3 days ago

Wes Carroll, Rice Lumber

The person who knows the most about this 87 year old lumber company has been there forty three years, and almost none of it is written down anywhere.

In this episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast, host Jennifer Alger sits down with Wes Carroll of Rice Lumber in Vermont. Wes got a cell phone and a job in the yard the year he turned fourteen, then left the state for college in Colorado with no intention of coming back east. He spent a year and a half cold calling for an office supply company, two years selling software into contractors, and came home in June 2020 after a layoff. He started behind the counter learning products and applications, and now leads the sales teams at a lumber business his family has owned for roughly half of its history.

The heart of the conversation is what happens when a lumber business runs on people instead of paper. Wes names the three things he is most worried about losing: the load builders who stack a delivery in the order the framer will need it, so the pressure treated sill comes off the truck first, the buyer who has read the lumber and plywood markets for thirty five years and knows when to accumulate and when to liquidate, and the product knowledge that lets a salesperson talk about how a structure actually goes together. His approach so far is listening, documenting and repetition, and he is honest that it is still an experiment.

You'll also hear how the boom years turned the lumber business purely transactional and why he thinks the slowdown was healthy, what selling strictly on price taught him not to do, why a small mill loses the account over follow through rather than price, and how Rice Lumber grew from a structural and engineered wood yard into a building center with a hardware store, a showroom and a kitchen design department. Wes closes on the belief that sent him to college in the first place, that the trades are where you land when you have run out of options, and why the replacement rate in construction makes that idea an expensive one for the whole industry to hold.

Chapters:

00:00 Growing up in an 87 year old family lumber business

03:21 Coming back to Vermont in 2020 and learning it from behind the counter

04:37 The boom years, and what they cost in relationships

11:49 Forty three years of knowledge, and how to capture it

18:27 Three things Rice Lumber cannot afford to lose

25:19 Writing the playbook a company of veterans never needed

29:35 Live inventory online, and the misconception about the trades

The Woodpreneur Podcast brings stories of woodworkers, makers, and entrepreneurs turning their passion for wood into successful businesses - from inspiration to education to actionable advice. Hosted by Steve Larosiliere and Jennifer Alger

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