Banking on KC – Karen Crnkovich of DMC Service
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Kelly Scanlon:
Welcome to Banking on KC. I'm your host, Kelly Scanlon. Thank you for joining us. With us on this episode is Karen Crnkovich, the owner of Diamond Mechanical Contractors, better known as DMC Service, an award-winning commercial HVAC and plumbing company. Welcome, Karen.
Karen Crnkovich:
Thank you, Kelly. I am so delighted to be here.
Kelly Scanlon:
Well, I'm excited to congratulate you on all of the awards you've won in the last couple of years. It's just incredible.
Karen Crnkovich:
Oh, my goodness. It has been such an honor and so humbling. As a business owner, you work so hard tirelessly day and night to do the right thing, to wake up, to hustle and build something of significance. And when you have the opportunity to be recognized by the community, it just means the world.
Kelly Scanlon:
And your most recent, you were in the Chamber's top 10 Small Business just recently, and it was just announced that you are in the class of 2023 Women Who Mean Business, so congratulations with that. And you've won others too, which we're going to talk about. So how did you get into the HVAC industry? Was this something that you knew that you had always wanted to do? There are some entrepreneurs who know from a very young age that they want to do this, was that your case?
Karen Crnkovich:
It was definitely not my case. I have always been in sales. In fact, my mom joked that I was selling the doctor as I came into the world, and I built my sales career in several different industries. And at the same time, there was a gentleman who started the company who happens to be my ex-husband, we're really great friends. But as time went on, my corporate sales career was really at a standstill and not very satisfying, and so I came on board and I learned the industry, I took a QuickBooks online class, and taught myself how to do the QuickBooks, and then was doing a little bit of selling. Back then I bought in as majority owner of the company, and rather than call myself president, I named myself the chief handshaker, which really seemed to fit my personality. And then as time went on, I just kept taking on more and more and more. And then as sometimes happens, life changes, and eight years ago I bought him out of his shares and rebranded the company slightly into Diamond Mechanical Contractors and went from there.
Kelly Scanlon:
You focus on commercial projects. Tell us about some of those. What are some of the services and what are some of the projects that have been most interesting to you?
Karen Crnkovich:
Where I always start with explaining to people what DMC does is we are fixers, not builders. So we are out in commercial and industrial spaces. I always have to put a side note, we do do residential, we just don't focus on that from a marketing standpoint. But those of you listening, my friends who always ask, yes, we'll always take care of our residential customers. 85 or more percent of our business is in commercial industrial spaces. So we're taking care of companies around town that own buildings and need their things fixed, they need their HVAC to work properly, they need their plumbing to work properly. It always goes out at the worst time, it's 92 today in Kansas City, I'm sure our phones have been insane all day. And that's where the fun of being a service company comes into, because it is a constant juggle.
You wake up every morning, it's a brand new day, you don't know what the day is going to come. It's a lot of fun. To answer your question, what are some of the most interesting projects we've done? They're all really interesting in some ways. I love the fact that we're constantly solving problems. Some recent highlighted things that we did, Center for Developmentally Disabled is one of our customers, they're a great, amazing nonprofit here in Kansas City, and they needed their IntelliPak Trane units replaced. It was a 75 ton and a 50 ton that requires a really big crane. It's just fun to see that equipment come off a building and go back on. And my team just is so amazing and they perform the work quickly and efficiently and get them right back up and running as soon as possible, and that was really a fun project that we recently completed.
Kelly Scanlon:
The D in DMC service stands for Diamonds, and I know that's been key to shaping your core values. Explain that.
Karen Crnkovich:
So when I went to go rebrand the company, I wanted to keep the initials DMC because the few handful of people who knew us back then, I didn't want to go through all of the rebranding idea, but I wanted a shift. And so when I started thinking through what could the D stand for, there were lots of words, and the one that kept coming back to me was diamond and how we could really play upon the fact that performing Diamond Strong, Brilliant Work, leaning into those two qualities of a diamond, and then playing further, putting together the four Cs, which are our core values, connected, committed, capable champions, making sure that everything that we do within our culture surrounds the idea of a diamond. And it really stuck. It felt both feminine and masculine, if you will, I loved that.
