Kinyon Martin – Restore Rite

Curtis: (00:09)
Yeah. What’s going on everybody? I’m your host, Curtis Keller, and I want to welcome you to my first official episode of the Idaho Leader podcast today. We’re super excited to welcome Kinyon Martin of Restore Rite out of Blackfoot, Idaho. Kinyon. How’s it going?

Kinyon: (00:24)
Great. Great. We’re excited. This is, this is neat.

Curtis: (00:27)
Hey, thanks. That’s really good to hear. So where are you joining us from today?

Kinyon: (00:31)
Uh, I just got home. We’ve had a couple big days and uh, we started at eight and I rolled in about seven o’clock and just so everything’s pressure on my mind. I can tell you all about restoration, poopy basements and raccoons, whatever you want to hear yourself.

Curtis: (00:46)
Yeah, we all love good poopy baseman stories, so don’t hold back there. Just diving into it then. We wanted to know your story from the beginning. So why don’t we just start there? You know, what can you tell us about yourself?

Kinyon: (00:59)
Yeah, so a raised here in Blackfoot, Idaho, my family’s farmers in the area and, and uh, farmers are, in my opinion, probably the key entrepreneurs of the country. You know, they put things in the ground hoping that they’ll have a profit at the end of the year. And I think that being raised through that kind of gave that spirit to me as well, being being my own boss, kind of being able to set my own schedule and, and so I uh, uh, went to school, Utah State really enjoyed Utah State. I enjoyed it so much. I didn’t even get one of those fancy papers that they give you at the end of four years. So, um, met my wife on my fourth year there. You tough state. Uh, we got married, had twins right off the bat, so had to jump really into adulting really quick and then always kind of maintained that side Gig mentality and working different jobs.

Kinyon: (01:55)
I was at out on the farm for a while. Then I moved to our farm, owned the grain elevator. I worked for the grain elevator for awhile, a couple of years, then it sold. Then I went to the site as a nuclear operator and worked there for two years and there was just a lot of downtime at the site for reflection and kind of talking with your buds out there on services that they’re seeing and doing. And a lot of site workers have side gigs I think cause there is a lot of downtime at the site, meaning you work four days and you’re off four days. So it gave me a really phenomenal opportunity to start some businesses on the side.

Curtis: (02:30)
So I’ve known Kenyan for a long time and he comes from a great family, hard workers. And I’d have to agree, farmers, especially in Idaho contribute so much to the community around them. So no doubt that’s contributed a lot to who you are. You mentioned having a few side jobs to keep you busy on your downtime around the site. What can you tell us about that?

Kinyon: (02:52)
Before I actually started a business, I had worked with my uncles. A remodeling is how his home a little bit. I’m remodeling a home that we bought to fix up. And so I kind of, uh, as they said, had no business being in business. And I said, yeah, I can do tile floors. So my first one, my first fail if we’re talking about fails here was a Kent and Kerry Hanson in Moreland. And they said, hey, we’d like to remodel our bathroom floor with some tile. I said, absolutely, I can do that, you know, fake it till you make it kind of thing. And they gave me the opportunity, they trusted me and I went in there and spent three, four days after hours cutting tile, lay in tile. And it did look good, but it was improperly installed. And eventually all the grout broke out. And I actually ended up hiring Dakota Albertson, uh, another kid to go in and fix my mistakes and paying him more than I got paid to do that.

Kinyon: (03:52)
But it was a, here’s a good learning experience, you know. And then, so I had that Gig. I soon after I started a carpet cleaning company, um, actually got in contact with a guy who ran a business in Montana cleaning carpets and he’s got a phenomenal business going on up there. He’s making really good money. He’s presenting an excellent service. And, uh, on my downtime at the site, this is probably not something an employer would like to hear, but I was on youtube learning how to clean carpets and learn about different stains, learn about different cleaning techniques and, and really kinda passionate about it. So, um, I started a carpet cleaning business in it. It actually ran really pretty well as I was the operator of it for uh, three years. And along with the carpet cleaning business, we started a food truck business. We did a smoothies and stuff and kind of really suffered from that e drift that they talk about where you just have a hard time focusing on something and you’re like, oh, that sounds good, that can make money, let’s do that. And so I kinda had a lot of that going on. And then in the same year that I started the carpet cleaning, I started the food truck in the same year I started restore. Right. And restore right. Was the one that really got my passion going needed service in the area. And it’s the one that Kinda got me, uh, to make the jump as they talked about.

