Ever struggled with managing cash flow during slow months? 

In this episode, we discuss the importance of diversifying your business offerings to create year-round stability. You’ll hear insights on how to strategically plan for slower seasons, identify complementary services, and optimize operations. 

If your business experiences ups and downs throughout the year, this episode is packed with practical tips to help you maintain steady growth and avoid the common pitfalls of seasonal fluctuations.

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Kellen Ketchersid
Kellen is a co-founder of Stag Business Coaching, business strategist, and a systems thinker. He leverages his extensive experience in biotech and consulting to empower entrepreneurs to navigate complex challenges with strategic growth solutions.

Albert Gillispie
Albert is a serial entrepreneur, business efficiency expert and co-founder of Stag Business Coaching who has founded several multimillion-dollar companies. With expertise in optimizing operations and innovative systems, he mentors business leaders who want to unlock their business’s full potential.

🎤Leroy Henry

Founder of Leroy Henry Remodeling LLC, Dora Moss and Dora Moss Beds. He was raised in a loving Christian home. His parents, Bob and Yolanda, instilled honesty and hard work into their firstborn. These are some of the values he still uses today.

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EPISODE 9 TRANSCRIPTION

Introduction

[00:00] Albert Gillispie: Welcome to the Business Growth Masterclass, where business growth is made simple. Listen as we discuss best practices to streamline your operations, increase your profits, and ultimately create healthier, more stable, and more valuable companies. 

Today's podcast is with Leroy Henry, a serial entrepreneur who owns Dora Moss, which is a custom Murphy bed manufacturing business, as well as Leroy Henry Remodeling, a general contracting construction business that operates all over West Texas. Today's episode was great. 

The interview was so much fun. I've known Leroy for a long time, but I learned so much from him. What was your number one takeaway? What do our listeners really need to hear in this podcast?

[00:59] Kellen Ketchersid: I mean, just hiring great people and taking care of your people were the two things that really stood out to me about Leroy's attitude. You know, just hearing his journey from starting to where he is today, how he took those leaps of faith when he needed to. And his sister was a big part of it, which is kind of cool. You know, it's nice when family can work out in the business. It doesn't always happen, as we know. But yeah, just hearing him, he kept talking about how much he thinks about taking care of his people and getting the right people in the business. So that was a big one.

[01:37] Albert Gillispie: My biggest takeaway from that was he is a craftsman and someone who is really good at his trade. And then he went into business for himself, and that takes a different skill set to be a business owner, right? To run a successful business. And I loved that part of the conversation.

[02:10] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah, that was cool. And seeing how he evolved from one phase to the next, it seems like he's curated his life into what he wants it to be. It's really neat to see somebody who's made it to that point.

[02:22] Albert Gillispie: He's been very intentional with that. Well, I hope you enjoy the podcast and enjoy the interview with Leroy Henry. Here you go.

[02:37] Albert Gillispie: All right. Welcome to the podcast, Leroy. How are you doing?

[02:40] Leroy Henry: Good. Thanks for having me.

The Construction Industry and Murphy Beds

[02:43] Albert Gillispie: Thanks for coming. Let's just jump right into it. Can you tell our listeners, what do you do? What do you do for a living? I know you have a few ventures going.

[02:52] Leroy Henry: I do. I have a construction company. We do roofing, remodeling, ground-up builds. And then somewhere along the way, I got involved in building Murphy beds. So that's one of my things that I do now that I really put a lot into because I've built it from the ground up—something that nobody else does. And it's had its ups and downs just like any other business would have.

[03:22] Leroy Henry: So, a Murphy bed is a bed in a cabinet, basically.

[03:25] Kellen Ketchersid: Okay.

[03:25] Leroy Henry: And it can be that basic where it's a box with the bed that opens up. But I take it a step further. I think, you know, I want to brag on myself a little bit. That’s to say that I designed these certain looks of the bed and designs, and they've come a long way. Some of them that I look back on, I wish I hadn't made—don’t want to tell anybody that I made that one—but we have some really good ones that I'm real proud of.

Kellen Ketchersid: That's awesome.

[03:55] Kellen Ketchersid: So it's like in the cabinet on the wall, and you fold it out. Yeah. Okay. Cool.

[04:00] Albert Gillispie: I think it always makes me think of Scooby-Doo. I don't know why, but your Murphy beds are super high-end, very nice, very custom. You know, when people are building a house and they've got a spare bedroom, that they want grandkids to stay in or whatever, they'll come to you and...

[04:22] Albert Gillispie: And I guess, tell me how that works. 'Cause you do a lot of custom work. How does that work?

[04:27] Leroy Henry: It seems like almost all of them are a custom job. We have a showroom with 12 different styles, and sometimes people come in and say, 'I like that exact model right there.' That's the one I want, color everything. So we do a lot of what we've designed and we put them in people's houses. 

