The Partnership That Will Bring the One Carhart Vision to Life

The Next 100 Years

Scott, his dad, and their forefathers built Carhart Lumber into something real. A business that became a fixture in communities across northeast Nebraska. They did it the way it was done in the 20th century — hard work, everyone doing every job, promoting the best salesperson into management, and letting each location run as its own business within a business. That worked. It built something worth being proud of. But the business climate has changed drastically. Lumberyards that don't adapt will be left behind. You knew that when you came in as President. You knew that for Carhart to become a legacy business — one your son and future generations could be proud to be part of — it needed to evolve. Rapidly changing workforce demographics, an uncertain economic climate, and the very specific challenges of operating in rural America don't wait for anyone to catch up. You came in with the One Carhart Vision. And not even 18 months in, you're frustrated. Some days it probably feels like the vision is impossible. It's not impossible. It's intentional, strategic, and complex. That's exactly why it requires dedicated resources to bring it to life. Your vision of One Carhart is achievable and absolutely worth doing. Yes, the next year or two will bring challenges and changes — some of them uncomfortable. But your vision will make a thriving Carhart Lumber possible for the next generation, and the generations beyond that. By intentionally bringing One Carhart into reality, you will improve your own life, your employees' lives, and your customers' experiences. In the near term, you'll see real improvements in sales, profitability, employee engagement, and customer satisfaction. In the long term, you'll build talent pipelines that position Carhart as the employer of choice in your communities — and position the next generation to keep innovating and growing. This proposal is the roadmap to get there.

The True Cost of the Status Quo

Before we talk about solutions, we need to talk honestly about what inaction is already costing you. Because this isn't just a people problem — it's a revenue problem.

The Cost of Toxic and Underperforming Managers

You recently lost a branch manager at a $3.5 million location. He didn't just leave — he took his entire team and walked across the street to a competitor. That single event didn't just cost you a manager. It cost you institutional knowledge, customer relationships, team stability, and very likely a significant chunk of that location's revenue during the recovery period. Replacing a manager typically costs 1.5x to 2x their annual salary when you factor in lost productivity, recruitment time, and the disruption to the team they leave behind. If that location loses even 10% of its $3.5M in revenue during the transition, that's a $350,000 loss from a single toxic event. And that's just the one you can point to. How many other branch managers are quietly doing the same thing — protecting their turf, resisting change, and undermining the One Carhart Vision from the inside?

The Cost of Disengaged Employees

Disengagement is invisible until it isn't. Gallup research consistently shows that actively disengaged employees cost their organizations roughly 18% of their annual salary in lost productivity. Across 75 employees, if even 15 are disengaged — which is a conservative estimate given what you've described — that's tens of thousands of dollars bleeding out every single month. Disengaged employees don't just underperform. They spread. They influence the people around them. And in small, rural locations where everyone knows everyone, one disengaged person with a loud voice can poison an entire branch.

The Cost of Vacant Roles

When a yard or counter role sits empty for 60 days because no one has the bandwidth to recruit properly, the people still showing up carry the extra load. They burn out. They leave. And now you have two open roles instead of one. This is the reactive hiring cycle that has kept Carhart in survival mode — and it will continue until there is a dedicated, proactive recruiting function in place.

The Cost of Insular, Siloed Locations

Ten locations operating as ten separate businesses means ten different ways of doing things, ten different standards for customer service, and ten missed opportunities to share what's working. The best practices at your strongest location never make it to your weakest one. That's not a people problem — that's a structural problem. And it's solvable.

The Solution — Recruit, Retain, Rock

The One Carhart Vision needs more than good intentions and high hopes. It needs a champion, a strategy, and intention. Once you have that, it needs to be executed. That's what this partnership delivers. Recruit Retain Rock is the services arm of Rikka Brandon — built specifically for independently owned building materials businesses. Every tool, every framework, every approach has been developed and refined in the LBM industry. This isn't generic HR consulting adapted for lumberyards. This is built for you.