Curtis: (05:17)
Okay. So I mean fails did happen and that’s just going to be life. Right? But I mean you didn’t stop there either. So I think it Kinda seems like it’s just one failure to another and then to another. And it’s, it’s like this treasure hunt where you just keep searching until you find what works. And eventually of course, you did find that. What if you hadn’t, were there other ideas that you had banked? It might’ve been plan B or plan c and then plan d and so on.

Kinyon: (05:45)
You know, I, uh, I really like just helping people and I’m not sure if Restore Rite had failed where I would continue to be a business leader. It have been anything from selling floors or probably sticking with the cleaning industry because the carpet cleaning business was doing well. But the hard thing with that business is it’s hard to scale because they start calling me to do the service and they want Kinyon to do the service. And then as you grow and you hire Jeff and Ben and Suzette to do the cleaning, sometimes the quality is not there and all of a sudden they’re not getting the service they wanted. So I think I would have either returned to farming and farming could always still be in my future or bend something in the cleaning industry cause I put a lot of effort into learning more about that.

Curtis: (06:39)
So I remember a while back coming up on three years now, I had just barely gotten back from serving as a missionary in Mexico City when the fair is in town in Blackfoot, Idaho. And I saw Kinyon in there and it had been a really long time, you know, the two year mission and then plus some time. And so we went up to each other and did the classic, Hey, what’s going on? How are things, how’s life? That’s when he told me about all these different startups that he had that uh, he wanted to start his own business, be his own boss. Really? And so he said that, yeah, you know, I just want to do something while I’m young, see what works. And that’s one of the questions that I posted on the Idaho Liter website this week is what’s People’s preference on risk? When’s the right time to take that risk to make that jump? Is it early in life where you have time to recuperate your losses or is that later and play it safe where you have more money. So you at this time were fairly young and I just want to know why did you feel like taking that approach that you did, of taking that risk early, why did you feel like that was the right approach for you?

Kinyon: (07:44)
You know, the interesting thing with taking that risk is you make the jump to be self employed, become an entrepreneur, you’re going to make that same jump throughout your whole career if that job takes off or not because there’s going to be a jump from leaving that point and then hiring your first employee and to hiring the next employee. And as your business scales from a three man operation to a six, it’s organized so differently. And so there are multiple jumps that you take to get to that point. And so, I mean the first one is more important. And I think that it comes back to just calculating your losses. I think that your losses are about your most important thing in your life. If you can recognize your losses and learn from them, then I think we could all see that we lose more times in a day than we gain.

Kinyon: (08:35)
But when we gain, we gain big. So for example, if you’re working your job and you get sidetracked for a while, that’s a loss. That’s the thing you’ve got to learn from and learning to recognize those. And so the reason I wanted to start younger was I felt like at the site I would acquire a really comfortable wage. I kind of get and really comfortable, I don’t want to call it a Rut, I don’t want to say people in our up, but I develop a really comfortable pattern and it it’d be really hard to change that pattern. As I got older and things were more established, like your budget, your monthly budget was established, you had you know, x amount expenses going out for sports or vacation for family life and it would be really hard to change that pattern as you got older. But the best time in my opinion to take a risk is is now sooner than later and as you’re young it’s more fathomable because your expenses are not what they’re going to be when you have an established family later that you can always, almost any business can start on a small scale on the side.

Kinyon: (09:47)
If that’s ecommerce or web development, financial planning, I think anyone, if they want to be self employed, there will be a something they can start small on the side if they want to. But nothing great comes without really jumping into it first.

Curtis: (10:05)
So you mentioned that you also have to hire different people and to me that means that you’re also kind of distributing that risk. As people come into the company, they also take on the risks of the company and try to work for the good of the company. So how do you handle that? How do you handle new people coming in and letting them take on that risk?

Kinyon: (10:25)
Sometimes it’s hard for me to hire certain people because I am nervous that I won’t be able to provide for them the commitment that they’re providing to me. But every time I’ve taken that jump and I’ve raised that level of employment by bringing in different quality of people, the business has grown to that magnitude and grown and succeeded. And so in any business you start, you’re going to have to take jumps a multiple time and you want to make sure that you are jumping in the direct direction with rip employment or financial investments or whatever it is.

Curtis: (11:05)
I can tell that the relationships are extremely important for you both internally and externally. So really you want to have that good relationship, a solid base with the people that are working for you and also the people that you’re working for. It’s important to have a good connection there. And I remember a few years back in 2017 that you guys at Resour, right, had been nominated for the Blackfoot business of the year by the Blackfoot chamber of Commerce. Even though that was fairly early after you guys had started the business, you had already made an apparent community impact. So what did receiving that nomination mean for you?

