#30 (Spotlight) - The Self Appointed Drapery Guru — with Mark Koperweis

Most people think window treatments are “just a rod and some fabric” until they watch a real pro work. We’re joined by Mark Koperweis, better known as the Drapery Guru, to unpack what elite drapery installation actually looks like and why the smallest details decide whether you earn referrals or refunds.

Mark walks us through his path from learning fabrics and saying yes to early jobs, to becoming the installer other designers and workrooms trust when perfection matters. We talk about the hidden value of showing up on time, protecting the home, keeping a clean site, and making every measurement and bracket feel intentional. If you’re in a trade business, home services, or any client-facing work, the principles translate: standards create trust, and trust creates pricing power.

We also get technical on Lutron shades, motorized roller shades, and Lutron drapery tracks. Mark explains why luxury shading projects are rarely simple, how recessed pockets and corner conditions force real engineering decisions, and how shading ties into lighting control and home automation systems. A big theme is partnerships: electricians and AV companies often win the early scope, then Mark steps in for custom draperies, Roman shades, and the fabric work they don’t want to touch.

Along the way we hit real-world business lessons, from billing product up front for healthier cash flow to preventing fabric disasters like gravity wrinkles, plus why steaming is quality control, not a cosmetic extra. If you want more honest conversations about business reinvention, craftsmanship, and building something that lasts, subscribe, share this with a friend in the trades, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

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Transcript

Cold Open And Guest Tease

Roger Magalhaes 0:00

This week I had a great interview with Mark Copperways, better known as the Drapery Guru. He started in New York but now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Mark has been in business for 40 years. Among other things, we discuss how to be a great installer, how to pay attention to details. He also wrote a book about his father's survival story that we know as the Holocaust. It is a very enjoyable interview, and I hope you like it. Right after this.

Show Setup And Host Intro

Intro / Outro 0:50

Welcome to No Strings Attached, the place where we untangle honest conversations about business reinvention and the pursuit of the American dream. Hosted by Roger McGalles, Brazilian-born, Boston-bred, Florida-based. He is an entrepreneur, speaker, and storyteller with 20 years of real stories, laughs, and screw-ups. This show is for anyone still searching for their place under the sun. So pull up the chair. The show is about to start. Here's Roger with no strings attached.

From Upholstery Class To First Jobs

Roger Magalhaes 1:24

Hey Mark, thanks for coming on the show today. I really appreciate that. So, honestly speaking, we never had an introduction before. You and the show because my good friend Joe Jabata suggested that you are a great guy to be behind a microphone today. So teach us who are you? Tell us how do you come up this way? What do you do? What's your business like?

Mark Koperweis 1:57

Well, thanks for having me on. I listened to that episode with Joe. He's a great guy. That was good.

Roger Magalhaes 2:03

He is a great guy.

Mark Koperweis 2:04

So I'm Mark Copperweiss. Our company is called Drapery Guru. People call me the guru. I'm a self-appointed guru. I figure after 40 years of doing this, if I'm not a guru by now, I never will be. So but honestly, I've been trying to get out of this business for the last 30 years to you know follow my passion. And around 10 years ago, I realized, you know what, this is actually a really good business. And the business just comes to me. And why not just like make this my passion and bring more people into it and expand it and grow it into a company? The way I started out, I came to California. I grew up in New York and I lived in the Midwest for about 10 years. And then I came to California in 1984. I moved to San Jose. I now live right outside of San Francisco in Oakland.

Roger Magalhaes 2:59

Okay.

Mark Koperweis 3:00

And I was trying to figure out what to do. So I like doing things with my hands. And I used to work for my dad in the garment industry in New York City, actually in Brooklyn. I worked in his factory on the weekend in the summer and learned a little bit about fabrics. And my one of my grandfather on my mother's side was an upholsterer. And I kind of remember he died when I was really young, but I remember kind of seeing his shop and visiting some of his clients. So I thought, all right, let me take an upholstery class. I'll become an upholsterer. So I took this two-week class and I put a put an ad in the newspaper at the time, you know, the like the classified ads. And immediately started getting calls for like, you know, come and pick up my first job was these two wing back chairs, like the hardest thing you could ever upholster. And I old were you? I was like, I was 28 at the time. Okay. And I just had my first child. So I had a little baby. Yeah. And we were living in an apart, a studio apartment, and the there was an underground parking, but it was closed off. So I kind of broke into it and I hung up some fabric and sectioned off a little area and made it into my little shop. And you know, we we didn't have staplers, it was it was the tax, you know, you keep in your mouth. Wow. And everything hammer. Yeah. And got a couple of jobs done. And one day a lady asked me, Can you make a cornice?

Roger Magalhaes 4:34

Uh-huh.

Mark Koperweis 4:34

And I was like, I didn't even know what that was. So I called my wife. I said, You know what a cornice is? And she goes, Oh, yeah, yeah, tell them you can do it. Just tell them you can do it. So I said, Yeah, sure. She goes, What about draperies? I said, Oh, yeah, we we can do we can make you a drapery. Because my wife sewed, and I knew a little bit about draperies because she had made some for some of our apartments that we lived into, and I hung them up, you know.

Roger Magalhaes 4:55

Yeah.

