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Neal Eilers is a natural entrepreneur focused on his passion and providing the best experience in his historic main street storefront, NE Custom Framing and Furniture. He has experienced the highs and challenges of transitioning from the corporate world to owning his own business and now runs a successful storefront operation. Sometimes it's just about taking a leap of faith! This is part two of Vivian's conversation with Neal, be sure to check out the previous episode #12 for the full story.
Are you a business owner? Or are you on the verge of taking that side hustle to the next level? Or curious about the world of entrepreneurship? Join Vivian Kvam, Co-Owner of Tandem Works, each week for a behind-the-scenes at small businesses and what it takes to succeed.
Each episode is full of inspiration, education, tips, and great conversation with people like you, people who are figuring it out. Take your business to the next level with insight from expert guests in business, leadership, and marketing.
Vivian Kvam
Hi there. This is your host Vivian, and you're listening to Tandem Works Works, a podcast that is all things business, entrepreneurship and the secret to operating a successful business while still having a life you love. Whether you're a business owner on the verge of taking that side, hustle to the next level, or just curious about the world of entrepreneurship, join me as I go behind the scenes of my own business and the businesses of others, unpacking some of the most valuable lessons you can apply today. Let's dive in. I feel like there's all of this decision-making before you start a business if it's not handed down to you. Right. There are folks where something maybe is handed down that's a little different in decision making. Is this right for me? Am I going to take it over, step in? But you are going literally from corporate world into I own my own business. There's a lot of decisions that have to be made, whether it's, am I passionate about this? Can I actually make money with it? How much money do I need to make? Because that's different for everyone. Like you said, you lived off of 1000, $500,000 a month traveling. Other people, they have to look at their finances, go, well, I have four kids, we have three dogs. We're supporting this house in this household. My business has to be able to make this amount of money. And so that decision is very different for different people and stages of life.
Neal Eilers
Yeah, luckily we're I don't want to sound like selfish or anything, but we're in a position where we don't have kids, we have a dog. We don't necessarily want kids. That could change. I'm adopted. So if down the road that presents itself, then we'll worry about that then. But we're both professionally in a position where she's doing what she loves and I'm doing what I love and we don't have a lot of distractions. And so, yeah, it depends on where you're at in your life to where those decisions might be different depending on the day.
Vivian Kvam
Absolutely. And it's actually something my husband and I and you know, this, I think because you've had chats with him, too, is I've owned my own business essentially forever. My parents own their own businesses, different respect of different businesses. And then my grandparents on both sides of the family own their own business.
Neil Eilers
A born natural entrepreneur.
Vivian Kvam
It's just like born in it's just.
Neil Eilers
It's not in the blood for him.
Vivian Kvam
It's not and so he's trying to make this decision between, is it right for me or is this just a passion? And I still struggle with that, even myself at times, where I'm like, okay, is this just a passion or is this maybe a new direction for my business? When you have so many passions narrowing it down and saying because everyone says, well, you've got to figure out that one little train track that you're going to follow that one niche. And sometimes when you're multi-passionate, you're like, but I could do all of these things. I could incorporate them. And I start to do a bit like you do with your business. Like you have incorporated photography and travel and framing and woodworking and furniture. They all kind of come together, but there are times where things feel too spread out. Do you ever find that even within your business? Do you find yourself going, oh, gosh, I never go shoot anymore, or I'm spending all my time on furniture and not on frames. What is that like?
Neil Eilers
That was a real struggle going back to just making the decisions to open a storefront, because like I said, I wanted the set hours, so I knew that the traveling part was going to go away. Yeah, I can get away from it for a couple of weeks here and there, but I can't operate a business and take a month off. And so I think it's just making sure that you're okay with the decisions that you make and the stuff that might get left behind when you do start a new business or like, if you open a storefront. And for me, the thing that was left behind was going to be the traveling. And so, yeah, right now I don't get out and shoot a lot because I'm in my shop. I'm okay with that. So I think you have to be okay with that.
Vivian Kvam
What would you tell your 18 year old version of yourself now? And it could just be about life, too.
