Meet Paul Scarmazzi, Principal of Scarmazzi Homes, and Lisa Scarmazzi, Director of Sales and Marketing for Scarmazzi Homes, Epcon Franchise Builders in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Paul had a banking career and Lisa worked in sales and design before they both decided to start building homes. In Paul’s words, “I just decided I wanted there to be tangible evidence we existed one day.”
Host: Today we are speaking with Paul and Lisa Scarmazzi of Scarmazzi Homes outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Paul and Lisa, I’d like to talk to you about your transition. What led you to becoming a home builder?
Paul Scarmazzi: For both of us, it was actually different things. I had been in a banking career and had financed a lot of large projects and was an integral cog to making, creating some of the projects, but I didn’t feel really connected to them.
My favorite part of financing was construction financing, and my favorite part of that was when I had the opportunity to go out in the field and smell the sawdust and seeing sites worked on. At some point in time, I just decided I wanted there to be tangible evidence we existed one day.
Also, fortunately, in my banking career I had the opportunity to work with Phil and Ed. I marveled at the business that they had set up. Both the discipline to organize the business and the fundamentals, the very sound, rock‑solid fundamentals that their business was founded on.
I continued to follow them along in my career and I came home one day and I said to my wife, “What do you think if we borrow a lot of money and start building houses?” and she was all in. From Lisa’s background, she worked for two Fortune 500 companies in sales, and really didn’t like it. She really just didn’t like the sales gig.
She went back to school, she got a design degree, and she had her own business. She had a design business. But it was also one that it was a very lonely business, because she was in it by herself, and design’s such a finicky world of, what are the customers’ expectations and how do you try to fulfill those or exceed them?
It was a nice marriage between the two of us, both literally and figuratively. We started about 16 years ago into the business with Epcon as our backbone and structure.
Host: Was it what you were expecting starting off in home building?
Paul: I think that as I’ve grown personally and professionally over the years, I’ve finally come to realize I’m not probably the prototypical entrepreneur, in that I like structure. I think that is one of the very, very significant benefits that we’ve seen in partnering with Epcon is that the homebuilding business is still the wild west unless you’re one of the large corporate publics that have process and procedure for everything.
We’re part of a family where they really have got it down. Both to know what they do and who they are and then how to execute that. Those systems are very key to me. Yes, it was not what I expected and more than I expected.
When you come into a business where you start with land development and there are a lot of unknowns and there are a lot of surprises to customers, if we talk about exceeding expectations. You need to set them first. You need to have standards.
We’ve learned a lot and the good news is we learn something every day when we wake up. But it’s really nice to have a fallback corporate structure, if you will, almost. That’s from my perspective, and getting into the business and over our years of experience.
Host: So Paul, did Epcon provide the type of structure that you needed?
Paul: Yeah, for sure. I think that it kept us out of harm’s way, frankly. Because we’d be probably our biggest challenge. Because we both sometimes follow shiny objects. You maybe want to build bigger or better or what you think versus having the discipline of market research, understanding what your customers want, and then creating something that really meets or beats the market.
Lisa Scarmazzi: We wouldn’t have done this if we weren’t part of Epcon. We would have not been home builders to be honest with you. Because he was able to finance one of the first couple franchisees. In his previous banking experience that’s how we were introduced to Epcon. I did not think I would be involved with the company as I am.
When we first started, I was just decorating the models. Now, our life, this is our life. It’s afforded us – we have a great, great company. We have wonderful employees. We’re just a team. But it’s also given us freedom when our kids are small to be able to be home when we needed to. There are many times they came and we’re in our office till one or two in the morning with us or in the models while I was decorating. But they’re grown now, and they’ve made it. They’re good kids.
Paul: We didn’t lose one of them.
Lisa: No, they’re still with us. Yeah. If it wasn’t for Epcon we wouldn’t be home builders right now, absolutely not.
Paul: Roger that.
Lisa: We needed the guidance, and we got that through Epcon. We really did.
Host: Sure, and I’d like to talk a little bit more about that. Not only are you Epcon Franchise Builders, but you also now have Scarmazzi Homes. Talk a little bit about the growth of your company and how that has evolved.