Mark Koperweis 4:56

So my wife said, You know, I looked up like JC Penny and Macy's, and there's a lot of money in draperies. Uh-huh. So we were trying to figure out how much to charge, you know. Yeah. And then I put I put I looked in the newspaper to see if there was an ad because I was I did sales for a while. I was I sold cars for a little bit and I sold books and different things. So I looked in the newspaper, and sure enough, there was an ad for a drapery salesperson. I don't think there was ever an air again that I saw. Uh-huh. So I went and talked to the guy. My wife taught me a little bit in how to measure, how to figure out yardage, you know, and I had that had it all up my head, you know.

Roger Magalhaes 5:38

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Koperweis 5:39

It's a hundred inches wide, you know, and it's two and a half times fullness. That's around 20 inches of rod. So if it's a hundred-inch drape, that's five widths. About three yards of fabric, that's a 15-yard job, right there, you know. Right, right, right. Like that. Swags and cascade. Yeah, east swags about a yard and a half cascades. Excuse me. So went in there and I told him I had some experience.

Roger Magalhaes 6:07

So you were more than an installer, you were almost like a workroom already.

Mark Koperweis 6:12

Well, yeah, I told him I had experience in a workroom, you know, because my wife sewed things, she sewed clothes, she sold draperies for friends and stuff like that. So I said I had some workroom experience, right? And then he goes, All right, he had a showroom. He said, Well, tell me how many, how much yards I need for that treatment over there, you know. And it was these flags and cascades and shears with draperies in the front, pinch pleated draperies made out of antique silk, antique satin, which was the big back in the 80s. Sure. And I so he hired

Designer Overnight And Learning Fast

Mark Koperweis 6:43

me and I went out as a designer. Okay. I was a designer overnight. And I remember my first job, the the young couple, and they said, Well, what would you do? You're the expert. Wow. And I had I'm thinking, yeah, I because I've been doing this for like 30 minutes. Right. So I got into the business like design and sales.

Roger Magalhaes 7:05

Uh-huh.

Mark Koperweis 7:06

And after about a year and a half, I started my own business doing the same thing. Right. And we we would market new tract homes down in Silicon Valley area.

Roger Magalhaes 7:17

Yeah. Okay.

Mark Koperweis 7:17

So all our customers were like a, you know, Asian, like Chinese, Filipino, yeah, um, Indian. And I had been to India many times. That's one of the other reasons that this guy hired me, because I I knew Asian culture, I knew how to they like to barter and how to deal with them, you know. Right, right. So they were all first-time home buyers in these brand new tracked homes that had a few you know model homes built, and then as they got them built, people would move in and they'd have sheets on their window.

Roger Magalhaes 7:48

Right.

Mark Koperweis 7:49

Because you have to have window coverings. If you don't buy them, you're gonna hang something up there. You can put tin foil newspaper.

Roger Magalhaes 7:56

You need some sort of protect uh control protection, yes, yeah. Privacy, yes.

Mark Koperweis 8:02

Yeah, so we would have a guy go knock on the door at night and set up free estimates. Okay, and then I'd show up with my little truck with all my fabric samples and mini blinds and vertical blinds, and yeah, Hunter Douglas wasn't even around yet. Wow, I think it just started getting going. They came out with a better mini blind, okay. Because it had shape, but didn't let as much light in when it was tilted, you know.

Roger Magalhaes 8:30

Okay, yeah, yeah.

Mark Koperweis 8:32

Well, I did that for a number of years, and then other workrooms were like, Hey, can you install some jobs for me? Okay, because I the hardest thing to find in my in my business when I was doing design and sales was a good installer. Really hard to find.

Roger Magalhaes 8:47

Well, apparently, still the same thing.

Mark Koperweis 8:50

Yeah, people who would show up on time, had an attention to detail, who cared about what they did, who were proud of the result, you know, who were clean and neat, didn't ding the walls and make a mess, and really hard to find. So I just started doing it myself. Yeah, so I would sell the job and then install the job, you know, right? And it was like a one-man operation.

Roger Magalhaes 9:14

So, did your wife help you out, or she had a separate business?

Mark Koperweis 9:19

She she was she stayed home and took care of the kids. We had another kid shortly after. So you were the one sewing as well. No, no, we we hired we we farmed it out, we call it you know, two work. Oh, okay. I had relationships with all the workrooms in the Bay Area. I see and I would sell the job, order the fabric from the vendor, write up the work order, send it to the workroom. Yeah, and the thing about it, Roger, is we'd go into the house in an evening. Hopefully, you're not the first person to give them an estimate because you're not getting the job. Right. Usually, because they need to they need to shop a couple, three, yes. Yeah, so if you were the second person, you had a chance, you know, third person, really good chance, right?

Roger Magalhaes 10:02

Right.

Mark Koperweis 10:02

Measure the whole house. Okay, three bedrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen, family room. Right. And figure out what to do in every single room, show them samples, pick out the color, the fabric, the lining, the style, give them a price right there, and close the job.

Roger Magalhaes 10:19

Okay. So you had a sales background, which kind of helped. Yeah, and then you have some fabric experience from your father, from your wife, help you kind of tailor your whole pitch.

Mark Koperweis 10:35

Yeah, exactly.

Roger Magalhaes 10:36

And then you got into it. So how that developed from there.

Mark Koperweis 10:41

Yeah, so what happened is after four or five years, other workrooms would ask me if I would inst like if I would install. They have uh designers, and the installers that I would find, they hated working for designers because they were too picky.

Roger Magalhaes 10:57

Okay.

