Return of the Doublewide Dudes – Season 2 Premier
Intro:
Hey, look, it’s the double wide dudes.
Mauricio Chacra:
All right. All right. Welcome back to another episode of podcast double-wide dudes.
Alberto Pina:
It’s been awhile. It’s been almost two years since we last recorded, mousetrap.
Mauricio Chacra:
That’s crazy, man. Two years. I mean, where, where’s the time gone on?
Alberto Pina:
been busy building a business. It’s like a lot of time, but I’m excited to be teaming up with Gameday media to help us get back on it and, and get back on the podcast airways.
Mauricio Chacra:
Yeah. It’s been a bit of a hiatus, but I’m excited to get back to do this and uh, just talk about what’s going on and everything that’s been building man.
Alberto Pina:
Yeah. Lot’s changed over the last two years, both with the company and in the family. I gotta tell you a story. My, you know, my kids are getting older and we’re, we’re sitting there watching the super bowl and my oldest daughter’s playing with our hamster on the stairs and my middle, Doris starts walking down the stairs and she steps on this thing.
Mauricio Chacra:
No.
Alberto Pina:
So big debate. She runs upstairs crying and my wife and I are debating, do we help them learn? You know, there’s consequences for actions. Well, she called my mom, they tag team. My wife ends up going to four different pet stores to find a replacement hamster. So the kids don’t know. But now he’s biting everybody. We, we bought the jerkiest. Is hamstring the entire store.
Mauricio Chacra:
poor guy. I mean the first guy just got stepped on.
Alberto Pina:
Yeah.
Mauricio Chacra:
How’s the replacement going?
Alberto Pina:
He’s biting everybody. He’s fighting everybody but they don’t know and she doesn’t feel bad for, for killing her hamster. So you’re, luckily he survived long enough for them to go to bed. But what about you? Some, some stuff’s changing your, your life too, right?
Mauricio Chacra:
Yeah.
Alberto Pina:
Big announcement. Can we make it public?
Mauricio Chacra:
Yeah, of course. Man. We uh, got engaged with my girl. It was, it was an awesome experience. Man were out in Marfa, uh, spending some time out there. We love that place and I just thought it was time, pop the question, get things going, pretty excited. And we’re actually thinking about having the wedding in Marfa, circle back to that. So pretty excited about that.
Alberto Pina:
That’s huge man, congrats.
Mauricio Chacra:
Appreciate it. It’s great man. We, I’m happy and I’m excited to get that going. I’m back with us with Braustin. Well, what’s, what’s been going on in the past two years, we’ve been gone, man? Why don’t you give the people an update on how we’ve been doing?
Alberto Pina:
Well, we had a, we officially celebrated our third birthday. Was it January 20th? We all went out to eat. You, me, earn and Jason.
Mauricio Chacra:
The original four.
Alberto Pina:
The original four. And, and that’s really what got us back here in the podcast studio. Just talking about, you know, how time had flown by and what we were all able to accomplish together the last three years. We, you know, we’ve helped over 200 families, um, become homeowners since we started. And it’s this crazy to think of right?
Mauricio Chacra:
That’s wild, Yeah.
Alberto Pina:
If I think back two years ago when we were recording the original podcast, I don’t, I, I couldn’t have predicted where we are today. So definitely a big thank you to all the families that put their trust in us out the gate and you know, going online and given their, their testimonials and their reviews and all that. That’s been a huge part of our growth.
Mauricio Chacra:
It’s awesome reading those, I love digging into detail and seeing how each one is different and just a triumphant story of them, you know, coming out on top and them feeling like they’re the hero in this, which is our job to do that. Right?
Alberto Pina:
Yeah.
Mauricio Chacra:
I love reading those and just the feedback that we’re getting, it’s just cool to see.
Alberto Pina:
It’s all about them, right? The whole, whole reason Braustin exist is to help make that process easier for them. And, and that feedback even on this stuff we’re not doing right, is invaluable. We’re constantly trying to get better. I know we’ve come a long way over the last two years since we’d done the last podcast. We’ll talk about some of that stuff here in a bit. But without that feedback, we don’t know what, what needs changing. And I think back to the last episode we recorded, I think there were five of us, right? You know, there’s 18 of us now on team Braustin.
