The Grit Blueprint

Champions of Independents: Do it Best Group's Vision for Growth w/ CEO Dan Starr

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Dan Starr, president and CEO of Do it Best Group, shares insights on strategic acquisitions, technology, and branding to help independent lumber yards and hardware stores thrive against big-box competition.

• Discussing Do it Best's recent acquisition of True Value after many years of conversation between the companies
• Spring Market in Orlando setting records with over 10,000 attendees from both Do it Best and True Value members
• Scale matters in distribution, providing independents with competitive advantages through efficient warehousing and logistics
• Technology and data analysis help identify not just what's selling but what's missing from inventory
• De-risking lumber trading through futures and hedging strategies offered to members
• Finding specialization in specific categories provides higher margins and customer loyalty
• Building strong brands through consistent execution rather than just advertising
• Social media presence should showcase both products and personality to distinguish from competitors
• Servant leadership culture creates responsive customer service and genuine commitment to member success


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Stefanie Couch:

You are the champion of independence and you and your business is really structured around that and helping independent lumber yards and retail hardware stores grow and thrive and compete with the big boys and girls. A lot of people have data, but it's so difficult to figure out what metrics actually matter. That's right, because there's so many.

Dan Starr:

And the harder thing to find is where the gaps. You can't measure that so hard, but we can. Tweaking what you're doing at store level is an important thing to always do and it's a constant thing, and we can help you with that.

Stefanie Couch:

Branding out loud, building what you're showing with your customers is so important and I think people love to see what lumberyards, hardware stores, builders they love to see our craft.

Dan Starr:

Absolutely, and they want to see your personality. You can get lost in social media. Be distinct, be unique. Don't be afraid to have a sense of humor. People love those things and they want to see who you genuinely are.

Stefanie Couch:

So show it to them. Some might say buy a pink hat, buy a big old pink hat. Welcome to the Grit Blueprint Podcast, the show for bold builders, brand leaders and legacy makers in the construction and building industry. I'm your host, stephanie Couch, and I've been in this industry my entire life. Whether we're breaking down what's working in sales and marketing, new advances in AI and automation, or interviewing top industry leaders, you're going to get real world strategies to grow your business, build your brand and lead your team. Let's get to work. Welcome to the Grit Blueprint Podcast. I'm your host, stephanie Couch, and I'm excited today to be live and in person with Dan Starr, the president and CEO of Do it Best Group, who has recently had a lot of excitement in your life, and we're here today in Orlando at the Spring Market, the biggest market that Do it Best has ever had. Welcome to the show.

Dan Starr:

Thank you, it's great to be here.

Stefanie Couch:

And we are here with True Value Lots going on. You are the CEO, have been here for a long time and you have been the CEO since 2016. But I would venture to say that maybe the last year has been probably the most exciting year you've had since you've joined. Do it Best right.

Dan Starr:

I would say that is the case. If excitement and change can be just kind of correlated, then the answer is yes by far. There's been more exciting change and some really great things and a lot of difficult circumstances to navigate. All that is true.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, exactly, and you have a background that was really primed for this role, I think, with acquisitions and mergers, and you've done a lot of that, so let's just dig in. The first thing that everyone's going to want to know is you guys bought United Hardware and then you just recently acquired True Value, which was a legacy company, been around a long time, a very well-known name. I mean everybody you say, hey, true Value, they know it right. I even can see the logo in my mind from my childhood True Value Hardware. Tell me a little bit about the last year and about that acquisition.

Dan Starr:

Yeah, and please be sure and corral me, I'll have a tendency to just meander all over the place. But in many ways it's been a long time coming. You know, you hear an expression of people becoming a success overnight, you know, and they've worked for 20 years and then suddenly they're a success overnight.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah.

Dan Starr:

There's a similar, there's just a parallel to that. We have had conversations off and on with True Value for many, many years. So their CEO, their prior CEO, their CEO before that.

Dan Starr:

I've had one-on-one conversations with all of them at some level or another about some kind of combination or acquisition. It just the timing wasn't right, mainly because True Value had it's the reason they went into bankruptcy. They had all these very, very large legacy debts and obligations and that unfortunate trajectory continued to a point where it was then no longer viable and that's what triggered the acquisition and nobody knew when that was going to come. It's been predicted for more than 20 years.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, they got into a hole they just couldn't crawl out of.

Dan Starr:

Right.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah Well, it's exciting because we're here at this market and I heard over 10,000 members here with Do it Best and True Value combined.

