CMILumber Rock - Current
Chris LaFay: Good morning.
Erin Dyer: Good morning. How are you guys? Good. It's Monday.
Chris LaFay: Do you think Fun over the weekend?
Erin Dyer: You know, this weekend was a little low key and I was super into that. It has been like the busiest year I can remember. And, like, went to see my mom yesterday, which was nice. And yeah, it was pretty cool. How about you guys?
Chris LaFay: Very nice. Went to Indianapolis for the weekend. My wife and I have some friends up there. And went and saw Savannah Bananas game. Shocker. I know. At this point.
Erin Dyer: And so are you big followers of them?
Chris LaFay: Yes, very much so. Pretty much.
Matt Elkins: We.
Chris LaFay: We have friends kind of across the US and so we go visit them a lot. And since the Bananas have started becoming a thing and they go to a ton of major cities, we buy tickets when they go on sale and we buy them in the cities that all of our friends live, and then we basically just go and use that as. The excuse to go visit folks and whatnot.
Erin Dyer: I love that. That's so cool.
Chris LaFay: It's a lot of fun.
Erin Dyer: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: So we had a. We had a really good time with them.
Erin Dyer: Yeah, they're so fun. They're so funny and engaging. Yeah.
Chris LaFay: Yes. It is a fantastic experience for both kids and adults. And they've somehow figured out how to thread the needle to where adults are not bored and kids are not on. The edge of their seat as well, too. Like, it's a hard mixture to mix, needless to say.
Erin Dyer: But so really quickly, I'm gonna be up in Indianapolis, I think, like in a month and a half now we're gonna. We're driving to Wisconsin and that's our stop that we're gonna make on the way. I know. So it's. It's nice.
Chris LaFay: Our friends live in the suburbs and basically they kind of actually move from like suburban Georgia, where we live, to almost like a carbon copy, like traditional. Standard, like suburban city. So it's like feel very much like, yo, we're like going kind of to the same place that we live in now, which has its pros and cons. At the end of the day today. So. Yes.
Erin Dyer: Good morning, Matt.
Matt Elkins: Good morning.
Chris LaFay: How are we? Good.
Erin Dyer: Is Matt Nelson joining us? I noticed his car wasn't here.
Chris LaFay: I don't know. Oh, okay.
Matt Elkins: He didn't tell me. He left his cell phone at home is what he said, and he went back to get it, so.
Erin Dyer: Oh, okay. Gotcha.
Matt Elkins: How he got here without his cell phone. But whatever, we're not going to wait on him. Let's proceed.
Erin Dyer: Okay. So I sent you guys just 10 minutes ago. I apologize for that. A rundown of some of the things that we've discussed since our last meeting. I know that in our last meeting we decided we were going to really work on the customer journey and how we were going to be approaching reaching our customers on the website. I think very smart and made us really go back to the drawing board and think about how we're viewing these collections and what we're doing. I had a long conversation with our Lumber Rock team on Friday and it was very insightful. We actually had the vice president of Lumber Rock as well as the sales manager. I'm sorry, the director of sales for both Artisan and for all of the other products, the OEM and the other side. And they all gave great feedback. I have some actually pretty sophisticated mock ups that I sent you guys. I don't know if you took a look yet. I did not get feedback from management yet. So Matt, I don't know if you've had a chance to look at these yet. We can run through them.
Matt Elkins: Yeah, let's cut through them.
Chris LaFay: Yeah, I saw it come through. I clicked in it. But that's about all I. That's about all I had time to do before our meeting.
Erin Dyer: Yeah, that's totally fine. So let me go ahead and pull them up. There is a Word document kind of explaining the thought process behind everything. But I'm going to go ahead and I'll pull up the charts and talk about, you know. So the goal, as I said in here was we recommend shifting the Lumbrock website from a simpler customer first navigation structure that helps visitors quickly find the right product based on what they're building, what performance they need and what next steps they're ready to take. So instead of as we've been doing shopping by collection, which we all agreed was a little confusing, and then looking at our competitors who don't have collections per se that you're shopping by. But it's, it's so robust that it's almost hard to understand what you're looking for when you go onto the Trex or the Timber Tech. Right. It's more of like, it's more on their site based on quality. Right. It's like you have the top, middle and bottom good, better, best. But we don't have that at Lumber Rock. That's not how we differentiate our products. So we really need to differentiate by what is it that the customer is trying to do. So let me go ahead and pull up the website navigation. So I have a structured outline and then I have the website navigation. I think this one Explains it best. Let me share that with everybody I'm able to share.
