The Alimond Show
Welcome to The Alimond Show --join us as we share our entrepreneurial guests' stories, uncover their secrets to success, and explore the unique paths they've taken to build thriving businesses in our community.
In each episode, our host, Aliyah Dastour, sits down with a diverse group of local business owners, from the corner cafe to the boutique shop, from tech startups to family-run enterprises. We peel back the curtain to reveal the trials, triumphs, and transformational moments that have shaped their entrepreneurial journey.
Discover the passion, perseverance, and innovative thinking that fuels these businesses, as well as the challenges they've overcome along the way. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur seeking inspiration or simply a curious listener interested in the stories behind your favorite local spots, The Alimond Show has something for everyone.
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Join us every week as we celebrate the unsung heroes of our local business community and explore the vibrant tapestry of entrepreneurship in our area. Tune in to The Alimond Show and get ready to be inspired, informed, and motivated to support and nurture the businesses that make our community thrive.
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The Alimond Show
Christopher Howard: From Family Values to Crafting Dreams: Transforming Apex Craftsman into a Multifaceted Enterprise with Traditional Marketing, Personal Stories, and Innovative Construction Solutions
Discover the inspiring journey of Christopher Howard of Apex Craftsman, where a family-operated business transforms into a multifaceted enterprise renowned for its exceptional craftsmanship and client-focused services. Meet our guest, a seasoned owner with 20 years of expertise in the construction and moving industry, who shares how his Italian upbringing and family values have shaped his meticulous work ethic and dedication to achieving client dreams. From moving services to innovative projects like concrete stairs with integrated lighting, Apex Craftsman offers a wide array of services while maintaining affordability through strategic financing options. Learn how this company thrives on traditional marketing strategies like word-of-mouth, empowering listeners with insights into effective team dynamics and the critical role of project foremen.
Our guest also opens up about the personal side of business, sharing touching stories about involving his young son in work projects, which ignited the boy’s entrepreneurial spirit. These family tales are woven with themes of dedication, transparency, and accountability in an industry often fraught with challenges. Gain insights into the seasonal dynamics of deck building, the benefits of technology in streamlining estimates and quotes, and how the owner’s personal health journey motivates a balanced lifestyle. With the guiding mantra, "If you can dream it, I can build it," this episode promises to inspire and inform, encouraging you to connect through their business website and explore how they can bring your vision to life.
Apex Craftsman is the name of my company, LLC. We started off with a moving company, moved up for decks and remodeling kitchens and bathrooms. We've been doing it for 20 years.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's a long time.
Speaker 1:I'm 39 years old, so I started when I was young with my family and stuff like that moved up from there.
Speaker 2:Very nice. I'd like to know a background. A little bit. Tell me your story. How did you begin this business? You said you started off with your family. How did it get you to this point, to where you are today?
Speaker 1:I just wanted to make everybody have a dream. Take your time on every project, make sure every tile is laid perfectly. I mean I get my boots on just with the crew and just get there and just make sure everything's perfectly, because if you can dream it, I can build it.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've done concrete, flat stairs for friends of mine, just so I can see if I can do it. And challenge myself to more of an unbalance of everything Uncomfortable feeling is something I like to do, so if I sit there and learn it, I'll take it and take it on for somebody else's project too. Yeah, fluid and concrete stairs with lighting underneath of it was a beautiful project of mine. I did for a family that you know didn't have a lot of money, so I was like give me $500. I'll just do it for you, yeah. And then military people change a light bulb. I don't worry about it, I'll buy a light bulb, change it. You know, just showing pride in what you know how to do and give it to somebody else, yeah, and not just give them a half-finished project.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And keep it on schedule, and that's one thing I OCD about, I know.
Speaker 2:I love that, that you take great pride in your work, that you want.
Speaker 1:I mean like you take pride in your work. I mean everybody has to take some kind of pride and have some kind of dream. Like I love my job, I love going in and saying to a client that I could do that. I mean the budget will allow me to do that, but if you want add-ons to that, you got to do it with time. Time management is everything in life, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:Talk to me about your team. How many people do you have and what kind?
Speaker 1:of people.