Neil Eilers
Live day to day, but, I mean, start a business. I mean, I wouldn't take anything away from the road that I've traveled, but I wish I would have found, like, a passion earlier on in my life. I don't need to go back to when I was 18 years old. That that long. But this was before 911, and I tried to join the military, and they denied me because of a heart condition. And I think that kind of set me back quite a while because I was so disappointed. I wanted to be. And luckily that probably worked out for the best because, yeah, I probably would have been first in line overseas. But I think that kind of just didn't that set me back in terms of what direction do I want my life to go? And I think I just kind of bounced around for a little bit trying to find what it is that I wanted to do, and I never found that until now, which is, okay, I mean, some people take all their life, 60 years or whatever it is, to maybe find what they really enjoy doing. And then some people, they're starting a business when they're 60, 50, 60 years old, and it's taken them that long.
Vivian Kvam
I think of things like that too, because I really like to analyze things and think about cause and effect and why did this happen? But even listening to your story, I think it's a fabulous reminder of but would you have arrived here, right? I mean, your sales experience has played in and the travel has played in and your experiences in other countries and living off of I would imagine living off of $500,000 a month has made you scrappy and resourceful and resilient. I mean, I can pick those up with just a short conversation. I'm sure there's so many other fans.
Neil Eilers
No, I wouldn't change anything because I think everybody's journey is a little bit different in how they get to where they're at. And those experiences along the line really play whether or not, you know, it at that time, really play a key role into what your business is. Like I mentioned before, the customer service part, I can't comprehend the businesses out there that just have bad customer service. I can't understand that. Whereas I've had one mad customer come in. But if you look at the reviews, whether that's on Etsy or Google, those reviews aren't by accident. Those reviews are customers that truly had a good experience. And every customer, whether you're buying something or not, that comes in. I want you to feel like you're part of my business family and everybody gets treated the same.
Vivian Kvam
That's awesome.
Neil Eilers
Yeah.
Vivian Kvam
Do you think is that one of the biggest mistakes businesses make is their customer service? Or would you say it's something else? What are the things we often run into?
Neil Eilers
Yeah, I don't think maybe not intentionally, but I think that over time maybe gets eroded because they might lose passion for what they're doing or they're burdened by something else, whatever that is, that in turn, they start treating their customers not very good.
Vivian Kvam
I definitely find often it's when things become scarce or we perceive that they're scarce, which in business often is my sales have dipped, or clients aren't coming in as much, or I'm having a hard time hiring and having good quality people here. When things start to become scarce or seem scarce, I think we start to revert away from that joy and that passion and that excitement, which then is what fuels good customer service. When I'm worried about, like you said, they're writing my check. And so then when I feel like they're not coming in to write my check, my clients, it makes the relationship different. Right. I now have a desperation for you. And then that adds these high stakes and this pressure. And sometimes I think business owners can crumble under that, whether that's permanently or for a period of time.
Neil Eilers
Hopefully they work out of that. But I'm not going to say I'm never going to get to that point, but I hope I don't.
Vivian Kvam
Something I think is just how you approach things too. I mean, I've certainly met and been in situations, some of my first businesses, part of it played into my business partner and their way of doing things and thinking about things started to change how I perceived. And I noticed my mindset just deteriorated because since then I've been in a new business and had very scarce months, and yet my mindset was completely different and it has felt completely different. And the way we handled it and the way we interacted with clients and even our team is night and day different than what it used to be. And so I do think a lot of it just is literally your mental set up and makeup, and I think you can have a lot of influence over that. Even though the bank accounts looked about the same in both situations, the outcomes have been completely different because of the way I perceived it in my own head and the story I was telling.
Neil Eilers
Myself, yeah, I find going back to writing financial goals down, I didn't really do it the first year. I just kind of put myself out there and said, let's see what happens, where now I have more data that I can firmly project what next year expectations will be. But it was kind of weird when I first opened, I didn't have that much traffic. If I had one person a week, I was happy. And luckily the other thing that I should have touched on is I still had the online sales. And so I knew that promoting the online sales, whether it's through Etsy or converting people off of Etsy and just billing them directly, I knew that that would help carry me in terms of making sure the lights are on and stuff like that.
Vivian Kvam
I like that you had multiple streams and it's almost like you have if this isn't cranking optimally, I have this that I can lean into. I can kind of crank that up and then this can grow. When you're not relying just on people walking in the door, that's a completely different financial model, right? When you have those multiple streams, even though they're all related, it's very smart.
