Good Neighbor Podcast Estero
Bringing Together -
Local Businesses & Your Neighbors in SWFL
Good Neighbor Podcast Estero
EP # 234 How a Family Business Masters the Art of Paving
Discover the compelling story behind South West Pavers, a family-run business that thrives in the competitive paving industry. Founder Jesus Ramirez opens up about the inception of the company, sharing the journey that brought them from humble beginnings to managing an efficient crew nearly a decade later. He candidly discusses the "growing pains" that come with running a business, especially during busy seasons, and emphasizes the importance of communication with clients to foster long-lasting relationships in the community.
In this episode, we dive into common misconceptions surrounding pavers, particularly regarding maintenance and durability compared to concrete. Jesus demystifies the idea that pavers are high-maintenance, shedding light on their reparability and flexibility as a material choice for homeowners. Listeners will learn about current trends in paving preferences, including a shift towards cooler tones and squared edges, enhancing their understanding of modern aesthetics and design choices.
Moreover, Jesus shares his personal connection to Southwest Florida, having moved to the area during a time of renewal following Hurricane Charlie. His passion for community involvement shines through as he discusses supporting local sports teams and events. This episode is filled with inspiration for those in the industry or interested in local business dynamics, emphasizing that with dedication and a strong sense of community, success is achievable. Don't miss out—explore Southwest Pavers today and discover the benefits of quality paving for your home!
South West Pavers
Jesus Ramirez
Fort Myers, FL
941-777-3115
jrpavers@outlook.com
swpavers.com
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Cabo Jim.
Speaker 2:Schaller. Welcome Good Neighbors to episode number 234 of the Good Neighbor Podcast. Today we have Good Neighbor Jesus Ramirez from Southwest Pavers Welcome.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pleasure to have people on the community in and share that with our listeners. So let's obviously you work with pavers, so share a little bit about what you do with the listeners here business.
Speaker 3:The people that run it are myself, my dad, jesus senior, and my brother. His name is Gus and we've been in business since 2015, the end of 2015. And it kind of just came to be because my dad has been in construction for a long time and I was in college at the time, studying psychology and not sure whether I wanted to go to grad school or what I wanted to do after that. So he came up to me and he asked if we wanted to start something together. So at first I was still in college, so at first I was kind of doing both and just trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And we saw that the business had growth potential. It started with just him and I and um and it just started growing. So we stuck to it and uh, here we are, almost 10 years later, um, running an efficient um business that we strive to do our best, our very best at and um, I think our, uh, our customers are happy with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean being around for 10 years. You must be doing something right, so keep doing it. So let's talk about challenges along your journey, whether personally or professionally, the struggle of getting a business up and going. Is there something you went through?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I've always described it as growing pains. As you grow, as your reputation kind of gets out there, you get a lot of influx of calls and sometimes builders that want you to do some work for them, and at the beginning it's very difficult to get through. Those jobs just demand and we just don't have the manpower to get there. So at first it was pretty difficult. Like I mentioned, it was just me and my dad and we slowly got another guy and then another guy and then that's a full crew. That allowed us to then do jobs faster. And then we got another crew and that allowed us to get faster and and today we run and manage three crews. Um, that seems to be a pretty sweet spot. Like I said, it's three of us, we it's kind of tackling one crew each and, um, that's been working pretty well and and we still have a little bit of those growing pains where sometimes there is a high demand.
Speaker 3:This past Christmas holiday time period was pretty difficult. Everybody wanted to get everything done before the holidays and that was just some of it was realistic, some of it wasn't. So there was a bit of handling that situation, but we kind of just worked it out. We managed to get some of the more uh, you know pressing ones uh done first and then the others we just hadn't. I had to have a conversation with them and let them know. You know we're we're doing our best, but the holidays kind of get in the way and things close and there's only so much we can do. So we'll do our best, but you might get done at the beginning of the year and for the most part people are very understanding of that. So it's really just those issues. It's getting two jobs, because there's a lot of work to be done.
