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Planet Green: What did you do before you became the Diva O’ Deconstruction?
Jodi Murphy: I've always run my own business, because...c'mon who would work with me? Who could work with me? I barely can! Entrepreneurship started innocently enough with babysitting and house cleaning in high school. In college I gained the usual freshman 15. This was in the age of Jane Fonda, so I went to an aerobics class and thought "This instructor is getting PAID to get in shape. I would be in shape by default if I were getting paid to show up! The next morning, I put out my cigarette, went to the Y, and created a position for myself that resulted in a successful aerobics program for the next 3 years.
I was accepted in clinical Psy.D program at the Illinois Institute of Professional Psychology in Chicago, but opted instead to detour to Houston to earn some tuition money before starting. While there, I started teaching and instituting corporate aerobics programs. Feeling guilty as to my "grass roots" aerobics, (aka no credentials except logging 12 classes a week). I started in a masters program for Exercise Physiology at the University of Texas. A move back to Chicago and another pregnancy put an end to this avenue, but my entrepreneurial tendencies were just warming up.
The way that happened was that a girlfriend of mine married into a building family. I was broke, married; I had two young daughters and a fixer upper that was the quintessential fixer upper. Orange sculptured carpeting, plastic brick on the wall, drop ceiling and no bathroom on the second floor. I had all the energy to fix up the house, but no money to do it with. My pervading conundrum, "How do I get around this no money problem?" Orange sculptured carpeting will make you think outside the box (or throw up in one) and compels one to think creatively about how to get rid of it.
My girlfriend's father-in-law was tearing down a house. Being hungry for alternatives, we decided to see what I could use for improving my house, and in return we'd open it up to the public to benefit the builder. I intuitively realized that I wasn’t the only "poor dumb thing, who was in this position" I mean, I’m strange, but not that strange. There are other people in the same position who could benefit from the access to cheap building materials. The people who attended the first sale were intrigued, and said; call us if you do this again. So we took their numbers and over the course of the next several homes our call list expanded to several hundred! Notification of sales evolved into a mailing list to which people would subscribe. I would produce flyers describing each aspect of the property, and now, it’s evolved into an exclusively internet based promotional method. We now post pictures on Murco.net and our buyers can view pictures of all that is available at each auction house.
PG: How do you find your houses?
JM: Through builders, architects, real estate people. But number one is word of mouth. I am the queen of the cocktail party. No I'm not on the guest list, but what we do and how we do it certainly makes for entertaining stories among friends. Oh you're knocking down your house? "You've got to call Jodi Murphy, Murco Recycling! You won't believe what she did with our house in a day!" I've also done zero marketing for my company and its services, which is not something to brag about. My goal was to make enough to support my family. Not so much as to conquer the world, but as much as to conquer tuition.
PG: What's the next big thing for you?
JM: Taking this business model national. We've done well in the Chicago area, and proven that we are a viable, sustainable business. I'm excited about the possibility of using the show (Total Wrecklamation) to expand not only my own business method but the Building Materials Reuse Industry, in general. (BMRG.ORG) I want to see and encourage this type of business to start up and thrive across the country. My intent is to branch out of Chicago, by setting up entrepreneurs through licensing or selling business opportunity packages. In effect, I want to jump start this practice across the country...And while I want to encourage others to do this kind of work, I don't want to necessarily hem them into my way of doing things. It would be great to give them a platform from which to dive on in to the industry without nose plugs. We'd provide prospective entrepreneurs with a web site, documents, methodology and professional support. The circle closes and ignites when these new start ups then "come home" and share their experiences and enrich their fellow community through sharing "best practices," This can only help the industry at large.
PG: Tell us about the green aspect of the show.
JM: When I first started out, it wasn't really about recycling per se. It was not about transferring those with the "haves" to the "have not's" My business started out of need for my family, my house. Once that was realized, I saw clearly that there was a greater need outside my own walls. There are a lot of materials out there destined for the dump and a lot of people who would gladly give a body part to have a crack at this stuff for their own improvements.
For the past 15 years, the main focus on working with me was financial. "Don't leave money on the table" was my hook to prospective clients. And they bit, who wouldn't? People, who are in the position to tear down houses, didn't get there by leaving money on the table. But, the main thrust wasn't the environment, it was financial However, in the past 5 years, the collective ecological consciousness has whooshed by me only to have dwarfed the money lure. Now, prevailing sentiment is about responsibly handling ones own waste stream. Not about the money.
The shift has been so sudden that sadly my business pitch hasn't caught up to the exploding ecological sentiment of the community. I'm still saying don't leave money on the table but they counter that "This stuff needs to be used, reused and integrated back into the community." Some homeowners will say, "Jodi, I don't care if we make any money. I just don't want to see all this stuff going to waste."
I must say, it's really gratifying to see that shift over the past 20 years. I also feel really, really old. But in the rocking chair, "yup, yup, the youngins are finally getting it" kind of way. It's all good, baby.
This industry—the deconstruction industry—is going to explode. It's poised for huge things, and I'm so proud to be witness to and a part of it. Things are changing. Thankfully, they are changing.
