(Entire unedited and candid discussion between Steve and Lynda about the state of the business and why she’s leaving Wood Window Makeover.)
Things couldn’t be better at Wood Window Makeover. We have projects lined up for months, new potential clients contacting us every day, new sales are happening
weekly and Lynda is killing it.
We’ve worked really hard on our approach to the business of restoring and making archetypal windows by hand, part of that approach is our museum to help educate our clients on just what they are asking for and just what they are getting. It’s one of the tools we use to filter clients and find good fits for our business. We had to do something because the request for our services is relentless, crazy demanding and even brutal at times.
Think about it. There are 325 million people in America and maybe 400 to 450 actual PEOPLE who do what we do. Just for a frame of reference, there are approximately 2000 tigers in captivity in the United States. That means you are five times more likely to encounter a tiger than a person who knows anything about working on turn of the century windows. A person who knows ANYTHING…. Tigers are on the endangered species list. People have heard of tigers. They don’t hear about Artisans who specialize in historic windows. People who do what we do aren’t just an endangered species, statistically we don’t even exist.
What does that mean? It means when you do what we do – the historic windows, and last I checked there were over 17 million houses with these types of windows in America, and you show up when you say you are going to show up and do what you say you are going to do, it means you are going to be pummeled. We don’t take yard signs seriously. We barely have business cards. Why? Sometimes it feels like we can’t handle even one more call.
Why? Because the people have nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to. They don’t want a corporate, planned obsolescence window. They want the real deal, the authentic, the archetypal.
It’s that onslaught of business demand that Lynda has been handling. It was hard before she came down with Covid-19. But in the aftermath of how it affected her, it’s just too much. She had to make a choice – her health and her family or Wood Window Makeover. She made the obvious right choice. Right?
So where does that leave us? In something that seems a little like an impossible situation. The calls keep coming, the orders keep coming, the estimates are still needed, the client visits are still needed, the bookkeeping is still needed, the museum tours are still needed. The list goes on. My guys in the field need me. The shop needs me. Projects need to be managed, materials acquired, orders fulfilled, shipped…. The list goes on. Every person at Wood Window Makeover works at full capacity all the time. Losing just one person can have a devastating effect. That’s where we are.
It’s Thanksgiving. It’s Christmas. It’s the end of the year with no signs of slowing down. Good news is that we are also in the best place we’ve ever been. Doesn’t mean we know exactly what to do. Just means that we are in the midst of some incredible opportunities brilliantly disguised as an impossible situation.
If you think you might be a person who is good at impossible situations, likes juggling several roles and could step in where Lynda left off, we’d to talk to you. Inquire within – here.