Paul: I think that we were early on with Epcon and we were all in with it. For the better part of 14 years we did business as Epcon homes and communities. Actually, the franchise entity is called Hawthorne Partners, and we looked at ourselves one time, and we always had Hawthorne Partners on our logo and letterhead. I said, “It sounds like a law firm.”
Sometimes the obvious is there. People knew us. They know Paul and Lisa Scarmazzi. They knew we were building them an Epcon home. As we tried to expand our world a little bit and our worldview, we decided it was better to rebrand Scarmazzi Homes, an Epcon builder.
We don’t lose one ounce, I think, of the effectiveness or the strength behind the Epcon name. But it does allow us to become more of a regional player and have better name recognition and pursue some opportunities that may or may not be Epcon. But clearly our focus is Epcon in terms of the majority of what we do and wake up every day thinking about.
Host: So could you talk a little bit about how many communities, how many homes you’ve built up to this point and where is the future going?
Paul: We’ve built about 500 homes and eight communities, I think. Our future plans are to be excellent in everything that we do and allow that to take us where it takes us. I think that we will easily and very soon be 100 homes a year in Pittsburgh. We’ll grow from there. I’d like to say 500 homes, but from a land standpoint, that’s a very challenging thing.
One of the things that we’ve found especially as my wife has reengaged in the sales side of it is we love our customers. We embrace the opportunity to rock their world and change their world. We do that.
That’s one of the things we saw in our first project was the reintroduction to a lot of people to socialization. They’re moving into a community where they have peers. You might have a gal that lost her husband 10 years ago and a little bit blue. We’ve seen it with personal friends of ours. Friends of ours, their mothers have moved into our communities, like Della, and to this day it’s fun. That’s what’s very rewarding.
I see us as continuing to grow, to move forward. But in a format and a function that still allows us to be intimate with our customers.
Lisa: We don’t want to get that big that we can’t interact with our customers anymore.
Paul: Because it brings a lot of joy.
Lisa: He bakes biscotti for our customers, and they love that. He’s a good baker.
Host: That’s fantastic. I talk to a lot of builders that went to build a business but started to impact lives. Have you anticipated how much you leave a legacy as a home builder and how that has impacted you personally?
Paul: I don’t think that I realized fully what it meant getting in and have gained a better appreciation for, and as I said, joy out of it. We always said, or maybe we started to say after we got into the business, we wanted to change people’s lives. I always say this to Lisa. Knit me a pillow that said a good name’s worth more than riches.
We didn’t go in it profit‑first. As a business person, we should have. We really, I’m the slow school of learning. It took me a while to figure it out, and obviously that’s how you keep score.
But when you do things very well, when you have excellence in your organization and your process and procedure and your strategic vision, the rest just falls to the bottom line. It’s just a natural outcome of it. That wonderful side benefit of knowing in our DNA and our entire team’s DNA, that what we’re doing’s different because we’re not selling them a home. We’re selling them an experience.
Host: From a sales and marketing standpoint, you’ve been in the business 16 years now. How has you customer experience strategy allowed you to grow and evolve as a business?
Lisa: I think we have been more personal with the customers. But more recently, since I’ve stepped more into the sales position. But I feel like we approach sales a bit different than maybe some others would. Not Epcon with their training, and Jeff, sure. This is what Jeff talks about.
I really think it’s about the customer. When they visit, we’re not talking about our homes. It’s about what they need, what they’re looking for. We might not even be the right fit for them. I’m not going to take them down that path if I don’t feel that we are able to offer them something.
We have a very strong connection right from the beginning with the customers. It’s more personal for us. Even just moving throughout the whole path, a lot of our customers are scared.
They haven’t moved into a new home for 30 years. They’ve been in their current homes and just holding their hands and helping them through the whole process. They haven’t experienced this for so long, they don’t even remember what it’s like to make a selection, or they have never done that.
We find it very important to be with them every step of the way. To give them resources that they need from the beginning. If it’s financial resources, if it’s moving resources, anything, we provide that for them.
We become great friends. We’re hugging at every single meeting before people leave.
