6 minute read
COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE
TREATING ALL MANS EQUALLY
------------ BY SARA GRAVES
AFTER 75 YEARS in business, a disgruntled customer, angry over a crooked 2x4, set blaze to Mans Lumber’s biggest yard in Trenton, Mi. All was lost—except the loyalty of its townspeople.
The next day, nearly half of the community along with vendors and other local lumberyards showed up saying, “Here’s a truck. Here’s an office. What can we do? How can we help Mans get back on its feet?” Says Doug Mans, a fourth-generation Mans, who is the president of the company and helps run the company with four family members, “We had treated people the right way, and when we were down and out, they said we want to help.”
The company had become a stalwart of its community. That all began with founder Nicholas August “N.A.” Mans, a German immigrant who began selling coal and peat from his horse and buggy to his neighbors in the Downriver community of Trenton in 1900. N.A. was an entrepreneur by nature. He incorporated as N.A. Mans and Sons (N.A.’s four sons, Nick, Paul, George and Fred, joined the business), and later recognized that he could use his horse and buggy to make deliveries. “That’s how most lumberyards in our industry got started,” Doug adds.
Things have certainly changed in the 122 years that Mans Lumber & Millwork has now been in business. But what hasn’t is its family focus. In fact, the five owners, who run the business today, learned the ropes as their fathers did—on the job.
“When we came in, you had to work 10-15 years before you
NEWEST ADDITION to the Mans fleet goes out on its first run. (Photo by Earl Stratford)
were anything other than just an employee,” Doug says. “You had to earn the respect of your peers and fellow employees. If you pulled your weight and did the right things, then you we’re able to become a part of the executive team and an owner.”
Doug, who started at a time when $2.50 an hour was a decent wage for a 15-year-old, recalls being mentored by his grandfather, Nicholas August. “I was stacking lumber and it wasn’t exactly perfect. He walked in and knocked it over, and said, ‘Restack it again and do it the right way. If you have time to do something, make sure you do it the right way.’”
Doug shares this second lesson he learned early on: “Grandpa, all our hi-los (forklifts) are broken,” Doug said. “We’re not doing anything. Our customers are screaming at me.” Doug’s Grandpa answered, “When I started, we didn’t have hi-los. Take the truck and go to the piles and stack it by hand.” Doug admits that both experiences taught him to always look for a different solution.
The secret sauce that makes the company run smoothly today: everyone pulls their weight.
In addition to Doug, there’s Jim Mans (location/store mgr.), Pete
Mans (COO), Chris Mans (VP sales) and Anna (Mans) Motschall (CFO), the first female to come into the Mans’ family business.
“We’ve learned. We’ve done what we were asked. We have all been able to become a successful part of the executive team—and really without all the equal parts, we wouldn’t be successful,” Doug says.
With an eye for growth, the company continues to expand in Michigan, having purchased three millwork companies in the past 15 years. In November, Mans acquired 112-year-old Dillman & Upton, Rochester, Mi., who specialized in lumber, millwork, windows, decking and K/B. The purchase brought Mans to nearly $170 million with locations in Trenton, Canton, Birmingham and Ann Arbor, Mi. It now has four lumberyards, two kitchen and bath design showrooms, a finished carpentry and millwork shop, an installed products division, and it specializes in floor coverings.
“We’ve never been a family to grow just because that’s what everyone else in the industry is doing, but if it’s the right fit,” Doug adds. But it’s not financial capital that Mans is most interested in. “On a purchase like that (Dillman & Upton), the human capital is a lot more important than the trucks and inventory. The human capital, to me, is the biggest part of a purchase.”
In fact, it was the values of the Upton brothers, Brad and Todd, that caught Mans’ attention during their five years of discussion. “The cool thing with these guys is their morals align 100% with what we do: They love their employees, they love their customers, they love to put in a fullday’s work. You could not align us any better,” Doug says. “These guys were just the perfect fit. They are a fabric of their community. Everywhere you go in Rochester, everyone knows them.”
In its century-plus years of business, Mans has weathered its fair share of hardships, especially the 2007-09 recession. At the time, Mans went from $80 million to $20 million, and cut its staff from 210 to 60 employees. “We lost limbs, arms and appendages,” Doug recollects.
Desperate for leads, employees
FOURTH GENERATION leaders (left to right): Douglas Mans, Christopher Mans, Anna Mans Motschall, James Mans, and Peter Mans. (Photo by Franz Vorenkamp, Ebuy Media)
called their insurance company to ask for the names of four contractors who could fix a supposed leak in their basement. “We were doing whatever we could. We were doing anything to sell a 2x4 or a kitchen faucet.”
Interestingly, it was on the heels of this difficult time that Doug says he enjoyed one of his all-time- favorite company events at the MGM Casino in downtown Detroit. “Detroit was beaten down as hard as anyone. We lost Chrysler, we lost GM, housing starts were down 90% from 25,000 to 2,500. You couldn’t dream up a worst nightmare,” he recalls. “We invited all our builders, architects, and vendors, and had this big fun evening. It was like a coming out. We had been almost hiding in our basements for three or four years, wondering if we were ever going to get out of this. And this was kind of like ‘Hey, we’re out of this! We’re in this together. Let’s all fight together! Let’s all be part of this so that when we are succeeding, we are all succeeding together.’”
After the economy bottomed out in 2009, Mans had been talking with National Lumber, which at the time was the single largest yard in the country. National had plummeted from $110 million to $10 million in the recession. Mans asked National at the time: “Can we be better together than we are apart?”
“Most people will tell you that when you take two ships that are taking on water, it’s not a great end of the story,” Doug admits, “but we came together and said, ‘Here’s what we will be—and here’s what we will make.’” National agreed, closed down its company and brought some of its employees over to Mans. The plan that the two companies had forged and executed together turned out exactly as planned. “I would’ve told you that that really doesn’t happen.”
But the Mans family has always had a knack for bringing the right people into the family fold. One of those is still its best customer of 42 years: a family who remains loyal to Mans after Doug’s father, Nick Mans, helped their mother get out of a bind in the 1970s. “The old adage, ’Treat others the way you want to be treated,’ we live by that,” Doug says.
Ultimately, how Mans runs its business boils down to relationships. “Family, family, family—that’s the mantra of the Mans family,” Doug says. “You treat your family as family. You treat your employees as family. You treat your vendors and customers as family. We just treat everyone how you want to be treated. That was the Golden Rule we all grew up with.” MM
SARA GRAVES
Sara Graves, senior editor, is interested in your story. Contact her at sgraves@526mediagroup.com.