Mauricio Chacra:
When you told me that I was just, what?
Alberto Pina:
Crazy right?
Mauricio Chacra:
Behind the scenes, what you’ve been doing is crazy. I knew we were up there like 10, 12, 13 maybe. But when, when the 18 number popped out, it was a bit of surprise for sure.
Alberto Pina:
We had six people join the team just last month in January. And you know, we don’t get to all see each other all the time. We got Jeff and Josh up there and Wisconsin and you know, Rachel’s out there in Tennessee, but with phone and computers and now just like with our customers, we don’t, we don’t know if they’re there or not, but yeah, there’s 18 of us now.
Mauricio Chacra:
Yeah, it’s crazy, man. I mean, we’re just continuing to build, right? I mean, I can imagine that number just going up. But when we originally started this, there was four of us and you know, I don’t know what to expect. Right. It was just like I will slowly grow, slowly move into things and growing things, but three years in and us doing that, meaning people on the back end is, it’s just cool to see.
Alberto Pina:
We had zero locations and now we’ve got two working on our third about to open here and uh, any month now as soon as we get some internet out there. But even that’s evolved with customer feedback. We went from the more traditional model. You know, the factory kind of made us stock some homes so we had to do it. But now we’ve, we’ve got a virtual outpost inside of an HEB grocery, right?
Mauricio Chacra:
Yeah.
Alberto Pina:
We’re selling mobile homes. I have a grocery stores. It’s absolutely crazy to think about. But um, yeah, we opened that last July and a lot of that feedback from customers is kinda helped us develop this hybrid concept. And we’re about to open on IH-35 South where you know, it’s, it’s half traditional dealership where you can physically walk through some homes and it’s half virtual outpost where there aren’t any sales people hovering over your shoulder and you can just kinda go through that, experience it at your own pace. Right?
Mauricio Chacra:
That’s the best part. I mean, thinking to go and shopping or in anything that you’re interested in, you don’t want that. You don’t want guys hovering over you and try to sway your decision or tell you something that’s not going to happen. Right?
Alberto Pina:
One for really being honest, I don’t want to go into the store period unless I have the only store I go into now to buy stuff is the local fly fishing shop and that’s just the old timers there know exactly where I need to go, what I need to get. But.
Mauricio Chacra:
plus it’s fun though. I mean,
Alberto Pina:
It’s fun. Yeah. So, and I think that’s what we’re looking to build with this new hybrid dealership is a fun experience, right? Buying a home should be fun. Yes, there’s a lot of stress or a lot of things, but that’s, that’s what our teams should be stepping in. That’s why we have the 18 people to kind of fill those holes and just allow the family to focus on the fun stuff. I think the biggest achievement, um, and I know when you were super proud on we, you know, we have one of the highest customer satisfaction scores in the entire country across Clayton independent retailers and um, I don’t think that’s by accident.
Mauricio Chacra:
Yeah.
Alberto Pina:
Right. We all set about to build a company that we were proud to work for and part of that is just taking care of people, right?
Mauricio Chacra:
Yeah. It’s amazing. I mean the NPS being that high and consistently being high, it just shows, and this isn’t even a traditional dealership, right? For the most part. I mean people may think that, all right, I got to go into dealership, I got to deal with somebody face to face and they’re going to treat me good cause we’re going to have a cordial relationship throughout this. Right?
Alberto Pina:
Right?
Mauricio Chacra:
But the fact that we’re doing this without even seeing people in person and just doing it online, over the phone, it’s just proven the concept. Right? Doesn’t matter the product doesn’t matter where we’re located. Just being able to help this way and still have those type of outcomes for these people being satisfied is just amazing. It’s just exciting to see that just going in the right direction.
Alberto Pina:
Yeah. Right. Plenty of room to grow still for sure. But yeah, it’s, it is exciting to see that this concept that we all thought it was crazy. I’m still kinda think it’s a little crazy.
Mauricio Chacra:
It’s a little crazy,
Alberto Pina:
Little crazy. People are won buying that way. And more importantly, they’re enjoying that experience. Right. Telling their friends about it. I just checked. So 28% of our sales so far from NPS surveys are coming from word of mouth referrals. That’s huge.