Mark Koperweis 10:58

Yeah, they just because everything was piece, you got paid by the foot, by the yard, by the width, you know. There was a price for everything, you know, pleated drapers, it was so such and such dollars per width. Sure. Mini blinds, it was per foot, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. So you were just trying to get in as much work as you could in a day so you could make two or three hundred bucks, you know. Sure, yes.

Roger Magalhaes 11:20

Uh-huh.

Mark Koperweis 11:20

So if the designer goes, Oh, that's a little crooked, or can you move that over an inch? Or I wish it was just a half an inch higher. Uh that would drive them, they would lose their mind, right? Right. So then I realized, you know what? There's actually a need for that. Just charge a little more, and you don't have to have as many jobs, just charge more and get clients who want you to be who are really particular. So I stopped doing retail sales entirely and became an installer.

Why Great Installers Cost More

Mark Koperweis 11:50

Right. And I did that for 20 years. Wow. Just installed for other people.

Roger Magalhaes 11:56

You just trade time or volume for expertise.

Mark Koperweis 12:01

Yeah, exactly.

Roger Magalhaes 12:02

And then you start charging more without having to work more.

Mark Koperweis 12:07

Yeah. That's great. Well, I still work the same amount of time.

Roger Magalhaes 12:11

But now you you you work more at a higher pay rate, so it's not bad.

Mark Koperweis 12:17

Yeah, but what happened was around seven, eight years ago, one of my clients who was a workroom, because I got a lot of my work from workrooms, who provided like full, what I called their a full service workroom. The designer comes to them to help them figure out what fabric's gonna work, what kind of style. They'd go out and measure, they'd make the draperies, and they would provide the installation, the workrooms, one-stop shop.

Roger Magalhaes 12:46

Right.

Mark Koperweis 12:47

So a lot of workrooms, you know, heard about me. I went around to all the workrooms and started installing for all these

Enter Lutron And The Luxury Market

Mark Koperweis 12:54

different workrooms. So one of them said, you know, a lot of my jobs now, people, the designers want Lutron roller shades, right, and Lutron drapery tracks. Because what Lutron started doing is they're a lighting control company. They started in the 50s and they've kind of cornered the market in California. Every every house has Lutron controls, lighting switches. You know, they invented the the dimmer switch, you know, the old one circle, you punched it and then you turned it. And oh, the lights get lighter and dark. Look at that, higher and lower. That's crazy. Correct. So now they have the toggle switch with the little you know dimmer next to it. Yeah. So in the 90s, they bought some roller shade company and added natural lighting control, which is shading, they call it shading, roller shades, and they got in front of architects and they really did their homework on building these shades. And we can get into it a little bit more and tell you the difference between them and any other product. But they started asking, people started asking for it. So I went to their training, and they're very particular who they give a dealership to because they don't want people competing over each other and driving the price down. They want to keep it under control. It's a family-owned business, they have a certain standard, and most of their clients are in the what they call the luxury market. You know, these are in California where I live are really fortunate because there's a lot of luxury market here.

Roger Magalhaes 14:26

They called the one percent.

Mark Koperweis 14:28

Yeah, exactly. So while I was at the training, I had another customer call me and say, Hey, do you do Lutron? While I was at the training, right? He gave them a quote while I was at the training and sold the job. Right, right, right, right, right. So it was a whole lot.

Roger Magalhaes 14:46

I I am a Lutron dealer myself, so I understand exactly what you're saying. And it is it's a product that people request by name. When they come to you, they don't ask for roller shades. Do you do Lutron shades? It's different. The job is already sold, it's just a matter of don't we screw up and the job is yours. But they are very particular. I totally get it. And I actually joke among you know our peers, and I say, Lutron is the only product that I load my van and I know I'm gonna get to the job site, and everything's gonna work. So I don't need to worry about it. Oh, did they include the things in here? Did they make the right connections? Did they wrap this right? It costs more, but there's a reason why it costs more. It's absolutely the best product in the market, in my opinion. So you got you got your training, so now you have the experience and you got the best product. What's next?

Mark Koperweis 15:54

Well, what's next is that we start doing these Lutron roller shade jobs and you know, learning from every job because they're super complicated. It's never easy. They're you know, recess soffits, corner windows. How do you do that? What are the trade-offs of doing a reverse roll with corner to corner, a button pass, staggering one? Do you have the height? Well, we don't, how are we gonna do this? We want recess tracks that are gonna go flush with the ceiling. How do you do that? What's the process? You're meeting with the builder, the architect, the designer, the homeowner, the the drywall guy, the carpenter, the all organizing all these different trades and a schedule and how it's all gonna work out, you know.

Roger Magalhaes 16:38

They are way more complex, yeah, very complex.

Mark Koperweis 16:41

And and Lutron is pushing their roller shades to electrical contractors because they're putting it in the home because the home has a lighting control system.

Roger Magalhaes 16:51

Correct.

Mark Koperweis 16:52

Lighting control systems are on very you know different levels. The whole idea of a lighting control system is not to have a million light switches, but to have a little keypad and really decorative, cool keypads with buttons on them. And each button is gonna do something, it's gonna turn zone one to 100%, zone two to fifty percent. It's gonna open the draperies and lower the and lower the roller shades. Right. Button two is gonna blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it's integrated into a whole lighting control system. And then usually above that, there's a home automation

Managing Complex Builds And Trade Coordination

Mark Koperweis 17:27

system, like Savant Control 4 or something like that, which controls everything in the house. Yes, you know, not the the thermostat, the security, all the cameras, the sprinkler system, the garage door, the you name it, and the lighting control system becomes integrated into that, you know. So it's a whole other world of complexity.

