The Grit Blueprint

Niche, Trust, and the Independent Advantage: Russ Kathrein | Sponsored by Do it Best Group

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Forklifts buzzing and mics rolling, that’s the spirit of this conversation with our friend Russ Cathrine, Vice President of Lumber & Building Materials at Do it Best. We dig into a simple idea with outsized returns: reduce friction from the moment a project is imagined to the moment the last unit is delivered, and you’ll win more often at better margins.

Russ brings a rare vantage point: family yard operator, corporate exec, real estate builder, and now co‑op leader, to show how independents can outmaneuver giants by reducing friction, focusing on niches like custom windows and doors, and building vendor partnerships that compound growth. Russ shares the “70% solution,” lessons from turnarounds and co‑ops, and why bold moves will define the next five years.

Topics we cover:
• Reducing friction from idea to delivery
• Mean more to fewer vendors
• Why independents win on custom and service
• Co‑op scale plus services that level up dealers
• Learning fast: 70% solution over perfection
• Knowledge sharing across non‑competing markets
• Four values: ease, risk, competitiveness, profit
• Bold outlook: stop hiding, make money now

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Russ Kathrein:

How do you reduce the friction? Look at the transaction from when someone's thinking about building something to when they deliver the final product. How can you reduce the friction? How can you go out there and try different stuff?

Stefanie Couch:

You gotta sometimes take a chance on things. You don't know how they're gonna work out. Just go try something.

Russ Kathrein:

The good independents, they know their business, they have a niche, they're nimble, they can react quickly, and they can run circles around the big guys. But if you're gonna be an independent, you're gonna go after those niche businesses. It's high service, high customer relations, high trust. Next five years look really positive. Don't hide in your shell, don't hunker down, go out there and make some money.

Stefanie Couch:

Be unmistakable as I might say. Welcome to the Grit Blueprint Podcast, the playbook for building unmistakable brands that grow, lead, and last in the built world. I'm Stephanie Couch, the founder of Grit Blueprint, and I'm a lifelong building industry insider. I was raised here, built my career here, and now my team and I help others win here. The truth is, you can be the best option in your space and still lose to someone else who simply shows up better and more consistently. Each week on the Grit Blueprint, I'm going to show you how to stand out, earn trust, and turn your brand into a competitive advantage that lasts. If you're ready to be seen, known, chosen, and become unmistakable, you're in the right place. Let's get started. Welcome to the Grit Blueprint Podcast. I'm your host, Stephanie Couch, and today I'm joined by my friend Russ Cathrine. Welcome to the show, Russ.

Russ Kathrein:

Thank you, Stephanie. It's great being here.

Stefanie Couch:

And we are actually like legit here in person in Indianapolis, setting up in the middle of the show floor with forklifts going all around us. We could topple over at any moment if a forklift does the wrong thing.

Russ Kathrein:

Uh, but we're gonna trust if someone crashes the party, they could really crash the party.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, it could be bad. But we're here for now. And I'm excited to talk today. You and I have been working together for uh a little over a year and a half, but you have told me a little bit about your career, and you have one of the most diverse careers I think I've heard. You've gone from family lumber yard to bigger chains. You've worked at two or three different large companies, uh, some of which were really acquiring a lot of other companies. Then you went back and you were the CEO of an independent lumberyard. Yes. And now you were here as the vice president of lumber and building materials at do it best group. Tell me a little bit about your career and how did this crazy train ride get started?

Russ Kathrein:

Well, and don't forget that right out of college, I worked as a financial analyst for NCR and then for United Airlines.

Stefanie Couch:

So yeah, I mean, you you've got a finance background, which I think has served you really well. Yes, it is. Um tell me a little bit about that. Like how'd you get started?

Russ Kathrein:

Well, my my wife thinks it's crazy that I went to college and got a degree for something I'm not good at.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah.

Russ Kathrein:

But you know, I wanted I never wanted to be bamboozled by numbers, so that's why I got a finance degree. I figured I'd always be good at sales.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah.

