Where It All Began...

Mr. Woody was my “papaw”, grandfather or grandpa for those that didn’t grow up in the South.  When I was a little boy, I watched him help everyone in the community with whatever they needed. Whenever someone had something that needed to be fixed or built they would call Mr. Woody.  He really was the first “handy man” I ever knew about. As a little kid, he could do everything in a way that made me think of him as a superhero or action hero like John Wayne.  People called for things as random as their car needing a new alternator, unclogging a toilet, or repairing the foundation and adding a new roof to their house.  He could do anything and everyone seemed to know it. I don’t remember anyone ever being unhappy with his work or his customer service.  He treated each person the same as he wanted to be treated and he did that without expecting it in return.  He used to tell me it “all comes out in the wash” and “God was the only one that would get to judge him when he left this world” and as long as he lived each day with the simple goal of keeping his word and helping others he had nothing to worry about when he put his head on the pillow. 

Occasionally he had to work out a payment for someone that was to say the least, a little unconventional.  I remember a man that paid him with an entire steer.  He slaughtered it for my papaw and butchered it delivering the meat in more than one trip filling the freezer in the garage and also filling the one at my house while giving away meat to tons of family and friends too. Best damn steaks I’ve ever had, certainly the earliest I remember!  I don’t know exactly how they came to that arrangement since I was so little, but I knew he treated the man no different than any other person he did a deal with.  He was always just calm and steady in his business dealings.  

My Dad took a very different professional path with the same dedication to helping others and became a doctor, in fact a surgeon incredibly skilled with his hands.  I didn’t understand until decades later, but both men were dedicated to improving other people’s lives whether that meant helping with a clogged drain or a clogged artery and never making the customer or the patient feel like all that mattered was the money.  My father also ended up taking cattle and other things as a form of payment on more occasions than I could count. I’m pretty sure it’s how I got my first rifle that he taught me how to hunt with. I asked him one time, and he said that for him the Hippocratic Oath of “do no harm” meant helping the person in need and figuring out the money later.  God didn’t care about a copay, and he wasn’t about to turn someone away because they couldn’t pay for an office visit.   

Both men were successful, and I just wanted to make them proud and honor their examples.  I went to school planning on becoming a doctor like my old man even though I really wanted to be a veterinarian, but I also hated being confined to the library, classrooms and labs.  I loved the learning, but I felt confined, and I wanted to be outside using my hands, sweating, building and earning an income that would make them proud of my success.   

For the past 40 years I’ve had my own general contracting and home services business.  Just built on my name, Wayne Martin Construction.  I never spent money advertising or hiring marketing people.  I didn’t even run an ad in the newspaper.  I just did the best I could on every job to honor my word.  Whether it was building a deck or a commercial restaurant, I treated each job and the customer the way my papaw and my father had showed me.  I did business with a handshake, and my book of business was consistent and steady. More often than not I had more work than I could handle and often had to refer jobs to other contractors because I didn’t have an opening in the calendar. 

 Unfortunately, as I’ve aged so have those clients that helped me succeed for the past 40 years without ever worrying about logos or branding or websites and social media.  Most were older than me by 20-30 years, and I’m 62 now.  The number of customers that I loved and that loved me has decreased every year, especially recently.  It’s been hard to reach out and find out that someone I worked with for decades and I spoke to just a couple months ago has passed away or has moved into a retirement home.  It’s been honestly heartbreaking to have those conversations with their grown children many around my age even, or their phone is suddenly disconnected.  I’ve even driven to a couple of their homes and there were new families living there because my customer was gone.   

I still enjoy and get satisfaction from completing a job for a client.  It fills me up when I see something that I created for someone that makes their life a little better.  It’s a reason to get up in the morning.  I need more customers so that I can keep having those mornings!  But I also have to be honest with myself and recognize that for most of my life my happiest moments have been around the dogs that made my life full.  It’s why after 40 years I agreed to have a partner help rebrand my business and share it with those I don’t directly know.  It’s been one of the hardest things for me to do, but the reality is I have to or I’m gonna be sitting at home waiting to die. My partner couldn’t hammer a nail without hitting his thumb to save his life, but he does know how to help me with the rapidly changing technology that seems to be the only way forward in this world and I know he shares my love of dogs as much as I do.  He’s my dog’s Godfather, just in case.  He’s also a smart guy when it comes to how to find customers and make sure the entire operation runs smoothly.  He views his role as one to support me and take the stress off whether it comes to handling the spreadsheets that I used to love but for some reason don’t work the same as they used to, or creating email follow-up campaigns (whatever that is) and reaching out directly to strangers who use this website he built to schedule a walkthrough for us to provide an estimate for a project.  I’ve got a partner now who helps me by letting me do what I'm best at and enjoy the most: the work and getting to meet and know the people my work directly impacts, ensuring the guys I’ve worked with for years are able to earn a quality living so that they can provide for their families the way my father provided for ours. and making sure to honor our commitment to treating others how we want to be treated just like my father and grandfather did.  This is why we “rebranded” the company Mr. Woody’s Services.  I want to have the same impact in the community as my papaw and honor the name, “Mr. Woody” and by doing so...hopefully allow his legacy and memory to outlive me and continue on with the shared principles that I learned as a little boy admiring “Mr. Woody”, my Papaw and my Daddy the doctor and best man I’ve ever known.