Roger Magalhaes 17:50

Correct. And are you just a Lutron shade dealer? Do you do lighting as well? Do you do integration as well?

Mark Koperweis 17:59

We just do shading and and the drapery tracks, and we provide custom draperies. I have relationships with workrooms, and designers come to me, and I'm kind of like the liaison between the designer and the workroom, and we sell the job to the designer. The designer resells it sometimes to the client, or they just charge the client for their time, you know. So we do the custom. So the niche that we fill now is that Lutron went to all these electrical contractors who are already selling their lighting systems and and all of the lighting elements, and say, Hey, add roller shades, you can do this. And they send their electricians, a couple of them, to training, and they become shading dealers. But then the client wants Roman shades, the client wants draperies, and they're like, Oh, we don't know anything about that. But sounds very familiar. The designer knows a guy, they know the guru. Yeah, so they give me that part of the job. They go, We don't want anything to do with this. You take the tracks, you take the Roman shades, because Lutron sells the Roman shade kits, right? And then we usually get the fabrication of the drapery. Sometimes usually the designer provides the fabric, and that's how they you know fit in with the client, they design the whole thing, and together, me and the designer will you know figure out all the logistics, the style, the design, how it's gonna all say, and I'm just nodding my head because it's a hundred percent accurate.

Roger Magalhaes 19:41

So all these electricians and A V companies, they get that first, way before us. The way before the shades people. So they get the majority of the work. Yeah, but then that is a time that they need drapes and they

Partnering With Electricians And AV Teams

Roger Magalhaes 20:00

need something else that these people don't do it. So that's when we step in, say, okay, I can provide you the drapes and everything. So we're actually dealing with a job right now in Orlando, and the AV company did pretty much every shade on the house, but then the homeowner wanted some drapes too. Oh, we don't do drapes, but somehow we got involved, and just in drapes alone, there's over $200,000. That's a lot of money, and we do not even need to compete with the other Lutron guy. Yeah, yeah. It's more like an alignment, like you said. You have the good partnerships, yeah, they control, they put all the electrical, all the programming. You do the easy part. You imagine install your thing, handle over, yeah, quote unquote, easy part. But the thing is, a lot of these jobs they require so many main power to connect so many miles of cables and troubleshoot everything. So to me, it was great because I'll do my little thing, handle over, and they take it from there. So it sounds like that you do something similar.

Mark Koperweis 21:19

Yeah, I mean, the niche is it's it's a good, it makes the electrical contractor company look good because they become the one-stop shop. Yeah, oh, draperies, romance, we got you covered. We have part, we have a business partner, they're great, they do all of our work, you're gonna love them. Boom, they just send that part of the job to us. Absolutely and then, and then we kind of like, you know, with one of their person who's whoever's handling the drapery part of it, right initially, you know, introduces us and it's it's it's a great fit, you know. And I love doing draperies because when I was installing, you know, before motorization became like what it is everything. Was right, you know, give me for installing thing that I want to install all day, rods and rings. Okay, give me rods and rings. I just love the simplicity of it, and the you know, the fact that you can just open it up manually. I get it. If you have 13 windows in a row, yeah, these big giant houses, you know, with 50 roller shades, yeah, you want that automated, you know. Yeah, like in my bedroom in my house, I have one window, right? And I put in a Lutron track with the motorized track and motorized Roman shades, and I'm like, this is so stupid, I could just get out of bed and go.

Roger Magalhaes 22:43

Now, you you you said that you like the rods and rings. You realize you're not really an average installer, right? Because most installers they want two brackets, roll the shade in and out. Very few people, and I guess the farther we go into this business, the less and less installers really wanted to do drapes because it requires more technique, it requires more math, it requires knowledge of fabric, and it takes longer. So, a lot of the installers that I talk to, a lot of the dealers that I talk to, they can't find an installer willing to spend the right amount of time to make the treatment to look good. Do you agree with that?

Mark Koperweis 23:36

Yeah, for sure. I mean, right now, one-third of our business is just installing. I have like seven, eight employees, and I have, you know, one of my old my oldest son, who was a year old at the time, he started working for me when he was like 15. He's a musician, very successful, but it was his thing that he did, his day job. He was really good, he did it for like 15 years, and then another son, and he did it for like 15 years, and they moved on to other things. But one of them, I have three sons and a daughter. My second son is just coming back to the business. He became a metal worker, and after 15 years of doing that, he's like, Wow, this is really hard, it's dangerous, I can't scale it up. And I said, Come work for me. So he's my quoter and he's a project manager, and he works remotely. And it's really but handling fabric, I really love. See, the thing is we lose track of what it is we're doing because every day we're like, I gotta get this done, this done, this done, this done, this done. And then once in a while, you're at an install and the job gets done. That's like once in a while for me, anyway. You know, right? You're an installer, you're out there, and a lot of your jobs get done in one day, two or three days. So you get that satisfaction of the homeowner coming in and going, Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, that's so pretty. Oh my god, right? And that's

Pride In Craft And Client Reactions

Mark Koperweis 25:06

what you're doing, right? That's the end result, you know. It's mostly for the homeowner, it's most combination of aesthetics and creating warmth and a feeling, right? Lighting control, security, privacy. Right, it's all those things you gotta keep like that's the goal because the day-to-day thing is brutal because there's a million details. Yes, yes, it looks so easy when it's done. It's just a rod with a drape hanging on it, isn't that right? What can be so hard? I I love the jobs where a designer calls me up. I have a real easy one for you. It's a really simple job, it's just two draperies, the rods are already up, yeah.