Kinyon: (11:39)
That was an awesome moment cause it really kind of solidified that they were professional service and were recognized by the community and we’re providing what we’re promising. It was a neat moment for us and the community has been, I think it kind of speaks lengths that traditional marketing still works. SEO and PPC is not going to build your business. It will help build your business exponentially depending in what category of work you’re in. But traditional marketing with the Chamber of Commerce, um, getting involved in community events, nonprofits and just being a person of integrity has been, I think the leading cause to our success and the community supported my business so great because of the lifestyle that I believe my family lives. They, they knew that they could trust me with a flooded home because Kinyon Martin from Martin farms or Ray Carlson comes from a good family and they trusted the family probably before they trusted me. And so I think that speaks a little bit of volumes is she just being a good person will get you ahead in life, not looking for a quick dollar.

Curtis: (12:55)
I know a lot of hard work and effort preceded that nomination. So finally receiving that recognition. Awesome. Must have just felt amazing. In a perfect world. Of course, that’s what happens. You do your best work and then people are really appreciative and everything goes perfect, but not living in a perfect world. Sometimes that means that people don’t really appreciate the hard work that we put in, whether that’s just a difference on their perspective towards the service or they didn’t really understand what they needed and there was a miscommunication there. Sometimes bad reviews may happen and so I know that that happened for you guys not that long ago. A few months back, I read a post where you guys actually had received a negative review. What does getting that feedback both negative and positive mean for you as a company?

Kinyon: (13:42)
Yeah, the reviews are hard because they provide so much power towards the person looking at that review and as your business grows, there’s things that get out of your control. In a way, I’m grateful that that review happened because that helped us perceive where we could do better on our end. And The lady who left a review, she’s actually not our customer. We’re helping her mother. And there’s a few things that from her perception, the services subpart and there’s always things that we can improve on consistently on every job. You know, we’re, we deal with an emotional work where people that don’t want us in their homes because that means that something bad happened. They’re grateful to see us when we show up. But if we show up at your house, generally you suffered something that’s going to disrupt your life. And so from this lady’s perception, the service was subpar from our perception.

Kinyon: (14:40)
We got a claim covered that wasn’t covered initially. We saved her a ton of money with, uh, creating a temporary sinks. There was just a few things out of our control was subcontractors that was not living up to her expectations and communication was poor. But one thing I took from that is learning to recognize the losses and how to try to mitigate those losses so that they’re not damaging on a large scale and putting processes in place and systems to make sure that that error isn’t repeated and that the next customer doesn’t have to voice the same concerns.

Curtis: (15:21)
Right. And again, that’s just one bad review out of the countless great reviews that I have seen. Let’s rewind to when you were like six months into it, you’re starting to make plans for the next five, 10, 20 years. Is this where you expected to be two and a half years after starting restore? Right.

Kinyon: (15:42)
Absolutely not. I remember sitting down with Kim Herrick, him and I had the idea to start the first place and we projected to do 300,000 in sales our first year. That was just coming off of numbers that he kind of could feel out as doing work for other restoration companies in the area as a carpet guy. And we started the business in August. I remember getting a few of those floods, first floods and I mean Cassidy Ellis, I’m going to use people’s names because she gave us a shot in the beginning and I totally dried out her house wrong. It took way longer than it needed to because I rolled up wet carpet and left it in the corner and then dry the carpet and um, rolled the carpet out and I was like, why is this still wet? But, um, there’s a few of those things.

Kinyon: (16:32)
And then we actually came in contact with a guy who had a lot more experience in restoration, kind of helped us get the right procedures in place. His name’s Jordan Nebeker. He actually ended up being one of the partners as well. So there was three partners, me, Kim Herrick and Jordan ebaker and Jordan really helped solidify, uh, the business practice cause he worked for another restoration company for a long time. And September, October came, I remember when we hit 75,000 in sales and we thought this is unbelievable. Uh, we had collected any of that money yet, but it just felt like we’re getting calls, people are trusting us. And then come December, I had to quit December 7th. I remember I quit. Um, well I gave my two weeks notice before that, but December 7th of my last day. And then the next year we did I think around 600,000 and cells and next year we did 950,000 and uh, this year we’re on pace to do probably close to 2 million.

Kinyon: (17:37)
And the growth is just, it’s just crazy. I, we’ve gone from different calibers of employees. I remember when we got our first batch of, we bought out, didn’t really bought out, but we kind of absorbed this handymen business and they had a lot of experience in and doing handyman remodel work and none of those guys are with us. And every time we hire we seem to kind of upgrade a little bit as far as experience goes. And we have a really good team now that’s not just based on employees, but our team consists of employees, subcontractors that are loyal to us and help us out and other advocates. And we have a really, we’re able to provide a service that I wish I could go back in 2017 18 and redo some of those jobs. And really give better service to those people. And I imagine I’ll be in the same shoes here in another two years.

