Hey guys, welcome back to the Homework Assignment Podcast.
I'm your host, Artie Petino.
And today we have a Q&A episode ready for you guys.
If you guys haven't followed us before, we have this podcast obviously and what we do
is we interview a lot of entrepreneurs, business owners that have made it, that have been successful
in many different industries.
And we kind of get down to the nitty-gritty of the balance between home life and work
life and kind of the different tactics that they're doing as well as brainstorming together.
And yeah, that's pretty much what we're all about.
So we appreciate you guys listening in, following us.
And like I said, today we have a Q&A.
We haven't done one of these in quite a while.
We've had back-to-back guests as well as a huge hiatus.
We had a lot of stuff going on in our company that we had to kind of get situated, taken
care of.
But now we're back and we plan to remain a week to week.
So again, thanks for joining in.
So let's see what questions we have.
We got some good ones for you today.
All right, I'll start out here.
They're probably not that good.
They're pretty good.
They're just kidding.
They're probably pretty good.
Let's see.
Question number one for you is you have previously stated that failures are opportunities to
learn valuable lessons.
What is the most recent failure you have experienced and what did you learn from it?
Well, first of all, if I stated that, I must be pretty good.
I'm just kidding.
Second of all, well, let's see.
My whole life is full of failures.
I felt at picking great friends.
I'm just kidding.
Let's see.
If I could pinpoint a certain failure, it would be something I think I've talked about
before was in, I think it was the winter of 2020 or 2019.
It's kind of blurring all together at this point.
But what I specifically remember is I had been trying to build my company for some time
at this point and I had quite a bit of things going on.
I was smaller than, it was just me, had a couple dudes and we were doing some remodels
and stuff and I kind of got ahead of myself.
I didn't know enough about business and I thought just because I knew enough about construction,
I've been doing it with my hands for a while that I could start this company.
So I tried to get more foundational as far as having an actual structure in my business
and by doing that, I made some poor decisions.
I took on some jobs that I didn't necessarily, I shouldn't maybe have taken as well as hiring
some people that I shouldn't have been hiring because I didn't know the first thing to look
for and kind of employees or people that I needed at the time.
And basically, September, again, I think it was of 2020.
I had a good amount of money.
I had some jobs going on.
I was doing stuff my way, things were working out pretty decently.
In the minute, I tried to expand.
It took only about four months for me to go from doing good, I won't say great, but doing
decent to literally bankrupting myself.
And I remember that towards the end of that year, we had a family trip planned up to Colorado
and just to go spend like a week there over Christmas, kind of celebrate Christmas up there
with my wife's family.
And by the time the week before came to actually head out, I realized I literally had no money.
It was the first time since I've been married, or even basically since I started dating my
wife that I didn't have money to pay for my own bills.
And it was super difficult.
I remember having to kind of drop my pride and go into my father-in-law who, you know,
I got married in March of 2019.
So just six months later, I literally didn't even have money to pay for gas to drive up
to Colorado.
Gas wasn't that bad back then as it is now.
But still, I didn't have money for that, I didn't have money to pay my rent, so I had
to ask for help.
And I've always had two points throughout, I guess there's a few points during the year
where I really, like I always hustle, but when it comes to time for vacation and Christmas,
Halloween and Thanksgiving, those are my four, sometimes five things depending on the vacations
that go on that I just, no matter what happens, I need to make sure that my bank account is
where I want it to be over these periods of time so I can actually enjoy my vacation.
Because if I'm struggling financially or if I'm having issues financially, me mentally,
I just don't operate well.
So even if I'm on vacation, I'm truly not enjoying it.
And so same thing with Christmas time, if like, I don't have a good cushion in my account,
I'm struggling.
And so towards that end of the year, I mean, I hit all three of those holidays, which has
always kind of been a goal that I was able to execute on just having that cushion and
I didn't have any money.
And so it was tough.
And I, you know, family knew of my situation.
I got a lot of feedback on, you know, like, hey, you need to go do this or you need to
go work for this company.
You need to learn a little bit more about business before you start your own company.
And I was just kind of beating myself up like, hey, I tried, I failed.
And that was a pin point for me where I was, you know, I had two options.
Either I succumbed to that failure and I go get a great job and make some good money.
But that would also entail giving up my dreams of being, you know, kind of building an empire
and or I could, you know, accept that failure, figure out what I did wrong and learn from
it.
And so inevitably from, you know, being here now, I obviously pushed through it.
And I think, you know, you grow up, I grew up hearing at least that, hey, you have to
fail to succeed and failure is all part of success.
I learned that in football and stuff.
And I don't think I truly, I mean, truly, truly learned that until I lost everything.
I think that growing up as a kid, football and stuff was great.
Like, you know, hey, I wanted to start all that kind of stuff, but that wasn't like my
life for some people that is.
And I think those people go pro, but for me it wasn't.
So I never had anything to where like my entire life was on the line until this moment.
And because I failed everything that I tried doing that I wanted to do more than anything
in my life, my dream, it's I failed at it.
Like that was just such a pivotal moment.
And it taught me that I love failure because every time I fail as much as it hurts, the
amount of stuff I learn from it and the amount of growth I get from it, because of that experience,
I now recognize that and I'm now able to actually sit down, get through the pain, get through
the emotional drain of, you know, whatever crap just happened, but actually be able to
be like, okay, got through it.
Now I'm good.
Now I'm going to learn from it.
And here's what I'm going to do differently here.
I'm implementing this system.
I'm putting this operation in place.
I'm going to do this next time.
And yeah, that now I love failure.
Every time that we have a challenge or I mess up on something, it does suck.
And now it costs some, you know, sometimes my mistakes cost me tens of thousands of
dollars.
I've had a mistake cost me over, you know, $500,000 before.
But what I will say is no matter what bad has happened or what those failures were, because
of the lessons I learned from it, I've either made more money following that or my life has
gotten better because of that lesson I've learned.
So for me, I invite failure.
Obviously, we try to be the best we can and everything we do, I try to be the best person
I possibly can, but failure is, is always going to be there.
And I have learned to accept that I have now learned to look for that failure.
That also changed my mindset on jobs like looking for failure.
How does that affect me going to our projects?
Well, before I remember I had a project that, you know, it was one of my first huge projects
I did and I had partnered kind of with my uncle at the time, we'd been in construction for
over a decade.
And I remember getting this job done and I'm like, Hey, man, it's ready for you to come
take a look and do a quality check.
And he came in and I was so excited.
I remember even telling my wife, like, yeah, my uncle's coming tomorrow.
Jensen, who's been on our podcast before, I was like, he's about to come in and I see
all this amazing stuff that I did.
And I'm sure he's going to, you know, be proud, all that kind of stuff.
And he's going to be excited for the future of the company.
And he came in and was like, this, this, this wrong, that wrong, like, Hey, this, this is
not good quality.
And I was just like, wow.
And so in learning this lesson, now I'm like that when I go to jobs, it's not necessarily
to tear people down to our project managers down or to say, Hey, we suck at what we do,
but it's really to look for those areas that we're filling in, because that's opportunity
to make it better for the next client first fix it there, but also make it better for
the, for the next time.