But then you get somebody who comes in and says, 'I like that one, but I like the color of this one.' And maybe we can add cabinets to it on the sides. Then they start adding in what they like about our designs and what they've designed in their head. So that's pretty fun because we get to do some stuff that, when we post pictures of them, they're pretty fantastic. And so it's a combination of our designs and the customer and what they want.

[05:17] Kellen Ketchersid: Cool. It's an artistic process going on there.

[05:19] Leroy Henry: Yeah. It's a lot of fun.

[05:20] Albert Gillispie: Cool. You are quite creative—the craftsman and artistic musically, at least. Tell us, how did you get into this? Is this something you've always done? Have you always worked with wood? How did you get into making custom Murphy beds?

[05:36] Leroy Henry: Well, I grew up in construction. Literally, like 10 years old, summertime, my dad was working here in Lubbock, building houses—or he wasn't building them. He was, you know, whether he was a drywaller or a framer. In summertime, he'd say, 'You know, you're coming with me.' 

So I'd go with him, and I'd get to hammer nails and do that kind of stuff. I grew up loving the smell of new construction. I have people tell me they like the smell of a woodshop. I’m like, I understand that—I grew up around it. So that's what brought me back to it after, you know, being in high school and learning how to roof and do all the different construction things. You know, at high school, you're strong and able to do this work, and all of a sudden, you could go get a job and decide not to go to college.

[06:37] Kellen Ketchersid: There's a big movement now, especially, I think a lot of parents are talking about the trades, and their kids kind of going that direction. You know, a lot of people getting a college degree now are kind of like, 'Man, I wish I just jumped into something more like what you're describing there.'

[06:53] Leroy Henry: Yeah, because we have to have it all. I mean, you have to have every kind of trade, whether it's, you know, technical, college-based, or working with your hands. Well, yeah. My dad still tells a story of one of his friends who was a principal at Lubbock High, and their son decided he didn't want to go to college. So they said, "Can you put him to work?" And he said, "Yeah." So he put him to work on a roof. After that summer, he finished his college career, his college path worked in the other direction. Yeah, so she's very happy that my dad took him to work on the roof. So yeah, there are all different ways to make a living.

[07:31] Albert Gillispie: Yeah, that's right. That's good. You mentioned your construction company and moving to Dallas. I haven't heard that part of your story. So in high school, you got exposed to some trades, and that was kind of your path instead of going to college. You knew you could make a living with your hands. Tell me a little bit about that journey. Did you move to Dallas?

[07:53] Leroy Henry: Yeah, I did. The first thing I did was I moved to Midland. There was a bunch of work going on in Midland. I went there and did roofing and construction. And then from there, there was a big boom going on in Dallas. So I moved there and did the same thing. I lived there for about 13 years.

[08:13] Albert Gillispie: What years was that?

[08:15] Leroy Henry: That would've been late eighties all the way up to 2000. Because in 2000 was when I moved back to Lubbock.

[08:23] Albert Gillispie: I did not know that. Okay. So you—where, what part of Dallas were you in?

[08:27] Leroy Henry: When I first moved there, I moved to the Colony.

[08:29] Leroy Henry: Okay. And so everybody knows the Colony, Frisco, and all that.

[08:33] Albert Gillispie: Yeah.

[08:33] Leroy Henry: But when I moved there, Frisco was like Rawls.

[08:37] Albert Gillispie: There was,

[08:37] Leroy Henry: there was a Higginbotham in the middle of town, and there were a few stores and some farmhouses.

[08:37] Leroy Henry: Different place.

[08:37] Albert Gillispie: Yeah. So it was a different place when I lived there. I lived in the Colony.

[08:48] Albert Gillispie: And it does not look like that anymore.

[08:50] Leroy Henry: Not like that at all.

[08:52] Albert Gillispie: Okay. And you did construction. What did you do? Roofing? I did that.

[08:57] Leroy Henry: I worked for a construction company that did fire rehab. So I learned a lot about the insurance side of it and how a claim happens if a fire occurs in a house. I learned all the stages of tearing it down and putting it back together. That’s a fun job if you're young and can tear a half-million-dollar house down to basically the studs and then get to put it back together. Yeah. So I learned a little bit there.

[09:28] Albert Gillispie: Okay. And then what made you move back to Lubbock?

[09:31] Leroy Henry: Well, I had a daughter, and she was turning four, and I was kind of ready to come back and be around my family again. Look, you're gone a lot, and you don't get to see them but maybe twice a year sometimes, and she was about to start school. I knew Lubbock was a good place for her to be in school.

[09:54] Albert Gillispie: That's a lot of people's story. They go to school here in Lubbock—where we're all based out of—but then go off after school.

[10:05] Albert Gillispie: And when it's time to raise a family, Lubbock is a good place to be.

[10:08] Leroy Henry: Yeah.