Neil Eilers
And that's what maybe made it a little bit easier to open up a store and try to capitalize on a different stream of revenue. And so what I found was, let's say after the first six months, there would be a couple of weeks where I wouldn't have anybody come in and then I would have one customer come in and then all of a sudden, like, I would be like 20 frames deep on orders. And it's like, how am I going to get through this? That's where I'm at right now. It's like I have a lot of frames for Christmas and some tables and furniture and stuff that need to be done, but it kind of just goes in a couple of weeks where I get back to normal and not have anybody come in. And then all of a sudden it's like that one person comes in. I can say now it's like one person will come in and be like, yeah, this next couple of weeks I'm just sitting here and doing a lot of orders. I don't know. I think that's the framing business. I think a lot of people experience that as well. Just in general, in the framing business.
Vivian Kvam
I could see it being seasonal. And one of the big things within any business is learning what your cash flow seasons are and then projecting that out so that, one, you don't get into a freak out scarcity mindset in those months that you know are going to be down.
Neil Eilers
Yes.
Vivian Kvam
And so then you're not like knee jerk reaction, but two so that you do know, did I hit my metric to float me through the next season? And if not, what's my plan? That's where I love the numbers part of it, because when you know those things, it takes the fear away of like, if you don't know that, you could be hundreds of thousands of dollars behind what you thought, or you might just be a couple of $1,000 behind. And those are completely different problems to solve. Both can be solved, but not until you know what the problem is.
Neil Eilers
Yes. And now that I've been going on a year now, a year and a half almost, I can kind of project those numbers and when those things will be, when the sales will be up or when people won't be coming in.
Vivian Kvam
And you know not to go buy some big fancy piece of equipment.
Neil Eilers
Right, I know. Yeah, that's hard.
Vivian Kvam
So I'm curious, I'm going to transition a little bit here to the storefront. And clearly you saw a building and you had a partner essentially was willing to help with obtaining the building and you're in there. I'm just curious, what has it been like to transition to a storefront and to be part now of that community? Because when you have a building, I feel like you really become part of that block neighborhood city. It's a different feeling.
Neil Eilers
Yeah. So like we mentioned before, I grew up in Ralston, and Ralston is a tight community, like, I assume, like maybe Council Bluffs is everybody knows everybody. In terms of the business aspect, the mayor is easily accessible. I know him fairly well now because he also is a woodworker, so we kind of have that thing in common. But yeah, it was kind of nerve wracking. I didn't know what I was doing. I went in there and I tore everything out. Unfortunately, the guy that had the building before, whether it was like water damage or just like shoddy electrical work. I had to take everything out. It was a learning experience, some growing pains, not knowing what permits to get what I could or couldn't do. I started wiring everything up myself, and it's like the neighbor complained and then the city came and I didn't get shut down or anything. But it's going through those pains and experiences of not knowing what to do, but also not having the fear to try and figure them out is the biggest takeaway from that is like, yeah, we don't know what we're doing right now, but we're going to figure it out. And so that was the biggest thing to overcome. The other thing was just in the time that we're in with a lot of the contractors, especially like electrical and plumbing contractors, that I had to get in, it was months of waiting. This was kind of during the housing boom with low interest rates, everybody's building a new house. If you're an electrical or plumbing company, is it easier for you to go into a new home and do it, or go into some crappy building that was built in 1956 and do a job, and it's like they're going to take the new one every day over the old one. So it was just getting those people in. And yeah, when I got the building in August of 2020, I had expectations of being open in December of 2020. And yeah, that was cut very short. I was like, all right, well, maybe January. And then it went to March, and it's like, well, maybe June. And then after that, it's like, I'm not even going to set a date because it just got more frustrating and just waiting.
Vivian Kvam
How did that impact your business? Because if you were thinking, I'm going to be up and operational, and then that keeps pushing.
