Onward and upward

Our Women’s Roundtable on why the road ahead is filled with promise

It has been nearly 18-plus months since a once in a lifetime pandemic tossed the world and everything in it upside down. To the credit of many in the commercial construction industry, life not only pushed on, but pushed on successfully.

As our monthly roundtables have uncovered, some days, months and quarters were better than others, but the work goes on. Looking ahead, as much as the pandemic continues to make its presence known, the overall industry outlook considers to be favorable, especially on the heels of a proposed infrastructure bill pending in Congress. The monthly podcasts, hosted by CCR Publisher David Corson and Editor Michael J. Pallerino, include a diverse set of commercial construction professionals representing the vendor and end-user sides of the business. The June discussion centered on a return to normalcy, even though the industry still faces issues like labor and supply shortages. Following is an edited look at the July discussion.

CCR: Tell us a little about yourself and your company.

Hannah Beshears, Barberitos

Franchising: I handle all the local and national marketing for Barberitos. I work closely with our franchisees in their local markets while working hand-in-hand with our founder and CEO Downing Barber on major national marketing campaigns. We are based out of Athens, Georgia and have 51 locations in seven states across the Southeast. We’re in the quickserve burrito industry. Downing originally founded Barberitos in Athens 21 years ago, so we’ve been around for a while.

Chelsea Mulligan, Open Dør Dis-

pensaries: I am the co founder and COO of Open Dør Dispensaries, which is a retail franchise offering a turnkey solution for cannabis dispensary license holders or people wanting to submit for a cannabis dispensary license. Our goal is just to take the complexity out of cannabis so that the operator can be in business for themselves, but not by themselves. We want to make sure our franchisees don’t have to completely navigate the ever-changing cannabis landscape alone. The regulations can change daily, so if you’re not a flexible person who likes to learn new things and be kept on your toes, it’s not necessarily the industry for you.

Jennifer Nendick, C3 Solutions: I’m the owner of C3 Solutions; I am what you could call a gun for hire for new evolving concepts. People who want to open a retail location, restaurant or hotel may not necessarily know construction, real estate, leasing or buying power. They would come to me as a consultant. I am able to help them through the process—from inception to completion. I take them all the way until the keys are in their hand for their certificate of occupancy. Companies going through growth spurts contact me. They know they are going to do 50 stores this year, but they don’t want to hire a construction manager because they might only build 20 next year and would have to let that person go. I’m that construction manager with 22 years of experience—having worked on all sides of the industry. I am based in Chicago so I can access any site in the country within five hours if necessary.

Cynthia Bills, FloorMax USA: I’m the Business Development and Marketing Manager for FloorMax USA. We are a nationwide flooring installer and service provider. I’ve been with the company for three years, starting in marketing and transitioning into business development. I work closely with the sales representatives in both our National and Commercial divisions to increase new client relationships.

CCR: Give us an idea of what’s on your to-do list these days.

Open Dør Dispensaries’ Mulligan:

At the top of my to-do list right now is to hire additional sales team members. My day to day to-do list is keeping up on the markets that are coming online—markets that keep changing. We have to keep our compliance docs and everything else up to date. I have a robust document library that we use. I add to that daily. I recently hired somebody to do my compliance because we partnered with a training platform. That wasn’t the best use of my time. We’re also in the process of getting our first franchisee, so we need to make sure they have the most robust knowledge base and support system out there. I also currently run two licenses in Arizona, serving as the Director of Operations. I oversee our cultivation, manufacturing and retail facilities.

