Justin Ephraim: Reduxwood Revisited
Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur podcast. It’s not really a brand new episode, it’s actually a repeat episode! To end off the year, we’re going through some of my favorite interviews. This one is with Justin from Reduxwood out in Vietnam.
Talk about a big vision! He gets his stuff from the bottom of the Panama Canal, and all over Asia. He’s got a showroom in Canada, San Diego and also the UK. So if you want to get inspired, check out Reduxwood. We’ll have brand new episodes of the podcast starting in 2022. I can’t believe it. I hope you all are having a good holiday season, and I’m excited to continue to serve you all next year.
Wood Businesses Around The World
Today’s guest is Justin Ephraim from Reduxwood. Justin has a fascinating story and has been in the wood industry for over twenty-five years. From sourcing wood for Canadians from Panama, building luxury homes, and undertaking underwater excursions to check the quality of submerged woods, it’s been an incredible journey.
From the start to the end of this episode it is packed with captivating stories, wonderful successes, and big moves. Justin and his story are nothing short of inspirational. He moved to Vietnam with two suitcases and a broken panini press (well, it broke on the way, but still.) and now has a multi-national business with twenty employees and the largest inventory of his product in the world.
Wholesaler By Trade, Driven By Nature
Justin describes himself as a wholesaler by trade. At one point he was selling around five containers of product per month. Everything from pine and oak to exotic veneers. Justin’s talents and experience in this industry are far-reaching, however. When he went out for his underwater excursion, for example, he and the team went down into the lake with enormous chainsaws, cut apart these several massive trees, and dredged them up. Cutting down a tree on land is hard enough, but underwater in pitch black is a whole new set of obstacles. Keep in mind too we’re talking about trees that had been underwater for a century since the canal was built.
An extremely interesting part of Justin’s career was also the seven years he spent building luxury homes in the high-end custom construction business. Justin recalls that the last house he worked on sold for $23,000,000 and featured a 50ft boat dock and elevator.
Justin ended up getting the job because he did the land surveying for the site while he was working in another industry. After he’d done the surveying, his company had to lay him off for a few months, so Justin hopped on a bus, went back up to the job site, and left with a job and a new friend named Alex who was building this luxury home for his father.
Working on the framing and directly interacting with the lumber companies gave Justin all the exposure he needed to know this business was the one for him. After Alex told him that there was a company opening up a lumber yard in the area, Justin jumped on it. He called the owner and said he was ready to start right away, the owner told him the yard wouldn’t even be open for six months, so Justin said “Great, I’ll call you next week!”
Making Big Moves
Everything about the wood and lumber industry attracted Justin. He was 22 years old, strong, and active, he felt very rewarded by the process of building a house from the literal foundation all the way to the top, and as he got older the appreciation for the raw material and product just continued to develop. Justin also spent a bit of time in the high-pressure sales business which he notes was still a great experience, but not really for him.
After living most of his adult life in North America, Justin met his wife and went to visit the family in Vietnam. Justin thought it was the most beautiful place, and after 2008 when the market was correcting and his job was in danger he relied on his drive to succeed. Justin is the type of person who always wants to do more and learn more and pursue his passion and energy so moving to Vietnam was the next logical call for him and his growing family.
There is no other company in the world with the inventory that Justin has currently. He also has certifications that are extremely rare and important.
Continuing to Grow & How to Do So
Reduxwood has grown to be an international company with an incredible team and a lifetime worth of networking, relationships, skill, and success under their belts. The inventory alone has taken about eight years for Justin to collect and grow. After doing the wholesale wood selling Justin stumbled into a table sale and that was a bit of an “aha” moment.
Justin now employs about twenty people and has grown to a point where his business doesn’t just support him and his family, but also about 12 other families in Vietnam alone. He notes that a lot of this business is a people business because of the relationships and time that go into building good customer relationships.
The biggest challenge has been getting people to know about Reduxwood when he is in Vietnam. Justin has been having an extremely difficult time figuring out the algorithms and he wishes he would have started working on Instagram a bit earlier than he did. Next, Justin plans to build a showroom in Vietnam and he is very excited about continuing to educate people about the standards, quality, and beauty of the products coming out of Vietnam.
The end of this episode is an incredible think tank of branding and marketing ideas between Steve and Justin. Steve explains the dream 100 marketing strategy, breaks down the process, and adds his own valuable spin and twist to the method.
To see more of Justin’s incredible story and projects please check him out:
Website: http://reduxwood.com/
Instagram: @Reduxwood