Simplifying Life Through Technology

Troy Smith: Smith Slovik Residential Design Group

August 23, 2024 SoundVision LLC Season 5 Episode 17

On this episode of “Simplifying Life Through Technology,” Mark, Zach, and Andrew sit down with Troy Smith from Smith Slovik Residential Design Group.

Founded in June 2014 by residential designers Troy Smith and Dave Slovik, Smith Slovik brings together over 30 years of experience, merging their independently owned design firms to create a powerhouse in high-end residential architecture. Troy shares the story behind Smith Slovik’s unique approach to residential design, where the focus is not just on creating beautiful homes, but on crafting spaces that cater to the specific needs and lifestyles of their clients. 

Join us as we learn how Troy Smith and Dave Slovik’s complementary strengths—Troy’s artistic vision and Dave’s project management and construction document expertise—drive their success in delivering homes that exceed expectations. Discover how aligning business roles with individual talents has powered their success, fueled by strong client relationships and word-of-mouth referrals.

From the initial concept to construction-ready plans, Smith Slovik ensures that every detail is meticulously planned, making the design process as enjoyable as the end result. Troy sheds light on the collaborative effort it takes to integrate features like lighting, shading, and sound systems seamlessly into beautiful living spaces.

Whether you’re a design enthusiast or a homeowner looking to elevate your living space, this episode offers valuable insights into the art of luxury home design and the innovative process behind it. Tune in to discover how Smith Slovik Residential Design Group is redefining high-end luxury living through a unique blend of innovation, passion, and a deep commitment to their client's needs.

To learn more about Smith Slovik Residential Design Group:

https://www.smithslovik.com/

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https://www.instagram.com/smithslovik/

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Speaker 1:

So joining us today in the podcast studio we have Troy Smith of Smith Slovic Residential Design Group.

Speaker 2:

How cool is that you get an applause. I know.

Speaker 3:

I know Smith Slovic. If I could carry Andrew around with me from meeting to meeting, that would be fantastic Great cheer squad.

Speaker 1:

That's right.

Speaker 4:

Every superhero has to have like a theme song like have you seen the movie? I'm gonna get you sucka.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I have, oh yeah that's right. Andrew's the hype man love it well, troy, thanks for for coming in with us. Uh, today in the podcast room. We are super excited about the opportunity to to talk to you and learn more about what you guys do from the design level. But before we kind of drill down into that, why don't you kind of take us through Smith Slovic in general? What's your position? Kind of give us the high level.

Speaker 3:

Sure, thank you, and thank you for having me. We we've seen you work through the years We've had we've had the pleasure of kind of collaborating behind the scenes, so it's really nice to be in the, in this studio, and, uh, spending some time we, so thank thanks again for having me. Um, smith, slovic, I don't. I don't know where to start, other than maybe the beginning, which is Dave and I, my business partner. He's the Slovic of a Smith and Slovic, as you can imagine.

Speaker 2:

This is the easy name to pronounce oh gosh.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, no one, no one, ever, no one ever struggles with it or spells it wrong, including myself from time to time, and when it comes time to write, checks some reason, I just can't get it right.

Speaker 3:

I got you officially. He and I have been designing together for many years before that and formally decided to form Smyslovik again in 2014. Economic reasons he and I were working together on so many projects. It just kind of made sense. He and I are in alignment. It's really really interesting. His level of skill and my level of skill are dynamically different. He is engineer mindset, I'm creative mindset.

Speaker 3:

I kind of brain right brain, oh goodness, and it works really good. We've yet to have a fight, whatever. That really means Any sort of large disagreement, and I think it mostly is because of how dynamically different we are. Uh, he is an absolute mastermind, doesn't forget a thing. Uh, I am the stereotypical creative uh, really good at what I do. But when it comes to some of the memory recall, thank goodness I have Dave, uh, but we've been in business that long. Business has been great. It's a family owned business. My wife is also a part of the business. Uh, his wife helps us do some marketing and some of that kind of stuff behind the scenes.

Speaker 2:

So you say design, use the word design. How is that different from architecture? Oh, great question.

