for the future

Vo, ALL KNow the proverbial busiI ness choices: lead. follow or get out of the way. Not much of a dilemma for young Justin Ennis, whose father, Bruce, is president and c.e.o. of New Mexico's Roswell and Artesia yards, recently rebranded as Builders Do it Center.

"I'm a lead guy," clarifies Justin, whose longer, more official title is corporate sales manager, adding "and I'm an optimist. Not much point in wasting your time and energy on being anything different," he declares.

And he's reinventing the company while barely old enough to shave (he began working for his dad 72 years ago at age 14, before earning a college degree in Agricultural Economics, where he thought his future would lie before being bitten by the sawdust bug). "I fell in love with the industry," he justifies his U-turn-"the kind of customers we serve, the building materials, the retail process-and the independence I've got to play entrepreneur: to build the business the way I want to."

Blame it on the DNA. He's just like his dad before him-a general manager who bought out his boss in the late '80s, driven by the urge to turn an illmanaged operation into a well-run company. Justin at the steering wheel brings not only a vision of where to take the company, but the business smarts to change with the changing times and grasp those opportunities for growth.

Unitins the Roswell and Artesia stores, 40 miles apart, under one banner, along with remodeling and remerchandising them and refocusing their employees' goals readies the operation for the future. Wisely, at the same time, Justin remains cognizant that each store operates in its own niche and demographic. "Roswell is a lumberyard with a hardware store, with 8O7o pro customers," he explains, "while Artesia is more of a home center, with a 60/40 split."

And it's Artesia that's been better positioned to sustain the enterprise in this rocky economy, due to the community's robust oil and gas resources, which are still doing very, very well.

"We've built the wood wallhead cellars for those operations," Justin reports, "and our only frustration is that we're not set up to do even more. Unlike our competitors, we decided to assemble them to order-and it's worked out even better than I'd thought; we can actually make pretty decent money.

"Roswell, definitely more of a pro store, was sailing along nicely" before the bust, supplying builders of the town's McMansions. But when that niche dried up three years ago, Justin turned on the proverbial dime to where a new need was arising-production builders addressing the housing shortage of more modest homes a broader workforce could afford.

"I reached out to the builders and asked them, 'Try us! We're smaller, more nimble. Our prices are competitive and, as added value, we're next door,"'rather than simply a cog in the distant national wheel they'd been in the habit of using.

In the same gutsy manner, Justinas-outside-salesman approached potential commercial clients-most recently winning the business for a new hotel going up. "We'll stock roofing, lathe and plaster, shingles, sell them insulation, tons of drywall, and supply the framing, versus working with a national outfit three hours away. We're very competitive and we're just down the road." He paints the big-picture outlook of Builders' future: "Instead of bringing it in from Texas, we'll use Roswell as a central hub and drive two hours out from there" to serve the wider territory. "In a small production market, we'll be a great market force, building big growth. (This is all a little different from five, 10 years ago for us," he confides. "This"-pause for a ta-da-"is my babyl")

In similar seize-the-moment thinking, Roswell acquired Overhead Doors of Southeast New Mexico in 1997-a toogood-to-pass-up opportunity that presented itself when the prior owner couldn't make a profit at it. "Now it's l47o of our revenue," Justin has won the right to brag.

Then there's RLC Supply & Logistics, another of Justin's newly birthed offspring. "It's a brand-new company with one employee." (Guess who?)

He's got big plans for the fledgling venture. "We'll relocate operations here in Roswell to serve the agricultural and oil and gas industries of Eastern New Mexico. It will allow us to hold inventory for the stores." A new railroad spur for which he lobbied long and strong will speed this along. "By next year, we'll develop a two-step business with vendor partners to distribute products-but not," he's quick to stress, "in competition with our builders. I've seen that happen, and we definitely don't want to do the same."

Meanwhile-does this guy ever sleep?-Justin has laid the ground work for what he deems a necessary change in management style in the two stores. "I'm building the infrastructure so that the GMs will run each store as an independent business-make it their own. Formerly," he says, "they sort of acted as supervisors but were not focused on P&Ls. It's a mindset change, and my job is to help themretrain them without finger-pointing or pulling hair-to focus more on product. I'll give them the tools for what's expected," he promises.

Backing all this change in the company's rebranding is a new marketing strategy that's also (surprise) Justin's domain. "I'm turning our focus to radio advertising, to reach the pro who's in his truck with the station on all day," he explains. "But print, too: focusing on key categories, such as competitive pricing, building front-of-mind awareness, especially with our (loss-leading) power tools: three aisles of power tools to drive traffic, but then six aisles behind them."

A walk in the park, then? Not with heavy competition in the form of boxes, regional chains, and other independents. How does Builders claim to better all those boys?

Well, "the answer depends on the customer, and the category," Justin wisely explains. "We adapt to the customer's needs. For the one-stepper, we stress the highest level of service. For the roofer, our inventory is our strong point20 colors versus l0 elsewhere. More options. And," he adds, "I need to serve you- with competitive prices, service no one can match, and the quality and variety of materials absolutely unmatched." (Remember that old threelegged stool adage? So does Justin. But today, he says, "two out of three will no longer do it. Try for all three."

And here's another maxim for which he walks the talk: don't be satisfied with the status quo. "If we had not moved from the custom builder, our future would look completely different"-and pretty cloudy. "I'm a 'lead' guy," he restates. "Here, we're performance-driven. We like to win, and that's why people like to work for us. Bruce, as president, is the financial guy; he's also handson, day to day. I undertake everything top-line-marketing and advertising. I oversee sales. I deal with the customers. And I'm optimistic."

Carla Waldemar

By fames Olsen