Russ Kathrein:

And it it's it's worked well for me. Um came back and bought my family's business. They were in that was in uh chapter 11 from a sales tax audit, and it took a lot of penagling and number crunching and that for a number of years to get that all straightened out. And we did. Where was the business? This is in the Chicago area, it's still around. Totem lumber.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, and did you grow up like hanging out at the lumber yard? Oh, yeah.

Russ Kathrein:

Yeah, we used to go in on Sundays or Saturdays with my dad. He used to call uh take me in to dust the telephones and load the pot machine. I was like five or six. That's awesome. And then graduated to uh, you know, cleaning up the store and stocking shelves. And then at one point I was there to entertain the customers, got busy. I would just talk with them at the counter until my brother and my dad could come wait on them.

Stefanie Couch:

You were telling me that you're a good talker as a child?

Russ Kathrein:

Uh as a child, I've kind of done that.

Stefanie Couch:

I'm so shocked by that. It doesn't that doesn't add up. Are you sure this is the same interview?

Russ Kathrein:

Yep. Yep.

Stefanie Couch:

I love that. Well, tell me, so you you bought back the business, you bring it back from chapter 11, which I'm sure was very stressful and probably took a long time, like you said. What happened next?

Russ Kathrein:

Oh, we ran it for a couple years, my brother and I, and then just kind of had different visions. And ultimately I had him kind of he'd say buy me out, but it wasn't a lot. And then I decided to jump in back into corporate America and uh work for a wholesale distributor uh that's uh doing building materials and then went to work for 84 Lumber.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah. You have done a lot of different jobs. What what is one of the things that looking back, you know, you would say would be like one of the funnest jobs you had?

Russ Kathrein:

Well, it was it was interesting. Uh when I worked for 84 Lumber, out of the blue, um Joe Hardy asked me to run his development, and that was the side of the business called Pierce Hardy Real Estate that bought land and built stores, and I got my real estate license and he taught me we'd go out and we'd buy property, we'd build stores, and I never saw myself doing that. So it was it was it was really interesting and really out of out of character for being in the lumber business.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, that's super cool. And well, I mean, now with all the acquisitions and the things that happen with the greenfields, that's probably a pretty handy skill. I mean, do you have members that ask you questions that you can answer now because of that?

Russ Kathrein:

Well, it's funny, I always tell members you unfortunately you'll probably only build one lumber yard in your life. And then you have all these mistakes, you go back and go, God, I wish I didn't do that. So I try to collect the things we learned at '84, the things I've learned building lumber yards and try and share that with them.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, absolutely. And you actually have someone now that's helping lay out lumberyards, Scott Morrison. Yep. And he's coming in, he's lean Six Sigma, all the all the green belt, black belt. I don't know what he what belt he is.

Russ Kathrein:

We we call him our operations excellence manager. We didn't want to get into lean because I think people see lean and they, oh, I know what that is. Yeah. But no, I I actually Scott worked as a consultant and I engaged him when I was running uh the independent chain. And uh he was awesome.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, and he's already making a big difference and a big splash in the in the dealers he's working with.

Russ Kathrein:

You know, he came from the automotive industry, but he's been working with lumberyards for 20, 25 years, so he knows the products, knows the language, he knows trust plants, he knows door shops. He's just really, really good.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah. We have a partnership here at Do It Best with my company, Grit Blueprint, and we've been working together on lots of different projects, but I've seen you over the last few years work with a lot of different people. You believe strongly in partnerships, and I think it's probably the skill that I've admired the most over the last few years of what you've been able to do with vendor partners, with member and dealer partners. Tell me a little bit about your approach to partnerships.

Russ Kathrein:

I had a lot of experience or a lot of uh history in purchasing and came to realize that you couldn't be everything to everybody. So I came up with a phrase called mean more to fewer vendors. And you gotta find the ones that believe in you. And it's not you can't go out and say, Oh, I want to partner with that vendor because if they're not buying into what you're selling, you're wasting your time.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah.

