 The biggest thing that comes to top of mind is customer service. Of course, that's huge, uh, especially in the industry we're living in right now and open communication. Welcome to the Smarter Building Materials Marketing Podcast, helping you find better ways to grow leads, sales and outperform your competition. All right, everybody. Welcome to Smarter Building Materials Marketing, where we believe your online presence should be your best salesperson. I am Zach Williams, alongside my co-host, Beth Poptiklav, and we've got an awesome show lined up for you today. We are really excited to welcome Mackenzie Brottin. She's the vice president of communications for Epic Companies, and Epic Companies is, I'm just going to say it, doing some really epic things. Sorry. That's been thinking about that all day. I have, I have. It was locked and loaded. I'm going to be honest. So first of all, Mackenzie, welcome to the show. Well, thank you so much for asking me to be on. Yeah, we're excited to have you. And for our listeners who may not know, can you give us the 30,000 foot view of Epic Companies and your role there? Yeah, absolutely. So I'll try to fit a lot into a little bit of time here, but Epic Companies, we're based out of West Fargo, North Dakota, actually, and we are a regional development company. And the unique thing about us is that we do investment development and management. Our main focus is building mixed use properties, but in turn we try to enhance communities through innovative development. That's our big thing. So we don't just want to put up another multi-family building. We look to see what's unique for that community and what could be a good fit. So whether that's doing a concept right now that we're working on, which is like a hotel water park would be North Dakota's largest indoor water park in the whole, I guess, regionally, it would really reflect on that thing because it's the state's largest, but then it would kind of attract regional people. But, you know, I kind of overuse, I guess the live, work and play thing, but that's something that we really strive to do when people move into our buildings. We want them to have the plaza space outside, such as we built at the lights in West Fargo and just being able to have the ability and the options to kind of be able to move into a place, call it home. But also you can bring your families there. You can invite people there. And there's so much more than just being an apartment or a place that you live. So I think that's really been a big part about what Epic does. And over the last few years, Epic's grown quite a bit. So when I started, there was about three people in 2017, and now we have over 80 employees. So what I kind of like to say is we kind of figured out where we need help and what we need to, people need to quit wearing so many hats. And we need some experts in these areas. We've started a construction division. We brought on architects. We have a leasing, commercial leasing, residential leasing, a capital team, an accounting team. So we really kind of dove into what our niche is and where we need help and what can work for us. And I think that's been a huge part of our growing and can't say there's nothing growing things along the way. But just a huge part of kind of understanding what's needed and where we're going next with everything. So, yeah, that's kind of a high level rundown of. That was a lot in a little bit. You said that's what you're going to do when you did. Yeah, yeah, it is a lot, but it's a good lot, right? Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. A little bit about my backstory. I grew up in a small town, a farming community in Northern North Dakota, so about five hours from Fargo. So I was always kind of interested in agriculture and that type of thing, went on to college, realized maybe more marketing communication was my niche, decided to get a job in the agriculture industry after college, wasn't quite the best fit for me, but kind of kept exploring options and then ended up getting my master's in communications. Started with Epic. And the next thing you know, I could tell it was a very growing company, but we were more so just a leasing company at that time. And now we've kind of evolved into this larger company with a lot of different roles and my PR communication side has definitely been used quite a bit in the last few years. So it's been nice to be able to utilize that and kind of see where my niches are. Very cool. So you're probably at the forefront of what's happening from a development standpoint. I'm curious to hear as you all have gone through the pandemic and sounds like you're doing some really creative stuff in reference to gosh, having a water park inside. Is it mixed use? Is it multifamily? Is it inside? Can you elaborate on that a little bit? So primarily what we try to stick with is the mixed use concept. So we created a development called YOLO by Epic. And this was actually a vacant lot that had had softball fields on it in the past. It got a little run down. The Fargo Park District put it out for bid and we decided to take a shot at it with some ideas that we had. And they were mixed use with the Park Plaza green space in the middle and just kind of having that option for the community there to be able to come hang out. It was connected to the baseball diamonds really close to the Red River Zoo here in town. And there's also a hockey rink, curling rink, hotels around it, some businesses, but it had kind of been a run down area. So what could we do to also support those businesses around and encourage them to come utilize this space but also build up the taxable value, bring something to the community, call it a regional destination location. And that's kind of where the water park concept came about. But it's also mixed use buildings around it. So the mixed use buildings have commercial apartments, condos will have a little like Plaza space where there will be a small stage, some art, some sculptures. We're looking at doing a hockey or skating rink. So just really a family oriented, family friendly type place, I guess that has a lot of different options for everyone, but also brings out big connectivity factor and brings in people from not only this community, but also hopefully regionally to want to come to the area, come to the water park, come to this skating rink, get a condo here, have a lake home. You know, kind of the all around perfect thing that you could want, I guess, in a development world. Listen to this, I'm like, if I'm a manufacturer, I'm like, wow, Mackenzie, this is really interesting. How can I sell you my products? It's probably what they're thinking, or how can I, you know? You know, if I'm not... Not to the chase. Yeah, that's really cool. I'd like you to buy my products and use them in your projects. But really what our manufacturers want to know is how can I position more effectively, not just with an organization like yours, but the broader sense of developers. How do I sell and market to developers in a way that gets them to listen and to want to use my products? And so I'm curious, from your perspective, if you're, if I'm a manufacturer, like what are the things that you're looking for for