Speaker 2:Are you Sorry you're getting so excited. I'm very hyper, so it's okay. No, I love that energy.
Speaker 1:So basically my team members, I have foremans and then they hire their guys to work with them, guys they feel comfortable with. So I have three foremans I have. I try to have one of my foremans come up here cause he was one of the. When I take my vacation or take my time off away from people, everything, and he takes over the company for me. I give him four jobs for that week. He takes them over, checks on all four jobs, gives me reports and that's my main foreman.
Speaker 1:Um, another guy I have have I barely use them because he more does like a punch out painting concept of stuff I do and he takes pride in his work. But I won't let him take on projects. So I only have two foremans. Pretty much try to keep a minimum down, so minimum cost, so I can save clients money. Yeah, and that's the big thing, if I, if I sit there and say I'm going to finish a project in a month, it's going to take me a month to finish that project because they have other projects they have to keep an eye on. But we're going to take more pride in every project, yes, so that's why I like to give at least a month or two for like a bathroom remodeling and kitchen remodeling stuff like that. But decks are in the season so I do decks kitchen remodeling. I own a moving company but I don't like moving. I just did that during Corona. When Corona happened everybody was moving out so I saw a profit in it so I went straight for it to build my profit up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I saw that I want to go through some of the services that you do provide. So, like you said, you have deck and patio construction. I know you just said that it not your favorite, but you've got local moving services yes um house moving, local moving, uh moving equipment rental, residential carpet cleaning um talk to me about those, yeah um, so when you move you think about it.
Speaker 1:You gotta clean your carpet. You know you gotta get everybody's renting in washington dc and maryland, everything like that. Gotta clean the carpet, gotta wipe the walls down. So we and Maryland and everything like that, you've got to clean the carpet, you've got to wipe the walls down. So we all offer a service like that. And then we do financing. We have multiple different financing companies that I work with. You ever heard of Acorn Financing stuff like that. So it's a contractor thing. So basically you can do different kind of financing through different lenders and see what you qualify for. So your rate stays pretty low. So I can get the job done for you for a decent price, like $30 a month to $100 a month. It depends how much the project costs for the rendition to the remodeling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, love it, and talk to me about marketing. How are you going about getting your name out there? Are you online? Is it word of mouth?
Speaker 1:Word of mouth, Word of mouth and a lot of contractors use me. Um, we work with a lot of builders, so we go in there and do a couple projects for the builders. Then the homeowner next door sees us. We talk to them. A lot of my foremans can call me out there and I'll be out there in two seconds just to talk to somebody. Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, love it. Have you ever considered social media, or is that not really your thing?
Speaker 1:It was a flyer thing back in the day. Yeah, so we did the flyers. I love it, and so I've done multiple different properties for multiple different families, like this family had like seven kids and I did all their additions, all their kitchen remodels. They buy the house, I fix it up for them and they pay me straight forward. I mean, that's how it was word of mouth for the longest, but when Corona happened, everybody stopped using people. It went real slow. I'm still.
Speaker 1:I'm still recovering from four years ago. I got full custody of my two kids, so it's like my kids come first. I was running a little bit late coming up here.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry about that.
Speaker 1:My son had to go to school late so it's hard to get them up, but you know they've worked with me. I took my five-year-old with me, since he was pretty much five years old he's 16 and a 17-year-old yeah, they're a handful. Yeah, but they don't want to go in the same field I am, because they see how I work 60 hours a week. You know I'm tired all the time, but I usually give a break to myself and take like a month off and go travel for a minute.
Speaker 2:Okay, and that's good. You got to find that balance.
Speaker 1:I know you have to find the balance through life and you know family and work, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's funny that you mentioned that you bring your kids, because growing up, my mom was in construction. This was a long time ago before you even saw any women. She would do everything, put up walls, tiles, and she would take my siblings to work with us and we would also see like how much work she would put into it yeah so that's.
Speaker 2:That's cool, that you also were able to take your kids there and and see right yeah give them a little bit of an experience of what all the hard work you're probably putting in for them to make sure that they have a good, a good life, right yeah? I mean decent life, yeah well we do the best we can right oh yeah, you have to absolutely um, I'd also like to ask you um, do you have a location, uh, or an office?
