The Grit Blueprint
The Playbook for Building Unmistakable Brands in the Built World
You can be the best in your market and still get passed over by a competitor who simply shows up better and more consistently where their customers are looking.
The Grit Blueprint Podcast is where visibility, media, customer experience, and creative brand strategy turn trust into growth in the built world.
Hosted by Stefanie Couch, a lifelong building industry expert born and raised in the business, this show explores how companies in building materials, construction, manufacturing, and distribution position themselves to win before the first conversation even starts.
You’ll hear from executives, operators, and decision-makers who are rethinking how they show up in the market. You’ll also hear from Stefanie and the Grit Blueprint team as they share the systems, strategy, and content that make good brands impossible to ignore.
Every episode turns insight into action. Because in this space, great work alone isn’t enough. You have to be seen, be known, be chosen, and ultimately, become unmistakable.
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The Grit Blueprint
Beyond Lumber: 100 Years of Family Business at Cofer Brothers with Katie Cofer Irvine
Katie Cofer Irvine shares her experience as a fourth-generation leader at Cofer Brothers, a 105-year-old family lumberyard in Tucker, Georgia, where she discovered an unexpected passion for the lumber business.
• Started working at the family lumberyard at age 19 during the recession to figure out her career path
• Has learned every aspect of the business from operating forklifts to running the shipping office
• Father Chip instilled the philosophy that "it doesn't matter if you're a girl or boy, you need to learn everything"
• Views the business legacy as a responsibility to honor ancestors and preserve for future generations
• Most excited about eventually passing the business to a fifth generation
• Values the knowledge transfer from long-term employees with decades of industry experience
• Embraces the role of enabling others in the business, supporting wherever needed
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I started here when I was 19 and I just fell in love with it. You never know who's gonna walk in, what kind of people are gonna be here. I've done everything up here. My dad's always been like doesn't matter if you're a girl or boy, you need to learn everything so I can operate a forklift. I have directed the trucks in and out of the yard and all the way down to the cash register.
Stefanie Couch:What does it mean to you when you say the word legacy?
Katie Cofer:Because you guys had your centennial celebration six years ago now, right 2019, we had our centennial.
Stefanie Couch:What does that mean for you to have a hundred plus year old family?
Katie Cofer:business. It's really exciting we see how passionate my dad is about handing it off to this fourth generation and seeing that, feeling that and wanting to keep that going for him, for my great grandfather, for my grandfather, for my dad, and to keep that going for our future kids.
Stefanie Couch: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 Great Blueprint Podcast. I'm your host, Stefanie Couch, and today I'm on site in Tucker, Georgia, at Cofer Brothers with Katie Cofer. Welcome to the show. Thank you, I'm so excited to be here. 105-year-old lumberyard yes. Family lumberyard yes. So we're two lumber kids, that's right, you grew up in the lumber business.
Stefanie Couch:Tell me a little bit about being here. You work with your family your dad my dad and your cousins my cousins yeah, tell me a little bit about your day-to-day here.
Katie Cofer:It's never the same. Every day is different. I get here every morning, kind of get started see how many trucks are sitting out in the parking lot waiting on us to get loaded or unloaded, yeah, and then as soon as my dad gets here, we get rolling and I help him do whatever he needs to be done out here.
Stefanie Couch:And we are in the midst of the showroom here, but you guys have a full lumberyard door shop the whole nine. Yes, and you've been working here a while. So tell me a little bit about what it was like growing up in the lumber business, Cause obviously I'll unbury the lead. We're both females and you don't always see young girls running around the lumberyard.
Katie Cofer:You don't, yeah, you don't see that very often.
Stefanie Couch:What was your experience like doing that?
Katie Cofer:I remember coming up here in the summer when I was younger and my dad would ask me and my brother to go in the golf cart and pick up risers that were left around. So that was always a fun treat as a kid just to drive around in a golf cart. Look for trash essentially what we were doing.