a manufacturer? What marketing and sales tactics work? Can you share a little bit about what you're looking for in that scenario? Yeah, definitely. I think the biggest thing that comes to top of mind is customer service. Of course, that's huge, especially in the industry we're living in right now. And open communication. That's a big one. And just being very vulnerable and open. And if stuff's not arriving on time or stuff's not going to be here and we're going to be missing some building timelines or whatever, we need to know. We need to know in advance. There's usually a solution to a problem. And it seems like a lot of times if we know about it and ahead of time, we can figure out some form of solution. And I tell you what, we have been very creative on multiple levels with that. But I think, you know, we work with so many great vendors and so many great people that come towards us and we try to stick a lot of things locally, but also nationwide. I mean, I get sign bids from all over the country because it's important that we stay competitive too. And we make sure that we're offering the best. We're taking the best price for with our investors, too, because all of our buildings are private investments. So we want to make sure we're doing what's best for them. But just making sure that those people, you know, check in with us and reach out and say, here's the timelines. Here's what's changed. Those that help us solve those issues, too. And those that are like, these are the issues that we've found and here's rising costs and different things. But here's a solution or here's something we think would be creative that we can think outside the box. So I think that's huge in follow through, of course. Those that follow through on their word, those that show up and they say they're going to be there. It just makes you want to use those people time and time again and just know how important those relationships are with the vendors and the people that are selling you the products. Mackenzie, I'm interested what the process looks like to create something that's so tailored for the individual community. So you guys are doing a lot of maybe research and development to understand what needs to go into these mixed use buildings that can be really valuable to the community. It can't just be lack of because, like, nowhere has a water park. So there's got to be a more complex. It's got to be a more complex process than just they don't have this thing. So let's build that thing. Can you give us a little bit of insight into that? Yeah, I think for us, you know, you can't just kind of come up with an idea and say, let's do it. You have to have the realist as well as the idea person which we have a lot of those on our team too. And I love the big ideas and I love kind of seeing them come to fruition but we do have to check out checks and balances. I mean, what's going to work? Financially, we are responsible for a lot of different things. We personally guarantee all of our buildings. We have investors that go into it. So we really have to be considerate of that. And we also want to be considerate of the rising costs of everything and evaluating each on its own merit, checking out pricing on it, availability within the market and how we can make it work. But I think at the end of the day so much of our creative things and things that we're bringing to the community, it's because we've seen, yes, it may not be here now and we've seen a little bit of a need for it or we've seen interest for it but we also can't just do it because we're here. It's a great idea or hey, you should try it. We really have to get down to the nuts and bolts. And I will say that our team has been very creative on the different ways that we can leverage and finance different things whether that's trying to work with the city and find out what opportunities there are for financing or working with different partnerships and trying to work together if it's the park district in that local community. I think that's another thing that we do really well is it really comes down to being soul relationship based but also in order to make this work, it has to be a team buy-in. We don't wanna be kind of standing up to the line just ourselves. We want it to be a team thing. We wanna be working with those communities and making sure that they're on board. And that's really how we've done a lot of these creative projects and not all of them have came to fruition and not all of them have worked but I'll tell you what, we've tried really hard to make sure that we've basically went down every direction and every path before we can say that's not gonna work or we're not gonna see that here. Mackenzie, you said something there a second ago I think is really important is that we try to do creative projects. And I think one thing I wanna hear from you about is the last two years has changed for a lot of people the way they wanna live life and this trickles down to manufacturers specifically because they need to create products that support that lifestyle for individuals especially if they're marketing to developers or to homeowners or the builder whatever it might be both residential and even commercial, right? And so I'm curious to get your take if you go macro with me for a moment. What are the things that you're hearing and you all know because you're building this for large groups of people that individuals want a part of their lifestyle in the way that they live in a home or live in a space, how is that changing? You really still have to provide the uniqueness and the creativeness of what people want to especially getting into the condo world we have to make sure that people are purchasing this this is a mortgage, this is not a rental it's gonna be theirs once you turn over the keys. So although sometimes we are facing the supply chains and the concerns I think the biggest thing is we have a lot of great people who are coming to the table with us with creative solutions that are gonna help out in this challenging world that we're working through right now. They're saying, you know you may have to give up this type of thing but here's a deal, well make sure that you can get this for sure or hey we have a better idea you can give us up and you can get this for similar costing. So I think it's a very hard question in a sense because there is so many different things and you don't wanna salvage that and you don't wanna give that up just because you know who your audience is but the conversations with the market shortage are kind of, they're being drove more and more on what's dictating with the solutions and what are those solutions? And sometimes we're not even getting from the vendors or people what maybe they would normally have pitched to us now they're just pitching us to here's what's available and here's what's gonna work. We know you really like this idea but hey this is what we know can work and this is what we know is gonna work on your timeline. We recently even have had a project where we were not gonna get any of the electrical casing by the timeframe that we're gonna open the building which was this month and it's kind of one of those things that's a little devastating at first but we know we