Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Nathaniel Beaulieu. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Nathaniel thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s jump right into the heart of things. Outsiders often think businesses or industries have much larger profit margins than they actually do – the reason is that outsiders are often unaware of the biggest challenges to profitability in various industries – what’s the biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?

Studies have suggested that about 40% of contractors end up charging a client more then their initial quoted price at the end of the project. Indicating that for the contractor to make a profit on the project, they need to charge the client more money. If the client refused to pay or the contractor decides the “eat” the extra cost, the contractor is out whatever money that is. The bigger the project the bigger the potential hit on profitability. In my experience, extra charges occurs when the contractor has inadequate expectations about the scope of work needed and the potential issues that could arise from a project. For example, a contractor may incorrectly account for material costs, sub-contractor or other labor costs, and or not account for the unseen problems that have been “covered up” in a home remodel previously. There are other reasons as well for low profitability, such as poor “finical business practice”. This includes misunderstanding business expenses, impact of taking out extraordinary large loans, and impacts of too much business spending. Misuse of business finance adds to why over 50% of remodeling business fail.

As your business grows, the amount of “cost variables” associate with an interior remodel grow in complexity and scale. Miss-attention to these variables across the board posses an ever growing issues with the profitability of remodeling companies.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a Duluth native. I own a growing construction company. My goal is to make a difference in this community by offering services and a quality of experience that has been lacking in the construction world.

Coming into college my initial focus was sports playing collegiate football and international rugby. My focus shifted to medicine once my sporting career came to an end. While pursuing medicine, I started a small handyman side business where I posted ads on Craigslist while waiting to get into medical school. As it turned out the handyman business took off. My focus changed to pursuing construction. Through the following 2 years, I developed a skillset, knowledge of the trade, and experience which lead me to form an LLC and start Palisade Contracting.

We provide home improvements. Ranging from handyman services to a luxury interior remodel. Palisade focuses on partnering with the best companies in the Duluth area, to provide our clients with top service and product. We accomplish this by partnering with some of the best installers, manufacturers, and tradesman in the
Duluth area. This guarantees that the quality of service and products our clients receive is high.

What sets us apart is our attention to detail and communication with our clients. We are with clients every step of the way with their home projects. We believe clients should be well in the know of updates, changes, and timelines. Realistic and transparent communication is an expectation in our client relationships.

I am most proud of the fact that this wasn’t the plan, but having found this profession and seeing the impact it is making on people in a place where they make most of their memories (their home) has been really well aligned with the principals I uphold for myself in my personal life.

“Surround yourself with people that know more than you do!”

I’ve learned that there is a lot to learn in the industry that I am in. Not only that, but there is a lot to learn in every other industry as well. So, being able to surround myself with people that have a good grasp on the information I need know to grow my business gives me a leg up.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

One of my biggest mid-sets that has helped me is that, “i’m in business to make money, but I do business to HELP people”. Why does this make a difference? I believe that when the mindset of a business owner is to simply “make money” either for personal gain, business growth, finical stability, keeping the light on, etc. The business philosophy has a tendency to change significantly. The focus tends to be more on efficacy, project turn-over-time, “hard selling” products or services to clients regardless of their needs, and or charging a client extra at or during a project etc. When this is the focus, products and services to be provided or installed could dramatically suffer in quality. The long term results being a poor service reputation. Unfortunately, there are so may construction companies that i’ve experienced focusing heavily on making a profit (either selfishly or out of necessity due to poor business practice) that end up with bad reputations from the customer service or product quality side. As a consumer, this gets hard because the demand for home renovations is sitting around 52% according to some sources totaling a whopping reported 485 billion in consumer spending in 2024. Who are these consumers going to hire when so many contractors are poor? The industry has to change!

We focus on helping the client through communication, education, thoughtfulness, timelines, professionalism, procedure, good sales practice’s, etc. In so also making sure that we have a good business structure in place to handle finical stability a business growth.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

90% of all our clients learned about us first through a good referral. In the US, good contractors are hard to come by, In fact, ” [Only] 1% of consumers felt their expectations for good service experience are always meet” (Client Experience Impact Report – Oracle). We have found that a good referral goes a long way! We focus on getting our previous and current clients on our referral program which incentivizes them to share their experience with other potential clients and rewards them if we get the business. We heavenly rely on the word, experience, and promotion of the clients we have served to help us with business. Our social media, website, business networking groups, and or other community engagements help as well, but more as a secondary exposer for someone that has already heard good things about us.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Palisadecontracting.us
• Instagram: Palisade_Contracting
• Facebook: Palisade_Contracting