123: Inside Architextures: Crafting a Family Legacy with Mark Midkiff

Title: Inside Architextures: Crafting a Family Legacy with Mark Midkiff

Guest: Mark Midkiff

Peter: My guest is Mark Midkiff. He is the Vice President of Architectures. Mark, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Glad to be here. So we were just chatting briefly before we jumped on. You’ve been with this company for how many years? Coming up? 45 years.

Mark: When was the company started? Uh, 1956. So April of 1956. So yeah.

Peter: Coming on. Yeah. So 69 years. Wow. That is amazing. What does the business do now? I’m guessing the business kind of evolved over time, but what are you all doing now?

Mark: There’s been a, a huge evolution over time, but right now we are in what I would call the TY Finishes category of the construction industry.

Um, we’ve got. Crews that go out and do wall covering [00:01:00] work, so think wallpaper hangers. But our work tends to be a lot more custom specialty things. And we’ve got people that do what’s called stretched fabric wall coverings, which are, that’s kind of our, our bread and butter, our poor business. And it centers a lot around acoustics and sound absorption.

So. Those. Those are the kind of the general things that people bring us in on is whether it’s for the look and decoration of what we do, but often centering around acoustic and sound absorption and

Peter: we’re talking commercial type construction.

Mark: Yeah. We do a little bit of residential work. That’s not a a focus, but we do that primarily, yes.

Commercial construction. Corporate tenant improvements or, or build out [00:02:00] of corporate spaces is the biggie, but we get into institutional work like schools and the Oregon state capital and churches and recording studios. It’s a pretty wide gamut of what we do. Corporate interiors would be the day in, day out,

Peter: out outside.

Got it. And y’all are located generally in the Seattle area of your office is located in Everett. So are you working primarily in the Pacific Northwest?

Mark: We’ve got our offices here just north of Seattle, where we’ve got warehouse and our crews work out of. We’ve also got a small office and warehouse down in Vancouver, Washington that serves the uh, Portland and Oregon market.

90% of our work is up and down the I five corridor. But all over Washington and Oregon. We’ve got a large project coming up in Alaska. We occasionally go to Idaho, Montana, even down into Utah and Arizona, [00:03:00] and we’ve done some international work as well.

Peter: Where have you gone? I’m curious.

Mark: We’ve done a little bit of work just up in uh, uh, Vancouver, bc, but we’ve also been in Switzerland.

And, uh, we did a project a few years back in India.

Peter: Wow, that’s amazing.

Mark: Yeah. Kind of fun to do those and, and to say the words, but logistically and profitability that

Peter: there, the list.

Mark: So how big is

Peter: the

Mark: company right now? I’d say our total employment, uh, full-time people is about 35.

Peter: How did you start out in the co in the business?

What was your entree? Why, why are you here?

Mark: My father started the business and uh, I was working down in, in Portland at a job that I thought was gonna give me a better opportunity. And, and I, after a few [00:04:00] months there, realized it was not. And, uh, I was up in fi visiting, uh, my wife and I. Mount St. Helen’s erupted.

Well, we were in Portland. Yeah. Sit, sitting out on the, the deck watching the eruption. Actually, I guess I’d, I’d have to back up. ’cause the eruption happened then. It was the second time when the ash blew over, went west and over the freeway. And we were in Seattle and, uh, so after spending a, a few extra days here, instead of driving through the ash, I was talking with my dad.

My dad said, uh, you know, I was telling him about the job I had, that I was disappointed and where it was going. He was telling me about some of the directions of the company, and a few days later when I was back in Portland, he called and said, you know, what would you think of just coming to work for me and let’s see if we can turn this thing around and make something out of, out of, you know, kind of the bones of what I’ve [00:05:00] got.

And I, I didn’t have anything to lose and two weeks later I was in Seattle.

Peter: Wow, that’s, and how old were you then?

Mark: I was actually 20 years old ’cause I didn’t turn 21 until about four months later.

Peter: Okay. So what did you start doing? What was your first, uh, job or role, or what were you doing?

Mark: What really started it is my father and my mother.

Had been introduced to the concept of fabric walls and fabric wall panels, or this thing we call stretch fabric walls, and, and a product known as fabric truck. It’s the brand name of, of what we still use primarily today. He’d. He knew he was onto something but wasn’t quite sure what to do and what to do with it, and that’s what he hired me to do is to say, let, let’s figure this thing out.