Speaker 3:

So loosely said it's not, it's just not. I have been designing for since 2000 shoot goodness 1995, six, um. And the biggest difference is we specialize in high-end residential architecture period to the point where an architect may not specialize. They may do a larger, broad scope right, they may do commercial oh yeah, I was just gonna say commercial they may do commercial work, they may do large, big box, small stuff, uh, residential, the same thing.

Speaker 3:

They also might, might, specialize in just a single style of architecture. We don't do that. Yeah, uh, do specialize in residential. That's kind of the biggest difference, at least broad strokes, if you will.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, it's interesting to hear you talk about left brain, right brain. You know we and the EOS system that we use like we talk all the time as we've scaled our business, like part of the things that work with you, what Mark was good at and enjoyed were different than what I was good at and enjoyed, and separately you can only scale and be as involved and as happy as you know kind of the common denominator of being the bottom, Like oh I love doing this, but today I also have to do this. Removing that thing that you don't really like or that you aren't good at, really allows you to kind of put it in sixth gear and hit the gas. It's funny to hear you say that.

Speaker 3:

And the the dynamics behind that are often we're doing jobs. When you, when you own businesses and you work with a dynamic group of people, you're often doing things you don't like.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to owning a business right the.

Speaker 3:

I think the beautiful part in what Dave and I may be dynamically different than others is what I extremely hate, doing, he actually enjoys, for sure.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, same thing here, exactly the same thing.

Speaker 3:

It's really nice. Hey, dave, I need to do this thing and for him it comes so natural. Anyways, yeah, it's pretty cool.

Speaker 2:

So how do you guys find business? So does business find you? Do you market and find it? Like you said, it's a high-end residential design services that you offer. So how does one find you?

Speaker 3:

Oh, we're lucky. Everything just comes to us. They pay what we're looking for. Life is wonderful that way. No, the reality is all different avenues. We don't do loads of marketing. Most of what we do is word of mouth.

Speaker 3:

I've been in and around Charlotte since 2000. I've worked with other firms, as have Dave, through those years and those connections, those builders connections it's really just building a brand. Here's what we do. We want to do it the same every time. We want it so repetitive that if and someone refers us, they know that what they're going to get is that same product. So it really is word of mouth. Simply said, we're fortunate. We've got good relationships with the builders out there. We've also tried to have relationships with our customers. We also try to have relationships with our customers deeper than the job itself. We want to take interest in who they are, who their kids are, who's going to be living in the house long-term, short-term. Those are extremely important to us for the type of business that comes to us. And again, when we are in word of mouth industry, very much like you guys are, that is the most important thing. If we've tarnished that relationship by developing a different product every time out, we're going to be chasing work forever.

Speaker 2:

I got to assume that if you are in, using your words, high-end, custom residential, you have to have a relationship with the client, the people that are going to live there. I mean, your client might be the builder, but the people that are going to live there, because to truly be custom, you got to know how they live right, you got to know what's important to them.

Speaker 3:

You can't just cookie cutter it Without question that that's exactly right. Um, what? What partially makes us unique is that we are asking those deep, intimate questions how do you live? Um, oddly enough, how our bathroom behaviors, how our friends, friends and families bathroom behaviors. Those things are extremely important, right? Do we want to live in the bathroom or is it just purely functional? I?

Speaker 3:

want to get in it, do the business and get out of that space. Uh, those are really important, um, and we hear often that those questions aren't really being asked. Um, for us it feels natural, no pun intended, that's right, Seems seems to be. That's exactly right. Yeah, but, but, but. But. It is a relationship business. We we often, as a matter of fact, say we are in the relationship business. It just so happens we're good designers on top of that.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So what if to kind of go back to the architecture thing for a sec what if a customer, uh an end, uh someone's going to live in the home? What if they have an architect and then they interview a builder? Cause that happens, right, that happens a lot oh yeah. The builder happens to be one of your customers that you work with all the time. Do you partner with the architect or does? Are they kind of taken care of and that's not one you work with, or how does that work?