Russ Kathrein:

But when you get that right partnership, um, the growth can be exponential. Yeah. And it's usually it's gotta be, you gotta give more than you take. And ideally, that vendor in turn or partner will do the same thing.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, I love that. I think about the movie Finding Nemo. Have you seen Finding Nemo? The clownfish and the C anemone have to have each other. They are stronger because they the clownfish is in the C anemone and the C anemone, you know, protects the clownfish from predators. So it's pretty cool when you can find that in vendor partnerships or with some kind of relationship like that. And I've seen Do It Best Do that. You guys are announcing partnerships with tech, different tech vendors, and you've had partnerships with consultants and people that make you uh stronger as a company internally and externally. Yep. What is the value that you bring as a co-op to independents that maybe couldn't afford or wouldn't think to bring in some of these partnerships by themselves as one location or a few locations?

Russ Kathrein:

Well, I mean, the the classic co-op is we bring scale. So from a purchasing standpoint, we we bring scale that they can't get. Um I always say that, yeah, yeah, you could have a direct relationship with that manufacturer, but you're you're the proverbial fly on the elephant's butt. They don't even they don't even care about you. Right. But where we're trying to grow more, especially on LBM, is we're trying to get into services and be able to engage a guy like Scott Morrison and have him as a tool that they can call up. Um and we bring them, we bring that to them. Same with Bradley Hartman doing our pro sales training, same with you, with our brand awareness, with the AI, with social media. I mean, it's just we're trying to find the right people and bring them to our to our members and help them run their business better.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah. And that way they don't have to spend the the 10,000 hours becoming an expert in every little thing. They can just call the expert you've already found.

Russ Kathrein:

And then, you know, with the with a co-op, the other thing you get is you get that family, that camaraderie, where all of a sudden, you know, a lot of people will say, Hey, I want to use Stephanie or I want to use Scott. Is there someone else who's done it? You say, Oh, yeah, one of our other members did. They're like, Oh, they'll pick up the phone and call. And it's not, they wouldn't feel comfortable doing that with just a reference.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah. And one thing that I love about independence, I I see this a lot at these types of events, is they they really share knowledge a lot and they don't mind. I mean, most of them are not competitors, like a small lumberyard and harbor store that's in Indiana and one that's in Oregon, they they're not ever gonna compete against each other. So if you can tell me, like, hey, I did this and it it made me a huge profit or it it helped our our customers love us more, whatever it is, that's so powerful. And I see that a lot. And you guys enable that in your trainings. You have a lot of different things that you're doing with people that is helping them do that.

Russ Kathrein:

Absolutely. And well, you know, it's funny you talk about competitors. I actually have um two members in Michigan that almost their lumbars almost butt up to each other.

Stefanie Couch:

Wow.

Russ Kathrein:

And they've decided we're not competitors, and they they'll they'll show they'll share rail cars together because they just have a little different, but they've always been there.

Stefanie Couch:

Wow.

Russ Kathrein:

You know, it's not like one decided to open up right, but they've been there forever, but they just decided, hey, we can we can work together. And that's that's what the co-op's about.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, that's amazing. I love that. This episode of the Grit Blueprint Podcast was sponsored by Do It Best Group. Do It Best Group is the largest co-op in the world, and they help independent hardware and lumber yards all over North America win. Do It Best offers services, products, and people that can help you win long term. They are the champion of independence. So there's a lot of younger people in this industry. I know you have a lot of mentees that you coach up. If you were talking to a 25-year-old that's asking how to form partnerships, nurture them, grow them, what do you tell them?

Russ Kathrein:

First I would tell them is don't be afraid to fail. I mean, the the the every lesson I've learned that that has made me better has usually been because I screwed up or failed. Um you don't learn a lot from your success. Sometimes that can make you overconfident. Yeah. Um, so you and and and then with that, I'm a I'm a phrase guy. So I always have all these sayings and phrases, and they're not always mine. And you've heard this before. Perfect is the enemy of good. Yeah. You get these people that they have an idea and they wanna they want to make it perfect, and don't want to they don't want to pull the trigger on it, and they want to do it because they want to have it perfect. And that's probably the biggest difference where I stand out when you say I was different than a lot of people's. I'm just like, you know what? The Marines have they call it the 70% solution. If I can get a 70% right, I can swing back and fix the other 30%, but let's just keep moving forward.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, and most of the time, I think that we often think where we're going is one place and you end up somewhere different. So even if you hit 100% of where you thought your target is, if the target should have been a little different, it doesn't matter. So I think getting too nailed down on, like you said, perfection and having to know all the answers up front, it's a dangerous game. So I love that advice. I think it's really good. What's one story in your career of a partnership, maybe that you took a chance on that has worked out that's been really great?