Dan Starr:

Yeah, there's more than 10,000 badges out there, and there's some vendor badges as part of that mix too, but we've never I mean we have more Do it Best members that are here than when we were here two years ago in Orlando.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, it's amazing. And then you add all the True Value members.

Dan Starr:

On top of it, with the space we have, it's huge and it feels kind of crowded on the floor. Sure yeah.

Stefanie Couch:

I was just walking and just people everywhere and there's a real buzz and the industry has been talking about this. I mean, every trade publication, everything I look at, it's talking about this acquisition. But what are you the most excited about? I mean, what gets you fired up when you think about where you are today and where you're going to go with this and how the members are going to be seen? Because one thing I do want to point out, and this is the thing I love about Do it Best the most. I grew up in an independent hardware store and lumberyard and you are the champion of independence and you and your business is really structured around that and helping independent lumberyards and retail hardware stores grow and thrive and compete with the big boys and girls. So what excites you the most about it?

Dan Starr:

All that. No, I mean, what excites me the most about that are really two things. One is kind of the nerdy behind the scenes, the other is the very public. The nerdy behind the scenes is that scale matters. Scale makes a very big difference, particularly when you do something that is very cost-centric, capital-intensive, where you're taking in product into warehouses, running trucks and distributing them all across the United States and in 50 countries. It's a very complex offering. If you can build scale at that, you can drive efficiencies that are stunning. It's a little nerdy.

Stefanie Couch:

I know I was in distribution for years. I'm as nerdy as you on that.

Dan Starr:

But it is the best stuff because it's like that's what we do, that's the heart of what we do and that's where we can deliver a ton of value. So part of it is the opportunity that comes from scale. The other part of it is more the public facing the opportunity that comes from having two different ways to go to market. One is a very well-known retail brand. The other is really more of a member-centric way of going to market. They're both member-centric, but I just mean, in terms of retail brands, the opportunities with that I think were needed in our industry Absolutely.

Stefanie Couch:

And.

Dan Starr:

I think that that's going to be a very powerful and exciting thing to be able to work on in the future.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, and as the bigger companies do continue to merge in acquisition and get larger, the competition for independent lumber yards and retail stores is pretty tough.

Dan Starr:

It is.

Stefanie Couch:

But there is such a competitive advantage. I believe that the small business owner on the ground knows their market, knows their people, knows their customers. There is a huge opportunity to capitalize. But where that leverage is lacking is in that scale. They can't call and just buy the huge whole mill worth of lumber. Some of these people that are big they buy more lumber than we used to at distribution with a huge company. So you guys have that scale that you can help leverage. So the small business owner actually can take that and partner with someone like Do it Best or True Value and really get all the benefits of being huge and also have all the leverage of staying small and on the ground with where you know what you're doing in your market.

Dan Starr:

I couldn't have said it better. It's a wonderful thing, and the fact they can do that in a setting where they have the confidence of knowing that they're a shareholder of this company, they're not just a customer. And so they're not just a customer, they're our owner, and they also have a board of directors that's entirely comprised of member owners themselves, and so there's this stewardship where, it's like every bit of the benefit of all that is being driven right back to that group of people.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, it's a pretty beautiful setup. I don't know anybody else that's doing anything like this. You guys are the largest member-owned co-op in the whole United States and the world, maybe.

Dan Starr:

I think it might be the world.

Stefanie Couch:

Okay, it's pretty cool.

Dan Starr:

I'm not aware of any co-op as large as we are now. I love it yeah.

Stefanie Couch:

Well, you've had a busy year, yes, and personally you've also had a pretty cool year, I have so you just became a grandfather. Tell me a little bit about that, because I know it's been stressful on the work side, but it had to have been filled with joy on that side.

Dan Starr:

I didn't know you were going to ask me about that, but that is true. In December, december 11th, my eldest son, he and his wife Annie. They welcomed a little baby boy, and everyone tells you that being a grandparent is just the best, and I think they're underselling it. It is the most joyful experience that I've ever had.

Stefanie Couch:

That's awesome and you got it right before Christmas, so pretty cool Christmas present and I'm sure that in a year or two he will hopefully be roaming the market floors.

Dan Starr:

He's coming to the fall show.

Stefanie Couch:

I will tell you, I went to hardware shows as a young child. My whole childhood with my parents and my sisters went with me. It is still, right now, one of my most core memories in my life and the most fun. You know, everybody's got free candy. Now there's always today. You guys had puppies at one of your booths.