Speaker 2:I'm sure, I'm sure, and a lot of people, like you mentioned, wait till the last minute and then say, hey, I need it now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of that, and it's difficult too sometimes because you might not think it, but papers are in high demand and so the manufacturers don't exactly keep a lot in stock. So a lot of our customers are surprised when they want to get a job done, like, say, a driveway, and we tell them manufacturing time is going to take 8 to 12 weeks currently. I mean, it's been much more in the past. I mean, right after the hurricane it was up to 25 weeks sometimes, wow, and so that we just kind of had to wait for that manufacturing. And then the other thing is, manufacturers don't exactly give us updates. Uh, once we place the order, we don't know what's going on until the order is done, and that's sometimes difficult for people to understand too. But, um, it's a matter of just letting them know that that's yeah.
Speaker 2:Communication. That's what it comes down to. So let's talk about some of the myths or misconceptions surrounding what you that we can kind of clear up for our listeners today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I guess the main thing a lot of our customers are usually weighing the options of pavers and concrete. That tends to be what we come out to, and we work with a lot of concrete contractors as well, where, sometimes, if we're not the right fit, we'll recommend somebody else. That might be, but the misconception that often comes up is that pavers require a lot of maintenance. Up is that pavers require a lot of maintenance, and to a degree that is true. You, when you've got something that the main purpose of it is the colors and the pattern to it, you want to keep it looking nice, and, and to do that, you want to clean it, you want to seal it, and in that aspect there, there is some maintenance to be done. The main thing we always push, though, is that, when it comes to repairs, it's much better to have the pavers, because we can always repair the pavers. If they're sinking, we can pick them up, figure out what the issue is, why it's sunk, fix that issue, and then put the pavers back, and they're good.
Speaker 3:When you've got concrete, once it cracks, it's cracked, and the one thing that's 100% certain is concrete will crack. Not to belittle concrete, there's plenty of times where it's necessary, and that's what you should do, and a lot of times it's personal preference too. Sometimes you will prefer the concrete to the paver, so no wrong with that. But when it comes to pavers, 100% of the time we can always fix it, and if that particular paver cracked or broke, then it's easily replaceable with another one, right? So there's always something to be done there, and that's probably the main reason that we hear. Sometimes people will not think of pavers as an option because they think it's going to be very high maintenance. But usually a pressure wash here and there gets it looking nice and it's not as much as people might think Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about certain things. Have things changed or certain things trending now within the industry?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say color wise. At the beginning I think a lot of the tan colors, a couple of reds here and there, were very popular, but more recently people are leaning more towards the grays and I think I hear that from um interior decorators that you know they also go for a lot of grays. Um, that tends to be a trend. Another one is more um, squared looking pavers. I know they're all kind of like squared like, but a lot of the edges are kind of rounded out and the more popular ones now are more squared off edges. That tends to be a pattern as well.
Speaker 3:And yeah, as far as our installation, it's no big deal. We install it the exact same way. It's just a personal preference that we can recommend. If you're looking for something a bit more modern, you're going to want to go with something a bit more squared off. If like a little bit more traditional, which a lot of older homes will look better with more traditional stuff, and then there's plenty of rounded options to go with it's like design is constantly evolving right yeah, yes, and we definitely see that pattern.
Speaker 3:For sure. It will go weeks at a time where all we're placing is gray orders, right it happens for sure.
Speaker 2:There you go until the next trend, right? Yeah, yeah, I'm sure whatever that new trend is?
Speaker 3:it will definitely, we'll see it there you go.
Speaker 2:So are you from southwest florida originally I.
Speaker 3:I'd like to say that my hometown is fort myers, um. Truth is, I moved in when I was 10, um, so it was coming from texas. Uh, my dad was working roofing at the time and so that was right after Hurricane Charlie. So we've been around the area to help rebuild in a roundabout way ever since then and he's been in the community working construction various different trades since then, but we, yeah, since then we've been a part of the community and helped rebuild several times now.
Speaker 2:Nice, nice. Yeah, I've seen a lot of change, I'm sure Right.
Speaker 3:For sure. I mean, I remember one of the things that struck out to me when when we first moved down here was people were riding bikes, because we came from Dallas, I mean that was a big city and people riding around in their bikes just in town was a was a pretty big deal. But you don't really see that that much anymore and now you see a lot of traffic.