Russ Kathrein:

Well, I had I had an example, but just now you made me think of something else. So I'm gonna say, I think our partnership because um when you reached out to me, I was looking for someone to kind of lead our millwork group. And I hadn't even talked with you, you just cold called me and we talked, we had met and we put together this whole plan on how you'd come in and we'd get the mill work group going. And the first six months, it just it just didn't get legs. It just I mean, not for lack of trying, and some a lot of it was our fault, whatever. And we sat down at the six-month part and we just totally reinvented the relationship and it just took off. Yeah. So that's a really good example of you go in thinking it's gonna be this way, and then it's gonna go a different direction. Now, with Scott Morrison being on board and having that kind of the the the techno stuff, um, I see you and Scott working together with the mill worker. We'll probably we'll probably veer back to that. Yeah, but I think that's a great example of of where we went in with one idea and came out with the other, and it's also an example of we didn't really know where this was gonna go. When you and I talked, yeah, we didn't know where it was gonna go, but we just knew that we liked working with each other, that we kind of implicitly trusted each other. And I was something different for you, and you were something different for me. And in a way, we kind of needed that. So let's let's try it out.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, we both love independent businesses, and I wanted to see them win. So I think that's fun, been fun to do with you guys. I love that. Thank you for saying that. And I'm excited because I feel like this is really the beginning. I mean, we're here, we've got a lot of cool stuff going on at market today. We've got a lot of things planned for just this four days that's happening.

Russ Kathrein:

It's gonna be crazy.

Stefanie Couch:

It's gonna be a lot of speaking, a lot of different uh events for members and dealers to come learn about all different topics AI, social media, but then operations and uh technical stuff, lumber futures. I am not teaching the lumber futures class. Thank God. Yeah. Um, you know, I've maybe you know what's funny is you probably could. I maybe could do it. Uh I know how to calculate board footage. I think I can still remember how to do that. I used to do it a lot at my dad's lumber yard, but I will not be teaching that class this year. But I'm excited about it. So I think the idea there is you gotta sometimes take a chance on things. You don't know how they're gonna work out. And the curiosity and the ability to just go try something. That's that's some great 25-year-old Stephanie. I wish I had had that advice. Somebody probably told me that. I don't know if I listened or not.

Russ Kathrein:

Well, I didn't know you when you were 25. Um, you know, the other the other thing I would say is sometimes you'll have an idea and some will go, Oh, we tried that. And I'll say, was it a bad idea? Was it the wrong time, or was it poorly executed? Yeah. Just because something didn't work doesn't mean it's a bad idea. It just might not be the right time.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, that is a really good point. And I think that sometimes it does take you trying it two or three times for it to get right. I I think about uh going to the moon, you know, like JFK had this big goal of going to the moon, a wildly important goal. Elon now has rockets, he's going to Mars. But think about how many rockets exploded in the test of that. Like if they had to just say, well, that exploded, like no one would ever go to space because something's gonna blow up when you're doing something that no one else has ever done.

Russ Kathrein:

And it goes back to my point. You learn from your failures. I mean, the rockets. What every time there was a failure on the rocket, they said, okay, what did we learn from that? Yeah. And they got better.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah. And now we're catching rockets with like toothpicks. So I mean, it can obviously get to a micro detail. It's crazy. Well, I want to transition a little bit to something that is really on my mind right now. I am calling this the Clash of the Titans. So if you are keeping up with the news and you're watching by news, I mean building industry news, which is the only news that we watch. There's a lot of people out there doing a lot of crazy stuff right now. Home Depot has bought SRS in the last year. They've bought um other people as well. You've got Lowe's that just bought F FBM, the Foundation Building Materials. You've got QXO with Brad Jacobs, who has stormed into the market and he has bought Beacon and has tried to buy some other people as well. Yes, Home Depot stole GMS out from under him. There's a lot of things going on. BFS, I mean, they have done acquisition after acquisition. Now they're closing stores that they've they've acquired. Like weird stuff is happening, crazy stuff. So with all of that noise and all of those things happening in the macro, how does that affect independence? And what do you think the opportunity is for independence to actually take advantage of this moment?

Russ Kathrein:

It was fascinating for me being growing up in independent, being part of the big stores when I was at 84 at BMC, uh Pro Build, which became BFS. And then going back into those same markets either as an independent or as part of do it best talking to the independents. And it's funny because a lot of the independents don't even talk about the big guys. You know, when we're at Pro Build, we might have been worried about Home Depot or even Amazon, you know, what's going to happen. And the independents, the good independents, they know their business, they have a niche, they're nimble, they they they can react quickly and they can run circles around the big guys. And and you know, we've always wondered about you know when's Home Depot and Lowe's gonna come in the pro business or whatever, but let's just take a BFS, great company, they're they're geared towards the production builder business. They'll take they have a lot of other business that they'll take, but that's what they're geared toward. The other thing is when you're that big, you have to homogenize. Yeah, you just have to. You can't you can't have 31 different flavors out there out there out there operating differently. Yeah. Well, with that homogenization, if you're gonna say, hey, we're gonna be really good at production builders, that's great. And if we're gonna be really good at manufacturing trusses and walls, that's great. But when you're dealing with an independent selling custom homes, they can dabble in that, but they'll never be good at it. And that's where the independence could be really, really good. And as an independent, that's not saying that you can't sell some custom or some production homes. Sure. But don't make that your core business because you'll never be able to compete on that scale.

Stefanie Couch:

I agree. I think two things that really separate independence that will be almost impossible for those people to compete with is the niching, which you talked about, owning the categories that are hard. So the things like windows and doors, custom windows and doors, you know, not a vinyl 3050 window, but the thing that's got a trapezoid above it or like some weird segment or a window wall that's 20 feet, everything is bigger right now than it's ever been. Like 20 feet doors are everywhere. How do you dominate that? And then the other thing that I think is the customer experience side of it in store, what happens when those contractors, what they want from people, I just don't know if they can replicate. Now, I've seen BFS and some of those guys do it, but like a Home Depot or Lowe's, I still feel like it's a far cry from what the average builder, especially on the custom side, wants to deal with. I mean, that's just my opinion, but I I still think they have a long way to go to get that experience done.

Russ Kathrein:

Well, even when you look at, I mean, it's about relationship, it's about trust. And an independent is gonna be in his community, her community is gonna know the people, and and the best thing they can do is build things that build trust. There's we have we have members that are have phenomenal travel programs that build loyalty, and they send the sign up for the next year's trip to the spouse. Yeah, so the spouse is like, hey, we're going here. You better buy a lot from those guys. That's cool. Just even the customer service angle. I remember going to the first Home Depots when they opened up and going down to Atlanta, and we're this is when I was running my family business and being blown away. They had retired plumbers in the plumber section, they had a retired carpenter in the tool section, and we're like, How do we compete? Well, as they got bigger, that's all going away. You walk into a home depot, you walk into a lows, you're lucky if you can find someone, and they'll generally point out, but they can't help you do things. Yeah. I know some of these bigger companies have bought independence. They always say nothing's gonna change, but they'll do things like, Hey, we don't need cashiers, so we're gonna have the guys on the back counter be the cashier. And oh, by the way, we're not we don't need the back guys on the counter working on commission. So they be, I mean, they're trying to figure out how to how to take some cost out of the system. I get it, yeah. But what they take out is they take out that hunger, they chase away the hunters, they take away the hunger. The heart of the business goes away. Yeah, and I'm not, and but for a certain segment of business that works. Yeah, but if you're gonna be an independent, you're gonna go after those niche businesses. It's high service, high customer relations, high trust.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, I agree. And I love that part of the business. It's also usually high margin a lot of times. I mean, that's where most of the money comes from. All right, Russ. So I hope we're still hanging out in five years. If we sit down again to talk on five years from now, what do you hope is true for the independent and what's it gonna take to make it come true?

