We were lucky to catch up with Tracy Cook recently and have shared our conversation below.

Tracy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Being a female in a traditionally male dominated field offers me a different perspective. I was once a client before I decided to go to school and create a business different than those I experienced as a single mom. From being asked out, to having food eaten from my fridge and just overall feeling unsecure leaving strangers in my home. Our crew all wear a company shirt, they are to show up on time and all of them are encouraged to speak to our clients, share their names and overall interact with the homeowner/s. We are in peoples homes, their sanctuaries and we bring dust and disruption, we hope to make the process a little less stressful for our clients and more comfortable with our team in their homes.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I became a single mom when my now 24 year old son was just 3 years old. I learned quickly what I could tackle myself, what I couldn’t and with a little training or assistance from my dad could learn to do. I was not good at laying hardwood floors for instance so I hired a company to tackle that project. I did however find it quite theraputic to lay tile both in the bathroom and kitchen backsplash. With a few trips to Home Depot and the helpful crew there and free Saturday classes offered I was off and running tiling everything I could! Youtube was a big help with changing out lighting fixtures, installing dishwasher and replacing faucets. I also learned quickly that not all contractors were the same and I went to school to learn as much as I could from contracts, to becoming OSHA certified to scheduling projects.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

I met my partner in class at Wake Tech. The classes were fairly small so we tended to see the same folks from semester to semester and I was one of the only females in the classes most times.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Like most people during COVID our work was considered essential however, a lot of folks didn’t want a crew in their homes so we had to pivot to strictly exterior work. We were able to make it happen however, it was a challenge at times as we used to be able to look at the weather and shuffle inside and outside work and with COVID it was all outside so there were times that we weren’t able to work full days or weeks. We also had to make a big pivot when one of our owners caught covid and ended up in the hospital on a venitlator. Luckily our amazing crew and community stepped in the help me during this time and we were able to keep the crew paid and working during this time.

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