

are you guys using? What language model are you using for that?

Adam Culbreath (11:57)
Originally I built it with Chat GPT, but I actually switched it to Gemini. Just because we’ve, I’ve just saw, mean, Gemini is pretty interesting not to make it just like an ad for Gemini here, but I do really like having the multi dashboard usage. If you’ve experienced that where it actually will look at the different pages you have open on a website, which is the most integrative that I’ve seen AI be with how you use like an internet browser. So.

It’s amazing. Like I could have a picture of my drawings of a measuring sheet and my brother has done some, he doesn’t have good handwriting, I can be honest with you there. But the language model will look at the drawings and it will actually cross check and implement all the measurements into an Excel doc or into a report if you want it to. And then it’ll just automatically cross check what you have as well in the quote or what you’re gonna order on the.

Dustin Yocum (12:42)
and

Adam Culbreath (12:50)
dashboard or just on your page of the ordering software for the manufacturer you choose. it’s pretty amazing what’s coming, I think, or how it’s going to continue to be built out. It’s obviously really in the early stages of a lot of it, but I’m at a point now where I really don’t want to make any mistakes, any of these dumb mistakes that we have for ordering that come up. there’s so many buttons, there’s so many ways to mess this stuff up. And we found that if I could just have another way to, another set of eyes constantly.

to double check on and maybe just flag things that look odd or different or you choose the wrong color somewhere. There’s just a million ways to make it go wrong. So if we could do anything we can to help save us some money and it already has, it’s amazing.

William Hanke (13:32)
That’s great. I love that you’re

leaning into AI. love that you’re leaning into Lead Boomerang. Lead Boomerang is our CRM on steroids that we’ve built specifically for the window treatment industry. And Adam and Dustin are both our clients, so they get access to that as part of our program. So that’s awesome. I love to hear that. ⁓ Dustin, what is it that you guys are leaning into more this quarter?

Dustin Yocum (13:55)
You know, follow what Adam said along with lead boomerang. That’s the same idea. We’re trying to get more and more, get the team more more comfortable with it. So I know they’ve been meeting and getting more comfortable with it because we actually use lead boomerang to capture the leads, but we use HubSpot for nurturing the leads. we’ve always had HubSpot, so we’re kind of afraid to jump to all in with one and until we’re real comfortable with it know how to have it built out exactly the way we need it. But anyhow,

That’s, you know, as far as nurturing the leads and all that kind of stuff. But more in-house builds is my focus. I’m excited about, you know, we manufacture our own roller shades and we do it right in Pleasanton. So Pleasanton, California. And we have full control over the quality there and our guys are true craftsmen, you know, that build. And so that to me is what we’re.

Focusing on we’ve got a few good jobs We’re doing right now that we’re building but just getting that get that in the hands of our designers So they could start pushing it more. That’s that’s been my biggest focus for this year as well as just you know, selling our main vendors the Graver and Hunter and all that stuff

William Hanke (15:02)
⁓ We’ve seen

an increase in the amount of clients that we have that also have a manufacturing segment. So that’s interesting that you guys are doing that as well. And like you said, you can control the quality. You can control most of the entire process at that point.

Dustin Yocum (15:18)
Yeah, we, know, our minimums and maximums are going to be different than the large companies. So again, we just have more control and we build a great motorized shade. We could put any motor in there, but also repairs. Repairs is also a nice thing for us. And just having the capability, if we make a mistake, I could bring something back like a shutter and we could fix it right there in house where before we didn’t have the capability to do that. Everything was just reordered.

And if you don’t have the staff for that, that’s kind what we have to do. And it’s just a better service for our customers.

William Hanke (15:45)
Yeah. Yeah.

Is there anything in your business that was maybe a small change that you made that had a big impact?

Dustin Yocum (15:52)
Small change.

Honestly, mean, I don’t know. can’t answer what small change we made. I think it’s pretty much a big change, but just having a big enough team to build to operate the way I’ve always wanted us to operate. So I guess a small change would be sure to take and partnering with another company and now taking over Windowlogy where we have a much bigger team. That’s the biggest change.

