Dealer raises the Barn

ll 7frcurel Recono rs A cHrp off the old block, and that's IYIalso what he sells (plus shavings and sawdust and pellets, along with pine and hemlock boards, posts, beams and more) at The Board Barn, a retail store he launched a year ago in Cumberland, Me.

With this new venture-I'll go ahead and spoil the story for you by saying it's been an overnight success-Mike has come full circle, selling lumber from the sawmill his dad founded, and where Mike continues to work and Dad still mans the planing operation. Mike's job is to market truckloads to sites as far awav as Missouri. North Carolina. and Tennessee.

customer demand, Merle at last relented and began retailing from the operation.

Finally, in an attempt to regain sanity, he divided the operations and launched Record Building Supply in Oxford, Me., which purchases over one-third of the mill's output and also offers a full line of everything from windows and doors to tools and hardware and the most recent addition, Benjamin Moore paints, to its customers, split 50/50 between pro builders and homeowners. Both Merle and Mike had their hands full.

But you know kids. Says Mike, "I felt I was old enough to go out on my own, even in a bad economy. I felt I was ready. So, a year ago, I found a good deal on property in a good area" in nearby Cumberland "where I could concentrate on pine boards."

And soon, shavings. Then pellets, both waste products from the mill. "I began bagging the shavings to sell retail to farmers to bed their animals-a dry product. Then I also mixed some in with green sawdust, offering the advantage of a lot more product to sell. Farmers liked the green addition because its moisture was easier on the dry hooves of their horses. I've had a lot of success with it," he reports.

Waste not, want not, lesson learned. So now he also sells pellets made of sawdust ("It saves us money because we already do it in bulk, so now I can add them at retail with very little work. People are using them more and more for heating wood stoves, fireplaces, even furnacesand it's using products made in Maine, not oil from overseas," he's proud to underscore.

Yet Mike was tugged by that primal urge, the urge to build his own business, and build it from the ground up just as his dad, Merle, had done before him, in 1979. Young Merle had worked full-time at a woolen mill while constructing his sawmill nights and weekends, blow by blow. And when it bumed, alas, in the early '80s, he simply built himself a bigger, more modern version. Due to

The Board Barn also sells overstocks and closeouts from outside sources, such as a recent bonanza of composite decking, at deeply discounted prices: 6- and 8-ft. pine board, low-grade pine board for inexpensive sheeting. Little by little, he's adding ancillary products, which he can test-drive by buying from Record Building Supply in small quantities to see how they fly before committing to a mega-order. Case in point: OSB. "I didn't carry it at first," Mike says, "but contractors all seem to want to use it, so I brought in a half unit and it sold out. So I added more...."

Plus nails and fasteners, "an obvious addition. If people need boards, they need nails," he knows, and why let that sale travel elsewhere?

Next thing up: grain. "Something I never dreamed of, but customers were asking for it for their horses, so it pre- sents another oppofiunity; I'll start stocking their favorite brand. Plus, it'll provide steady business in the winter. I'll add more plywood, too," he muses. But hardware? Nah, he says (for now): "I'11 leave that to Record."

Mike markets his offerings on his website (www.theboardbarn.biz), and via the new e-store, where customers are urged: "Buy direct and save! We have our own mill." "Plywood-only two units left. Hurry!" And, "Because of our affiliation with both Record Lumber and Record Building Supply, we can price items below the competition."

Mike's manager, Mike Biskup, is also a computer whiz, so he's launched the store's e-zine. which announces "really good deals," plus tips to customers who choose to sign up. Already,500 have made the move and, with competitors lurking "15 minutes away in four directions," that's no small potatoesor, pellets.

Mike woos these customers with a triple whammy: variety of product, quality and price. "And those customers we've attracted, we're retaining," he has the right to boast.

Yet it's been a learning process, and Mike is the first to say so. First lesson: "Take advantage of opportunities- building from the ground up, including drive-thru storage-"dealing with the planning process was an eye-opener," he relates. "Record was in a smaller town; here, in fiarger] Cumberland, there's a lot more politics."

The moral he re-emphasizes is this: "Learn from past experiences. Don't just experience them, learn from them." And the most important lesson learned-this one came easy-was that an owner must be passionate about his business. "I've seen so many come and go for lack of passion," Mike says. Not a likely factor here, given the Record family genes: "Since I was nine years old, I worked in my dad's mill, even full-time during high school on a release program. Dad started with nothing and built his equity."

Mike can step back a bit from his mill duties because there isn't that much product left to market after Record and Board Bam sell their share. "It's less costly this way," he adds, "rather than ship stuff on trailer trucks-a help in this economy."

Yet the economic state of the nation, while grim, isn't crimping his style, not at all. "The Board Barn has been open less than a year and is already paying its way. There's something to be said for that," he maintains. in understated Down East fashion. And that somethins is "Wow!"

Carla Waldemar cwaldemar@ comcast.net

that's the key to success," he advises, as he prepares to add grain, for example, to his SKUs.

Next, Mike says, "Be flexible. From the start I recognized, from working at Record, that there's always such difficulty in managing contractors' accounts, so I said, 'No credit. No accounts.' But it didn't' take me long to realize that if I wanted to get their business, that would have to change. So I turned to Blue Tarp Financial as an easy option."

For a small percent of the take, the company manages customers' accounts and even offers Board Barn choices of sliding payment fees, such as how often to receive paybacksl whether to offer a customer regular or extended credit; and whether to reward them with points toward prizes.

Same with conventional plastic. Mike relates how he lost a "really big" sale because American Express was the only card the contractor carried in his wallet, and Mike wasn't set up to accept it. Today, lesson learned, he isalong with Visa, MC and you name it. "I've got to make it as easy as I can and offer many payment plans."

He also found he had a lot to learn about constructins a BuiHiryrPrcductscom