Meet Scott Lehner, he first learned about Epcon Communities from an article in a Builder Magazine. Hear how his company, Perfection Builders, has implemented Epcon’s turnkey system and grown from a small local builder to a large regional leader in the Wichita, Kansas market.
“This Epcon Franchising is in as good of hands as I’ve ever seen it in. And I’m proud to be a part of that.”
Host: Scott, it’s so great to speak with you this morning. You’ve had a great tenure here with Epcon, and I wanted to get a little bit into your history and how you got into the home building industry.
Scott Lehner: Oh, wow. That goes back quite a few years. As a youngster, I grew up on a farm, we worked out in the fields for hours and hours and hours a day, and it was boring to me. Another side of my family owned a masonry contracting business. So, when I was old enough to drive, I took a job with them thinking I’d get out of farm work. So I laid brick and block as a teenager, and we got off at four o’clock and then I still had to go work at the farm until midnight. I had a little bit of that construction experience in my blood and went to college and became an accountant and, got bored with that. And over the years, migrated back to home building from a financial career. I got into the specific business through a client of mine who is a pioneer in the ICF industry. They build these Styrofoam forms, build concrete on them. That grew into what we are today, really. We had a good business there, but it was slow and labor intensive and I wanted to become more of a known home builder. And four years into that, I met Jason Ronk and he and I formed Perfection Builders. Four years after that, we met Epcon and became an Epcon Franchise Builder. And now we’re doing as much of that as we can.
Host: So what made you take that leap and choose to become involved with Epcon Franchising?
Scott: Jason and I had been working on our own concept for the Baby Boomer generation and anyone that had been in business knew that that was the coming surge of demand for many products and services in this country. We learned about Epcon through an article in Builder Magazine in October of 2007. Probably a week or two after I read the article, I shared it with Jason. We drove to Northwest Arkansas, that was the closest project to our area and we saw that and contacted Epcon. That would have been in December we went to Columbus and became a Franchise Builder at the end of the year.
Host: It’s interesting that you mentioned this was 2007. Because we all know what happened in the industry shortly after that. Can you speak a little bit to that and what that experience was like?
Scott: Obviously by the end of 2007, you could see some of the cracks in the armor, so to speak. But if you take a longer perspective, we learned a lot in a short time from Epcon, and we’ve learned a lot more since then. We just waited out the three or four years, and I recall when we finally launched our first project, that was in late 2011, we kicked ourselves a little bit. We thought we could have done this a little bit sooner. At that time, our biggest competition was the home that the current buyers lived in and the inability to sell that home. Today, I think their home is still competition, but it’s very easy for them to sell their home. Through that transition, we’ve learned some vertical integration from Epcon and we get to control our process. And using the Epcon way, it becomes a pretty efficient process.
Host: You mentioned your first project launching in 2011, but I know you’ve had a lot since. Can you talk a little bit about the current projects you have going on and historically how many projects you’ve completed?
Scott: We’re on the tail end of probably closing out our sixth community right now, and we’re starting four in Wichita. We have two coming in Louisville, Kentucky, on top of the one that we’re currently building, and that might close out next year. The Courtyards at Curry Farms – a beautiful project there. So in total, that will probably put us around 15 since 2011. And we hope we’re still just getting started.
Host: It’s very impressive. I want to talk a little bit about the expansion into Louisville. You started in Wichita, what made you decide to cross into another state and start an Epcon project there?
Scott: We had ambitions towards growth and knew how to follow a proven process with Epcon. We all know there are regional differences, so it’s not just plug and play. But, if you follow those systems and you get the right people, it can become plug and play. We met Rich Heareth in Charlotte, North Carolina at a regional meeting. We wanted to expand and weren’t sure where exactly, we had a couple of false starts. That would have been in 2017, I think. So I called Rich and tried to coax him to go to another market and he had just left Charlotte and he’s the one that landed us in Louisville, really. It’s more about the people. And it’s a great market and we’ve learned a lot and we continue to expand there. But we couldn’t do that without Epcon, I don’t think.
Host: Can you talk a little bit about the challenges that you’ve faced along the way and any ways that Epcon has helped you through those challenges?
Scott: The challenges are external and internal. There’s always something new. It’s taking longer to get land entitled and developed and it’s harder to buy land. It would have been extremely easy to buy as much as you wanted in 2009. Times change. The challenges that Epcon has helped us with are probably more organizational and operational type challenges. My partner and I both have a lot of experience, but we’ve never worked for another home builder or a large home builder and kind of built it from scratch so to speak. And when we learned about the Epcon way, we started looking at some of the tools that were available. We thought, wow, this is a lot better than a 10-year career at Pulte. So that’s helped us overcome so many challenges and learning how to market and how to sell and the purchasing side of things. If you get all those pieces together and you’re diligent, it does make for a fairly easy process.
Host: What advice would you have given yourself in the past when you were first getting started? What do you wish you had known then that you know now? Some wisdom you can impart to the newest Franchise Builders coming in.
Scott: Be very diligent and selective about who you work with and who you hire. Find a way to gently be someone that holds them accountable. Because when you grow, you have a lot of moving parts and it’s all about the people and you want the right people.
Host: Scott, any final thoughts you’d like to share?
Scott: I will add that over the last five years, maybe six, this Epcon Franchising business is in as good of hands as I’ve ever seen it in. And I’m proud to be a part of that.
To learn more about Scott’s story, watch SMB to Large Regional Builder.