The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Transform Your Home with Chariot’s Expert Plumbing and Design Solutions

Episode Date: October 5, 2024

Transform Your Home with Chariot's Expert Plumbing and Design Solutions chariotwholesale.com About the Guest(s): Cole Mason is the Creative Director at Chariot Plumbing Supply and Design based in Salt Lake City, Utah. With a background in industrial and furniture design from Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, Cole has been pivotal in driving innovation, customer satisfaction, and brand growth at Chariot. His expertise spans over four years in the high-end home improvement sector, focusing on exceptional customer experiences and strategic marketing. Cole also plays an influential role in Blade Runner Tools, a subsidiary of Chariot, specializing in diamond tools and stone cutting equipment. Episode Summary: In this episode of The Chris Voss Show, Chris engages with Cole Mason, Creative Director at Chariot Plumbing Supply and Design, in a lively discussion about trends and innovations in home improvement design. Listeners are introduced to Chariot's commitment to luxury design, strategic marketing, and customized service offerings, making it a leader in high-end plumbing and design. Throughout the conversation, Cole provides valuable insights into the evolving trends in kitchen and bathroom designs. They delve into the significance of utilizing a professional design team to avoid common pitfalls associated with DIY approaches. From discussing the burgeoning popularity of bidets in the U.S. market to the technological advancements in smart faucets, the episode is packed with expert tips and trends. Additionally, listeners are introduced to Blade Runner Tools and the innovations in diamond tools and stone cutting, illustrating Chariot's comprehensive approach to building a timeless and efficient home. Key Takeaways: The importance of involving a professional design team in home improvement projects to avoid costly mistakes and optimize space effectively. Insights into current design trends, including farmhouse sinks, smart faucets, and the introduction of bidets in modern bathrooms. An overview of Blade Runner Tools, Chariot's subsidiary, which offers advanced diamond tools and services for stone cutting and fabrication. Emphasis on creating a unique customer experience through customized designs, catering to various budget ranges, and offering an extensive range of products. Recommendations for homeowners to slow down their decision-making process to ensure long-term satisfaction with their home improvements. Notable Quotes: "You don't know what you don't know, and there are a lot of opportunities to do some really cool stuff with constantly evolving technologies." - Cole Mason "Take your time… the fixtures are going to be something that you interact with every day while you're living in that house." - Cole Mason "We want to be… the free project plumbing project manager for your project, which alleviates a lot of stress for our customers." - Cole Mason "The design trends really are far and few between and kind of just depends on the actual desire of the specific customer." - Cole Mason "Our products and offerings give every designer their dream playground in our showroom." - Cole Mason Resources: Chariot Plumbing Supply and Design: chariotwholesale.com Instagram: @chariotwholesale Blade Runner Tools: bladerrunnerdiamondtools.com (website under development) Dive into the full episode to explore more on modern design trends, and stay tuned for future episodes that bring you expert insights from leaders and innovators across industries.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. Chris Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com.

Chris Voss here. Welcome. Please, you know, when they're out leading things, that makes it official. Welcome to the show. For 16 years and over 2,000 episodes, you've been when the lady sings it, that makes it official. Welcome to the show. For 16 years and over 2,000 episodes, we bring you the Chris Foss Show with all the brilliant people who share with you their brilliant stories, their journeys, their education, to make you smarter and better in life to help you achieve your goals, dreams, your visions, your desires,

or maybe you just want to sit on the couch and eat Cheetos all day. You can do that too. Just don't do it naked in a bean bag. I did that once and regret it ever since. I'm not going to talk about it anymore, but I am in therapy for it. Don't know what that means. Naked Cheetos in a beanbag, but you can enjoy the show that way if you want. It's a free country and we're the show that loves you, but doesn't judge you. At least I was harshly as your mother-in-law. Anyway, guys, go to goodreads.com, Fortress Griswold, linkedin.com, Fortress Griswold, Griswold's one and the TikTokity, all those crazy places on the internet.