And that's why I believe our company has truly gone from, you know, getting jobs from social
media and just kind of hustling and doing sales to now people are calling us, Hey, you
know, you did work at my best friend's house and I want you to come do my full home remodel.
Hey, I see what you're doing.
I've talked to so and so and so it's, you know, kicked in that referral basis.
And that is because we've bettered ourselves.
I've seen a lot of companies that have made mistakes, which is all part of the game, but
they either kicked themselves in the, you know, in the foot for, you know, that failure,
they can't get over it, or they just don't see, they accept it, but they do nothing to
fix it.
And, and ultimately they end up failing completely.
And then they never get back up again, because they feel like they can't.
So anyways, I, yeah, I think that whole mindset of failure and understanding how essential
failure is in success, no matter what industry you're in, like understanding that is truly
a game changer and it will change your entire life like it has mine.
So long answer to a question.
Yeah, it was pretty decent.
We guys started to record who's asking all these so we can like, well, some of them call
them on it and we'll respect that.
Oh, is that because it was you?
That one, that wasn't me.
All right, you ready for number two?
Yep.
Okay, taking, taking a sip of water.
Get ready.
Kind of getting over this little bug that's been going around my throat still.
Yeah, me too.
I got kicked in the butt last week.
All right.
Well, number two is congratulations on the new baby going from two to now three daughters.
Well, they know that you had two and now you have three.
So going from two to now three daughters at home, have you noticed any changes in your
work and home life balance and for those expecting children, how can they prepare for the changes
to come?
Oh, it's actually a pretty cool question.
So I have one philosophy that kind of goes into this and that is again, it does depend
on what you do, but I believe whether you own a company, whether you work inside of a company,
it doesn't matter if you have a money problem, all you got to do is make more money and that
may sound ignorant and that may sound stupid, but it all comes down to the person in the
initiative.
You know, if you don't have a job and you don't have money, you can start selling pest
control.
You can start selling solar.
You could start doing anything to make money, making money.
America is pretty easy.
So for me, I have always, I think me, my wife and I, we have gone a lot of criticism on
how early she got pregnant, how soon we got married, how many kids we wanted to have.
And most of this isn't necessarily family.
A lot of it's outside.
There are some family that are, you know, I remember when my wife got pregnant, some
of our family was like, really?
Like that soon?
Like you're only X years old.
Like, you know, why?
You should wait a day, you should have traveled a little and, but one thing I will say, apart
from other benefits of having children, happiness, starting our family, and besides the fact that's
just what me and my wife wanted, one of the things I liked is with every kid comes a bigger
financial responsibility.
So again, it may sound dumb, but in my head, this is how I truly think new kid on the way.
Cool.
One, I'm going to make more money because I have to.
There's also a faith part to this that I believe we're supposed to, you know, pro create and
expand the family of God.
So I believe there's blessings, both financial and spiritual that come with that.
So those two things mixed together is like, Hey, well, one, I believe I'm getting blessed
for it, but two, you have another kid.
And if you look up statistically, how much a kid costs every year, all that kind of stuff,
like you don't have a choice, what are you going to do?
Not feed your kid and not put diapers on them.
Like you don't have a choice.
And so for me, it's exciting because for it with every kid that comes, there's that anxiety,
the, the no, okay, crap, I got to start hustling even more.
And so it keeps me pushing.
And so I think, yeah, for me, kids, kids are kind of a financial motivator.
Obviously, I love my daughters to death, but also there is a little bit of a benefit for
me.
And so I really think it comes down to perspective.
A lot of people are scared to have kids early because, you know, like, Oh, well, I haven't
graduated college or, you know, I'm not financially stable and I can't support a kid.
Well, what better way to make yourself do something than do something where to make yourself
or put yourself in a position to where you don't have a choice?
Because when you don't have a choice, you get stuff done.
And so kids do that.
So for any of you guys out there like, Hey, you know, you're married or you're about to
get married or you guys are thinking about having a baby, but you're trying to, you know,
your wife may work and you're trying to build a company like, Okay, put yourself in a position
where you don't have a choice.
And inevitably as humans, that survival instinct in us kicks in and you make it happen because
you don't have a choice.
And so for me, that's truly what kids have done to me.
I mean, it's nervous and there's, you know, there's so much more that goes into kids,
excitement, stuff like that.
But I think for me, you know, kids, kids definitely are a motivator because obviously you want
to give your children everything you want.
But I will say, I think having kids early on before my company was even ever really truly
established is part of the reason or plays a part into the success that we've built here
into the fight, some of the financial freedom that we've gained and all of that.
So I don't know, as I answer the question, I'm trying to remember the initial question.
Two questions.
It was, I mean, you, you answered the second half of it, which was expect for those expecting
children, how can they prepare for changes to come?
And that's basically, well, well, I guess that, yeah, that's the two parts.
So like preparing for the change to come is here's the deal.
There's what change is going to, I mean, kids are one of those things like you can actually
prepare, right?
And so I think that's kind of one of the outliers in life is because you can kind of, there
are a few things you can prepare for because you know they're coming.
But when I compare that to, you know, entrepreneurship, because that's what this podcast is about,
is like, you can't prepare for what success you're going to have next year because you
have no idea what's coming.
You can't prepare for certain things.
And so it really comes down to being able to adapt.
And, you know, when it comes to children, people always ask, hey, how did, how was it
going from one to two?
Or how is it going from two to three?
From one to two was, you know, one having a kid in general was a huge, I mean, it was
a huge difference, right?
In me and my wife's life, we had to think about, you know, where we were going, if it
was too loud, especially when the baby was younger.
And now, you know, as the baby gets older, it's like, hey, if we want to go do this,
how long do we need to get a babysitter for all that fun stuff?
And I would say that you really, truly can't be prepared for something even if, you know,
it's coming.
If a baby is coming, the way you prepare one is you got to prepare financially, two, you
got to prepare as far as like getting baby stuff in the house.
Other than that, you don't know what's to come.
You don't know how your baby's going to be.
It's going to be crying all the time.
If it's not going to be, I think, you know, when it comes to preparation, a lot of people
get this idea in their head and they think they have this solid plan.
And no matter how solid your plan is, it's never going to go the way you think it is.
I don't care if that's in business.
I don't care if it's like, hey, we're going to have a baby at this time.
You know, we're going to have this, we're going to buy this, this, and this.
And this is how our baby's going to grow up.
Like you have no clue.
My first child, I love her to death.
She was born with some medical issues.
We spent a year going to different specialists.
If you name a specialist, guarantee we've gone to it and she's fine.
She's doing great.
But, you know, that wasn't my ideal, you know, first, you know, the idea I had in my head
of having my first kid and nothing could have prepared me for that.
So, you know, and apart from that, you know, I had our baby during COVID, it was emergency
C C section, so we weren't able to have any parents or anything like that.
So, you know, it was, I won't say it was a nightmare, but I mean, it was honestly kind
of a little bit of a nightmare.
I did not enjoy it.