Dan Starr:

Did you stop there? Yes, they are the cutest. I just that was stunning.

Stefanie Couch:

I'm surprised I actually made it to this interview, because you're pretty awesome, dan, but puppies, no puppies win. I may or may not have one in my bag somewhere.

Dan Starr:

They're just, and there were like six or so. I thought there might be just like one or two, and no, there's like I don't know.

Stefanie Couch:

They're adorable, Eight I know, but this show is great for kids. I, I don't know they're adorable, Eight I know, but this show is great for kids. I've been seeing kids everywhere and that's also something I love about. You know small businesses. It is family oriented Absolutely, and you know these owners they get away. This is a vacation for them. Tonight we're going to go to Universal Studios.

Dan Starr:

I'm meet you on the front row of the VelociCoaster.

Stefanie Couch:

I don't know what I'm going to do with my hat.

Dan Starr:

It's not going to survive it, but you can wear it on the ride. Will you help me make?

Stefanie Couch:

sure it doesn't come off on the roller coasters. It's a little scary because people don't. I don't know what I'm going to do without my hat.

Dan Starr:

Well, fortunately your name's on it, so I All right.

Stefanie Couch:

Well, I want to segue a little bit to one of my favorite topics, which is lumber and building materials. Do it Best has long been known for hard lines hardware, Milwaukee, DeWalt You'll have all these amazing brands. You even have farm and ranch stuff everywhere. I heard and I'm going to check this out later there's baby chicks on the floor. There are, OK. Got to go check that out. I've seen that already on one of the booths. But you are actually exceptional at lumber and building materials and have a very large team. So tell me a little bit, for maybe a member or someone in the world that doesn't know about what you do. I've had the pleasure of working with your team the last year in that segment. Tell me a little more about that.

Dan Starr:

Yeah, I'm happy to tell you about that. It is a very, very large part of our business and it always has been, From the very beginning and the foundation of our company. We were founded in 1945 and it was a collection of independent stores at that time in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio, and lumber dealers were a part of that from the very beginning. So it's not some kind of sideline thing that we started dabbling in a few years ago and you measure our sales in the billions of dollars when it comes to lumber and building materials. So it's not exactly a small part of the business.

Dan Starr:

And it ranges from everything. So a lot of that is direct relationships with mills, carloads of lumber, a lot of that is we have reload centers across the US where you can get access to less than truckload and a range of products. So those are like, from small to large, we can serve anybody who's anywhere in the US on all their needs on lumber and building materials. And it's the most complete arrangement too, because all those folks, the real lumber people and you know those people right, the sawdust in the veins type of people they take a pride almost in the fact that they're lumber people. They don't sell trinkets and what they mean by that.

Stefanie Couch:

It's all that little my dad's one of those. Is he one of those guys? He was like paint. No, thank you. The day we got rid of the paint line was the best day of my dad's. One of those. Is he one of those guys? He was like paint. No, thank you. Yeah, the day we got rid of the paint line was the best day of my dad's life probably still to this day, but he just didn't love it.

Stefanie Couch:

He's a lumberman, he's a lumber guy and he wants to sell lumber and he still feels that way.

Dan Starr:

And it's hard to convince and you don't want to convince them otherwise that the building materials, some of the fasteners, some of the building products that go along with that, to have hard lines distribution to support that. Sure, because there's a lot of folks who do a lot of lumber, who also do niche categories that are lumber adjacent.

Stefanie Couch:

Let's just call it that Fasten Master or Simpson?

Dan Starr:

Strong Tie or Simpson Strong Tie, you name it.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, so many things. You've got to have it because those contractors don't want to have to go to two different places and you might lose the lumber business because you don't have it. So you guys have a full line of everything. A lot of it is in warehouse, so you don't have to stock these big giant quantities of stuff. You buy what you need just in time inventory, which right now is so important with our economy. People don't want to keep months and months of inventory without turns.

Dan Starr:

It's scary, that's exactly right. You get to the other side of COVID and that's exactly right. They focus on skinning down the inventory so you're not overextended. Certainly something like lumber the pricing there has been. I'm sure you follow it enough to go. That is not for the faint of heart.

Stefanie Couch:

No, I've always said my whole life that lumber trading is like literally playing the roulette wheel. I've always thought it was like the riskiest job there is in our industry, because you've got to have a stomach for it.