William Hanke (16:14)
Okay, how about you, Adam?

Adam Culbreath (16:15)
would say probably that AI tool built, We calculated just from last year that we had probably close to $15,000, $10,000 of just remake orders, labor, additional costs of just lost product or damaged product or misordered product. So our goal right now is to get that to zero, obviously, as close as we can.

trying to use AI, I’d use a few different features to just get us to that zero number so we can really hone in our processes so we’re not wasting so much and really can overall just make us as lean as possible.

William Hanke (16:51)
Yeah. Yeah,

I really like that. I mean, that can be a really big impact at the end of the year, right?

Adam Culbreath (16:58)
Yeah, huge. mean,

William Hanke (16:59)
Yeah.

On the flip side of that, is there anything that you guys think is not working anymore?

Dustin Yocum (17:01)
off.

Adam Culbreath (17:04)
I’m a little bit worried about Google itself and how that’s being used now. It’s amazing how many clients we have too, that are using AI and that like are finding us sometimes through AI, but I don’t know. It’s a little scary because if you know, if you’re not the one that’s getting recommended, sometimes you’re not the one getting called. So I’m curious as to how that’s going to go. It’s not that it’s not working though. We’re still getting a lot of leads thankfully, and it’s still, and you know, I haven’t seen anything totally drop off yet, but I just foresee.

I’m curious as to how you’re, what you guys are thinking, Will, about that part, because I’m sure that’s stuff that you guys are experiencing already, maybe to some extent, maybe in some other areas too.

William Hanke (17:43)
for sure.

I would say month over month, our clients are slowly getting more referrals from chat GPT mostly. That seems to be the platform that most consumers dive into first. And I always like to watch my wife because I’m like super nerd into all this stuff, but she’s not, right? She’s like last week, hey, can you help me get GPT installed on my phone? I want to try it out. So I think that’s pretty common across the board.

Adam Culbreath (18:06)
Right.

William Hanke (18:10)
that people are starting to do that. And overall, it’s still three or 4 % of all search volume. But I see that growing. I saw a commercial on TV for Gemini over the weekend. So they’re really pushing it hard. Google’s also starting to add in some different, I guess I shouldn’t call them policies, but different things like if you do these things, AI is going to love you more and you’re going to be more recommended.

Adam Culbreath (18:10)
Thanks

William Hanke (18:34)
So that’s an interesting side of things as well, that they’re admitting basically that the AI machine is coming and we need to conform. I don’t know how else to say it.

Adam Culbreath (18:45)
Right. It’s similar because I mean, even with Google, how Google works now just for the general search feature. I mean, they’ve been doing that the same way since the beginning, you know, how you set up your website in a specific way for the crawlers to find this and that to help people, you know, get their answers. You know, it’s they’ve been playing that game of if you can make it and set it up and put it in the best pretty box that’s possible, you know, they’ll put you at the top. So, I mean, it’s probably not going to change, you know.

Dustin Yocum (18:46)
Okay.

William Hanke (19:13)
Yeah.

Yeah. Dustin, anything that you’re seeing that maybe isn’t working anymore?

Dustin Yocum (19:18)
No, because honestly, this is the first year in a while where things aren’t working well. Because we, you know, we rode the Costco train for so many years and really weren’t putting a bunch of time and energy into marketing. We just didn’t have a big enough team to get to it on time. So any money I would spend, was like almost like a waste of money. It felt like it would take two weeks to get to them. But now we’re starting to see a lot more leads come through both the website and

Adam Culbreath (19:23)
you

Dustin Yocum (19:46)
And I don’t know if it’s trying to pinpoint where exactly they’re coming from online, but we’re getting a lot more at least than we’ve had in the past. And I’m trying to get a few other things with direct mail, postcards. We’re going to be doing some trade shows and things like that. So I can’t answer that question. What’s not working? I haven’t really thought about that one yet.

