The Grit Blueprint

Small, Nimble, and Thriving: How Independent Lumberyards Compete in a Consolidating Market with Erin Moore

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Erin Moore shares why being small and nimble in the lumber industry is a competitive advantage in today's market. We explore how independent lumberyards can thrive amid industry consolidation by leveraging their deep community relationships and service-oriented approach.

• Third-generation owner of Moore Lumber and Hardware, operating 7 locations with 150 employees in Colorado
• Largest independent lumber company in Colorado, serving communities for 77 years
• Left the family business to work for larger corporations before returning with valuable perspectives on organizational management
• Learning that sometimes being "directionally right" is more important than having absolute data
• Community relationships and legacy remain central to the independent lumberyard business model
• Name recognition and reputation accountability create trust that large corporations struggle to match
• Industry consolidation continues but creates opportunities for independents with strong service models
• Finding and training the next generation of talent is the biggest challenge facing the industry
• Exploring AI solutions that can enhance operations without replacing the human element
• Future focus includes expanding into markets where competitors have been acquired by larger corporations


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Stefanie Couch:

I really strongly believe that the independent lumberyard is actually the most competitive advantage right now that anyone can have.

Erin Moore:

We don't have to have absolute data, but we can see the direction of something and we can steer our ship or we can steer our organization in that way. So sometimes saying small and nimble has a real big advantage.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, I think there's something to be said about being able to call the guy or the girl that's names on the door and know that your name's on the door and it counts towards your reputation.

Erin Moore:

At the end of the day, our hardware stores, our employees, our people they create the community in which we live and work for generations. I mean, we're talking 77 years now. Yeah, literally for generations, and it's super important.

Stefanie Couch:

Some of these larger players have bought up a lot of independents around the country. How does the independent lumberyard survive? Welcome to the Grit Blueprint Podcast, the show for bold builders, brand leaders and legacy makers in the construction and building industry. I'm your host, Stefanie Couch, and I've been in this industry my entire life. Whether we're breaking down what's working in sales and marketing, new advances in AI and automation, or interviewing top industry leaders, you're going to get real world strategies to grow your business, build your brand and lead your team. Let's get to work. Welcome to the GrP Blueprint Podcast. I'm Stephanie Couch and I'm actually coming live from Vegas. Today. We are here for the International Builders Show and I'm joined by my friend, Aaron Moore, who is actually the Vice President of Moore Lumber and Hardware in Colorado. Welcome to the show.

Erin Moore:

Thanks, Stefanie.

Stefanie Couch:

Thanks for joining me, and we just landed big week this week. I'm really excited. There's a lot of stuff going on and a lot of people in the business here. Like 80,000 people are supposed to be here.

Stefanie Couch:

I think, it's out of control. So I'm ready for a big week and I want to talk to you today a little bit about. You have an amazing story. You are a third generation owner of an operator, your vice president, seven locations. You guys have 150 employees. You have all the products from hardware to paint lumber, all the things to build a home, and y'all are doing some great things. I love talking to independent owners because there are not a lot of us left out there. You know people that grew up in the lumber business. We both grew up there and so I'm excited to hear your story a little bit. Tell me a little bit about how this got started. It's been open a long time. Tell me the story of More Lumber.

Erin Moore:

Well, Stefanie, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. It's a beautiful day in Las Vegas it is, and it's exciting to be at the IBS show. So 77 years ago my grandfather started a small, I guess, mercantile and mill shop to support a dude ranch that he had not far away from there. And the dude ranch was sold long ago and the legacy still lives on with more lumber and hardware. We don't mill any of our own lumber anymore. Obviously that comes mostly from the Pacific Northwest and Canada, but we are a pretty strong organization, the largest independent lumber company in Colorado.

Stefanie Couch:

Wow, that's really cool and you guys are still in your dad's, still in the business with you, right?

Erin Moore:

Yes, my dad is still in the business I don't know that he'll ever retire.