Russ Kathrein:

I always think there's room for independence. It's funny you see these. I mean, you saw it when the the BFS consolidated stock and BMC and all those guys, all of a sudden they'd be in town and they'd have four lumbar yards. They go, We need four lumbar yards. So they'd close down two. Well, and a lot of times an independent would buy those. And even though those build those companies were all built on acquiring independence and consolidating, you still had new ones coming in. So there's always that entrepreneurial spirit and they're always gonna be going after the niche business, they're always gonna be innovating. I think if you're looking at how to stay relevant, you have to, it's not just tech, it's how do you reduce the friction? How you know, look at the transaction from when someone's thinking about building something to when they deliver the final product. How can you reduce the friction? How can you go out there and try different stuff? The big companies are gonna try the safe stuff, and you can't afford to go out and try and compete with them by by trying to out out tech them. Yeah. But you can be innovative, be trying be talking. There's great third-party services out there that are coming up with ways for you to be able to do stuff that's better than the big guys. I mean, we've got one of them here, toolbox. Yeah, and that's how you're gonna innovate. So you need to be going out, uh, going to trade shows, going to talking to talking to other lumber dealers or and and saying, hey, how are you doing it and getting ideas and just be nimble? Yeah, but but if you can reduce the friction, make it easier for your customer. You know, I I like to say I learned this from a sales trader, so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna take credit for it, but there's four values. If you can make their life easier, help them manage their risk, make them more competitive, or make them more profitable. I talk about that all the time. Yeah, price isn't important. So if you're looking at those, and usually it's about make the dealer's life easier, make the builder's life easier, make the consumer's life easier. Yeah. And and if you in the trans, if you take that friction out, that's how that's how you're gonna win.

Stefanie Couch:

And I think that's gonna get easier as we have tools like toolbox and things like that for the dealer to see, okay, this is not only making the dealer's life easier, but it's making the contractors' life easier. So they're spending less time on the job site, you know, doing these different things and they're able to go out and sell more. They're able to go out and do whatever they need to do to make more money. So I love that answer. Well, I'm excited to have a great market. Thank you so much for sitting down with me. Thank you. I have just one last question for you. If you can leave people with one message about how to win in the next quarter and 2026, what would it be?

Russ Kathrein:

I would say be bold. Don't, don't, don't, we're not if there's a slowdown or whatever, we've got we've got next five years look really positive. Go out there and make some money. I love it. Don't don't don't hide in your shell, don't hunker down. This is not the beginning of some long slowdown. This is this is time to make money.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, be unmistakable, as I might say.

Russ Kathrein:

Yeah. All right, before we go, I want to switch roles. Okay. I want to ask you a question. Okay. All right. So Stephanie, you've been a partner of Do It Best now for 18 months. What are the things that have surprised you about do it best? What do you like about working with do it best?

Stefanie Couch:

Well, uh, first of all, I really like your style.

Russ Kathrein:

Thank you. I designed the shirt myself.

Stefanie Couch:

I love it. I think it's been fun to see a group of people that are hungry to go out and do something that helps independence, which we both have talked about a lot. I really just have a heart for that. And I think that is specifically you and Eric and the team at LBM, because we've been working really closely together for for the last 18 months. That team has changed a lot in the 18 months. You guys have made a lot of improvements and added team members and regional staff and all of these things. So you're willing to shake things up. And with this that we're doing, I mean, look at us. We're on the podcast booth floor here.

Russ Kathrein:

You might say we're willing to try a different hands.

Stefanie Couch:

I was gonna say, uh, the pinker the better, I think. But I am excited to just see that you guys are willing to take some risk. And I think to the victor, you know, of the person that's willing to try some things, usually goes the spoils. So I'm excited.

Russ Kathrein:

Well, we're very happy to have you on the team and thank you for all your hard work.

Stefanie Couch:

Thank you. And you do look good in pink.

Russ Kathrein:

I'm, you know, I've been told that.

Stefanie Couch:

Thank you, Russ. You're an amazing partner, and I'm excited about this market and what's to come. So thank you for joining me on the Grip Blueprint. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Grit Blueprint Podcast. If this episode helped you think a little differently about how to show up, share it with someone in your building world who needs it. If you're ready to turn visibility into growth, then head to gripblueprint.com to learn more and book a call to talk to us about your growth strategy. Until next time, stay unmistakable.

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