Stefanie Couch:I'm pretty jealous we up, look for trash essentially what we were doing. I'm pretty jealous. We did not have a golf cart. I had to steal a forklift to be able to drive something.
Katie Cofer:Yes, and I used to get in trouble a lot, but I love that. I love it and we would come and kind of, you know, if the lights were out here in this room and we were closed, my brother, my cousins and I would kind of run around and, you know, act like we were customers. Thankfully the register was off.
Stefanie Couch:I mean, what is so appealing about a rec cat dresser? As a child Like, I think it's the coolest thing ever right, it is.
Katie Cofer:It's the buttons and the noises, yeah.
Stefanie Couch:Yeah, and you, did you guys ever go to like shows or anything? As children I went to hardware shows growing up a lot. It was pretty fun, did you ever?
Katie Cofer:go. We didn't really ever go as kids. If we did, I don't remember, because my mom was taking us somewhere else while dad was at the hardware show, and then we made a trip out of it. You know, make a vacation.
Stefanie Couch:That's. The only way you get a vacation as a Lumber kid is to go to a show or somewhere where that has to do with lumber mill or something?
Stefanie Couch:Yeah for sure. Tell me a little bit about what it's like working here with your dad and your cousins and being the next generation. What's the training like to decide, like, how do you even know if you want to be in this business? Because I think for a lot of men and women that are younger they're not really sure. So for somebody that's like, okay, I'm 20, I'm 25. Should I do this? What would you say and like, what's that like for you?
Katie Cofer:So I started here when I was 19 or 20. I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian, which would have been clutch for my parents if I had. My mom gave me the best advice and she said you need to go work at a vet clinic at least for a year before you commit to that. And I did. It wasn't for me. So during the recession I asked my dad if I could come work here just to figure out what I wanted to do. Never be able to thank him enough for giving me a job during that time. Yeah, and I just fell in love with it.
Katie Cofer:I love the different. You never know who's going to walk in, what kind of people are going to be here. You get to meet all different areas of construction, like the very beginning stages to like the final stages of it. I just love being around people. I love making people finding things that they need to complete this project and see how happy that makes them. So that's and I've done everything up here. My dad's always been like it doesn't matter if you're a girl or boy, you need to learn everything. So I can operate a forklift, I can run the shipping office, I can. I have directed the trucks in and out of the yard and all the way down to the cash register.
Stefanie Couch:I love it and if you're going to be the person who everyone is coming to at some point in your career, you know you guys are taking over the business and, however, in 25 years when. Chip retires, hopefully, but at the end of the day, you guys got to know and understand the business to have that respect, right? So what does it mean to you when you say the word legacy?
Katie Cofer:Because you guys had your centennial celebration six years ago now, right 2019, we had our centennial.
Stefanie Couch:What does that mean for you to have a hundred plus year old family business?
Katie Cofer:It's a little bit of pressure, just a little tiny bit of pressure. It's really exciting. It's a really it's. It's a driven task. It's like we have to keep it going. We want to keep it going for even the next generation. We see how passionate my dad is about handing it off to this fourth generation and seeing that, feeling that and wanting to keep that going for him, for my great grandfather, for my grandfather, for my dad, and to keep that going for our future kids. It Things like that.
Stefanie Couch:What drives Katie? What do you love? What gets you up in the morning? What excites you the most?
Katie Cofer:That's a good question, a lot of things. I'm always very blessed that I get to wake up next to my husband every day. He's amazing and just makes life so fun and easy.
Stefanie Couch:And he's about to start actually in the business, right, he?
Katie Cofer:is he's about to start the new chapter coming here and I just I'm, I'm a helper, I love helping. So I kind of have found my corner here and I love, you know, helping my dad, helping on the register, helping with the shipping office. That's kind of where my personality thrives is helping and helping. What do you need? Let me get that for you, let me help you with that. But I do love helping this company succeed, helping it go to the next generation, even after me.