Speaker 2:Exactly Too much traffic sometimes.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, For sure we won't complain.
Speaker 2:It's good for business.
Speaker 3:We won't complain, it is so.
Speaker 2:I know owning a business can be very demanding of your time, but when you do get a free moment, what do you enjoy doing outside of work?
Speaker 3:enjoy doing outside of work. I'm a big soccer fan, okay, and one of the big things that's coming up here is FC Naples. It's a soccer club that's starting out in Naples. It's not first division soccer, it's not MLS, but it is exciting to have a local professional soccer team. So my wife and I, and my parents too, we all got season tickets. Next week is going to be the first opening game, so we're pretty excited about that. And, yeah, I mean I'm a big fan of the sport. I'm a big fan of sports overall. We go to Everblades a lot. You know we recently, just this past weekend, went to see spring training. So we like sports in general, going out and seeing all that, especially, like I said, local stuff. So it's exciting.
Speaker 2:That's it Supporting the community and getting out and enjoying yourselves with the family so is there one thing you wish our listeners knew about Southwest Papers that maybe they're not so familiar with?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say there's a lot of homes being built out here and Therefore a lot of pavers needed to be installed and a lot of builders. You know there's a lot of paver companies that are out there and sometimes they'll have a relationship that goes back a long time and they won't look for other options, and so one thing that I always try to reach out to is people that are building their homes. If they're not using us, consider getting a quote. We offer free estimates so if we can just get plans and square footage, we can get a pretty quick quote out there and getting something more in depth by going out to the job site and measuring out and all that.
Speaker 3:I feel a lot of times I kind of represent myself as almost a talent agent, because I'm not on the field anymore, but I do.
Speaker 3:We only work with guys that are very specific about how they do their job, and so I kind of see myself as selling their talent to the installation being done better than others.
Speaker 3:Not not to say that others don't do a good job, but sometimes our installation is you can see two driveways side by side and you can see that one of them is just better, but you're not quite sure why, right and, and so that's where we come in and I can explain.
Speaker 3:You know we made this cut differently than what the pattern suggests because we leave it bigger. Or you know, this curve could have been done this way, as the pattern suggests, but we changed it up a little bit and we did it this way because long-term it's going to be better for you as you're driving it over and over, and I get to kind of explain these things to the homeowners because I've been there, done that where a lot of other companies will use salespeople that may not necessarily have experience doing the actual work, and that experience is so important because you don't know what you're looking for if you don't know what you're looking for, absolutely Like that's. That's kind of the main thing that I try to get builders to understand is that when they get us, they also get me and I can explain those things to the homeowners and they can make a more educated decision other than just color, shape and size.
Speaker 2:Yep, it's that attention to detail with experience on top of it.
Speaker 3:Exactly yes.
Speaker 2:How would our listeners?
Speaker 3:go about contacting you if they wanted to learn more or had some questions. Pretty simple Southwest Pavers spelled out across all social medias. We're trying to do a better job more recently at posting a lot more. That kind of fell on the wayside as we got busier, but now we have somebody that handles specifically just posting on social media and they can get a good idea of the work we do, of everything our driveways, our pool decks, patios, walkways, retaining walls, we work with travertine porcelain.
Speaker 3:We like posting all those different things that that we do on our all our social media. You've got our phone number on there. Um, we got our email on there. We have a website, swpaverscom. All of it is on there easily to send an email through the website as well requesting an estimate. We go out and do estimates twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we're usually booked out the whole week. You can usually schedule a week in advance for that and we just kind of try to keep it consistent and try to not have people waiting too long for an estimate, cause you know, sometimes time is of an essence as well.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. Any last words for our listeners.
Speaker 3:Just you know we're. We're, like I said, a family run and operated business. We always strive to do our very best, so I always just like to say that one or the three of us will be at any given job set at any time, and so that's always. We're easily accessible. Any one of us can be accessed and help out whatever issue is going on.
Speaker 2:Very good.
Speaker 3:Hey.
Speaker 2:Zeus, it's been a pleasure getting to know you. Thank you for being such a good neighbor and we hope to see you on a community soon.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the good neighbor podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNP Esterocom. That's GNP Esterocom, or call 296-2621.