William Hanke (20:03)
Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting you

bring up direct mail. We’re actually getting ready to launch a direct mail service because I think there’s still some viability there and it’s not an expensive proposition if you do it correctly, right? Something like the money mailer, probably not the best only because there could be two or three competitors in there as well. But some direct mail postcard or even a letter, those kinds of things can still get consumers attention.

Dustin Yocum (20:25)
staff room.

William Hanke (20:25)
Very cool.

So I want to talk also about emerging trends, customer expectations changing. Let’s talk about the emerging trends. Dustin, are you seeing any new trends right now that you can maybe align with and start to stay competitive?

Dustin Yocum (20:41)
Just a lot of motorization. feel like now since they took away the cords, we sell a ton of motorization. So that’s definitely a trend. A lot more exterior products. feel like clients are becoming more familiar with it. And so we’ve been selling a lot more of that, a lot more awnings and screens.

garages and stuff like that just to kind of seal off those garages to keep the bugs out but that’s all I can say with the trends that I’m noticing.

William Hanke (21:09)
Yeah, okay, how about you Adam?

Adam Culbreath (21:10)
would definitely agree on the exterior side. seeing it. We’ve probably doubled our exterior business in the last year or so. It’s pretty amazing how many people are learning about the screens and using basically just investing in the house outdoor spaces. That seems to be a big, big point of, you know, it’s almost an element of remodeling for people to where it’s a whole space that they can really use almost all year round if you design it correctly. So a lot more thoughts going into that stuff.

and planning and making it look really custom. We’re spending a lot more time on the custom looks of those two. So I would definitely agree with that. I’ve actually also, we’ve hired a designer that is, and there’s, we’ve hired a designer basically to solely focus almost on soft treatments too, which is not something that we’ve ever done. It’s before just been my brother and I, and we’ve been able to stay busy enough with just the shade part. But now that I have a full-time soft treatment designer for it, ⁓

She’s been just killing it. You know, I think there’s still a need and there’s still a huge amount of people that want something. I think a lot of people just write it off and say, you know, it’s not that popular anymore. It’s not that it’s not and it’s really not the case. Honestly, I think a lot of people still want soft treatments in the house, but they want them to be maybe not so dark or heavy and they don’t want it to be so obtrusive how that maybe how they used to be. Now it’s about kind of like lighter airy flowy types of feel.

And you know, I was just watching some HGTV actually last night with my wife and I watch it sometimes very sparingly, but I need to watch it more. But it’s amazing what you can learn still just from the window treatment side. Like they all, every window has draperies with it. And it’s not, it’s kind of something I wrote off for a while, but it’s still in all the design magazines, all the shows, those pieces. mean, it’s still something heavily implemented and people are looking for. And so if you can…

consider to be a big part of your offering, you can make a lot of money doing it too. So you just can’t shy away from it.

William Hanke (23:00)
Yeah. Right. If you

go down that road and start to offer that, are you going to look for a work room in your area to kind of help partner with that? Would that be how you would approach it?

Adam Culbreath (23:11)
Potentially, yeah, there’s a lot of steps and like different ways you could elevate it to Right now we’re kind of doing it in the simplest fashion working with horizons. They have a designated workroom already out in Chicago So we basically send all of our stuff to them They make it and then we’ll install a forum from there, but we’re able to take over at least the design portion They have a lot of great fabrics You know, and then we also mail you can do a huge portion of their product is actually customers own material, which is where they’ll

Basically a customer will just give us the material that they wanted to be a draper, to be a pillow or whatever and then have them make it from there too. but yeah, that’s, there’s a lot of opportunity with it. There’s actually, there’s several workrooms just in St. Louis. So mean, there’s, there’s a need.

William Hanke (23:54)
Yeah, definitely,

definitely. Are there any products right now that you think are overhyped and not what people should really be paying attention to right now?

Dustin Yocum (24:02)
Mmm.

William Hanke (24:03)
No.

