We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Michael Lassner. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Michael below.

Alright, Michael thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

The problem itself is the ‘industry standard’ – it typically (and unfortunately) does not meet client expectations for service and quality. So we set out to define and execute a unique, and demanded, level of service, which is the core tenant of our company.
How do we accomplish a high level of service and quality for our clients? It starts by investing in a team of professionals who thrive on challenge and measure the value of their work on a client’s success. The skillset behind that investment is critical.

Clients call each day with a unique set of requirements, our job is to make sure our team members have the expertise to accomplish our client’s goals. Those team members are designers, engineers, project managers, and technicians. The training at Allied is continuous as well, under our Allied-U curriculum.

Our investment mindset also extends to development of processes, onsite presence, and manufacturing. As the projects around the world have evolved, so have the needs of our service levels. At any given time you will find Allied team members onsite collaborating with our client’s team, which can look like presale design collaboration and planning or post sale support.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

As many stories go, by accident. I was working for many years in tech development for an investment group. We built some great technology, but not great enough to survive the dot-com bubble burst.
That group had a business in the steel building industry and they asked me to join. I spent the time with them learning, selling, developing the business model, engaging with customers, and ultimately redirecting the business strategy. However as time went on they became less interested in the business and closed the investment.

At the time I felt like we had enough of a business strategy, good customer support, and vendor relationships that we could give this a try on our own. So I tapped quite a bit of credit card debt, and we opened the company up a few months later.

I didn’t like the industry…

The more I got into the weeds the more I didn’t like.

Each supply chain component company was focused inward, only providing what was self serving, not what the customer needed. Do it their way, on their schedule, and if they were late, no recourse, if the customer had to make changes, big problems. The system was broken.

Our view was, a supply chain collaboration was the best and only way to service the customer to their needs and expectations, hence the name Allied. A brilliant local marketing team understood our company mission and came up with our tagline, ‘we’re with you all the way’, which still defines us 19 years later.

Today I can happily tell you we have great supply chain partners. It takes work to find companies and their people who have the same mindset as you of Customers First, but we have. As a result, we are growing together through our client’s success.

Lessons

I will tell you, back then, I didn’t understand the demand and level of investment required to deliver on that level of service promise. But over the years when you spend time with your clients and vendors, and equally hire great team members who believe a client’s success will create their own, you can see the vision come together.

The turning point for us had to be when we looked around the organization and saw a great group of people committed to client success and undeterred in the process to make that happen, which also included mutual support of their peers.

The other key differentiator was Transparency – our industry is opaque at best, nothing is shared between the industry and the clients. That has led to inherent distrust over the years and arduous processes put in place by vendors and clients to protect themselves. We opened things up, we let both clients and vendors in, to see who we are and what we do. We built a process to ensure everyone can partner on the building process, and everyone can be successful in the end. The result – we grew… Exponentially.

Being Proud
Recently, we had a prospect, now a client, who had a challenge on a project. The schedule was behind, deliverables ambiguous, and they had mistrust with their vendor. As they were trying to resolve the issues and potentially make a course change, someone in the room said, “why don’t we call Allied” – If we can be known for our values of Trust, Transparency, Accountability and Respect then everyone wins, our clients, our team members, and then, as a result, our company.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Sure, to keep it relevant to current economic times, in September of 2020, we began to see industry supply chains compress. Our subcontractors and vendors were having a hard time managing through COVID-19. Every day we received a phone call or email about a delay on raw material, or COVID outbreak at a facility. Most clients understood the environment and were accommodative to minor schedule changes, some even needed the extra time. However there were certain projects that could not afford a schedule impact, they had to go live.
At the same time, global demand for materials and production overtook supply. Every other week, we were getting news of steel price hikes, 10%, 15%, or more. The further challenge was, even if you bought the material, producers were not able to deliver. The decision to manage the problem became obvious, follow the company mantra, invest in our clients, invest in our business, and by early 2021 we opened a new production facility to meet our client’s project demands.

I suppose it was a risk to build and open a fabrication facility in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis. Only one year prior, we questioned, “when will this end, and what will our business look like in a prolonged crisis?” A year later, we have 53 new team members and a growing business. When you believe in your client’s mission, and you believe in your team members, the odds of success are tipped in your favor.

That control over the supply chain, and delivering for our clients, also allowed us to set a new quality standard in production for our industry, which our clients are enjoying today.

Have you ever had to pivot?

By 2014 we started to see a change in our business, which became an opportunity for Allied. We were being sought after by large multinational businesses, to provide facilities for both US and international based projects. However, these were not your grandfather’s steel buildings, these were large, complex structures which often had unique design needs and challenging timelines. As time went on, that business grew and started to create an internal competition for resources. Our challenge was, we had a legacy business which had predictable revenue for the last 15 years, and then this newer business, which offered much more meaningful client experiences and outcomes, but had all sorts of risk associated with it: supply chain, geo-political, economic, etc.
In the end we had to make a business decision on which company we would be. To do that, we studied the client conversations, to learn where we made the biggest impact. We learned it was through the more complex business. This was unchartered territory, it required significant investment in team members and facilities, but it was the right call. We consolidated all team members and resources, we carved out a new path, we promoted, we hired, we charted ahead…..then COVID-19 broke out, but that’s another story.

We all talk about the question, “what’s your ‘why?’” Too often we look in the wrong places, and can be influenced by selfish motives. When you discover that your clients have the answer, you will learn how you can create a meaningful impact on their business, in turn, yours, and the value you offer.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.alliedbuildings.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alliedbuildings/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaellassner/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyQTJItvdesyZPSkpHcwKLw