The Small Business Safari
Have you ever sat there and wondered "What am I doing here stuck in the concrete zoo of the corporate world?" Are you itching to get out? Chris Lalomia and his co-host Alan Wyatt traverse the jungle of entrepreneurship. Together they share their stories and help you explore the wild world of SCALING your business. With many years of owning their own small businesses, they love to give insight to the aspiring entrepreneur. So, are you ready to make the jump?
The Small Business Safari
Who Makes Money Three Times? The Architect-Builder-Developer | Lance Cayko
Lance Cayko shares his remarkable journey from North Dakota farm boy to Colorado architect, builder, and developer, revealing how one summer job at age 13 sparked his entrepreneurial path.
• Finding his passion in construction after quitting farm work with his father after just one week
• Learning the multiplier concept and business fundamentals from his first mentor, Bruce
• Working in different trades each summer from ages 13-21 to build comprehensive skills
• Pursuing architecture to position himself at the beginning of the client relationship
• Managing the 2,000 decisions clients face when building custom homes
• Balancing three professional roles as architect, builder, and developer
• Weathering the challenges of development and barely making it through their first project
• Finding renewal through fishing and hiking remote alpine lakes during COVID burnout
• Creating "up yards" – specially designed rooftop decks that provide privacy while showcasing mountain views
• Maintaining a one-hour response time policy for all client communications
"Trust the process" is Lance's message to clients navigating the ups and downs of construction. Despite all the advances in technology, buildings are still built by humans, not machines, and understanding this reality helps manage expectations throughout the journey.
Lance’s Profile
linkedin.com/in/lance-cayko-1227031a
Websites
- f9productions.com/ (Company)
- insidethefirmpodcast.com/ (Podcast)
From the Zoo to Wild is a book for entrepreneurs passionate about home services, looking to move away from corporate jobs. Chris Lalomia, a former executive, shares his path, discoveries, and tools to succeed as a small business owner in home improvement retail. The book provides the mindset, habits, leadership style, and customer-oriented processes necessary to succeed as a small business owner in home services.
What's a she shed? What's a she shed? I don't know what a she shed is.
Speaker 2:I'll ask the questions that the listeners want to hear. All right, what's a she shed for?
Speaker 1:Sherry, sherry, the she shed, welcome to the Small Business Safari where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from hitting your own personal and professional goals. So strap in Adventure Team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountaintop. That's it, alan. You said go, I say go, let's fucking go.
Speaker 2:There was no foreplay on this one.
Speaker 1:None, absolutely not. We have got to roll. And yeah, guys, I'm fired up because I got somebody in my industry that we're going to talk to. Alan has said Chris, we've got to branch out because our audience just doesn't want to hear from people who are building stuff, remodeling stuff. They don't really want to hear about handyman all the time. We want to hear about all the time. So guess what, guys? We've got a true design build and an architect. So he's really fancy. In fact, he's so fancy he teaches people how to be fancy, does he really? He is, he's a teacher, he is that, he. He's like dumbledore, he's yoda, he is y, he is, he's a teacher, he is, he's like Dumbledore, he's Yoda, he is Yoda. In fact, that's awesome. Oh, guys, we got Lance Keiko on today, but before we get to Lance, we got to talk. Did you say his name right? I don't know, did I you?
Speaker 3:did not. It is Psycho.
Speaker 1:Nice. Is it really Absolutely? That's outstanding C-A-Y-K-O All right say my last name. Well, long way up yes, All right, we're even Okay. In the South we say bless your heart for saying my name wrong and now you can say wow, he's in New.
Speaker 2:York. And what do you say up in New York? You're dead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, he is dead. Exactly, but I killed his class lance psycho. Wow, it's c-8 you're right why did I pronounce his name wrong? Because, guys, we were starting to talk and alan said stop. He said you're having way too much fun. This dude's gonna be awesome. Let's get him on, let's get rolling, let's get after it.