Dan Starr:

Yeah, you must be an adrenaline junkie, but that, I mean, I look at that and I go. That to me is one of the other huge benefits of working with if I can just be selfish working with an organization like ours, because some of that is, hey, do you offer a service to de-risk some of that? Yes, sure, yes, we hedge All right, and so there's a way for us to stabilize that so that they can get just in time sort of inventory and it de-risks a little bit.

Dan Starr:

We can also offer them futures and other vehicles to take a little bit of that price risk out of the equation which can kill you.

Stefanie Couch:

Absolutely, and we actually implemented this time at market for the first time on the LBM show floor at the booth, we're doing learning sessions and one of those was about lumber features this morning talking about marketing things like that. So you guys are giving value-added services to your members, not only to offer product, but you're offering experts and you're offering how to actually teach them to be empowered to be experts themselves and their traders and their people on the ground so that they understand how they can use the power that you guys have.

Dan Starr:

Yeah, and we're not trying to encourage people to be roulette players. Yeah, what we're saying is it's risky to be in this business. That's right. How can you de-risk it? Absolutely, how can you utilize these tools to lower your overall cost of goods. Yeah, that's what we're after.

Stefanie Couch:

Absolutely. How would you say that independent dealers should be working towards leveraging things today? What is?

Dan Starr:

I'm a big proponent of making sure that you're not just following along with others and then trying to offer the breadth of what you can do without really specializing in anything.

Stefanie Couch:

It's hard to be a jack of all trades, for sure.

Dan Starr:

It really is, and then you're just competing on commodity price for something that's very, very hard. I do think that the folks that are the most successful are the ones that really find something that is theirs, and they are not just in it, they're an expert in it and they do it like nobody else. I think of Doug Manns and what he does decking and decking materials, their whole company. They know how to work that part of it. So, yes, you can go to Manns Lumber and you can get dimensional lumber. You also have the ability to do things like from a decking, and that's still part of the home improvement space.

Dan Starr:

It's not just construction, but you can do some things that are out of this world and they are the destination. So specialization and being really in it, I think, is pretty critical.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, I love it when I see people. My background is a lot of millwork stuff, so doors and windows, that's a premium category. You can charge higher margins, but it's tough and it's technical. So the likelihood that someone's going to need your expertise in that and you be that specialist that they're always going to come to. If you do it right, you can have a customer for life.

Dan Starr:

If you do it right, then fine. Sell the volume stuff, but get the high margin stuff when you're at it, would you please?

Stefanie Couch:

Absolutely. It's a great way to really hedge against some of these crazy market changes that you see in lumber. That's right. Well, I want to shift a little bit to something I love talking about, which is technology, and I know you are also very adamant about the place that technology has in our future. As a business, I don't think of our industry necessarily as always the most forefront runner in technology. I still have customers that have fax machines. Do you really? Yes, and they use them. Oh, no, no.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, I know, and it's funny because that's pretty common in lumberyards to see at least the old rogue fax machine, just in case.

Dan Starr:

And you got to have a landline to go with it.

Stefanie Couch:

A hundred percent. So I want to talk a little bit about what you see. So AI, data, e-commerce is something that Do it Best does very well. You have an amazing leader in Allison Flatjord, who was a huge leader in e-commerce at some very large companies outside of our industry and she's brought expertise there. But tell me what you think people should be thinking about. What are your thoughts on just technology in general?

Dan Starr:

What do you see coming? Biggest trends? I look at that and say I believe as we evolve, that will become. The sustainable competitive advantage is making sure that we are leveraging data and leveraging technology in the right way.

Dan Starr:

And it's also something that our members cannot do that on their own. They don't have access to the overwhelming amount of data that their co-op does, so it really is incumbent upon us to do it, because nobody else will. So we have to do it and we have to get better at it, and it will be our competitive advantage, and I'll give you just a couple quick examples. So there's a lot of people, I think, that might listen and go all right, fine, but what does that even mean in our space? I think one of those might be evaluating not just the movement but the completeness of a department.

Dan Starr:

Do we have all the right things? Are we missing anything? Are we heavy in some things that aren't moving in the right way? And the harder thing to find is where are the gaps? How do you know what you should have when you don't have it? Yeah, it's a gut feeling. You can't measure that so hard, but we can. And so I think when you do velocity of sales and adjacencies and you start to aggregate that data and then you work it together, you can turn that back and say tweaking what you're doing at store level is an important thing to always do and it's a constant thing and we can help you with that, and we can. We can both modernize it, keep it fresh, keep it relevant.