Speaker 1:or um. So our location is right here in mobile. We just got out of another office. We're getting ready to move into Lorton. We're going to have a bigger area where we can stack up material and stuff like that. That's my dream. I'm working towards it. I'm dealing with a couple of realtors right now trying to figure out the property Something with a warehouse and upstairs for the office area. It's me and a couple of sales guys. I can't try to keep a minimum as possible. Yeah, so I don't have to pay everybody everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, okay, that's pretty cool. I like that you're working on that next step bigger space warehouse so you can have inventory of your own pretty cool. Um, why should people choose you guys to work with when they're working on their homes?
Speaker 1:because the owner will be there one by one, to the beginning, to the end. I want to be my hands on the project. If I see something messed up, I will tear it out and redo it. Just because you're paying for a high dollar price, I mean it's not high dollar, it's decent. Like a bathroom remodel is like $33 with labor and material and everything. So $33 to a kitchen remodel is about 13. You know, I give a decent price but I give a warranty to my labor. I give a year warranty to every labor job I do and my hands will be there from the beginning, to the middle and to the end.
Speaker 2:Wow, what are some of?
Speaker 1:your favorite projects to work on Favorite projects. Oh man, what's?
Speaker 2:something you're like get out of the way. I'm doing that. I love that. That's my favorite thing to do.
Speaker 1:Cabinets.
Speaker 2:Cabinets Okay.
Speaker 1:I don't have any pictures posted on social media, but I can hang cabinets all by myself. Yeah, I have a little trick that my grandfather taught me. Take two pieces of board, turn one side way, turn it up and lock it in so I could just hang it myself. Look at that and put a laser on that stuff, make sure everything's level, put crown molding up and call it a day. There it is.
Speaker 2:I'd like to know what's the background. You said your family also was in the business, so what are they doing?
Speaker 1:Construction. They're in the construction business, so my dad's a and then I worked with him. And then I met this one guy a long time ago. His name is Saul and he put me under his wing for 20 years. Wow, so he still works for me, but I usually work for him, yeah. Yeah, I usually call my guys up and do projects with him. We just did a church about a week ago, did all the trim work, changed it all out. It's one of the oldest churches in DC. Okay, it was a good project. It was right there off of Georgetown, right by the college. It's the first church ever.
Speaker 2:Was it by the exorcist stairs? Yes, right there.
Speaker 1:That's pretty cool actually I do snow removal there for a couple times. Okay, so is snow removal something too. No, it was just for the project, you know you got a little, so don't contact them for snow services y'all. You gotta butter it up a little bit, you know very true, okay.
Speaker 2:Um, what have been some of the craziest buildings that you've ever been in? I'm curious, like have you ever been to a building where you're like, whoa what? What in the world is this?
Speaker 1:What was it, son of Saigon? It's in Old Town, alexandria. I'm sorry, I'm advertising a little business, that's okay. The bathroom floor was completely rotted out Water damage. It was an old building and I had to sit there and frame it up and I had to get underneath the building and everything like that.
Speaker 2:Oh, that kind of sounds scary.
Speaker 1:It was scary the rats I kept seeing, but they don't have it in there. Just, you know you have multiple buildings right beside and how to crawl in the crawl space and everything like that. It was crazy. I don't know if I'm saying the name right. I'm glad I'm not saying the name right yeah it, just it was all completed.
Speaker 1:R rotted out, caved in. I had to put studs under there. I only had this much of clearance to go under there and dig holes out and put studs, because the old houses that are like the limestone rocks that go around the base of it, sometimes they sink. Oh no, and Old Town Alexandria is really old, so they have a lot of settling cracks, everything like that, a lot of plaster.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Have you ever considered maybe like getting like a GoPro camera or like filming yourself in these crazy things and putting it online? I feel like TikTok would eat this up, Like look at me.
Speaker 1:Oh, I've been underneath the new stairs. So for a company they subcontracted me work to handle squeaky floors. You know you get these new houses with squeaky floors, yes. So a homeowner came up and was like can I see your phone? I was like why can't I see my phone? I want to take a picture of you because I've never seen a man underneath my floor like that.