Speaker 2:We usually talk he just jumps on, he goes hello boys, like we're about ready to tee off. I loved it. I know it lance.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the show buddy thanks for having me guys. Yeah, appreciate it let's get into it. So, architect, design, build firm, teacher, avant-garde. And he lives where we're all jealous of living. Go ahead, say it alan, out the west, he's in the malarados. So alan is, of course, from oregon. I'm from michigan, still the mother country, still still god's world. But we live in Atlanta. Now, lance, you live in where we're all jealous and wish we could live. How are you doing, man?
Speaker 3:Doing great, yeah, looking at the mountains every day. This morning, as a matter of fact, I was driving my daughter to school. We look at Longs Peak and Meeker, which is called the Twin Peaks, and they're the big mountains right in Rocky Mountain National Park and I get to look at them every day, and the clouds over the top of them are just magical.
Speaker 2:I think Meeker's the one my son climbed. He did his first 14er.
Speaker 3:I bet that's exactly it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you want to pause and go ask him, or can we keep going? All right, just checking.
Speaker 2:You know what? Yeah, can you just give me.
Speaker 1:I'm muting you again, alan. Oh my God.
Speaker 2:Lance the first time.
Speaker 1:So obviously you're not from well, I shouldn't say obviously. I researched him a little bit. He's not from Colorado originally, but he migrated to there. So where did he start, Lance, where did you start?
Speaker 3:North Dakota, middle of somewhere slash, nowhere right Northwest.
Speaker 1:North Dakota. Name one thing in North Dakota Alan Go Bison. Name one thing in North Dakota Alan Go.
Speaker 2:Bison, all right Good.
Speaker 1:Good, alan See. By the way, he didn't name people, because there's just not that many. I mean seriously, oh my gosh. So all right. So you grew up there, and so North Dakota, which is clearly known as the home of architecture and architectural design. You got the bug somewhere. So how did you figure that out?
Speaker 3:well, yeah, north dakota state is. I used to call it.
Speaker 1:North dakota state is the harvard in the midwest, hey you know harvard well, you have to get in line, because I was at michigan tech, which we used to get the mit of the midwest ah, right, right right all 7 500 north dak at the time. Let's see back when I went to school there. How big are you guys now?
Speaker 3:About 13,000, 14,000. So probably about the same size as Michigan Tech today, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, they're starting to grow. But yeah, you guys are about the same size as we were then. But yeah, yeah, that's awesome, all right.
Speaker 3:So North Dakota State state harvard, the midwest it's hurting architecture. Yeah, you know my. I'm 42 and my bug started when I was 13. I tried, uh, I grew up in northwest north dakota, so the opposite side of the state where north dakota state exists. I grew up between a cattle ranch and a sugar beet farm group in this really small town like 500 people, and I tried farming with my dad for one summer and I only lasted a week.
Speaker 2:We did not get along too well did you quit or did he fire you?
Speaker 1:yes okay, yes, you know what I, if we had dad on. I think dad's story would be way different, and it might be yeah, it might be.
Speaker 3:Uh, no, I, I quit, I quit. That was what I was. It's the only job I've ever quit actually, actually, there's two jobs, but that was one of the first ones I quit the only job ever quit was my dad. Yeah, summers in North Dakota are not magical like they are in Colorado.
Speaker 2:It's 100% humidity, 100 degrees, just horrible Mosquitoes are as big as birds, which is so sad, because it's so goddamn cold. You'd think you'd look forward to the summer. Yeah but we don't.
Speaker 3:We look forward to the winter and ice fishing 100%.
Speaker 1:Never been there in the summer, obviously. I was just there in the fall playing football there. Oh sure yeah.
Speaker 3:But yeah, so I was irrigating sugar beets with him and I hated the work, I hated the bugs, I didn't really like my dad and I thought my best friend, chris. I was like hey, chris, do you want to do this job? Like I think I'm going to quit.