Neil Eilers
Well, I was still like operational out of my garage, so I didn't move anything over until I had everything ready. So I had all the online stuff that kept me going through those times. So I would spend the majority of my day at home building stuff. And then at night I would go over and do what I can on the building and get that ready. And then finally I opened in September, September 1, 2021. And yeah, just getting to that point was kind of exhausting. But at the same time, just fighting through some of those things, whether it was with the inspections or with the contractors and stuff, is just realizing what's on the other side is going to be better than what it is right now. And so that's a tough thing as opening a new storefront. That the pains that you have to go through. And I don't want to say it's some hard thing and people shouldn't do it, but if I were advising somebody, opening a storefront is just like, yeah, you have to think about those things before it's not all like, oh, I'm going to go buy a billing, and then tomorrow I'm going to be open. It's like there's a lot of not necessarily red tape that you have to go through, but just bureaucratic stuff.
Vivian Kvam
So I love that you had the garage operation, and if you had been relying on that storefront, that could have been devastation, right?
Neil Eilers
Yeah.
Vivian Kvam
But it reminds me of we made a move with an old company that I had. We had an old market space, and we were moving into a new space on Leavenworth Street in Omaha. Bigger space. They were building it out to our specs. We weren't doing the building, but we were down there a lot to pick things and be with contractors and just managing that. And eventually it came to a point where we had to say, we're done with our lease at this place because we're projecting a date at this place. Long story short, end of lease, new place is nowhere near ready. And we didn't have complete control of that. Some of it was because we were leasing the new space, and we were at the mercy of that landlord and their relationships, et cetera. Things were promised, dates were said. It didn't happen. And so we had a team as well. So it wasn't just us. We had to move all of our equipment. We did video production, computers, cameras, and I want to say it was three or four people that we had in the space at that point all the time. Plus, we'd rotating contractors and now who pick things up things or use workspaces there. And we moved them into a rented house that should have been pushed over, for sure. Pushed over. We lived in the top. We gave all of our people keys to our house, and they came in the back door and went down. It was a dank, dark basement, and they came down the back stairs into our basement. I think it was dirt floors, I can't remember, but it had that feel. We set up as best as we could a workspace down there, all these computers, et cetera. It was the most awkward time because these people are coming in and out of our house. We're like, no, it's fine, it's fine. They're just kind of going past the kitchen. But we're living in this house. We have to walk through. And it was difficult. It was really difficult. And it really changed the culture, of course.
Neil Eilers
Did you guys become closer or did they kind of grow apart?
Vivian Kvam
Because it was interesting. Some of the people had been with us for a while, and they were very understanding. What are you going to do? Right?
Neil Eilers
Yeah.
Vivian Kvam
Flipside. We had some who had been with us less time, and the work environment does make a difference. The color of the walls and the atmosphere and whether there are windows. And so everyone made the best of it, and I set it up down there as best as I could, but we have cats, and they have a cat bot. It literally was the worst-case scenario of bringing things together and we survived it. But I do think it had an impact on just like the feel. And when we got into new space, it was like, oh my gosh, this is so amazing, especially in contrast. But you've got to have those plans. You also just have to be willing to go, this is what it is. And we're going to give everyone keys to our house and we're going to make it work because that's the solution for here and now. But I think of that those transitions can be hard.
Neil Eilers
They are. And it takes a certain person and personality to be able to do stuff like that. There's some people that they're fine with the corporate job and the security and stuff like that and that's great, but there are people that would go through something like that in terms of transition and knowing what the future is going to have. And luckily I'm one of those people that can see on the other side and see a finished product, look at a raw wood slab and see what the finished product is going to be. Unfortunately, not everybody is like that and that's okay.
Vivian Kvam
Yeah, for sure. And you must have given up a lot of personal time.
Neil Eilers
Yeah, especially working out of the garage. Well, it was kind of different because that was when everybody started working from home. So the wife is at home, I'm in the garage. Our house was a disaster. Like if you can imagine having a wood shop in the garage and then the stairs were full of sawdust every day. Our house is pretty clean now, but back then, and God bless her, my wife is, how do I put this nicely? She likes a clean house. Sure. Which who doesn't, right? Yeah, that was a little frustrating where I like clean things, but it doesn't have to be perfect. But our personal time is now probably less actually, because now everything is at the store and I'm more often than not at the store. And even sometimes right now working late, I'll go home, eat dinner and then go back till 1112 o'clock at night just to, you know, try to get things done. Whereas like before I was always downstairs, you know, I can work till 12:00. But luckily, like, you know, I mentioned before, we're both at a point in our lives professionally where, I mean, she probably works more than me. She's not only working full time, but she's also doing her PhD. So she does a lot more. I mean, she's reading till midnight every night and doing a lot. So we both have a good balance of work and our personal time.