Speaker 1:See they would eat this up. A lot of my clients eat it up. I make them laugh and make them feel comfortable. I make them laugh, make them feel comfortable.
Speaker 2:You need to see that so you can get more clients to be like this guy's funny. I want to work with him.
Speaker 1:I'm very hyperactive. I'm very OCD when it comes to my work. I take pride in my work and I love my job. I want to give people a dream, not a nightmare.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, not a nightmare, Even if it's spooky.
Speaker 1:I mean a lot of clients, they deal with clients, a lot of contractors that give a nightmare. They sit there, schedule the job, don't get it done. I don't have any prompts or anything, but I have a work order where it shows you time scheduled, time date scheduled every two weeks. This week, this week the progress, the progress report. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:I feel like a lot of people want to know about that because they're left in the dark like oh, okay.
Speaker 1:And the number is my personal number. So anybody who calls that number will contact me and I'll be out there to check it out. I want to make sure I'm on there if I can't make it out once. I'm personal for my team and make it out there why is this so important to you?
Speaker 2:to be so hands-on and be like available?
Speaker 1:because my mom's italian. She's very ocd, so it's like, yeah, come on now. This has to be perfect. I don't, I hate working for her. That's the perfect. I don't, I hate working for it. Shout out mom.
Speaker 2:I love you mom, but man, it's a nightmare oh, oh, we love you mom, we do uh-huh very cool, no, but that's, it's kind of a a good thing she kind of instilled in you, because now you kind of have that too right where you're just like I'm gonna be there, I'm gonna get it done right, people love to see that and, like you said, you give people like a scheduled plan of like what's going on, because I have I've heard nightmare things where people are just like they've been here forever and I've seen no progress. Like what am I paying you guys for, right? So I'm glad that you have that.
Speaker 1:A lot of people want to know yeah, we take 30 minutes off of every job to clean up. Everything has to be cleaned up because you never know you got kids running around, um, and then the homeowner wants to see progress. She wants to see a beautiful project, not dirt all over the place, and that just drives me insane. I'll start sweeping. My son will start cleaning, like he was. I remember one time he was five years old. I took on a project and the homeowner was like oh, you got your son with you. I didn't have a babysitter. You know, five years old he wasn't in school yet or four years old. I gave he had told him hey, take that shot back and clean up all the studs, get all the dirt out of the studs and everything like that. I'll pay you a hundred dollars.
Speaker 2:That's what my mom would do too and he was like a hundred dollars.
Speaker 1:So I get my hundred dollar bill. He's like dad, that's it I was like okay, I'll be right back. And the homeowner sat there, took the $100, went to the bank, got the $100 on one. So a five-year-old sitting there flexing, and he still flexes. He has his own business too.
Speaker 2:Look at that. What has he got? Let's shout it out.
Speaker 1:He was a landscaper. It was called Little man Landscaping. Little man Landscaping, Love it. He was doing it for a while. I came up with the name, got him a whole company shirt. Got him a company hat. What? Because you have to sit there and give to your kids' dreams, Even though they don't want to stick with it. At least you show them that you're going to be backing them up through it. Exactly he did selling purses, selling clothes. What else he did? Oh, we had so many people knock on our door when we had Corona. He was selling stuff, All his toys he got for Christmas everything. I'm like, what are you doing? You?
Speaker 2:made a little entrepreneur here. Yeah, you need money.
Speaker 1:I was like okay, so he makes good money what he does Do you feel proud about that.
Speaker 2:He's going out there trying to make his own business Because he worked with me since he was five years old. My oldest one.
Speaker 1:he's the smart one that wants to go to like be an engineer. He wants to go to Virginia Tech to be an engineer, but he wants to go to Nova first. Yeah, and float it out and see if he wants to stick with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that would be cool, because then maybe you guys could work together or something you can add engineering to your Computer engineering. Okay.
Speaker 1:He wants to go for the high dollar one. Gotcha, gotcha.
Speaker 2:Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. No, that's great, I'm, I'm so happy to hear that your kids are inspired by you and like going to work whether they're inspired by them.
