I recently went one-on-one with B.J. Werzyn, founder and CEO of West Shore Home.
Adam: I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
B.J.: I’ve been around building products my whole life. Our family business was a window and door manufacturing company. During the summers in high school and college, I would work on the front lines and with the installers.
I went to Penn State to study engineering and worked a lot with architects and builders on new homes. But I was drawn to the home remodeling industry. Even then, I felt the impact on the customer experience could be greater.
Once I graduated, my parents’ company expanded to Florida, and they asked me if I would help with the new location. I had planned to go to grad school, so I thought this was a great way to buy some time before going back to school. Eventually, the family business was sold, but I stayed in Florida for six years before moving back to Pennsylvania. That’s when I came up with the idea of West Shore Home, and I never went back to school.
I started West Shore Window and Door in 2006 as a one-man shop. I went to Staples, I bought a phone, a desk, and a computer. I basically bootstrapped the thing from day one. I was starting this venture completely on my own. No money, capital, partners, or investors. I capitalized it with a couple thousand dollars.
One of the biggest challenges in starting the business was that I had absolutely no business schooling. We always knew there was a chance it wasn’t going to work. I was just trying to figure it all out. Who are my suppliers going to be? Where am I going to buy my windows and doors? How am I going to go to market? What’s the name of the company going to be? What are our best lead sources? Am I going to use a subcontractor? Am I going to hire our employees and make them W-2s? Every day was a new learning experience for me.
Adam: How did you come up with your business idea and know it was worth pursuing? What advice do you have for others on how to come up with and test business ideas?
B.J.: I identified a problem and provided a solution. Home remodeling is a challenge for people. Their homes are their most valuable, intimate possessions. It’s where they raise their families and make memories. But renovations are a headache at best or a nightmare at worst, and there were no national home remodeling companies. It’s traditionally a very fragmented business. West Shore Home brings everything under one roof – installers, sales, marketing, all corporate functions. Everyone is employed by West Shore Home, no contractors. This allows us to focus as one unit on our mission to Bring Happiness to Every Home.
In order for any company to grow and succeed, from idea to execution, you need to determine your focus, your niche, and bring in the right people. I put a high importance and emphasis on hiring good people, people who fit our culture. It’s not a culture for everyone. We went from $50 million in revenue to $800 million of revenue in a relatively short amount of time. And that high-growth nature of the company is aggressive. We have to come in every day and get after it. I had to first make sure that everybody that was brought into this organization kind of fit that mindset, that default aggressive, extreme ownership mindset.
Adam: What are the key steps you have taken to grow your business? What advice do you have for others on how to take their businesses to the next level? What are your best sales and marketing tips?
B.J.: I knew I wanted to grow beyond the Mechanicsburg footprint, so once we had our core functions established and our business model in focus, we expanded to Pittsburgh and Tampa. I then hired a consultant with a vision to create a national footprint with at least 30 markets.
In 2018, we started to expand through acquisitions, the first was a company that gave us nine new locations in outlying areas. This was a real catalyst for growth. Along with acquisitions, we opened multiple Greenfields nationwide, getting us to where we are today.
As far as people taking their business to the next level, everybody’s situation is going to be different based on where they live, what their background is socioeconomically, or even what they learned in school. Did they focus on marketing? Were they more focused on finance and accounting? But I think going out and getting a few years of experience in the real world is a good idea. Go out and make some mistakes and learn, it’s not necessarily going to cost you because it’s not your own company yet.
My situation might not be the typical story where you start a company with a few thousand dollars and build it into a billion-dollar business. But if you have a great idea and build a good business plan, there are ways to go out and get funding. You can go to a bank, get private equity, or go to venture capital. If you can show you’ve got an idea, it’s a problem that society is dealing with, and it’s a great solution, with a good plan, you can get some funding. Now, you may have to give up some equity to do that, or you may have to take on a business loan, but there are ways to get the funding or the capital required to start up a business
Adam: What are the most important trends in technology that leaders should be aware of and understand? What should they understand about them?
B.J.: Artificial Intelligence is the future. It’s not going away, and the faster your company adapts, the faster you’ll get ahead. At West Shore Home, we have used AI to enhance and accelerate our customer experience. From scheduling to pricing and project design, AI is reinventing our day-to-day projects.
For any business, the data is invaluable to drilling down on what’s working and what’s not. AI tools allow us to process the information rapidly and make changes or improvements when needed. The bottom line, AI does the heavy lifting that allows us to create a vastly differentiated experience for our customers.
Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?
B.J.: At its heart, leadership is accomplishing the mission through people. Great leaders equip, empower, and inspire their teams to not only reach the goals they’ve set, but to help those they lead become a better version of themself.
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to leadership and leadership development – a lot of it depends on where you are in your career. Are you a first-time manager? Are you leading an entire organization? I used to read one business or leadership book per week, but now I’ve shifted to podcasts. There are thousands of great resources out there from some of the best minds in leadership, like Jim Collins, that will help aspiring leaders and seasoned managers gain new perspectives, strategies, and ideas.
Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading, and managing teams?
B.J.: It all starts with culture. A remarkable culture is the ultimate competitive advantage. When building your team, find people that embody your company’s core values, and you will be set up for success. When leading, be the example of that culture for your team. Fostering that environment starts with you as the leader. At the end of the day, you are all on the same team and working towards the same goal. When managing, always talk to your people. Everyone needs to be managed differently. So learn about them as people, what fuels their fire, what their personal aspirations are, and how they like to be coached. People thrive when they love what they do and who they do it with. Creating a true team atmosphere and culture will pay dividends.
Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives, and civic leaders?
B.J.: Always ask the question “What am I capable of?” to yourself and to your employees. When people believe in the best in each other, they want the best for each other. And they have the right to expect the best from each other.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
B.J.: Think from first principles.
- Identify and define your current assumptions.
- Break down the problem into its fundamental principles (the undeniable truths).
- Create new solutions from those principles.