Today we have an amazing young man on the show. We're going to be talking about doing improvements to your home and different things along those lines. We have Cole Mason, who is the creative director for Chariot Plumbing Supply and Design in Salt Lake City, Utah. They are a leading high-end plumbing supply and design company and blade runner tools a premier supplier of diamond tools and stone cutting equipment they have a passion for luxury design and strategic marketing i've seen their website their website is freaking amazing like they make they make i've

seen some of the showers and bathrooms they make that look like you know i'd never need another room in the house i just stand in the shower all day. It's got all sorts of assortments and dials. And I just be like, I'm staying in here, man. This is warm and comfortable. Cole has been instrumental in driving innovation, customer satisfaction, and brand growth across both companies. He specializes in delivering exceptional customer experiences and building strong partnerships

within the industry, always aiming to elevate brand presence and generate long-term success. Welcome to the show today, Cole. How are you? I'm doing very good. Thanks, Chris. Thanks for having me. I'm just voice fighting from post-COVID 14 days in, so it's almost back to voice.

Cole, give us the dot coms. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? Our website is chariotholesale.com, and our Instagram is chariotholesale. That's just a great resource for you to be able to see all the products that we offer and some of our past projects and fun stuff like that. It's a great spot. So give us the 30,000 overview, what you guys do there, in your words. At Chariot, we really like to focus on kind of creating a customer relationship

where we love working with designers and high-end home builders and people that are doing renovations. It's really important for us to be able to kind of have that human aspect of interacting with people and really developing some fun relationships with the people that we're working with. Because obviously the spaces that you're creating, we like to focus on the kitchens and bathroom design. And that's kind of a huge part of people's lives where they get a lot of comfort and relaxation, like where you're going to start your day usually in your bathroom, looking at yourself in the mirror, washing off the Cheetos from the bag, you know. But we like to do all sorts of fun stuff and just create really, really exceptional, beautiful designed areas that are innovative and help stand out. And so the pictures you guys have on your websites is extraordinary.

So you guys focus on the plumbing of it, the building of it, the making of it. Oh, yes, sir. And you got the wholesale and the retail side. So, yeah, what we really specialize in is kind of the plumbing setup from the ground up. Like whether you're doing a new home and you just have your foundation poured, we like to come in and kind of walk through and say, where are the bathrooms going to be? Where is your kitchen going to be? What side is the island on?

There's a lot of kind of little nuanced things that people don't really, excuse me, don't really know to plan for when they're creating their kitchens or bathrooms that we like to come in and help them kind of get a better idea for their setup and what the process is going to be like. Because there's a lot of unnecessary headaches sometimes with rough in valves and exterior walls and square footage and stuff like that that people don't really know about. And one of the things that we pride ourselves in is being able to come in with our expertise and experience of over 20 years and be able to prevent some of those headaches that can come up later on in the future just by making some kind of prerequisite adjustments to plans and stuff like that in the actual building process and blueprints. And so how long have you been doing this now? I've been in this industry for about four years now. I started at Chariot originally as a salesperson.

It was pretty fun. I got to really use some of my design experience because I went to Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia and I studied industrial design and furniture design. So the design world has always been super, super intriguing and a big passion of mine. And then being able to come to Chariot and kind of exemplify some of my ideas and fashions with people that are like-minded and also extremely talented. It was really, really fun. And I saw a great opportunity for myself to be able to step up from being a salesperson to the creative director at Chariots.

And now I am a little bit more influential. And I feel like this is kind of more in line with my sales technique anyway, which is actually delivering kind of value propositions and being more of a consultant than a salesperson, being able to prevent a lot of errors and then introduce a lot of cool ideas that people wouldn't think about. But it's just, it's really fun to have kind of a collaborative environment of so many talented people.

And now you guys do business with people around the nation, right? Sure. Just solely based in Salt Lake City. That's correct. And then do you, I noticed this stuff on the website, of course, that's featured is just extraordinarily beautiful and likely expensive. Is there a range or, you know, a spend that you usually look at when you're working with people?

Do people need to have a certain amount of profit spend that they might be looking for? Or do they need to be zillionaires? No, sir. Bathrooms are spectacular looking. We definitely do love to work with the high end. There's a lot more opportunity for unique designs. However, we are not limited to the high end.