Barberitos’ Hannah Beshears: I am currently working on our 2022 planning. This year, we were just trying to get our feet back on stable ground following COVID. Now it’s on to planning for 2022, mostly bringing things to customers that we couldn’t in 2021. This includes remodeling stores and introducing new technologies. For example, we’re working on digital menus

Hannah Beshears Barberitos Franchising

Chelsea Mulligan Open Dør Dispensaries

Jennifer Nendick C3 Solutions

Cynthia Bills FloorMax USA

boards, second back-of-house kitchens to fulfill online ordering, stations and giving our in-store model a makeover. As part of this initiative, I work with our operations, marketing and graphic teams so that everyone is on the same page. I’m really looking forward to next year, especially since we have the rest of this year planned out. As for general day to day things, I’m constantly helping take care of our franchisees. How can I help them in their local market? What can we do for the upcoming school year in local markets? If they need anything marketing, they call me, and we figure it out together.

CCR: When you look at some of your competitors, are they focusing on 2022, too?

Barberitos’ Hannah Beshears: I think it’s a little of both. A lot of the things the industry is struggling with now are out of our hands—things like the employment crisis, which hopefully will get better with time. We’re also dealing with a manufacturing and supply chain crisis, as more things don’t get fulfilled and shipped. We have depleted our logo bags, because we can’t get them printed and shipped to us from China and California—both of which are places that are having labor issues. That means focusing on things that we can control and working on giving our franchisees different options.

Open Dør Dispensaries’ Mulligan: In my industry, it’s the same sort of thing. You have to be prepared for what’s happening now in the ever-changing landscape. But if you’re not prepared for six, nine, 12 and 16 months down the road in cannabis, you’re going to miss the boat on licensing options, real estate options. Here in Nebraska, where I am now, there are no options. There are people buying up key pieces of land that could potentiall fit in the zoning laws that will be instated in two years. So, you have to be ready on all fronts.

C3 Solutions’ Nendick: It is which game are you playing, right? In the quick-serve casual arena, they had a boost with COVID because of all the deliveries. Delivery apps didn’t really exist except for pizza and places like Jimmy Johns until COVID hit. Then you started seeing DoorDash, Uber Eats, (etc.). Everything went through the roof. Quickserve casual was the easiest for them to get within a 30-minute window. That elevated everything for them. The big restaurants—the formal ones— didn’t have anybody coming in. They couldn’t. And they didn’t have any delivery options. So those leases and that real estate came up for grabs. It was the same thing on the retail side. Many of them couldn’t sustain their business models during COVID, so they scaled back and gave up some real estate. That became a real opportunity for anybody with cash. Brick and mortar is changing. We’re no longer going to the mall like we did thanks to the Amazons of the world. And that brick and mortar available real estate is now going to 40% interactive. And then there is the cannabis market. It was an essential business— cannabis and liquor—during COVID. Our cannabis clients went through the roof. They sat on their cash for about two and a half months because everybody was nervous. Nobody knew what the state of the economy was going to be. Some came up with drive-thru options and mobile transactions to appeal to ease of accessibility. The state regulators vary, and each state has adopted a different process to adjust for the essential businesses. It all happened overnight, depending on the industry. My high-end retailers are coming into that touch and feel model—the high-end places want interactive technology to engage with their core clients similar to restaurants where you have activities for your kids. People still want to touch that $10,000 Louis Vuitton bag before they buy it.

FloorMax USA’s Bills: In flooring, it is a mixed bag depending on the industry. National retail has always been one of the largest sectors that we service, but obviously during the pandemic, it took a big hit. Brick and mortar was almost completely shut down. Although, we experienced some lost opportunity in physical retail, we saw increased activity in a new space, warehousing. We have done many back end/ warehousing projects for national companies since the pandemic began. Additionally, as you can imagine, the healthcare sector saw a major increase in activity. We have established many new relationships with some industry leaders and know this sector will continue to grow.

CCR: Let’s go back to the to-do lists.