Roger Magalhaes 25:50

Right, right.

Mark Koperweis 25:51

Oh no, they're gonna have to come down and they're gonna be moved.

Roger Magalhaes 25:54

Yeah, it's not as simple as it sounds.

Mark Koperweis 25:57

Yeah, uh, you know, you it's a million different details, you know. Right, right, right. Period, where when I was installing, we wound up, I wound up going to a court case. Okay, did uh installed a whole house in Hillsborough, which is a kind of a high upscale neighborhood in Silicon Valley. Okay, and it was for a French lady who had a workroom, and the job came out gorgeous, everything was beautiful, but they had some kind of misunderstanding, and the the designer wouldn't get paid, she didn't get paid, so she took it to court. So I had to go back and take the draperies down, they were swags and all kinds of elaborate stuff. Wow, okay, bring it into the courtroom. Is that right? And the sheriffs that were there that were like, you know, monitoring or whatever the the the trial because it went on for like three weeks. Wow they called it the draper caper, okay, and then they called me up as a wit uh they called me up as a witness eventually, but the designer who the workroom lady was working for called me up as a witness. Okay, and before she called me up, she was uh on on the stand and they were trying to establish that the installer was you know professional and did a good job, right? And she said, Oh, Mark has installed for me for years, he just has a way with fabric, he has an attention to detail. He's really like a fabric romancer.

The Drapery Caper Courtroom Story

Mark Koperweis 27:35

So then the sheriffs were like, It's the draper caper, episode two, fabric romancer, is that right? In the courtroom, yeah, in the courtroom. It was outside, just you had to wait outside, so outside joking amongst themselves, yeah, because people like security, you know. So then I became known as the fabric romancer.

Roger Magalhaes 27:56

Okay, and then eventually the drapery and I gave that up for drapery guru. Okay, now I I'm curious if the job was already installed, did they let you go in and take it down? How was the what's the story?

Mark Koperweis 28:14

But I think it was you know one of these legal things where they subpoenaed it or something, I don't know what they call it, but as it was evidence, so it had it was like a court that had to allow it, and and the workroom came in and was showing the judge like how they sewed it and how they did the stitching and how they put the trim on there, and you know how there was nothing wrong and nothing to complain about. It's exactly what was on the work order, is what she got. Wow, that's crazy. That was crazy, and uh, we won the case, right?

Roger Magalhaes 28:45

Right, wow. The fabric romancer came through. Interesting, yes, yeah. I had not quite a big case like yours, but we did a huge job in Turks and Caico. That was 65 to 70 roller shades plus 15 to 20 tracks and a house, a massive home. The guy's actually from New York had this vacation place down there. We did the job. It took like four or five months to get paid on my end, and like eight to nine months later, which translated over a year from the day we installed, the designer called and said, Ask me a few questions. And I say, just wonder why you're asking all those questions now. So we still haven't got paid, like a year later, because the homeowner was holding back on troubles and problems and whatever. And this whole design company was doing more than just the blinds and the drapes, they were doing the entire house, furniture, everything. So their whole the homeowner was holding so much money off of that project. Thank god I got paid, and I never went to court.

Mark Koperweis 30:05

Well, yeah, but those things happen, believe it or not. What we do now is we bill for product up front 100%.

Roger Magalhaes 30:16

Well, that's a great thing, 100%.

Mark Koperweis 30:18

The draperies, the Lutron products, everything. The only thing we don't charge for up front is the installation. Okay, installation is due at the time of installation. Yeah, people kind of understand that. Homeowners understand that because they're working on the project, they pay off for all the furniture up front, right? They pay for all the appliances up front. You know, if you order something on Amazon, you don't put a deposit on it, you know, but it doesn't matter what it is, right?

Roger Magalhaes 30:46

Even if you go to Lowe's Home Depot, it's the same thing. You pay for the whole thing up front.

Mark Koperweis 30:51

Yeah, and and if you know, if there's there's usually a warranty or a return policy or something like that, you know. Yeah, yeah.

Roger Magalhaes 30:58

And I actually went from 50% to 70%, and now I'm up to uh 75% up front. And for the whole job.

Mark Koperweis 31:09

Oh, I'm sorry, for the whole job, the insight. For the whole job, correct.

Roger Magalhaes 31:14

Because I just want to leave a little bit on the table just to show them that uh, you know, it's good faith that I'm gonna come back and finish your project, and I'll collect whatever. So I give them a little leverage, you know. But people understand, and uh, the more you can take up front, the better for business, cash flow, and all the good things for sure. Yeah, so that's good good business practice. Now bring me back to your childhood.

Getting Paid Up Front And Cash Flow

Roger Magalhaes 31:43

How where do you grew up? What kind of school did you have? How'd you ended up leaning towards this industry? Is anything related to your childhood, or it was just yeah, you know, I think that most people in this industry fell into it.