[10:09] Albert Gillispie: So you came back, and did you start—is that when you started your own gig, or how did that work out?

[10:15] Leroy Henry: Sort of. My dad already had his roofing company here. So when I came back, I had a place to move to, a job, and help my dad with his company. I did that until I felt like I was ready for my own thing. So I started doing my own jobs and slowly went from one small job to another bigger job. Here in Lubbock, if you do good work, you can step from one to another, and then all the referrals start coming in. At that point, there's no need for even advertising because referrals are big here in Lubbock.

[10:56] Albert Gillispie: That's a big thing in the construction world—or the trades—is to show up, do what you say you're going to do, and stay within budget. You're going to get a lot of work.

[11:06] Kellen Ketchersid: We’ve talked to some business owners that, if they heard you tell that, they'd be very envious right now because they're still in the early stages, you know, trying to get to the point where people know about them.

[11:16] Albert Gillispie: Yeah.

[11:16] Kellen Ketchersid: So I'm curious, like, how long it took you to go from just kind of starting that to feeling like, "I don't even have to advertise; people are coming to me."

Growth of the Business and Transition

[11:27] Leroy Henry: I'm gonna say a good four to five years, because, you've got to build that base of, "I've done work for this person," and then you're still looking for more work. You know, it's kind of up and down—there's not a lot going on—and then somebody starts coming back around. Then those customers become repeat customers and referrals. So I'd say about five years, and I had more than I knew what to do with. At that point, I went from a three-man crew to, "I need a whole entire other crew and keep them busy all the time." And then pretty soon it gets to the point where I can't even be a part of the crew anymore. I have to be...

[12:07] Leroy Henry: ...just handling, getting the jobs, moving the jobs through supply, and then getting it to the end stage, finishing, and doing the punch list to be done.

[12:16] Kellen Ketchersid: How do you feel about the transition? Because I know a lot of business owners do that—where they go from doing the work and being in it...

[12:24] Kellen Ketchersid: ...and then the thing grows to a point where now I'm more of an administrator. So for you, what was that like? Was that a hard transition? Did you enjoy that aspect of it, or what?

[12:36] Leroy Henry: I like all parts of it. I really like getting my hands back into doing some work—building some cabinets, tiling, or doing some stuff.

[12:46] Leroy Henry: I do like it all. I've gotten into a different business where now we're in a retail part of the business with the merchandise, right? Yeah, so we're selling Murphy beds, and we have a retail showroom. So that's another part—and that's the sales—where you have to be able to speak to the customers. You have to be able to visit them at home. You have to make sure they get a good product. And so that part I enjoy too just as much as the building process because it's a gratification thing where I get to see you at your house and you love what we brought to the table. We brought you this product, and you're happy with it, and you can't wait to write us a check.

[13:31] Leroy Henry: So there's gratification in that, just like the gratification of building something and seeing it go from a piece of wood and tile into...

[13:41] Albert Gillispie: Yeah, this is kind of like that illustration on steroids, but a lot of entrepreneurs tarted their career working for somebody and got really good at a certain skill.

[13:56] Albert Gillispie: And then they were like, "You know what? I'm really good at this. I could go off and do my own thing." They're great—they're basically a tradesman. They have this trade that they're really good at. And then becoming a business owner requires a completely different set of skills.

[14:13] Albert Gillispie: And what you were describing—building these custom Murphy beds that are really like a work of art—you really have to trust your team to deliver this custom-crafted work of art. Tell me, I mean, you've touched on that a little bit, but how do you build a team that you can trust to basically create these pieces of artwork?

[14:40] Leroy Henry: That's one of the hardest things to do—take somebody that doesn't know what you do, teach them how to do it, let them do it long enough that they become good enough at it that you can let them do it on their own. The hard part about that is that you've just trained them to do something that they can then say, "Well, I can make more money doing it by myself," or, "I can go work for somebody else."

[15:10] Leroy Henry: So you have to pay them well, so it makes sense.

[15:12] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah. If you don't, yeah, you're basically training somebody to be your own competition.

[15:13] Leroy Henry: Yeah. So you have to make them want to stay. I have some employees who have been with me for 10, or 11 years.

[15:24] Albert Gillispie: Man. And what does that training process look like? Like if I came in today, what would you have me doing?

[15:31] Leroy Henry: You start at the bottom. I mean, you gotta be ready to sand and prep and do all the things that make a piece of wood look nice and finished once you've done all these processes to it. So, in order to be the guy that cuts it, nails it, and puts it together, and then the guy who paints it or stains it, they had to learn how to prep all these different stages of getting it to that point.

[15:58] Leroy Henry: So, that's where you would have to start—in the prep area.

[16:02] Kellen Ketchersid: It's like a basketball coach teaching the fundamentals first.

[16:02] Leroy Henry: It is. Yeah. That's before you can start calling plays.