Stefanie Couch:

That's awesome. I love that and you know I grew up in a family lumberyard too. So my, my granddad, had a lumberyard in Atlanta growing up and then we moved to North Georgia. My dad had one and I loved working there when I was a little girl like from very young age I mean five or six I would beg my dad during the summers to go with him, and I love that. Any like fun childhood stories of you at the lumberyard or at the hardware store.

Erin Moore:

Yeah, so, one of our original lumberyards. We actually had an apartment above the hardware store. We lived up there. Okay, every day after work I would beg my dad to drive the forklift. Dad please, dad, please, dad, please. And now that I have children and they ask me those kinds of questions dad, dad, dad I wonder what he thought. But it was the greatest time of my life when I could drive a forklift.

Stefanie Couch:

Same thing. I used to go steal it in the back. My dad would be like doing something up front and I would kind of watch and. I would go out the back door. It's actually a miracle that I'm alive, because I was wild as hell, um, and I would literally go pick up concrete pallets and stuff like I OSHA would have hated it there.

Stefanie Couch:

So this, this message is not OSHA approved but I really love that story and you actually left and went and adventured out of the family business, learned, I'm sure, a lot of things that you brought back now that you're back in the family business. Tell me about your time at Blue Links. And then you went to Universal Force Products for a while. What did you do there and what are some of the things that you learned, leaving that family atmosphere to go work for a larger company?

Erin Moore:

I did. At one point my dad sold a couple of his locations to Foxworth Galbraith and we were down to just one single location the original location in lonely old Bailey, colorado, and let's just say there were too many chiefs and not enough Indians. And I did. I went to work for Blue Links for a while and in 2008, I could see the writing on the wall I took a job at Universal Forest Products. So you know that was a great opportunity to see what a big business looks like and how they operate.

Erin Moore:

I can remember one time at Blue Links this was close to 2008, when a senior vice president, we were in a meeting and we're talking about some data and stuff and everybody's like, well, it's not exactly right, it's not exactly right. And he goes well, it doesn't matter if it's exactly right, it's directionally right. And at the time I thought that was pretty silly. And now that I'm back in our organization and we rise to leadership roles, we look at decisions that we make and we go. We don't have to have absolute data, but we can see the direction of something and we can steer our ship or we can steer our organization in that way. So those are some kind of things that you learn in big organizations.

Erin Moore:

You learn about a hierarchy, a chain of command. You learn about big supply chains. You also learn that sometimes the big guys don't always have the advantage. I can remember working at Blue Links and we would share. I was a lumber trader and you could buy from a mill and sell to a customer and we would manage the freight and our freight costs were three or four hundred dollars higher than if we bought from a broker and sold to the customer. So we literally buy from brokers and sell to customers instead of buying from the mill ourselves because the insurance costs were so high from the big guys. So sometimes saying small and nimble has a real big advantage. So sometimes saying small and nimble has a real big advantage.

Stefanie Couch:

I totally agree with that. I actually think one of the biggest advantages for independent businesses like yours and obviously my business is a small business is that you are nimble, you can change and move with the trends and if you see an opportunity you can capitalize on it quickly. And a lot of times when you have a big hierarchy, it's kind of hard for that to go through all those ranks and get things done really quickly.

Erin Moore:

Yeah, for sure.

Stefanie Couch:

Even in big companies, I think that the ones that are most successful often are very decentralized and they do allow people on the ground to make those decisions. I know when I was in distribution it was very similar to that. That was a real competitive advantage. Do you allow your locations to, kind of you have some operational kind of make the shots on the ground type things?

Erin Moore:

Yeah, we do, almost to a fault sometimes, one of the takeaways coming from the publicly traded companies. Of course, blue Links and Universal Forest Products are both publicly traded lumber companies. In fact, I think Universal is the largest in the world lumber companies.

Erin Moore:

In fact I think Universal is the largest in the world. When you see a problem, it becomes a monumental fix. Even the smallest problem that's out of place, that guy shouldn't be here, that's a safety problem. Everything is by committee and we empower people. I'd like to think we empower people to make those problems resolved. Yeah, even sometimes to a fault where you ask the question why did you do it that way? But you know what? They probably 80-20. They probably do it right 80% of the time.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah.

