Luck, Lessons, and Lifetime Homes: Taylor Wright on Building 828 Builders in WNC

🎧Taylor Wright of 828 Builders shares his raw journey from landscaping to building lifetime homes in Western North Carolina—after a $300K lesson on why "contract, contract, contract" is non-negotiable.

He gets candid: Ditch investor pressure for values-driven work, take bigger swings if starting over, lead by owning mistakes, and hire for attitude over resumes. Running a business is tougher than a job, but with preparation meeting opportunity (aka "luck"), balance, faith, and team wins, it's worth it.

828 Builders is scaling in Hendersonville with custom homes that last generations. 

Guest contact info:  

828builders.com

taylor@828builders.com

Thanks for Listening. You may contact me or our team at https://billgilliland.biz/

All the best!
Bill

Please hit the subscribe button, leave us a 5 star review,  and share this podcast. You can reach me at williamgilliland@actioncoach.com or at https://billgilliland.biz/

Transcript

From Landscaping To Licensed Builder

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Hi everyone, welcome to the tweet episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I am Cliff McCray with Acting Coach Business Growth Partners, where we work with local business owners to turn big ideas into real scalable growth. Today I'm excited to be joined by Taylor Wright of 828 Builders. Taylor, thanks for being here. And how are you doing today? Excellent, Cliff. I hope you are. All right, great, yeah, great, great. Yeah, so let's go ahead and jump right in. So for those of you who may not know it yet, you know, this is Taylor Wright. And uh, what is 828 Builders and what problems are you most passionate about solving for your clients?

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Uh 828 Builders is a uh for now, it's a residential home building company. Um we've been going at this now for a little over 10 years, and you know, our passion is just building homes for people that they truly love and homes that are gonna last them a lifetime.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

So, yeah, take us back to the very beginning. What what made you say, yep, I'm doing this, I'm starting this business?

Values Versus Investor Pressure

If Starting Over: Take Bigger Swings

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Uh well, to to be honest with you, uh it just seemed like a it seemed like an adventure that could give me freedom, but also discipline at the same time. Um it's sort of what I needed when I was younger was just a a path forward and something that would allow me to work as hard as I wanted to work, or you know, give me the amount of freedom that I I wanted. And that just led to uh well, that led to where I'm at today. Um it's been a long journey. Uh I started out doing landscaping, and that led to building fences, which led to building decks, which led to framing and siding, which led to getting a license, which led to you know um building homes, uh, and and uh you know, as we look forward, we definitely strong potential to get into commercial, um, probably most likely for ourselves. It's uh it's it's pretty hard working for investors as a builder. Any builder would tell you that that you know when the bottom dollar is what really matters, um sometimes you got to take shortcuts that you really don't want to. And uh, you know, at the end of the day, as builders, we have to be responsible for that. Even if the client wants to, you know, save every penny that they can save at the end of the day, it's you know, we need to make sure that we have a good product that we're delivering, even if it is you know as as cost uh cost-friendly as possible.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

So if you had to start again from absolute scratch, you know, no brands, no clients, no safety net, what would you do differently the second time around?

SPEAKER_00 3:35

I would I would take more chances rapidly. Um, you know, as I'm getting a little bit older here, I I realize that you know the only things that I haven't been able to achieve are the things that I haven't attempted. And um I you know I I don't be afraid to try, I guess is what I'm trying to say. I I um you know sometimes it doesn't work out, and then sometimes it doesn't work out the way you want it to work out, but um you you can still make it work, it's just gonna take a little bit more effort. I mean, you're never gonna know everything about anything, and you know, you just learn on the fly and be willing to put the hours in. I mean, sometimes things work beautifully, and sometimes things just don't work at all. Um, and like I said, you just gotta make it work.

The $300K Lesson: Contracts Always

SPEAKER_02 4:30

Okay, okay. So, what's a lesson you learned the hard way as a business owner that no one really prepares you for?

