Failing Forward: Dos and Don'ts of Launching a New Service Division

Today we’re sharing a session from our Women in Residential Construction Conference that took place in Austin this fall. The speaker is Mary Peters, founder of Sasquatch Contracting in Boise, Idaho.

Mary’s talk is a candid look at the missteps that led her to build a successful service and small-projects division inside her company called Yeti Services. She walks through what didn’t work, why it didn’t work, and how those failures ultimately shaped a healthier, more consistent business model.

It’s a great roadmap for others looking to looking to diversify, find new sources of revenue, and address underserved needs in their community.

Hi everyone. I'm Pauline Hammerbeck, editor of Custom Builder. Today we're sharing a session from our Women in Residential Construction conference that took place in Austin this fall. The speaker is Mary Peters, founder of Sasquatch Contracting in Boise, Idaho. Mary's talk is called Building a Yeti, or How I Failed, not Once, but twice.

It's a candid look at the missteps that led her to build a successful service and small projects division inside her company called Yeti Services. It's a great roadmap for others looking to diversify, find new sources of revenue and address underserved needs in their community. Here is Mary Peters of Sasquatch Contracting.

Mary Peters, Sasquatch Contracting: How many of you believe in Sasquatch? How many of you believe in Yetis? How many of you believe in the perfect man? Okay, well, I do know for certain that at least one of those [00:01:00] does not exist, and I think we all know which one. I am Mary Peters. I am the owner and founder of Sasquatch Contracting. My PR company makes me say these couple of things that I was, seen in Forbes and I was the CEO of influence in 2025. And none of those things matter because I'm gonna talk to you guys about how I failed, not once but twice. 

Today we're gonna talk about my failures and how the two times that I failed led to my success. We're gonna talk about how to build a Yeti, how to build a service division.

So Sasquatch Contracting started in 2016, and it is a construction company. We do. ADUs. We do new builds, we do remodels. But Yeti is a service division. We do handyman work and it came from Sasquatch, hence the name Yeti. 

But today we're gonna start with how we do it. Let's start with the why. [00:02:00]

Multiple Revenue Streams

You already have a business. Why the heck give yourself more headaches? I still don't know why. No, I'm just kidding. Multiple revenue streams! So ebbs and flows of construction. It doesn't matter if it's a new president, if it's interest rates, if it's somebody holding up your permits, the historic district has opinions. Something in construction is causing the ebbs and flows of your cash flow.

So I wanted to change that. I wanted to create a consistent cash flow. So with a service business, we can create consistent cash flows. Obviously that just means a healthier business.

Cross Marketing Benefits

How many of you spend thousands of dollars on marketing? I know I do, and sometimes it is like throwing spaghetti on a wall and saying, man, I hope something sticks. And if it does, cool, we're gonna keep doing that thing until it stops working, and then we're gonna try something else and see if that thing works.[00:03:00]

We're gonna try it in that zip code, see if that one is hitting, and when that stops working, we're gonna go to another zip code. Well, the great thing about having multiple companies or multiple divisions is that you can cross market. So I'm over here with Sasquatch and we're building something and when we're done, we're like, Hey, we just built you this beautiful kitchen.

You know what? You should have Yeti now. [We should] maintain it for you. We should maintain your entire house.

Hey Yeti's over here, and we are maintaining your house. And you know what? I heard you guys talking about our renovation. I've got the perfect, perfect contractor for you. That's Sasquatch. You can also send out your marketers, your mailers or whatever.

Strengthening Your Brand

You're using the same marketing dollar, and you are marketing for multiple companies. So your marketing dollar is going twice as far. 

Strengthening your brand. We need strong brands. You guys put a ton of money into your branding into who you are in your market. So the more times that you are seen in your market, the stronger you [00:04:00] are.

Every time they see your truck, they see your logo, they see you on social media, they see your people with your logo on your on the shirt. Every time you show up, they know quality is showing up, right? Well, if you have more people showing up, they see your brand twice as many times. They see Sasquatch, they see Yeti, they know that my company is showing up, and they know that that's a better brand.

They know every single time. And if I decide to open up another company and call it Lochness (I don't know. I just made that up), we are creating a stronger and stronger brand every time for our community. They know that that means us. They know that we are gonna show up for them. They're gonna get the exact same quality every single time, creating a stronger brand for yourself.

The How: Building from Existing Business

Okay, recapping the why:

• Create a stronger revenue strain.
• Creating a cross marketing opportunity, using those marketing dollars to go stronger, grow further, [00:05:00]
• And creating a stronger brand for yourself, increasing visibility and credibility for yourself.

Okay, guys, the how, this is where we talk about do, as I say, not as I did. I've got two daughters and they were raised on 'do as I say, not as I do.' We're gonna do the same thing here ... okay?

Build a Yeti from a Sasquatch. [We] started Sasquatch Contracting in 2016, and we're building things. We're remodeling and people trust us. We're in their home, we're doing great things for 'em, and then they call us back and they say,

Hey, you know what? My dog just ran through my screen door. Can you come back and fix that?

Not really. I am not really gonna pull somebody off of a construction site and come and fix that for you. But I can recommend somebody.

But I trust you. You are already in my home. I trust Sasquatch.

That makes complete and perfect sense, but I can't do that for you. Let me [00:06:00] recommend somebody...

But they don't want somebody else. And we kept getting these phone calls and we wanted to have another revenue stream. So we thought about it, okay, let's launch Yeti Services. So how'd we do it? You already have the processes. So in construction you have long processes, I'm assuming. So you're probably all pulling permits. You're waiting for cabinets to be built. There's a long timeframe. Sometimes weeks, months, depending on the project, years to finish a project.

In the service business, we might get a phone call in the morning, give them a number, do the work, send 'em an invoice, and get paid all in the same day. [These are] different projects, but we can adapt the same processes that we already built for the company.

Failure #1: Wrong Person, Wrong Seat

So reutilize, [00:07:00] what you've already built, just tweak them. So don't reinvent the wheel, just adjust it.

Guys, this is where you draw a big circle and mark it through. This is where I messed up this. This is the bad stuff. This is where Mary failed, not once. This is my failure two times. Alright?

We had this great guy on our team. And let's call him Bob. So Bob's on our team. He's great with everybody. He's peppy, he's happy. He knows construction, but he is at the top of his level. He's got nowhere else to go, and I'm afraid I'm gonna lose him.

We wanna start Yeti services. So I go to him and I say, 'Hey, I have this great idea. I wanna start Yeti Services. Do you wanna do it?'

He's pumped, he's excited, absolutely jumps in both feet. Within a month, [00:08:00] he fails miserably. We lose him anyways.

Not his fault, 100% my failure. I did not support him. I put him in the wrong seat. Wrong person, wrong seat, my mistake. I didn't give him enough support.

He knows construction. He doesn't know operations, he doesn't know processes, he doesn't know how to start a business.

Yeti crashes and burns. Round one. I lick my wounds.

I decide I'm gonna try it again because people are still excited about Yeti services, even though it did not go well, surprisingly. And I thought, you know what? I know somebody that started two businesses already and she's done it. Why can't she do it again?

Failure #2: Taking on Too Much

And she's a mom. She loves to put new things on her plate, and it's me [00:09:00] absolutely pile it on, why not guys? I don't have time for this, but I did it anyways. I said, absolutely. I'm gonna be the person to do it. I'm gonna launch Yeti Services for the second time. I did not have time to designate to it. I'm running two companies already.

There is no way. It petered out, and we failed again. Right person, wrong seat. Yeti services fails again.

So do not do what I did. If you are going to launch a company, if you're going to start a new division, have a plan and do it right. So, here it comes. Do not half a** it. Have a plan.