Adam Culbreath (24:04)
That’s a tough

one. would say like vertical blinds, maybe I really wish people would stop buying them. Cause all I do is replace them. But you know, people buy them like crazy and I just can’t stop replacing them because they just break in a week. And it’s like, I don’t know how to tell somebody that I’m going to, I can replace them, but it’s going to break in a week just like this one is. So, yeah, I mean, there’s just, there’s when there was the stuff that’s junk is still junk, you know, ⁓

Dustin Yocum (24:06)
That’s a nice start.

I didn’t know those were overhyped.

Adam Culbreath (24:30)
And but sometimes people that’s what that’s what you want. That’s what they like. Can’t convince them otherwise, but

William Hanke (24:36)
That’s interesting. Anything on your end, Dustin?

Adam Culbreath (24:37)
I don’t know what you think of anything, Dustin.

Dustin Yocum (24:39)
No, I think it’s just I can tell you we sell a lot of lot of roller shades that’s probably like our number one product right now in-house and Still a good amount of shutters surprisingly even though shutters aren’t as popular as they were you know ten years ago We still sell a good amount of shutters

Adam Culbreath (24:58)
know, shutters are one of the only products that I really never replace, actually. It’s really odd. We basically will, we actually have a service too, which has been a kind of unique connection for us, but we help window replacement companies actually will go in and remove shutters for the replacement companies so that way they don’t have to touch them and then we’ll replace the windows and then we’ll go in and put them back in for clients.

It’s been a great referral source for us and a great lead source for us. Not necessarily a huge moneymaker, but it keeps our guys busy and it’s overall pretty easy work. that’s the only product that I can, it’s amazing that you can charge for that service for that product is that people still want their stuff even when they get a brand new Windows. And that’s pretty much exclusively Shutter almost.

William Hanke (25:44)
I like that.

Are you guys asking for reviews when you go in and do that?

That would be a great way to run up your reviews without a ton of work.

Adam Culbreath (25:47)
yeah.

Dustin Yocum (25:49)
yeah.

Adam Culbreath (25:51)
Yeah, yeah, we do. We’ve gotten a ton of repeat business from it. It’s amazing. Once they once they like you get to know you and trust you, know, I mean, doesn’t matter what you did for them. You know, you can you can get make it into a warm lead and some future business.

William Hanke (26:04)
Great,

that’s great. All right, let’s talk a little bit about tech and tools. Adam, you’ve already mentioned that you guys are starting to use AI more in your business. And Dustin, you mentioned motorization. Do you think motorization in particular is now becoming expected instead of optional?

Dustin Yocum (26:24)
I would say yes. I’d say even though it’s a higher ticket item and not everyone has the budget form, it’s almost necessary in the home now without courts. I don’t know. It just seems like a lot of clients now are requesting that. I’d like to get a percentage there, but I’d say it’s a good 50%, 60 % of our jobs have some kind of limitation.

William Hanke (26:42)
Okay. Yeah, nice.

Adam, are you seeing something similar in the Midwest with the motorization?

Adam Culbreath (26:48)
I would say so, we have, it just depends. But for anything high up, it’s pretty much always default now to motorization. Sometimes before, they would, you would almost try to implement some sort of like cord or rod. I mean, sometimes they try to get away with it, for the most part, think people are generally pretty accepted now with the motorization stuff. They’re still pretty blown away too by the chargers that they’ve, there’s still a lot of people learning about this.

the lithium ion that it’s changed over to that. So once you kind of educate them a little bit and they realize they don’t have to recharge it every month, you know, or every couple of weeks, it’s a kind of a game changer for them and they will generally go for something like that.

William Hanke (27:28)
Are you

guys seeing any ⁓ AI integrations with what you’re doing in the home?

Adam Culbreath (27:33)
I have not, we still just have the same smart home systems. It’s just still so early. You know, I think it’s coming though. I mean, this stuff is going to just totally change, only, I mean, more, tons of industries, but ours as well. I mean, it’s going to be coming because of the smart home stuff, I think, especially. Cause there’s going to be a lot that like, especially with Google and like how they have, or even at Amazon, how they have.

the devices that you can talk to in the house. A lot of them don’t have the AI so much built into them yet, but it’s coming. I’ve been learning a lot about how they’re getting to that point and it’s going to help make the process a little bit more seamless. So the manufacturers are gonna probably be developing maybe another kind of motor too. There’s gonna be more coming down the pipeline. So hopefully that makes the setup a little bit easier too.

