Epic Entrepreneurs

From Chemistry to Construction: Jim Box on Building JWB Remodeling

• Bill Gilliland

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 30:51

Jim Box of JWB Building and Remodeling shares his journey from a chemistry career and hazardous waste work into construction, where he has spent the last 25 years building a business around quality craftsmanship, adaptability, and word-of-mouth growth. He talks candidly about the challenges of entrepreneurship, the shift from print to digital marketing, the importance of insurance, planning, and discipline, and why being good at the work helps create your own luck.


Guest contact info:

sdbuilderguy@gmail.com

Thanks for Listening. You may contact me or our team at https://billgilliland.biz/

All the best!
Bill

Please hit the subscribe button, leave us a 5 star review,  and share this podcast. You can reach me at williamgilliland@actioncoach.com or at https://billgilliland.biz/


Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01

All right, hello everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I am Cliff McCray with Action Coach Business Growth Partners, where we work with local business owners to turn big ideas into real scalable growth. Today I'm excited to be joined by Jim Box of JWB Building and Remodeling. Jim, thanks for being here. How are you doing today, sir?

SPEAKER_00

I'm doing great, Cliff. I really am. It's been a challenging day. Today I was doing tiling, and that's always rough on an older man's knees.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I'll try to make this as easy as possible for you. So let's go ahead and jump right into things. So for those of you who may not know it yet, who are you, Jim Box? You know, who is Jim Box and what is JWB building and remodeling?

From Chemistry To Construction

SPEAKER_00

Uh oh gosh, load of questions. I'll have fun, eh? Uh well, let's see. I guess you're asking for my personal story. I'll try and uh make it as quick as I can. I've got uh went through school, got a graduate degree in chemistry, went around the world working for hazardous waste disposal, decided that I didn't want to stay in that industry anymore, came back to the United States, and uh one way or another gravitated to something that I always liked doing, which was construction. Uh been in the industry now for about uh 25 years. I lived out in California for 18 of those, and uh been out here for the last eight. Met my wife on a on a lifestyle website, and we hit it off. And I moved out here from California. I've been living in the triad now for about uh the last eight years.

SPEAKER_01

Nice, nice, nice. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00

Let's see, business-wise, I've been in construction contracting for, like I said, about 25 years. I was a licensed contractor out in California for uh the better part of 10, and then uh came out here, and the laws are different, they're written differently, so don't really need to be licensed out here. What do we do? Pretty much anything and everything except for those trades that I don't like, and I cannot stand doing carpeting, don't like working with brick or cement block, and I don't do roofing. Pretty much everything else, uh, that's under my repertoire.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, okay. Yeah, nice intro. So take us back to the very beginning. You know, what made you say, yep, I'm doing this, I'm starting that business?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, goodness gracious. I was selling chemicals out in California and for research chemicals for for the medicinal industry, and I just got tired of doing that, and I have always been doing things around my house. I uh helped my dad build his house when I was uh 16. Uh I've been around construction my entire life, and I just decided at that point didn't like what I was doing. Damn it, I'm gonna do something that I want to do and say as opposed to doing something that somebody else wants me to do. You know, so moved into construction. Now I'm doing what everybody wants me to do.

Starting The Business From Scratch

SPEAKER_01

Gotta love it, gotta love it. But yeah, so let's uh you know, then this is hypothetical, right? But if you had to start again from absolute scratch, let's just say you had no brand, no clients, no safety net, what would you do differently the second time around in starting your business? Or would you do anything differently?

SPEAKER_00

Probably wouldn't get into construction. There's lots of ups and downs. Now I kind of figured out how to I figured out how to survive in the industry. And like I said, it's a lot of ups and downs, so you gotta take that into consideration whenever you're making any decisions. I gotta tell you that uh the probably the biggest thing that has really changed is the advent or the decline of uh print marketing and the upswing in digital marketing. I'm not an expert, obviously, in digital marketing. I mean, what got me going and uh really I survived for the first couple of years because I got into construction back in 2007, 2006, and if you remember, that's right when uh the construction industry really crashed. I did some print advertising for the first three years of my business, and it basically helped me build from zero to survivability. Whether that whether that can be done easily now, I don't know. What has has predominantly worked best for me over the years has been uh word of mouth advertising. That's always helped uh made it easy for me once you got uh a foot in the door uh to really provide your services to your customers. So I guess that's where things would have to be done differently. I'm just not sure exactly what the best strategy would be in today's market. I mean, I don't have to start from scratch, so I'm not really thinking of those terms right now.