Speaker 3:

It hard. It's a hard often when you get that many creative minds in one room. Sometimes egos are a thing, Sure, and and we try our best to remote, you know, egos out, egos aside, we have a customer trying to serve here we first established are we able to work together organically, and what does this mean long-term? Often it works perfectly fine. We have a conversation, we're here to help. I hope you're here to help too. Let's, let's serve Mr and Mrs, mrs client, uh, and when that happens, which is most of the time, it works really, really well. We don't have to cap on that. We don't have lots of projects that require or need an architect and us it's okay, that's interesting.

Speaker 3:

We just don't do it. Um, once a year, twice a year, that type of project comes through the table, but it's pretty rare Often, that is if we've got someone who's out of state we'll say new york, for just just an example. Um, often we'll have someone out of state that, where they came from, required an architect.

Speaker 2:

So then we've got that relationship oh okay, so there's some code or laws or that are state on the state level, not that are different from state to state from state to state, from town to town, exactly okay, and if we were more long form here, we could.

Speaker 3:

We could get into a really long conversation about it, but the the simple answer is in our state and many surrounding states, quote-unquote architects are not required, required. I would highly encourage homeowners. If they don't know what they're doing, however, or where to go, an architectural firm or a firm like ours is a good place to start, and there's layers of complexity there because there's all the way from a drafter right out of high school that is exactly what it sounds like and then there's us in the middle, design firms, and then there's architectural firms. The first thing would be to establish what are you looking to do, right? If you're needing a porch drawn on the back of your house, a drafter may serve that need perfectly well. If you're looking for a high-end custom home, it's either us or an architectural firm.

Speaker 2:

We talk a lot about here and actually, zach I'll throw it off to you in a sec is the lighting design. It comes up an awful lot and when we go to Miami or New York you brought up New York building a high-end luxury home that does not have a lighting designer is almost unheard of. In charlotte it like doesn't exist. And I remember back where we had the aha moment where we just thought we thought architects drew in lighting point, like we just assumed that was it and it's not. It's not so, zach is actually a lighting designer yeah, well, not to.

Speaker 4:

I I'm learning, like some of the stuff you're just talking about. I'm like I didn't even know, like we've been involved with architects and designers for years and years and years Like I didn't really know that there was that stipulated difference between a design firm and architectural firm. I definitely knew the difference between, like a draftsman or a drafter, but yeah, yeah, I mean and that's kind of where we are really trying to ingrain a lot of our efforts right now into relationship building is is with the architectural and design community. Um, because we we feel like that, charlotte being a tertiary market to some of the larger market, we're still a great market and you know, some of the trends that we see start in the upper end, higher, you know, upper scale uh, demographics throughout the U S. Certainly with our relationships that we have in our industry with with other companies that are in those markets, we see those drift our way pretty quickly and we've been trying to kind of pound the pound the book of lighting design with with anybody that'll just give us a minute to listen and we appreciate that you guys have given us that minute to listen over the past short period of time. But I, because I definitely feel like it's such an elevated experience.

Speaker 4:

I think when you guys were near the first time, I was like you know, these homes you guys are designing are they're like your baby, like your kids, right? I mean, uh, you know it, I can look to an extent. I can look at a house and go a betsmith's slope. There's a vibe, right. Same thing with designers, interior designers that we work with. There's a vibe you can usually tell, and I know we take personal ownership over the relationships we have with our clients, the systems that we end up deploying.

Speaker 4:

There's a lot of lifestyle application there. But I was like you guys it's probably terrible to design this beautiful home with all these finishes and have an audio video guy coming and just throw up speakers all over or whatever. And there's gotta be more of a synergy for the clients that care. And I feel like we and you all and a handful of other builders and local folks work with people that are either in this market or moving into this market that do care for a fully tailored you know solution from tip to stern and not hey, we designed all this beautiful stuff but now the AV guy's going to come in here and throw up eight and 10 inch speaker discs all over the ceilings and walls.