And that’s what we did. Even from the F Track company. [00:06:00] They were new, newer. And they were kind of feeling their way along too. So, you know, I’m, I’m kinda like one of coal it, the, I don’t know, founding members of the F Track network. Got it. Okay. Um, that kind of figured this thing out and got it established and, and the first couple of years were rocky, but then as we really got our foot in, learned how to sell and market this product that we, we started getting a foothold and, and took it from there.

Peter: Do you remember a time where there was like a. A turning point where you were like, Hey, we just landed this deal. This is, seems like this is a, a deal that is gonna work.

Mark: I think, yeah. I believe the year was about 1983. So 1983 is when we really kind of got the foothold, figured this thing out. D determined who really our customer and our marketplace was.[00:07:00]

And I, it was about 84 and 85. We, there was two projects that really were the turning point. I believe the first one of those was the Tacoma Convention Center.

Peter: Okay.

Mark: And that was, um, I mean, even today that would’ve been considered a, a nice sized job for us. Not a huge job back then. It was like. I remember standing in the, in the grand ballroom down there looking at the whole, Hmm, how are we gonna get this done?

Wow. Um, and the other one happened about that same point in time was the Washington State Capital Building. We did the House and Senate chambers down there. And, uh, started as kind of a moderate project. Um, and over a year or two turned into a, a pretty nice project. And what’s interesting is I [00:08:00] still see our work even today when we, um, when I’m watching the news on the tv, you know, I, and the, those two projects were probably the turning point that helped us to then make the next steps and get better.

Recognition, better confidence of other customers to, to take us to another level.

Peter: What were the growth milestones that you remember? You know, a lot of folks that uh, listen to the podcast are business owners, and I think one of the things that a lot of us business owners are very keenly aware of is when to bring on additional help.

I’m just kind of curious, was there any secret to your success there, or what can you tell us about that

Mark: Interesting question. Let me kind of start from a slightly different angle. Sure. Yeah. Is one of the things I know [00:09:00] about myself is I’m not a great delegator, never have been, still am not. And when you’re not a good delegator.

Bringing on other people has a special challenge to it because along with not being a good delegator is this thing which a lot of us small business owners have is letting go of something. Yeah. I mean you can this, this grip and when you let go of something, you’re now at the mercy of that other person of, what if they messed this up?

What if they cost me a bunch of money? What if they put me outta business? I, I, with, having said that, it, the hiring people has come a little bit more painfully

Peter: the delivery side.

Mark: That’s not been a problem because in fact for me, because we’re in the construction and I’m all thumbs, the crews we have now know to keep me off of a job site.

Got it. So that’s never [00:10:00] been a problem. Yeah. And we’ve done a great job of building up. Cruz, the greater difficulty has been sales.

Peter: Mm-hmm.

Mark: And operations. Okay. It, it took me a long time to finally hire the right sales staff. I think where maybe I failed was in some of the hiring process. When I went to work for my father, obviously he owned the business and my wife was brought into the business.

Diane, a few years later. It was in 1999 that we bought the business from my father. Okay? So it was really the juncture that it became our baby. Our problem before, really, I was number two and the buck didn’t stop with me, and there’s a certain, um, certain relief to that. As soon as it’s yours, there’s this weight that jumps onto your shoulders, things.

[00:11:00] Mentally can start to become a bit more challenging.

Peter: Yeah.

Mark: But it was right also in the juncture that we were able to start recruiting, training a sales staff. Prior to that, the sales mostly came down to me running the business and all the various things that you gotta do in running the business and selling.

So the turning point, really a sales staff that kind of got yes sales manager was still a hat, but not going out and actually conducting the sales process myself, other than in training, uh, really made a big difference. It also became the easiest thing for me to start to offload so that I could focus on other things of growing the business.

Peter: Got it. I’m reading this book, it’s called Buyback Your Time. It’s for entrepreneurs [00:12:00] like us and just exactly what you’re talking about, you know, nobody’s gonna do it as good as we will, especially the sales. I’m that way right now too. And his mantra is something that you do that is not the highest value in the organization.

Done by somebody else. 80% as good as you would do it is a hundred percent fricking awesome. He’s Canadian, so he says a hundred percent fricking awesome. So it’s uh, kind of a cool concept. He’s like, if somebody else did it to 80%, it’s a hundred percent better.