Marketing Shifts Print To Digital

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think I think now it's more so social media. You you gotta have a social media presence like in 2026. It's it's like pivotal, right? Uh, if you're gonna start a new brand new business, nobody knows about it. I think you gotta have TikTok and Facebook and Instagram and all those things. I think that's the easiest way to get out nowadays. So were you confident or betting on yourself when you first started your business?

SPEAKER_00

I was confident. I I had uh like I said, I've always done projects around my house, and people uh really liked it whenever they saw what I had done. So I had confidence and skills uh in my abilities. And then you're a member of B and I, I believe. They have a you know core values that encompass so many things that are really helpful to your general business. Accountability, you know, you got to be accountable to yourself, your customers, to your family, everybody else. You got to constantly improve your skills, you always have to constantly learn new things. I think that probably uh kind of describes it. Okay. Now, what were you risking? What was I risking? Um well, my income was completely based on whatever jobs I could get. Uh my first year I did uh$43,000 in gross business. About 25% of that was uh was materials. So my first year's income was not all that great. But, you know, all I can say is I never made that little again.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. See, that's always the good thing. At least you've gone up, you know, since then and kept going up. So what would you say is something people don't understand about a business until they're in it?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, there are a lot of things that uh about a business until you're in it. Um I had no idea what a marketing plan was until I started uh trying to sell my services to other people. Never ran across them when I was in chemistry, uh hazardous waste or uh construction, and then I suddenly realized, well, gee, people got to know who I am if I'm gonna expect them to you know hire me to build things around their house. So let's see. It was I don't know. It what was what was the question again? State the state the question again.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, what's something people don't understand about business until they're in it?

SPEAKER_00

Right. You've got your technical your technical components that you really need to be good at. Like, okay, if you're gonna sell carpentry services, you gotta be a darn good carpenter. Otherwise, you're not gonna be you're not gonna work too long. Uh you got to have all of the trade secrets, you know, all the little shortcuts that you need to know to make your life easier. You also got to know a host of other aspects that don't you that you don't normally have to deal with in your day-to-day work. So, like when I'm swinging a hammer, I'm not thinking about my checkbook or my bank balance or what I need to do from a banking standpoint. And I certainly don't think about it when I've got a you know get insurance, property insurance, uh, emissions and what is it? E o errors in emissions insurance. There's a lot of stuff on the business side that you know that I've had to learn and pick up over time just to make sure that I'm in, you know, not putting too much at risk. I mean, I wouldn't want to build something wrong and have somebody take my house because I don't have the right insurance. I didn't check the right insurance box. Did that cover things for you?

Stress Health And Time Off

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. So what what almost broke you? Has anything almost broken you and made you say, you know what, I think I'm quitting this? Or I'm thinking of I'm regretting opening my business?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I'm gonna answer that question this way. My last year when I was uh selling services for the man, let's just call it the man, uh, for somebody else. I was working for somebody else for a paycheck. All right. I bought two bottles of aspirin that year, 250 tablets each. Okay. I was constantly having headaches, you know, I was constantly under the gun, constantly having to stay directed and focused on my job and really, really working it. It affected my health. Since I since I left that industry and got into construction and being my own boss, I think I've bought two little bitty bottles of aspirin of 25 pills each over the last 20 years. So I don't regret any of my decisions to go off on my own, and it's helped my health. I'm a lot, I'm a lot better off now than I was then.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, totally agree. Agree with that. So, how do you personally handle stepping away from the business? You know, like taking vacations or unplugging in the evening.

SPEAKER_00

I'm a sole proprietor. There is no such thing. You don't get that option. If you don't, if you're not doing it, it don't get done. Occasionally, my wife does uh force me to take weekends off, and uh and we do go out on occasion. Uh, and in fact, we got a really big vacation plan uh coming up this uh this May.

SPEAKER_01

Nice. Where are you guys going?