Dan Starr:

Make sure you've got everything you need another one is just on the buying side, right when you have all that data at your fingertips and and you need to understand, in our business it's cyclical, right? You can see it every single year. Whether you have a strong winter or a light one, there's a cyclical pattern. Even with prices that are all over the place, there's still a volume pattern that takes place, especially in lumber and building materials, and when you evaluate those things and you make sure that you're not our members don't want to be heavy in inventory. We're more efficient if we don't have to be either, but you have to have the right things at the right time at the right price, and so using those systems to help with demand forecasting and replenishment is pretty critical to being good at your job. Absolutely, we have to do that.

Stefanie Couch:

A lot of people have data, they have something, their ERP gives them numbers, but it's so difficult to figure out number one. What metrics actually matter, that's right.

Stefanie Couch:

Because there's so many and then it's different for each business, each category, and then also extrapolating data in a way that, like you said, who's going to spend the time looking through these spreadsheets that I've exported from my ERP system that have 5,000 rows? That's right, and I think AI can help with a lot of that. I'm loving what I'm seeing with some of the things we're doing, and I know you guys are using some things to really optimize. Okay, this is the outcome I'm searching for. Now you let AI go spend the time instead of a human to extrapolate what you need and give you reports. What do you think AI is going to do? How do you see that and do you use it in your day-to-day? I'm curious.

Dan Starr:

I actually have used it. Okay, I actually have.

Stefanie Couch:

It was more for personal business than it was for anything work-related, but I asked AI to basically write me an itinerary.

Dan Starr:

My youngest son is graduating from college. I'm finally getting them all off the payroll.

Stefanie Couch:

Oh, that's awesome. Where does he go to school?

Dan Starr:

Wheaton College in Chicago. You know where that is? Yeah, I do. So. He's graduating this spring and I just, I want to go on a little trip, just dad and son as graduation present to him. But I had generative AI build an itinerary for me and it was good. I know it wasn't junk. You have to work on it, but it's good.

Stefanie Couch:

I think that's one of the things people miss is, you know, with AI it can just about do anything, but you got to prompt it and you probably have to prompt it more than once and nuance it, just like if you were giving directions when you're driving. If you dump all the directions at the very beginning, it's different than saying turn left here now, turn right here, you know, and you're prompting it that way. So the itinerary that you get. I'm sure you had to say okay, we want to be a little less busy on this afternoon, we might want to be in the same area, but it can be a travel agent, it can be whatever you want it to be.

Dan Starr:

Very impressive. Now I don't use it to help me write.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, it does. Sometimes it takes the um, the character out. I wrote most of my LinkedIn posts still by hand. I get on there and I'll start writing a hook, but what it is good for is ideation. So if you're not sure what you want to write about. You could say do some research on some things. That might be a good topic for LBM dealers.

Dan Starr:

No, I think that's exactly right. It's much easier to edit than it is to create For sure. So fine, do that Right.

Stefanie Couch:

Well, talking about we're talking about LinkedIn and talking about you know different social media. I want to talk a little bit about branding and the power of being visible and having presence in your market. We have a lot of people that do exceptional jobs, as a lot of manufacturers really have spent like, I think, of Kohler, as you know. They spend $10 million on their booth at IBS, at the International Builder Show $10 million on one week. It's hard to fathom that, but they also are known in that category as the top brand by surveys, by consumer brand surveys. So what they're doing has been decades of spending this money to accrue that brand value. How important do you think branding is for small, independent dealers and hardware stores, and how can they start to build that brand value?

Dan Starr:

Yeah, how important is it? I think it's very, very important, and it's important to distinguish it from having a logo. That's not the same thing, and I think, no matter who you are, it's important. The other thing I love about branding is the power that can come over time by either spending or performing, and what I mean by that is as important as the brand is for Kohler and how much they spend on it for the decades that they have. That's incredible. The example that I also like, though, is a company like Verizon. The day before they existed, nobody ever even heard of this word it's a made up word and then they dropped tens of millions of dollars to inform the public who they are. Everybody knows who they are. Absolutely. That was how they acquired branding. The comparative to that for me is Costco. Yeah, have you ever seen a television advertisement for Costco? Nope, do you have an expectation of what the brand means?

Dan Starr:

and what the experience is going to be when you go into one.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah and absolutely how much the hot dog is going to cost Exactly and no one had to say, no one had to advertise that for you.

Dan Starr:

That brand was built by execution.

Stefanie Couch:

And.