Mark Koperweis 32:03

It's not something they like planned on. Like every workroom that I know, they were like making dress, they wanted to be dressmakers or in the fashion industry or something like that. And then they found out there's a lot of money in making draperies and it's steady business, you know. Yeah, so it's not something I ever imagined that I would do, you know. That's why I said I've been trying to get out of it for 30 years, and then finally realized actually, this is a really cool thing. You meet cool people, you're in a different place every day, live in a great area, see amazing homes, right? Sweeping views. It's like there are people who give their arm and leg to do what I do, correct? You know, it's like you know. So I I grew up in New York in Long Island in a small, a little town called East Rockaway, uh-huh. On the south shore of the island, close to Queens. Yeah, I used to talk normal, but when I moved to California, people couldn't understand my my my accent, you know. Uh-huh. Well, what's your name? Mark. I'm sorry, what mark? Oh, Mark, that's what I just said, Mark.

Roger Magalhaes 33:12

Well, I'm from I'm from Boston, so I I I get it.

Mark Koperweis 33:15

You

Family Roots And A Holocaust Survival Book

Mark Koperweis 33:16

get it, right? Yeah. So my and my dad was in the garment industry. He's an immigrant from Poland, okay, a Holocaust survivor. Is he? Yeah, and I I wrote a book about him. That's something I always wanted to do. He told me his story, he told all the kids his story. He went to schools. Wow. Talking about his story, and uh, so I interviewed him like 20 years ago. Yeah, I got him on video. Like, I have like 20 hours of him talking, and then the first step was to like go through all of that and turn it into something that you could read in like an hour and a half.

Roger Magalhaes 33:51

Wow, goal.

Mark Koperweis 33:53

So I published a book about five years ago. It's called Every Last Jew. Nice, it tells his story of how him growing up and surviving through the Holocaust and then coming to America. Yeah, yeah, pretty astonishing.

Roger Magalhaes 34:07

That's a great story, right there.

Mark Koperweis 34:09

Yeah, and then when I was like a teenager, I became a vegetarian and got into eastern philosophy and wound up involved in the Hare Krishna movement. That's right. India six times and lived in ashrams and sold books at the airport. You did that was uh an incredible experience.

Roger Magalhaes 34:31

It sounds like Steve Jobs, you know. He he had a well part of his time, he uh he went to India and he did the same movement, and it was interesting.

Mark Koperweis 34:45

Yeah, so and then you know, when I came out of like the the the ashram life, uh-huh, uh how to make a living, yeah. So that's how I fell into the drapery business, the story I told you before.

Roger Magalhaes 34:58

Right, right, right.

Mark Koperweis 35:00

It just evolved into it's changed, it's come full circle. I went from sales and design to just installing, right? Now I hardly install, I manage we have great great installers, I go to big jobs, but I organize all of the jobs, you know. Right, right, right, right, right. Now I'm selling and trying to get my business where all my systems are in place so that it can be there's a person managing every different department so that it runs by itself, and I can just do the things that I like to do, which is go out and meet clients, solve the problem, sell the job, right, and do the follow-up, you know, meet with the builders and that kind of stuff, you know.

Roger Magalhaes 35:42

Right. Besides business that you love, is there anything outside this trade that you love to say you don't need you don't need to work anymore? So, what would you do?

Mark Koperweis 35:56

So I like to write, okay, and I'm a drummer, and you know, I've I'm in bands here and there. I have yeah, a little band, I make music.

Roger Magalhaes 36:07

Okay, I like to do what kind of music.

Mark Koperweis 36:09

I like to do stand-up comedy. I do like chill wave electronic music. Okay, I listen to all kinds of music, I play all kinds of percussion instruments. I studied nice Indian percussion instruments. When I was out, I went out to when I first one of the first times I met Joe Guevara, yeah, we went to dinner, he took me to this Moroccan restaurant. Yes, and there was a dude there playing a jimbek or a dumbec. Okay, you know the uh like Arab drum. Okay, you know, yes, you know, and someone was singing, and they had a belly dancer. Okay, yeah, and uh at one point in the meal I walked over to the drummer. I said, Can I can I sit in on one of these? Like, you play this, and I go, No, but I think I could figure it out, right? Right, and I sat down and started playing. He recorded it, he's like, Mark! It was it was it was really fun. So yeah, I would do I would write and play music. I like to act. I've been in commercials and I I'd like to act, and I also study languages. So I studied Hindi for like 10 years, and I've been studying Hebrew for almost five years.

Roger Magalhaes 37:25

Wow, interesting.

Mark Koperweis 37:28

So the Hindi I use I got to use a

Music Writing Languages And Curiosity

Mark Koperweis 37:31

lot because a lot of Indian customers and in the Bay Area, there's a lot of um Indian business owners.

Roger Magalhaes 37:37

So you have a leverage with them?

Mark Koperweis 37:39

So it's it's kind of you know, you speak a little bit of the language and you you you you connect with them, you know, right? But I've only had one, I've only had one Israeli client so far.

Roger Magalhaes 37:48

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark Koperweis 37:49

Hebrew too. It's not uh not very useful, but since I'm Jewish and I kind of I I have a passion for studying Jewish history, I've been studying that for the last 10 years. Because of your father, yeah, basically, I'm not a very you know religious person, but uh as an ethnicity, I I identify as a Jew. I mean, Ashkenazi Jews, you could see it in your DNA. Like my oldest son took his his his mom bought him 24 and me kit for his birthday, right?

Roger Magalhaes 38:20

Right, right.

Mark Koperweis 38:20

And he called me up. He goes, Dad, you don't have to do the test, you're a hundred percent Ashkenazi. I'm 50 Ashkenazi because my wife wasn't right, right, right.

Roger Magalhaes 38:31

Interesting.

