The following is a transcript from our latest podcast episode. New episodes every Wednesday - available on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Spotify.

Roni:

Thanks for joining me today. I'm here with Heather Eikenberg with Elaire Homes, and we're going to talk about life and business.

Heather, thank you for being with me today.

Heather:

Absolutely. Thank you so much for inviting me. This is very exciting.

Roni:

It is exciting. So you and I have been friends for a long time.

Heather:

Yes, a long time when I think about it because you know how I refer to that commercial that you may or may not have been in all those years ago.

Roni:

You're referring to the boss commercial when my now 15 year old was... Oh, I don't know, maybe three or four months old.

Heather:

Oh, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Not to date you or anything. I mean, you still look great today, but yes.

Roni:

Yeah, it's been a few years. So I have watched you grow in business and kind of segued into some custom home building and representing a builder now. But you and I met a couple of weeks ago, right when you had joined that company and you were talking about kind of the unbelievable opportunity. Your phone rang basically out of the blue.

Heather:

Literally. Yes.

Roni:

Yes. And you were given the opportunity to start working for a company. And your question kind of was in your mind, and what you described to me is a little bit unbelievable. How did you get to this point that this opportunity landed on your plate?

Heather:

Absolutely. So without dating myself too terribly much, I started out about... Gosh, been almost 20 years ago now, and I worked for a very well known real estate company here in the low country for almost 14 years. So anything that came across the... I mean, I'm sorry, came out of the ground, came across my desk. So that could be down to the minutiae of naming streets, getting permits and things from municipalities, you name it. I did it. And then it came to a point in my career there where there was nowhere to go. There was nowhere to grow, and I don't sit still well, and I don't sit behind the desk well, and I had an opportunity to actually go and take that knowledge that I had gained on the development side of real estate and just focus it all on countertops. So I went to work for a local fabricator who just also happened to be my sister, and learned everything there is to know about stone, to the point where I walk in restaurants and bars and people's houses and can identify what they've got going on there.

And we had a great run doing that. And then I had an opportunity to go and work for a stone wholesaler, which I did for a short little time. And like you were mentioning, I got a call out of the blue one day sitting at my desk at the job previous to this one. And it was one of the builders that I had called on when I worked for my sister in an outside sales capacity. And he asked me, "Hey, what are you doing?" I said, "Nothing. What are you doing? What a nice surprise." And yeah, he said, "Would you like to have coffee?" I said, "Sounds great." So we had coffee. That was a Tuesday. We had coffee on Friday, and I literally had no idea what he wanted to talk to me about. But fortunately for me, it was the dream job that I never knew existed. That's what I tell people.

Roni:

And one thing that you had said to me was the persistence.

Heather:

Yes.

Roni:

That was a term that you used, and I think in business in general, but definitely as a fellow woman in business, persistence is kind of the name of the game, right?

Heather:

Absolutely, it is. The squeaky wheel gets the oil. You can use that old analogy because that is definitely this kind of thing. So my new boss, as he is now, really a mentor, believe it or not, because he is younger than me. That's why I say that. But anyway, he said that he had had a layer come and actually do an assessment of his franchise because he has a long-term goal, talking 10, 15, 20 year goal for his company. And he had them come in and take a look at how he could make that move to where he wants to go for his future goals. And he really had a vision that he needed somebody to come into an operational role. Well, when they did the assessment, they said, no, Michael, you as the owner need to just be the owner and run all this operational things.

You need somebody to come in and do the things that you're not comfortable with, getting in those people's faces repeatedly, professionally, politely. But it's just an area where he doesn't typically feel comfortable. So he said, as soon as they told me that I immediately thought of you, which first was a huge compliment for somebody to call you out of the blue. And then we kind of chuckled because I said, well, you might know something about me being persistent. That's how I got your business in the first place. And he laughed. There might have been a Bundt cake in there too, with a little bribery. But that's how we really struck up our relationship.