Success: Having a Plan and Finding the Right Person

Make a plan. Know what you're gonna do. Know who the right person is. Find your who. So what I did is I created a profile. Who is it that I need? I need somebody that knows [00:10:00] operations, that is launched a business, can create processes, can build a team. Her name is Joe. She's fantastic. She has saved my life.

She has launched Yeti Services. It is going, it's fantastic. It is successful, and we're running. I knew what I should be doing. I mean, I've done it twice, right? I knew. I'm just, stubborn. So find your "who" and do it the right way the first time. Save yourself the headache.

Preserving Unique Characteristics

Each single one of you has something that makes you unique in your own market. You stand out from your competition in some way, whatever it is, right? So we have a couple of things that, things that make us unique, we show up and we're always solution [00:11:00] based. We're always moral and open with our customers, and we put our employees first by putting our employees first.

[And the employees] put our clients first. That's how we show up in every single one of our companies that we start. That thread literally carries through. It doesn't matter what it is, if we start a new company, it will carry through to that company.

Make sure that your unique fingerprint carries through no matter what it is, because that is what stands, that's what makes you, you.  And you have to stand out from your competition. That is, right now, what makes you different from somebody else, right? Carry that through.

Understanding market needs and gaps 

Market gaps. So obviously with Sasquatch contracting, like I told you, we were getting the phone calls.

They were already calling us saying, 'Hey, will you come back? We trust you. Come back to our [00:12:00] home. Fix the things.'

I don't know if that's happening for you guys right now, and you're getting phone calls and you're recognizing those things, and maybe you're getting phone calls and you're not recognizing them.

Maybe it's already happening and you're just not paying attention to it. It's like when you start saying, Hey, look for the red car, and all of a sudden you see all the red cars. But if you start paying attention or you start asking the questions, I promise you, you'll start recognizing where the market gaps are.

If you ask the question, what is the need? People will tell you their gripes. Maybe don't ask the question. Because I promise you people will tell you they're gripes. They love to complain. How many people have you answered the phone and they say, 'man, thank you for answering the phone. I have called 10 people and nobody has answered the phone. Nobody has called me back.'

How many people have heard that? All the time, right? Yes. So ask the question. People will tell you, 'I have called 10 painters. Nobody's called me back. I have called 10 remodelers. Nobody has called me [00:13:00] back. Nobody. Or they've called me back. Nobody has shown up.'

I hear that all the time.

Being Different from Competition

Industry trends. Okay. There are handyman out there. But my business partner and my husband had this great idea. I do not wanna be the same [as another] handyman opening up a business. So we did something different. You have to be different. So he had this great idea when we decided to open up Yeti Services to be unique.

So we started a subscription portion of our business. We will maintain your home on a quarterly basis. We come in and we check everything. From the crawl space to the roof, and we change your filters on your appliances. We go in the crawl space, we see if there's water where there's not supposed to be. We check your fire extinguisher, change the batteries and your smoke detectors [00:14:00] do a multitude of things.

It makes us different from our competition and immediately people are interested and excited and they call us. Because we are different. Know who your competition is and then be different. Okay? You're gonna start something new.

Leveraging Technology and Repeatable Processes

Leverage technology. You guys already have a business. You guys are already busy.

You guys have things going on. Find ways to leverage technology to speed things up.

 Repeatable processes for repeatable success. I talked about this yesterday. If I have a Yeti going into a home, and yes, we call them Yetis. I have a Yeti going into a home and they do something here and I've got another Yeti going into a home and they do something here and I have another Yeti going into a home and they do something here.

Every single client gets the exact same experience. It is a repeatable process for repeatable [00:15:00] success so that every single time people have the exact same experience and every single time people say 'That was fantastic,' and if they don't ... [it's because our Yetis] probably did not use the same process. And then I can pull that person aside and say, what did you not do in this process?