Erin Moore:

Yeah.

Stefanie Couch:

It's kind of an expectation that we have yeah. The right people they kind of probably know when they should ask for permission versus forgiveness, I guess sometimes. And sometimes we're not right on those decisions even at the top. You know, we we're all just trying to figure it out. I think that's the thing about businesses. There really isn't a resolved answer on anything. It's all just kind of a hope for the best. Like you said, directionally right and take the chances, and sometimes they pay off and sometimes they don't.

Erin Moore:

Well, I think we we set some for ourselves and as long as we work towards those goals, we know we're going to make some mistakes along the way, but we support each other as a team and we're all headed in the same direction. I love it.

Stefanie Couch:

How important is local community support in your business and especially in the hardware side of things. You know you always think about the local hardware store. How important is that to you and your business?

Erin Moore:

Yeah, I mean it's super important. That's what we were founded on was our local business and our local hardware store. In a lot of cases, we've grown beyond our locality in terms of our sales and distribution, but at the end of the day, our hardware stores, our employees, our people, they create the community in which we live and work for generations. I mean we're talking 77 years now yeah, Literally for generations and it's super important. It helps us maintain our values. It helps us maintain our commitment to our community. It's super important.

Stefanie Couch:

One of the conversations that I have a lot with owners and small and large businesses is about the consolidation. You know USLBM, bfs. Some of these larger players have bought up a lot of independents around the country. Is that consolidation inevitable? Is it something that that can be stopped? How does the independent lumberyard survive?

Erin Moore:

Well, certainly the current landscape says that that trend is going to continue, especially with QXO out there. That's the big money guy right there. So we know that that consolidation is going to continue. Whether it's good for the industry or not is yet to be seen. I mean, in my lifetime I've seen a lot of consolidation and then cycles of devastation and so on. For us sometimes it's exciting. Recently a well-respected ESOP in Colorado, alpine Lumber, was purchased by BFS and to us, we look at it and we go that's great, we just lost another competitor. They got gobbled up by the big guy. So it's going to happen. It's going to continue to happen, and how that turns out in the long run remains to be seen.

Stefanie Couch:

What competitive advantage do you think that independent lumber yards have today?

Erin Moore:

Yeah, I mean, obviously the big guy doesn't care about you, right, they might make apps for you and they might trend on social media or whatever they do, but at the end of the day, our deep product knowledge, our local relationships, our relationships with our customers and our builders, that really is what defines us. You know product quality and service is what will define us, and you just don't get that when you have a lot of consolidation.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, I think there's something to be said about being able to call the guy or the girl that's names on the door and know that your name's on the door and it counts towards your reputation and generally generations of reputation really. I mean, I know when my dad used to, when we talked about things like that, you'd think like, well, yeah, I'm going to make it right because it's the right thing to do and it's my name.

Erin Moore:

Yeah, and we're super centered on our values. Right Like, how we conduct our business is just as important as the business we conduct, so I think that's what separates us from the big guys.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, and that service and those relationships that you build over generations. Do you have a lot of people that buy from you, that are generational businesses themselves? I'm curious, like builders or contractors that have passed it down to their kids?

Erin Moore:

We do.

Stefanie Couch:

That's awesome.

Erin Moore:

Yeah, we do. I can remember being a little kid working in the lumberyard and knowing some guy's dad and now he buys from us and his kids are getting in the business and it comes and goes. But yeah, there's definitely an element of that, for sure.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, we have some people that we used to sell and they went to school. The kids went to school with me. We grew up together, saw each other at the lumberyard and now they're running the store or running the contractor's business. It's really awesome to see that.