Mark Koperweis 38:33

And uh, you know, what you know, how did this event in history that we look back on and we call it the Holocaust? How did it happen? How did ordinary people think that was okay and engage in it and participated and support it and find themselves, you know, all of a sudden, millions of people are dead because they're Jews? How did this happen? Right, right, and you still go back and study Jewish history, and it's really fascinating, and it really taught me a lot about just history in general, because I was a terrible student, but in and because the Jews dispersed all over the world, wherever they were, you learn a little bit about the history at that time, correct?

Roger Magalhaes 39:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark Koperweis 39:14

Those are kind of the things I'm passionate about, and I have grandkids now, two new grandkids and one on the way. Yeah, so that's good. I tell my daughter, if you if you ever like my my cushion job would be just watching my grandkid all day.

Roger Magalhaes 39:30

What about writing? What kind of what kind of writing you you are into?

Mark Koperweis 39:36

Well, I wrote that that book about my dad, right? And I I want to finish the part where I want to write a novel where he he comes to America, yeah, and then I come into the scene. So it would be a it would be a novel pretty much about me growing up in the area. Because we had a crazy, we had a great, crazy childhood, you know.

Roger Magalhaes 39:59

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark Koperweis 40:00

Lot a lot of really fun stories and yeah, crazy characters and people. I go back to my high school reunions. I started at my 30th, and I just went to my 50th. Yeah. And every every single person is a character that was out in a novel, you know.

Roger Magalhaes 40:21

Interesting, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, we have a lot in common. So we are both installers, we both sell Lutron. I have a passion for drummer to drum, but I'm terrible, so I'm not even, you know, can't try that. But if I ever play anything, would it be a drummer? Because I guess I like to make noise. Let's put this way, and and I like to write. And I I didn't know I like to write either until I start writing my newsletters for for necessity, just to you know, to get in touch with clients, and it took it from there.

Mark Koperweis 41:00

But I did write one article. I thought I would start writing articles about the industry. Uh-huh. And around 10 years ago, I started it, but I couldn't, I didn't maintain it. And I wrote an article called Gravity Wrinkles and The Arrow of Time. That was the name of the article. Gravity Wrinkles and the Arrow of Time. Okay. It's on WordPress.

Roger Magalhaes 41:23

And we need more people right writing and sharing knowledge. Yeah, you have a ton of knowledge.

Mark Koperweis 41:31

Oh my god. My I work 12 hours a day. Yeah, yeah.

Roger Magalhaes 41:40

I I used to follow him.

Mark Koperweis 41:42

Yeah, great guy. You know, he had that great accent. Uh-huh. And he one of the things that stuck to me is like, my father told me that to be successful in life, uh-huh, you only have to work a half a day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he told me, son, it doesn't matter which half you choose, the first 12 hours or the second.

Roger Magalhaes 42:04

Right. It makes all the sense, especially for this industry, right? Because if you know what you're doing, you get all the work in the world. So, yeah, yeah.

Mark Koperweis 42:16

So I would like to write more, uh-huh. But you know, there's certain things in the industry that people never heard of, you know, and I never heard of gravity wrinkles. You heard of gravity wrinkles? Never before until today. So okay. So what happens is sometimes you'll see a drapery, yeah, and when it's done, it has these diagonal kind of ripples in them. Okay, yeah, that you can see in certain light. Yeah. And the reason why rolls of fabric come and say, lay flat,

Gravity Wrinkles Steaming And Fabric Discipline

Mark Koperweis 42:46

do not stand on end. Okay. Gravity pulls the roll of the fabric. Okay. It makes these diagonal like humps that permanently change the structure of the fabric. You can't iron it out, steam it out. The fabric is basically ruined.

Roger Magalhaes 43:08

Now happened to you. It does happen. I never knew what it was. Now I know it.

Mark Koperweis 43:16

It's called gravity wrinkles.

Roger Magalhaes 43:18

Okay.

Mark Koperweis 43:19

The point about the arrow of of time is that if the structure of the the fibers change, right? It doesn't go back, it's like Humpty Dumpty. Right. Once you once once it gets like that, you can't fix it.

Roger Magalhaes 43:32

What happened if someone, some workroom D know about that, and they make the drapes anyway, and now you have to hang it. How how do you fix it? Or you can't fix it. You can't fix it.

Mark Koperweis 43:45

I mean, I've never had it where I had to replace anything. Yeah, but you could see it. Some people just might not notice it, but right, right, right, right. Got can't can't stand them the fabric up on its end. Right. I always wondered why it. Said that on there, you know.

Roger Magalhaes 44:01

Yeah, you're right, right. And one technical question from one installer to another: Do you esteem every job?

Mark Koperweis 44:10

Or a lot of times it just almost unless the designer says don't steam this fabric, like velvet, uh-huh. You gotta be really careful with velvet because you could ruin it. Okay, because it has nap. All right. So if you're gonna steam velvet, we usually steam it from the back. All right, yeah, every job needs to be steamed, almost every job, because steaming isn't just you know getting the wrinkles out, okay. Um, it is getting the wrinkles out, it's getting creases out from when it was transported or hung. Yeah, you know, I always tell my workrooms on pinch pleated, any kind of drape, always flat fold. I don't want to see these knife edge pleats, and then then you have to spend two hours trying to steam them out and make it look curved, right? Right, right, right, right. Part of it is dressing the fabric out, dressing the drape out, you know, because it wants to fall a certain way, and you want to train it to fall a different way. Too much fabric on this side, move it around to this pleat. So you gotta work with it, you gotta romance the fabric, bro. Now I get it. You gotta dress it down, exactly down, yeah, yeah. And when you're steaming, then you start seeing all the loose threads, and then you start seeing threads in between the lining and the drapery. The light goes through, and the you'll get a call from the client, have to drive two hours to pull thread right in between the drapery. So it's really important to steam everything, right?