[16:10] Leroy Henry: You gotta be able to dribble. If you saw my basketball team, you'd want to play them because you know you could beat them.

[16:15] Leroy Henry: That would be the case for me to be evenly matched. Yeah.

[16:18] Albert Gillispie: And how do you, and that, like, you know, to kids graduating high school right now—sitting in a shop, sanding, cleaning, kind of doing, you know, the bottom of the totem pole work—that's hard work. How do you keep them engaged long enough?

[16:36] Albert Gillispie: I mean, are you selling, you know, what the future looks like? Or I guess, how are you keeping them engaged? Because that's so hard today, too.

[16:46] Leroy Henry: They have to want to be in that. Yeah. I've hired some people that just weren't going to be cut out for it. They weren't interested enough in it.

[16:55] Albert Gillispie: Does it take you long to figure it out?

[16:55] Leroy Henry: No, not really. You can see that pretty quick. And I try to, you know, you're an employer, so you can't just hire people and fire them. You got to give them a chance, right? And they kind of weed themselves out over time.

[17:12] Albert Gillispie: So some of that initial fundamental work they have to do kind of weeds out the ones that don't want it.

[17:22] Leroy Henry: In construction, you've got to know how to read a tape. Some people have a hard time with that.

[17:22] Albert Gillispie: What does that mean, "read a tape"? What do you mean?

[17:30] Leroy Henry: Like a tape measure. You have to be able to give somebody a sheet of paper with all the measurements for a bunch of doors, and they go and cut all the material, put it together—and none of the doors are the right size. So you've just wasted an entire day and a bunch of material.

[17:49] Leroy Henry: You got to keep an eye on the new guys. I mean, that happens to me too. I'll do the same thing if I measure something, tell one of the guys it's 84 inches, and I meant to say 48.

[18:01] Leroy Henry: Yeah, which I'm sure happens sometimes.

[18:01] Albert Gillispie: It does.

[18:01] Leroy Henry: It happened to me recently, so I'm not immune to that. I'm not perfect.

[18:07] Albert Gillispie: Sure.

[18:08] Albert Gillispie: That just made me—I grew up in construction as well, and memories are flooding back to me right now of "measure twice, cut once," and getting down to smaller than a 16th. It's like, "Yeah, I want this 50 inches and three 16ths," and then "Cut the line or leave the line." Yhat little minuscule difference matters whenever you're making 50 cuts. That little bit of a 16th adds up, and you can have something that looks pretty ugly, pretty quick.

[18:43] Kellen Ketchersid: Well, when you were talking earlier about what you're doing now, it sounds to me like you grew the roofing and construction business and then started the Murphy bed business later, right?

[18:58] Kellen Ketchersid: But do you feel like you've kind of curated things to fit what you enjoy? As the business on the construction side grew, were you kind of missing the creative process a little bit? Or is that part of what motivated you to branch out and do something different?

[19:15] Leroy Henry: I just knew that the construction business can go up and down.

[19:21] Albert Gillispie: Yeah.

Balancing Seasonal Business with Complementary Ventures

[19:21] Leroy Henry: So something years ago made me learn, "Okay, I have to be able to do something that I can do all year." And luckily, with the time that you spend in one place building a business and having a reputation, if you do that right—and have luck on your side—you’re going to be busy all year. And then you have another business that kind of pays off.

[19:46] Leroy Henry: It helps. They balance each other out. So you've got something that constantly works. It may not be the biggest part of your revenue, but it's there in the slow times. If we're in a couple of months that are kind of slow and we're doing less in construction or there's no roofing work, you have to have something to balance that out.

[20:08] Kellen Ketchersid: So if you were talking to a younger business owner who has a seasonal business sometimes their revenue isn't there, and they're thinking about doing something similar, what advice would you give them as far as thinking about maybe another business or venture? How would you suggest they think about it?

[20:25] Leroy Henry: You have to stay in the range of your business. And you'll know what I'm talking about when you see the guys that do yard work—they also do Christmas lights, right? So they grow those businesses because one winter was really slim. You know, so they had to find something else to do.

[20:45] Leroy Henry: And so everybody's doing that. That's what I would suggest—just to know that you're in a seasonal business. So what are you going to plan to do when it's slow?

[20:58] Kellen Ketchersid: Something complimentary?

[20:58] Leroy Henry: Well, and in your case, you were even able to find something you also seem to enjoy and that plays to your strengths too.

[21:06] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah.

[21:06] Leroy Henry: That was accidental because I'd never thought I was going to build a Murphy bed. I never planned it.

[21:13] Kellen Ketchersid: Okay.

[21:13] Leroy Henry: I was like, "Well, I'm not even sure what that is, but I'll figure it out." And once I did, I was really in over my head. I thought I'd get this done, but it was fun.