Speaker 1:What are you? They inspire me. They inspire me to wake up in the morning. Sometimes I don't want to wake up and do projects or anything like that, but they inspire me because I have them and you know living with me and you know sitting there, make sure my diet's correctly. You know fish and chicken. That's all my son lets me wow no red meat why no red meat? Um high blood pressure, stressed out all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh my gosh, this is something that do you feel like in your industry. That's something that a lot of people don't think about oh, you gotta be healthy.
Speaker 1:I mean you gotta sit there. You know I'm I'm 38, 39 years old, I'm almost 40. March 9th I'll be 40. So I gotta sit there. You know I'm 38, 39 years old, I'm almost 40. March 9th I'll be 40. So I got to sit there and stay long, long enough for my kids to see their grandkids and see what's going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I feel like the type of job you have puts a lot of like stress on your body, right what?
Speaker 1:Micromanaging everything and not having a manager. Yeah, it does, it really does yesterday, and then I went up to dc today to go look at a property, so I'm driving all over the place, you know. Yeah, maybe give me a tesla soon, yeah but I can't drive anymore. You can just close your eyes, right no, but the, the charting time is what killed me so like, uh, four hours for what? This many miles I'm now, I'm good, yeah um, speaking on that.
Speaker 2:Uh, what do you like to do when you're not at work? To de-stress and like take care of your mind and your body.
Speaker 1:I go hiking. I like Skyline Drive, that's. That's a beautiful place up there, Definitely the season Um reading mostly what?
Speaker 2:do you like to read?
Speaker 1:Uh.
Speaker 2:How-to books to learn more.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no. I like business, business books, um, business books, investments. I was thinking about getting a real estate investment but it looks like a headache. So I go all over the place. I try to find something. I'm key and I enjoy doing so. Sitting there waiting for this project to be done and lowballing all the contractors that come in there to sell the product, I'm like, hmm, I wouldn't want to be load balled, so I'm good, I'm just going to push that to the side. Then I try this. I always try to go through like the marketing. I'm doing a marketing for, you know, business. I'm trying to get that up and running because I need to get more clients and keep the guys busy. For next year I got projects until Decembercember but it's still like they're iffy, like if this guy doesn't take, this guy gets done fast, I don't have a project for him so you gotta always be on top of that and look ahead yeah okay, I like that.
Speaker 2:And now talk to me about the um, the deck side of your business right now.
Speaker 1:You said it's like popular right now no no, no, so so the deck side in the winter time really is not that popular. Oh, I'm sorry I got now. No, no, no. So so the deck side in the wintertime really is not that popular oh, I'm sorry, I got it no, no, no, it's okay.
Speaker 1:I might have said that, but it it's one of my popular things, um, to build a deck, because I can do the estimates right there on site, okay, um, I have a calculator for that, so I put the square footage, I could do the, you know, the staining, the board replacements and everything off of. Uh, was it google sheets? Yeah, google sheets. Okay, so it's a calculator on there, so everything comes all right there. Put it onto a work order and I'll sit there and talk to the client and sit there and just look, look at my phone, just do it real quick and email it to them. That's the easy one. The cabinets I mean it just depends how many cabinets they want, but usually I got the number in my head and I can put her shit out and that's material labor and everything together and those are custom cabinets, yeah love it, and is there anything maybe that I have missed or not talked about that you would like to have our listeners know whether it's about yourself or your business um, just go to apex craftsmancom.
Speaker 1:I mean you know a little space, a little line space right there. I mean you can always, yeah, but just check out the website and give me a contact.
Speaker 2:Love it. And now I have one more question before you run away. Yeah, I would like to know if there's been something that anybody has ever told you, or maybe you read a quote or a saying that has inspired you Could you tell me anything that's inspired you and share with our listeners.
Speaker 1:If you can dream it, I can build it. That's one of my favorite quotes right there, and we just make it easy for you to talk to us and walk you over your plans. That's my quote. I mean, I love that quote.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it too. Thanks for sharing. Thank you, we appreciate it, and thank you so much just for sharing your journey and about your kids. It means a lot that you are sharing that with us.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're welcome.