How It Works

Rikka provides the strategy. Advisory, coaching, innovation, and the high-level direction that keeps everything aligned with the One Carhart Vision. This is the part that requires deep expertise, industry knowledge, and the kind of candid, direct guidance that only comes from someone who has been in the weeds of LBM people strategy for years. The RRR team handles the execution. The day-to-day recruiting work — sourcing candidates, writing job ads, interviewing applicants, managing the ATS — is handled by a dedicated fractional recruiting team. The RRR team also supports the retention and culture initiatives under Rikka's direction. You have a dedicated team supporting both your recruiting and retention efforts. The three pillars of this partnership are Recruit, Retain, and Rock. Each one addresses a distinct and critical need. Together, they create the foundation for the business Carhart is meant to become.

Phase 1 — The Strategic Onboarding Visit

Before we can build the right plan, we need to understand exactly where things stand. That's what the Strategic Onboarding Visit is for. This is a multi-day, on-site intensive with Rikka — focused on gaining a deep, honest understanding of the business so that every action we take after this is strategic, prioritized, and designed to deliver the fastest possible ROI.

Day 1 — Assess, Audit & Build the Team Matrix

We start with the people. Together, we build a high-level "Heat Map" of all 75 employees — mapping their roles, tenure, and alignment with the One Carhart Vision. This document becomes the roadmap for your hiring, firing, and succession strategy. It shows you exactly where the business is being held back by the wrong people in the wrong seats, and it gives you the clarity and confidence to make the hard calls — knowing you have a plan to replace and rebuild. We also get honest about what's currently being done in recruiting and retention — what has worked, what hasn't, and what you know you should be doing but aren't. No judgment. Just clarity.

Day 2 — Recruiting + Retention Deep Dive & Action Plan

We go deep on the recruiting and retention challenges specific to Carhart's 10 locations and rural markets. We identify the highest-ROI opportunities and sequence them in a way that creates momentum quickly. You leave with a clear, prioritized 90-day plan — not a vague list of ideas.

Recruit — Build the Team Carhart Needs

You need people. You need people to fill hourly roles at multiple locations. You need skilled professionals for pro sales, management, and specialized positions. You need to build bench strength so you're never held hostage by one person's decision to walk out the door. Reactive hiring — posting a job and hoping for the best — simply doesn't work anymore. Rural markets are harder. The talent pool is smaller. And the stakes are higher. You need a proactive, professional recruiting function built for exactly this kind of market. That's exactly what Fractional Recruiter Services (FRS) delivers.

The Hire Power Difference

Most companies post job descriptions. We craft compelling, engaging job ads designed to attract the right people — and we know the difference. Most companies review resumes when time allows. We screen, qualify, and rank candidates before they ever reach your desk. Most companies rely entirely on active job seekers. We proactively reach out to semi-passive candidates — people who aren't scrolling job boards but would absolutely consider the right opportunity if someone put it in front of them. Our recruiters use the proven best practices from Rikka Brandon's best-selling book and training program, Hire Power — built specifically for the building products industry.

Recruit Service Tiers

The Hire Power Hiring System

Every FRS client gets access to the Hire Power Hiring System — a complete recruiting platform and educational ecosystem built specifically for building materials businesses. This isn't a generic job board. It's a comprehensive recruiting infrastructure that makes Carhart look like a professional employer of choice — even in small towns — while simultaneously upskilling your entire management team.

The Hire Power ATS

A branded Career Page integrated directly into your website. Free job postings to Indeed and LinkedIn. Multiple application pathways including express apply. A candidate registration option so job seekers can raise their hand even when there's no open role — you're building a talent pipeline, not just filling seats. Position-specific candidate scorecards for consistent evaluation. Online scheduling so the recruiter books interviews directly on the hiring manager's calendar — no more email chains or missed candidates.

Hire Power Online Education & AI Support

Full Access to Hire Power Online — LBM — the best recruiting and hiring education for the LBM industry. You and anyone involved in hiring get access to proven frameworks, templates, and scripts. At $2,500 per seat, this alone is a $5,000+ value for your team. Plus, the Hire Power AI Chatbot — an AI assistant trained exclusively on Rikka's Hire Power Method, available whenever you need a fast answer.