The motorization setup stuff has gotten simpler over time here. And actually I even use AI just to ask it questions when I don’t want to call into the manufacturer to figure out how to program it. You know, sometimes that’s just faster. but I’ve asked a few as they go, but I think they’re still, they still got a little bit to go.

William Hanke (28:37)
Yeah,

that brings up an interesting point. You there’s a big joke about YouTube University is where a lot of people would go to learn how to do stuff. I wonder if that is shifting to a GPT University now.

Adam Culbreath (28:49)
It can easily be done. Yeah, it’s all on there.

William Hanke (28:49)
Yeah.

Dustin Yocum (28:51)
Guarantee

that yeah, I know I use it for that way more than YouTube. I rarely go to YouTube anymore

William Hanke (28:53)
Interesting.

Interesting. Okay.

Adam Culbreath (28:57)
Yeah, it takes longer, you know, where you get the answer in two seconds from chat. The only difference is that sometimes it may not be so accurate though. You may have to troubleshoot it a little bit. So, but you know, if you get it right, then it’s worth it. It saves you a couple of minutes.

William Hanke (29:08)
Yeah. Yeah, it brings

up a good point about maybe using GPT and then checking with Gemini and see how the answers work together or if they’re totally different.

Adam Culbreath (29:17)
A lot of these companies now are almost like adding their guides and things to the softwares too. like the AI agent I built, I mean, you technically could build another agent and just put in all the remote guides into the agent. it literally takes like 20 minutes to do now. It’s amazing how fast it can be done, but you just drop in the guides. I dropped in all the guides for my shutter stuff. So it like cross references all my shutter orders, you know, and

And it’s pretty amazing. mean, that’s is going to be pretty easily accessible and just get more accurate. So yeah, it’s going to make it even more efficient.

William Hanke (29:50)
Yeah.

Adam, I don’t want to take this off too much of a tangent, but I think a lot of people would be curious just about how you got started. Like what did you do to get started with the AI to start building an agent?

Adam Culbreath (30:03)
It’s so simple. know what? I think a lot of people try to make it more than it is, but I’ve actually just, if you change your brain to think, if there’s a question that you don’t know the answer to, who would I ask? Well, just asked Chet, I just asked Gemini, how do I build an AI agent? And it literally gave me a whole step-by-step process on how to do it. And I’m not kidding you, it took me 20 minutes. At least for Gemini, that was pretty simple. I can’t vouch for the other ones. I don’t know.

There are a lot of other options and other ways to do it and they will tell you too how to do it on their software is because they want you to stay on their software. But for Gemini at least they have Gems which a Gem is just what they call their AI agent basically. It takes five seconds to build. It’s included in your monthly subscription basically. You can build I guess as many as you want. I haven’t maxed it out yet. But you basically tell this Gem you say and it

William Hanke (30:47)
you

Adam Culbreath (30:52)
And you prompt it and say, you are a professional, you know, quote auditor, like it’s one I built. So you’re going to audit all my quotes. I’m going to send you my quote and I’m going to send you my measuring sheet and you’re going to have all the information of all my manufacturers. And I want you to recognize or flag any details that are wrong or that could be mistakes. And it looks at every single line item and it does it in like 10 seconds and it’s flags my few things. And then it tells me.

here’s some major things to identify and it’ll give me like, this has been approved. This one looks good. Or it’ll say this, this failed, you know, as an auditor, that’s just one way to do it. You know, I mean, and it’s, it’s free and it’s so easy. I mean, and then it’s amazing too, because even in the gem of the AI auditor, you basically say like, as an AI auditor, what do I do? Well, I want you to do these things, right? You make a list, but then you can use AI to also make that list. It’ll say,

Dustin Yocum (31:27)
Awesome.