And Kelly, the interesting thing is when I went to go buy the remaining shares of this company, I'd been working in the trades for five years and I would ask other business owners who are all predominantly male or I would ask other technicians what do you think? My vision is to build a company that technicians love coming to work, that they feel supportive, that it's positive environment, that we have a mission and a vision and core values, and that's how everything surrounds that. And universally, I was told that's a really dumb idea that technicians, and I use air quotes, all they care about is a paycheck, all they want is ours. They don't care about fluffy things like mission, that's really dumb, Karen.
And the more I would reflect on those conversations, the more I knew that the people who told me I was wrong were fundamentally wrong, because as humans, regardless of if you are a plumber, an HVAC technician, if you're a doctor, a lawyer, if you're marketing professional, you want to have a sense of purpose, you want to feel like you're making a contribution to your community, that you're providing for your family, and you want to work in a positive environment. And so I closed my eyes, took the leap, bought him out, and slowly but surely started building the company that I dreamed of. And I'm so proud that I feel like I've achieved that.
Kelly Scanlon:
Where do you even start? Because every company has a culture, whether they think they do or not. So when a company that you bought that essentially they'd say they probably had no culture, they did. So where do you even start trying to turn that ship around?
Karen Crnkovich:
It's one step at a time, like everything else in life, rolling out the new brand, rolling out the mission, I signed on the paperwork in March and it was at the Christmas party that I unveiled the big reveal, our core values, our mission, our vision, our new logo, rolled out the tagline, Diamond Strong, Brilliant Work, and then it was just keep stepping forward in that, keep reminding the team, keep leaning into the core values. We talk about the core values all the time in DMC. When somebody does something great, when I hear good feedback from a customer or a fellow teammate, I'll just send the diamond and the arm strong emoji to my tech and I'll be like, "Hey, great job. Diamond Strong." And we try to have fun with it, but we also take it very seriously and instilling the almost safety, if you will, that our technicians have the autonomy to make decisions that benefit our customers by following the core values.
I will say, you won't get in trouble if you have to make a decision right there, look at our core values, we're connected, we're taking care of people, we're doing the right things right, we're going to value safety, and so we just slowly immerse ourselves in the idea of what our core values truly mean. And then eight years later, you wake up and you're like, "Wow, I have a company that really embodies this mission, vision, and core values," and it's just I can't really point to one moment in time where I was like, "Okay, now we have achieved this." But it happened slowly over time. And then you look back at how far you've come.
Kelly Scanlon:
You had to be the example, you had to first demonstrate those so that they knew you were sincere about it and that you weren't just taking them through a meaningless exercise, which is the case in some companies. And once they start to see, oh, this is real and this is benefiting me, you start to get ownership, and that's when things really start to change. You've said you're breaking down barriers in the trades. What do you mean by that?
Karen Crnkovich:
By the idea that you can build a company that has a really positive supportive culture. Number one, as a woman in the HVAC industry, I'm one of 2%.
Kelly Scanlon:
I know that the numbers for women in construction overall are going up, but just still in the HVAC it's 2%, wow.
Karen Crnkovich:
It's 2%, which it's growing. One of the most fascinating things is I joined early on when I became the sole owner, I was looking everywhere that I could find for resources, for support, how can I be a better leader, how can I be a better business owner, how can I lean into the trades, and I stumbled upon this organization called Women in HVACR, heating, ventilation, AC, and refrigeration. And it was basically a meeting before a big convention. And I'd heard about it and I was like, "Hey, that's really cool." And it was over in St. Louis. So I hopped in the car, I drove over, I could not wait to meet other women in HVAC. I walked into the room, there was maybe 30 women there, so they're from all over the country, and I was one of two owners. There were no technicians in the room.
And everybody else worked in supportive roles with organizations that provide parts, they were in marketing, and that's great. Women in HVAC, however they get there, is a wonderful thing. So fast-forward to last fall, they have a standalone annual conference, three-day conference, multi-track, there were over 400 women there, many owners, more than a handful of technicians, women who are actually out in the field, it's just to see the explosion of women really embracing the trades is so exciting. Not everybody is cut out for a desktop, so to see women really embrace the trades and realize that it's a place where they can help support their family, that it provides flexibility is amazing and it just gives me so much joy to be an advocate for the trades in general, but especially women in the trades.