Getting Started Right: The Talent Brand Build Out

Before your first candidate ever sees a job posting, we make sure Carhart is showing up like the employer of choice it's becoming. The Talent Brand Build Out is a Done-in-a-Day strategy and build session that sets your entire recruiting function up for success from day one. Following a focused working session with our team, we deliver your complete talent attraction system — candidate-facing messaging, compelling job ads, outreach templates, social content, a branded career page, and your fully customized Hire Power ATS. Everything you need to attract and engage the right people, built and ready to go.

Retain — Build the Culture That Drives Performance

The Vision

This is where the One Carhart Vision stops being a concept and starts becoming reality. Imagine a Carhart Lumber where a sales rep in one town is actively mentoring a new hire at a different location. Imagine branch managers who don't hoard customer data out of fear, but share best practices because they are incentivized to see the whole company win. Imagine having a clear, proven path to take a smart, hardworking kid from the community and train them to read blueprints, do takeoffs, and become your next top salesperson — without having to steal them from a competitor. That is what One Carhart looks like. It's a culture that attracts the right people, develops them intentionally, and makes Carhart the kind of company people are proud to work for — and proud to perform in.

The Reality & The Approach

Right now, you have branch managers who are openly hostile to change. You have locations that have operated as insular fiefdoms for decades. And you have a very real, very valid fear that if you push too hard on things like compensation changes, your biggest producers might walk out the door and take their customers with them. The changes you're trying to make are the right ones. But we have to be incredibly strategic about how and when we make them. We cannot do everything at once. We are dealing with rural employees who haven't experienced this kind of culture work before, and a leadership team that is already stretched thin. We need a realistic, paced approach. We build the foundation first. We build your recruiting bench strength so you are no longer held hostage by any single employee. And then, once we have leverage and stability, we tackle the heavy lifting like compensation alignment.

Retain Support Tiers

How the Projects Work

Each Retain initiative is designed as a Done-in-a-Day engagement. That doesn't mean it happens without preparation — it means we respect your time and deliver real results without dragging things out over months of meetings. Here's how it works: we start with focused pre-work so that when we show up, we're ready to move. The core of the engagement is a 2–2.5 hour working session with Rikka — live, focused, and built around your specific situation. After the call, Rikka and the team get to work on the deliverables. By the end of that day, you have something real in your hands. Then you get 30 days of follow-up support to make sure it lands well and your team can actually use it. No fluff. No endless follow-up calls. Just a clear process, a strong deliverable, and the support to put it into action.

Example Initiatives One Carhart

The following are examples of the culture and people strategy projects available through the Retain pillar. The right starting points will be identified together during the Strategic Onboarding Visit — specifically during the One Carhart Vision and Blueprint Day. These are not a fixed menu; they are a starting point for a conversation about where to focus first.

Rock — Build a Business and a Life You Love

Right now, Brenda, you are in survival mode. You're managing a cultural transformation, navigating hostile branch managers, trying to hire people in markets that don't have them, and doing all of it while running a $38 million business. That is an enormous amount to carry. The changes you're making are the right ones. But you can't do this alone. And you shouldn't have to. Rock is the advisory relationship that puts me directly in your corner — not as a vendor, not as a coach who only shows up for scheduled calls, but as a strategic partner who is genuinely invested in what you're building and knows this industry well enough to give you real, actionable guidance when it matters most. This isn't just about surviving the next 18 months. It's about building a business that runs well, a team that doesn't require you to be everywhere at once, and a life that you actually have time to enjoy.

Advisory (Rock) Support Tiers

What Gets Built: The One Carhart Operating System Best Tier

The Best tier isn't just more advisory hours. It's the difference between having a strategy and having a system that runs. As your Fractional Director of People, Rikka and the RRR team design, launch, and manage the ongoing culture infrastructure that makes One Carhart real — across all 10 locations, every month.

Investment Summary

Before we get to pricing, let's look at what the status quo is already costing Carhart right now. These are not hypothetical numbers — they are real costs hiding in plain sight on your P&L.

I have packaged the Recruit, Retain, and Rock pillars into three clear partnership tiers. You choose the level of speed, support, and transformation that makes the most sense for Carhart right now.

Next Steps

Here's how we get started. I'm looking forward to our conversation on Monday morning. If anything comes up before then, you know how to reach me.