Adam Culbreath (31:43)
you put the list in, then you can run, press a button that’s built into the gem. And it says, make this more robust, make this like something that’s more functional and maybe a prompt that’s gonna be better. And it just takes what you wrote and makes it even more robust. So it knows how to do even more. It’s only gonna do ultimately what you tell it. So like in some ways, the more you tell it, you know, the more accurate it can be. So, and it’s, can do anything. I mean, it’s…

William Hanke (32:06)
Yeah.

Adam Culbreath (32:09)
It’s gonna be, it’s pretty crazy. I’ve really enjoyed messing around with it.

William Hanke (32:10)
Yeah, very cool. That’s

cool. Dustin, any tools that you’re using to make your business run a little bit more efficiently right now?

Dustin Yocum (32:15)
Okay.

⁓ SOP’s we’re building out SOP’s for about every process, every, every part of the business. so that’s one, helps a lot when you’re bringing out someone, you bring onboarding somebody, cause then we have an S O P both written and a video of a hiring process and all the steps that it takes and what they’re going to need to get up and going. Same thing with, you know, off boarding somebody at the same, same process, but, I’m still

The thing is they just keep building out, building out, building out. I’m not even caught up to looking to see what we have yet. So I’m just now really starting to dissect it and seeing what they’re doing. We have an internal website that’s been built that’s just everything from the SOPs to our numbers to you name it, like anything that’s part of the business, it’s all in that internal website. And again, I’m still dissecting it. So I couldn’t even speak too much about it, but it’s pretty darn cool. And now I see where all the time has been.

spent on the last six months. Other than that, haven’t done a whole lot of AI stuff, although I’m excited about it. We have done a lot with chatgpt and use that for conversation and just if we need to respond to a client or just something just to kind of help give us more information than we may have on our own.

So AI I’ve used a little bit but nothing too cool. I would love to get more familiar with it. That is the direction we’re going. I know that.

William Hanke (33:35)
Okay, I love the idea

of adding video to an SOP. And we do that. Obviously we’re very technical. So it’s not just a list of things, click here, click here. But if you have a video attached with it to also do that you’re showing the thing that you’re trying to teach, it really improves the quality of the output, obviously. And I think a lot of people learn better from the visual side of things versus just reading something.

Dustin Yocum (34:02)
Absolutely.

William Hanke (34:02)
Very cool.

That’s great. All right. Let’s talk about external factors. Anything that you guys are seeing related to seasonality, pricing, supply, anything along those lines that have impacted you lately? We’ll start with Dustin.

Dustin Yocum (34:17)
Yeah, we’re just shocked by how cheap everything is these days that you know the cost from vendors and it’s just great No, it’s just the inflation is insane. You know what we sell a sell shape for these days versus back when I was selling You know 10 12 years ago a couple hundred bucks two to three hundred bucks and now it’s like 1200 bucks for a window but I think that’s the biggest thing is inflation

cost of and it’s across the board. We know this in all industries. So people are starting to expect it now, but it’s it’s I’m curious when this is going to stop, you know, when are we finally going to, you know, say enough is enough and start pushing back and get these costs down. So I think that’s the biggest driving factor. Although people are still buying. I don’t know how they’re affording everything, but ⁓ yeah. That’s right.

Adam Culbreath (35:02)
credit card

William Hanke (35:05)
Yeah, credit card companies are

the winners here, I guess. Adam, anything on your end that is impacting your business right now?

Adam Culbreath (35:12)
⁓ I would say, I mean, definitely, obviously costs, everything’s gone up so much. And then just like recently with gas stuff too, there we’ve seen a couple, you know, a couple of increases as well with, for manufacturers, just these service charges that pop up with gas. I’ve only been in the industry though, for about six years. So I couldn’t tell you, I wasn’t here for like some of the other crazy, you know, variations in the economy, but, I think those things are.

William Hanke (35:33)
Yeah.