Erin Moore:

Yeah, I think the best part about that is that our relationship extends beyond our just friendliness or knowledge of each other, like we're providing a service to them. They're a customer of ours, it's a business partnership and it's really unique actually.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, and our business is so relationship driven. Now, like you said, there's a lot of technology out there. I'm speaking this week on AI. It's coming, it's here. You know there are things that you can do to make that better, but what I like to tell people, you know, is you're not going to replace that part of the business and you shouldn't try, take the AI and use that with the stuff that no one's doing anyway. You know the little things that we don't have time to do, that we probably should be doing, and then that gives us more time to go do the stuff that really matters, that our customers actually care about. How does customer experience and that really resonating with you as like having those relationships? How does that matter to you and your business in a day to day?

Erin Moore:

Well, at the end of the day, like we're super focused on our customer experience and that's what really matters to us Our service, our quality and and a competitive price. Right, it's kind of a three-legged stool price, quality and service but anymore you really have to be good at all three of them. We're always going to provide a competitive price and we're going to strive to have the best service and quality for sure.

Stefanie Couch:

I want to go back to your sabbatical, to the big distributors and then coming back here. How did seeing those things? Or maybe just maturing in your career? How did that change your leadership style? Now that you've been back for 12 years at Moore Lumber, how did that change that?

Erin Moore:

I think it goes back to being able to solve problems right. When you're in a big organization, any problem you see takes a committee or a team to solve. It could be a dumpster that's out of place. Hey, the dumpster is over there. It probably should be by the gate so the guy can just pick it up tomorrow. In a big organization it might take two, three weeks to solve that problem. In a small organization, you empower your people to go. Here's the right solution. Let's just solve the problem right here and now.

Stefanie Couch:

It's one of the most frustrating and also eye-opening things that I ever saw in business. When I went from my dad's lumberyard, it was like I walked in and said, hey, dad and then it was done right.

Erin Moore:

Yeah.

Stefanie Couch:

And I remember the first time I went into the branch manager's office and it was a man who was a similar age to my dad and basically it was a man who was a similar age to my dad and like, basically it was like, hey, dad, and it was like, oh well, let me. Let me work up these 14 processes to see if maybe we want to talk about talking about this. It was a really big eye-opener for me. There's a lot of advantages. Obviously, they have sometimes a lot more capital to put into projects and things like that and maybe a longer vision for like, hey, if this doesn't make money for three years, we're okay with that, sometimes in a big company, but it also does take a long time it feels like, to get anything done.

Erin Moore:

Yes.

Stefanie Couch:

And that's a big competitive advantage, I think, for you guys as smaller, nimbler business, to be able to move on something quicker. The opportunity could be gone before people say yes. In a big company, yeah, how do you balance family dynamics? I know it's you and your dad, you know, but I'm sure you have other things going around and sometimes those people that have worked there a long time, man, they become family, right? How do you balance that?

Erin Moore:

You know that's a really great question and it's always a bit of a challenge, but at the end of the day, you have to maintain your family relationship and your business relationship is about business. So you have to treat everything with facts and be goal oriented and just make decisions with that process in mind. Yeah, yeah.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, it's tough, right. I'm married to my business partner, so most days it's good. We challenge each other, I think in good ways, and that's the thing you got to treat business like business for sure, one thing that I like to talk to people like you about is the next generation of talent. Tell me what keeps you up at night about what's coming down the pipe with all these retirements, or what are you thinking about with next generation talent in your business.

Erin Moore:

Well, I just got goosebumps here thinking about that. That is the number one challenge to our business. It is not a glamorous business. I tell people that get into the business that you better be prepared to work hard, but your hard work will pay off and it's not a difficult business. You don't have to learn how to launch a rocket or anything like that, you just need to be prepared to work really hard or anything like that. You just need to be prepared to work really hard. Product knowledge is probably the very most difficult thing. 20 years ago, a guy that came to work to us that sold fencing had fixed fences before. Yeah, it doesn't work that way anymore.

Stefanie Couch:

Yep.

Erin Moore:

Right, a truck driver knew what was on their truck, and now they don't always know what's on their truck. They might have delivered Pepsi last week, and now they don't always know what's on their truck. They might have delivered pepsi last week and now they're delivering lumber. So adapting to the generational talent is probably our biggest challenge as an industry, for sure.