C3 Solutions’ Nendick: In a nutshell, I have two leases to review, three bids to award and two punch lists to close out. That’s easy. The punch list is basically everything they owe my client at the end of the day—their completion is within a week so we can financially secure everything and protect the client. A lot of people who are new to construction are unaware of everything required to protect the clients. That back-end piece doesn’t always get completed properly. Upfront lease negotiations are the best way to save money for a client. It’s the only place we have leverage. After you sign a lease, you’re married to it. You are going through those processes, whatever you’ve agreed to. People sometimes forget the age-old concept of, “If you don’t ask, you won’t get it.” That’s where I spend a great deal of time. Bidding is where the money is. Let’s say three contractors tell you they are going to build the same exact store with the exact same plans.” Contractor 1 is $100,000. Contractor 2 is $150,000. And Contractor 3 is $200,000. Which one’s the right bid? A lot of the time, people look at that number; they think the $100,000 bid is the right contractor. But what it typically turns out to be is that the $100,000 contractor excluded everything the $200,000 one had. Because you’re in a change order situation and the market is what it is and supplies are limited, you’re paying $250,000 on that $100,000 contractor. My job is to safeguard that whole process. And every client is at a different place at a different time.

Floormax USA’s Bills: I have two parts to my job—business development and marketing. As I mentioned earlier, on the business development side, I work closely with our sales team on establishing new client relationships. I also manage and attend trade shows, which is our primary source of lead generation. The marketing aspect

is anything pertaining to the branding for the company—brochures, videos, website, online presence like social media (etc.).

CCR: What you look at how the pandemic is panning out, what are some of the lessons you’ve learned over the past 18 months or so?

Open Dør Dispensaries’ Mulligan: I’ve been a consultant for the last eight years before starting Open Dør Dispensaries. So, for me, the pandemic was just a continuation of working from home. It just meant less travel and more of seeing my child, which was really nice.

What I learned was that I am more than capable of building a company, doing my job and spending time with my family being a mother and wife. I found a love for not traveling as much. Granted, I cannot wait until I’m back on the road, but that’s another lesson I learned. I think we have glorified as a culture being tired, and working really hard to be wealthy or having the things we want. I learned that it doesn’t have to be that way. You can still be successful and build something you’re proud of and bring something to a community that they didn’t have before.

FloorMax USA’s Bills: I have two schoolaged children, so at first, the pandemic set me into crisis mode. How is this going to work? Am I still going to have a job? How am I going to balance all of this? What helped me get through was the support of the management team. They were flexible and very understanding of the fact that I was about to become an “elementary school teacher” while also being a business development and marketing professional. I feel very fortunate because I was able to—and still can—work remotely. Although it was chaotic, I spent a lot of quality time with my children and my partner in 2020 and that time that was invaluable.

C3 Solutions’ Nendick: I learned to take every moment for what it was. I lost my husband, a firefighter, during the pandemic. We were able to spend a lot of time with our kids before he passed. It was such a gift to have all of us together at home laughing, not worrying about running around and chasing every little thing. We just figured we are going to roll with things. Whatever comes our way, we’re going to take it and teach our

kids. You don’t have to be constantly busy and try to keep up with everyone. He had four children and I have one. Together, we were seven strong. It’s a different ballpark in what our kids have to go through now versus what I learned as a child. We didn’t have cameras following us around all over the place. You were allowed to make mistakes without anybody documenting them. We asked our kids to take a little break. We went on road trips; we hiked national parks. Volume wise, work was a little less. It enabled us to take a step back, and enjoy the beauty and time and support each other—talk without phones or distractions. I have teenagers around, so everybody is constantly on the phone.

Barberitos’ Beshears: I think the No. 1 thing we learned is that nothing is permanent. One day, everything was smooth sailing and the next we were facing a set of challenges nobody could have anticipated. One of my favorite quotes is, “Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.” I think that was really important for us during COVID— we had to figure out what we could change and how we could adapt. We really focused on our strong suits, which are great customer service and fresh food. It was important to reach out to our customers and get them in the door. It was about survival and we saw many competitors not make it. We revved up third-party delivery and implemented curbside service—things that are not going away. We’re still working on contracts with third-party delivery companies. I think it was crucial to keep pushing forward. We kept fighting, even when the future seemed so uncertain.