Kelly Scanlon:
I have to tell you, I stumbled upon your Instagram account and I absolutely love the way you describe yourself, you say that you're an entrepreneur with a black belt in positive thinking. The reason that really hit me is because in some ways it seems like an oxymoron, in some ways it's absolutely right on the money, because being an entrepreneur is really hard. And for every high there's a low, and during some periods there's more lows than there are highs. So what do you do? Do you have to work really hard at staying positive? And so how do you live that message?
Karen Crnkovich:
I believe that I've always had a sunny disposition, I always have been a little bit more positive than negative. Evidence of that is when I was a cheerleader in high school, I was awarded the PMA, Positive Mental Attitude Award, at cheerleader camp two years in a row, which is unheard of. I am a unicorn in more than one way, Kelly Scanlon. However, you're right, it is hard being an entrepreneur. The interesting thing, and I'll share a story, so in 2018, it was three years after I had purchased out the remaining shares of the company, and we had an amazing revenue year, and because of that we were recognized as one of the Thinking Bigger Business 25 Under 25 companies, and there was so much joy, so much just I was proud of my team, and I felt like we had really come very far, but peel back the curtain and it was the worst year in our company history for profit. I almost grew our company out of business in 2018.
Kelly Scanlon:
That can happen, and people don't realize that success can kill you too.
Karen Crnkovich:
It really can. And it was almost killing me. I was so stressed. It was really a dark time in our company history. I was taking out money on my home equity line of credit to make payroll every two weeks. And really when I accepted that award, I truly felt like such a phony. I went home and I was so proud for my team, and I would never take anything away from them, but internally I was like, "We don't deserve this. Look at what's happening behind the scenes, this is bad." And the great thing to that story is through that dark time, and it was probably about solid nine to 12 months of just praying and gritting through the day, I always leaned into my faith. And every morning I'd wake up, I put my feet on the ground and just thank God for another day, and keep marching forward.
And that is truly what it takes to be an entrepreneur, because you're going to have high highs and sometimes you're going to have really low lows, but if you just keep marching forward and keep taking another step towards what you know is the dream or the ultimate outcome, there's a shot you'll get there. I had a lot of luck, but it was a lot of hard work. And I'm so pleased that from 2018 to 2019, we swung our profit over 230%, we became cashflow positive. Then we were in really great financial position to go into the pandemic, which was another struggle. But at that point, and I still to this day feel like that period of time that was such a struggle I don't regret a moment of it. I got a PhD in how to be resilient, how to be creative, how to just keep hustling when it's hard, and I'm really grateful for the lessons that I learned. So it's an up and down, but I do believe that ultimately a positive attitude and perseverance will help you get through any difficult situation in your life.
Kelly Scanlon:
Well, and it goes back to the diamond. Look at what happens when you put rock essentially under pressure, it becomes this beautiful thing. You've moved around a lot. If I read correctly, I think you've moved around and lived in nine or 10 different cities, nine, but Kansas City is where you've made your home, it's been your longest home. Besides owning your business here, you've engaged in the nonprofit community, you make a point of giving back, it's part of that culture you talked about earlier, and in fact you started your own nonprofit organization in 2019 called Strong Homes-Strong Families. Tell us about that.
Karen Crnkovich:
So first of all, Strong Homes-Strong Families is a new bootstrapping nonprofit here in the Kansas City area. Our mission is to provide free, i.e., no cost home repairs that are critical to homeowners in need. The basic premise is that as a society we say that home ownership is the American dream, and yet if you can't maintain your home, your biggest asset becomes an anchor. And we want to help homeowners who just find themselves in situations where they cannot fix really critical things in their home, like HVAC and plumbing and entry stairs and bathroom fixtures.