Mark: And I think for us entrepreneurs. Just the whole delegation and understanding that even if somebody has done something that you think, dang it, I could have done that better, is to understand that’s what, [00:13:00] because you can’t do it all.

Yeah. Nor should you want to, because maybe the sales aspect is probably my stronger aspect of, of this company. And one might think that’s what I should have focused on and hired people to do other things. Oh, okay. I, I, I wouldn’t necessarily argue that. However, it also became the thing that was easiest for me to train.

Oh, right. Yeah. Good point. I’m okay. As an operational, I, I’m terrible on the production side, as I said, but as an operational person. I do fine. I can hold my own, but because I’m only Okay, it’s also a little bit more difficult to train somebody. And when you’re at that juncture, you, you kind of have these decisions to make, gee, do I, you know, spend the big [00:14:00] bucks to really bring somebody in who’s an operational expert, which, which in our case would’ve cost a lot of money.

Still might have had a, a miss in my case. The logic slash fair slash decision was, let’s hire and train for what I know. I also firmly believe what, um, was it? Maybe it was Zig Ziglar that said, nothing happens until something is sought.

Peter: That’s right. Gotta put gas in the tank. My background is sales as well.

You can have a finely tuned race car sitting on the track, and if there’s no gas in the tank, it’s not going anywhere. And that gas is sales.

Mark: I still lead our sales team, the briefer of what’s happened here just over the last couple of years. First of all, Sam, my son, mm-hmm. Now owns the company.

Peter: Okay.

Mark: I, I worked for him.

Got it. I, I [00:15:00] draw a paycheck just like, uh, everybody else these days.

Peter: Uh, hey, that must be nice, you know,

Mark: as a business then.

Peter: Yeah.

Mark: But of course, we, you know, we, we, we didn’t give the company to him. We sold the company to him, and he’s signed on the dotted line for a very sizable amount of money. And I have a vested interest in making sure that he is able to

Peter: Yeah.

Meet the obligations. Yes.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. The general idea is, I, I’m just now kind of starting to, uh, wind things down, take a little bit more time off and so forth, that that will happen gradually over a couple of years.

Peter: Yeah.

Mark: I still lead the sales team, the. Organization and dynamics of that have changed greatly over the last couple of years.

What I do is, is lead them and help them and guide them, and just now kind of starting to [00:16:00] think and plan about how I hand that off to my son. We’ve got a, a full-time operations manager who’s doing a great job and they’re, they’re the, the team that’s leading this company into the future.

Peter: We can’t have this interview without mentioning the patriarch.

Dawn, just so you know, I’ll be at the golf course here locally at, we have this thing in the summer. It’s called Dawn Patrol on Friday mornings. And uh, so we’re out golfing at 5 15, 5 30, and guess who comes bombing by us in his golf cart? By himself. It’s your dad at. 91. He just turned 92. 92, so he’s, he’s shooting his age and living life to the fullest.

So he’s one of my heroes. So I gotta just mention that. But having mentioned that, and [00:17:00] obviously just having a, a sense of what a, a stronger personality I would say

Mark: is

Peter: or has been perhaps. Were there any lessons that you took from that transition when you and Diane bought the company, uh, in 99 and then now you’re kind of in the other shoes on the other foot here.

Were there any things that you’re like, um, I could do that a little different or, and I don’t think Don’s gonna listen to the podcast. Maybe he will, but

Mark: you never know. He might. It in fact. Just last night, I, the thought occurred to me, you know, may, maybe you should have done one with my dad and then with me.

Peter: Yeah, there we go. Well, there’s always time.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. So when all of the transition happened, my, my father was 65 and obviously looking to get out and retire and whatever the [00:18:00] business which had. Been very successful in years prior was, let’s see, kind of on a little bit more rocky ground at that point in time.

I think perhaps some delayed decisions on some changes led to things not being, uh, as good as they had been in the place. There was a period of time there if we were kind of in a. More of a headbutting mode where previous to that we weren’t E. Even on the occasions that I might have disagreed with decisions, hey, he was the boss, he was the owner.

Okay, fine. Do as the owner says. But as we were in this transition prior to really even talk about or purchase, we started maybe a little bit of head bite. Then once all this purchase thing started to happen and the idea was for him to hang around for a little bit longer, the head back budding grew. [00:19:00] It has been inside of 60 days that my father told me something he had never told me before, which is he had reached a point, he just needed out.

