Today we’d like to introduce you to Ben Trent.
Hi Ben, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born in San Diego, attended School of the Madeleine, USDHS (now Cathedral Catholic High School), and San Diego State University, where I graduated with an English major. In college, I alternated playing soccer and lifeguarding for the City of San Diego between Ocean Beach and Blacks Beach. After college, I continued lifeguarding a few more years until I got married in 2014. Throughout my whole life, I have been hanging around my dad Brian Trent’s shop on Morena Blvd. His company specializes in Furniture, Stairs, Cabinetry, and Doors. When I left lifeguarding, I made the decision to work with him full-time. This developed into starting my own business, specializing in high-end custom cabinetry. I’ve been in business now for the last 6 years and just incorporated this year. I pride my business on good communication with clients and delivering high-quality products that match the customer’s preferred style.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Has anyone who came into business through working with their parent had a smooth road? Jokes aside, the opportunity to watch how my dad operated his business has helped me form opinions on what tweaks I would make if someday running my own business and what things I don’t want to change. For instance, I’ve adopted his insistence on only using high-quality 13-ply Baltic birch to construct cabinet boxes, which is something that I believe sets us apart from most other custom cabinet companies in quality. Tweaks to my dad’s style mainly include attempting to achieve more tech-savvy communication, the desire to take on more jobs if possible, and the decision to only advertise for custom cabinetry.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Trent Cabinets specializes in high-quality custom cabinets. We mainly work with general contractors, designers, and directly with homeowners to upgrade residential homes in coastal areas of South and North San Diego County. The fact that we don’t sell a low-end, low-quality option is one of the things that makes our company unique. Most of the time, this means that companies that flip homes for a living would want to look elsewhere for a product that is just good enough to pass. Our cabinets are meant to stoke out a homeowner who cares about the home that they or their family members are living in enough to want a product that lasts a lifetime. It is not that hard to give the customer the basics in high-quality plywood cabinet boxes, heavy-duty soft close drawer guides, and soft close hinges, but it is amazing how many companies still skimp on these structural pieces to pinch a few extra pennies out of each bid. From this starting point on, though, our customers still have a wide range of differently priced options from simple textured laminate doors and drawer fronts to elaborate book-matched wood doors and drawer fronts and different stain and paint options.
Risk-taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Starting my own business instead of pursuing a full-time lifeguarding or teaching career is a major life risk that I have committed to. Luckily, the typical problems of making rookie mistakes with the actual build process are not as much of a factor for me because of my 20+ years of working with my dad in this business. He will always have me beat in terms of total construction knowledge because he has been working in the field since 1976. On this same token, it is nice to still have him around to ask questions if I am having trouble figuring any part of the build process out. So really, for me, the main risk comes from the same challenge that every business owner has in the potential of incoming work getting slow. Although my dad has 30 years of word-of-mouth clientele, I would like to meet new people and expand the reach of Trent Cabinets’ high-quality offerings.
Contact Info:
- Website: TrentCabinets.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trentcabinets/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TrentCabinets/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-trent/
Image Credits
Renee Kenagy
Melissa Foster
Trent Cabinets