Mauricio Chacra:
Yeah.
Alberto Pina:
That’s huge. So again, huge thank you to all those families that initially supported us and continue to be the advocates of, of our company and what we’re really all building together. Right?
Mauricio Chacra:
That’s gotta be the most important basis of any business. Just referrals, right? When they’re super happy and they’re excited to tell people, Hey, check out what I found. Check out what well you can do online. It’s just awesome man. Love it.
Alberto Pina:
Absolutely. We got some big changes in store for 20 20th staff from that new dealership to start a little bit about that app.
Mauricio Chacra:
Yeah.
Alberto Pina:
It’s been two years since we first talked about it. There’s been some changes.
Mauricio Chacra:
A lot of changes. Good amount.
Alberto Pina:
Especially on the service side. How’s that been working?
Mauricio Chacra:
It’s great. It’s just a fact that, you know, the customers are going to have to expect that and the service part of the mobile homes going down the road, right? Some things are going to get damaged, trim is going to fall off, linos going to be bubbled up in some areas. Right? It’s common to see that and that’s where it goes to fail for some people. Right? It doesn’t matter where you buy. That dealership might set you up for failure and not really care. What’s, um, you know, at the end part when the service needs to take place. So I mean, having that app, allowing them to just to do that from without having to figure out what to do, right. They’ll just snap a picture, upload the stuff, uh, through the software and write a description and it’s just gonna allow us to create a warranty report and have it seamless. So having that for any age group, really thinking, thinking back to it, you know, the older folks that aren’t really into apps and technology, right, they’re still adapting this and being able to do it. So seeing that it’s great. Um, some, I’m loving the service part of it cause it just makes an easy for both parties now.
Alberto Pina:
Yeah, I’d like to thank, if you’re in this industry, you, you care a little bit. Right. And a lot of times I see the reviews where service didn’t work out the way people wanted it to. And I don’t think it’s so much a lack of caring. They just didn’t have the right procedures or processes. Right. Communication just, yeah, yeah. I’m in communications is falls apart and it’s like you said, there are going to be problems. It is new construction, the bulk of it’s built in the factory, but things are going to go wrong. And if people expect that, if they’re told that upfront and they know that it’s coming and more importantly there’s a system to address it as soon as it’s identified. I really think that’s what we’re building a better process just to make it easier for everybody. But we um, we just went through it with David and his team. We just, uh, we, we embarked on an ambitious one year plan with slide wave to really double down on this software we’ve been building. Um, we are making a massive investment, um, again, to make the entire process easier and more enjoyable for these families. Right. And part of that is this three month process of interviews with, you know, I know, I know you got interviewed on entire team, did Rachel, Jeff, everybody got interviewed even myself. But I think the most important part is these customer interviews that they’re fixing to do this week. You know, what works, what doesn’t work, what do you wish you had that we haven’t even thought of? Right. And it’s, it’s this constant, constant asking for feedback, constant acting on what you hear and really just listening, listening, and then go fix that. Yeah. Right. Super excited about where we’ve come over the last two years since we did a podcast. But I’m really more excited about what tomorrow looks like in two years from now.
Mauricio Chacra:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, the desire to constantly improve is I think, instilled within all of us and we’re surrounding ourselves with people who think along the same lines. Right? So that’s exciting, right? When everyone’s sticking to the same plan and excited about, you know, the future, there’s only one way to go and that’s up.
Alberto Pina:
Yeah. For sure. All right, well I’m excited about this podcast. I’m ready to get that back going. And just like some of the earlier episodes, we’re just going to cover anything fun and exciting with affordable housing. Maybe mobile home-related may not be, there’s some crazy things going on. Um, and just affordable housing space in general. 3d entire neighborhoods being printed with concrete and all sorts of cool stuff. So I’m excited to see who we, uh, who we get to interview, who we get to talk to, what we get to learn, and hopefully we bring some value to folks looking to make a housing decision.
Mauricio Chacra:
Absolutely. I’m excited to, um, kick off season two. We’ll wrap it up for, uh, this episode. AP. Thanks for listening. We’ll catch you guys in the next one.