Vivian Kvam
I know it was something that you had said that you thought that it's important to take time for yourself.
Neil Eilers
Yeah, that's another thing. So when I opened up the shop, I was there all day, every day, from in the morning until late, late at night. And that was just, like, getting things done, but I was worried about having things done for a client or whatever it was, and so now I've kind of backed off to where I can shut down. I close the store at 530. I can shut down at 530, go home, spend some time with the family, have dinner, do a little workout and stuff like that. And if I need to go back, I'll go back, but if I don't, I'm okay putting that off till tomorrow. There's always tomorrow that you can get stuff done. And so that's a big thing, is just taking some time for yourself. And I think some people you had mentioned it before, some people can get just so wrapped up into what they're doing, or if they're worried about their sales this month or something, and then their personal lives are affected. That was a big thing that I've learned as well, is taking time and just getting away from it. When I was working out of my garage, I would just eat dinner and be like, all right, I'm going back to work, and just go downstairs and go back to work. And I enjoy more having a storefront and a shop in a different location, because I can just come home and just leave it.
Vivian Kvam
No sawdust in the stairs.
Neil Eilers
Yeah, that too.
Vivian Kvam
It's true. I remember early on owning a business, having this perception, and it was something that was definitely preached, too, of, you're not really a business unless you're grinding it out.
Neil Eilers
Yeah.
Vivian Kvam
And I like to work, so it's easy for me to revert to work because I enjoy it. But also, I think I had a false sense of if I'm not working, I'm not legit. This isn't actually a business. I'm not actually a startup. I'm not actually worthy of owning a business if I'm not blood, sweat and tears and eating gruel, because that has kind of been put out. When I first started business, it was definitely out there. I feel like that's changing some a little bit.
Neil Eilers
I think that's a really good point, because I think that's culturally, how we are is, oh, you're a business owner, and you work long and hard hours and yeah, absolutely. Every business owner does that. But I feel like if you're not taking personal time, at some point, you are going to get burned out, and then it's not even I mean, what do you call it? It's not your passion. It's just like having a corporate job to where you hate going to the shop or the office or whatever, and then before you know it, everything is falling apart. And so, yeah, I think the culture is kind of changing that way to where we're not looking at the business owner as being here from before everybody shows up till after everybody leaves and stuff like that. So yeah, that's a good point.
Vivian Kvam
It's one of the interesting things about owning a business is I feel like it brings out, it can bring out your amazing qualities and it can also really bring out those more negative qualities about us at a drastic level quickly, like an accelerated level. Certainly that can play out in the office, but you can also sort of mask things when you're in a corporate setting. But when you are the business, if you're having a bad day, now your client is having a bad day if you can't manage that. Right, and it's like these direct correlations and they happen so fast. I snapped my fingers like you can see they happen so fast. And I love it. It's one of the things I love, because I think as a business owner, you quite literally have the opportunity to shape the world and the community for so much good because your hands are in it. You're moving the pieces. You're doing it like one degree of separation. But that also means you're one degree of separation from destroying your community, destroying your life, destroying your clients, destroying your team. And I've experienced both of those. I've literally helped in the process of destroying a business and it wrecked community partnerships, it wrecked relationships, it wrecked relationships with team and things like that. And I've also experienced the flip side of that where it's just had great impact and just been really beautiful. So it's one of the things I love about business, but it's yeah, you're.
Neil Eilers
Always walking that fine line of success or sometimes failure.
Vivian Kvam
Yeah. Got to check yourself before you wreck yourself, right?
Neil Eilers
Exactly.
Vivian Kvam
Well, one of the last things I just wanted to talk about here, although we could talk about a million other things, so maybe you'll come back on again. Yeah, that'd be awesome. But one of the things you had mentioned about your business and things you've learned and what you would pass on to others was and you literally put networking, networking, and more networking. I know, and I do think of you, as I said earlier, you're such, what I would call a mover and shaker in your community. Like you start things or you help get things started. And you've been part of conversations with the city and chamber and neighborhood. So talk to me a little bit about that. Why did you bring that up to talk about the networking piece?