[21:26] Leroy Henry: Once I got it done, I was like, "Okay, I got one done." And then slowly, somebody else found out about that one and said, "I'd like for him to build me one." And that’s how it started rolling and rolling. Pretty soon I was being asked to build Murphy beds. I was like, "Well, nobody does this," because I'd already done the research.

[21:46] Leroy Henry: I was trying to find somebody that could build me one so I could sell it to the customer, but there was nobody around.

[21:51] Albert Gillispie: So are you—I think I know the answer to this, but I'm not certain—where are you? I mean, are you just in West Texas? Where are you delivering Murphy beds?

[22:04] Leroy Henry: We've delivered them to Oklahoma, New Mexico, Dallas, South Texas.

[22:10] Kellen Ketchersid: That's a big range.

[22:10] Leroy Henry: Yeah, it is. There's not another custom Murphy bed business. There are builders. You can find a carpenter that can build them for you anywhere, but as far as a business goes, I haven't found another one in the state of Texas. There are other companies like Ikea, Lowe's—all these other places that say they have them, because you can go online and order,, these Ikea-type, shelving units. But there are other builders I've found in other states that I kind of watch too. And I've been in contact with one of them in Arkansas, and we've kind of traded ideas.

[22:57] Leroy Henry: So they've got the idea, and they started it before I did. And so they're a lot bigger, and they deliver to a wider range. They ship them, whereas we deliver and install them.

[23:07] Albert Gillispie: You're a humble guy, and a lot of this, you're like, "Yeah, well, we, you know, we lucked into that or we lucked into this, and you know, we built for one and then it grew." So I know you've had some tough days. Yeah. Maybe tell us—what's one of your biggest lessons you've learned as you've built these two businesses that really complement each other? What's the ugly...

[23:33] Albert Gillispie: ...that entrepreneurs need to hear?

[23:33] Leroy Henry: Well, the ugly is that you need to know how to handle the money part of it.

[23:44] Leroy Henry: Okay. You really do. Because I've gotten into some jobs that are really big money jobs. Well, you have to be able to keep all the bills paid. You got to pay for all the materials. You got to have that money coming in and make sure it's distributed where it needs to go. It's a lot to juggle.

[24:04] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah, it's a lot. So if you're small, you can handle most of it yourself. But once you get to the point where you've got, 10, 15 employees and you're handling insurance and all that stuff, then you really need to step away from that and let somebody do it for you.

[24:22] Albert Gillispie: That is—that's like General Contractor 101.

[24:27] Albert Gillispie: I've seen that so many times where you have a handyman who goes and develops a book of business and does a good job, and then books some bigger jobs. They go buy a brand new pickup, deck it out, put a lift kit on it, and six months later, they're shutting their doors.

Financial Management and the Importance of Bringing in Experts

[24:44] Albert Gillispie: Yeah. So, I guess elaborate on that a little bit. How did you navigate that? How did you navigate bringing on experts to handle some of those other pieces that you weren't as strong on?

[24:59] Leroy Henry: So, I was doing it all myself, and you’re talking—I was up till midnight every day. Then I'd get up at six o'clock in the morning, because the best time for me to do books would be from 10 to midnight. So I would get home from work, take a shower, go to the gym or whatever, and then come home, start the coffee, and from midnight to 1 o'clock, do all the books. Yeah. So you can do that when you're young, but you can't do it when you get to my age.

[25:34] Leroy Henry: Now, I gotta go to bed at 9 o'clock. That's no joke. But I get up at 5 now. Yeah, and you made me lose my train of thought.

[25:43] Kellen Ketchersid: Well, if somebody is a business owner and they're like, "Yeah, that's my life right now," what you just described—we talk to people who are there—what would you say to them?

[25:50] Leroy Henry: Yeah. You were asking when to decide how to do that, how to make that change. Well, for me, it was—I knew my sister was working for State Farm, and she'd been there for many years. And I knew things were falling apart at that job for her, and with whatever else personally and all that. So I was trying to get to the point where I could afford to hire her on because I knew what kind of money she made, and I wanted to make sure that I could bring her on, she could do the job for me, and she could stay. People you hire have to be able to maintain their lives while they're working for you. They have to make the money they need.

[26:29] Leroy Henry: Yeah. So when I finally got to that point, I said, "Okay, I gotta make sure I can do this." So I hired her, and she knew all the insurance business already—I deal with claims a lot. I showed her a little bit of what I was doing, and then she took it way further than that.

[26:51] Leroy Henry: Because I was using a very, very—what do you call it?—just like caveman-type program to keep my books, and she came in with QuickBooks and all this stuff that I'd heard of. It's like, "I can't learn that." So she knew how to do all that. You have to make the leap and say, "Okay, I'm going to walk away from that and let somebody else do it."

[27:16] Leroy Henry: So I had my sister, and I could trust her. It's nice.