And my point in this is that you really can't really be prepared for something.
So the one skill I would say that you need to have instead of the skill being prepared
is the skill of adapting the skill of being ready to pivot and make moves and changes
to in any scenario that you're required to pivot in.
And so, you know, if you're preparing for a kid, that's great.
Prepare to have a kid, you know, prepare financially, get your house ready, all that
kind of stuff.
But when that baby is born, you know, you may have to pivot or you may have to pivot because
your job is going to take you somewhere else.
So really understanding and being available or making yourself available to actually adapt
to understanding that when change comes, you're not going to sit there and freeze, but you're
actually going to be able to execute, make a decision and understand, you know, that
or at least trust yourself enough to know that you can make a decision on the spot and
adapt when you have to.
If you're able to adapt, you can succeed in any industry in any phase of life, whether
you go from banking to construction, construction to fishing, it really doesn't matter.
It's all about adapting because all these different industries, being a parent, being
a business owner, doesn't really matter.
They all require similar skills, right?
And they require different levels of that skill.
And some of them require different mixtures of the same skills you would need in different
areas.
And so it really is coming down to adaption and being able to adapt to the scene, to
the scenario and not so much being prepared.
Now, with that being said, you know, always try to be prepared.
We always try to prepare ourselves for, you know, next year, you know, obviously we have
a plan of doing more business.
We have a plan, my wife to have more kids.
And so we're trying to prepare for that, right?
But what it really ultimately comes down to is not, there has not been one situation in
business.
There's been a, there's been a few, not very many, but there's most of the time things
don't go my way in business.
Most of the time things don't go away in me and my wife's life.
And so adapting, being able to pivot is truly in my opinion, how to succeed at anything
is being able to do that.
Ready for question number three.
Question number three.
All right, let's see here.
Can you guys see my mismatching sucks right now?
On camera?
No.
We'll show.
Awkward.
Please cut that.
Well, we're thinking about starting a company called Mismatching Sucks.
We haven't even patented the idea yet.
Don't say that.
You can just say we patented.
We did.
Well, as you're filming, just patent that idea real quick and then anyways, we're thinking
about starting a mismatched sock company and I know you guys would buy it so don't lie
to me because I would wear it.
As a matter of fact, I'm wearing mismatched socks right now.
All right, you ready for number three?
This one's a switch back to business mode here.
It is, how do you know when it is time to pull the trigger and hire more people?
That's a great question.
I saw it just because I don't know why it took me so long to figure this out.
I feel like it's pretty obvious.
But when you don't know business, it's not obvious.
But most companies do this wrong in my opinion.
That's a different opinion.
But here's my opinion.
A lot of people say, hey, you know what?
I have a plan next year.
We're going to do $10 million in business.
Right now you're doing $5 million.
Next year we're going to do 10.
We need more people to do that because we've got to double our business.
Okay.
Logically, that makes sense.
What happens is people go out, they hire people with the anticipation that the work's
going to be there.
What happens is nothing goes as planned.
We just talked about.
Right?
Not saying you don't do $10 million that year, but it doesn't happen on your timeframe.
What happens is people go out, they hire all these people, they increase their overhead,
they increase their payroll, and the jobs aren't there yet.
They may come, but by the time they come, they're already paying all this overhead without
the actual money coming in and they start putting themselves in a rut.
They start hurting themselves.
They go out of business.
Because they're hiring on the expectation of work being there.
When in reality, the way that it should happen is you hire once the work is there.
A lot of people have a hard time with this because they'll say, hey, I don't want to
wait until I get the work because then I'm not going to have the right people to fill
that work and then I'm going to be in a rut because I don't have anybody to start those
jobs or do that work.
Well, yeah, but isn't that a better situation to be in than hiring people and giving away
your money before you even have the work to pay them?
I would take that all day long.
I would rather have 50 jobs and I'm trying to fulfill.
Clients getting upset because I can't put them, can't get their jobs in on time.
I'd rather have that and all that money so that I can hire those people in order to execute
those projects.
People do it backwards.
I understand why they do it backwards because I used to have that mindset because it makes
sense.
Well, if I have to double my jobs next year, I need to double my people and double this.
That only makes sense to me a little bit in sales because sales, you go out and people
should be finding their work and should be hustling and bringing in their work.
That makes sense in sales, but as far as project management, whatever industry you're
in, whether it's more chefs or more construction workers or more accountants, you need to make
sure that you have the work before you hire them because if not, you're just giving away
your money without the work and sure, they may seem busy.
Maybe you can keep them busy.
That's great, but if you can't, that's a problem.
To know when you need to hire is simply based on the work.
If you have too much work and not enough people, hire.
If you have not enough work and too many people, fire.
Super simple.
That's how you keep a business running.
Again, adapting.
It's hard.
It's hard to hire people.
It's a scary situation because when it comes to hiring, one, not only are you hiring somebody
and yes, you have to pay more money, so then you have the pressure of having to bring in
and make sure that there's actual work there, but two, then there's a responsibility.
Producer, you're fired.
Then there's a responsibility of...
That was a quick fire.
I'm here to set an example.
Fire quick, hire slow.
That's actually a literal thing you guys should do, but I suck at that, by the way.
I say you should do that, but don't learn from me because I have a hard time doing that
and we'll probably get into that at some point in a podcast.
There's that second part of responsibility where now you have this person, you have their
life, their well-being, everything that they need to provide for themselves and their family.
Now that's on you because if you don't do your job, if you don't bring in the work,
if you don't make sure your company is running like a well-oiled machine and it goes under,
that person's out of work.
That's how I look at it.
I don't know if other business owners look at it that way.
I would assume they do and that's why being an entrepreneur is not an ideal career for
many people because the pressure, people buckle under pressure.
Entrepreneurs need to have a high tolerance of pressure and it is extremely hard.
I would lie if I'd say there's days where I'm not scared out of my mind, I'm not worried,
I'm not feeling somewhat depressed sometimes, I'm not crying, I go through all those emotions
consistently and I'm not trying to scare anybody away from entrepreneurship.
Being an entrepreneur is freaking awesome.
There's so many great benefits but right now I'm talking about hiring and firing people
or knowing when to hire and I think if you just follow that simple rule, to know when
to hire is when you have too much work and not enough people, that's when you hire.
If you don't have enough work and you have too many people, there's a certain, I'm not
going to get into it now, but there's a certain part or a time when you know, it's like, okay,
hey, I need a fire.
That's all business 101, we can get into that another day.
Well, actually, we don't need to get into it another day.
The next question that I have for you here is, okay, here we go.
Number four is, I have several very close relationships amongst my employees.
If necessary, how would you go about letting someone go that is a close friend to you?
That was someone from our company guaranteed.
Someone wants to know how they would ever get fired.
Here's the deal.
I think there's a difference in letting someone go and firing and that difference for me is
that if you do something that you are not supposed to do deliberately and that hurts
somebody on our team or hurts the company and you do that on purpose, not like making
a mistake but doing it on purpose, that requires a fire, meaning like, hey, you broke trust,
you did something that you weren't supposed to do that you knew you weren't supposed to
do and you still did it, what does Mufasa say, you deliberately disobeyed me?