Curtis: (18:41)
Yeah, I agree. I company has to grow and you’ll always be able to look back and realize how far you’ve come. But that is a good thing. Realizing your developing in quantity and quality and being able to provide more to the people that need it. I think being aware of the steps you’re taking is necessary on that road to success. That road, of course, is only defined by the guy that paves it. Right? So for example, I’m a college kid making 11 bucks an hour and I think I’ve got it made. So I look a restore, right? And think, yeah, Kenyan, he’s really made it. But the only definition of success I think that matters is the one that we hold ourselves. So with that in mind, what is your definition and what advice do you think you could give to someone who’s looking to find that success in their own life?

Kinyon: (19:31)
So I think that my definition of success has changed over the last couple of years. I think initially it was built maybe perception on wealth. Someone that had a lot of wealth, I thought they’re happy, they can afford to live the lifestyle they want and they have all the toys they want. Um, I think my perception on success now has become more as someone who was balanced, uh, someone who has a good balance in their life with family time, finances, exercise, self worth, being able to celebrate a little bit of your wins.

Curtis: (20:05)
Yeah, I agree. That’s what it comes down to is just doing what you want to do. Whether that’s buying things or much bigger than that being with your family. Once you’re doing what you want, regardless of what it is, that’s when I think anybody really should feel comfortable saying that they are successful and that they’ve made it. Before we end this, we reached out to our followers on Instagram to get their input on any questions for a store right. That they wanted to ask. So we have a couple of those for you. The first one was how do you know that you’re getting the most from your team?

Kinyon: (20:39)
I’d love to know who this is cause that’s a, that’s a great question. I don’t know if, uh, I know flood and fire is asking these questions or got some of spy going on, but I think when I can tell that someone is providing me the, the best service they can is just in the little things that they do for me. There’s the saying that how you do anything is how you do everything. And if I’m talking with a guy and I’m like, Hey, could you help me just haul these things out to the truck or whatever, and the attitude isn’t there, or it’s not set up how it could be like they throw it in a truck but they didn’t really set it up great. I can tell that there’s something going on with that guy. And maybe it’s just a work ethic or maybe there’s personal reasons, but even the smallest things, I don’t get the service from him. I know that there’s something going on and I try to sit down with him or depending on the level of command, I talked with his manager about it. Like, Hey, I think Jonas here has some things going on. What’s, let’s see what’s bothering him. And usually those are key indicators

Curtis: (21:49)
and everyone knows you can’t hold everyone’s hand while they just do their work. There’s just too many people and I’m sure that’s where other managers or supervisors come in that everyone has at least have a little bit of that knowhow to even be at the bottom of the totem pole. After that you’ll stay at the bottom unless you’re able to communicate or do the things that you mentioned like paying attention to the finer details, is that right?

Kinyon: (22:12)
Yeah. Yeah absolutely. And I like to know what all my employees, what their interests are. And depending on the week we have, you know, between 12 and 26 employees and it’s, it’s hard for me to have one on one contact with number 25 number 26 or even if we get some temp labor, I tried to get to know what their interests are and I encourage all of our current employees to be involved in some kind of nonprofit cause I really think that the gift and happiness is giving. And some people haven’t had the opportunity to give something like that to a nonprofit. They just, they weren’t brought up that way or they just haven’t had the opportunity. And so I encourage all my employees too, choose a nonprofit that they’re passionate about. And that could be anything from, you know, a civet tins group or a service group or a youth team. And I’ve got coaches on my staff, I have three coaches and then I’d have other people involved in suicide awareness and other things and like having them, giving them that opportunity to be involved with the nonprofit, with the business supporting it, it really helps build a personal relationship with that employee. And I think it really builds up their self worth as them as a person.

Curtis: (23:33)
So that’s a process that most people I don’t think recognizes important or at least don’t appreciate because later things might come up with concerns or questions and maybe that’s with time off or pay, but it can also be with improvement ideas for the company and how that happens really will stem from the relationship that they’ve built with you since they’ve been hired. Our next question comes from Kylie Carlson out of Blackfoot and she was wondering what’s your most valuable experience as a leader that you’ve had?