[27:19] Albert Gillispie: There’s a lot there. I want to kind of pause for a second. You described earlier how long it took to really get your business going where you have all of these customers, and it was four to five years. And then you’re talking about, for years, you were saying—I mean, you’d already started your career.

[27:39] Albert Gillispie: You’d already worked in Dallas, worked for other people, and you come back and basically start over. And you’re working until midnight for years. And so much of the entrepreneurial story that we see on social media, in movies, and all over, is you don’t see that. And so I think a lot of entrepreneurs—a lot of business owners—that are in that stage... My wife and I, we called that our "med school" season of life because it was just like, "You’re just gonna grind."

[28:12] Albert Gillispie: Yeah. Like that’s normal. I mean, it’s not normal compared to society, but as an entrepreneur, you’re going to do that for several years. And maybe not, maybe you’re an exception to the rule, and it takes a couple of years to really get going. But I think, like, commending you for sticking it out—it wasn’t your first job.

[28:40] Albert Gillispie: You weren’t in your mid-twenties with all the energy and you stuck with it, kept doing the right things, and eventually, there were only so many hours in a day, and you had to hire somebody. And so, one, I want to commend you for that because that’s hard. Getting through that stage—not a lot of people do it. I don’t, I can’t remember what the statistic is on the number of businesses that close before seven years.

[29:10] Leroy Henry: Right. I’ve heard that too. I’m like, "Where am I at in that? Am I past that? Am I safe?"

[29:18] Albert Gillispie: Yeah. I think you made it.

[29:18] Leroy Henry: Yeah. Maybe so.

[29:23] Albert Gillispie: And then your first administrative hire like that—it wasn’t someone that you... And this is important for entrepreneurs because you’re talking about being in it, and money’s tight. I’m sure it was tempting to hire somebody at minimum wage to come in, and you could kind of say, "Alright, hey, you do these couple of things." But you were intentional and strategic enough to find your sister, who had this skill set, that could come in and day one...

[29:57] Albert Gillispie: ...add value to your business. Day one, she’s better than you are. Yeah, you’re going to pay her more, but this allows you to go and do so many other things in the business that you’re actually good at—that actually grow the business, right? And that time was worth it because you made a good...

[30:14] Leroy Henry: ...hire. And you don’t know that while you’re doing it. It’s like terrifying. I didn’t have anybody telling me how to do this.

Rebuilding After a Fire and Expanding the Murphy Bed Business

[30:18] Leroy Henry: Yeah. So, a lot of this stuff was trial and error, and sometimes I made mistakes. Yeah. But that was a good one. That was a good choice—to bring her on—because that... you’re right. It gave me the opportunity to go do other things and that’s where the Murphy bed business could grow and become something because I was available to do it. I wasn’t stuck in front of a computer all the time.

[30:36] Leroy Henry: 

[30:48] Kellen Ketchersid: Something we keep hearing when we talk to business owners is, you know, it’s not just about getting help, but getting the right help.

[30:57] Kellen Ketchersid: And because some, I mean, it sounds like it was a great situation for you with your sister, but not everybody who hires a family member... I’m, I know you know this—it doesn’t always work out. Yeah. And so, but I mean, like, it sounds like it has worked out for you, but just having another person who maybe knows things that you wouldn’t already have...

[31:19] Kellen Ketchersid: Or, you’ve mentioned QuickBooks... I guess it takes a certain level of a leap of faith, right? As a business owner to say, "Okay, I’m going to take this person on and put them in charge of this part of my business."

[31:37] Leroy Henry: And I’ve had to do it in other areas too because I couldn’t... I did have somebody that I would say was like a foreman, and they worked really well for a while.

[31:48] Leroy Henry: But then you also have that person who could get stale in the job. So you were asking how do you keep people interested? Sometimes it doesn’t work out. So you are going to have people that come and go. And so you’ve invested time and money in some things, and once they’re gone, they’re gone.

[32:09] Leroy Henry: So you’ve got to start over again, and you’ve got to make that decision again: "I’ve got to hire this guy, and I’ve got to pay him this much because he brings a lot to the table." Now I can go do something else. So you’re taking this money that you’ve got to quit looking at it like, "This is my pocketbook." It’s no longer your pocketbook—you’re now an employee of your own business. So you have to say, "What do I need from this business to get me by so I can live and do my job and let the business grow?"

[32:51] Leroy Henry: Yeah. Because you can’t, I know people that just, you’re saying—they go and buy a new truck. Yeah. Well, it’s very tempting—you see that money there. It’s like, "But in about two months, we’re going to need that. We’re going to need that to do something else for the business and for the employees." So that’s how you also keep your employees—because you’ve now done things for them that they’re not getting in their paycheck. But, you know, you make sure they’re insured, that they’re safe at work.

[33:15] Leroy Henry: No, they’re not in a dangerous job if they’re working around saws and blades.

[33:20] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah. I can tell that taking care of your people matters to you.