I love that line.
It's my favorite line.
Mufasa is coming out soon, guys.
Get tickets.
I'm not promoting Disney right now, but get tickets.
But anyways, that is a fire.
Like, hey, there's disrespect gone.
Then there's letting go.
Letting go covers most of the areas for having to separate someone from a company or at least
my company, my opinion.
That is like, hey, life situations, you're failing at work due to XYZ.
A lot of times it's never deliberately right.
Sometimes there's stuff going on.
Sometimes people are underperforming and there could be a million reasons that are affecting
them personally that's doing that.
Or hey, you know what?
Our business is slowing down and I just can't afford to keep you right now.
To understand, I think for me, to help my people understand the difference there really
dictates how that conversation is going to go because obviously if someone steals from
my company, I've had someone steal money from my company, that isn't, hey man, listen, we
really enjoy having you.
We just can't, we just got to let you go right now.
We just can't have you here.
That's, hey dude, get the F out of my face or I'm going to freaking knock you out.
You stole from me, right?
But on the part of letting go, it's like there might be a few reasons.
I think just playing two different scenarios in my head, like if there wasn't enough work,
right?
There's that conversation, like, hey man, we've had a lot of good things happen, but here's
where we are right now and I just can't afford you in your position at this moment.
And so let's talk about it.
I have to let you go right now, but let's talk about what we can do to help make that
easier transition.
And hey man, well here's our plan.
I want to bring you back because you were valuable.
Those are the conversations I would hope to have if I have to let people go for that reason.
And I would hope that somebody that we've treated good, somebody that we've helped excel
in life and that we've contributed to and somebody that we have a great relationship
with, that they're going to understand that the only reason we're having this conversation
is because we, I don't personally have a choice, right?
Now there is that survival mentality in all of us, like people are probably going to want
to have that conversation.
Like, well, let's talk about this.
What can I do to help?
If there's a situation to be able to fix that, you know, situation, like if that person's
in sales and we're lacking jobs, well, it's like, yeah, man, I'm going to have to cut
your salary and you go on commission only.
If you're down for the company, let's get it done.
Let's get it work, I believe, right?
Or maybe it still is coming down to, hey, I just have to let you go.
We actually had that happen just recently and I think that conversation went the best
way it could and we all left on good terms, but somebody's life just wasn't in par with
where we were needing to go.
And you have to understand, I think being a leader is so much more than just owning,
like just because you own a business, that doesn't make you a leader.
Being a leader requires caring.
It requires love.
It requires charity.
It requires putting the interests of your team before the interests of yourself.
It requires all this and not, I'm not talking about when everybody's looking.
I'm talking behind the doors, right?
I'm talking about when nobody's looking.
That to me is what a good leader is and when you do that stuff, your team notices.
So if you do have that situation where you do got to let go of family friend because
of a situation that it's just unfortunate, that will help lessen that blow, right?
Now if you have a friend or someone in the company that is underperforming, that is another
conversation or not a conversation.
Well, yeah, a conversation you need to have with yourself that I've had with myself many
times like, hey, this person isn't producing.
This person is not making our company money or they're losing our company money.
And the first thing that an owner will think of is like, okay, I need to eliminate that
problem.
Well, how do you eliminate that problem?
The easiest thing to do is let that problem go.
Sometimes it's not easy, but just as far as like the solution, that's the easiest solution
is eliminate the problem.
But if you step back and have the conversation that you should have with yourself is have
I done everything on my end to make sure that that person has everything they need to succeed?
Because if you've done that and they're failing, then that's no longer on you, right?
And you can have those conversations one month, two months, three months and if it's still
failing, well, then at that point, even if that person gets mad, at the end of the day,
they failed.
And there's nothing you can do about it.
If they're not performing, they're not performing your business, you have to operate.
You need to make money because it's like a chain, right?
One bad link can ruin that entire integrity of the chain.
So if you're having one person fail that can't be fixed, are you willing to let them drag
down everybody else that is doing good just because you love that person too much?
I think for the most part, you know, it's not easy to have that conversation or figure
out when you let people go.
But the way I go about it is first when somebody is not producing or somebody is failing, I
first look at me, I first look at our leadership team, right?
Have we done everything in our power?
Have we provided all the resources for this person to execute their job?
Have we provided the right training?
Have we provided the right materials?
If any of those and any of those questions are no, guess what?
That person's not getting let go.
We need to fix our end.
Now if the answer is yes, at that point, it's have a conversation with that person, figure
out what's truly going on.
We do this.
We did this for a little while.
We just started back up doing it is our personal, professional, financial goals.
If you have these regular meetings with your employees to really understand not just the
work goals, but their personal lives, right?
What are they wanting out of their personal life?
Are you helping them get there?
Does your vision help them achieve their vision of their own life?
If you're involved in the lives of the people you work with, you're going to be able to
foresee these things before they actually happen, right?
And whether that is, hey, you know, this person's life is just not supporting what they need
to do for us right now, so this isn't the best place for them.
You'll be able to foresee that or you're going to be able to foresee that like, hey, this
is a problem.
Now we're going to be able to fix it before it really becomes an actual problem.
So that truly helps.
But at the end of the day, I true, I mean, it's not easy firing people.
It's not easy letting go of people, and especially if they're your family or friends, like we're
a huge family friend company and there's, you know, I would be lying if I said there
wasn't moments where I'm like, hey, I probably should be letting go of this person.
And there's one thing that that has helped me back every time and that is looking at
myself have I done everything?
If the answer is no, that person isn't getting let go because I can't blame somebody for
failure to perform if I'm failing to perform in order to help them perform.
That makes sense, right?
So if you look at that, here's what I think.
I think everybody has potential and a true leader creates leaders.
They don't find them.
I think everybody's capable being leader.
I think there's been plenty of instances and this isn't a pat on my back, but this is more
of just an understanding of what of the example.
But Kyle, right, one of our producers, I mean, he did electrical for us for a while.
He quit his bartending job, he came on to elder.
He was doing electrical work.
And in the beginning, he was it was exciting.
It was new, fun, messing with wires.
I understand that.
But then summer hits its hot.
It's in the attic.
It's, you know, all the chaos that comes with it.
And he doesn't have a passion for electric.
So why would he really enjoy it when it gets hard, right?
And so, you know, he ended up leaving to go do some other stuff, go back to kind of bartending
and stuff because we didn't have any positions open.
But then when the time came where we decided to, you know, kind of do something different,
it was like, Hey, well, you know, what are Kyle's skills?
Kyle's skills are he went to school for music production.
He loves produce.
He's social.
Everybody loves Kyle.
He's a great face.
People love being around him.
He would be a great media producer.
He would be a great film producer, right?
Getting all of our media or content.
He'd be great at vendor relationships, at events, at sponsorships, like, and guess where he
is right now?
He's there and he's thriving.
We're doing something great.
Just on the podcast, but with our with our social media plop, like he's been killing
it.