Chris LaFay: Here we go.
Erin Dyer: All right. Can you guys see this?
Chris LaFay: Yes.
Erin Dyer: Okay, great. So let's talk about the breakdown that we ended up laying out here. So the first thing we want to see, let's look at the customer journey at the bottom first. I know what I'm building. I need the right performance. Show me my options. I need the details, and I'm ready to take action. Right? So instead of saying, okay, we're out in the mountains, we're out of the coast, we have a backyard deck kind of broken down into what people are most specifically looking for when it comes to, you know, what their highest need levels are. So backyard decking, we've already decided we're going to kind of marry the classic and genesis in that regard, so that when people get there, they know they have both of those options. Dock and waterfront decking. So not just the coastline. And this is something I actually broke down pretty specifically with everybody the other day. We do not want to negate the inland lakes areas because that such a large demographic. So if we just focus on Florida, we just focus on those pieces, we're going to be missing out on a lot. So we want to actually include coastal and classic in that regard. Porch and historic. We sell a lot of porch board. We sell a lot of veranda. Those are kind of two different products, but we can put them both together in that and then custom and specialty. I want to know if that is specific enough when we talk about OEM and artisan, but we have to make room for that. And I think that that's one of the pieces that we haven't focused on enough. Our OEM products are actually some of our highest opportunity products that we have at cmi. I think we do very specialized thing with them. Like we create. We have a whole line of products that build horse dolls, and that's done very, very well. We. We do turf nailers. So anyone who's installing, you know, fake turf, like whether it be for high school or college or a professional football arena, a turf nailer is very specialized in that area, and we're getting really good traction there. So we want to be able to focus as much as possible on that kind of separately within the website. So then after you've kind of. That's the first level, you get there and you decide, okay, this is what I need. I need a deck, I need a doc. I am looking for something completely different. And I was brought to this page because of that. Then kind Of Sell by. The problem. Right. Sell by are specialized items that are different than what everyone else has to offer. Marine grade performance, built for docs. These are all things that are really good for SEO, but it also are the things that people are often asking for and are kind of our core differentiators for our brand. So we might wanna double check on these. But I think that this isn't very far off from what we do have on there. It's just getting much more specialized.
Chris LaFay: Okay.
Erin Dyer: The next part is keeping the collections. We got Genesis, Classic, Coastal, Brand and Artisan. And then we can. That's where we'll dig deeper into those main pages. And then I think that we've all kind of agreed that going for just a contractor resource area with where customers are, you know, fine to go ahead and engage on there, but we know that when contractors look at the website, they know exactly where to go and find what they need. What do you guys think based off of this information? So far,.
Chris LaFay: My gut reaction to all of this is a 9 out of. 10, If not a 10 out of 10. Like, I, I haven't put a lot of thought behind it yet, but it's kind of hearing you talk about all. This, looking at the visuals, the whole nine yards. This is basically what I was trying to get at. Not in, in a more roundabout way, but you. You know your business way better than I do. This is. This was the point of that exercise.
Erin Dyer: Right. And you're right.
Chris LaFay: And so day.
Erin Dyer: Absolutely. Yeah.
Chris LaFay: We're talking about all the problems. We're talking about all the actual, like, I like the categorization of project type rather than location. That makes more sense. That's actually both a lot more specific and also more general at the same time. Which that sentence doesn't make sense. But yeah, I think, I don't think I have any problems with. Because all the contractor resources stuff, there's already content on the website about all of those things. So that's, that's, that is taken care of, I think. Oops, not in Google Chrome. Hold on. That's why that didn't pull up. I'm looking into something here really quick. Give me one second.
Erin Dyer: No, you're fine. And I have actually a secondary graphic that pretty much spells it out the same, but from like a site architecture. And then there is a word doc that digs in a little bit more as well. So. Yeah, try to come prepared today.
Chris LaFay: No, this is fantastic. Okay, so. Okay, so one of my questions from a.
Matt Elkins: She dropped off.
Erin Dyer: Yeah, sorry, back. Sorry.
Chris LaFay: Hey, there we are. Yeah, the, the close. The stop sharing button looks a little bit too much like the in call button in Google Meet. I've done that so many times. So many times. So the question then becomes, do we want to. So right now we have about our five or six core collection pages. I'm just going to use that word generically. We're talking about the sitemap overall, which are now going to be the buckets that you laid out, the Backyard, deck, dock and Waterfront, etc and then we have our other 45 pages which are. Basically going to be brought over as is. So the question then becomes, are we going to remove some of those 45 pages to fit into some of these. Other pieces here as you've laid out?
Erin Dyer: So I think that the onus is going to come on me to take what we have, look at what we have and then see how those either need to be restructured, renamed or just modified slightly to kind of stay in that same arena. So I don't think that we're going to lose all of them. I think that we're going to have to modify what we're calling them and maybe work on some of the verbiage. But I think that a lot of it's still going to work. We just need to, we need to work on the restructure and I can do that. I can put, I can put definitely some time and effort into that.
Matt Elkins: Okay, so Aaron, can you bring up that initial graphic that you showed? Projects, collections, all that?
Erin Dyer: Yeah, I'm going to share this other one too, Matt, because this is actually, it's very similar but it kind of like gives a good. Tell me if this will work. Er,.
Chris LaFay: Sorry.
Erin Dyer: We're teams people.
Chris LaFay: I'm impressed that you're able to utilize Google Meet being a teams person. We have some clients that do not know how to push the link for. Google Meet and the calendar invite. It's hard to do. I know.
Matt Elkins: Can you go back to the other one?
Erin Dyer: Yeah, I'll go back to the other one.
Matt Elkins: More clear for me.
Erin Dyer: Yeah, that's fine.
Matt Elkins: So as regards to those other 45 slides, so my question is this. So we've got the backyard decking and then you've got by performance. But there should be, I would think, a number of slides that all fall up under each one. Like for instance, sustainable by design should be able to. We should link each of these projects into that type underfoot, low maintenance, built. Built for decks is going to be a little more specific and marine grade is more specific, right? Yeah, those, like those bottom three Buckets would all apply to each of the different projects. And then like the collections, obviously those collections will divvy into whichever project. But then contractor resources, all those should generally apply to each of the projects as well. Going back to, you know, and how we're restructuring and there may be some like you say that we kill because the guys correct me here if I'm wrong, but the goal is a spider web, essentially.
Erin Dyer: Yeah.
Matt Elkins: Right after. At the end of this, you know, maybe not here in two months, but maybe six months from now. We've got it built out where everything is a little more intertwined as opposed to you get into these silos for doc projects. Right?
Chris LaFay: Yeah, yeah. In general, the. That's. Yes.
Erin Dyer: There.
Chris LaFay: There are some pieces to where it's like we do want to keep. If folks have one singular need, we want to keep them focused in on that. But thinking about, like how testimonials and stories and maybe a contractor did go to portion historic because they. They're working on a house that's going. To be Portion Historic, but then they need to get to those guys. So adding in some very tiny, subtle links of like, by the way, if you're a contractor and you're looking for more of this stuff, here's your link. That's not primary by any stretch of the imagination. But yes is the short answer to. My long answer, I think.
Erin Dyer: And correct me if I'm wrong. So this was just kind of like a, like a basic layout. We're going to have to be more in depth than this. But these are the primary buckets we're going to try to put people into. Like, they'll probably be an FAQs under contractor. Right. And, and how it is on our website now and the old one, some of this stuff exists more in like the footer site map than it does actually in the dropdowns. And so I think that what might happen is we get to like docs and waterfront decking and then there are links in there that go into different areas. Right. So maybe a page just for docs. And that was part of how we started this out. We was having to get more specific and more pages that dug more into what we wanted. But what Chris and Dawn are gonna do for us is they're gonna be able to create the framework and then I can kind of quickly jump in and fix some of the things and make sure it's all working. So I can, I can do some of that now. So when they start doing it, it's not like confusing. But when we See the boxes and everything. It's gonna be a lot easier to go in and put that them in.
Matt Elkins: Yeah, I, I agree with that overall statement. I think what we should do is, yeah, look at our, you know, other, what was it, 45.
Erin Dyer: Yeah.
Matt Elkins: Ages and determine, okay, where do they slot if they have a nice tight fit somewhere? Even if they don't, we need to determine what to do with them.
Chris LaFay: Right.
Matt Elkins: Do we, you know, hide them, put them in the background, bring them over. But to your point, you know, we get into docs and then we, we've got the framework and we can build out, you know, three additional pages based on the two that we already have.
Chris LaFay: Right, yeah.
Erin Dyer: And we had a great call with Sophie last week. She was super. I don't know if she sent you her presentation, Chris.
Chris LaFay: No, I have not actually, I haven't talked with her. I was out, I was out of the office a little bit last week so I haven't had a chance to touch base with her probably in about a week actually. So.
Erin Dyer: Okay, I'll make sure that you get it because she had really good recommendations. Some of the, she really did show us that our traffic dipped a lot when we transitioned over. And part of that was because before we had all these profile pages set up and they were so unique and that's what a lot of our traffic was coming from. So like not anyone, not many people have like a one by eight board I think is something that we're putting out right now. So that would be a huge search term that would come up and so where it says like profiles and sizes here, Matt, that's probably going to be about 20 pages because we'll have to have a list and then a link for people to click on it because that is what's getting searched so much. So I think that what we've identified more this week than anything else is what our big key differentiators are, that we're going to show up for more than Trex or Timber Tech. That's going to give us the opportunity to come up to the top and where we're really going to get people to start paying attention to us.
Chris LaFay: And.
Erin Dyer: We're going to be able to shift traffic from them to us because we have something that no one else has.
Chris LaFay: Yes, this is. Okay, so in terms of next steps here, this is what I'm thinking. I'm actually pulling up. Give me one second, let me pull. Back up the mock. I'm not, I'm not going to do. Any screen sharing at the moment.
Matt Elkins: Lumber.
Chris LaFay: There it is. I'm going back and looking at the,. The collection page mock up that we did for last week. So with this kind of, this thought by like shopping by project with backyard, decking, dock and waterfront, etc, looking back at the, the mockups that we did. Last week for the individual collection pages,. I still feel like this general layout and structure, I am actually going to share my screen I still think works out very well. So obviously we have collection name up here. So this would be product line effect. Not product line, but project type with a headline. Talking a little bit about what?
Erin Dyer: No, because I was gonna say we don't have to change the collection because we're still going to have it. Remember it's just not going to be the first. We're going to have like project type and then we're going to have collection. So I don't think we have to get rid of the collections. They still need to exist in here.
Chris LaFay: Correct. And I think that in reality, and this is the conclusion that I'm kind of coming to live here at the moment is that the general layout for a project type page is probably going to be very similar to a collection. Page at the end of the day. Because we're following the same storyline structure, the story is just going to be a little different. So if we're on the coastal collection, all of this stuff as we described. Last week still applies. But let's say that we were on the, the waterfront and docking projects. We still want to talk about who this is for and, and really pull that emotional string. Then talk about some tangible features of. Hey, this is the problem that you. Have with this type of project or with whatever you currently have and why. You're even considering this. And here are some benefits about it. Back and forth, back and forth. By the way, the stuff is really freaking good. You should take a look at it.
Erin Dyer: I love that part. I love that.
Chris LaFay: Yeah, this, this is, this is, this is really cool. I'm, I'm a big fan of that. Get in touch with us if you're confused. And then here are some storytelling pieces. And by the way, if all these other images have improved it, here's some other images as well too with the final call to action for a consultation or you know, scheduling a call, talking. To an expert or reviewing stuff, etc, etc. And I think actually.
Erin Dyer: Oh, I'm sorry Chris.