Speaker 3:He's like oh yeah, I'll do that job. You know, chris was super poor, he'll do anything. And so I came to my dad that Friday. I'm like I'm done. Chris is going to start Monday, so I'm going to raise like a lazy ass and I go well, yeah, of course I go. I'm gonna call your best friend bruce up. He's a contractor, right, he goes. Yep, I called him up that night and I go hey, I don't want to do farming with dad anymore. I will do whatever. I'll pick up garbage. What do you got you got anything. He goes. You know what? I just landed a big contract. We're gonna do 80 roofs this summer.
Speaker 3:We're gonna do one roof a day and you can be my gopher. I'll pay $7.25 an hour. I go awesome, what's a gopher? What's a gopher? He goes. Oh, you're going to go for this, go for that. When you're done, go for the things. Then you can get up on the roof and learn how to roof with the big boys.
Speaker 3:I was the best gopher he ever had. I was so dead set on. I want to actually learn how to do something. I, you know, uh, I fell, just completely fell in love with the industry. I loved all of it, like the cat calling bum and smokes from the guys as a 13 year old, stuff like that and then just like seeing the progress. We would get up super early. We'd have the roof torn off by like 10 am, have it put back on like 2 pm, so you get a little bit of extra day too. And uh, bruce saw some. Bruce, I was like I said I was the best gopher he ever had. He saw some. I think he saw something in me. He had to.
Speaker 3:About halfway through the summer. He goes and bruce was the first entrepreneur that I ever met too, and he pulls me aside one day and he goes. How much you think I'm charging the client for every hour. I pay you and I go 725 an hour and he laughed and laughed and I was embarrassed. And then he explained the multiplier. He explained that he was charging the owner you know three to four x my labor and at first I said isn't that immoral? And he goes no, no, this is how it works like. And he explained profit, overhead, risk, all the business stuff. And then I, and then I noticed and you're 13, 13. I noticed, and so it's a huge light bulb and I went, oh wow, and he doesn't seem to have this anxiety around money like my mom and dad do. My mom and dad just work for other people their whole lives.
Speaker 2:Maybe you could be a gopher.
Speaker 1:Can I be a gopher? Can I go meet Bruce? Holy shit, bruce is Yoda.
Speaker 2:What does that make him? Bruce is Yoda.
Speaker 3:Bruce is Yoda. Yeah, I talk to Bruce every week.
Speaker 1:He's still my yoda. Yeah, I love. Wow, that's dude.
Speaker 3:This is awesome all right, keep going. This is, uh, amazing. So, bruce, obviously big impact. 13, we're all impressed. 13, yeah, changed my life. Yep and uh. So I got to the end of this.
Speaker 3:I got to the end of the summer and he goes, and I go, he goes. What do you want to do with your life? And I go. How do I become you? And he goes. He said something that I thought was just like and still, to this day, almost like, chokes me up a little bit when I think about how like mature of a statement and just the thought it was from a guy. And he goes next summer. If you want to be like me next summer, you don't work for me. And I go. What? And he goes every single summer. Now I challenge you you go, learn a different trade, because that's how you become a general contractor. He goes. You need to be able to pick up a hammer while you're still directing the guys. They're not going to believe you and you don't have the same sort of command as you do in the field if you can't do it all. So I go, no problem, and that's exactly what I did. So, from 13 to 21, I would work a different trade every single summer.
Speaker 3:Then I was so convinced I went to two years of tech school at north dakota state school's college of science and then when I got to the capstone project there, which was and it basically is trying to teach you how to be about a class b level contractor so you can do commercial, residential, other good stuff there was another light bulb that went off. Where the capstone project goes, as a team we're building a house and we started looking at the blueprints and the word architect popped into my head and I went, huh, like I really like school all of a sudden. I didn't really like it. In high school I figured out how to like monetize it, like I was getting all these scholarships and I was like getting good grades finally and doing the right stuff, and I went man, if I became an architect next I could have the client, like I would get the client first before the builder and then I could turn into the building client. I can make money two times and uh.