And that was a lesson for me that like, Hey, when you are putting people in the wrong place
because you don't know them or you're ignoring what what they care and want most out of life,
like if they fail, whose fault is that?
That's your fault as a leader.
That's your fault as the owner.
I don't I 100% believe that.
And so with that being said, that may be kind of biased because I don't ever want to let
go of anybody.
I wish I was a multimillionaire and even my family and friends that were struggling to
produce.
I would be so rich that they could just stick around.
But also at the end of the day, the one thing that matters the most is your business.
So when it comes to firing people, if there's a person that needs to be let go, looking
at yourself first will teach you a lesson of how you need to be a better leader.
And when you lead better, then there's better production out of your employees or two.
If they're not producing, you need to cut the ties because why would you let that weak
link ruin the entire the entire chain and let and let them bring everybody down with
them?
Right?
So I don't know.
I don't think there's any good way to go about firing people or letting go of people.
It's like I said, I've luckily throughout my career, most people have just knew they
were failing or didn't like to be here.
And they kind of weeded themselves out and dipped out and left.
Just recently, we actually had to have us sit down and actually let go of the of the
first person that we've had to officially do that with.
And it wasn't fun.
Like I said, I think at the end of the day, if you if you're truly invested in the people
in their lives and you truly take it onto yourself, that is a huge risk.
You understand the responsibility you're putting on yourself as an owner.
When you hire people and when you understand that and you take that seriously, you're going
to be in a hopefully positions that where you don't have to have those hard conversations
with that being said, life happens.
And also it comes down to hiring people, making sure you have the right criteria of the people
you're looking for to join your company.
That's hard too.
That's a whole another segment of like, how do I know who to hire?
We've had in construction, construction is insane.
Like everybody says they're qualified.
Oh, I can do drivable.
I can do this.
And I look at all these jobs and sometimes they're pictures on Google or they're pictures
of work they never did or they just assisted with.
And then all of a sudden we're trusting them on a huge high-end client and they get down
the job and our clients calling us like, what in the frick is this?
Like people, people do anything for money.
Anything they'll say anything, they'll do anything they're like salesmen, right?
They're selling themselves.
And a lot of times they oversell themselves.
So, you know, in construction, at least for us, it's hard even with people with amazing
and resumes, it's like, well, I need to experience it firsthand what you do.
Otherwise, nothing matters because we've been told a million times that people can do great
work.
Oh, I've done this and custom cabinets and blah, blah, blah.
And then it comes down to the fact of duty looks like my three year old did that with
some Mickey Mouse hammers and screwdrivers.
Like it's not happening, right?
So yeah, I don't know.
I think, you know, and I may have gone a little bit off topic here, at least kind of on a tangent,
but when it comes to family and friends, if the love's there, you know, it really just
comes down to their conversation.
I've had conversations with some of the people really close to me in our business where it's
like, hey, we got to separate our friendship right now.
We really need to talk like, hey, this is a problem.
Your attitude's a problem.
This is a problem.
And you're going to be surprised, I think, in having those conversations that they're
not going to go the way you think where maybe they're your friend or your family members
going to be a little prideful.
I think it'll be a surprise how invested people that love you are truly in your business.
And if that loves them, I mean, you also got to trust that you brought them in for a reason.
And if they're feeling a certain areas, if you haven't done everything you can to talk
that out, figure out what the problem is and fix that problem or fix, you know, by looking
at yourself, then you shouldn't really be firing anybody at the moment, in my opinion.
But I think it really comes down to a gut instinct of, I mean, you guys know best about
your businesses.
I don't think we've been in business long enough to really have a huge understanding
of firing people and all that kind of stuff.
But that from what I know, I mean, that's just kind of the experience we've been in.
But yeah, I think that would be kind of the answer to my question.
Well, that's all the questions.
Is there anything else you want to say?
That's it.
How long have you been recording?
23 minutes?
No.
Yeah.
I mean, I do have one more question for you.
I don't know.
What is your biggest goal as a contractor?
As a contractor or business owner?
Contractor?
Contractor specifically.
Well, it was to build Drake a house, but I think now it's Kendrick.
I, you know, it's interesting.
I get told all the time, like, dude, what you're doing is so great.
Everything you I've been watching you, business is great.
Your team's amazing.
And you know, obviously as a business owner, you get all the credit.
I think 20% of the credit should really go to me as a business owner.
The other 80% goes to my team because everybody sees the leader, but they don't see everybody
underneath them.
That's actually made stuff happen.
But as far as contracting goes, you know, we get told all the time how great we are,
all the stuff we're doing is so phenomenal and stuff.
And yet it's gotten to a point where I think the only challenge our teams truly had is
management and not so much construction.
And right now we're doing a job that's where, you know, there's this huge multi-million dollar.
I think it's like 9,000, 8,000 square foot home and we're blowing out a wall.
And this wall happens to be like a main low bearing wall for two different roof structures.
And there's a ton of weight on it.
And we got to put the steel beam in and do all these crazy footers and the stem wall
and stuff.
And it's the first time I actually understood why high end custom home, big custom home
builders tell me they don't like to do remodels because it's so difficult.
I've never actually kind of felt that way until literally this morning where I'm looking
at this, I'm like, dude, this is difficult.
I understand why they don't do it, but it was also a challenge and it was nice to actually
have a challenge for once and not just doing a bathroom remodel or a full home remodel
where we're just ripping out all the cosmetics and all new flooring and all this.
Like this was building something that is hard and fun and structural.
And so I think my biggest goal for contracting right now is to do stuff that people have
said can't be done or stuff that just people are like, how was that even built?
How was that even done?
I got a little bit of a taste like that.
We have a client actually, he was just on what two episodes, Blake Clark.
He, you know, he had a header for his boat that needed to get pushed up in his garage
for his boat to fit in.
And he had gone a couple of bits and every contractor was talking about ripping the roof
off and doing this and blah, blah, blah.
And I'm sitting here looking.
Nah, like you don't need to do that.
And we ended up doing it.
It looks awesome.
Looks like it was built this way.
The rods are going through the drywall.
Like we didn't have to spend 15 grand tearing apart his roof with new trusses.
Like saving him a ton of money and he ended up only spending like four grand and that
created a huge relationship between him and I and our company.
The point being is like people, people find, you know, on online, they find all these videos
and all these things about, oh, look at this cool shower and this cool towel work.
I want to build stuff that is just like, you don't even know, like, have you guys ever
driven down to a city?
Like we were just in Minneapolis and I'm looking at some of these structures.
Like, how is that standing on four pillars?
A 20 foot story building or a 20 story building with four pillar on all four ends, huge with
nothing underneath.
I'm like, like, I know how it works, but like, that's crazy to me.
That's crazy.
Right.
And I want to build stuff like that.
You know, you look at like the Eiffel Tower and like, I want to do crazy stuff like that.
And that is way down the road.
Construction isn't necessarily my passion and I hope customers aren't freaking out when
they hear this.
Why am I hiring?
No, construction.
Like I love construction.
Don't give me wrong.