SPEAKER_00

My wife had a childhood dream of going to Alaska. So we've got a uh National Geographic cruise, the expeditionary cruise, the ones where they actually put you in zodiacs and on kayaks and things like that. We're gonna do a lot of whale watching and uh a lot of animal watching and looking at glaciers and things like that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that'll be nice in May, especially in Alaska, it should be beautiful.

SPEAKER_00

Um late May, early June. We're expecting uh overcast. That the area we're going, it's actually overclass, overcast most of the time. Uh, and in fact, they said you've got to make sure that you've got lots of uh wet weather gear because you're gonna need it. They said don't bring cotton pants, they'll get soaked. So it's supposed to be we're going late May, early June, and it's actually like February weather here. You know, some days it might be in the 50s, but it'll probably get down into the 30s at night. So we're looking forward to it.

Quality Work And Waiting Lists

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, man. Wow. And that's crazy. That late May, early June, that's the kind of weather you're getting. But yeah, that's Alaska, it's all the way up there. Think about May. All the way up there by the Yeah. Yeah. So looking back, you know, what do you attribute to most of your growth of your business so far?

Hiring Traits And Crew Culture

SPEAKER_00

It's a little bit difficult to answer that, but if you want to pick one particular one particular aspect, it's a quality of work. If if you know your business, if you if you're really good at your job and you've got at least a reasonably good outgoing personality so you can talk to people and not stumble over too many words, you'll make it in this industry. Quality, if you if you do a quality service, people will wait for you. When I was out in California, I had a six-man crew, and I was telling people that they would need to wait for me to get there as much as four months in advance. You know, and uh when you've got really good work, people are willing to wait, and it will always keep you busy.

SPEAKER_01

Nice. I love it, love it. So you did say you're a sole proprietor, so have you ever had to hire anybody ever in the history of your business?

SPEAKER_00

Or well, when I was out in California, I I gotta be careful because I don't want to get uh run afoul of any state tax laws. But when I was out in California, I had uh six independent contractors that were working for me at the time. Uh so I never had any quote unquote direct hires, but I had people that were working for me and interacting with me on a daily basis. Kind of got to dance around that subject to avoid any uh IRS entanglements, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, no, I I totally get it. So, you know, uh I guess then this is more of a hypothetical question, but you know, what let's say you're building a team, let's say you're getting ready to hire somebody to come work with you. Do you have any you know personality traits or anything like that that would matter more to you than what's on the person's resume?

SPEAKER_00

Uh well, let's see, if I were running a crew again, you got to remember this is uh a bunch of guys who are all pretty stout. And uh when you get a bunch of guys that are all pretty stout, the testosterone does kind of hose down the decks. Yeah. So uh I would say if you're gonna work on a crew, you're gonna have to have some pretty thick skin. Uh, you're gonna have to be able to throw down some really good sarcasm and dish it out because you're gonna get it. I had a pretty low-key, uh uh low-key attitude, and all of my guys, they always referred to me as the uh as the old man. Uh they were uh most of them were in their 20s or early 30s. Good good work. And again, attention, let's see, what are qualities that I'm looking for would be attention to detail. They got to be able to do the job that I hired them for. If I uh you know, if I'm looking for a drywaller, better be able to do your drywall because all it takes is about 30 minutes of me watching, and I can tell whether you snowed me or not. And that happened a couple of times, but you know, in the rough and tumble of construction, if you're not up front and you try and snow people, you get you get sussed out pretty quick. I guess you could say also, gotta be honest, and that's a tough one in uh construction, because a lot of times you're working in somebody's home, but they're not around, and if you're not trustworthy, as far as I'm concerned, I'm gonna kick you to the curb as quick as I can.

Quick Fire Lessons For Owners

SPEAKER_01

Oh yeah. Yeah, you you can't you can't send somebody in a job and worry if they're gonna steal somebody's jewelry or or you know, something of that nature, right? Yeah. All right, yeah, perfect. So I appreciate that. So we're going ahead into what's called the quick fire round. So uh how this works is I'm going to give you one word, and I want you to tell me the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear each word in regards to running your business, and then expand upon why you chose that first idea that came to your mind when you heard that word. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00

I'll give it a shot.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, perfect. First word is education.

SPEAKER_00

Education daily basis, school of hard knocks. It's gonna beat you up every day and knock you down, and you gotta get back up and learn. Because if you don't, you're gonna keep getting knocked down again. And that's something that I'm gonna take to my grave with me.