Speaker 3:So then I applied to north dakota state and then did the same trajectory, you know, just immediately fell in love with school all of a sudden, graduated top of the class and then you know, but now we're kind of 15 or you know 20 years later down here. That's exactly the sales funnel architect first, builder, builder second. When we funnel those we procure, like who exactly we want to work with. I have such an advantage over their other gcs down here because, like I get to interview the people for months and months and months and months, decide if it's another good fit. The trust is there, uh, and we can command higher fees with it all. So that's what got me into it. It's the shortest way I can answer that Wow.
Speaker 2:Where do we go now? I don't know. There's one more person on the planet who makes me feel horrible about myself, all the decisions I've ever made.
Speaker 1:Let me ask this one when was Bruce in my life? You know, I know I have Bruce. So my guy was Camille and he said go into manufacturing, manufacturing.
Speaker 2:Oops, I didn't. And, by the way, I want to point out to our listeners what's your website.
Speaker 3:F9productionscom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the letter F9, the number nine productionscom. If you happen to be at a desktop listening to this, pull it up while he's talking, because he didn't go into architecture just because it was another revenue stream. I mean, oh my God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man go look at this stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's super modern. It's super modern, it's Western and there's a little bit of Frank Lloyd Wright in there. Yeah, oh, thank you, good call.
Speaker 1:You know that's so funny. You say that because here we are in Atlanta, georgia Tech, very known for their architectural program, and we have some frank lloyd wright inspired homes here. We have some homes that were actually, um, I believe, overseen by him. I do know I looked at one that we could not help at all because these people had left this thing in total disrepair. I mean, it would have been, uh, a hundred to two hundred thousand dollars with just repairs just to get the siding back, and so anyway, yeah, I agree, I agree, f9 Productions go check it out. But I got to ask this question before we keep going. Lance, you're here now. You're doing your thing, man, you're rocking it. You're 42. You got the world by the tail. If you could go back to one point in time, which trade would you go back and do if you knew you had to do that all the time it?
Speaker 3:it was one I didn't even do because I know it would be recession proof and I could if I could, white collar it, I'd be so fricking rich. Plumbing, yeah, maybe the, the, the, the shortage of plumbers is like. You know every day that I I mean, I'm always wearing the GC hat, but it multiple times during the week it'll come up and I'll go. I say it out loud to myself. I'm like I can't believe anything's getting built, like I'm just shocked things are getting built. You know it's so. So thanks for the compliments about all the cool stuff we do on the, on the website and everything we do. I think we do some really beautiful, sophisticated amazing it's stunning, but it's like it's a miracle to get there.
Speaker 3:Almost every time I'm like oh good you know, you've heard all the statistics about the lack of trades and lack of skilled trades, and then we've been beating down young men for about 20 years now with this idea that they all need a four year degree, they all need a master's degree, and we're just you're a piece of crap if you're going to go fix toilets and it's like I had. Those people are my heroes. I want to put those people at the top of veneration in society. So that's what I would pick.
Speaker 2:Have at the top of veneration in society. So that's what I would pick. Have you figured out a way to change that? I mean, are you getting involved in local universities or trade schools or something like that and just trying to create your own pipeline?
Speaker 3:You know that's a good question. We do our own show right. We have Inside the Firm podcast and I preach a lot about that kind of stuff. I come on guests on shows like this and just try to like I preach a lot about that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:I come on guests on shows like this and just try to like so it gets set out loud, finally, you know, and have our voice talked about like that. But beyond that we're members of the Home Builders Association, so part of that like donation. Go back to trades. I'm also a donor at North Dakota State School of Science, which that was a trade school that I even I went to and everything. But no people ask me every once in a while like if I could change one thing in the world, it would maybe be that in the United States All right, let me do a plug for everybody's listening, right.
Speaker 1:So here in Atlanta we have the National Skills USA competition. Every year it's just like punt, pass and kick. It is for the trades. So if you're in automotive technology, welding technology, but they also have the building sciences technology. And so we at Nary National Association of the Remodeling Industry, which you know, as you know, we're on the process, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Do I need to genuflect?