Neil Eilers
Before I started this business, networking wasn't in my vocabulary. I didn't know that. There are groups of small businesses out there, like meeting once a week and talking about business. You don't think about that when you're in a corporate job with 500 or 1000 other people in the office. That world just doesn't exist. And so joining the chamber and now I'm with the Millard Business Association has really kind of changed my perspective on what it is. Like owning a business. And that is kind of what we're doing here now, is a little bit about bragging on your business. And that's what those groups are for, is talking about your business, talking about what you do and having that support of friends around you and other businesses that can recommend your business to their friends and then their friends recommend to other friends. And so stepping into the networking world has literally changed the direction of my company. I wouldn't have nearly the connections that I have if it weren't for networking. So whether that's with your local chamber office or there's business associations around Omaha and counts of bluffs that you can get involved with and talk to other people about your business, that's even before you open your business, I would recommend doing that because word of mouth, that's how I really haven't done any advertising on my business. I was going to start but I actually delayed it because right now I have so much work that I don't want people walking in the door and be like, oh, here's some more work right now. So I've delayed that until the beginning of next year. Thank God for networking because it's been a blessing to the business and just to see the growth from the networking aspect.
Vivian Kvam
Do you have any tips for people who might be entering into networking situations for the first time?
Neil Eilers
It's almost like getting over that fear of starting a business. It's getting over the fear of talking about your business and meeting other people. Naturally, I'm more of an introvert. I don't like getting in front of groups and talking. I think I've gotten better at it, but I'm not like a public speaker. I like being by myself in my shop and working. I think it's just there are some people that are great at networking and there are some people that like me, I'm good, but that's not my strength in networking. But also just coming up with a good 32nd a minute elevator pitch about your business, what separates you from either your competitors? The one thing that I found in the networking groups is there's no other businesses like mine that like handcraft stuff. It's all whether it's like realtors or insurance agents or stuff like that. So if you're like an insurance agent or whatever business you have, it's like what separates you from everybody else? For me, what separates me is I build everything myself. I'm a handcrafted item that I build myself and I own the whole process through. And so I try to really capitalize that in the networking groups and I think that has set me up pretty good for success within the groups because there really isn't a lot of people like me that do networking.
Vivian Kvam
Yeah, it's so interesting listening to you talk about this. I am an extreme introvert as well. Yeah, mikayla and I joke about this. Mikael is my business partner. Mikaela is an extreme extrovert. But everyone thinks that I'm an extrovert and I just like to tell people I'm a well-trained introvert. And I think it's because of owning a business. Quite honestly, of there are certain things that maybe don't come naturally to you when you own a business, but it doesn't mean you can't learn how to do things better. Right? Maybe numbers aren't your thing. It doesn't mean you can't get better at them. Maybe sales isn't your thing. Doesn't mean you can't take a course and get better. And so though it comes more naturally to Mikaela, I had to work on it. I've worked on it for so many years that people think I'm an extrovert. We just laugh about it all the time. They'll always say that, like, oh, my gosh, I thought you were so extroverted. I'm like, no, you've just exhausted me. You have depleted my people's bank for the day. But that's one of the beautiful things, again, I love about business is it stretches you. And now I have gained this great skill of being able to get in front of people or tell my story or walk into a situation and inside I'm going, I want to go back to the car, get my car and go home. I know, but it doesn't flare up as much anymore because I've learned to be I've practiced the muscle. And it's networking for a lot of people is a fear. And I understand it because as a youth, I should say I would be invited to these youth groups and things, and I have literally shown up parked in my car and then driven home and not gotten out because I'm so afraid to walk inside. And now we host networking events. I am like, okay, when's the next chamber coffee connections we're going. And I'm the one, like, walking around, working the room, talking to people. And one of the things I have found as a tip to others like us is exactly what you're saying is like, think about what you want to say. So it feels a little bit not rehearsed, but what do I want to say? And then I think the second thing is just tell a story. Everyone can connect with a story. They don't want your pitch, but they do want to know, like, well, how did you get here and what are you proud of? And why are you excited about what you're doing? And when you tell a story about how you're excited about this project you're working on this week, the doors fly.