need to get the building open we have people that are moving in so it's like okay let's sit down, what options? We're gonna come up with a temporary solution to get the CEO for the next couple months until that gets here and I think at the end of the day that was like really a hoot when you hear right away or just like oh my gosh this building is not gonna be done in time to the next thing like we have a solution will you guys run with it and try it? It may not be perfect but we're gonna get the building open for you as soon as the product comes in we'll get everything switched out so I think that's kind of been huge for us and I feel like I'm repeating myself a little bit but it's definitely been a lot of that just relationships and making sure that we work together on figuring out what's next. McKenzie is there anything you feel like you've learned as the vice president of communications because you would depend on manufacturers to communicate with you but then you're doing a lot of the communications with the occupants for your buildings and based on the story you just shared sometimes that's great news and sometimes you're having to be the bearer of bad news too so you can kind of understand where manufacturers are coming from. Anything you've learned about how to handle those not so fun conversations or stories you could share about ways that that's gone? Yeah, I think a lot of different things are running through my head right now as you asked that question but I think just reminding ourselves especially if it's a mixed use building where we already have residential tenants moving in it's their home. I mean, this is something that they have been amping up for they've been waiting for so whatever we can do to make sure that we're accommodating and you know what, it's not gonna be done in time but here's another apartment you can move into for a short time here we'll help you move we'll figure out a storage unit we'll put you up in a hotel we are so sorry we'll do what we can whether that's even a free month of rent for the inconvenience. We've really learned that we have to bend over backwards in a sense to make sure that what we're doing is not affecting them in the sense that they're getting stressed out because of something that's happening that we can't control either. You know it really has to work two ways and I think on the commercial side too we've learned that too we have a lot of commercial tenants who are fitting up their spaces and they're running into supply chain issues and we're not even necessarily the ones maybe who are helping them fit up their spaces although we do have a team that does that but at times you know just making sure that we're being accommodating and working with them and oh you know can our rent date start at a different time period because we're not gonna have our space open we're not gonna be able to make the money and just that's all goes back to the communication and being open. If someone is having an issue and we don't hear about it or don't know about it it's hard to solve the problem it's hard to fix it and come up with a creative idea but I feel like at the end of the day whatever we can do to communicate with them talk them through this isn't working this isn't gonna open and just being a little transparent I guess is a good word for it because we have people that the one thing about real estate they can drive by and they can see the building every day and if they think they're moving in on Friday and there's still work trucks out there and they're driving by and it's Thursday there may be some questioning there so just making sure that whatever we do we make sure to let them know. It's great. That's great. Mackenzie I really appreciate you coming on the show I think we like to always ask our guests you know hey like what's the one piece of advice you would give a manufacturer if they're trying to market and sell more effectively you've got a really unique vantage point in that you're very close to the end user what advice would you give a manufacturer with what you know about your space? I have a couple of different things going through my head I guess one of the biggest things is complete the work that's huge if you say you're gonna come back and finish it please come back and finish it that's you know turned a lot of bridges for us and changes for us because in turn if we don't have the manufacturer or the contractor come back and install the product correctly it kind of falls onto our maintenance team it makes the tenants life a little bit harder it just it really is a trickle effect and I think that's been really hard for everyone I guess in a sense just to make sure that we you want people to move into a finished product and not have any lingering issues and then I always kind of think you know just this goes back to the relationship and the communication side but as a manufacturer you know be competitive too be competitive with your bids try to keep an open mind about what's gonna work if you hear a no say let me relook at it there's usually solutions and sometimes it's not always the best pricing that you go with it is the person that has been in talks with you it's the person that picks up the phone it's the person that gets to know you so that's been huge too so just make sure that you're competitive you're communicating completing the work talking about timelines and deadlines and getting there I think for myself I handle a lot of the signage and we've been pushed behind a lot with that and just making sure that with that you know it's okay to get pushed behind but in the meantime what are you doing? Are you making sure that all the electrical is done so when the product arrives it can just literally be plugged in and here it is it turns on so just kind of keeping that in mind as well like following all the solutions and the steps to make sure that if something is delayed or something is happening that you're gonna make it easy end game for them when it does show up Mackenzie this has been awesome for our listeners that they want to connect with you or reach out what's the best way for them to do that? Yeah I feel like I just want to kind of give a plug for you to check out our website EpicCompaniesND.com we have a lot of exciting projects on there we do a lot with our news, our media side you can contact any of our staff members for myself I have a LinkedIn profile otherwise my email address I can have you post that underneath me as well that's probably the best way and I'm always open and willing to talk with anyone and just kind of talk through ideas or different things that come up too I feel like that's a big thing of the PR and communication side is working internally with our team externally but also seeking out advice and I'm always willing to learn from others too I think that's one of the greatest things I've learned is the best ideas usually come from somebody else so I'm always open minded Excellent, well awesome Mackenzie thank you so much for coming to the show and for our listeners if you enjoyed this episode make sure you check us out at vimeo.com slash podcast to subscribe and get more until next time I'm Zach Williams alongside Beth and I'll be off thanks for watching