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

So the first job I had as a builder, I got burned on. I was going to a gym, uh a local MMA gym, and I uh the owner and I kicked it off. He was the coach, and I had told him at the time I was building, I was framing, um, doing manual labor, and he was asking me, actually, he was asking me to come work for him. I told him I didn't really not the type of person that likes to work for other people in that like sense. But um, anyways, to make a long story short, he told me if I got my building license that he would provide me an investment opportunity that he and I could both do together. I came back eight days later with my certificate, and you know, he was like astonished by that. Well, being novice, not really knowing anything about the business side of things, I felt confident that I could build the house, and it was a big project. Felt very confident I could build the house, but I didn't know anything about business, to be frank, especially investments and developing uh real estate things like that. So, anyways, I was probably 26 at the time, maybe 25, and that was around COVID, and uh that was a uh just just south of$300,000 mistake. Um, I didn't know, I didn't have a contract. I thought that I could trust people that you know I shake hands with you, you shake hands with me, we look each other in the eye, and that is you know that that matters. Well, it does matter to me still, but to most people it doesn't. And so contract, contract, contract. I I have a buddy who I grew up with, and um we we both grew up in western North Carolina. I I grew up in Bunkham County, he grew up in Asheville City, but anyways, he's he's gone off to do things. He lives in France now. Um his company was one of the top ten fastest growing companies in Poland a couple of years ago. And anyways, he uh he really um you know put put it inside um my mind and just my my um realm of reality that contracts we don't do anything as business owners without contracts, even if it seems small, repetitive, sometimes insulting, you know, if if in the contracting general contracting world, if something changes, you need to get your client to sign off on that. And I mean it can be just something as small as a voice recording. I mean, we all have that on our phone, click a button, have the client agree to it through a voice recording, but I can't tell you how many times that I've told somebody I was gonna do something, I do it, and then at the end of the project, when that bill comes, all of a sudden they forgot that they asked that, or they don't understand why that wasn't originally part of the the work or whatever. So contract, contract, contract.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

Okay, okay. So what's one common myth people believe about running a business that makes you laugh now?

SPEAKER_00 7:54

One common myth. I would say that a lot of people think that running a business is easier than um working for someone. Uh, and I say that because I've encouraged everybody that I I had a framing crew for a long time, maybe seven years or so, and I encouraged all of them to want to grow and do more than just work for me, um, work towards growing their own business. And um, anyways, that the time came that they felt like they could do their own thing individually, one by one, and uh they've all come back and asked for their jobs back, but unfortunately that position is no longer available. So yeah, I mean, it's uh you know, it's it's I don't know, it it it it's a lot of it can be a lot harder to have your own business, but once you get it established and you put the right things in play, it can be a lot easier as well.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Okay, okay. So be honest, are you naturally more of an entrepreneur or an employee at heart and why?

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Certainly more of an entrepreneur. Um I just have a bit of a rebellious soul, always have, and um I just like trying to do things my own way, and you know, um it's I I have I've I've always had trouble with authority, and um I think that having your own business um you know gives you gives you that freedom to learn lessons the hard way. And yeah, so I've yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Okay. All right. So how do you hand how do you personally handle stepping away from the business, you know, vacations, downtime, unplugging without everything falling apart?

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Um I think it's important to have a vision. You uh work, work, work all the time, and you'll get caught up in your business, and you really will kind of lose direction. And it's important to be able to step back and unplug and and evaluate what's important not only in your business, but also in life. If you have a family, if you have you know religious beliefs, uh town obligations, whatever uh extracurricular things that are going on in your life besides business, it's important to make sure that there's a balance there. So for me, it's just spending time with my family and and talking with my wife or close friends and loved ones about you know where we want to be when we're 60 years old, and you know, sitting on a big pile of cash would be nice, but it's obviously not the most important thing.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

So looking back, what do you attribute most of your growth to your in your business so far?

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Um I would say that that would be blessings and uh luck and hard work.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Yeah, it's it's uh there was a I was at a wedding in uh go. It's my wife's grandfather, I guess, of sorts. He was the first black pilot in the United States. Uh I believe it was one of the big uh flight, you know, United Airlines is what it was. Well, anyways, when I was uh at the wedding, everybody was getting lit, and um I had just recently put down drinking, and I think he was just sipping on something. But anyways, I was talking to him about my life and what I was wanting and the direction I was moving, and he told me that I kept telling him I just need some luck, I need some luck, and he said that the definition of luck is whenever preparation meets opportunity. And the way that that hit me was just, I mean, it was it was life-changing. Those those words are life-changing. You know, like if we work all the time, we can all work all the time, but we all need to get lucky sometimes. So if there's something that you're wanting to do in life, work towards it, even if it's not paying you, even if it's not you're not getting anything from it, but it's something that you want. You need to start moving in that direction, and then that way when the opportunity comes, you'll be ready for it. But if you have no idea what it is that you really want, when somebody comes by and says, Hey, would you like to do this? You really won't, you really won't be ready for that. So Okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

When you're building a team, what traits matter more to you than what's on someone's resume?