Speaker 1:You should, okay, but SkillsUSA, check it out guys. Skillsusa, lance, you just brought that up. Well, actually, alan, you brought it up, so I'm going to plug it. You want to talk about kids getting back in there? I will say one thing that I've noticed, because I'm doing the same. I can't just get a handyman at 18. You've got to have some experience, man. You know, can you be a plumber at 18? You can't. Can you be a plumber apprentice? A hundred percent. I've had two guys come through my program. Now, uh, at the trusted toolbox, one's going off to be a licensed electrician and the other one is going to go back to school and he wants to become a. Uh, he wants to become a commercial project manager. And I'm like dude, go do it. I mean, you're gonna make big bucks, you know what? Residential will always be here for you and you know what. Hopefully I'll be alive long enough and you can come back and you can take this that's not the way you treat yourself.
Speaker 1:Let's drink to that all right, so back to more. Uh, so, lance, that's a great point. You know, I love that. You said that about giving back and getting on other people's podcasts, so you, you struck a nerve. We had to go out on that path, man, it's just so fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, uh, well, beyond that, that's that's my trying to help the trades. Um, I don't know else I could answer that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the plumbing thing. So, uh, mine would be carpentry, I think yours would be too. I would, uh, I would go out there and do interior trim and bookcases all day long if I could.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm afraid of electricity.
Speaker 1:I have a father-in-law who's an electrician and a retired building official. Keep it for me to fly him in from Michigan to Atlanta to work on shit, Because if I'm working on electricity I definitely will spark myself. Oh yeah, sure, Even when I turn it off.
Speaker 3:I will say, my favorite trade is you know, I still throw my bags from time to time. About two summers ago I actually I mean, I framed up this beautiful little custom. She shed. It was a very expensive, she shed like $100,000 construction budget, but I threw my bags back on and had a ball for 30 days. It was a great way to forget about my last girlfriend.
Speaker 1:What's a she?
Speaker 2:shed. I don't know what a she shed is. I'll ask the questions that the listeners want to hear.
Speaker 1:All right, what's a she shed for Sherry? Sherry the she shed lover.
Speaker 3:I can't believe you guys haven't heard this. They got super popular during the pandemic so it was like, well, everybody's working from home and then all of a sudden the husband was like, look, I need my wife, who's also now working from home, to get out of my office. We're sharing an office. So then everybody was building these little. They were taking tough sheds at first and turning them into offices for the wife, you know, and putting them back there and they started calling them she shed. The husband already had his office in the house or whatever. So, but yeah, we, I would think the guy would want to go away.
Speaker 1:No, so she sheds literally. Uh, we had a lady, her, uh, her her tree went through her. She shed, no shit. She called and said you've got to fix my she shed. I said, no shit, we'll be out there and get your she shed all fixed up. I can fix out the she shed. And we went out there and sure enough, it was decorated to the nines. It was awesome. But a tree had fallen through it and I'm like what is this? She goes, this is my getaway for my husband.
Speaker 2:I just thought that the women made us go away.
Speaker 1:We always thought we were destined to the garage.
Speaker 1:And the doghouse. Maybe in Colorado it's different, but no, we had the same thing in Atlanta. Like I said, she called and said it was in the backyard of her Atlanta home and we did that. I think that's what's romantic about the work we do, lance, is that I've got a remodeling and a handyman company. I've got 15 handymen running around and five project managers doing the remodeling stuff. Is that the most fun I have on my biz is either selling a job or out there checking on a job with one of my guys. I don't get to put the tools on anymore. They're way more skilled than I am, uh, knowing how to run everything, but isn't that the most fun is just get to see romantic for the first time in three and a half years of podcasting I know, wow, I bring an architect on look what happens.
Speaker 3:Right, you sexy beast, come over here my mike myers yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:Though I mean, yeah, that's what's fun. You know, I was in the corporate world for so long and then getting to see some of the work we do is it's just amazing. It's not work I do, it's work my guys do, or I've seen other people do. I'm like, wow, it's just so cool the guy's working on my deck.
Speaker 2:I mean I was. I had a couple of drinks, but I was really happy when I was texting you on friday night because it was so much fun watching him. It was like a.
