Ricardo Sorto - Building a Home Remodeling Empire with Bespoke Construction

Unlock the secrets behind a successful home remodeling empire with Ricardo Sorto of Bespoke Construction, as we share an engrossing tale of friendship, expertise, and the pursuit of growth. Together with his best friend Brandon, Ricardo has crafted a business that stands on the pillars of diverse experience, ranging from hands-on construction to real estate acumen. Tapping into their collective wisdom, they navigate the competitive Northern Virginia housing market with an eye towards expansion and larger development projects. Our chat unveils the essence of their partnership and the ambitious roadmap for their company's future.

Balancing a full-time job with the demands of an entrepreneurial venture is no small feat, and in this episode, you'll discover how Ricardo masters this tightrope walk. We dissect the strategic role of digital marketing and client education in the construction niche while emphasizing the value of personal boundaries, hobbies, and networking in maintaining equilibrium. Get inspired by Ricardo's methodical approach to time management and his dedication to evolving his passion into a sustainable lifestyle.

As we chart the course of Bespoke Construction's trajectory, we find ourselves enveloped in discussions about the company's strategic planning and the dream of full-time investment in the business. From the intricacies of team meetings to managing expectations and scaling operations, Ricardo shares his blueprint for success. The conversation culminates with the profound impact of a project close to his heart—a multi-unit Airbnb transformation—and leaves us reflecting on Ricardo's remarkable journey, his resolve to give back, and the belief that with the right circle of influence, any vision can be brought to life.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

So my name is Ricardo Sorto. We are a home remodeling specialist company with Prespoke Construction, and the type of services that we offer is any sort of remodeling work that you can imagine that you need in your home, whether it's a home addition, remodeling your kitchen space, all the different sorts of projects that anyone would typically have in their home. We work often with realtors and just anyone that we get through referrals, and we offer as well some design services with our work. So if we come into a client that would potentially like to have a large scale project like adding you know something to their home home, then we'll bring our designers on board to work with them to spec out the job to what they're looking to get done.

Speaker 2: 1:20

Awesome, and now can you tell me a little bit about your story, about how your journey has been and how you got into this industry?

Speaker 1: 1:27

So the reason we started Bespoke Construction with my business partner was it was a very natural thing. He had bought a house that he was looking to flip for him, for himself, and just have as an investment property, and so it turned into one of those things where it was like, after work, all our friends got together, we went to the house for right about a month, I would say, and we just started working on the house painting. Right about a month, I would say, and we just started working on the house painting, doing remodeling the kitchen, the bathrooms, you name it. And the majority of the work was done between him and I and some of our friends. And at the end of it all, he was like, you know, we could probably do a good business out of this. Him and I have a vision on how ideally we thought a home remodeling company should be, and so and not to mention he's also my best friend, so his name is Brandon Got it, and so we started. We started the conversations at that point.

Speaker 1: 2:27

After the job concluded, he, you know, put the house in the market for rent, and you know so. Then it kind of began to form into an ongoing conversation that we talked about here and there. And so one day he took a family trip to Florida. He invited me. We went together as a family and in doing so, we were talking one night over a bar at the beach, and then he was like you know, this is my vision for you to leave your full time job, and then I'd like, you know, this is my vision for you to leave your full-time job, and then I'd like for us to, like, partner up and create a business. And, yeah, after that it kind of like spearheaded into just doing smaller work or smaller jobs together, before we set everything up and built what is now Bespoke Construction.

Speaker 2: 3:12

Awesome, and do you guys have any background in like design or remodeling? Like, did you you guys go to school for that self taught, or how did you get into it?

Speaker 1: 3:20

So for me is a little bit of self taught work. So growing up, my dad worked in construction. Since we moved over to the States, so I'm originally from El Salvador and so we migrated when I was eight years old and so my dad, since he moved here, he was just working construction. So any home project you can imagine that my mom wanted done at the house, it was always him and you know other workers that he worked with.

Speaker 1: 3:44

But you know, I was always like the handyman type of thing, so like we would, you know, install a new tile floor from my mom's bathroom or something of the sort, and so my dad kind of just like taught me how to do everything, just to be, you know, a handyman. So I did have a general concept and idea of what it was that was in the construction industry. Brandon, on the other hand, before he became a realtor, he was also a project manager for a construction firm, and so he, you know he has specialty in structural engineering and architectural designs, and so he has that background as well that I don't have. He also is very adept in the work that he does in construction as well, and so both of us kind of like merged and fused those ideas together to create it.

Speaker 2: 4:32

I love that. I love that story. And now, how many employees do you have in your business currently?

Speaker 1: 4:38

So right now, like we're the only two employees, so we sub out all of our work. We have a number of contractors that work with us and so you know, we typically get the referrals, work with our clients and then, depending on what work the client needs, then we'll contact our contractors that we've worked with for years and then those are, you know, our go-to guys. Our long-term goal is that we'd be able to have people you know under our payroll working directly for us. But until you know, we grow and expand to that level, like we just sub out everything.

Speaker 2: 5:11

Okay, gotcha. Yeah, that was going to lead me into the question of where do you see yourself in five years, but you kind of answered that by saying, like you're hoping to have people under your wing, under payroll. But what about like location? Would you like to have like a space, a bigger space? Where are you currently?

Speaker 1: 5:26

guys working at, or we just go to coffee shops, you know, or we'll meet up at different areas here in the Northern Virginia area and those are kind of like our meetings. You know we do a lot of teams meeting but we do like to go to coffee shops first thing in the morning on a Saturday, you know, kind of like go over our work, our projects where we're at, and so right now we've started just in the general Northern Virginia area. That's kind of like where we like to stay. But we do obviously plan on branching out as we get like a higher volume of clients, obviously the DC Maryland area. And long term we're looking at having developments like actually like having a whole development to build a house from bottom up. That's our long term goal. We don't intend on just staying doing like a smaller, you know, kind of like your traditional paint job type of thing we want to do large projects.

Speaker 1: 6:21

We're also looking into working together on building a fund in which we will have a lot of not only money to be able to finance the work that needs to be done, but also just have a good flow of business coming in and keeping everyone busy.

Speaker 2: 6:36

Okay, and then, when you're currently looking for contractors, what are you looking for when you are hiring them for a job?

Speaker 1: 6:43

So we're looking at contractors who are licensed, who are insured. We are not your traditional home remodeler that knows a little bit of everything traditional home remodeler that knows a little bit of everything. We like to ensure that we work only with people that are experts in their specialty. So, you know, if we have someone that works on floors, he or she may only know about floors and that's all they do. The reason being is because we want to make sure that the client gets the best service, the best experience, the best, the best materials, everything, and you can only do that with someone that knows exactly what they've been doing.

Speaker 1: 7:21

So all of our guys, as a matter of fact, we have multiple properties. I have multiple properties that I own, brandon as well Every single one of our contractors have worked for us in our own homes. So it's like we have people that we fully trust, that we know their craftsmanship and that we're, you know, 100% certain that the moment we send them out to our clients, they're going to do a great job. They're going to be satisfied with the craftsmanship of the work that has been done.

Speaker 2: 7:46

Great, awesome. And now tell me a little bit about marketing. How are you getting the word out there about your business and the type of services and work that you do and offer?

Speaker 1: 7:55

So right now we're doing a lot of networking events. We are part of a BNI chapter which is a networking business group, and so we meet weekly on Wednesday mornings and so that group we kind of like send referrals to each other. We have in that chapter it's a seat per specialty. So we have a realtor, we have someone that handles like home loans etc. So usually it kind of works out in a way where you know, the realtor receives a client or is working with a client who has to have, obviously, the mortgage lender work with them, and then the mortgage lender, after they've completed the process, then passes it on to the next person, maybe the titling person, and then that turns into, well, you know what, now that I have purchased the home, I want to do all of these things to the house, and so then they'll reach out to us and then we'll go out and we'll say, all right, what are you trying to get done?

Speaker 1: 8:47

And so we do have a very good referral system with them. We do go to a lot of networking events, uh, in evenings, depending on what we find in the area. Yeah, whatever it takes to kind of like get our name out there. We're in the process of finalizing our website and we're working with a developer to be able to kind of like, do more advertisement in the area in a way, so that we can just continue to branch out and get a higher volume of clientele coming in, or at least referrals to keep us busy.

Speaker 2: 9:16

Gotcha, and I know you said you're finalizing your website, but what about on social media? Are you guys active on there?

Speaker 1: 9:22

Yes, we're active on social media. We do have a Facebook page, we have an Instagram handle as well, we are in LinkedIn as well, and so we do have a schedule of posts, content posts yeah, yes, a lot of content that we put out and, essentially, like in the content that we posted, it's kind of like we've started doing something where we lay out the steps of what a home remodeling project looks like. So we do want to do that outreach with our clients. We do want to have them be informed of the process. So, like oftentimes too, it's like you know, you'll meet a client that doesn't really know what they're trying to do. They'll talk to you.

Speaker 1: 9:58

It may mean that, you know, you might not get the job right now, but you did educate them on something that they didn't know. You gave them options and then you left that door open for them to return. So we do want to like, do that outreach, that information of hey, like, this is what happens when you're doing this process, this is what happens when you're doing this process. This is what you should look for when you're working with a contractor, even if that contractor is not us, at least having, you know, touched that point with the client you know, in hopes that they will return to us at some point.

Speaker 2: 10:27

Absolutely, and just educating them. I'm sure that they'll always look back at that and be like, hey, they were right about that, like they said that and that's what they did.

Speaker 1: 10:34

I want to try them out Like I love it Absolutely. Yeah, that's the whole goal.

Speaker 2: 10:37

And now, who are you when you're not in the construction industry? What do you like to do?

Speaker 1: 10:42

Who are you, I'm someone that I'm a little bit of a homebody. Sometimes I like to keep to myself I have two dogs that have at home but I do like to go out and ride a lot. I ride motorcycles and have a lot of friends that do as well. My best friend and business partner does as well, and so, you know, we like to go to bike meets, we like to go to car meets as well, and then in that we do kind of take the opportunity to network with our friends as well. I'm a very outdoorsy person when it comes to, you know, going to just enjoy nature. You know, probably going to walk on the beach. That's like what I love doing. But outside of that, just you know, live a pretty quiet life, just, you know, hanging out at home when I don't have a lot of work going on, which is not the case most of the time. But, yeah, that's what I like to do.

Speaker 2: 11:35

Awesome. And now, how are you setting boundaries, like when you're at work? You know, when you're an entrepreneur, it's not a nine to five job, it's like always all the time, like 24 seven. So how do you like to set boundaries for yourself to make sure that you don't get exhausted or burnt out?

Speaker 1: 11:51

So I like to have a schedule in place, specifically when we're working with our projects, to go over, you know, anything that we have outstanding. So you know a key to that is making sure that you kind of like, budget your time if you will. So you know we have our meetings, we have our time that's designated or dedicated to work on X estimate to. You know, do some outreach to our clients. You know we've already sent out a message to a referral that we got. We haven't heard back like, ok, during this hour we're going to reach out to all of them, send a follow up email and do follow up calls. What have you? Or even if we've done some door knocking as well, you know, just taking out some flyers and neighborhoods.

Speaker 1: 12:31

It's like, hey, this is some some of the work that we do, um, but a lot of it is just scheduling that. Um, because it does eat up a lot of time. Uh, depending on where the client is, you know, sometimes the drive could in itself be like an hour, an hour and a half, whatever that is. Uh, so really creating some sort of like a structure for yourself, um, because it does get tiresome. I also have my regular 9-to-5 job, so it's like I handle both things.

Speaker 2: 12:56

Oh my God, talk to me about that. What's?

Speaker 1: 12:57

your other job. So I am a system supervisor for a school district here in Virginia and so that's always been like my gig my main gig, if you will for quite some time for the last six years and so you know I do both things at the same time. So it does take a lot of planning, a lot of organizing, a lot of communication, you know, with the people that we work with, to make everything fit and work cohesively and not like have anything be impacted on both ends really.

Speaker 2: 13:28

Yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. What advice would you give to anybody who has two jobs like that and trying to like manage the stress levels and make sure that you're always like at least at 100, not 90, hopefully, you know, personally, I think, having everything really planned out, or like your week planned out, like, how are you doing that? Are you like writing it down? Are you a notes app type?

Speaker 1: 13:53

of person on your phone. If I have a to-do list, it helps me to stay organized with the task themselves, but I'm very I'm always like overthinking it in the back of my head. So, like I'm just running, my mind is always running, and so I always have planned what I have to do on Thursday, on Friday, and so I have a general idea of what's going on. Now, each day will have its own task that I have to complete, but for the most part it is having a general idea of all right, this week this is coming up, this project is due, or we have to do this walkthrough with the client, we have to follow up on this and that. So it's just having a real good structure, real good plan for your week.

Speaker 1: 14:32

And then, like I think it's very important to do like your own business meeting per se. Right, we have our weekly meetings with my business partner to kind of go over and say, all right, what do we got going on? But it's also managing your expectations as well. You know understanding what you got going on on both jobs. You know what takes priority, you know when are you going to dedicate that time to do all of that. That's like key, because otherwise you come to a point where you just get overwhelmed and you don't know what's what to do first, and it can be really cumbersome.

Speaker 2: 15:04

That's happened to me before, so it's taken a lot of uh planning, uh ahead to make sure that you don't know overload yourself yeah, absolutely, and is the goal I mean to eventually just work one or two, or how do you plan on staying with two, like obviously no.

Speaker 1: 15:22

I don't think it's feasible to do both, because you won't be able to fully dedicate, you know, your full attention to it. Obviously being that the, the that we're relatively young as a company, you know we don't have the volume that we'd like Right now. We're, you know, handling, with a couple of our contractors, the work. But the goal is that this is going to be like my full-time job project, managing the entire scope of work coming through to bespoke construction. But, again, what we're trying to do is just build that volume to keep us busy, to be able to fully dedicate that time to it. But that's not to say that we're not able to handle the projects as a result of that. We do have a full set of team that we need to dedicate all our resources to do that. We always do. But in the meantime, yes, it's, it's taking, you know, a little bit of a time to get us there, uh, but we we do intend on doing this like just solely focusing on the business part.

Speaker 2: 16:22

Absolutely no, and I really appreciate, admire your dedication to like do both and like try to get that company like rolling you know all the way.

Speaker 1: 16:30

So kudos to you for that. No, thank you.

Speaker 2: 16:32

Thank you, yeah, and then, um, as far as for your business, um, is there anything that you guys are currently like specializing in, or is it mostly just um houses, or you want to eventually move on to like businesses like big construction projects, like that?

Speaker 1: 16:50

So right now, uh, we are specializing just in homes, right? The majority of our referrals are, just, you know, homeowners, home buyers, whatever that are trying to get projects done in their home. We've done some commercial work.

Speaker 2: 17:04

Yeah, commercial is what I wanted to ask, correct, yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:06

So we've done some commercial work. We haven't done like something as large, like an addition, but we have done like remodeling of spaces. Oftentimes we do get just paint work that they'd like to do in the commercial setting. So of course, like you know, one of them we had a paint job that was at a bank. So like you have to work with that schedule. We had to go in like 4 in the morning before the bank opened, you know, to do the work, so we are able to do that. You know we're a class A licensed contractor.

Speaker 1: 17:41

So we do intend on doing bigger scale work but for right now and I think our long term goal that we've discussed so far is just staying in, like the home development project. But that's not to say, you know, that's not something that we wouldn't be interested in. As we build capacity and we grow as a company, it's something that we'd be looking to do. I mean, in this country there's money to be made right, and so you just kind of have to go out there and figure out a way to make it, and so that's kind of like our idea and goal with our business partner.

Speaker 2: 18:04

Gotcha, Okay. And then have you had any favorite projects that you've worked on recently? Or what are some of your favorite projects that you're like oh man, I love doing these. Give me that, I'll do it.

Speaker 1: 18:14

I'm very process oriented. I love seeing something, envisioning in my head what it's gonna look like and seeing the process through from beginning to end. I'm very like. I always like to say that I have this very like assembly line mentality, and so it's like I see all right, this is how this process works, and in the time that we've done all these projects, like you know, you kind of see like all right, where this is an area of process improvement, this is where you can make this process more seamless.

Speaker 1: 18:45

And so one of the later last projects that we got was a home remodel. It was a multi-unit property and the clients were moving overseas and they were trying to turn their multi-unit property into an Airbnb right, and so they wanted to keep kind of like a very traditional historical aspect and look of a tooth to their property, and so they were working with their own designer at this point. So we worked with the designer and specking out everything that they needed, so we provided our estimate of what it was going to take to do the job, the labor, and so the material component of it. That's where the prices are going to differ based on what they decided, and so it was very it was a big project. It was very busy, but I love being able to plan with all of our contractors.

Speaker 1: 19:34

We held a meeting before we started the job, talked with the flooring guys and luckily because it was three units it was a basement, regular main level and then a second floor we kind of were able to get everyone come in during the same period of time without like stepping over each other, stepping over each other and then just seeing everything kind of just flow, communicating with them, you know, having our check-in meetings to see our progress and then doing our walkthroughs with the clients as the project was being completed. I think that was one of like the most satisfying aspects of the work, because then you were able to see a large scale project that we hadn't really done at that point and see it come to fruition from beginning to end. It was just very satisfying.

Speaker 2: 20:16

Yeah, I'm sure, because there's so much work that goes into like planning and breaking everything down and then seeing the end result, they're like, oh my gosh that works Right.

Speaker 1: 20:24

We had so many meetings with the clients, the designer, the property manager, you know and just getting all of that, absorbing it and then just putting it into action, rolling it out. It was. It's just great, and I think it works out perfectly for me because I enjoy doing those things Right, and so that's one of the things where, when we built this company with, with, with Brandon, it was a lot of okay, well, do you bring this expertise to the table, I bring this one, and then together we're just going to make a great outcome of the projects that we do A great team.

Speaker 2: 20:56

Yeah, dynamic duo there.

Speaker 1: 20:57

Absolutely absolutely.

Speaker 2: 20:58

Love that. And now, just to make sure we touch on all the key points, is there anything that you would like to say or share? It could be about yourself or business that maybe I didn't quite touch on.

Speaker 1: 21:16

I didn't quite touch on. I think something that a lot of people would like to know about our company is, if you're working with, like, a realtor, we do offer financing for your project. So if you're in a process of selling your home and you need to, you know, do any remodeling and you'd like to, you know, get all this done prior to putting it up for sale, we do offer the financing where you can pay us at closing right. So we do work with our realtor partners to let the clients know that this is something that we offer, which is, you know, not always something that a lot of construction companies do. So, and our contractors are well aware we just finance it with them and then, once it goes to close, then you know we get our funds. At that point, you know the other pieces, we do have an in-house designer that works with them. So we'll send the designer out, working with them to spec out everything, how they'd like, and whether it's, you know, getting architectural drawings or whatever it is, we'll be able to provide that to them, because we'd like for our clients to know be able to provide that to them, because we'd like for our clients to know, and the reason for our name Bespoke.

Speaker 1: 22:17

It's like a bespoke suit that's tailored to fit your style, your needs. It's custom to what you want, and so we want to make sure that we're not just we're going to come paint your house type of thing. It's what do you want and how can we get you there, and we've got the right team to do that, and so that's always from the get-go. That was always our vision, right, we wanted to do that very personal touch with the client so that they knew that you know. Not only do we know what we're doing, but we can also make it a beautiful result that you're going to enjoy. Whether you know you're living in this house or whether you know you fix it up to sell it, the next person coming in to buy this home is going to enjoy it, and that's why also, you know, long term, our goal is to be able to do all these development projects because we have our very own vision of what we'd like to put out there on the market, and so that's what we're working towards. That's awesome.

Speaker 2: 23:07

Thank you for sharing that. I love that. And now I have a couple more questions here. Are there any common misconceptions in your industry, or even just being an entrepreneur, that you come to realize like hey, this actually was not true.

Speaker 1: 23:20

Or like, hey, a lot of people are thinking that this is a certain way, but it's actually not that you would like to just clear the table or anything with um, I think, with the way the industry is right now, depending on the type of project it is, the time it takes sometimes can be a misconception that some of our clients may have In addition to also like the pricing of it. I think some people, from what I've seen, are used to having your patch up home worker that's going to come do everything a little bit of everything I've had. I've I've heard horror stories from our clients where you know they hired someone and they gave him such a cheap price and they went with them because it was like saving them.

Speaker 1: 24:06

Nickels and dimes, right you save the nickels and dimes and you skip a lot of steps and getting someone that's not a well versed in the area, that's not an expert in their in their specialty, and then you have to come back and spend more money to fix it. And so you know that saying where it's like, you know, good work, is not cheap you know and get what you pay for.

Speaker 1: 24:25

Exactly, you get what you pay for, and so we're not the most expensive company out there as it when when it comes to pricing. But we're also not the most expensive company out there when it comes to pricing, but we're also not the cheapest. We do offer a fair price based on the level of work that we know that we can provide and we know that every single client of ours have been 100% satisfied with the work and craftsmanship and the whole experience from beginning to end. I think not only is it important to provide good work, but also a good client experience, right? Like, how do I make sure that you're not only satisfied with the end result, but talking with me from beginning to end, working with our contractors from beginning to end, making sure that you know we tailor to everything that you need and make sure that we are really out of your way if you're, you know, living in a property while we're doing the work?

Speaker 1: 25:20

So all of those things, I think are common misconceptions that people have, and I think, oftentimes in the construction industry, in the home remodeling industry, that client relationship, I feel personally that it's lacking, right? I never felt like in some of the projects that I had done for myself before being a business owner, I had that like special connection with the contractor where I felt like, oh, like you know, they really do care for what I'm looking at. It's like all right, what do you want to get done? Okay, let's do it. Boom, boom, boom, get in and out. And so I do like our vision and our approach of making sure that, you know, not only do we educate, but we also provide a good customer experience from beginning to end for all of our clients.

Speaker 2: 25:57

Yeah, and it's word of mouth from what you do, so you always want to make sure that it's absolutely. Yeah, All right. And my last question here is if you could leave our listeners with a message. It could be in regards to your industry, life, racing, cars or motorcycles. What would that message be?

Speaker 1: 26:15

I think a message I'd like to leave out to whoever's listening to this is you know, go after. You know your dreams and what you intend on achieving in life. I come from a background where, you know, I grew up very poor in another country. I migrated here and I always had a vision for myself that I wanted to give back to my parents for giving me the opportunity of being here. And now that I'm here and I'm able to, you know, start this business, my goal is to be able to give that back to them and help them.

Speaker 1: 26:52

And so you know, like I said earlier, there's money to be made in this country. You know there's a lot of ways to achieve your goals. It just takes a lot of dedication surrounding yourself with the right people to be able to get there. My business partner always likes to say a rising tide raises all ships right. So it's like if you surround yourself with like-minded individuals, you know you're going to get where you need to get, and so that's probably one of the things that I would like to share in regards to like my vision and my view on where I'm at with the business and everything.

Speaker 2: 27:27

Awesome. Thank you so much for being here today and sharing that.

Speaker 1: 27:30

Thank you, I appreciate it.