My passion is doing things, whether it's in business or construction that is just out
of this world, whether that's creating businesses that operate, you know, differently, different
systems that have never been implemented.
Like just doing stuff that's just like, how do they do that?
That's what I want to hear.
How is that done?
And it's not so much a prideful thing.
Maybe it is a pride in our work or what we do, but I would say that was like one of my
main goals has been to build.
So I'm a member of church Jesus Christ, Latter-day Saints, and I want to build a temple.
And for those of you that have been, or I mean, if you've even seen the outside of a
temple, the quality of these buildings, temples, the outside of the temple, the outside of
the temple, the quality of these buildings is remarkable.
Now I've been inside and I'm a contractor.
When I go places, whether it's Peter Piper Pizza, the hospital, doesn't matter.
And I'm looking at it.
You know, I'm using the urinal and I'm looking at the tile crooked and I see all this crappy
work that all these companies are doing because it's just another job and cool.
It is what it is.
Don't not dogging or anything like that.
But when I go into the temple, I look outside of one of those temples or it's probably the
same thing when you go to Rome and you look at all these crazy artistic buildings, the
quality is out of this world.
How did they like there's not, I mean, I remember inside of the temple, I've been in many rooms
and in the last five years of going to that temple inside and outside, I have found probably
two blemishes.
I don't know how it's done.
It's crazy like our jobs are great, but there's always something wrong and you can go back
and fix it, but nothing's ever perfect.
And I want to know how that happens.
I want to be able to build that.
So that's definitely been one of my bigger goals as a contractor is to be able to build
a huge multi-million dollar structure that is everything in is the highest and finest
quality like the quality of monumental quality of a that you would see back in Egypt.
Like, you know, it's crazy.
I think we've talked about this like, and this is, you know, construction, you know,
talk, but back in the day, they built some phenomenal, phenomenal things.
Like what happened to, yeah, what happened to the Rome times and like all that different
like right now we're building homes that are freaking farmhouse, which I'm not dogging
it.
I do a lot of remodels.
My wife, I think likes a farmhouse a little bit.
But what happened to the, the engravings and the markings and all this extravagant, different,
you know, features and details, those don't exist anymore.
And it's sad because that like, that's why people go to Rome and Italy and, you know,
Europe and all these different places to see all these crazy built buildings like our,
our tile guys, and this may be a selling point for anybody wanting to do a remodel right
now, but our tile guys are from Romania and they have worked in the churches and these
buildings where you see that detail in Romania and you best believe when they do our towel
work, people are in awe.
I love that.
Right.
They were trained, whatever great, but like that is what I want to bring back.
I want to get rid of this square header, wood header, this that like I want to build stuff
that looks like it's floating and nobody knows how it freaking is above the ground right
now and it's not going to fall with a tornado or earthquake.
That's what I want to build.
A lot big road to get there, but that's definitely, I think the contractor goal.
And again, I mean, it may sound like it's my passion.
It's not necessarily my passion.
Business is my passion.
People are my passion, but that is pretty dang cool.
You know, I saw him in the other day, you know, my driving with my husband, he's like,
I built that.
I did that road.
I built that and I feel like I'm like that with my wife, but that would be so cool when
you're not pointing at just a simple little sign or like a patio you bill or even just
a house, but you're pointing at something like how, how, you know, I think, I think
we're all daydreaming in here now.
Just talking about this.
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, uh, I don't know.
There's just some crazy stuff.
And the only part of it with that is the only people that are going to build that kind of
stuff are people with money.
So right now we're focusing on relationships, trying to get to meet some of the people who
have the money to be able to do that.
But I mean, even now you look at like houses, like I'm not trying to dog anybody's house
K, but like Rick Ross's house, Shaquille O'Neal's house, like their mansions, they look cool,
but that's not a wow factor to me.
You're wowing at how big it is, but I want to, yeah, I want structures that people haven't
seen in a very long time.
Shoot, if I could build a pyramid, I would, I would love to build a pyramid again.
It'd be insane.
It'd be hyped up right now.
I know it.
It would be insane, but yeah.
All right.
Well, I guess I have one more question to end it, to end the podcast is will you be voting
for a convicted felon in 2024?
Oh my God.
I think America.
Great.
You have a fault.
We're getting canceled 2024.
Yeah, I know the whole political crap and everything going on is crazy.
You know, I thought, I thought this is a great lesson just for an entrepreneurship, but you
know, so many people were talking about Blake talked about this, right?
Like the economy, like how the election was going to be and everybody wait.
Oh, I don't know if I want to do this yet because of the economy and blah, blah, blah.
And out of what 6000 realtors, only 600 have sold a house in this year and he sold like
a hundred and something.
Like, I don't even remember the statistics.
You guys can go back to two episodes ago when he was in here, but same thing for us.
Like right now work is getting pretty crazy as far as vendors.
We have vendors coming in our office, dropping off stuff like, Hey, you know, we're, you
know, this is what we do.
We have vendors hitting us on social, every social media platform they're calling us or
emailing us.
Two years ago, we didn't have that in construction.
Two years ago, people were, you know, we couldn't get vendors to bid on our ding projects, let
alone even getting in contact with them because there was just such a huge influx of work.
Now it's the opposite.
Now I'm sure there's people who have not given us a time of day that are wishing we
would return their calls, but the point being is if you build a reputation for yourself,
if you build a reputation and you have the mindset of abundance, no matter what happens
with the economy, whether there's an election, whether Joe Biden falls over on his face and
the economy collapses, like whatever the case is, you're going to be successful.
Like there is a way to succeed.
There is a way to maintain your business in any era and anytime.
I don't care if it's a great depression.
What I can tell you right now is millionaires were made during the Great Depression.
There were businesses that didn't go under during the Great Depression.
And if you're getting mad because your grandpa was in the Great Depression, I'm sorry, but
that is what I truly believe.
There is truly so many different ways to make money, establish your company, and there are
people, always people with money.
So like right now, if the economy starts, you know, we've been talking about research
forever, but economy, yeah, it's kind of slowed down, right?
So, you know, two years ago, we weren't getting the amount of volume of work we were getting,
but what we did is we ended up making our clientele, the people that have money.
And guess what?
We still are signing contracts for a half a million dollar remodel that, you know, other
people can't even get a bathroom remodel right now for it.
I'm not bragging.
My point is that if you focus on building reputation and focus on putting yourself in
front of people with money, you're always going to have money because you're going to
surround yourself with people who spend money, right?
Because the rich will always be rich, for the most part.
I mean, sometimes people go under, right?
But the people with money are always going to have money and they're always going to
have to spend money.
But that's just how it is, right?
So I think that's a great learning lesson.
I don't know if I'm sounding like a complete douche right now, but that's, yeah, what was
question number four?
What was question number four?
I also think, you know, and again, at this point, I'm just kind of going through this.
You know, we've been, this is what episode 23 of a podcast.
And so I've gone from being very, how was your day to being a little bit more loose,
but kind of jumping around places here.
You know, if you guys as leaders, and this is just a thought that's coming to my head,
if you guys as leaders are prideful, are entitled because you're the leader, you are going to
make a lot more enemies than you are friends.