Speaker 1:It was like a ballet and they, those guys, in fact, the guys doing alan's deck. We're doing a composite deck for alan in the back of his house. Um, they are. They've been with me for such a long time and such a great crew and they have fun when they're doing it.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I noticed that too. Yeah, Well, I sent you a picture of one of them having fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was taking his five-second siesta. No, he doesn't. In fact, the guy who was doing that, alan, takes a picture of a guy just laying on the deck.
Speaker 3:Arms out wide Spread.
Speaker 1:Eagle Lied out. He's a Hispanic guy and he calls him his. There's a word in Spanish they call it, but it's really micro siesta.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it was like 45 seconds.
Speaker 2:He calls them micro siestas, however you say it, but I mean the rest of the time. He's standing on the top of one of those I don't know what you call them the a, the a-frame ladders. Yeah, top of the a-frame, top of the a-frame, not hanging on anything. He's got a nailing gun in one hand. He's calling out numbers. Somebody down below is cutting the cut's perfect. They toss it up and it doesn't twirl in the air, it just kind of floated up right into his hand. He laid it down, bang, bang and he bang banks it too.
Speaker 1:He uh even hidden fasteners he does yeah so anyway, we're digressing into the trade when you see, guys do that. It's so romantic though that's the challenge I tell my guys it's so romantic. You're artists. That's why I tell my guys, my challenge to you guys is don't be a carpenter, don't be a tool in the field, be an artist. That's what St Thomas Francis of Assisi said back in the 1500s and I'm going to.
Speaker 1:So St Francis of Assisi called you a tool. Is that what I just heard? Yeah, I have been called a head tool.
Speaker 3:I actually just called the head tool on the radio the other day. Oh yeah, yeah. So anyway, all right back to Lance, shall we Lance.
Speaker 3:Well, that's my favorite. That's my favorite. I think that's why my favorite trade is, you know, I mean, that's why I think I have two answers. Like plumbing bunch of money.
Speaker 3:But trade-wise, that thing that's most fun for me, and even if I'm not doing it is framing, because it looks like you're I mean you are accomplishing a lot right, and then all of a sudden you get the house or whatever building you're dried in and then it looks like nothing happens for like nine months, when we all know like, no, no, there's a lot that happens, but like the progress is really astounding. It's usually the one of the highest points emotionally, for clients too. I mean I think it's one of the so emotionally romantic, whatever you want to call it. Uh, because then they go oh, wow, it looks like a bunch of stuff is happening and it is, and then all of a sudden they see space and form and everything like that, and then you know the question the response I get a lot from people is they go oh, I didn't know it was gonna look like that, did you? I'm like, yeah, we're the architect and the builder, of course, we are.
Speaker 1:That's why you hired me. And then it finally clicks for me Give the Eastern, forget about it. I'll give you a little telly You're like, forget about it. That's why you hired me.
Speaker 2:So I kind of get the feeling that you two have very different styles.
Speaker 1:So I want to hear what I'm not getting that alone. Lance and I are driving.
Speaker 3:Different hairstyles, for sure. Oh, thank you bro.
Speaker 1:Again we brought somebody on with a great hairstyle. I know and he's got great hair too. He's got that curvy wheel.
Speaker 2:Again, we'll get a picture. We are the least attractive men on the planet.
Speaker 1:That's why we do a podcast, alan, based on all these podcasts.
Speaker 2:I know. So anyway, all right, go ahead. No, I want to know how you manage a relationship with a customer, because one of the things Chris has mentioned to me is, even in just the remodeling that he does, the client gets sick of you after a while. You're a very charming person. You've got great personality, good energy, which I don't necessarily see from a lot of contractors. I don't know if I'm getting in trouble for saying that.
Speaker 3:No, you're absolutely right. A lot of them are just sticks in the mud. That's the way I put it.
Speaker 2:I didn't say that, but anyway. So how do you manage that?
Speaker 1:I'm on mute. I don't like you anymore.
Speaker 3:I'm stick in mud. Get off my lawn dude, you're a good looking stick in the mud, chris, come on. We've already established that we're not Get out my lawn yeah.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, how do you manage a relationship through the whole process?