Stefanie Couch:

What job do you think is the hardest one to fill? Is it that technical stuff where you have to know, like doors, windows? So I would say.

Erin Moore:

I would say, the technical stuff, yeah, for sure, like windows for sure yeah, yeah.

Stefanie Couch:

We do a lot of training and stuff in our business and we've started building some of that out and it's like how do you take a 22 year old that's never sold anything? They've never. You know, they just got out of college, they've never sold something. They also know nothing about Windows, doors, whatever that product is, and think about how many things you have to teach them to learn that, plus the sales skills.

Erin Moore:

Yeah, I mean, if you were to put a 22 year old with a 65 year old architect, that would be an interesting conversation. Yeah.

Stefanie Couch:

And I think it's a competitive advantage for those who do have some sort of program or some sort of training resources. But it seems like that's something that's very deficient in our business, because we're all so busy doing our business. We don't have time to train. How do you solve that problem?

Erin Moore:

Well, I mean, I think you just have to solve it like you solve any other problem and you have to sort of put aside some things and put first things first, and I mean there's really no other way to go about it. I don't think it's like eating an elephant right, you got to take a bite and go after it do you think technology will help with that?

Erin Moore:

I do and I don't. There's obviously almost every window platform has its own software. A lot of them, obviously, are based on a single platform, but it doesn't solve the nuances at all. I also am not sure that people are as cognizant of the result of the nuances as they used to be, so so maybe that's not as important. But I mean, I don't think there's any other way. But to just start and train. Certainly build with from within is for sure the best way. It's hard to just hire talent in this industry.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, and if you hire away from someone else, it's so expensive.

Erin Moore:

It is, but sometimes you just, like we, went and worked for somebody else. Sometimes you bring some fresh energy to that.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, 100%, and I think that that is something you're going to see. A lot of. It's people moving around, especially as these consolidations happen. I think some of these people are not going to like what happens when that settles, when the dust settles, or there could be duplicates of roles and things like that. I just saw a few large companies letting some duplicate positions go, but I doubt they'll have a hard time finding a position because there's so much need in this industry yeah, yeah and it's interesting to me, with tech companies and all these people laying everybody off, it's like come work in the construction industry.

Stefanie Couch:

We need you, we? How do we get those people, though, to see us and see what we're doing in this industry and see it as an appealing option? How do you do that?

Erin Moore:

well, at the end of the day, it's about building success, right, it's um making people feel uh good about their job, winning emotionally, winning financially, um being in an environment they love to work in. And, at the end of the day, if you do that and you have the right team, you're gonna work towards the common goal and you're going to build success. Yeah, yeah.

Stefanie Couch:

What excites you the most about the next year or two in the business?

Erin Moore:

Well, I have to tell you I think the business has changed more in the last five years than it has in the last 25 years, and I'm super excited to see where it goes. Obviously, ai is a huge conversation. Everybody's all about it Right now. It helps me write emails and things like that. But when it gets into our business and it's able to solve problems and give us data that we had a hard time getting before or took a long time to get before, and it can answer questions really fast, I think that's going to be a game changer.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, absolutely agree with that, because the ERPs have all the information somewhere in the mystery of the ERPs. It's really hard to get it out of there, you do have to be a rocket scientist to get that.

Stefanie Couch:

So maybe we should call Elon and ask if he could come help us figure out our ERPs. But it is interesting that AI can just go in and have a prompt and say, hey, go figure out which customer segment was the most profitable over the last five years after X, y and Z taken out of it After freight and returns and things like that.

Stefanie Couch:

And then in 20 seconds it we've actually started playing. I don't know if you've seen this yet. It's a pretty new technology, but we've started building out custom AI agents so that it'll actually do back and forth with with a person, and it's because 68 percent of businesses miss phone calls, right, and so if you're after hours or if you're busy or they're, you know, on another phone call, it at least will get the information so they can call. You can call a human, can call them back. It doesn't have to sell the window, but it's just taking that call and that way it doesn't just get lost, because most people never call back if you don't, if you don't get the call.