Roni:

And to your point, and I have leveraged myself in business through the use of other people that are better than me. When I first started thinking about a team, I thought, I'm so busy that I don't have time to do everything and do it to the type A diligence that with exactness and just to the excellence that I really wanted to be accountable to. And so I started looking for people that were like me. I missed the mark because really what I now know as I grow as a leader is I got to find people who their strengths are some of my weaknesses. Right?

Heather:

That's exactly right.

Roni:

Just like you and Michael and business compliment each other. He's got his strengths. You've got your strengths. And they don't necessarily match, but your values and your beliefs and the way you want to operate the business and the idea of how to grow the business is similar.

Heather:

Yes, our goals are definitely aligned. And one thing that I will say about Elaire is that they really invest in their people to learn how they think, learn how they process information, how they share ideas. And you don't really think too much about that on the front side. But as the owner operator, he tells me that it really helps him understand why I do the things I do in the order that I do them. So it's very interesting, and it's all about the work-life balance and how we can elevate each other.

Roni:

Yes, yes. Well, let's talk about custom home building for a minute, because from a real estate standpoint, I get a lot of people who are interested in custom building or large scale renovations, but the whole idea scares them a little, right? They don't know who to turn to or where to start. So give me briefly, just an idea. If a client were to come to you today, if I were to refer somebody to Elaire Homes and they wanted to start just brainstorming with you, what would the process look like?

Heather:

Sure, sure. So everything is a little bit different because as a custom home builder and remodeler, everything is going to be curtailed to that particular individual of their family, their lifestyle, their long-term goals for their home. One thing that Elaire does that's a little bit different I think than most general contractors or a handyman service that you might call on is we are very into the planning portion of it. And by that I mean we come you, let's say you call us, you want to remodel your bathroom. So we come over, we take a look at your bathroom. We ask you, what is your vision? What do you want? What color schemes? We ask a lot of questions. We sort of evaluate the space. And based on our previous experience, we're able to put together what we call a project feasibility overview. And what that does is that gives you a high, low end range.

It's not just a solid quote that we email over to you. We put it together based on our feedback from you, and then we come back and present it to you as a project. We like to look at it as we are your trusted advisor. We kind of speak on your behalf, look out for you. That's why we are accountable to all of our sub-trades. Anything that is ordered and purchased through us is warrantied through us. So in that process of planning, there is a cost associated with that. And sometimes people can be the least bit skeptical, but once they really get to understand why we do that, it makes perfect sense. Because in all of the planning, what you're really doing is mitigating as much risk as possible. We get to understand that you want two sinks and a bathtub and no shower and that sort of thing, and really dial into exactly what you want and you need for your home.

So that's what sets us apart a little bit. So once we go through planning, we come back and we propose like, okay, this is your final budgets. We're really kind of have nailed it down, gotten to exactly where we want to be. And at that point, you can either say yay or nay. So what people don't understand that I think is really crucial. If you pick a contractor and they quote you X dollars, and you say, great, go ahead. But you don't do that planning and they open up a wall, or they pull up your floor and there's mold or there's termite damage or anything like that, you haven't planned. And so you're not expecting this additional cost, and maybe it's $200, maybe it's $20,000, but the planning portion of what we do really makes a difference.

Roni:

One thing that you said early on was what the long-term vision is. And that's where it is time consuming upfront for that planning process and where your expertise and where Michael's expertise can really play in. Because there's a lot of contractors that might be able to execute a project. There are few that really have the... To be able to counsel somebody to get to that vision to then implement

Heather:

That's exactly right. So people, they watch HGTV. Who doesn't watch HGTV?

Roni:

Listen, I have a love hate relationship.

Heather:

Exactly.

Roni:

People, get off course here for just a moment. People always say you, what's your favorite show on HGTV? Listen, I do this for a living. I don't have to be entertained by television.

Heather:

That's exactly right.

Roni:

To get into the houses.

Heather:

And they'll say, oh, I saw X, Y, Z, and I love this. And I'm like, I love all those things too.

Roni:

Let's come back to reality.

Heather:

Yeah. We're not in Hollywood with all the cameras and the glam.