Chris LaFay: No, I was gonna say. So I actually think that the general layout for collection pages and project pages are pretty much going to be the same. We might just talk about. Obviously we'll talk about different problems. Maybe one of them has two versus another has three. We might have a different not warranty discussion here, but like that, that punch in the face feature, we might have a different feature that we want to highlight here. We definitely want to showcase what houses look like. We definitely want to tell some, some. Quotes and some stories and then showcasing things. So like I think that these are actually going to be very one to one in terms of their layout. Just how we tell that story is. Going to be slightly different in words. I'm done.
Erin Dyer: I said people need to coordinate. I get it. I was going to say I love this because I actually think that now when we do the structure here where it's like problem one, problem two, problem three, problem four, we. We can very easily segue into this new breakdown where it's like shop by performance, right? So you can have where this dog is built for deck, strong, stable, beautiful backyard living and then click right over to the shop by performance. So it gives us more of that spiderweb vibe where it gives us a natural transition into the dropdowns. So I actually think that's great. I think this will work really well.
Chris LaFay: I would actually. So the one caveat that I would add onto that is I probably wouldn't use the very Shop by Performance because if we're looking here and we're talking about kind of these, these pages here, what I would actually do is this is actually where kind of the difference between text links and buttons kind of play together is if this problem here and by the way ignore the fact. That that sand is bleeding over Figma's just being stupid. Is inside here. If we're talking about performance, wherever there's a good place inside of this block that actually says the words Marine grade performance, we then would link that text link to that page for people to learn more about that particular detail. And that's how that web is interconnected because we want to leave our buttons for whatever that primary CTA is going to be or a very direct next thing. But for people that want to dig, that's what a lot of the text. Links are going to be used for here. So that people can navigate around and. Move around however they want. So anytime we use the words marine grade, that would then link back to the. The detailed page of here's everything you need to know about why we're marine grade, decking, etc.
Erin Dyer: Etc.
Chris LaFay: I would just drop the word shop. That was the. Actually the piece because that would be more of like a factual page and. Not necessarily a shop by page. That was the thing that triggered my thoughts there.
Erin Dyer: No, you're. You're great. And you know, this was kind of put together on Friday. But I will tell you, this is the best I have ever felt about our website and this is the best I've ever felt about the way that we're going to position ourselves. I was really puzzling over this last week because we had really doubled down on this different selling by collections. And then after talking to the guys and hearing from them and really getting their feedback on what traits they're selling on, this feels so good to me.
Chris LaFay: Good, good, good, good, good, good. So what I want to do from a site map perspective, and this is. Kind of the next step here,.
Matt Elkins: We're.
Chris LaFay: All feeling fairly good. So kind of zooming back all the blocks from the block library that we showcase at the very beginning, we're all. Feeling good about those. That's already kind of been checked off the. The homepage layout and the collection slash project page layout. It sounds like we're all feeling good. About that as well too. So the next question here is, is that what this is kind of morphed into is we're going to have probably about nine to ten pages where the. Content is definitely going to be changing. Where the original is. We're thinking about 5 or 6 plus 45 being moved in as kind of. Like copy and paste effectively. We're probably going to end up having more pages that are going to have a little bit more of that manual. Touch to them than the initial 10 where we have projects and then we have collection collections. There's just going to be some extra. Stuff that, that funnels through that. So what I want to figure out is how are we going about the. Site map in the most efficient way possible? I'm fine with adjusting some of these levers. What I don't want to do is. Convert all 45 pages into pages that we have to then manually do a lot of lifting. That's the point. So I'm trying to figure out what. The middle ground is here. And so my. What my gut thought is is with projects and collections, we have basically the exact same layouts. You also have an idea. I don't think we've actually delivered a full guide to you, but that's easy to do. We can kind of show you all the building blocks we have at our disposal for the homepage, the collection page. And the project page. I want to give those layouts over to you guys so that you guys can start thinking about what content goes. Into each of these segments.
Erin Dyer: Sure.
Chris LaFay: I also want to create one more layout that is going to use all existing blocks that talks about that is. A good layout for any of the performance pages. So marine grade built for docs, low maintenance, living, etc. Etc. So basically what does a detail page. About a problem look like? And you can use that layout to then provide content for all of those pages.