Paul: She’s a hugger.
Lisa: I hug everybody. Even up till the end when they close. We’re just starting to do our closings on phase two in a current community. I’m just so excited for them. I’m so excited to be there when they close, and I know how excited they are. If I’m up at the sales office on the weekends, I’ll give them a call. Come on, we’ll take you through the house. Let’s let you check out the house.
We send them pictures of the home while it’s being built, just to get excited about it. We’re just as excited for them as they are. We do, we have a very strong bond with our customers, a strong connection with them.
Paul: I think that one of the most significant things that has occurred with us just over the past six months is that Lisa’s really lived that experience. There’s wonderful training that we have, and you can train how to be a sales manager. But at the end of the day, she knows how she wants the sales process to go now.
She’s sprinkled the recipe with her cherries and nuts. Now, as we grow and do those type of things, she could clearly define how she wants our company represented and how she wants the customer experience to evolve and how she wants the customer to be treated, etc.
Because we just believe firmly that if you know you have the solution and you find out what the problems are in that person’s life that you can gain that trust genuinely and sincerely and you really can impact people’s lives and help them. There’s a lot of people that are just very nervous and they’re looking for somebody.
As Lisa said, her whole process with people is, it has nothing to do with a close. It has nothing to do anything with that. It really has to do with the discovery process, and it’s enjoyable. She’s the social one of our team, so she’s better at that. I stay in the back office.
Lisa: I like talking.
Host: Is there a buyer that sticks out in your mind where you know you have impacted them by building their home?
Paul: There are so many, but there are a couple that are close to her, because they are friends of ours. We grew up with their kids. Their parents bought from us. One is a lady who, her daughter is my wife’s best friend. They’re so close, they’re like sisters. She bought a home off of us. Her husband died, I think at 54 of a heart attack, and Dell was by herself. She was by herself for years.
We convinced her, we thought this would be right for her, and she was excited. She moved into the community, and it was wonderful. She still lives there and she loves it. A very close friend of hers moved in as well, also friends of ours. They moved in, and recently that gal, she lost her husband. Eddie died, about two years ago?
You see the quality of their life, that they have that support system, so it’s more than a house.
Lisa: She has the community that has rallied around her and given her support. That, you can’t put a price on for something like that. She feels comfortable. She’s in a home that she can manage herself and that will be taken care of for her. That’s been a great thing.
Paul: There’s a lot of stories like that. But those are the two close that are probably nearest and dearest to our hearts.
Host: Do you guys do any charitable work? I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit about that?
Lisa: One of our biggest give back, we call it our “Epcon Gives Back” program. What we do is make a donation for every closing. We allow the homeowner to choose their charity and we send a check on their behalf in their name to the charity of their choice. We’ve been doing that and have given thousands to that.
Paul: This year instead of the traditional Christmas party, we separated and went out shopping and provided some nice gifts and some good stuff for the Light of Life Mission in Pittsburgh. Last year Lisa, my daughter, went on a mission trip to Haiti, which they just found really fulfilling. We’re going again in April to try to lend a little bit of our time and talents. Yeah, that’s fun stuff to be involved with.
Lisa: We like to get involved with our community, also. With helping out local football teams, the fire department and all that sort of stuff. Because we’re in that community with them. We enjoy doing that sort of thing.
Paul: That’s really the most fulfilling thing about what we do. This year we have a big goal of doing House for Habitat with Humanity and partnering with a large regional builder to do that, and actually be able to accomplish that.
We’re in the planning stages of setting up a charitable foundation in our company’s name, because that’ll give us some opportunities to continue to make some impacts along the way, and have fun.
Host: So Paul and Lisa, I’d like to wrap up with a final thought. What would you say to someone who’s thinking about working with Epcon and becoming a Franchise Builder?
Paul: My response would be first, it’s tremendous for the right person, for the right organization, and one that has the core values that the other builder partners do and that the principals do. I think it’s fabulous. The reason is, to be successful in a business today, you have to be a lot of things, and things are moving so quickly.
The strategic vision is key. Epcon is spot‑on with the strategic vision that they have. So yes, I’d recommend it.