[33:25] Leroy Henry: Yeah, I mean, and I probably just learned that through my mom and dad. I have to give them credit for it.

[33:34] Albert Gillispie: Yeah.

[33:34] Leroy Henry: Becasue that’s how they’ve always just raised me to be, it’s never been take and take.

[33:39] Leroy Henry: It’s about giving.

[33:42] Albert Gillispie: Tell me a little bit—so we’ve kind of got the story of building, grinding, and you’re making your first, kind of working on the business hires. What does your team look like today? How many employees do you have? What’s kind of your management team? What does that look like?

[33:59] Leroy Henry: We’re, you know, always around 10 to 12 employees. Sharon, my sister, handles everything with the accounting. And she also does a lot of work—she puts in a lot of hours. She also runs the showroom. So she’s not only managing employee stuff, but she’s our HR person. We kind of laugh about that because she’s mean as hell.

[34:27] Leroy Henry: It takes that temperament sometimes. Yeah, you gotta be tough. But so she does a lot of that and sells the beds. She’s got the showroom, and she works on Saturdays. So she comes in from 10 to 3 on Saturdays to work the showroom, and it’s a lot for one person to do that.

[34:45] Leroy Henry: And then I do have one person that runs the remodeling guys. So anything out in the field, out in Lubbock, he manages that for me.

[34:55] Albert Gillispie: That’s nice.

[34:56] Leroy Henry: Yeah. And so I can sit at my job in front of the computer, working on bids, looking at plans, and he can call me and ask for advice—say, "We’re doing this, whatever," but I feel comfortable. I can say, "Okay, well, I can’t be there—just make a decision." So I’ve got somebody that can do that for me. And then the shop has three guys that work in there, and one of them is really the head of all of them because he’s kind of like my quality control. He can do everything in the shop—he can do the painting, he can do the building, he’s just kind of learned it all.

[35:31] Leroy Henry: And he’s one of those guys that I brought in just for a week one day. I knew him, and I knew that he had some abilities—he was a college graduate and was doing some personal training. And I asked him, "Hey, can you come help me for a week? We are slammed, and I just need some extra hands." He said, "Yeah." So he came in for a week.

[35:51] Leroy Henry: Then that following Monday at our morning meeting, he’s sitting there with all the guys, and I was like, "I thought you were just coming in for a week." He goes, "No, I like it here." I was like, "So you want to stay?"

[36:07] Leroy Henry: He goes, "Yeah, I'll stay." I was like, "Okay." And so now he runs my woodshop, and he’s quality control. I mean, he’s very meticulous. So I trust him at the shop—I don’t have to be there either.

[36:20] Albert Gillispie: Where all the magic happens.

[36:21] Leroy Henry: Yeah.

[36:22] Albert Gillispie: Okay. So you really, you have kind of three key employees that run different main areas of your business—the construction, the retail side, the sales side, and then the manufacturing side.

[36:39] Albert Gillispie: Right?

[36:40] Leroy Henry: That’s—

[36:41] Albert Gillispie: —a business.

[36:42] Leroy Henry: It’s a small business.

[36:43] Albert Gillispie: It’s a small business—it’s not huge. I mean, we’re not big, but we do a lot. That little group of people creates a lot.

[36:54] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah. Just out of, you know, 10 or 12 employees.

[37:01] Kellen Ketchersid: It’s got to be great to have the level of trust with those people that are helping you run things.

[37:05] Leroy Henry: Yeah.

[37:06] Kellen Ketchersid: So what are you most excited about for where your business is right now and kind of where you’re headed?

[37:09] Leroy Henry: Really, it’s just growing the Murphy bed side of the business. I’ve put a lot into the advertising since we rebuilt our business. We had a little hiccup, and now we’re back up again.

[37:23] Albert Gillispie: He had a fire. We had his entire manufacturing area and retail store burn to the ground.

[37:30] Leroy Henry: Every bit of it. So, and that’s been one year ago. So, it’s July 17th that that happened. So we’re just—we’re almost a year there, but we’re back up and running like we never stopped and never quit. Just because we lost everything, we still had someplace to go to and continue— employees were still working.

[37:51] Kellen Ketchersid: So, you just got creative? Did you rent some equipment and a space? Is that how you pulled that off?

[37:56] Leroy Henry: We had some really nice people in Lubbock that I didn’t even know, just come out of nowhere and say, "Hey, I’ve got a shop you can work in that is amazing. And it was no regular shop—it was like major manufacturing. So we got to go and work with some big CNC machines everywhere. And it was a nice place—nice people. It just kind of came together. They helped for a little bit, and then we got on our feet within a couple of months and haven’t stopped.

[38:25] Kellen Ketchersid: Do you mind saying who it was? Or can you say the name?

[38:27] Leroy Henry: I’d rather not.

[38:28] Kellen Ketchersid: That’s okay.

