Shane Wenzel Reflects on His Experiences Running a Business

Jul 09, 2020

This week, we asked Shane Wenzel, President of our sponsor Shane Homes, to share his experiences running a business with our readers.

Shane Homes was founded in 1979 as a single-family home building company. Today, Shane Homes Group of Companies is an award-winning home builder, multi-family builder, and land developer. Throughout the years, Shane Homes has continued to live up to their legacy of excellence built on a strong foundation in the believing in the importance of family, home, and community.

At Shane Homes, the greatest reward comes from the recognition they receive from their homeowners that they have kept their promise to deliver a quality home, built on schedule and meeting the highest of standards. They believe in ensuring their customers are getting exactly what they are looking for - love it or customize it with Shane Homes, it's the better way to build.

An Early Introduction to the Business

Shane’s career in homebuilding began at the early age of 14. His father decided that he did not want Shane sitting around during his summer breaks from school and encouraged him to get a job. He began working on Shane Homes’ sites as a labourer. As Shane grew older, he became the marketing assistant of the company and helped evolve the Shane Homes Group of Companies brand into what it is today.

Successes

In Shane’s opinion, there have been many successes throughout Shane Homes’ history. When asked to recount a specific success story to share with us, he identified the Women’s designed homes, the Yacatto 1 and 2 as the most remarkable. After hearing the author of The 80% Majority: Reaching the World of Women Consumers, Joanne Thomas Yacatto, speak at a conference, Shane became inspired and requested that she meet with the marketing and sales team at Shane Homes. At this meeting the idea for two women’s designed houses was created. The concept was considered to be so unique that it resulted in a feature in The New York Times. The research conducted by the teams that led the women’s designed houses project continue to drive the design of Shane Homes’ houses.

The feature in The New York Times can be read here.

Struggles

Running a business never comes without struggles. When discussing struggles Shane Homes has encountered, Shane indicated that there have been a number of struggles over the 40 year period that they have been in business. He stated “there’s been obvious challenges with our economy, policy creep and forever changing building codes”. However, the thing that Shane has found most challenging in his career is having to lay employees off. He stated that telling employees that they are being laid off is “the last thing I ever want to tell our staff. We value our people, and before we ever consider lay-offs, we look for other ways to keep them busy in the office and in the field”. One way that Shane Homes keeps employees busy and attempts to avoid lay-offs is by increasing the company’s community involvement by donating more time and resources to the various community organizations they support, including the Alberta LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce. Shane specifies that doing this supports the company’s mantra “We are involved with the community”.

You can read more about Shane Homes’ community involvement by clicking the photo beside this section.

A Competitive Advantage

When asked to discuss what gives Shane Homes a competitive advantage over other homebuilding companies, Shane indicated that he believes there are two key factors that led to their success. First, Shane Homes employees consist of long-term staff members “which bring tremendous knowledge to every aspect of our business”. Second, Shane Homes emphasizes the consumer experience, putting their customer satisfaction as the top priority in their organizational chart to ensure that their experience is enjoyable and stress-free.

Lessons Learned

The biggest business lesson that Shane has learned throughout his experience running Shane Homes has been the importance of decision making. Shane recounted that when he was 19, he needed his father to make a decision regarding an advertisement for the business. He could not get a hold of his father in the short timeline that the decision had to be made in, and he went with his gut instinct and made the decision personally. After making the decision, once he was able to get in touch with his father, Shane proceeded to “give him shit for not being available”. His father interrupted him and stated “I don’t always make the right decisions but at least I make a decision. The goal is to make more right decisions then wrong ones”. This important lesson has continued to influence Shane throughout his career.

Advice to Future Entrepreneurs

When asked to provide advice to individuals looking to start businesses, Shane stated “Do extensive market research, you may learn something new and you will have preconceived notions changed by what you find out”.

A Bright Future

There are exciting things happening in Shane Homes’ future. The company is opening 9 new showhomes in various Calgarian neighbourhoods this summer. There will be two laned homes in Legacy – SE, one custom estate home in Enclave at The Hamptons – NW, and six in the NE (one front drive home in Redstone and five in Cornerstone (2 paired homes, 2 laned homes, 1 front drive home).

Additionally, Shane Homes has launched a new video series called #ShaneStories. These videos highlight the stories that make the company exceptional. Watch Episode 1 of #ShaneStories here.

Learn More About Shane Homes

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