I use Notion, which we talked about yesterday, which is very similar to Monday. Notion is just like a big database, and in that database it has an AI process. I write all of our processes and they're searchable, and you have templates. I can say, when you walk up to somebody's door, this is exactly what you're gonna say. Or, when you are gonna write an email, this is exactly the template you're gonna use and how it's gonna look. Every single process is exactly the same. No matter who you are in the company and what you're doing, it should look exactly the same repeatable processes for repeatable success.

If you were going to have data, it has to [00:16:00] be accurate so that you can make educated decisions. You cannot have data that is accurate unless it is current right now. 

Using Data and Financial Modeling

So what I have done is I have created a dashboard. I use Live Flow, and it pulls all my current information that is happening right now in current time from all my businesses. It doesn't, if you just have one business, that's fine. It'll still do the same thing, and it gives me right now information on that business, or all my businesses. So I know AR, AP, revenue.

I can have it report that this technician has this many billable hours right now. This is where they're at. This is how much PTO time they're using. I know who's being successful and who's not.

I also have it so it has red flags. This is where we're failing. This is where we're successful. This is how much fuel we're using. So, I highly [00:17:00] recommend it so that it marks the information for you so you don't have to go and find it and dig through the data. 

It just works with different platforms. We use QuickBooks.

If you're gonna start a new business ...does anybody create an annual budget? I love budgets. I'm a numbers person, a huge nerd. Obviously, I use a lot of numbers.

Okay, so when we started Yeti Services the third time, the successful time, I created a huge spreadsheet, massive spreadsheet. And, in it, I said ... and it's educated guess because it may have not worked out a couple of times. So, it's very educated guess ... and I said, okay, technician number one is going to do this many billable hours. I've got a truck, tools, you know, this is how much marketing's gonna cost and [00:18:00] this is how much our PM is gonna cost, and how much everything's gonna cost.

And per quarter, per month, I break it out. And then I turn on Finmark and I turn on our QuickBooks and we jump and we start, hit go. What Finmark does is it monitors that and it says, yes, you're hitting your goals, or no you're not, or your marketing's working, or, no, it's not.

Or this marketing is working, but this one's not. It essentially does a financial modeling for you. And it monitors what is and is not working, what technician is working ...  or are you off what your financial modeling was ...  and how you need to adjust things ...  so it does all the data research for you and pulls out that information.

Otherwise, you would spend hours going through that data and by the time you got to that data, it would not be accurate.

Okay guys, I love this one. 

Enhancing Customer Engagement

[00:19:00] Enhance customer engagement. I love the personal touch and when you call into our office, you do talk to a person and I think that's really important. But at the moment that our technician leaves, [you get notified] where they're at and that they're heading your way automatically, you get a text and it says, Hey, our Yeti is headed to your house.

And it tells you estimated drive time, and it even calculates in with traffic and everything. And then, as soon as they're done and they are hit a button and say, I'm finished, you get a full report of what they did, and here's all the pictures to go along with it, of any pictures that they took.

And when they're done, they say, 'Hey, do you wanna schedule your next payment?' And it gives you a calendar so you can automatically just schedule it for what's good for you. You get instant reporting, and then if there's an offer, we're going into the fall and we're in Idaho, we've got lots of leaves, believe it or not, [00:20:00] even though it's a desert, and it'll say, 'Hey, do you want us to clean out your gutter? It's a great time to do that. Why don't you schedule that with us?' ... and you get a little text and you can get on our calendar and you can schedule that with us.

Do you wanna blow out your sprinklers? It's time to do that. Why don't you get on on our calendar and do that?

We make it as easy as possible so that you can maintain your home.

And that is how I failed twice, and finally succeeded at Building a Yeti.

Thanks for listening to Women at WIRC. This podcast is actually a spinoff of our Annual Women in Residential Construction (WIRC) Conference, which we've been hosting since 2016. You can learn more about the conference and see when we'll be in your area by visiting Women's Construction Conference.

Women at WIRC is a production of Endeavor Business Media, a division of Endeavor B2B. Until next time, keep up the good work.