SPEAKER_01

Planning.

SPEAKER_00

Planning. Oh my goodness, that's probably one of the short one of my worst shortcomings. Uh long-range planning. You have to do it, you gotta force yourself to do it. It's kind of like pulling, it's kind of like going to the dentist. You gotta go, you gotta do it twice a year. If you don't, it's gonna be worse. If you keep putting it off, it's gonna be real bad.

unknown

Yep.

SPEAKER_01

Inspiration.

SPEAKER_00

I take my inspiration from everything that God has shown me every day. I can drive down the road and just see a beautiful sunset and say, what a gift. I get inspiration from people in uh my everyday walk of life. You run across somebody that treats you very kindly, you know. Hey, pay forward and return the favor. Inspiration can be taken from everywhere you want to look.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. No, I agree with that. I agree with that. It's the first time I've heard that. I don't hear a lot of people talk about the beauty in where we live. I mean, we live in a beautiful state, North Carolina. I mean, you got beaches, you got flatlands, you got Piedmont, you got rolling hills, mountains. It's it's a beautiful state. And I feel like we don't appreciate it quite enough as we should. So next word is commitment.

SPEAKER_00

Commitment. If you're not committed to something, do something else. Uh if you can't be committed to it, then uh then it's not for you. It's kind of like if you're not committed to being married to your wife, you need to find a different wife or or go simple. You know?

SPEAKER_01

Oh man.

SPEAKER_00

Be careful with that one, okay, Cliff.

SPEAKER_01

Hey, I I learned I learned fast. I think I'm hitting what? My fifth year? Yeah, I'm hitting my fifth year anniversary actually, this coming December. And uh I've learned pretty quickly. It's uh happy wife, happy life. That's that's what I that's what I go by. Absolutely. She's happy. I'm happy. So uh next word is discipline. Discipline.

SPEAKER_00

Gotta be careful with this one. Discipline is necessary to get the things done that need to be done immediately, and then you have to take the time to start to look forward and plan on what needs to be done tomorrow. Uh, you need to have the discipline to once you decide on something, you have to go through and do all the activities necessary every day. It's kind of like in in the business in construction, you have to have the discipline to drive every single screw the exact same way every single time. And that plays into so many other aspects of your life. Quality of quality of product comes from discipline. Being true to your word comes from discipline. So, I mean, it's a lot of things uh are wrapped up in that one in that one word. You just don't want to become obsessive about it. Then they have other things for you.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, that's true. And the last word is execution.

SPEAKER_00

Execution. Every plan, everything starts with the first step, and you gotta execute with every step, every day, every month. What else? You know, you think about something, well, okay. You always have the exec have you ever thought about politics? Okay, you have the executive and you got the legislature. All right, well, the executive executes. He takes plans and he puts them in motion. That's exactly what you have to do every day in your business. You have to take your plan and you have to put it in motion every day. And execute uh to to to accomplish things.

unknown

Yep.

Advice For A Rough Season

SPEAKER_01

No, I agree with that. I agree with that. So all right, perfect. So yeah, I appreciate you getting through that quick fire round here. So, and I want you to be as candid and as honest as you can on this next answer to this next question. But let's say if a small business owner, and you and you've done that for the most part, so I yeah, I appreciate your candidness, but you let's say a small business owner is listening to the podcast episode today with you, Jim. And, you know, let's let's say they're having a rough, rough go with and having a bad day, or let's say they're having a bad week, or or even let's say they're having a bad start to 2026. I mean, we're already almost through the first quarter here in a couple of days here, the first quarter of 2026, and you know, they're feeling stuck or overwhelmed, and they're just not having a good go of things. What's a piece of advice you would give to that small business owner today?