Neil Eilers
Open that gets other people excited about your business with you. I'm the same way. The only difference is I never drove to those events. My parents dropped me off, so I had no choice to get out of the car and go to the events.
Vivian Kvam
You start practicing earlier.
Neil Eilers
Yeah, the networking thing just opens up a whole lot more doors. And I'm glad that I stepped out of my own box and started doing that.
Vivian Kvam
It's awesome. Okay, last question. I think I'm going to start with you are the first one. I think I'm going to ask everybody this question for a while.
Neil Eilers
Okay.
Vivian Kvam
But you're tester number one, so we'll see how it goes over.
Neil Eilers
Let's go.
Vivian Kvam
What is a tip you would share for other business owners who want to make the world a better place? We're going real deep.
Neil Eilers
Yeah.
Vivian Kvam
What do you think makes the world a better place?
Neil Eilers
I'm not the person to ask because I'm like stop cutting down trees and stuff.
Vivian Kvam
Go for it. No, it's whatever you think. It doesn't have to be business related. What do you think would make the world a better place that we can do?
Neil Eilers
I think just as even human beings, just doing your best every day for whether or not that's with yourself personally or your family or the community, for me, it's just more or less being happy, projecting that happiness to others, whether it's not getting road rage when you're driving and stuff like that. And so I think just not even being happy, but just like being a nice person to other people. I think we're unfortunately, as not only a country, but just as a society, as a race, like a human being race, like, we just need to be nice to people. And if everybody starts off the day, whether it's with a cup of coffee or whatever, and just be nice, I feel like everything would just go smooth. I know that's not the case, and that can't happen all the time, but I'm with you.
Vivian Kvam
I like it.
Neil Eilers
Yeah.
Vivian Kvam
So I'm curious, in the spirit of being nice yeah. If people want to connect with you, reach out. If they have questions about whether it's having something framed or maybe starting their own type of business, what's the best way for people to get a hold of you? What's the best channel?
Neil Eilers
So I'm on Instagram and Facebook at Ne Custom Framing and Furniture. I think there's an underscore between Custom and between Framing and Furniture. We'll link it, but also you can always visit my shop. I'm open Tuesday to Saturday, so Tuesday to Friday is eleven to 530, and then Saturday eleven to three. We're right in downtown Ralson, so 7627 Main Street is my address. Feel free to stop by. Most everybody that shows interest in what I do, I typically will do, like, a little tour of the place and show them the shop and stuff because that's what everybody likes to see. So, yeah, you can find me there online.
Vivian Kvam
That's awesome. And I'll say, too, just, Neal, you have a beautiful space, and even if somebody's not thinking you're listening to this, you're like, well, I don't need anything framed, or the frames don't interest me that much. There's artwork on the walls. There's local artists, your support. My husband's there right now. He goes, Feel free to plug me.
Neil Eilers
Yeah, Troy is so yeah, that was real quick. That was another thing. Opening up the store is I've slowly considered myself an artist. I think it's hard for somebody I don't know, for somebody what I do is art in terms of furniture and even the frames and stuff. Framing is an art. And so I've slowly developed the attitude that I am an artist. And so I wanted a space for other artists to follow their passion and follow their dreams and give them a chance. Now, we're getting more traffic right now, but it's been a long journey in terms of selling art, other people's art. But, yeah. I have a gal originally from Guatemala. She lives in Ralston, elam and Plesaw. She has a studio down at Hot Shops. I have some of her art. She sends stuff around the world. So she's a very well known artist here in the Omaha community. I have Brooke Mag, which she does pottery, so really nice stuff. Danika Roe does alcohol ink. She lives in Columbus. And then yeah, Troy has some of his landscape photography up.
Vivian Kvam
So stop in and see the artwork.
Neil Eilers
Great.
Vivian Kvam
I appreciate you so much coming on today. And just want to say, too, if anyone is enjoying the podcast, one of the ways I've been asked is, well, how can we support what you're doing? And one of the biggest ways you can support these episodes is by following and subscribing and sharing with a friend. So I hope you'll share Neal's story, and we'll see you on the next episode, and we'll have you back again soon.
Neil Eilers
Yeah, awesome.
Vivian Kvam
I appreciate it. All right.