Today we’d like to introduce you to Emory Saladin.
Hi Emory, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I found my first construction job walking door-to-door looking for work. I walked into a store called “Hardcover” and didn’t even know what they did there, but they hired me the next day as a hardwood and tile flooring installer. I worked there for a few years until my dad offered to help go to college. I liked the work and had a great boss, but decided a college education would pay off better.
I graduated from the Art Institute of Atlanta with an interior design degree in 2009 – the height of the housing market crash. Nobody was hiring entry level positions so I moved to Virginia chasing a relationship. After that fell apart, my sister offered to help me get my feet planted in Raleigh. I found myself going door-to-door for work again and wound up in the back room unpacking boxes at Home Goods.
I quickly got promoted through the ranks to assistant manager. I didn’t mind the retail work, but was unhappy with the management part, so I jumped on an opportunity to return to construction work when my friend’s boss was looking for an entry level helper to build sunrooms. I always did like working outdoors and with my hands more than the same routine at the retail job, or sitting in front of a computer doing the design type stuff I did in college.
About 4 years later, my boss retired and sold his franchise back to corporate. The offered me an in-house position at $25/hour, or to make me a subcontractor. While $25 was a comfortable rate, it’s not enough to get ahead around here. Having a large company basically spoon feeding me work, I took the subcontractor offer. Eventually my co-worker under our retired boss partnered with me and we became Triangle Tradesmen.
We worked mostly for the national sunroom builder for a few years, and built our own client base on the side. We parted ways with them because their interests shifted into only selling their product, not treating or paying their subcontractors fairly. When they refused to pay us any gas money for a job 2 hours out of town for two weeks was the last straw. Because we had spent years working with their highly specialized product even prior to being subcontractors for them, we were their best team and they lost us.
Our business continued to grow and projects got larger after we went independent. We got licensed. We’ve partnered with several other construction specialists around the area. We built our referral network. We’ve expanded our team’s capabilities. And we became the Triangle Tradesmen you see today.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The biggest challenge I think for most startups is having a steady stream of work. We have always put a great deal of effort into doing the best work we possibly can in a world where many people have a negative impression of contractors. Because of our commitment to great work, great service, and great relationships, we have never struggled to find work or find customers. We have spent almost nothing on advertising and work has consistently come to us.
Of course it hasn’t always been easy. Like many businesses, I started this one because I have a passion for working outdoors, playing with power tools, and turning building materials into functional and beautiful spaces for people to enjoy. But I knew nothing about running a business. I thought I was smart enough to manage some simple taxes, manage a simple budget, and not get myself into too much trouble, but that proves to be an ongoing challenge.
I no longer get to play with the power tools or spend a great deal of time outdoors. As the business grows, I find myself increasingly engrossed in operations management. I still get to do the sales, being the first one to meet with new clients and design outdoor living solutions for their homes. That part I love. I love working with the various teams of in-house and subcontractors to bring the project together. I even love designing the business tools and programs by which we operate, but it is very overwhelming.
I’ve hired people to help with the back end operations and I’m indescribably grateful for the work and effort that the team puts into helping the business to run, but it takes a lot of training, a lot of programming, and a lot of guidance for them. It’s pretty stressful to try to teach them all they need to know, then take care of the business items they don’t know, and then sell the jobs to keep the team busy and paid.
It can be very exhausting, draining, and discouraging. I’ve even struggled to find the time to do this interview for weeks and this is something I really wanted to do! But despite the extreme amount of effort it takes to keep the business afloat, when I see a newly completed deck and thrilled customers who tell me that this has been their best experience ever with a contractor, it’s worth it.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Triangle Tradesmen, LLC?
Triangle Tradesmen, LLC is a design/build firm offering outdoor living home improvements – decks, porches, pergolas, porch enclosures (screen, 3-season, 4-season), patios, lighting, landscaping, and more. Creating your outdoor oasis is our specialty, our passion, and all that we do. We started with sunrooms and decks and, through expanding our crew and our network of other trades professionals, grew from there. While trying to do too much too soon is the downfall of many a business, we took our time growing so that we could thoroughly learn one thing at a time before offering the next.
When you call Triangle Tradesmen for your deck remodel or full-scale back yard overhaul, you’re not making an appointment with a salesman who has never heard a hammer, or who simply reads through the sales program someone else wrote. You’re getting me as your design and sales consultant. You get my formally educated design expertise, my extensive construction background in many trades, my product knowledge, the licensed contractor, and project manager all in one person. Not many companies can offer that kind of resource.
We also offer a great deal of custom options. Many companies that advertise themselves as “custom builders” have a limited array of products, services, and ways they will do things. I’ll either have a product to show you that we’ve worked with and strongly recommend, of if we don’t, I’ll ask you to send me some concepts of things you like. We’ll figure it out and make it happen.
One of our proudest projects was a curved awning from a computer rendering the customer showed me. I told him that I’ve honestly never built anything like it, but give me about a week to figure it out. If I can’t figure it out, I’ll call him back and let him know that I have to decline the work. I called my engineer, a metal roofing fabricator, and our mason and we put together a solution. I called the client and said it’s not going to be cheap, but it’s doable. A few weeks later, even though we did the engineering, he had his awning exactly as his architect brother-in-law designed it.
And finally, when the work has started, I think one of our biggest values in the company is integrity. We truly strive to offer the very best in our quality of work, customer service, communications, transparency, and being dedicated to your project from start to finish. We’re going to be honest if your work is out of our scope, not trying to sell you something we can’t guarantee fantastic results. We don’t ask for unfair amounts of money before we’ve even shown up with building materials. We dedicate ourselves to your project, not starting your work and then disappear to another job for weeks. We answer the phone when you call. We want our clients to love every aspect of working with us. I think out 5-star Google rating shows it.
What’s next?
I honestly don’t know what the future holds for Triangle Tradesmen. On a more lavish note, I might have daydreams of sipping a smoothie with some friends under the pergola at North Ridge Country Club that my team built (we really did build the pergola on the new wellness center there) after we’ve played a round of golf (I don’t really play golf), having passed by a half dozen decks we’ve built course-side.
That’s not really me though. I ultimately determine my success as a business leader by how well those who work for me are doing. I visualize my crews and staff as future managers, hiring crews of their own, getting to where I am today. Even though I’m the boss, I still work for them as much as I do for our clients.
I think the more immediate future is to continue optimizing the sales program. One of my challenges is to get estimates out fast enough to keep our current two building teams steadily busy. As that gets done, I’d like to hire and train another build team or two. We’ll need a little more management support, and then I could work my way a bit more exclusively into design and sales.
I think Triangle Tradesmen will always be a local company. I’d be fine if we have three to five construction teams running steadily year-round. Being larger than that means that I have to put a large part of the company under control of someone else who we’ve brought in, who may or may not share our vision and ideals. I’d like to company to grow large enough to support my retirement, but stay small enough to spare me the time to ride my mountain bike on the weekends.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://triangletradesmen.com
- Instagram: Instagram.com/tritradesmen
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/triangletradesmen