We like to be able to offer all price points for everybody that's looking to improve their space or create a new home. It's just how valuable those areas are. We want people to really feel passionate and kind of in love with the area that they're creating that hopefully will be for a couple of years or maybe the rest of their life. Yeah, a couple of my married friends, every few years their wife is like, we need a new kitchen. It's like, get a new kitchen it's like get a new kitchen that's why i'm single the but why is it important to have use a design team the design company rather than just being one of those people who's just do it myself i just put in some stuff and i'm sure i figured out it's just plumbing you know what i mean

just as somebody who is kind of the do-it-yourself guy, I've gotten myself into a couple holes that I wish I didn't. But a couple of the advantages are just sort of you don't know what you don't know. You have a lot of opportunities to do some really cool stuff. There's constant new innovative technologies coming out for shower heads,

for water consumption, from toilets into days to like free-floating therapeutic bathtubs and saunas so if you're if you're wanting to do something that can be extremely exotic and kind of an eye catcher for your friends or your family you got to have somebody that knows how to educate you on those things and show you your opportunities yeah and you guys have done so many different designs you guys probably have a huge knowledge base and library of you know what can be done and and all spaces are kind of all spaces are probably mostly different

when you're doing a kitchen or some sort of plumbing or oh hugely different yeah definitely and so there's probably a there's probably something people in design look for like economy of space uses of space maybe the economy of uses of space. I'm just making up stuff here. And, you know, the look of stuff, I mean, how stuff is presented, the image it gives off, maybe, you know, probably a lot of that goes into the design, right? Absolutely. And, yeah, the kind of the usage of space that we were talking about earlier is there's actually the ergonomic design of the space of how you interact with something.

For example, your iPhone or whatever phone you use, it's going to have rounded edges on the outside. Because if they were sharp 90 degree angles, it would not feel good in your hand. And there's just kind of a lot of like really small design characteristics and elements that we like to apply into our design that will really maximize the use of that space whether it's a bathroom or a kitchen like what how are you using the kitchen are you cooking for a lot of people are you going to have a butler pantry or there's there's a lot of different options i just want a butler just so i can say, Alfred, you know. Yeah, to the Batcave. To the Batcave. Exactly. You're not that rich, sir.

Yeah, that's how I treat my roommate. I pretend like he's Alfred. Alfred, get my Batcave. I noticed in your website, you guys work with a ton of different product lines and companies. Tell us a little bit about that. That just kind of goes hand in hand with our ability to be able to offer unique designs and obviously price points because everyone is in a different place in their life and has different things that they want and don't want. And we really pride ourselves in being able to have

such a huge product offering just because when we're working with interior designers, architects, high-end home builders, kind of their reputation is based off of their customer experience. And we are a big part of that, even though we can be separate companies. But if one of our trusted builders sends a customer to us or a designer to us, we want to be able to kind of perfectly fit their specific needs for whatever their custom custom project or customer desire maybe so that just gives us a lot big a larger fluctuation for what we can and what we can deliver to those people it's it's kind of interesting so you've

got a lot here i don't know there might might be 100 plus here and all sorts of designs from simple sinks to very expensive sinks. What do you see is like in fashion right now? Are bidets coming into fashion in America? What's really popular right now? If I'm a young lady out there listening who wants to redo her kitchen or bathroom, what's the hottest trends maybe? There are some to go to bidets. Obviously, in a lot of Asian countries and other places, not in the United States, bidets are extremely popular.

And obviously, during COVID, when it was kind of a gamble to be able to find toilet paper, they got a little bit more popular as well. I think I spent $19 on a roll of toilet paper from a gas station when COVID first kicked off, which was kind of ridiculous. But bidets are definitely becoming more of a trend in high end. They just offer kind of a next level clean to... We'll skip to the next subject. But some of the design trends, I think there's a lot of

farmhouse sinks, which is where the actual apron continues with the countertop. So you don't just have a countertop front, but you have the actual porcelain sink front, which looks very, very beautiful. There's a lot of articulating and smart faucets that will actually be able to be voice commanded. So you can say, give me three quarter cups of water and it will dispense three quarter cups of water. They have some that will be able to do it temperature wise. So if you need something for cooking or culinary needs, a lot of the sinks nowadays also don't have their drain right in the center for a kitchen. They'll be kind of shifted off to the right or to the left, just have an offset center, which gives you a lot more usable space underneath your counters.