Kinyon: (24:06)
Really the most valuable lessons come in the hardest times when we, uh, a job doesn’t perform as well or we get overloaded with work, equipment breaks, employees quit. That. The most valuable experiences I’ve ever required are in those times that the pressure is really high. And I’ve learned from that. And some instances I’ve had to reach out and get help in those things, recognizing that that’s above me. I can’t handle this problem. What do I need? And one of those times came when we got to a girl stage in the business that I had employees doing the, you know, the blue collar work and I was their CEO and I felt my days were wasted. I didn’t feel like I was getting value to the employees and I didn’t feel like I was giving value to the business. And I had to recognize that and reach out to a third party or a consulting firm to say, Hey, what, what do I do I need to be doing here?

Kinyon: (25:06)
What’s my role? And, and they stepped in and they really dropped the ruler on me. You know, I said, this is your business. The books are a mess. The systems are a mess. Procedures are a mess. You don’t even know what your culture is. And it was a pretty humbling time to meet with these guys. And the business was doing well. You know, we had employees, we were getting work, but they came in and they pointed these things out and I had to say, let’s do it. I signed them up. They don’t organize your business, they just kind of instruct you how to do it. And so I think that, um, learning to recognize your limits and then reaching out to the right people because there’s always going to be someone better than you in your industry or with something if it’s not just, they’re better than me at restoring houses. There’s better accountants out there, there’s better HR people out there, there’s better marketers out there. And so I think just really recognizing my faults and seeking help opened up a whole new magnitude of improvements and opportunities and growth for myself. And the business probably be one thing, one big turning point for our business and this happened July of last year and we’ve had huge successes and advances and the business structure itself from that point. So

Curtis: (26:30)
that’s great to hear. It takes some humility I think to be able to go to someone and say, Hey, I could use a few pointers. You know, I feel bad for anyone that’d be too prideful to use all the resources available to them. But that’s awesome that you’ve seen the good that comes from using those resources. Our last question and we’ll see if you recognize this name comes from Cooper Peterson also out of Blackford who wanted to know what the very worst job is that you’ve seen.

Kinyon: (26:59)
Um, those are hard jobs to classified because every person is going to have a weak point. And so, I mean we’ve done everything from cleaning up Guano that poop to raccoon poop and addicts to human poop, to crime scene cleanup and infestations of mold fire. So, I mean we’ve seen a lot, but I think the hardest jobs for me to stomach are, are not jobs that are related to natural phenomenons, like a sewer backing up or water damage or even like a crime scene cleanup or a suicide. Those jobs are easy to handle because it’s a service that the consumer needs done. But then the jobs where it is a, a hygiene issue, like the homeowner has poor hygiene and they just subsequently had a water damage and we’d go in and, and everything there is because of their standards of living, not because of the water damage.

Kinyon: (28:05)
Those jobs are, are hard to do. And I’m learning a lot about them because it could be a disability of that person that they live that way. You know, you can’t just, initially I just thought this person’s a Slob and disgusting and, and now I’m learning to recognize that this person just has a disability and they don’t know any better. And that’s why there’s pet crap all over the floor or human stuff and tubs, you know, or coke bottles or whatever. So the hardest jobs for me are ones that deal with hygiene of a homeowner. But we’ve seen, I mean we’ve seen brain matter, we’ve seen teeth, we’ve seen corn coming out the top, out the bottom, whatever you want to call it. We’ve, we’ve seen it all and um, Cooper has been there for some of the worst ones for sure.

Curtis: (29:00)
Well you guys have done an amazing job. All credit where credit is due. I’ve got a weak stomach so I’m not always that jealous to hear about the work that, that you guys get to be a part of. From what you said so far, really, I know that it comes down to creating this cycle where you help the customer and they’re happy. So you grow and then because you grow, you’re able to help more either more quality or more people and then it’s just this cycle that continues to help both sides and uh, really both sides benefit.

Kinyon: (29:32)
Yeah, it’s neat to be able to hold my head high as I walked through Costco and I see a customer. That’s kind of the big thing is I want to be able to interact with everyone in public. Uh, I don’t want to just come in and think that a gallery per insurance money, I want you to feel like these guys provided an excellent service. What they gave me was worth every penny that they received and I would definitely call them again cause we’re going to see it. Like I said, we’re going to be involved in coaching your kids or a service groups and that’s really what what we want to be is we want to be able to see you in public and feel like, Hey, we helped you out.

Curtis: (30:07)
Awesome. Well and I’ve known you since before restore, right? And I know how willing you are to help out others and now you get to make a career out of it. And a lot of people appreciate the work you guys do. So thanks for that. Thanks for meeting with me today and talking about your business and giving us your input so others can find that same success, that same happiness in their future as well. It’s been great having you on the podcast.

Kinyon: (30:30)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. This has been gre