Erin Moore:

Well, that's pretty cool that you're working on the calls, but one of the strongest leaders in our organization, mark Blickenstaff- is working on an AI agent to take paint orders via text.

Stefanie Couch:

Okay, yeah, very cool. Yeah, I think text is a great medium. I love that Mark's actually here on the side. Mark and I need to have a conversation it sounds like about that but I think text is good because it doesn't freak people out quite as much as talking to a robot that's smarter than most people are. That work there.

Stefanie Couch:

You know like it's like hey, this person knows more about paint than a paint person that's been selling paint, so it's pretty cool that texting is a little more comfortable, like ease into the AI agents. I love that.

Erin Moore:

I have a 13 year old and a 15 year old daughter and almost unanimously when I call them, they go. Why are you calling me?

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, why are you calling me on?

Erin Moore:

my phone Just text me.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, it is true, and but you know, I actually think that's a great point Because a lot of the people that I deal with they don't have text messaging ways in their business right now at all, but most builders do text their salespeople and what happens is it's on that salesperson's phone in the never, never land and if that salesperson leaves or if just something happens, you can't get that information, so it's not even going into their CRM. So I think a lot of this AI that's talking to each other, implementing things together, like you said, those systems that you can get data from. You know how does this person like to communicate? Oh well, Joe sent 48 text messages last week.

Stefanie Couch:

I'm not going to email him or call him. He wants to text, you know, or vice versa, if they don't want to text. So I love that. I mean, how many napkin orders have you gotten that? It's like it's a text phone picture of a napkin order. You can't read it anyway. And then they text it and you're like where did that order go? I can't remember. Did they email it? And then you go back and find it in your phone and you can figure out what happened. I love it. What are you thinking in the next year? For you personally is the most exciting thing, Because I know you guys got a lot going on. What are you working on right now that just excites you? Maybe it's Mark's fancy AI agent. Sounds like pretty cool.

Erin Moore:

You know, I think that has a roadmap. That's the word that all the technology guys always use the roadmap.

Stefanie Couch:

You're a futurist yourself. You're all in the game over here.

Erin Moore:

But at the end of the day, I mean we're focused on being a strong organization, being profitable, growing, expanding our markets. As I said, in Colorado a competitor just got purchased by Builders First Source, so we see a huge opportunity there.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah.

Erin Moore:

And we want to take advantage of that opportunity as much as we can. So that's a huge opportunity there and we want to take advantage of that opportunity as much as we can. So that's exactly where we're focused right now. That's awesome yeah.

Stefanie Couch:

I can't wait to follow that story and I think that that's great, that you're seeing something as an opportunity. That some people may see as a negative because you think, oh well, you know more consolidations happening, but I really strongly believe that the independent lumber yard is actually the most competitive advantage right now that anyone can have. If your service, your customer experience and hopefully your technology is following the path that it needs to follow to keep up and I think the big dogs just going to you guys are going to eat it's going to be amazing. I'm excited for you.

Erin Moore:

Well, I definitely think it's cyclical, right Like, when the boom times come and there's track housing, they are going to boom higher and when the track housing dips, they are going to, they are going to go lower and we're going to be a lot more steady. Um, and that's important to us.

Stefanie Couch:

Well, and whether you're chasing that, you may not even want to chase that track business. You know, I know a lot of smaller local independent lumberyards don't even want to mess with that because the margins are so slim. You know, it's just. It's a hard business to win.

Erin Moore:

It's all about the business partnership. Yeah, depends on who the business partner is and what they value.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, yeah, all right. Well, thank you so much for joining me on the Grit Blueprint. This has been fun and I hope you have a wonderful week in Vegas.

Erin Moore:

All right.

Stefanie Couch:

Thank you, thank you. That's it for this episode of the Grit Blueprint podcast. For more tools, training and industry content, make sure to subscribe here and follow me on LinkedIn and other social media platforms To find out more about how Grit Blueprint can help you grow your business. Check us out at our website, gritblueprintcom.

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