Erin Dyer: That's the best way for me to work. Yeah, that's easiest way.
Chris LaFay: So you'll have, at the end of the day, you'll have four three page layouts, the homepage, the project collection page combo, and then the performance page layout. And then that's going to cover probably 15 or so pages to where you can just basically write content that's fill in the blank and then provide imagery, what images you specifically want there. Then the follow up to that is out of the 45 pages that we're going to copy and paste, which of them can we give the ax to and which of them do we just. Need to go ahead and bring over as is?
Erin Dyer: So, so I think what is going to happen, I think number one, that's great for me, that's absolutely the best thing that you can give me to work with because I love a template and it's much easier for me to look at it and say, okay, this is how I want to see this stuff structured. I'm great with writing the content, I'm great with providing some visuals for you. Obviously your designer is very good and able to make some himself as well. And then I, and I want to look at what we have right now and say, okay, this is a value, this is something we're missing. This is what we need to double down on from an SEO perspective and for a lot of reasons, reasons that we've been losing some market share and that's going to take a bit of time this week. But I know that we've kind of backtracked in a way we weren't expecting, but I also think this is the best thing we could have done to make this an actually well performing website.
Chris LaFay: Yeah, 100%. So what, what we'll do this week is we will go ahead and in the recap Don sense over, we'll go ahead and send over a flat version of the homepage and the collection page so that you just go ahead and have those image files. This week we'll go ahead and lay. Out a performance page as well so. That by next Tuesday when we meet, which by the way, next Monday is Memorial Day, so we will need to. Talk about moving, shifting around things so. That by the time we meet next week, you will have all three layouts at your disposal. And at that point, if you have what you need from those, we can go ahead and move into development while you go work on content.
Erin Dyer: Okay.
Chris LaFay: Also at that point, we'll want you to look through the remaining 45 pages. And determine which ones get the axe. So that we can consolidate the site. Map down some as well, too. Yeah. So that'll be our plan for meeting next week. And in terms of meeting next week when works. That's not Monday.
Erin Dyer: Well, let me make sure that Matt is on board with everything we're talking about before I.
Matt Elkins: No, yeah, that sounds good. So as far as next Tuesday, we can do. I mean, we can do 10:30. I was. We can cancel our social media meeting. Yeah, it's the day after Memorial Day, so if you got. If 10 or 10:30 works for you guys, we could do that.
Chris LaFay: Yes, we can do 10:30. Actually, this is gonna sound odd, but Don and I both have meetings that book in that could we actually do from 1045 to 1115. That will give us a little bit of buffer. Does that work for you guys? Yeah. Awesome.
Erin Dyer: We have a standing 10 to 11 on that day, so that's.
Chris LaFay: Gotcha. Perfect. I'm. I'm looking at your calendar. If it doesn't, that's fine.
Matt Elkins: Yeah, we'll just keep that meeting up, but knowing that. That we gotta hop out at 10:45 or whatever.
Chris LaFay: Perfect. Awesome.
Erin Dyer: I'm sorry, what was the time we were talking about again?
Chris LaFay: Doing Tuesday from 10:45 to 11:15.
Matt Elkins: Are you gonna send an update, Chris?
Chris LaFay: Yeah, yeah, it's Dawn's meeting, but, yeah, she'll. She'll send it out in a second.
Erin Dyer: Gotcha.
Chris LaFay: All right,.
Matt Elkins: Sounds good. Looks like we should see a lot of work here in the next week coming together.
Erin Dyer: Yeah, I'm super excited. Thank you, guys. This is awesome. I feel so much better about this.
Chris LaFay: No, this is. This is all. This is all really good. This is all really good. Um, well, we'll go ahead and get rolling on the. That last page layout using existing blocks, and then next week we'll have the sitemap figured out, the content not organized, but ready for you to go ahead and launch into, and then we can. Fully start on development at that point.
Erin Dyer: All right, that sounds great.
Matt Elkins: Good.
Chris LaFay: Awesome. Thank you so much.
Erin Dyer: Thanks, guys.
Chris LaFay: Take care. Bye.