Speaker 2:

Well, I definitely want to get into technology here in a sec, but but, and we're going to put your contact information and we're going to put your all your socials and where people can contact you in the show notes and whatnot. I would challenge anybody that's listened, that's listened this long, which you know, the three people that, uh, I think there's four, so you've already told your wife that's good, my wife, my kids know we're good, uh to to actually go and research.

Speaker 2:

Your designs are insane. I mean they're insane. There's no way to describe that in words. You have to go see it. So I just challenge you to to go and kind of check out the website, check out instagram and and see some of the things that we're talking about, because it is next level next level, without a doubt.

Speaker 4:

Not to name names, but I was speaking with I think we were talking before this uh, a reputable builder and superintendent and he was like, yeah, I think I'm gonna have an opportunity to work with smith's level. It's like I've seen their plans forever. They're so cool and we now I think we're gonna have an opportunity. I was like man, it's awesome.

Speaker 3:

I mean they're great, you're great, it's, it's phenomenal stuff the stuff I have to speak to, that you can't give somebody that type of pat on the back and it not mean something really deep and intimate. So thank you for that. But it's not without partnerships like this, partnerships with the builders, clients, communicating super clearly what they're looking for and the team we have behind us wives, employees, et cetera it is not without working our rear ends off, but thank you.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, that's, that's cool.

Speaker 2:

So we talked to Zach. You started to touch a little bit on technology and us being a technology company, it's always nice to touch on that. Do you guys? When you in your designs, how much of technology do you put into it? Either a, without a partner like like us in mind, or or B? Do you reach out and you know, because the customers asked for a theater or I don't know something. Sure, how much of that do you guys do organically or get help with, or how does that all work?

Speaker 3:

so this might be a long-winded answer, so bear with me just a moment. So often we have conversations with any client and or builder that's in our office about the importance of all pieces of the design, and what that means is from foundation all the way to roof and everything in between, period and to the point. Often, the reality is we run out of time to talk about some of these technologies and things like that, and what I mean by that is we spend so much time getting intimate about how you live in the house, who's going to be in the house, et cetera, so much time getting intimate about how you live in the house, who's going to be in the house, et cetera, and we wish that we could have these conversations with people like yourself in that first, second, third and or fourth meeting. Oh, wow, okay, yeah, where, where the value in that is? I know just about enough. I know enough about technology to be dangerous. I know there's really cool stuff out there. I've seen it, I've touched it, I've been in people's homes where they have it, and I'm always in awe of what is possible for us to spend an absorbent amount of time talking about.

Speaker 3:

It becomes really a challenge in the design meetings, um, if a homeowner more often than not it's the husband that says I'm really into sound, I'm really into lighting man, that's an easy segue for us because, okay, great, we want to partner you with the right people, um and and so. So the very short answer is we don't spend enough time talking about technology and I wish we could spend more. And it's really done. It's really a challenge for us, because what I think is today's technology, you guys will tell me, well, that was yesterday and we've already. We've already exceeded and we're past that.

Speaker 3:

Um, what makes, again, what makes the best designs and what people rave about is when we can have conversations on the front end. What is this design for you? How do we want to live in the house? And then, if we can partner them up with a technology specialist, if we can partner them up with interior design specialist, even some builders don't quite have those relationships the way we hope. So we want to partner all those things up, um and I I told you this would be long-winded, so bear with me. So the the longer um period, if you will, to this answer is I want to spend more time doing it, which is part of why I'm sitting here today. I want to be able to get in front of those customers and say listen, you've got to go in this direction. If you don't do this, you're going to be missing a key ingredient to making your house feel whole. So spend the time.

Speaker 2:

It's. You know, it's interesting because we're in this weird kind of middle ground as a, as a um, a contractor, if you will, you guys sit down with a customer early on and let's just say, in a best case world, maybe there's an architect, maybe there's not, maybe it's just you guys and there's a builder there and maybe there's a designer, they may sit in there too. You know, if you're talking about how the people live in the home and they've been working with somebody or whatever, but a framer is not in there, A plumber is not in there, right, an HVAC guy is not in there, An electrician is not in there. You know, cabinet guy's not in there, they're all vital. They're not in. We maybe because we're us, but we feel like we should be at that table because everything in the house we now are touching, like so many parts of it, we're touching from an aesthetic point of view.

