Finding a side passion that an individual can make money on is often a once-in-a-lifetime break. Brian Litz has two as president of Lyvfin life insurance company and also becoming co-owner of Premier Buildings Nebraska with his cousin, Grant. Brian has two locations, one at 1529 North W Road in Hampton and one in Superior. He said this year-long adventure in providing buildings to customers has been enjoyable.
“Well, it’s fun,” Litz said. “People like to buy something that they’re excited about. They’re really good quality buildings, and I can say that because I had one before I sold them. If I didn’t enjoy my building, I probably wouldn’t have sold them.”
Grant got his start in the business about 10 years ago when he was driving his father, Bob, and saw buildings being sold alongside the road. Grant took his father’s advice to get involved and brought Brian on in May of last year.
“I actually bought a building from Grant,’ he recalled. “When the drivers came out to set it, everybody was super friendly. I called my cousin, and I was like, ‘Hey, if you need a dealership down in my area, I’ve got some land to put it on.’
“I was just planning on renting him a spot and he convinced me to sell a couple of them and it was so much fun. I love doing it,” he continued. “So it’s kind of taken over and I now have two full-time jobs.”
The business has grown much since then. Grant had three dealerships at the beginning of the year and that has grown to nine, including two due to open soon in Waverly and Crete, as of this writing. Brian owns two of those dealerships and has sold at least 120 buildings in Hampton since July of last year, according to his own estimate.
“This kind of started as a side gig for me,” he said. “I didn’t think that we’d sell maybe more than 10 or 20 buildings a year off this lot.”
The lots sell trailers, greenhouses, garages, cabins, barns, sheds and deer blinds from a variety of manufacturers. Buildings are completely assembled or can be customized via the Premier Buildings Nebraska website: PremierBuildingsNebraska.com. Most buildings are shipped whole, at no cost in eastern and central Nebraska. Drivers level out and place the building where the customer wants them, although they can be assembled on site if there are certain circumstances.
“They’re assembled from the manufacturers, but we can build on site for people,” he explained. “If somebody has like a really hard spot where we can’t get a building through a fence or something, we’ll build on site where we can come out and build it for him.”
According to Litz, providing a satisfying experience and product to customers is the reason for his success and something he is determined to continue.
“Our big thing is we deliver a very well-built product,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of frills that are built; our buildings are a lot less expensive than our competition’s are. The big reason for Premier Buildings Nebraska (being successful) is our customer service… Making sure our customers are really happy is really our No. 1 priority.”
Part of that is fixing what goes wrong, even if it’s not explicitly covered by manufacturer warranty.
“We had building here that was delivered with the wrong door on it,” Litz recalled. “Well, Premier is heading out there and getting that taken care of for him. You’re going to have great experiences and great things happen and you’re going to have setbacks as well. It’s just how you handle them and if you take care of your people or not.”
Litz is recognizing April as customer appreciation month with a sale on building purchases. An appreciation event is planned Saturday at their location with food, drinks and music.
Besides the current lots, the duo is hoping to start to look for a location near Grand Island. Brian also expressed that his son will be helping out over the summer, keep the business truly in the family.
“Our hope is that we’re just going to continue to serve in Nebraska,” he concluded. “Community service is really important to us, Grant and I, to try to give back to our communities a lot. Because if a business just takes, they’re not going to be a business very long. So we’d like to give back and our hope is just to really keep growing.”