We were lucky to catch up with Whitney & Chez Sarnella recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Whitney & Chez, thanks for joining us today. Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?
Growing up my parents have always been entrepreneurs, from owning a hair salon to multiple wedding chapels in Las Vegas. Growing up, they always told me that owning your own business makes you stronger and happier and yes you have to hustle, work long hours but the benefit is that no one is in charge of how much you can make, nor can they tell you what to do. As a young man my brother and I owned a window washing company and now I own an amazing, every growing and changing cabinet business called The Shelf King. Been an entrepreneur fuels a part of my soul that would never be fulfilled working for someone else. I have always worked for myself and have been in charge of my own destiny. I respect everyone who has a regular job, but it would be very difficult for me to do that. I don’t exactly like taking instruction from someone else so I have always followed my passions in life and have figured out ways that I can make them into successful businesses. I never wanted to be the person that can’t wait for Friday and be bummed out when Monday comes. Everyday is Friday for me, I love what I do and I’m happy and enjoy everyday. Owning my own business gives me flexibility, I control my own schedule, can plan time off to be with my family or attend my daughter’s preschool events. I can choose to work a weekend or holiday if I feel that’s what my customer needs. Yes, I probably work more hours than a 9-5 employee, but the flexibility I have is freedom. I know that I control my income, so if I set out to double my sales, then that responsibility rests solely on my shoulders and that alone is motivating. It’s invigorating to wake up every day and work for myself and be in control of my dreams, goals and time.
Whitney & Chez, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
We’re a family-owned and operated business, local to Austin, Texas. We sell custom shelving solutions such as glideout shelves for existing cabinetry and custom built-in storage solutions like media centers, closets, mudroom designs, etc. My father and I started this business in 2012, formerly known as Custom Living of Austin. As my wife and I took over the operations fully, the purpose for us changed completely, since we have one parent with MS and another with Parkinsons. So seeing firsthand our parents struggling to function in their kitchens inspired us to hit the ground running. We changed our business name to The Shelf King and were ready to get to work!
We wanted to put a strong emphasis on helping our clients gain easy access and better utilization of their storage spaces. We wanted to design home storage solutions that eliminate those everyday frustrations in areas like kitchen cabinets, closets, pantries, garages, media centers and office spaces. We’ve seen our parents frustrated because they were unable to reach what’s in the back of the cabinet or unused shelf space because they can’t get down on the floor. Everyone deserves to function in their own home.
We also knew we could offer a comparable product at a much better price point than other companies offering a similar product. And we just hated seeing clients getting upcharged when we knew we could help! We’re constantly striving to improve our products, but we always have confidence that our quality and price will rise above other options out there. Plus working with a family from start to finish gives our clients peace knowing who they will see and speak to at each appointment.
It’s our goal to help homeowners function with ease, and show how home storage solutions can add value to your home. From one family to another, we just want to help make your life easier. It’s one of our goals to help with your home storage and organization and simply to just improve your home experience.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
To start off marketing is neither of our specialities. We’re learning as we go. But the most effective strategy for growing our business was focusing on who needs our product, what is the age range of the people buying the product, who else is selling your product, what social media platforms are your customers using and in what capacity/budget. Once we knew that information then we sat down and built our initial strategy to get our product in front of those customers. We started targeting our google adds to where our clients were geographically located, using Facebook marketplace and joining as many groups as we could and actively post on them about our services. If you have a product like we do, where our consumer is a homeowner with some expendable income, I do as many home and garden shows as I can and after about 5 to 10 years you will have a huge client base from word of mouth. Also we post as many photos of our product on our google account and get as many customers as we can to leave reviews, google, yelp, Facebook and anywhere else. Collecting reviews is hard but people will help when they truly appreciate the product and the service they received. We also focus on the details: we make sure to show up early to jobs, get there product to them as soon as possible, we ensure our product is made with quality and craftsmanship in mind, communicate clearly with our clients and clarify expectations, and in general just remain customer-focused.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
So many lessons learned along the way, but one that we had to unlearn was regarding our install process. When we first started this business, our installs took hours and hours for one client, which meant one client per day. And with only our only installer being me, that meant we would either hit a client capacity or we would constantly be extending our turnaround (since our product is built custom for each client). So we had to get creative and change the way we installed to make it more efficient, we had to reinvent the way we worked on the job site, remove all processes that were inefficient. As we started getting busier and having more clients, we needed to be able to do several jobs in a day, otherwise we would haunt all growth we wanted. So we did just that. We removed any work done on the job site that could be done beforehand. By reinventing our install process and decreasing the work done on the job site by moving those tasks to pre-install prep – we drastically decreased the time needed on a job. Once we launched this new process, we improved our job time by hours, rather than one client per day – we could now fit 3-4 jobs in one day. As an entrepreneur, adapting is the biggest focus. Constantly adapting to improve, grow, push the boundaries of what we’re capable of. Reinventing how we installed was a game changer for us!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.theshelfking.com
- Instagram: @theshelfking
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheShelfKing