Rob Stott: All right, we are back on the Connected Design Podcast. And this is one of those if I always make fun of Hollywood when it’s like the Hollywood people make movies about making movies, right? Like that’s just it is what it is. It’s like, let’s go make a movie about our industry and talk about ourselves. Well, that’s what we’re doing today. We get to do that with you, Miss Kimberly.
Now, I want to ask you this because I, you know me, I’m in Philly. So there’s a town not far from me. And in my head, I want to say it like the town. if I, if I say Lancaster, it’s wrong. But if I say Lancaster, that’s how the town is. Tell me the correct pronunciation Lancaster. So, I gotta, I gotta correct myself, right? It’s like beaten into me to not say Lancaster because they make fun of you out in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Kimberly Lancaster: Lancaster it is. Yeah. Lancaster, I believe, is the Amish way of saying it, and Lancaster is the English way of saying it. So, yeah, my dad would be thrilled.
Rob Stott: So not Amish. That’s awesome. Well, Ms. Kimberly Lancaster, appreciate you jumping on to the Connected Design Podcast and huge news. We’re just going to start. We’re going to not, we’re not going to bury any leads here in true PR fashion. So, you made an incredible announcement. I know an announcement we’ve talked about kind of a long time coming, you know, behind the scenes, right?
Kimberly Lancaster: Yeah, behind the scenes. I mean, the right amount of time coming, right? So, right, so we, I announced officially that I’ve sold Caster to Alexandra Crabb and to Pete Gerard. So Caster is.
Rob Stott: Yeah, yeah.
Kimberly Lancaster: transitioning into great hands and it was a path for sure. You and I had a quick chat before we started this about COVID and what kind of started it. that COVID is actually what started this journey for me because Caster, lots of people know this, Caster had a building in Rhode Island for the longest time. I owned it for 22 years when I sold it in 2022. And we were a hardcore, you come into the office, We hang out together. We had this great culture. We had one remote employee at that time and that was the only time I ever really successfully had a remote employee. But it was different because it was a person that I knew incredibly well and had worked with for years. Actually, Erin Phillips who’s with Pro Audio and Theory, you know, she had been at Paradigm for over a decade before she came to join Caster and it was that kind of
Rob Stott: Yeah. Yeah.
Kimberly Lancaster: decision where I wanted Erin so bad it was okay that she wasn’t in the office but she came down to our office and was in our in our Rhode Island office at least one full week a month and then COVID hit. Actually Erin had left right before COVID hit she went to have a baby and she had a very delightful baby out of it but she it started COVID started this whole idea of Nobody’s in the office and we had a 4500 square foot building.
Rob Stott: Phew.
Kimberly Lancaster: And it was three full floors. had conference rooms, had video conference rooms, we had huddle rooms, we had meeting spaces. Clients came in, media came in. We did photo shoots, we did all this stuff in this physical building, but we were a staff of like 13 or 14 at the time because we also ran an internship program. And all of a sudden nobody came in, and so I still went to work because I didn’t have a home office. And I went to work every day and it was very lonely. and it was strange and the record it costs as much in oil whether there’s one person in the building or just me right electric bills didn’t go down the maintenance cost you know then
Rob Stott: Mm-hmm. Nope.
Kimberly Lancaster: We went through that thing that I think a lot of companies do where people change jobs and changing jobs led to me talking to people who weren’t in Rhode Island. And, you know, we, we hadn’t really gotten back up to people coming back into the office. so Rachel Bradshaw, who is my VP, Rachel came from Avixa. She got laid off from Avixa during COVID and Tim Albrey. Wow. This is just a name dropping podcast.
Rob Stott: Yep.
Kimberly Lancaster: Tim Albright said, hey, I don’t know if you know Rachel, but she’s on the market. She’s been on the market for a couple of days. You should talk to her, because we were looking. And I set up the call, get her on the phone, 15 minutes into the call. Now, I’ve never met Rachel in person. I knew in 15 minutes, I knew she was the one. I just knew it. And that started all of the people who came in behind Rachel. So Olivia, Megan, Robert, all these people who actually were all in the industry, every single one of them. Olivia came from Cedia, Megan came from also from Avixir, Robert came from Nanolumens and…
Rob Stott: That’s awesome. Yeah.
Kimberly Lancaster: None of them lived anywhere near me. When I hired, except Olivia, I had known Olivia for about 10 years. All these people that I was hiring were elsewhere. And then it was two years had gone by. We still had this building. It was mostly empty. You know, actually funny enough, Pete, Alex and I were the people who were mostly in the building. You know, people here and there and…
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Kimberly Lancaster: I just started to be like, this building is too much. Actually, my breaking point, my breaking point was we had a toilet line break in the lower level and I was the only one in the office the day it happened and there was water and other things everywhere. And…
Rob Stott: It’s like… no, it’s like one of those, you have a home you’re already managing, right? You why have an office as well? It’s too much, you know? Yeah. Yeah.
Kimberly Lancaster: I mean, everything has a tipping point for everyone. I don’t think I even knew that was gonna be mine, running a, I never wanted to be an office manager. We had an office manager and then we didn’t. She actually also left after a baby. And so I was running the office and there was nobody in there and it was such a tricky time and I got really frustrated. that whole sort of setup of things also was when I had my first conversation.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Kimberly Lancaster: with a company about what it would look like to sell Caster. And they said to me, really should separate the physical building from the agency in order to break the pieces apart because Caster rented from Caster randomly. We called it the Caster Building, but I had a LLC that was called Caster Realty. And it existed solely for that building. Yeah.
Rob Stott: Yeah. I want to say almost without giving away too much. feel like that’s the setup that Ozzy had with itself coming back to my nationwide days. Like they had the office that’s in Chester Springs and, Richard, think owned it, but I like also Ozzy and rented it. So it was, you know, not just their space. So it’s not uncommon. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yep.
Kimberly Lancaster: Yeah, I… Yeah. Yep. I think this is the McDonald’s story, right? The McDonald’s story, if you ever watched the McDonald’s founder story, it wasn’t about selling burgers and fries, it was actually all about the real estate.
Rob Stott: The real estate. Yep.
Kimberly Lancaster: And when I bought the building, it was such a great investment. And it had a condo upstairs that we ended up converting over to commercial space. Actually, was where Erin always stayed when she came in also. So we could have meetings up there, it had meeting space, but it had a great kitchenette, bathroom, living setup. And so when I bought it, again, I was super young, so I, you know, was a condo that I lived in and also the number of times I lived in there over my years as I bought houses and sold houses and moved once lived there with my husband, two kids and two dogs in a 900 square foot condo with one bathroom and not a full kitchen, just a kitchenette for the record. So it was the lessons I learned, but it was learning that I really needed to kind of dissect those two things and really not that I didn’t treat them as clear business, but Caster was a
Rob Stott: no. Yeah,
Kimberly Lancaster: tenant of Caster and you did all that. So after getting some advisory conversations about what it would look like to sell Caster the agency that was one of the sort of guiding forces. So we sold the building in 2022, summer of 2022, moved over to Newport, Rhode Island.
Rob Stott: Right. Right.
Kimberly Lancaster: And then I kind of finished out that year and then I re-engaged my first actions of getting evaluation for CASTA the agency and then starting to put the pieces of what would this really look like. So that’s kind of how it started. Yeah.
Rob Stott: Well, before diving further, I want to give you a chance to, cause we’re, we’re a week out now from, think roughly a week, right? Just about a week as we sit here recording. yeah, right. So as, as we sit here recording, you know, what, like the announcement is out there. know you’ve gotten a lot of fanfare, a lot of reaction. I like the PR engine was working clearly. Like you did, you guys did the thing. Yeah.
Kimberly Lancaster: Yeah, I it’s a week today. You’d think we had a good PR firm on it.
Rob Stott: Right? You guys knew kind of knew what you were doing. But now kind of like not that the dust has settled because you make the announcement that’s any good PR person knows that’s just the start of it. Right. So, you know, but giving yourself a chance to kind of reflect on how the last week has been since the announcement. How are you? How you feeling about it all?
Kimberly Lancaster: I was So nervous, Rob. It’s almost silly how nervous I was, right? Because, you know, there were… I had to go through the process. It was a week ago today, so you’re right. That was the day the official announcement was made. But we had some steps in between. The deal closed the very, very end of 25. And then it was CES. So awkward. I went to CES and nobody knew except Pete, Alex, and myself. Not our staff.
Rob Stott: Yeah. Wow.
Kimberly Lancaster: mom knew, but who was she gonna tell? And it was kind of that same, like there was this circle and we had, there was… major legal paperwork around, know, pre-announcing because we had, there were just a few like what’s called them crossing the T’s, dotting the I’s elements that had to get through. And we wanted to get through CES very clearly. And we didn’t, because again, we didn’t want our news to disrupt client news. And so making sure the priority was on a really strong CES. So in January, come out of January, exhausted by the way, completely exhausted. I worked, I worked at 250 hour month in January and I thought,
Rob Stott: Yeah. Ha ha ha! Jeez.
Kimberly Lancaster: I don’t know if that was supposed to happen, but it was insane. We had big launches, we had so much work on clients. It’s always such a busy time of the year for the agency. And then also starting up first level of transition and all the things kind of going on with that. So then in February, it was the third week of February, we told our team, so we had the team meeting of announcing to them.
Rob Stott: Yeah?
Kimberly Lancaster: You know, I didn’t think anything would go wrong, but it doesn’t mean you’re not nervous. And when I’m super nervous, I, one, I giggle, ugh, but I do. And I get butterflies, and then I was like, I just kept having the what if they all are like, no, and they storm out. Not that I would think that would happen, but I think it’s just where our brains go.
Rob Stott: Right. Yeah.
Kimberly Lancaster: Everybody was super awesome and Pete and Alex did one-on-ones. So we did a group announcement, Q&A, and then they did one-on-ones. Essentially what I would describe as all the assurances of, hey guys, nothing’s gonna change. And we’re set up, we’re in a strong place, all of that. So then we broke down, then we had three weeks to put together, or maybe it was two weeks to put together the launch plan for us going public. Well, that included telling clients, right? So, a client said a couple press people were in on the early, like super early preview of what was gonna be happening. And Brad Hintze at Crestron was my first call, because I knew I couldn’t.
Rob Stott: You’re going to go and make it talk to anyone. There you go. Yeah.
Kimberly Lancaster: tell anybody else. Yeah, I had to tell Brad, right? So Brad and I have a history worked at Control4. I actually went to Crestron before Brad went to Crestron because I started at Crestron on that April 1st of 2020, COVID year, and he joined in December. so, you know, but Brad is one of my very close people, right? We’ve worked together for… 15-ish years. And obviously Brad’s pretty much in one of, you know, he’s on the C-suite level at Creston. He’s one of the most important people, but he also signs our contracts and our budgets. But we’re also really close friends. So I had this element of, didn’t tell him. And then also, oh, is it gonna be weird? Because, you know, there’s always this bullshit with agencies of like if the founder leaves That’s it right and there’s so much tied into that and I worked so hard for that not to be a thing but I had a fear of it and you know in the in the way back in the way back machine at caster it was always me but the
Rob Stott: Yeah. Right, right. That’s natural, right?
Kimberly Lancaster: The second half of Caster, it really diversified across my team. And then over the last six, seven years, Pete and Alex collectively are, I think, once 14 years and once 13 years that they’ve been with me. then Rachel’s at six years. So you’ve got a lot of people who have been there a long time.
Rob Stott: Mm-hmm.
Kimberly Lancaster: But it’s a very incredibly strong agency. But it doesn’t matter, right? It didn’t matter to me. The nerves were on nothing I could do would calm them. So like, I tell Brad, and I’m like, I’m sorry!
Rob Stott: Right. Right. Oh no! Immediately! What?!
Kimberly Lancaster: What? Wait, what? And he was like a whole, you know, my God, like he was thrilled. And I felt like it just left my body. Like the stress, I probably cried to be perfectly honest, but like the fear, relief, like that whole experience. And then we just had a great conversation and we talked about transition and what would happen. And then the calls were pretty much like that from there. other two biggies, Dennis Holzer and Powerhouse. Although he’s hilarious because Dennis is a know everything kind of guy, like he wants to know. And he’s like, so you sold, right? And I was like, you win, you win. I’m like, all you wanted was to be right. So that was awesome. Super awesome and then Avi you know Avi Rosenfall so Avi falls into the same thing Avi and I have been together since Nortech right so you know Nortech came a cast or client in 20 2009 2010 like around there so you know I’ve worked with a known Avi I think that puts him in the
He, I guess that’s also 15 years, 15 years, maybe longer. He might be actually, they might be 2006 now that I think about it, but we had NorTech for a really long time and went through all the acquisitions that NorTech went through. And so Avi and I have worked together for a long time. And then when he started, well, obviously on the Z-Wave Alliance, he’s been our chairman for three years, but he obviously worked within Z-Wave beyond before that. And then he has his consulting business, which, know, Caster and
Rob Stott: Yeah, just about. Yep.
Kimberly Lancaster: and Blue Connect have partnered on pieces of business for years so he’s kind of like my he’s my work husband like you know I know his wife, he knows my husband, they all know each other, and I’m like, I gotta take Avi’s call. And it’s just, is what it is. Once I got through the biggies, I started to feel better. And then Alex and Pete told specific ones of their clients. And it was funny because the only thing that Alex got was from a huh kind of part of it where I got probably more haws was, well, you’re still gonna handle our account though, right?
Rob Stott: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, right. The obvious next question.
Kimberly Lancaster: And they’re actually like, you know, that’s sort of the part that you’re like, this isn’t going to change anything for me.
Rob Stott: Well, right. So, well, that’s, to ask it here. Right. So you sold the news is out there. Like a lot about that without, you know, I don’t know how into the dotting the eyes and crossing the T’s you want to get, but what does that mean for you on a day to day basis? Like, will you still be there at Caster working and assisting clients and doing all that? Or are you truly stepping back?
Kimberly Lancaster: Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, I collected my check.
Rob Stott: Yeah, yeah, I gotcha. So you got paid. So yeah.
Kimberly Lancaster: I got paid. Which, I mean, for the record, I would like to say on the record, Alex and Pete, they invested heavily in this. I we worked with Citizens Bank and the SBA, as well Business Association, to put together a loan.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Kimberly Lancaster: to pay for Caster into its future and provide me an exit. so this wasn’t just a hand it off and if it goes to shit, it’s no big deal, no harm, fault, they go find another job. That’s not what this was. I mean, they put everything on the line to do this.
Rob Stott: Right.
Kimberly Lancaster: For me, that was part of the reassurance to our clients and everyone that this isn’t going away. know, they bought the assets, they bought the stock, they bought all of our IP, our brand. So the whole package, you know, went up and over to them. So it was incredibly purposeful. As for me, I have a transition plan. So we’ve been working on that actually all year since December and what that looks like. I’m essentially about a hundred hours a month right now. That’s into the summer and that’s to finish all transitions so that account. Accounts are smooth. Everybody knows I’m here for any crisis season. I’m here through tax season. Yay. Because we to do our final 25, 25, Caster taxes, close all those out. And again, it’s just some of the little things that have to be done. But one of the interesting parts of working with the SBA is they expect owners out in 12 months.
Rob Stott: Yeah, yep. Yep.
Kimberly Lancaster: That’s part of this because what they think or what I’ve been told, I guess is probably a better way to say it. What I’ve been told is that the SBA does not want small businesses. Companies like mine, so I’m like an S Corp. And as an S Corp, therefore it’s a pass through tax and all of this.
Rob Stott: Yeah. Right.
Kimberly Lancaster: I use this as a means to finance, but then I keep working, right? Like sell it to Caster and then I still, I’m still, paying it out. Actually I’ve lowered my tax burden because now I’m paying on this loan and this interest that’s tax deductible. And then, but I’m still collecting the money. Like they’re not letting you work the system. So they get it. And so they, you know, they have, they have to supply reports and records and things so that
Rob Stott: Right. get it. Yeah, they’ve seen this.
Kimberly Lancaster: Yeah, she really is gone. Yes. Yep.
Rob Stott: Well, it’s nice that they give you that runway though, right? Of that amount of time to like prep for this and then, ultimately knowing that by December, like you gotta be, you gotta be so business wise, you gotta be out mentally mentally. You think you’ll be out? Yeah.
Kimberly Lancaster: Yep. Yeah, mentally too. Yeah, know, mentally is even sometimes I get like, I’m known for getting worked up, right? It’s kind of.
Rob Stott: It’s what we do. You know? That’s this business.
Kimberly Lancaster: If you know me and that’s what we do, like she’s pretty excitable. And you know, there’s times when I’m like, okay, it’s okay. This is not your thing to get worked up over. So I would say I’ve been practicing, like I’ve been practicing and deferring properly. But it was a big reason why I went with an inside sale versus an outside sale. Because when I talked to strangers, because we were looked at.
Rob Stott: Yeah. Yeah.
Kimberly Lancaster: actually three different companies made offers in to acquire Caster, where we would have become the tech arm of another agency that wanted what we have, including our staff, our people, our contracts, all that stuff. for the record, Alex knew about it because she and I talked because she had to be part of the deal in order for it to happen. but everybody wanted me to stick around for like 36 months. My brain…
Rob Stott: Hmm. You’re like, yeah, you’re no, that was a deal breaker. Yeah.
Kimberly Lancaster: That was a deal breaker for me and I couldn’t, none of them would give me fast outs. And fast out for me would have been like 12 months or six months, 12 months. mean, because you’re talking strangers. I had one that wanted me to like, no, we want you to come in and run a 55 person team. I’m like, no.
Rob Stott: Yeah. How about no? I’m happy with what I got here. How about no?
Kimberly Lancaster: Peace! I’m trying to work smarter, not harder. I’m not going to deny that there wasn’t burnout. think the last five years were the toughest five years of my career. And there were a lot of things always happening, plus knowing business ends of what was going on and what needed to get done, and things that were not always in my comfort zone either. So it was kind of crazy.
Rob Stott: Yeah. Sure, it’s- Right.
Kimberly Lancaster: I thought every time I know, chatted with my husband about it. He’d look honey. They’re gonna fire you in like 90 days
Rob Stott: They could give you the 36 months, but you could probably find a way out. That’s what I’m here. Right. Well, so I want to give a chance to cause I funny enough, I don’t know if I actually told you this, but we are talking to Alex and Pete next week, for the pod date. All right, cool. So I’m glad they passed that on. See you guys still talking. Right. so it’s a neat kind of like way for us to.
Kimberly Lancaster: None of the deals worked better for me under that for the records. So, yeah. They told me. All the time.
Rob Stott: It’s the transition in podcast form, but talking about them, right? So, you know, the decision to keep it internal and have it be that internal sale, like, you know, you kind of have hit on it throughout the conversation, but, you know, the re reassurance of them as the new leadership team, like what excites you about the future of caster knowing that they will be at the helm.
Kimberly Lancaster: Yeah. I mean, they’re two of the smartest people that I’ve ever worked with. It’s really, yeah, they’re very different and they both brought different things. mean, Alex was a seasoned tech PR person. She came from an agency out of Boston when we first met. Funny little story, her husband, Nick Brown, who’s VP of marketing over at SVS. worked for Caster for 10 years. so Nick and Alex were working on a cooperative company project at CES. That’s how they met, which is how I met Alex and ultimately how Alex then came to work for Caster. So when I met Alex, we were kind of two peas in a pod.
Rob Stott: Yeah.
Kimberly Lancaster: but also had different sort of depth and breadth of skills. you know, she has, she covers very different clients than I typically cover. And so it was, it was a great mix. Alex has, has, and always has had almost like her own group of clients in like an agency inside an agency. If you want to look at it, at it where Alex and I very rarely work on accounts together, but we like brainstorm or strategize on things together. And so there was that aspect. And then, know, Pete was my, I don’t want to make it sound like a weird little thing, but he was my find, right? He was a, he was, he always tells the story so I don’t feel bad about it, but he was working at a local coffee house and back in the day, I went to the gym every morning and I’d grab my coffee and go into work and he was always sort of, I don’t know, chit chatting me up and then back.
Rob Stott: Yeah, yeah.
Kimberly Lancaster: He had asked me about, know, I hadn’t seen you in a couple weeks. You know, I like, I was traveling for work. What do you do? And I told him, and he was like, wait a minute, literally ran in the back of the coffee shop, got his resume, and hands it to me. Incredible. And we up interviewing him. We ended up hiring him. And you know, when he…
Rob Stott: That’s incredible. That’s so awesome. Yeah. He might be, if I think back to my first CDIA when I started in this business, was 2015, like in Dallas, right? I think he might.
Kimberly Lancaster: He’s already been there. Pete was like 2013, maybe 2012 actually. think it might have been, he started in January and it was right after CES. So might have been that January of 2012 was when Pete started at CastArt.
Rob Stott: Okay. So I’m pretty sure he’s the first PR person I had any contact with in this space. Beale Street Audio, is that right? Was that a, yeah, so like them, they would be, they were my first meeting at my first show covering this industry back in 2015 and it was with him. So there you go, that’s a.
Kimberly Lancaster: Yep, yep, that would be a thing. That’s amazing. You know, the thing about learning ground up, and for me and for Pete, is I think you learned the right way.
Rob Stott: Yeah, yeah, you know, you could say it. Have that confidence. Absolutely.
Kimberly Lancaster: Like, I just think he learned and Pete and I worked on accounts together always. Up until today, we still, the day I leave, Pete is my transition person, right? So, you know, he’s gonna take over lead on Z-Wave Alliance, which is an enormous, huge account. So that’s probably the biggest one there. that kind of transition of knowing it’s going to be done well, it’s going to be done right, we understand what they’re trying to achieve, how we’re going to get there, what we bring to the table. Yeah, it’s nice. It’s really nice.
Rob Stott: The most, the most important thing out of all of this, think, I mean, that I’m hoping, you know, anyone listening, typically, if you’re familiar with this podcast, you know, it’s, we’re talking to brands or integrators and like I said at the top, right? We’re, we’re talking about ourselves in a sense, cause it’s a couple of communicators on here. And if you’re wondering why it’s all about this transition, right? So like the whole story around kind of what you’re doing, I think it’s so relatable to me to a custom integration.
Kimberly Lancaster: Yeah.
Rob Stott: firm owner or a design firm owner. Like it’s a self-started entity that, you you built from the ground up, you have a lot of investment in personally, professionally. and it’s that decision, right? This point in your career in, in time that you’ve consciously made the decision and understand that you want to transition out. It’s not something that you like think about often, right? As an owner.
Kimberly Lancaster: Yep. Yeah.
Rob Stott: you don’t want to have those, well, what am going to do after this? I hate sports analogies, but it feels really simple to make that rate of like the athlete that doesn’t want to think beyond their career because they’re having so much fun playing. They’re making a lot of money playing. So they don’t want to have those conversations or think about the transition out of the sport, but they have to happen because an injury occurs in sports just to keep running with that analogy. Right. And
Kimberly Lancaster: Yeah. Yep. Yep.
Rob Stott: All of a sudden you are forced with that reality as opposed to being able to plan for it. And that’s something that, I wanted to give you a chance to talk about and, sort of, know you mentioned the, experience during COVID and that being an eye opener of, right, well, let’s start having these conversations. You know, can’t imagine it’s easy. Like how did you personally get through being able to become the, or have you even like, are you, comfortable? Like that could very well be a reality, right? You’re not, you’re not, you know,
Kimberly Lancaster: Yep. Sure.
Rob Stott: It’s really sure yet, but you know, talk about that process sort of internally for you to, go through this succession planning process.
Kimberly Lancaster: Yeah. So obviously one of the things, I never thought about succession planning until like 2020. So 2020, I turned 50 in 2020. By all definitions, what I’m doing at this point in time, everybody keeps telling me, you’re too young. Which is hilarious to me, Rob, because I was 27 when I started Caster and everybody was like, you’re so young.
Rob Stott: Yeah. I’m like, what are you doing?
Kimberly Lancaster: But not with like a cute face, with a like really scrunched up like, what in the world are you doing? How are you? Who’s gonna listen to you, blonde 27 year old girl? Like, not even kidding. Those are totally different stories, but the conversations then of how is that possible is very similar right now where people are like, well, what are you gonna do with all your time? So it was a couple of things as I went through the process. So I’m 10 years older than Alex and Alex is 10 years older than Pete. They’re partners in this acquisition. Although Alex is primary, she owns a much greater percentage. so she’s primary owner, Pete is a partner. It makes sense when I say what I’m gonna say. So in thinking about it, there’s these years that Alex is entering, super critical to her success and her being able to even do what I did, which is have an exit plan in let’s say 15 years, right? So, and then for Pete to then own more of Caster and or potentially when you look at even the rest of our team, there’s another group of people around Pete’s age that could potentially have more ownership. Maybe Caster ultimately becomes employee owned, right? There’s sort of these different paths that it could go. But the time started to matter more the closer I got to 55 because I felt like it was critical if we were doing it as an internal sale and transition that for the people. to do it, they needed a good runway as well. And so I think if you’re an installer or a designer, these are the same things that you’re thinking about. If you’re like, oh, I’m going to do this until I’m 65 or 70, your approach and plan is very different than if you want to do it at 55. And if you want to stay working it versus if you don’t, my game plan is to not work. I intend to do board and volunteer work, some of my passion projects, of which I have many, probably too many, but not be in the day-to-day of payroll, insurance, contracts, new business, travel, those parts being able to go away. So once you come to the I know what I don’t want to do, it really does become easier to know what you want to do, and then you learn what you have to do.
Rob Stott: Heh.
Kimberly Lancaster: the pieces together and you know what your numbers are, that’s critical. I will say to any small business, I had done four valuations on Caster since 2015. Some of it were for insurance and the whole so morbid, if I died my family would be taken care of kind of thing. So I had it from that perspective initially. But when you also start to understand what your business is worth, and then you need to understand what it’s worth with you and without you, and then what’s sellable, I learned a lot of things that allowed me to really set Castro up for high evaluation, sale, and a good future. business for somebody else to own. I mean we’re no laundromat, but let me tell you, if I were gonna go buy something, I laundromat would be at the top of my list.
Rob Stott: Yeah, they do well. They’re needed.
Kimberly Lancaster: They do well! But it is, you you talk about any type of service business, there are these pitfalls that you want to avoid. you know, owning certain things, like we owned all our databases, right? So, you know, I have rep databases, I dealer databases, I have distributor databases, I have databases by regions, events, shows, and obviously media. So databases are actually a tangible asset. So having a few tangible assets, in there is important and you know kind of goes beyond your customer database and things like that. Contracts, one of the things that Caster has, a lot of people probably know this because we’ve bid more than our share of companies in this industry, but Caster requires 12-month non-cancellable contracts. So we actually have contracts that were 12, 24, and 36 months long that we’ve had in place. that even in talking to bigger agencies on the outside, we’re like, Did you do that? And that’s something I’ve done for very long time and I’ve been insistent on because I’ve learned that a client’s only as good as their contract is worth. And not for the record, that we didn’t adjust things when we needed to. We were always a good partner and I think that also helped us with our client contracts. So they were like, well, we had this one time when we had to reduce and we had to these changes and Caster let us do it. So it doesn’t really matter if we sign a 12 or a 36 We’re not going anywhere. staying with Caster. And if them signing a 36 got them a better rate, kept their rates locked, there were incentives to do so. you know, as a designer, as an installer, you know, we talk so much in this industry about our recurring revenue, RMR, right? That’s my letters. I drew blank on it.
Rob Stott: Mm-hmm. Yep.
Kimberly Lancaster: So many installers are still afraid to. I have an installer up here in Vermont that just did our house that we’re living in now. I’m like, well, what’s our service contract? He’s like, ah, we don’t really do them.
Rob Stott: So much to learn still. We talk, how often do we talk about these things? Get it through your head.
Kimberly Lancaster: Dude. So true, you know, and I’ve worked because of, actually I don’t even know if you know this, but I have built so many houses. It’s my passion project of me. I love to do it. I build, I design, I renovate, and I’ve done about 13 or 14 of them, I believe is my number, plus my office building, which I redid three times. So I’ve worked with architects, interior designers, shade designers, lighting designers. I’ve kind of worked with all of them. I’ve talked about this with other people. And it does amaze me how many people will just, they’ll work, they’ll have this business, this business is great, and then they’ll just walk away from it. And they’re like, kind of just, it’s a leave behind.
Rob Stott: Right. Well, that’s, that is such a missed opportunity. and, know, you think about like for you personally, to just walk away from it. That’s insane to me to think about. but it had like, I even think back to, you know, the nationwide days and we actually set up a whole succession planning division because there are so many independent businesses that this happens to where they don’t think about it. It’s just like, it’s not top of mind because it’s not in the day to day.
Kimberly Lancaster: Yeah.
Rob Stott: It’s, that, you know, needing to be forward thinking or looking to what a transition plan looks like again, stuff you may not want to consider or even put thought to, cause it’s, it’s just in our own ego. don’t want to think about it. Right. But.
Kimberly Lancaster: Yep. Yep. Well, and I think having been in the industry and the age that I’m at, I have a lot of connections that are 20 to 25 years older than me and still working. And then there’s often, it’s like their kids are behind them. And if you look at lot of installers or maybe before they were installers, they were stereo stores or hi-fi stores, and they kind of sent it through to their kids and maybe their kids came into it. Now what I’m finding is the kids aren’t really staying in the business in a lot of these situations. They want to do something else. And I’ve seen this in the distributor groups too. And the older people, they want to be done, but they don’t really have or have not really figured out how they’re going to do it. And some of it is relinquishing control and their own sort of personal investment in it. Others, it’s maybe not trusting people around them or not knowing who to talk to. I think it comes down to they don’t even know what their businesses are worth, right? If you don’t know what your business is worth, then you have nothing to negotiate with. You don’t even have a place to start. So you’ve gotta have at least enough information, you know, get that first evaluation, talk to a lawyer, talk to a financial planner, like have those conversations so that you can do it smart because, you know, there’s lots of ways you can take the money upfront. You can take payments, you can take, upfront plus payments, know, can kind of break it over. It’s the figuring out what you need. But what I found is most of them are doing kind of like the sports injury is when they have to, not when they planned for it.
Rob Stott: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. And then you’re in kind of that crisis mode as opposed to having a plan in place that you can just open that binder and be like, now we have to do this. Yeah. Yeah.
Kimberly Lancaster: Yep. this is that, no we have to do this, this is how it’s gonna work, right? I think looking inside your team is always, it’s just so smart. If you’re in 50s, 60s, 70s, find those people that are 20 years under you, because we’ve all been taught to, we’ve all been told. that the small business owner is kind of this upper end of independence and financial security that comes with it. And I’m gonna say it’s true. It’s completely true. I might have had to work harder than everybody else a lot. But I was kind of a stress case and that was just going to kind of go with the course. What are you going to do about it? But I think a lot of installation business owners are in the same bet, right? Like they’re the ones who are maybe running out on a Saturday or a Sunday when somebody’s house goes down. can tell you they’re the ones going out on Super Bowl Sunday if the TV is not working.
Rob Stott: Yeah, they are. Absolutely. Well, to your point though, it speaks to, when you look internally at your team, the kind of culture you built, right? The fact that you built them up to the point where you are, not only are you personally comfortable that they can take it on, they’ve been trained and, you know, brought up in a culture and an environment where they are ready. Like they can take it on. Right. So that, that speaks to a lot of the things that,
Kimberly Lancaster: Right. Yeah.
Rob Stott: you personally and anyone else in this kind of, you know, small business or, or, you know, self-starter world, kind of what they’ve done. and if they’ve had success with it. So I think that that’s an incredible point to make too.
Kimberly Lancaster: Yeah? Yeah? It’s, you know, it’s, if I leave anybody with anything, it’s think ahead on it. And even if you don’t know your when, think about how you’re gonna get there and what you have built and understand it. So whether the when comes sooner or maybe it’s later, you have a path. because it was nice, know, it was really nice. It’s nice to know it’s in great hands. It’s nice to know that, you know, I did a good job taking care of myself and my family and kind of people around us. That’s a really nice feeling. So, yeah.
Rob Stott: Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. We could go forever. and I almost want to, but at the same point, I want to ask one more question before we kind of wrap up. that’s, you know, having looked at, I know there’s still a lot of work to be done, you know, moving forward and, before the end of the year, but kind of looking at how the process has been, anything you would have done differently?
Kimberly Lancaster: Yep. Oh, what would I have done differently? I am… I maybe would have read… more on like what to expect in like that final 30 days up to close because even with experienced SBA, experienced bank and experienced lawyers, there were still these moments where they like, why don’t we have this? And I’m like, I don’t even know what you’re talking about. know, and it’s done things like secretary of state paperwork. you have one of the things I learned in very, very late in the game was we were expected to do full Rhode Island and federal tax filing closing the company which was let’s say it was around December 15th somebody was like we have to do this and I’m like this should have been on a list somewhere
Rob Stott: Right. All the prep work that we’ve done, how did this get overlooked? Yeah.
Kimberly Lancaster: because there’s no way that’s getting done right now in this, because we had Christmas, had CES.
Rob Stott: in that I’m right.
Kimberly Lancaster: So there were just some things, and they were mostly what I would describe as silly things that could have been done and handled easier if somebody had just remembered to tell us. You know, look to your advisors to guide you on that. And I think I would probably try to have less sleepless nights about it. Like, it all went fine.
Rob Stott: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that’s awesome. that’s a, that’s a great point. And, again, I think it’s, you know, an exciting time and we still got you till the end of the year. So if we need to pick your brain some more, we can, which is what I like to summer. All right. Summer ish. Well, that’s awesome. But, you know, Hey, I just want to say again, congrats. thank you so much for the time. You know, I look forward to having Alex, and Pete on and talking to them. I think that’s going to be a great follow up to this and,
Kimberly Lancaster: Summer, summerish, summerish. Yep. Thank you. Yeah.
Rob Stott: You know, again, best of luck. you know, we appreciate all you’ve done for us and for me. So yeah.
Kimberly Lancaster: Oh Rob, I appreciate everyone I’ve met, I’m a huge proponent of we need the media. You and I have had conversations, so for the industry to support the media is critical. It’s critical to the manufacturers and the companies, but we need our trades. Without them, the whole industry starts to fall apart. So I’ve always been a big supporter. Hopefully everybody carries that forward and continues to cheerlead for you. So thanks for having me.
Rob Stott: Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. You bet.