I was always told you cannot change the things that are out of your control. Sounds simple, but how relevant has it become during the pandemic?

— Cynthia Bills, FloorMax USA CCR: What types of opportunities to see moving forward?

Barberitos’ Beshears: We’re really focusing on franchise sales at this point and growing the brand. If you have the cash, you can get the real estate. It’s there, and we’re eager to continue to grow our brand. We are in several great markets, and we just want to continue capitalizing on those markets. Our best stores are the ones that have several locations in an area, so we want to continue to grow those areas.

C3 Solutions’ Nendick: What I found was that a lot of companies that were building or growing were nervous when the pandemic hit. They laid off their construction staff. They had the cash and the capital, but they didn’t have anyone to manage that process for them post layoffs. That’s where I come in because for the next six months to a year, nobody knows what that life is going to look like. They don’t know what the survival of their brand essentially will be. It’s an unknown. The theme seems to be, roll with the changes and adapt. For me, that means outsourcing. A lot of people are looking at business models differently. They’re looking to pay a per project fee not just on construction management, but they’re finding wholesalers able to pay per incident. They’re looking for providers, millwork per store. They’re looking to negotiate package deals. There are a lot of opportunities for outsourcing over the next 12 to 18 months. After that, we’ll reevaluate. For now, cannabis has never stopped. That’s continuous. Liquor stores have stayed consistent. Quick-serve casual has been

probably the most stable of restaurant concepts that I’ve witnessed throughout the years. Retailers are going high-end only unless you’re a bread-and-butter one that sits next to a college. Corporations will ultimately capitalize on where their most profitable stores are and close the rest.

FloorMax USA’s Bills: I think for us it will be about where we chose to focus our efforts and being able to roll with the punches. We have been concentrating on sectors such as healthcare and warehousing, which are experiencing huge increases in activity and are in need of our services. Moving forward, I think the demand for those industries will be the same, if not greater. Something we have been working on is establishing relationships with companies that offer disinfectant/anti-viral floor coatings, as many of our clients have expressed the need for this type of product. I think this could be a big opportunity for FloorMax USA now and in the future.

Open Dør Dispensaries’ Mulligan: I am going to piggyback a little bit off the real estate discussion. Zoning laws for cannabis are strict. Sometimes it is hard to find the right properties. I think with a lot of these restaurants, and with certain retailers closing, cannabis has a unique opportunity to snatch up some key real estate. That comes with a caveat. It takes education into these larger strip mall retailers and owners, and property management companies. They’re very anti-cannabis. But if you can educate them—if you can have a strong brand—you can show a track record of compliance. It’s not just a smoke shop where people can light up a joint outside next to an Ulta or Louis Vuitton. People need to feel comfortable; they’re the same type of consumers. We have a very unique situation where we could get some decent real estate.

CCR: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

FloorMax USA’s Bills: I was always told you cannot change the things that are out of your control. Sounds simple, but how relevant has it become during the pandemic? Make the best with what you have been dealt. That is all you can do. Open Dør Dispensaries’ Mulligan: I have received a lot of advice over the last nine years in the cannabis industry. But for 2021, the advice I have received—advice I hold in high regard—is that it is alright to give myself a break from time to time. It’s okay to not try and meet an incredibly high standard all the time. I’ve always mastered the ability to not hold everyone else to the same high standard I hold myself to, so now I’m trying to teach myself how to take a break.

Barberitos’ Beshears: My advice comes from my late grandmother. She told me the day I left for college that I should never forget who I am, where I came from and who raised me. That has really helped keep me grounded to my core values in both my business and personal lives. Whenever I get into a situation that I don’t like or can’t figure out, I try to bring myself back to those three key things.