[38:28] Albert Gillispie: That’s okay.

[38:29] Kellen Ketchersid: That’s all right.

[38:29] Albert Gillispie: That’s, I mean, that’s a God thing. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and a West Texas thing. That’s man, that was such a season, and how you guys navigated that and have now come out the other side.

[38:43] Leroy Henry: Yeah. So just getting to your question—what am I excited for? Is it, like, seeing this thing grow more legs? And so, it feels like it is. It’s just like we’re doing new beds that we haven’t done before. We have a showroom, and we’re fixing to have a second showroom in the new place that we’ve rebuilt. And we have electric Murphy beds fixing to be available.

[39:15] Leroy Henry: Oh, cool. Remote control. Cool. Yeah. So I’m really excited that people get to see that, and there’s been a market for it, but we’ve never had that. People have asked, you know, there’s people that can’t lift a Murphy bed.

[39:31] Kellen Ketchersid: I was about to say, yeah, some disabled, maybe older people too—can’t just lower it.

[39:34] Kellen Ketchersid: That’s cool.

[39:36] Albert Gillispie: And they’re sturdy too. The other ones—they do have hydraulics on them, right?

[39:40] Leroy Henry: Yeah, they’re a piston. So they’re not hard to open and close, but for somebody shorter, maybe weaker, or older, it could be hard for them.

[39:56] Leroy Henry: And I’ve seen that. So when we sell it to somebody that has a hard time with it, we always know that when it’s going to be used, there’s going to be somebody there to help them open it.

Future Growth Plan

[40:01] Albert Gillispie: So the future is electric Murphy beds, new retail space—any new territories you want to explore or really just grow where you’re at?

[40:11] Leroy Henry: Just grow where we’re at. You know, the commercials we’re running are bringing in so many people that aren’t on Facebook—they aren’t looking for a Murphy bed on Google. They’re just seeing a commercial and they’re like, "What’s a Murphy bed? I didn’t know I wanted one, but I’d like to have one."

[40:20] Leroy Henry: Yeah, there’s a group of people you can reach like that versus the people who already know about them and are trying to find somebody that can build one for them.

[40:41] Albert Gillispie: That’s a great segue.

[40:44] Albert Gillispie: I mean, seeing what you make is like—I didn’t know that existed until I saw it, and I was like, “Holy cow, this is beautiful and sturdy and substantial and something you’d want to show.” And so, we try to keep our podcast episodes 30 to 40 minutes. We’re getting close to time. If I wanted to send people to you, how do people do business with you? How do they see your Murphy beds? How do they get in touch with Dora Moss, which is your company, and Leroy Henry Construction—is that what it’s called?

[41:21] Leroy Henry: Yeah, close enough.

[41:22] Albert Gillispie: Close enough, close enough. So how do they do business with you?

[41:24] Leroy Henry: Well, so, we do have a website for the Murphy beds, and that’s DoraMoss.com. And we’re on Google for, you know, Dora Moss is on Google, Leroy Henry Remodeling is on Google, and then we have a location at 8004 Indiana in Lubbock.

[41:46] Leroy Henry: Okay. In the Melanie Park—or Melanie Square—shopping center.

[41:46] Leroy Henry: Okay. So you just get to that shopping center and you’ll see a big sign that says “Murphy Beds.” So my— it’s Dora Moss, but I decided, you know, people may not know what Dora Moss is. So we made “Murphy Beds” the main part of the sign with “by Dora Moss” underneath it.

[42:02] Kellen Ketchersid: Awesome. I just sent my parents over there. I think they’re in the market, so it’s perfect.

[42:07] Leroy Henry: Yeah. And if not, you know, it’s a cool thing to go look at. And, you know, Sharon’s there, and she’s very hospitable and very nice. And we’re, you know, no pressure. I mean, people want to come in and look at them. We see people coming in all the time just to see them. But the good thing is, once they’ve seen them, it’s going to be on their mind. If somebody ever needs to talk about it or has a question, they can say, “Hey, I know where that place is.” And that, that brings people in—awesome word of mouth.

[42:37] Albert Gillispie: Well, man, thanks so much for your story and the business that you’ve built here in Lubbock. Grateful for you guys and proud of you guys. And I can’t wait to see what it looks like a year, five years from now.

[42:56] Leroy Henry: Me too. Yes, thank you.

[43:00] Albert Gillispie: Thank you. All right, that was our podcast. I hope you got a lot out of it—I know we did.

[43:09] Albert Gillispie: Yeah, if you enjoyed the lessons that you learned and want more of that, go ahead and click subscribe—subscribe to our podcast and keep coming back. We’ll try to get episodes out weekly, so keep coming back, ‘cause there’s more where that came from.

[43:15] Kellen Ketchersid: That’s right. Thank y’all.

[43:17] Albert Gillispie: Thanks.