Roni:

That's right. And unlimited budgets and... Yeah. So, well, let's shake it up a little bit and talk about you personally, because you are a longtime resident of Somerville.

Heather:

Yes.

Roni:

Yeah. Born and raised in this area. Family's very invested in this area. I know your mom. I know your dad. I know your sister. And y'all have had a strong presence in Somerville, Dorchester County for your whole life.

Heather:

A long time. Yeah. We moved here in 85 when I was 10. So yeah, I just dated myself, but that's okay. But what I like to laugh about is when I went to school here, there was one high school, Dorchester Road was two lanes, and Berlin Myers did not exist. So to see the growth in how Somerville has really grown up and out, used to be just kind of think of the downtown area, the Garons, the Hutchinson Square over there. But now it's so much more than that. I mean, between Nexon and Kane Bay and Volvo and just all those things, we're going to run out of room eventually.

Roni:

There's two sides to every fence. And some people don't like to see growth. Some do. Which side of the fence are you on?

Heather:

Oh, I'm all about growth. Without growth, there's no return on your investment.

Roni:

It makes it community.

Heather:

Yes.

Roni:

It makes it community. Like the people here that are finding livelihood and giving back to support the community. That's what it's about. That's the side of the fence I'm onto. I love seeing growth, responsible growth.

Heather:

Responsible growth. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Roni:

What would be something, and I'm putting you on the spot here, what would be one thing, maybe two things that you would say are the biggest changes in Somerville from let's say 85 when you moved here to today?

Heather:

Really just the roads and the infrastructure and how you get from point A to point B. I mean, there used to be kind of one way in and one way out. And now, I mean, I could sit here and tell you six different ways I could go home from this point kind of thing. That would probably be number one. And I think I just continue to be amazed at the general population growth. I mean, not just the homes and the apartments and the storage facilities and the new retail things, but just the number of people that come to this city on a daily basis. I mean, it really surprises you if you get down into those statistics.

Roni:

So they say that the net number of people that Charleston, Metro Charleston gain each day is 33.

Heather:

Wow.

Roni:

33. Now, that's accounting for the people that are leaving or death or whatever. And also the people that are migrating to this area. So we are a net gain of 33 people per day, but we can see why. There's a huge level of economy that support that growth and climate. And I get a lot of people that come here for political reasons. It doesn't matter what side of the fence you're on that one, it's just a good environment for people of all ages to that's to come to. Whether it's young, and they're looking for the hip life down in Charleston, which is where I lived when I first moved to Charleston, was downtown, right there on Meeting Street and then up by the Citadel for several years.

And I loved that lifestyle when I was young, and there's a lot of people that are down there. Or when I started looking at, okay, I want to raise a family. Where am I going to live? Well, I'm going to live right in the heart of Somerville.

Heather:

And you did.

Roni:

And I did.

Heather:

You did. Yeah. You sure did.

Roni:

And I still do, and I love it here. I opened this Callow Williams office or helped to open this because I love to work where I live.

Heather:

I was going to say.

Roni:

I want to keep my circle very tight.

Heather:

Exactly. Exactly. I mean, even just the things that we've talked about recently that you have going on with the tree lighting coming up, and we had a great event this past week with our builders and brews and things. But I just think it's so neat to see how like-minded people can come together, share their visions, collaborate with one another, and just both be equally successful. We've kind of adopted the philosophy of collaboration over competition because it's all the two heads are better than one. I can sit here and throw out analogies till we're blue in the face, but there really is something to be said about that.

Roni:

There is. And I appreciate you coming on the show. You and I are very like-minded, and we certainly like to collaborate and share business amongst each other. And I love just your vision for where Elaire is going and looking forward to being able to work with you in the future.

Heather:

Yes. I can't wait to see what we can come up with. I think it's going to be big.

Roni:

All right. Well, thanks for being with me today.

Heather:

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Roni:

You bet.

Heather:

Roni, thank you so much for having me today. It has really been a pleasure. I'm excited about our visions, and I just want to remind everybody that with Elaire Homes, living better starts here.

Roni:

I'll catch you next week.