Speaker 2:

Hey, where do you want to access point? A camera, a security device, whatever? Do you want to see it? What color do you want? You know blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff, and how do you want to see it. What color do you want? You know blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff and how do you want to live? And so I think that in our industry, one of the things we struggle with is how do we get to that table? It feels like builders will tell us man, it'd be nice if you were there in the beginning. You just mentioned that Troy, which is nice, so I'm glad that at least there's some recognition that that's the case.

Speaker 4:

Do you feel that way? Yeah, yeah, and I think the important part there, I mean, look, we can, there's a lot of oversight, that and not really from a design standpoint, maybe from a homeowner, and maybe they just didn't know.

Speaker 3:

Maybe both.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, yeah, and we can fix a lot of oversight in the mid and tail end of a project lot of oversight in the mid and tail end of a project.

Speaker 4:

But I firmly believe the homes that we're working in we've kind of, you know, strategically aligned ourself with the market to be kind of the same placeholder, the same demographic as you guys and um and, and I think that those folks there's almost um, there's almost an expectation, like if you're going to spend a handful of million dollars on a home, just to use a quick, just easy example, that I think will resonate with everybody, especially women, and when we come in and talk about lighting and shading in the showroom, you want to talk about the woman being involved in the conversation. It happens every time, you can watch it happen every day. But when I look at that homeowner and go, do you want six light switches in your front four year or do you want one keypad? That's, that's the only, that's the question. And if that, depending on how that question is answered, now you know like, okay, are we with a? Where are we working with a client that might be interested in?

Speaker 4:

technology the shading stuff, the lighting stuff, the lighting design. Lighting these homes that you design properly. I mean if you go into high-end retail hospitality. I promise you, when you walk into a room that's had a lighting designer on the project, you will feel it. You might not be able to articulate it, but you'll just know.

Speaker 2:

Oh, we mentioned like if you go to Morton's for dinner when you walk in, lighting is a incredibly important part of that whole experience. That's right, it's incredibly important. And there's so much design. You know whether it's, uh, pockets for shades or whether it's risers for theater seating. That you may know or you may not, but where where we can really help out in that. And yeah, and you mentioned expectations, you build an X number of million dollar home and you don't put some of this stuff in there and then you go to sell it down the road or whatever. You're almost behind the eight ball in some cases.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, we've got builders that are considering lighting control and spec homes.

Speaker 3:

Well, and and, and I will say on on my side, right I, I, obviously my job is architectural and floor plan flow and how does the plan live? Right, and that's awesome. But there's only a small piece of that right. That's only a small piece of it. Forgive me, the, the extensions of it are what are the finishes in that space? How does it?

Speaker 3:

how does it feel and sound right. What? How does my sofa fit in the space and what does it sound like when I'm in that space? I walk, as you might imagine, a lot of homes, a lot hundreds a year, to be honest with you, and we travel out of country and those kinds of things. In many ways, what we have in the United States is dynamically far and exceeded. What's what's outside the country from an architectural perspective-ish Longer answer. When I walk a home and it's been lit properly and the sound is done correct, it is a dynamically better, warmer, more inviting home, more inviting home.

Speaker 3:

Peered into the point. Every time there are challenges to that, as you both know better than I do. There are a starter level of what lighting and sound looks like to a. Hey, these guys just spare no expense and did it right. I would argue that spare no expense and the starter neither one of those necessarily have to be in play. It feels like there's a middle ground that I see often that does so much and kind of what I mean by that, and forgive me if I'm stealing y'all's light for a second, but there's a world where two or three rooms in the house can be done properly and it speaks volumes and you don't have to go and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in the house can be done properly and it speaks volumes and you don't have to go and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in the entire house, anyways we use the term high impact, low impact here all of the time.

Speaker 4:

all the time, I mean, there are two, three, four locations in the house where you're going to spend 75% of the money to build the house Right and and those are the ones that you know. I hate, I hate. I don't like the term value engineer, but when we're talking about, you know, value engineering, a an experience like that let's, let's find the areas where it makes sense and hone in there Again, I'm.