C3 Solutions’ Nendick: My best piece of advice came from a client 15 years ago. It was a rough day, and he looked at me and said, “You know what? God let you wake up today. It’s time to do a little more personally, professionally and physically. Go do a little more.”

CCR: What’s your story? What brought you to the construction industry?

FloorMax USA’s Bills: I was born and raised in Central Pennsylvania. I went to Penn State University, where I received a Business Administration degree. From there, I was a small business owner in the restaurant industry for about eight years. We started off as a little pizza shop—a little hole in the wall that grew into a larger business, and eventually into expansion of additional locations. But that life is a difficult one—working seven days a week, 24 hours a day, more or less. With two small children, it just was not how I wanted to spend my days. So, I took a step back from entrepreneurship and moved on to FloorMax USA, where I’ve been able to use my network and business knowledge to help make the company more successful.

Open Dør Dispensaries Mulligan: I grew up in multiple states. I was a gymnast for 16 years, which caused a lot of body damage. I have arthritis in a lot of places, degenerative disk disease—things like that. So in high school, when I came off a particular trick off of the vault and hyperextended my knees and my back just crunched, I was on a cocktail of multiple pills and kind of a little zombie at 17. My doctor at the time suggested that I try cannabis. If I could learn to micro-dose, it would help with the pain. At the end of my junior year, I learned to roll a blunt every day before school. I would hit it twice, go to two classes, hit it twice again, go to two classes, etc. That is how I got through my senior year. I went on to manage gyms, and mergers and acquisitions for one of the larger fitness brands in the country before stumbling across a posting in Arizona for a cannabis management position. It was either going to be really shady or awesome. I ended up being able to combine my love for operations and my love for cannabis to help people naturally. I spent two and a half years running four dispensaries before going out on my own as a consultant. I realized there were a lot of businesses that knew cannabis, but didn’t understand the business. I have become a conduit to be able to marry the license holder who may have the money and the funds, but does not understand the plant or consumer. It is my job to help make better relationships between the license holder and the employee, as well as help them become profitable and compliant. I’m also a mother and a wife. I have a 10-year-old daughter, who is a lovely gymnast. Before COVID, she spent 40 hours a week in a gym. It became a very different situation when COVID hit. We have homeschooled her for three years because her dream was the Olympics. Post-COVID, she has decided to move on to diving. She wants to attend UCLA for diving and golf.

C3 Solutions’ Nendick: My story has a little bit of a rougher road. A lot of you knew what you wanted to do right away and didn’t deviate from following that path. That’s not an easy thing to know at a young age. I grew up in Chicago and went to Arizona for college. I originally worked as a banker, but 9-5 wasn’t my thing. So I decided at 22 it was a good idea to quit my job and take the