SPEAKER_00

Jonah's future was pretty uh was looking pretty bleak to him when he got swallowed by a whale, but that's not the way things turned out now, is it? That's true. Your future hinges on uh what is it? There's a there's an old saying that I'd rather be lucky than good. My attitude is that I'd rather be good and lucky, which means that uh you know you your execution and your discipline and all of the other skills that you need are what make you lucky. Does that make sense? All of all of those qualities that you need are what make you lucky. So focus on those and keep a positive outlook. Because if it's a negative one, you're right. You're gonna get exactly what you what you're thinking's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. No, I agree with that. I think luck can only get you so far, right? Because I mean, if you're always in the right spot at the right time, but then you're not ready to execute when the opportunity comes, then that's no good either, right? Doesn't do much good. Exactly, exactly. And people don't realize it takes a lot of a lot of luck to get certain things to happen in life, right? I was at this certain, you know, this certain place, at this certain time. You know, I could have been anywhere else in the world. There's so many different places you could go. I was here, I met with such and such, and they changed my life. And and but you have to be ready to to act on it when that time comes. And that I see I see what you mean by not just having the luck, but also being lucky and good at what you do. Because then you are always ready for, okay, yes, I was lucky enough to get this opportunity, but now I'm taking the most of it because I'm I'm taking it by the high by the horns and you know doing everything I can to make sure it is successful, correct?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, when you're good, yeah, it's good to be lucky, but I find that what I mean by that is that you generate your own luck. You make things happen, you create opportunities where they weren't before.

BNI Visitors Day And Networking

SPEAKER_01

Okay, okay. So what's next for JWB and building and remodeling? I I hear you got something going on here at the end of March.

SPEAKER_00

Uh well, I've got my my time is booked all the way up until my vacation. I've got a pretty good uh, I've got a me personally, I've got a pretty good uh book of projects going. But what's coming up at the end of March is the networking organization that I'm in, BI, Business Network International. We are having a visitors' day to bring in, introduce BI to as many people as we can. We've got a lot of different open categories, uh, lawyer, landscaper, painter, nonprofit, quite a few different uh uh categories that we're looking for. We're one of the more active groups in Winston-Salem, well known for our morning sort sarcasm and humor at 7:30 a.m. But our visitors' day is gonna be at uh six o'clock on next Tuesday, I believe. 6 p.m. So it's gonna be a good one. Oh, 6 p.m. Okay.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

That's on the 33rd. So it's under uh the uh movers and shakers for Winston Salem. Movers and shakers. Okay, perfect.

Contact Info And Wrap Up

SPEAKER_01

All right, and finally, what's the best way for someone to connect with you or learn more about what you do?

SPEAKER_00

Uh you can contact me by phone, it's probably the best way or email. Um can I say my telephone number?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00

858-382-5964. It's a it's a California number, but I'm located here in the triad.

SPEAKER_01

Perfect, perfect. Isn't that uh 858? That's a San Diego area code, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00

Sir, I lived in Southern California.

SPEAKER_01

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_00

Little town.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, see, I know my area codes. What's that? What was the no? I was gonna say I I know my area codes. What's the what's the name of the town?

SPEAKER_00

Cowway. Cowway. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Nice, nice. How far is that from San Diego?

SPEAKER_00

About 30 miles. 28 miles, something like that, uh northeast. So it's inland.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's that's interesting you moved here because uh, you know, I think most people, you know, that live in San Diego they always say it's like the best weather in the world. Is that true or is that uh is that false?

SPEAKER_00

Best weather, can't really say. It's real consistent every day. It was wonderful weather, I gotta say. I mean, uh comfortable temperature, the humidity was real low, uh, but you only got really two seasons, hot weather and and cold and wet. Uh then, you know, it's not like out here where you got four full seasons. The other big difference is that uh there's not a lot of greenery in uh in Southern California. It's mostly brown. So you got a lot more trees out here, a lot bunch of different kinds of trees.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yep, and then you know, in a couple of months here, they're they're brown still and they're still dead right now because we're just coming off winter. But when spring, you know, fully gets in, it'll be all green and beautiful here in a couple of months. So it's a beautiful time. I love I love when everything starts to bud and grow back in and it's all nice, green, and lush. Yeah, it's a beautiful, beautiful landscape. Um, do you have any social media, Jim?

SPEAKER_00

I actually do not. I'm uh kind of going towards the twilight of my career, and I'm just kind of giving a salute to everyone else who's uh going in that direction.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Okay, good deal. Good deal. Yeah, well, Jim, this has been fantastic. Yeah, thank you again for sharing your story, coming on today, and sharing your real behind the scenes of building your business. Really appreciate you coming on today. I thought this was fantastic, and uh, love your humor. You were you were excellent.

SPEAKER_00

All right.

SPEAKER_01

Well, thank you, Cliff. Yeah, thank you for coming on.