Stefanie Couch:Yeah, and it's really important in a business like this to have someone who will just raise their hand and say like, hey, I'll do that. And I get that spirit from you so much like I have from the first day we met. And I think that's important because we all have to do stuff and especially in a smaller, independently run business like you may have to do seven different things in a day. You don't have a title, that only means like you have to do this thing, yeah, and knowing how to do all of it it's really it's pretty important yeah, and I learned that from my dad.
Katie Cofer:He is everybody up here knows that he would never ask anybody to do something that he hasn't already done or wouldn't do himself. Yeah, and I really admire that about him. I know all the guys up here admire that about him, so I kind of want to follow in those footsteps and people know that I wouldn't ask him to do something if I haven't done it, don't know how to do it or couldn't do it right now Any good chip stories that I should know?
Katie Cofer:Oh gosh there's like way too many and we call them chipisms. That's the favorite thing. We have a whole list down the shipping office of chipisms we call them, and it's just these sayings that he says, or slang, and everybody knows that that came right out of Chip's mouth. He always makes everybody smile. He is also my favorite thing about that. He's the same every day when he comes in here. He's the same person.
Stefanie Couch:I think of smiling when I think of him. And I haven't known him. I mean I've known him for years but not known him. Known him for very long, but he has the most genuine, just jolly fun, jovial, congenial personality. He really does. But he can back it up like with actually doing what he needs to do in the business.
Katie Cofer:So it's not fake at all. You can tell it's a genuine smile, yeah, for sure, so happy being here.
Stefanie Couch:He's a special guy and I can't wait to go see that list of chippisms which we may add that to the website. I think the other day we were Ben and I were talking and we were driving and sometimes I get pretty fired up and, like you know, I go on.
Stefanie Couch:you know I'm having a tear, like in the car talking about something I'm really passionate about and I said you shouldn't chase, you shouldn't go fishing in that cobra hole, which literally makes no sense at all, but I know what you mean. The idea is that you don't chase a cobra into its den. That's the actual saying. So I said don't go fishing in the cobra hole. And Ben's like what the hell is that?
Katie Cofer:I know what you meant, though I get it, so that's a.
Stefanie Couch:Stefanie- ism. I think that's one of the fun fun parts about a business like this is like it still can be fun can absolutely it does, and if it's so serious and you're only worried about the bottom line like you just lose so much of what the business can be? What is it like working with your cousins and all the people here at Cofers, because you guys have a pretty family-like?
Katie Cofer:atmosphere here it is it's not it's not a typical work relationship with other people that we really are a family. I mean mean, yes, my actual blood family is here, which is a joy to get to work around. It's always fun, and we, you know, as a family and cousins, you have inside jokes and things you can laugh about, but everyone here has been here for so long also and it's so just dedicated to the company that everyone just genuinely feels like family. It feels like just a bunch of uncles and cousins, everybody up here, and you don't get that in other places, and so I really really it's something I really really look forward to coming to work. Well, we do know when to work and customers are here, but you know it's also we have that separate kind of relationship with everybody up here, which is really nice, and some of these people have been selling products like this for like 40 years.
Stefanie Couch:Oh yeah, so really experts that know the business, know products and understand what customers need. Yeah.
Katie Cofer:And that's such a cool thing, having a younger generation come in, that these people are still here and we can just absorb and learn from them, and them wanting to pass that on to us and being able to just take all that in from them is really really a blessing too. Yeah.
Stefanie Couch:I love it. What excites you the most about the future of Cofer Brothers?
Katie Cofer:Being able to say one day that I'm passing it on to the fifth generation. I think that's a really cool to be and I because I know it would make everybody before me proud, starting from my great-grandfather, who started this company, my grandfather, my dad If being able to pass it on to a fifth generation would mean so much, because I see how much it means to my dad, I can see it in his eyes. Passing it to a fourth generation, to us, then passing it to the next, would be really special.
Stefanie Couch:Yeah, I can't wait to see that. I know it's going to happen because you guys have such an amazing business here. Thank you Well. Thank you so much, katie. I really appreciate you coming on the Grit Blueprint. Thank you so much. 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.