So I got the idea, the seed was planted maybe six or seven years ago when one of my technicians was called out to a residential call, it was a young family, they had a new baby, it was dead cold winter, and their heater wasn't working, and he called me and he's like, "I don't know what to do because they're denying the repair." And I was like, "Well, how much is it?" He's like, "$300." And he's like, "they want to go buy space heaters." And it's rolling into Christmas and my heart just hurt because for anybody to choose to go buy a space heater, which is great for a tiny moment, it's good to put under your desk at work if you're too cold, whatever, but not to heat a whole home, and especially with a new infant. And I just said, "You know what? Just fix it. Tell them Merry Christmas and God bless, and we'll just put this one on the house." And I had the ability to do that, and it really got me thinking, gosh, there are really families out there that can not afford basic repairs.
So then fast-forward, I was blessed to get the nonprofit running, I have two other co-founders who really stuck with me from the very beginning. And then we filled out our board last year and started doing projects, and we're averaging about one project a month, we're still getting the word out about the services that we provide, but I know that one by one we're positively affecting families in our area. For example, there was a mom whose furnace was broken and she was heating her house by opening up her oven, and so we were able to, with partners, put in a whole new HVAC system, because her AC was on its last leg too. So rather than just looking at the immediate thing that was broken, we said, "Hey, if her AC is going to go out next summer, let's just do this all at once." So we gave her a new system.
We had another mom, she's a single mom of four, so imagine how much laundry you're due when you have four kids. Every time she did the laundry, she would have raw sewage back up in her basement that she would be pulling out in those five gallon Home Depot buckets and putting it in her backyard, and so we are able to jackhammer her basement floor and found a not properly installed fitting, we fixed the fitting, no more raw sewage in her basement. And it's stories like that that just really cut me to the core because this mom was showing so much grace and so much resilience with her children, and we all know what raw sewage smells like, it's not pleasant, and yet she was just so thankful and just such a beautiful soul. And so it's so gratifying to be able to help homeowners just one at a time. Like I said, we're bootstrapping, we have a little bit of money, but getting the word out about Strong Homes-Strong Families is really what we're working on now.
Kelly Scanlon:
Sounds like a wonderful program. The Kansas City community has noticed your work and what you do in the community itself, like you just described. You were named Ingram's Business Top 100 List for 2022, you are among the KC Chamber's top 10 Small Businesses this spring, as I had mentioned, Women Who Mean Business, you just were announced as part of the class of 2023, and nationally too Inc. Magazine recognized DMC as one of the top 5,000 fastest growing companies last year. So with all the success that DMC has achieved, where do you go from here?
Karen Crnkovich:
We keep waking up and doing what we do. One of the things that I love is that we truly are helping our community, both with our nonprofit giving, but also by fixing the things that are broken. Every business, every homeowner, they want to have plumbing that works, they want AC when it's 92, they want heat when it's 12 degrees, and continuing to build our team the slow but steady way, especially after learning the lessons of 2018, we don't want to double overnight, and so we're just going to keep waking up and serving our community and hopefully growing in reputation where people know they can rely on us, they can trust us, that we'll do great work. We're humans, we make mistakes too, but we always fix it, and we don't shy away from it.
I tell my techs when they call me, they're like, "Hey, I just did something bone ed." I'm like, "Well, let's think of a way to explain that to the customer and ask forgiveness and let them know that we're going to fix it the right way and move on." And I know that consumers, I know our customers appreciate that so much, and that's what we're just going to keep doing.
Kelly Scanlon:
Karen, thank you so much for being with us today to tell your story and for all that you're doing in the community, keeping people safe in their homes and making sure that they have the heating and cooling and refrigeration that they need, and also for serving our nonprofit community. Thank you so much.
Karen Crnkovich:
Thank you for having me. It's been so fun to chat with you.
Joe Close:
This is Joe Close, president of Country Club Bank. Thank you to Karen Crnkovich for being our guest on this episode of Banking on KC. When we talk about the contributions of entrepreneurs, we often focus on their innovation, job creation, and other economic contributions. What's often overlooked is their charitable impact on community life. Entrepreneurship and philanthropy are closely intertwined with some, like Karen, even starting their own foundations. Country Club Bank's former chairman, the late Byron Thompson, approached business with an entrepreneurial mindset and embraced the community with a philanthropic spirit that continues among bank associates today. We commend our local entrepreneurs who work tirelessly to grow their businesses, but also find the time to enrich our community through financial donations and volunteer efforts. Thanks for tuning in this week. We're banking on you, Kansas City, Country Club Bank, member FDIC.