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Um, having a good attitude is definitely going to be at the top of that list. Um being able to work well with others, um uh being humble, being a team player. Uh, I don't really care about somebody's resume so much. The what what I do is it's not rocket science. Um, you know, and and and most of the time in life things are simple. So it's you know just just having some key guidelines to follow, a standard operating procedure, and doing that in a team um team environment, um, where we're all trying to win together, we're all going to eat together. We win together, we win together. If we lose together, we lose together. But at the end of the day, we all depend on each other.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

So Okay, okay. So, what's one thing you do intentionally to keep your workplace positive, motivated, and productive, you know, especially during stressful seasons.

Ownership Culture Under Stress

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Uh I put it on my back. If something goes wrong, I try to look at things as what could I have done better? What how could I have improved? I don't point the finger and blame other people for their faults. Um that doesn't mean that I don't hold people accountable. I will hold people accountable, but at the end of the day, if something went wrong on my job or in my office or in my environment, my world, my life, I always try to look in the mirror first and see what I could have done differently. And a lot of times when you go into things with that attitude, um people um are much more um receptive to uh you know changes on their end as well. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:29

All right, well, yeah, now we're gonna head into what's called the quick fire round. So uh basically I'm going to give you, I'm going to say one word, and I want you to tell me the first idea or first thing that comes to your mind when you hear that word in regards to running your business. Okay. All right. The first word is education.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

Critical priceless. Everywhere.

Advice For The Overwhelmed: Faith

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Next word is commitment. And that's actually the next word is essential. And the last word is execution. Okay, I like that. I like that. All right. Yeah, I appreciate that. So, you know, and I want you to be as candid as you can with this next answer, you know. Um let's say somebody's listening to this episode today, small business owners listening right now and feel stuck or overwhelmed. What's a piece of advice you'd want them to hear today?

SPEAKER_01 15:48

To be frank, put it on God.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

That's the the biggest trials and tribulations that I've had in my life, whether it be business, you know, relationships at home, relationships at work, relationships wherever. If you take yourself out of it and put it on God, He will take care of it. And I'm sure that's probably not the answer that you're looking for, but frankly, that's um been the answer for me. Um, and the more that that is the answer for me, the better everything goes for me. So all right.

What’s Next: Scaling In WNC

SPEAKER_02 16:26

So what's next for 828 builders? What should people be excited about? What's coming up next for AT 828 builders?

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Uh man, uh, we're we're ready to take over Hendersonville.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

That's where we're at. Western North Carolina, we're we're you know, we're really growing. Um we we finally have everything in line. Uh, our foundation is set. We all the pieces are in play, and um the Lord willing, we're we're going to really scale uh over the next couple of years. I think that you know it's definitely a name to look out for, and um you know, I'm hoping to have a big team and have a big community of people that are happy to have us doing the work for them to have the the home of their dreams built, a home that's gonna last, a home that they'll be proud of, uh their grandkids will be proud of. And then also on the other end, having a team of um project managers, a team of um subcontractors, just a big community of people that um are happy to be working, happy to be part of our community, to be making this area a better place. Um, so I think that um the name 828 builders, I'm not exactly sure how far it's gonna go, but you know, the the limit is just whatever we make it. So I'm just trying to stay out of my own way and see what happens. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

So where do you see eight eight to a builders? Let's say hypothetically, what do you see your your company five years from now?

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Five years from now, eight to a builders is going to be a multi-faceted operation. Right now, we really are just into building, but um, I could see us having a development uh department, um, a real estate department, a rental department. You know, we we I have I have some investors that um are are interested in doing the real estate thing, so I think that you know we're just gonna push it every direction that um makes sense and uh I'm looking forward to.

Connect With 828 Builders

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Okay, perfect. And finally, what's the best way for someone to connect with you or or learn more about what you do?

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Uh reach out through email, through text message, through phone call. Uh really easy to find. You can find us at a28builders.com. We are on Instagram and Facebook, but the easiest way is going to be through our uh website, a28builders.com.

SPEAKER_02 19:29

All right, perfect. Yeah, so yeah, really appreciate that. Yeah, thank you so much, Taylor. This has been fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing your story, your perspective, and the real behind the scenes of building your business. Uh, really appreciate everything you're doing for the community.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Yeah, no, absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity, follow.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

Yeah, thank you very much.