summer off to live in Chicago. After I started running out of money, my mom panicked and started recommending jobs to me. One of those jobs was for a construction project coordinator. I had never done construction and didn’t know anything about it at the time. “I have no experience,” I told my mom. “How am I going to do this?” She reminded me that I didn’t know anything about banking either. I interviewed with a consulting firm, which is what I do now. I got along well with the owner. He liked me, but because I didn’t have any experience; he didn’t want to hire me. So I showed up every Friday for six weeks outside of the office building at 2 North LaSalle and I watched him walk in. One day, I sat there and talked to him until noon. I took up his mornings each week until one day he said, “You can’t keep doing this. I’m not getting anything done.” I said, “Well, you still haven’t hired anybody, so I’ll make you a deal. I will take less than what you’re offering. And, if in six months you can’t live without me, I get that money and then some.” He hired me. We worked on a franchise client, which at the time was a company called Planet Beach. Remember, I didn’t know anything about construction, but I knew people. I knew how to work a system. Three months from the time I started, the woman in charge said she wanted me to be the person who would predominantly interact with the client. They wanted me to be their project manager. My boss reluctantly agreed. It only took three of the six month timeframe to win his favor. He gave me a pretty long runway and exposure to some serious national accounts—big retailers like Estee Lauder, The Gap, to name a few, I had an innate ability to maneuver the system. I decided that I didn’t know the inside client relationship. I didn’t know that operational marriage with construction, and I wanted to learn. So I moved to Florida and worked for a group that was Chico’s, White House, Soma and Fitigues. We ramped up to do 250 stores a year. Back then, the market was fat. Everybody was building. In the year I was there, the real estate wasn’t on the books to sustain the manpower hired for the projected rollout. When I moved to Florida, a General Contractor called me and said if it didn’t work out there to call him; he had a home for me in Washington DC. This was in 2007, 2008, so I took him up on his offer. I moved at the end of my agreement with Chico’s to DC and I learned the contractor side of the business. I was solely an owner rep and in house PM at the time—something that I didn’t comprehend until I was buying out contracts, awarding subs and managing the day to day on a site was how a GC truly operates and profits. That side of construction education was something I needed. I took what many would consider a step back to learn it and have found that it has been invaluable in my day to day comprehension of the overall end game result being that of on time, on budget performance. When the market crashed it seemed like time to do something else. I had relocated to the nation’s capital and there wasn’t any building in progress so I did what any smart construction manager would do, I put myself through nursing school. I ended up getting my nursing license and having my daughter at the same time. I wasn’t anticipating being a mom; I was career-oriented, so she is a gift. I stepped away from construction and nursing and just enjoyed my baby for the gift that she is. My first boss in construction ended up reaching back out to me. He had a client who was doing some rollouts and invited me to participate on the team. I really hadn’t started nursing yet, so I took him up on his offer. I knew the VP for the client he wanted me to be a part of managing from past rollouts and he knew my work ethic was good so back to the construction world I went. Eighteen months after being back I decided it was time to go on my own. Production rollouts are something I am very good at, but I wanted to focus on specialty retail, restaurants and delve into newer expanding markets. I left the third party I worked as a consultant through and formed C3. I worked nights as a nurse and built my company during the day. I called every PM I had worked with and asked if they knew anyone looking to outsource. I have never marketed since that day; it has all been word of mouth business. There’s something to be said about finding your passion in life and doing what you truly love because it shows on every level through integrity, opportunity and example. It has been the best gift to be able to spend time with my daughter. And I get to make sure whoever I work with is the right fit. For lack of better words, I’m not for everybody. I’m bold. I’m strong. I’m aggressive. And that works for me in construction, which is a male-dominated industry. In short, I fell in love with my career all over again because now it has a balance.

Barberitos’ Beshears: I grew up in South Georgia in a very small town called Thomasville, which is about 30 minutes north of Tallahassee, Florida. I grew up around retail. My mom had a clothing store that was in the family for 84 years, and my dad’s family has a large nursery that serves the entire southeast. He provides plants for Home Depot, Lowes and Wal-Mart. So I grew up on both sides of the retail spectrum. From a young age, people always told me I could make a buck from anything and anybody. My grandma would laugh at me because I would sit in front of her store and sell lemonade for five cents when I was six. Being around both the small and large retail operations gave me perspective of the different businesses. I learned how they are run from the inside out, especially a family business. It takes a lot of work, a lot of overtime, a lot of extra hours and people relying on you for their jobs. I went away to college at Ole Miss. When I graduated and came back, I didn’t want to work in the family businesses, because I had been around them my entire life. I wanted to do my own thing, so I ended up helping to sell burritos. I was nervous because I had never been in the food industry. It was different. How was I going to do this? I quickly realized that all businesses are the same—they all serve people. They all want to make people happy and provide a service no matter what it is. I tried to ground myself, remember my roots, and learn and grow. I’m very young, and I still have a lot to learn. Things like these roundtables are just so eye opening. I ended up at Barberitos after applying to a bunch of places in Athens and it has been a blessing for sure. The CFO is from my hometown, so we were able to quickly connect on that coincidence. The rest is history. CCR