He wanted to be gone, and I. Maybe I simply failed to recognize that he certainly never verbalized it. Of course, yeah. Possibly I could have recognized it. What is the purpose of that? One of the things that I’ve been very clear about with Sam and Danielle, that’s his, his right hand. So that that team, I, I’ve told them this individually, I’ve told them this together, is when they reach a point.

That they think I’m being any kind of a problem or any kind of an interference or whatever, and it’s time for me to go [00:20:00] tell me. Okay. And that’ll be I is because of that transition with my father, I’m trying to make sure that I’ve set the stage that guys, you don’t have to tiptoe around it if, if something’s not going right here.

Yeah, you’d need me outta the way. Say something. Let’s,

Peter: so let’s, let’s not walk on eggshells, let’s say. Yeah, yeah,

Mark: yeah. And I, I think for any of those, making transitions on either end is to have good open conversation about that and maybe people who don’t recognize things about themselves, which my father really didn’t about at that juncture.

He didn’t. Maybe didn’t grasp some of the challenges he was giving, not just to me, but other people in the company.

Peter: Yeah.

Mark: Um, because he wanted out, but yet we didn’t know he wanted it.

Peter: Well, well,

Mark: yeah. Yeah.

Peter: That’s good. A company doesn’t [00:21:00] last 69, 70 years. That’s amazing. And, and your brand in the market. It’s a, a specialty brand.

But within the trades and within the architects and the commercial building in Seattle. Yeah. So

Mark: well thank and thank you for that. And that’s of course something that we’ve worked hard at and been strategic at, um, with our, our customer base. Yeah.

Peter: Any advice that you have for, uh, folks that are in.

Position or how, or, or potentially in your position that you were in a few years ago when you decided to make the move with respect to the ownership of your business? Just any tips or thoughts on that?

Mark: Pay close attention to accounting.

Peter: Okay.

Mark: Have a trusted CPA looking over your shoulders that [00:22:00] is helping you to set up.

Processes and help keep you out of trouble. And yes, those people cost money, but it’s money well spent. I think I, I know too many businesses that have gone out of business either because of improprieties inside their organization or letting their customers get out of control and run their business financially.

Pay close attention to the accountant and, and look at it. Daily, if you can, particularly obviously with computer programs. Uh, certainly weekly look, yeah, your books. Make sure you know, if something happens to not look right, dig into it, because unfortunately, you’re, you’re probably right. Yeah. That is one to really pay attention to.

The other that I guess maybe it, it really [00:23:00] took me a long time. To learn and I’ll, I’ll go back to when my wife and I began in our ownership of this company and that weight is that as seriously as you need to take running your business, don’t take, don’t take it too serious. Laugh, joke, try to relax and above all, be kind even just.

In the last couple of days, we’ve got some, let’s just say, challenging jobs that we’re working on and I, I guess first I’ll say no, we haven’t done anything wrong, but we’ve had some customers that have chosen to chew us out, yell at us and whatever, and I’ve just learned to, it doesn’t matter. Be kind.

Mm-hmm. Be patient regardless.

Peter: Yeah. And as

Mark: hard as it is,

Peter: yeah. Yeah.

Mark: And, and you know, the [00:24:00] same, I, I meant I mentioned customers, but the same with employees too. Yeah. You know, be, be kind, e even, even when you have to be aggressive about mistakes or training or retraining or whatever it is, you still can be aggressive and be kind.

Peter: We have a rule it’s called, and I learned it from somebody else a long time ago. No client bashing, so we. We cannot sit in a meeting amongst ourselves and just make fun of our customers. It’s not, well, we’d love to sometimes, but that’s the rule. So we can’t do it.

Mark: Yep. I think we had that, that the line came out last week and in a discussion that if it just wasn’t for those doggone customers Exactly.

They’d be fine.

Peter: No kidding. Oh, that’s good. That’s good. Well, mark, I really appreciate your time and insights and I know we’re just kind of scratching [00:25:00] the surf surface of what, uh, what you’ve done and what you’ve learned, but I really appreciate your insights and, uh, this has been really enjoyable. I learned a lot today that I didn’t know about the company.

Mark: Yeah. All right.

Peter: Good stuff. Cool. Thank. Alright. Well thank,

Mark: thank you for having me.

Peter: You bet. It’ll probably be early June when this will be out, so. Very good. Appreciate it. Hey, you have a great day. Alright. You too. Take

Mark: care.

Peter: See ya.