And you're not going to have, people are not going to want to follow that.
Derek Price.
I think I've dropped this episode yet as of today, but by the time you hear this episode,
it will have been dropped.
He talked about his experience as a CEO of an addiction hospital and how he turned that
company around from literally that were in the middle of filing bankruptcy or they had
filed bankruptcy and he ended up saving the company all because he picked up cigarette
buds.
Like it's so hard.
You know, people always ask, like, does money change you?
Like, and I don't even have a lot of money, but honestly, I have been asked that.
If you guys truly let money turn you into where you have that entitlement, like, oh,
well, I'm the guy who pays for everything.
I mean, as an owner and as people in leadership, like different positions, I do think like,
hey, you're not like necessarily everybody else or are certain benefits and stuff that
you get in and being that position that you've earned to be in.
But at the end of the day, if you have that mentality of, well, because I said so or well,
because I paid for overall because just too bad this is my company, you're going to, you're
going to lose great people.
I've had that mentality before, unfortunately.
And now I've learned when to have that mentality and when not to at the end of the day.
If you're an owner, you're still an owner.
So sometimes you have to put your phone, your foot down and be like, hey, dude, either way,
it's my decision.
But a lot of the other times is you have to listen, you have to be open minded.
You have to invite people to share that criticism, invite people to share their ideas and really
try to listen and not turn them down.
I still struggle with that, but I understand that that needs to happen.
And in understanding that, since I have come to that understanding, I think our company's
changed a lot.
I think we've worked a lot better with people.
We just had a leadership meeting just the other week where we were talking about certain
things that weren't working.
And again, leadership team, I love you guys, but I'm just sharing this in my head.
We were talking about all these things that these guys, our guys weren't doing and how
many times, we've told them 80 million times to do this and they just can't grasp it.
And then I'm like, well, we came to the conclusion as a team that, well, are we doing this?
Are we setting this example?
And in reality, that answer was no.
I think it was a hard pill to swallow for all of us that were in that meeting.
But it's true.
It really is true.
Now, like I said, there is a balance there.
My brother, we have a fridge in the front of our office that is for customers only.
And every now and then, maybe more often than I should, I grab a Red Bull out of there because
there's Red Bulls and I don't have any of my personal fridge.
And so my brother being my brother, grabbed some and some of our guys grabbed some and
our office manager, bless her harsh, Diane, who's an absolutely OG.
She's like Donna from Suits.
She gets mad about it and she gets mad when I do it too, but I have a mentality like,
well, I'm paying for them.
I can take it if I want to.
But at the end of the day, it really comes down to that example.
If I didn't take those Red Bulls out, would my team?
They wouldn't even dare, right?
And question number four, whoever asked that question, especially working family and friends,
I think it's okay to have a certain entitlement.
For me, if I worked for my best friend or worked for my dad, I would think, hey, I would
still, one, there's the incentive to bust my butt even harder.
There's the incentive to do even more because I don't want to let them down.
But there's also that like, hey, well, I'm going to just go in and grab something out
of his fridge because we've been friends or he's been my dad.
I can do that.
Normal employees can't do that.
There are benefits to some things and I think that's totally okay to have, but there is
a line and if you cross that line, all of a sudden people are getting taken advantage
of, people aren't doing their stuff, people are above other people.
You can't have that.
You have to be able to keep everybody on an equal level, playing field, including yourself.
Now, with that being said, not your employees are not going to be driving, you know, Ferraris,
if you're driving a Ferrari, that's not how it works.
You still have to also at the same time, keep that competitiveness of live.
It's just a fine line.
I think it's interesting and it's been interesting to learn what that line is and truly come to
understand how everybody works.
Some people, you know, will light up in the morning with Chipotle burrito, a Los Favres
burrito.
And then there you need to go, that is a promo.
And some other people are like, hey, I don't care about this burrito.
I need a thousand dollar check, a thousand dollar bonus, Mike.
And so it's like, you got to learn, you know, what, there's an entitlement right there.
But no, like seriously, it's, you got to learn who you're working with.
You got to understand them.
We're still going through that.
And I think as you get bigger, you're consistently going through that.
I think, you know, some of the biggest, most successful companies in Arizona are still learning
how to deal with that, how to deal with, you know, they went from 50 employees to 200 employees.
Like you, you can't be as personal at that point.
You have to still be able to know the people you work with.
And you know, I don't know.
I think it's interesting, but I think 100% you have to eliminate that mentality that
like, hey, too bad, so sad you work for me because you're never going to get anything
done.
People are not going to follow you.
Like I said, I've had that in my life and especially like, you know, I think it's interesting.
I'm going to talk about me, Mike and Kyle here just because we're all in the room.
But you know, we've been best friends for what, like a year?
For like ever.
And you know, we've gone through, dude, we've gone through, yeah, we've gone through so
much like, right.
And in high school, we were in sports, we're all friends together.
Kyle, Mikey hung out more.
I didn't really hang out too much with Mikey.
He was kind of that good looking douchebag that everybody wanted to date in high school.
Kyle was that guy that everybody loved.
Everybody still loves him.
And then I was kind of that nerdy jock, hang out with all the nerds.
But then, you know, I played sports and I was always tied up in a relationship.
So I didn't really hang out with friends too much, unfortunately.
But we've been through a lot and then we went through and we lived together, you know, we're
kind of homeless together for a little while and then we lived together for a while.
Then we got a condo and we, and this one talking about, you know, so we've been through a lot.
And so it's been interesting.
I'm sure they can, you know, attest to this, but like going from that to where, you know,
we were talking about like, hey, out of us, it doesn't matter who makes it, whoever makes
it, you know, we're going to take care of everybody else.
Right.
And so I do think that was an immature thought to a point because it was more, we were relying
on Mikey to make beats and get famous.
And we'll post his link to SoundCloud down below or iTunes music if you guys want to
check that out.
But, you know, that didn't happen and there's nothing wrong with that.
Obviously, he makes killer beats, but that wasn't what life held for him or us at all.
And so then it came down to, you know, we separated.
I went on a mission, came back, I started this company.
They were doing stuff.
Mikey was a loan officer for a company.
Kyle was the freaking best and most beast bartender you ever going to meet.
And so we all kind of separated.
And then it just kind of, you know, like, hey, the initial thought was like, well, we
all want to work together.
So we all started working together, but it's been an interesting transition to, I think
for them and me to really understand like, hey, we're all friends, but we still have
a job to do.
We still have a business to run.
We still have to make money.
And at the end of the day, like, unfortunately, and fortunately, I'll say that and maybe
explain it later, but fortunately, and unfortunately, like, I have to make the final decisions.
And it's been a growing opportunity for all of us to learn when to let down our pride
and when to not let down our pride in order to thrive and work together.
I think we're all three for the most part, kind of the alpha minds where we all just
were naturally just always kind of been in charge and stuff like that and kind of been,
you know, the spotlight and a crowd.
And so putting us all three together, obviously, that we're bound to hit heads, but it's taken
time and that's why a lot of people will tell you, don't work with family, don't work with
friends.