Adam Culbreath (35:36)
It’s pretty evident that they’re working on margins that are, guess, are pretty fair or pretty thin to where they feel like they still need to increase them, even including gas sometimes, just to continue to make the margin that they’re looking for for some of these manufacturers. So some ways that shows me that we’re getting at least a decent deal on some stuff if they’re still needing to increase their prices and those things. But it’s hard to say.

People are still buying though, like you’re saying. mean, it hasn’t scared off a lot of people. We’re still breaking our revenue records each year, thankfully, at least showing some growth. It’s not going, we’re not doubling it like it was like COVID, but it’s still at least showing some growth. At least in our area, there’s a lot of homes being built. People are still buying homes and wanting to have a house. And so that’s gonna continue to keep us pretty busy if we can always.

William Hanke (36:14)
Yeah.

Adam Culbreath (36:25)
do those projects for people and working on existing homes. So at least those factors and how the cost of the house is at least continue to stay consistent or increasing. I mean, those are all good factors for us. Once, if people stop buying houses, that’s when I start to get a little bit more worried, but with demand being so high, I feel pretty good about it still.

Dustin Yocum (36:47)
See, we’ve noticed a decrease in building lately. And I’ve talked to a brother-in-law who works for a large builder for Lenar. And they’re slowing way down right now. Yeah, I think it does have to do with information.

William Hanke (36:53)
the level of recording of this.

Adam Culbreath (36:58)
Really.

That’s you probably do with your area.

Well, you, cause you’re California. Yeah. So you’re in the probably the, you’re in the most expensive, some of the most expensive area in the entire world, honestly. And it’s funny because I’m in the, one of the least expensive areas in the entire, in least in the U S right. Which in St. Louis and Missouri. So, Oh, really? Okay.

Dustin Yocum (37:04)
Yeah, Bay Area. ⁓

Yeah, I actually live in Tennessee. I live in Tennessee.

This is in Bay Area. But yeah, we left for, you know, for those reasons. You can get a little bit more for your money out there.

Adam Culbreath (37:28)
Gotcha, yeah, yeah, exactly. you’re

back.

William Hanke (37:33)
I’m here. Yeah, I don’t know what happened. ⁓

Dustin Yocum (37:33)
⁓ my.

Adam Culbreath (37:35)
It’s all good.

Dustin Yocum (37:38)
Hey Will, was almost

like you told us to put on a black shirt or something. We’re all in uniform.

William Hanke (37:41)
Yeah, I’m glad you guys got the memo. I appreciate that. All right, a couple more questions and we’ll finish up here. I know it’s getting close to our time. Any specific underrated tool right now that you guys are using?

Dustin Yocum (37:44)
Yeah, thank you. Well prepared.

Adam Culbreath (37:54)
tool.

Dustin Yocum (37:54)
Well, he mentioned the lift. I think that’s an underrated tool because we’re not using it yet. I am familiar with them. But the lift is something that I do want to invest in this year just to kind of take the strain off the guys so we don’t have any worker comp claims. That would be very nice. But little tools, it would have to just be these CRMs, know, the lead boomerang and all that with all the automation. I think that’s.

that’s definitely the direction we’re going and nurturing those leads and having it systematic so you’re not… a human doesn’t have to put all their time and energy into it.

William Hanke (38:24)
I love that you use the word nurturing. think that’s a huge piece of it. It’s not just a one-time transaction, right? People have to be touched on multiple platforms, multiple ways before they decide to engage with your business. So that’s interesting. How about something outside of business that keeps you sharp? Adam?

Dustin Yocum (38:37)
there.

Adam Culbreath (38:41)
Something outside of business that’s keeping me sharp.

basically gone into like a wellness weight loss program. So I’ve actually been working out. The only time I realized that you can really do that at this point in our exercise is pretty much in the morning. I’m pretending to be a morning person, which I’m a very much a night owl. So trying to make that work, getting up a little bit earlier now and it helps a lot. It’s hard though. It’s almost impossible. Honestly, it’s one of those things, like I couldn’t do it on my own. I had to

basically find someone that I was willing to also wake up with me. But I know that about myself and I was like, you’re going to be my gym partner and you know, I’m going to teach you how to lift and he’s going to teach and he’s going to just show up and that’s all I need. And that’s what works for me. I, but it’s helped so much in just my mental state and just general health. mean, you gotta do, you gotta find ways to.