But the design trends really are far and few between and kind of just depends on the actual desire of the specific customer. Some people have a very traditional look. Some people want to be extremely modern. So there's a huge fluctuation. I mean, there's so much difference and then i mean imagine color matching you know matching the color schemes of maybe what you're putting in and then i mean you guys deal with a lot of different aspects of it tell us a little bit about the the i mean you guys have a tool supply right the sir tell us about that

service and and what you guys offer there, products that you offer there. Sure. Blade Runner is actually a new company that Chariot has released. It's a subsidiary company of Chariot just because we're extremely passionate about being able to improve the lives of everyone within our industry where it kind of feels like sometimes this has been a race to the bottom of doing it for the cheapest and the fastest we want to be able to kind of go the other way and create a little bit more of a teamwork collaboration within our industry so while we do work with a lot of designers and and builders and stuff like that we also work a lot with fabricators who are kind of all sitting at the table at the same project. We've got designers, fabricators, electricians, you name it.

The process of building a house has a lot of people coming in. For Blade Runner, we want to be able to offer helpful services and products for everyone involved. So for fabricators, we're selling diamond tools. We have material handling stuff for large granite slabs and stone cutting we've got the actual cnc machines we've got aprons and face masks for pretty much everything that anyone's going to need to be able to safely and really professionally get the job done and we've got some really awesome leading industry experts who are able to come in and do trainings in a lot of the fabricator shops

for the customers that we're working with to show them like if you use this as an assist blade and you do it at this speed at this feed rate you're going to be able to get a much cleaner cut than if you use blank blank blank at a different speed rate but there's a there's so much information that needs to be more regularly accessible that can really help to elevate the results of projects. And we want to be able to get our hands on as much as we can, even outside of the plumbing. So like your countertops, heated driveways, concrete cutting, tile cutting, all that kind of stuff. We want to be able to kind of offer the same level of expertise that we do with our plumbing. Yeah, definitely. And so people can order those around the nation they can get involved and and and know what's going on

there now is there a separate website for that for the oh for blade runner is actually really brand new i just finished designing the logo and everything recently we're really new there there you go we're launching we're part of the launch. But we're going to have a purchasable website. That's going to be bladerunnerdiamondtools.com. We have the domain and all that set up. We just need to get it going. We have been working for probably about eight months now locally and just doing a lot of local deliveries just to be able to cater to our existing customers.

But we're getting to a level where we're ready to expand that offer and service to whoever may need it. Now, what makes you different than other plumbing and supplies organizations? What makes you guys stand out, you think, in design and all that work that you do? A huge part of what makes us stand out is just the team that we have here. While we really understand the value of keeping everything efficient and on time, because a lot of people are relying on us to keep their project going. If an installer needs their sinks and their faucets and everything to be able to cut the hole for the countertop, we really just pride ourselves in being able to allocate an entire team to a project. We want to be pretty much the free project plumbing or the plumbing project manager for your project, which kind of alleviates a lot of stress from our customers, allowing them to better focus on the things that they love to do, which is designing and selecting colors and making all sorts of really cool changes.

While we want to handle like the rough ends and the delivery and the logistics, also are the products that we're able to offer. We're exclusive with a lot of very, very high end exclusive vendors that really give pretty much every designer their dream playground in our showroom to be able to come and just produce the most unique design that they possibly can and really get their reputation concreted in is something awesome so it's it's a lot of fun going into redoing all this stuff but do you have any advice on anybody who's thinking about you know redoing their kitchen you know they've maybe got the husband who's i can do it honey it'll be fine i'm sure it'll work out what's that that's a pipe

what's we we have water damage it's a it's a it's a floor flowing shower you know I've been known to try and muck around about the house and just make a problem worse and you're like now we really have to pay somebody. And then I guess people can meet with you, sit down with you, and you can walk them through their design. Absolutely. And they can get the plans. Do you guys have a showroom that people can come to? We do.

Yes, sir. We are located downtown Salt Lake City. And we are actually renovating our showroom right now on our Instagram. We're posting all sorts of updates and these new vignettes that we're making. We're going to have a series of seven and we just released the first one last week actually. But my advice for people that are going into renovating or doing a new home or whatever the project may be is to take your time. It's very easy to get decision fatigue when you're deciding on the kind of concrete for the driveway or what color the carpet is going to be or the shingles or the gutters. There's a lot of kind of monotonous decisions that need to be made before you get to your plumbing phase for most people.