Dan Starr:

I think our members, our retailers, have the ability to choose both paths, or you know, somewhere in the middle of that, but you don't have to spend $10 million a year or a week at a booth to create a brand. You can create a brand, especially in your local community. If you do it right, if you cultivate expectations and then exceed them, you're going to get a brand, and it may be more powerful than just having a name that's well advertised.

Stefanie Couch:

I totally agree. I think branding is really the association of two things together. So you know the brand of who I am and what they think of me when I'm not in the room my personal brand, your personal brand. It's important. I think business owners can do a lot more on that side, and it's pretty much free who you are and what you're known for as an executive or as a leader in your company. It helps you recruit people into your company Employees. Talent is a struggle with every single business that we have in our industry, and so there's a lot of ways to do it and, like you said, you don't have to spend $10 million. But the one thing that I do think is really important and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this is good brands take time, and if you're willing to do it for five years, 10 years, if you're in it for the long haul and you consistently do it, you will get value, whether it's spent money or execution time or a combination of both. But you can't build a brand in a week.

Dan Starr:

Now Verizon bought one pretty quickly.

Stefanie Couch:

Verizon might challenge that a little bit. If you have enough money, it does expedite the process. But referral branding and branding by word of mouth and branding out loud building what you're showing with your customers is so important, and I think people love to see what lumberyards, hardware stores, builders they love to see our craft. People are so curious about it, and so it can start just as simple as just posting on social media like a picture of or a video of what you're building or what someone, what you sold the home that you sold those windows to.

Dan Starr:

Absolutely, and they want to see your personality. You can get lost in social media. Be distinct, be unique. Don't be afraid to have a sense of humor. People love those things and they want to see who you genuinely are.

Stefanie Couch:

So show it to them. Some might say buy a pink hat, buy a big old pink hat, I'll have you one for the ending. It's happening, dan.

Dan Starr:

It's going to have your name on the back, I'm not sure that that's my brand, I'm just going to say it like that.

Stefanie Couch:

Oh, I love it. All right. Well, I want to close this out. Thank you so much for your time today and I want to just ask one final question. What is one thing that people should know about the Do it Best group that you think maybe they don't know, that maybe it's a hidden jewel, any secrets that you would give that people should know about your company?

Dan Starr:

I don't think that. I'm not sure that it's a secret, okay. The hidden gem, though, or the gem that's front and center, is that I think, top to bottom, our organization is committed to a culture that is driven by servant leadership. I had a retailer stop me on the floor on my way, trying to get over here, who wanted to stop me and first of all just say thank you, and then went through just telling me a story. Servant leadership is a nice title, but he told me a story and I think it's more relevant.

Dan Starr:

And it was his prior experience in trying to deal with the organization that he came from who supported them as a supplier. And then he said we engage with your people. If we reach out to them, it's not 45 minutes before I have a response back. They're always kind, they're always working to try to get to my problem and help me solve it. It's unbelievable the kind of and that's just what you might consider the basics of customer service. And being good and being responsive to your customer is a good thing to teach. A posture of servant leadership is a slightly different thing, but it lends itself to good customer service and I think that's something that when you recruit for it, when you preach it, when you ask people to really genuinely share that they have care and concern for somebody else, that you treat somebody with kindness, with dignity, with respect, when that's part of your cultural expectation and your values, and that you say, hey, we're entirely others focused, we're here. Our entire mission is to help make other people successful. That's a calling that you can respect.

Dan Starr:

And you can enjoy that over the course of a career when you invite people into that and they really buy in. That to me is whatever the secret sauce or gem that you might not appreciate until you need it.

Stefanie Couch:

I love it when you have someone who's thinking about your business, when they're on their time and they're not in front of you. That's a powerful thing, and I think your team at Do it Best does that exceptionally well and emulates that exact spirit. So I love it. That exact spirit, so I love it. And being a champion of independence when the independence sometimes seems like they're getting overshadowed by all the big things happening in our industry, you guys are here, right, front and center, fighting for them every single day, and I love that. So thank you so much for spending some time with me. Make sure that you go pet some puppies on the way out at the market.

Dan Starr:

It's really important.

Stefanie Couch:

It does. It's a warm and fuzzy and I hope that you have a great rest of the market and I appreciate you being on the Grit Blueprint, thank you. That's it for this episode of the Grit Blueprint podcast. For more tools, training and industry content, make sure to subscribe here and follow me on LinkedIn and other social media platforms To find out more about how Grit Blueprint can help you grow your business. Check us out at our website, gritblueprintcom.

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Stefanie Couch

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