PG: What happens to the items that don't sell? Do they all go to the dump?
JM: No. There are a tremendous number of options we set in motion, post auction. One option is to transfer materials to the "leftover" section of Murco.net for incredible deals on left over materials. Or we can transport the resalable elements to our warehouse and sell it out of the "more stuff for sale" section found on Murco.net (aka Murcorecycling.com).
When you see the part that's filmed for the show, we're not walking away from items; we are just walking away from the public aspect; that avenue for dispersing goods.
1st is public auction, 2nd is "leftovers" on Murco.net, 3rd is transporting them to storage and sold out of our "more stuff for sale" section. Failing that, the materials flow through other channels of commerce for wood, floors, windows—we keep pushing till we can't push no' mo.
We aren't able, nor do we claim, to do 100% home recycling. That's not our niche. Ware advocates of local re-use. Improving communities and households through the re distribution of reusable materials. Transport it as it is, from where is, to where It's needed. It's as simple as that. We're not changing the world. We're just improving our neighborhood, household by household...
Murco is extremely satisfying when served up from the narrow niche of the reclamation pie of building materials reuse. One lone spoke among of the mass of spokes all conspiring to turn material reuse into something wheely significant...and I believe we're on the right road.
PG: Who is your favorite bidder and why? Who was your least favorite, and what's the story there.
JM: My favorite bidder/buyer is the ones who are sincere and transparent. With both of us having an equal sense of fair play. My buyers are highly educated. They know the value of the materials they're going for and they settle for a figure that is roughly 10-20% of its original value. They'll try to go for the most extreme deal they can, but at the end of the day, there's not many people who can argue that paying 20 cents on the dollar is paying too much. They'll try to push the envelope and I respect that...But in the end, they understand that fair is fair. 110 – 20% is a great deal by anyone's standard, any time.
My least favorite buyers are those who are negative. You catch more flies with honey, my dad used to say. They'll say, "Jodi, I don't know if this is going to work." I'm not sure I can make this work, I'm paying x amount to have this deconstructed and transported, so I can only pay you x. I'm taking a chance...blah blah. All of that translates to me is, brace yourself; I'm going to low ball you.
Come on, please. How's that for a negotiation tactic? These are people who aren't honest in their own assessment of things and feel that negotiating has to be an antagonistic thing.
PG: You will write on the wall before an auction, "One World, One Chance. Be gentle." Tell us what you mean by that.
JM: We have no place else to go. If you strip everything else away, all economies philosophies, religions, truth is we have only this one chance to get it right to have a home for humanity. If we fail, then that's it. We don’t get a redo. No mulligan's...It sounds bleak because it is bleak. When I say let's be gentle, I mean it. This is home, there is no care, no band aid to fix the boo-boo's.
The world is finally waking up I am on the ground floor of feeling the change in the world right now. It is a collective vibration that I am privy to, simply by being connected to the colossal shift in consciousness. It's real and it's so incredible to experience...I am so amazed and proud to be a part of the transformation. To be there as witness and to see it shift, that manifest, it's very meaningful. To feel the vibration of the change makes my hair stand up. (It's not necessarily a good look, but exciting nonetheless.)
PG: When are auctions disappointing, and when do they blow you away?
JM: Auctions are disappointing when hardly anyone's coming, and when people are just nasty. I mean, why are you here? Did you come here to watch me squirm? But usually poor attendance is based on not giving people what they want.
Murco sets the tone. No one wants to pay money to someone they don't like. We try to create a nice environment so they can't say no. The best auctions are when people laugh, they enjoy it and they're happy for each other's goods. When someone wins a bid, they'll say, "Great deal!" There's camaraderie, they give each other tips. At the beginning of an auction if everyone's being cagey, I have to kick them in the butt "We're growing old, let's go here!"
PG: What's a key message you want viewers to come away with?
JM: There's no end to using creativity to making a difference. There are so many options out there. There's a way.
Losing a friend.
At the end of the day, no one in a community likes to see a house get torn down. If you live in that neighborhood,and drive by the house everyday, a tear down is like losing an familiar aquaintence. You may have never stepped foot in the house or known it's occupants, but, it still has been part of your communal landscape. The worst thing that can happen is that, the old owners move out and the new owners blow it down without any notice. When the house isn't recycled at all, not only are they losing a member of the community, but they didn't even have a chance to say goodbye.
Gaining an allay
When famlies want to integrate used materials into their home, the effort becomes more than a financial transaction, it's a collaboration. A vision to aspire to, a deal to aspire to, a collective plan to implement and then to watch their plan transform their everyday environment...They show up together at the auction with their coffee, and plans in hand, plotting the sweat equity and it brings so much satisfaction. And then each of these items in their home has a story to go along with it.
Conduit to change
There is a sheer volume of material coming from demolition can be distributed to the "have nots." Why are we dumping our structural wood up North if they are rebuilding after a hurricane in the South? All we need is the conduit. There is no reason to throw this stuff out. We just need to create the conduit and let it flow.
Don't miss Planet Green's Total Wrecklamation with Jodi Murphy. Checkout the Planet Green Schedule for times and episode information.
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