William Hanke (39:18)
You

Adam Culbreath (39:33)
help yourself as well as take a vacation every once in a while. Cause you can spend a ton of time on this stuff. I mean, you could be in it all day and thinking about it all night and all weekend. But you know, one of the best things you can do is just take a couple of days and, and not think about it for a little bit. Cause it makes you, it just gives you, it’s amazing how it’s revitalized me and my energy for this year. I took like a little vacation in January, just cause it’s generally the season of when it’s slower for us. And man, I just, it just.

completely changes you in some ways. mean, it really has given me so much more energy for the year. It makes me more excited.

William Hanke (40:05)
Yeah, that’s great. Your health is your wealth, right? ⁓ And having an accountability partner in anything you’re doing, really, there’s that little thing in there that you don’t want to let somebody else down, right? It really drives you. Yeah. Yeah, very cool. Dustin, if somebody’s feeling stuck right now as a window treatment dealer, what do you think this one move they should make?

Adam Culbreath (40:07)
Yeah.

Right? Definitely. That’s it.

Dustin Yocum (40:28)
Just don’t overcomplicate it. Keep it simple. Sometimes we overthink things and that and just trying to grow too fast. I think you should put the right team in place, the right systems in place before growing so that way when you do grow, you’re able to get position to maintain that and do a good job at it. But that’s it. Just keep it simple. That’s the philosophy I used since we did the merge because we felt like they were very techy, very complicated.

We just like to keep it very simple. that’s my biggest tip is just keep it simple. Don’t overthink things.

William Hanke (41:00)
that Adam, how about you? If somebody’s feeling stuck right now, what do you think is a move they should make?

Adam Culbreath (41:05)
I think a lot of people get stuck in the motion of, I was definitely there for a little while. had like a year or two where I felt like I wasn’t ever making any progress in terms of growth for the company. wasn’t really, it’s like you kind of get in the motions of the day. And I think a big thing that helped push me was honestly finding some mentors or people that

can continue to push you to think about things differently, but also like putting yourself into just more difficult situations into where you can learn. I mean, I think a lot of people get comfortable with what you know and what you do and you can sell the same, you know, roller shade things all day long. But if you’re never really pushing yourself to learn or grow from it, you’re only ever going to know that or do that. And so it’s like, for me,

I really wanted to, I guess you’re going to do it for as long as you’re not sick and tired of it, but eventually you’re going to get sick and tired of being sick and tired. so, until that point comes is when you’re going to realize like, these are one of the changes that need to happen. This is what needs to be, how I can shake up my company and to be kind of more what I want it to be. but it just depends on where your drive is.

⁓ Sometimes it depends on the personality that you have working with you too. It’s a big element of who you’re working with or who you’re around or if you’re just by yourself, kind of what you’re selling, you know. So there’s a lot of ways to get stuck but there’s a lot of ways to get unstuck too.

William Hanke (42:32)
Yeah, yeah, I love that. Yeah, thank you guys both for being on the podcast today. Really excited for Q2. I think it’s going to be a fantastic one for our industry in general and really appreciate you guys insight into everything that’s going on has gone in Q1 and looking towards Q2 as well.

Adam Culbreath (42:50)
Thank you, Will.

Dustin Yocum (42:51)
Thank you for having us.

William Hanke (42:52)
Yeah, appreciate it.

Yeah. Wow, what a great conversation with Adam and Dustin today.

We covered everything from what’s working right now to where the industry is heading. If you picked up even one idea from this episode, send it to someone else in the trade who could use it. And don’t forget to follow marketing Panes for more conversations like this. Thanks for listening and we’ll catch you in the next episode.