Speaker 3:

I'm forgive me, I will talk over you unintentionally.

Speaker 2:

Happens all the time it does happen all the time unintentionally happens all the time.

Speaker 3:

It does happen all the time. You just, you just said experience. And what's the experience? You know? And and we try to start that on day one, which is part of the conversation, which is also why I'm saying I wish if, if there was a dream that could come true. And I love what I do, thank goodness I I get to design, play with crayons and present pretty pictures to people. That's a pretty cool darn thing that not many people have the talent to do, so I'm blessed there.

Speaker 3:

But if it was a perfect scenario, what it would look like is I'm in the room, lighting and sound, people are in the room. Landscape specialists are in the room oh yeah, that's a good one. Pool specialists are in the room. The builder kind of overseeing and making sure all of us haven't lost our minds in the room. The builder kind of overseeing and making sure all of us haven't lost our minds.

Speaker 3:

Homeowners, interior designers, et cetera. There's probably six trades that if they were in that room, or at least a part of the conversation, homeowners could at least then know this is important. This might be more important than I ever thought it to be. Let's at least entertain the conversations to see what is possible and then from there it's easy enough, right, we can peel back. Okay, this isn't important, that is more important, anyways, uh, we and we can go down the rabbit hole. But that's the dream meeting, um, no different than when a plan's done and we break ground for the first day. That groundbreaking quote unquote ceremony would be cool for all there saying let's, let's get going.

Speaker 4:

That would be cool. You said something earlier and then I'll. I know we need to move on, but you you said um, egos, so getting that many people in that room might you might run into an ego or a time, but where we are sound, vision is eager and, and it has been to this point, been at some of those tables. We did a project for a gentleman last year who was in his businesses, acquiring, building and selling businesses and a lot of that's on the tech side, and he's like you know, it's funny, I'm building a house and I have to meet with the architect, then I got to meet with the cook and then next we got to meet with the designer.

Speaker 4:

He's like when I do a big web rollout, like I've got my code writer, I've got my design, you know everybody's in there, we're talking at the same table and it's it's way more efficient. He's like I wish building a house was more efficient than it does. Like me too.

Speaker 3:

Too too efficient, too really quick it's. That also, though, takes time. If we all want to be players in the project, that means we're all delivering that same message to Mr and Mrs Customer. Please do not expect this to be a two or three or four month process Like. This. Might be six, seven, eight months or a year, depending on the complexity of the project, However and segue, but when we're done and when we spent this time up front, we're not then tearing things out in the field.

Speaker 3:

We're not then manipulating and changing and having change orders At least those things are to a minimum If we spent the time up front. Our process and forgive me just a second our process is we tell people all the time, expect it to be six months, and that's what the way it's currently running most of the time, and what I mean by that is, if we're going to get the landscape architects to play in this, in this arena, if we're going to get the sound and and and sound audio visual guys to also technology guys to play in this arena as well, then that means time. Let's spend that time, let's have those meetings.

Speaker 2:

Uh, if this project is that, if it's just a spec house, this might not be, but yeah well said, and when we do have that opportunity unfortunately it's it's probably less, uh, less common than the normal, but when we do have that opportunity, the end result for the customer at the end is almost always a you wouldn't believe moment, A hundred percent, because we shifted all the chaos to the beginning instead of to the end. That's right, and yeah. So I know we want to move on and ask a couple of fun questions before we get out of here. So I know we want to move on and ask some and ask a couple of fun questions before we get out of here, but before we do that, I want to make sure that we didn't miss anything that you would like to touch on with Smith Slovic, with design, anything about your company that that you feel like anyone should know. If we've already covered it, great. If not.

Speaker 3:

No, thank you for that. There's nothing high level, I think any. Nothing high level, I think any. Any time a company pick, pick, the company has an opportunity to talk about themselves in a positive manner, they take it and run with it. It's so hard for me to do that. I am. I'm just grateful to be able to have a voice. I'm grateful to have the team around me. I'm grateful to have partnerships like this. I love to watch and feel them evolve. I also like watching back in the background You'll see this as we develop this relationship, and to see my team interact with you guys is super cool. To be not only the house, these homes we design, our babies. This business is my baby too. To watch it grow without me is a I can't. Even I get. I'm getting cold chills, goosebumps right now thinking about it.