Some people like to kind of get it done early and know what they have but my biggest advice is to really take your time in your selections because these fixtures are going to be something that you interact with every day while you're living in that house for the rest of the time like your kitchen faucet is one of the most used appliances in your home and kind of a huge staple piece for the actual design of the kitchen. So it's just to really slow down and enjoy the process and make sure that you are not feeling grumpy or hungry or sick or something that day so that you can really kind of work with our team and gather all the cool insights and get really excited about creating this and hopefully bring a little bit more joy back into the process instead of feeling bored about selecting a water heater or something like that. Yeah, yeah.

It's crazy all the stuff that goes into it, and it's usually kind of expensive. What is the average spend? I don't know if you know this off the top of your head. What's the average spend of, say, maybe a kitchen or a bathroom you do? I mean, imagine it imagine it depends on budget but what's a what's a good average maybe i don't know you can do depends this depends if you're going to do only appliances like sink kitchen faucet disposal all that kind of stuff but if you're going to do countertops and cabinets it can really range anywhere from two grand to 15,000, usually.

15,000, 20 grand. This is why I'm single, folks. If I ever had a wife that said to me, we're going to redo the kitchen, and I've seen what that looks like on the relationship side. I'm just like, check, please. Anyway, I'm just doing the jokes here people redo your kitchen make your wife happy because if she's not happy you're not gonna be happy i think that's how it

works anyway so you guys can do the kitchen the bathroom this is kind of cool copper is copper being really popular copper has taken a little bit of a slight downturn in terms of a trend it used to be extremely popular in farmhouse and cabin styles, but it's just from what we've seen in our showroom, stainless steel and fire clay, porcelain have really just kind of taken the storm, especially in bathrooms is going to be mostly porcelain. But those copper sinks really give you such a cool kind of rustic look that a lot of people still do enjoy today yeah it's there's something about copper that makes it just look so freaking cool now you guys do underfloor heating as well and snow melting tell us about that the that under heating what do

they call that radiant heating is that what it's called yes sir so that are the company that we work with is pretty innovative they're called warm up And they do radial flooring and driveways and sidewalks. And what kind of sets them apart from a lot of other people is you actually don't need, it's not a hydronic system, which means there's not warm water or liquid running through the pipes under the floor. It's actually just an electrical wire. So you really kind of lose a lot of headaches on the install because you don't have to worry about having a boiler. You don't have to worry about poking a hole and any leaks in the future

for repairs. They're super, super affordable. It's about the same amount of electricity as a large refrigerator. And it's really comfortable. If you wake up in the morning and you sleep with socks because your floor is cold, Warm Up is for you oh yeah there's there's so much difference when i'm in a hotel or some place that has that it's like really nice when it's very gritty so sure my feet are warm she said toasty yeah it's a great start to the day like a cup of coffee yeah because in like in winter you get those drafts you know where you know it's down on the floor and stuff. You can get a little draft, and you're like, ah, I'm going to freeze to death. Anyway, it definitely wakes you up in the morning.

It'll help wake you up. You guys do snow melting applications as well for roofs, pipes. I like this for the driveway. I want a driveway heater in my next home, assuming I build one in Utah. Yeah, it's a really good deal and the installation process is so easy you can put it pretty much over any existing if you have a a paver driveway or asphalt you could actually just put it right over and then re-pour and seal it and you're good to go so you don't even have to dig it you don't have to dig up your old one and put

a new one huh well not necessary wow i'm just can i just get some of them just to wrap into a blanket yeah we'll send you one yeah so anything more we need to talk about or tease out as we go or tell people how to onboard with your website how to reach out to you guys and find out more if you if you go to our website there'll actually be a text box if you just want to have a quick question or want to get in touch with us that way. You can shoot us a quick text. All of our contact information will be on our website, which is chariotholesale.com. But we just really love working with people. If you're a designer who really wants to produce some amazing, innovative designs, we've got one of the best showrooms from pretty much Texas to California

we just love to work with anybody that wants to work with us thank you very much for coming the show we really appreciate it Cole yeah thank you for having me I had a great time now you've just ruined a whole mess of married guys's lives because their wife is listening to the show and she's got well but at least they'll have a beautiful home. Happy wife, happy life. So thanks, Cole, for coming on the show. Thanks for having us, for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, 4chesschristmas, LinkedIn.com, 4chesschristmas. Christmas, one of the TikTokity and all those crazy places on the internet.

Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time.