I swear if I had a dime for every time I heard that I've been a part of coaching programs
where the first thing the person told me was like, you got to find your family and friends.
Like, no, that's not going to work.
And for me, it was a challenge because nobody believed it could happen.
And I was like, okay, we're going to make it happen.
But that's why because people can't let down their pride.
People can't understand that, you know what?
Obviously we're friends, but there's a time where we're friends and there's a time when
we're hustling to making money.
And I think we've been able to do that pretty well.
I think we still struggle at times, mostly with when Mikey's being a complete douchebag.
But for the most part, it's been working out and understanding, yeah, like I said, understanding
when to be able to do that is really going to dictate the success between any friends.
And so sometimes you have to have that conversation.
Mikey's had the conversation with me where like, dude, you don't listen, you shoot down
all my ideas and I've had the conversation.
I'm like, well, dude, you just annoy me too much.
But we've been able to work through it.
Second part wasn't so true.
But the first part, yes, he has told me that and understanding like, hey, again, I could
have sat there and been like, well, I'm the owner too bad.
I pay you a check.
But that's not how I think and that's not how anybody should think because the reaction
you're going to get to that is we'll peace out, dude, like especially when there's two
people that are kind of leaders in nature in that meeting, like that's not going to work.
And so instead it's like, okay, I hear you.
It's kind of like a relationship in marriage, right?
Okay, I hear you.
Now here's what I think.
Use this and being able to actually work together to be able to make the dream work.
Good team makes the dream work.
So I think that's been a huge growing, growing part for us.
And I think there's a lot more to come.
But for the most part, yeah, pride definitely ruins things.
And if you can learn how to accept criticism and how to give criticism without offending
people, you're going to be able to grow together and make a family company work.
There's a statistic, what 98% of small business, so small business is any business that operates
under I believe $200 million a year in revenue might be 100 million, something like that.
But I mean, that's, first of all, to me, that's not a small company.
I mean, if you're doing 50 million a year, you're not a small company.
You got 30, 40 employees, like that's not a small company to me.
But what I will say is 98% of small businesses are family owned and operated.
That's crazy.
You got all these people out here.
Don't work with family.
You know, it never works out, but yet 98% of all small businesses are family.
People are not, no, they're a little bit ignorant.
They don't know what they must not know that statistic.
But whether it's salesman or whether it's like, even if it's like, okay, well, you
know, family owned and operated, that could be a husband and wife, but everybody else
is strangers.
That could be two brothers and everybody else is strangers.
That could be, you know, a brother and a sister, the secretary, those are like people.
I mean, 98% of small businesses are family owned and operated.
So hey, there you go.
At the end of the day, people can make that work.
But what happens is you just hear those stories of people butting heads and, you know, my
father does nothing and I do all the work 24 seven.
Like, dude, that doesn't just happen in business.
My first partnership, I won't name him here because he might listen to my podcast.
But I remember and again, this, I just remember feeling like, hey, he's like, hey, I'm going
to, I need to set up quick books and get all the setup and it took three weeks for him
to set up quick books.
And I was the guy outside of the field sweating, running the crews and doing everything.
And yet we were making the same amount of money.
And not to say that he didn't deserve that, but there just wasn't an equal pool and we
were a startup.
So it didn't make sense to me.
So, you know, if you guys can really understand when to drop your pride, really understand
that it takes team effort.
I truly believe that is what separated us in the construction game is, you know, in
construction, client hires contractor, who's responsible contractor?
That's not how we run the game here.
Client hires elder, who's responsible client and elder?
It's a teamwork because the client doesn't do their part.
We fell.
We don't do our part.
We fell, right?
But the client, whether it's picking stuff out, it's making decisions or it's paying
us on time or it's making sure that they understand in our listening when we're communicating
timelines and they're actually checking in on builder trend, which is a software that
we use for everything.
I have clients are like, well, you know, what's going on?
I have no clue.
I'm like, well, it's we've been in your job five weeks.
Have you checked our software?
Like have you logged on your portal to actually look at the data logs and what's going on?
You have a literally 24 seven access to the schedule.
Oh, no, I haven't.
Okay.
Well, guess what?
Now you're stressing on my PM, which is stressing on our team.
We feel like we have an unhappy customer because you're ticked off and you haven't done what
we agreed to do together.
So we are now changing the mindset in the game that like, Hey, when contractors, when
a client hires a contractor, it's not just contractor is going to provide me with everything
I'm asking for.
It is a teamwork.
And if the client doesn't do their part, then that refrains us from doing our part.
So there's obviously there's a lot more responsibility on the contractor side, but there is a good
amount of responsibility on the on the client side.
And so the clients that understand that that hear us and understand that those jobs go
great.
We still have clients that we tell this to we go through documentation and they don't
understand that they take 80 years to reply to us.
And well, my job's been running for five months.
I'm like, yeah, well, let's look at all these texts for the last four weeks.
We've been asking you to make the decision that's been holding up progress on your job.
Oh, yeah.
Sorry, dude.
I've just been so busy.
Well, sucks.
Like, what can we do?
Right?
We're not going to make the decision for you.
So really understanding that teamwork and that everybody shares, everybody has responsibility,
whether you're an employee, whether you're the owner, whether you're a shareholder or
a client, everybody has a responsibility and understanding how those responsibilities all
work together to make a dream come to life, a vision come to life.
That is success.
Truly, truly success.
So well, I'm going to have to listen back to this podcast because I feel like I went
a million different ways, but at the end of the day, guys, entrepreneurship is difficult.
I don't think anybody prepares you for the journey, but what I will say, it's so rewarding.
It's rewarding.
And when you can bring in amazing people like we have here at Elder, the people that really
take their role as if they are an owner, as a company, and everybody's on equal level
playing field, and everybody cares as much as the next person.
I mean, that changes the game.
It really does.
So thank you guys for tuning in to the Homework Ascendment podcast.
We have another guest speaker coming to you next week.
If you haven't listened to some of the past speakers, we've had some amazing speakers on
this show.
I'm very grateful for the people who have joined this show.
I think it normally takes a very long time to get some of the relationship that we have
into these podcast recordings, and we've been fortunate enough to have those people be in
full support of us.
So go listen to them, guys.
There's a ton of great stuff, again, whether it's about business or entrepreneurship.
To me, they're both the same thing.
You're an entrepreneur of your own life as well as a business, or you're an entrepreneur
of a business, and you're an entrepreneur of your own life, and they just go hand in hand,
and you can't succeed truly.
True success is not one-sided.
It requires success in both areas.
So check it out.
We have links below.
Follow our Elder Contracting page on Instagram and Facebook.
Keep up to date on what we're doing.
We've always got amazing stuff, events going on, promos, all that fun stuff.
And for the most part, please like, follow, share.
If you guys know someone that's joining this journey or is in this journey, please share
the show with them.
We're trying to just share our experience and everything with everybody out there and
give back a little bit to help people understand the journey and the life of entrepreneurship.
So thanks for joining.
We're going to talk about that long stuff for real.
Thanks.
Bye.