Speaker 3:

I know that really well it's a pretty cool thing to watch it grow Well to.

Speaker 2:

Just To just add Some accolades Anybody that's been in your business designing custom high-end homes since the early 2000s. You said like 95 you've been doing. Is that right 96?

Speaker 3:

95, 96. I was dabbling in a shed my dad and I in Myrtle Beach and it was a clumsy mess of design, but that's what we were doing and you've been here.

Speaker 2:

Did I get it right? It's 2004? 2000. Yep, 2000. So, in essence, 20 plus years of this and you're still at. It is a testament not only to just stick-to-itiveness and whatnot, but also success, because it's so rare to find a business that's lasted that long, and especially one in this kind of market, through all the ups and downs that have happened in real estate over the last 20 years, and to be in that kind of high end luxury market. It's, it's a testament to running a great business and being successful. So congratulations for that. Appreciate that. Thank you, andrew. What else do we have for Troy?

Speaker 1:

Andrew. Well, we always like to end on a fun note, so a question that we ask all of our guests is who is your favorite band, artist, concert?

Speaker 3:

music, yeah, music, event, whatever yeah okay, all right. So I I I listen to more podcasts than music. Um, probably like many of us professionals. Right, it was an age group, that's right, that's right welcome.

Speaker 4:

Welcome you, 48 year olds yes, I'm out of there, just turned 49, like a month ago.

Speaker 3:

I'm very confident. I look like 30. Thank you everybody. So favorite band would be everclear and oh, wow, okay, I know, and, and, and. Jack johnson, you know that for me that type of music, yeah, day by the pool, day in the lake, it kind of hits all genres. So those, those would be my, my thing. I don't do a lot of concerts, um most because I deal with people every day. So yeah, yeah so the concert going for me is like uh, maybe it's gotta be the perfect concert to go to. Um, about podcasts.

Speaker 4:

What podcast you listen to? Yeah, what podcast.

Speaker 3:

So I listened to Tim Ferriss, I listened to, uh, joe Rogan, and you're the one guy.

Speaker 1:

I am. I am definitely the one guy, and.

Speaker 3:

Definitely the one guy, and fortunately for me, he's popular because of me, so good yeah.

Speaker 2:

He's an avid listener to this podcast, by the way. Oh, I'm sure, shout out to.

Speaker 3:

Jeff, I'm sure. Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at.

Speaker 1:

That's cool, cool Yep.

Speaker 2:

Well, we're very appreciative of your time kind of giving us an idea and a peek behind the curtain and just the partnerships and whatnot. We look forward to many years going forward with that, but thank you for being in here with us today. It's been awesome.

Speaker 4:

Let's get, if you don't mind, just in case we've got more than four listeners. What's your website and how can people get in touch with you?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, thank you for that. So our website is smithslovakcom, pretty straightforward. Our social medias again it's is smithslovakcom, pretty, pretty straightforward. Our social medias If, again, it's all Smith Slovic, pretty straightforward. Um, again, don't, don't expect to see loads and loads of marketing out there. We're fortunate We've got a good marketing team in house. That that does our social media. Thank goodness it's not on my shoulders.

Speaker 4:

Um, yeah, Smith, slovik S L O V I K, that's what.

Speaker 3:

I wanted to hear S M I T H, by the way, and if you get that wrong, you got the right purpose, the right people. That's right. So, yeah, those are social medias and stuff like that. Uh, yeah, that that's the best way to see current projects. Obviously, instagram and things like that are most current websites. Are are great. They're a landing site, but yeah, Cool, awesome.

Speaker 1:

Well, go ahead and check them out. There are some beautiful homes. Thank you again for joining us, Troy.

Speaker 4:

Thank you. Yes, sir, take care.

Speaker 2:

All right.

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