Roger Magalhaes 45:44

Agree. No wonder you are busy and you have all the work you want because you go the extra mile.

Mark Koperweis 45:51

Yeah, the uh you see the thing is about my childhood, my mom is a typical neurotic, you know, European Jewish mother.

Roger Magalhaes 46:01

Okay, so translate that to someone that don't know what you're talking about.

Mark Koperweis 46:05

Well, everything you know has to be in its place, everything has to be perfect. She's OCD, all right, you know, yeah, yeah. That pays off in our industry. I can walk into a room that one of my installers just put up a rod, go, that's like an eighth of an inch off, man. It's not straight because I can feel it. I look at it and it's like I feel it's crooked.

Roger Magalhaes 46:28

Yeah, right, right, yeah.

Mark Koperweis 46:30

So I can't leave the job until everything feels right, right? And immaculately clean. You know, you leave the place cleaner than you found it.

Roger Magalhaes 46:39

Right.

Mark Koperweis 46:40

It's really important, it's not just an aesthetic thing for safety, it's a very important thing. Because when there's stuff laying around, people can get hurt, you trip over things, you get off your ladder, and there's something behind you and you fall over it. And right, it's really important to be organized, neat, clean, and it's good for business too. So, you know, when people sense that in you, then they trust you that you're gonna do it right. They don't have to follow you around. And how come that's like that? It's like, lady, when it's finished, it's gonna look perfect, trust me.

Roger Magalhaes 47:16

A hundred percent. Well, the problem is you're coming to a home that is already furnished, it's not a construction site, so people are already attached to all the valuables inside, and

Operating Principles And Scaling The Business

Roger Magalhaes 47:30

comes the worker that is is sloppy and dirty and tools everywhere, they just being protective. Now you come and you show that you know what you're doing, you come clean, you organized, you just lower their guard, and it's much easier that way.

Mark Koperweis 47:51

Yeah, it's a whole culture, you know, and I try to pass that on to everybody that works for me. I I have a thing that I developed called the installer's 10 operating principles. Okay, and it's a list of 10 things, yeah. And every every installer that's ever worked for me, when they start out, they have to memorize those 10 operating principles. That's a great thing, and and it it really sets the culture, you know. We're in homes that you know you have to have it when it's to this level. We do a lot of work when it's still under construction, sure, because when we do enroller shades and recessed tracks, a lot of that goes in the boxes and everything goes in while construction's still happening, so we have that part of it, but then we also have we're in the cleaning clean stage, right? Maybe the furniture's not in, but all the floor protection's taken off, right? Drop cloths, you never put a ladder on any surface without a drop cloth, you never put anything down on any surface without a drop cloth, you don't use a table or a couch or anything for any of your stuff ever, right? That kind of thing, no dings, slow moves, it's not a race. These are all different like principles, it's like take your time, do it right. One of the principles is do it right now or do it right later.

Roger Magalhaes 49:18

Right, that's a good point, right there. Mark has been a pleasure, it's been a great experience talking to you, learning a lot from you. If you wanna leave a message here as your last words on the show, what would you tell people?

Mark Koperweis 49:43

Anything before it's too late because you know, as I said before, you gotta keep your eye on the goal. What is it we're really doing? We're feeling a need, right? The client has a need, light control, security, aesthetics, you know, all those things. Yeah, and keep your eye on the goal and you set up systems and try to delegate, don't try to do everything yourself. You can scale this business. This business is scalable. If it's just installations, it's scalable. If you're designing and selling, it's scalable, and you can build something like for me. I feel like this built this it company built itself just and I'm trying to like keep up with it. It's like a locomotive charging down this the tracks, and like we said, what gets me out of bed? It's like I gotta catch up to that caboose and jump on because right, it is going full speed. Yeah, I don't want to be left behind.

Roger Magalhaes 50:50

And the beauty of escaling, you can stay

Final Advice And Wrap-Up

Roger Magalhaes 50:54

in the business longer because you're not burning yourself out, right? Yeah, great point, Mark. Again, appreciate your time, appreciate all your knowledge, and and we have to have a cup of coffee sometime and meet in person.

Mark Koperweis 51:10

Absolutely, we'll do that eventually. I've been seeing you everywhere except in person for 20 years.

Roger Magalhaes 51:16

Well, next time, well now I'm leaving Florida. Next time you go see Joe, let me know.

Mark Koperweis 51:21

We'll definitely hook it up. I'm gonna be in Florida. I'm leaving uh next Sunday. I'll be there all of next week. All right, we'll we'll we'll we'll hook up. You got it. All right, buddy.

Roger Magalhaes 51:33

I appreciate it, Mark. Thank you so much, man. Thanks for your time. Take care. Bye-bye.

Intro / Outro 51:40

And that's a wrap for today. Hope you're leaving with something that sticks. If this episode resonated, please share it with someone who needs to hear it. For more information, follow Roger at RogerMegalis.com and find the link in the show notes for a free chapter of his book, Nobody Told Me That. We'll see you next Sunday with no strings attached.