Speaker 3:Well, how long is it right I already alluded to this If we're doing a custom house and we're building two right now, both have a $3 million budget each. They're big, one is 10,000 square feet, one is about 4,500 square feet. They're about an hour apart and we started them at the same time. We started one a little bit earlier, we started one a little bit later. We're going to finish them at the same time. One is going to take 16 months to build. It's a 10,000 square foot one. The 4,500 square foot one is going to take 24 months to build.
Speaker 3:It's not because we're slow, it's because these are custom homes around a price tag of $3 million. So the intricacies of everything are just kind of over the top, right? So the whole process if I really lay out the timeline here, it took us about a year to design the project with the client. The whole process. If I really lay out the timeline here, it's like it took us about a year to design the project with the client from top to bottom, interiors and out, all of that, to get through the bureaucrats and the government and everything and get permission to build. It's all about a year. And then where it's going to take us, like I already talked about, you know, 18 months to two, two years to build one of these homes, and then, I have to worry, warranty it for four years, for another year on top of that.
Speaker 1:So it's really, it's a four-year relationship like married to them uh, yeah, exactly so yeah, so let's talk about the ups and downs of that relationship, because my transactions are quickies compared to yours, man. I mean, I'm one night stands compared to what you're doing yeah, it's.
Speaker 3:Uh, I think it's really just having a lot on one night stands. You're like the Tinder.
Speaker 2:You're like on Grindr, thank you.
Speaker 3:Oh hello, let's go Offer trades, I guess we're like eHarmony maybe, if we're thinking about it that way. I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm definitely tougher. Let's go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the design process is fun. It's pretty fun. It's hard to really get. People don't get too burnt out of that. I think the part where they get a little bit overwhelmed is when there's a lot of design decisions to make at once. So it's our job to pare down the 2,000 decisions, because that's the average amount of decisions somebody has to make when they're building a house. What was that number?
Speaker 1:again 2,000. You've counted 2,000. There's studies on it.
Speaker 3:Yep. There's studies on it.
Speaker 1:That's why I want to bring this up. I just heard this the other day 2,000 decisions for a homeowner who's probably never done this. Of course, they bend as they've looked. I've been on Pinterest, oh, I've went on Instagram 2,000 decisions you have to help them through. All right.
Speaker 3:Yep, exactly, and it's my staff's goal, and with myself, is to pare down those decisions to maybe only 100 and then space them out and make them digestible for people. So we're really having to curate a story for them at every design meeting and make it to. It's a fun process because it's going to be, um, where they get a little antsy after the design process and this is the first sort of like how are they going to be during construction? Um, like, what is it a preview of what they might be like if there's a problem on site? Or I send them a bill they don't agree with, or something like that? Uh, and that's during the permitting process. You know they might get a little antsy and it's taking too long. It's like, hey, I understand it's the government. You know they're notoriously slow or whatever. Then there's a high point, we get the permit and it's like, oh, everybody's happy, we're all building, and then it's really fun until we get to rough.
Speaker 3:Like I said, we, until we get to roughs, we start doing interior, uh, rough, mechanical, electrical plumbing. Then it gets boring to them and then they start to get nervous. And what and why they get a little nervous is like they'll see, and I use this word rough very seriously Is. I'm often having to tell them like they're worried about, like the craftsmanship of the rough, everything and I go. It is called rough plumbing, mechanical, electrical plumbing, framing, for a reason, you know, because they'll get a little like a crack in the 2x4 or something. I'm like wood splits Like this is what wood does, you know. So it's managing their expectations all throughout the way, without going to every little detail. That's really what it comes down to is managing expectations, trying to be their trusted advisor.
Speaker 3:It's like when I hire a good lawyer and I am good at hiring good lawyers is because I vet the crap out of them and I don't let them bullshit me and I know that they need to align with. They need to align with, like, my communication style, which is very rapid and fast and all of that, and so it's all. They're my trusted advisor. That's what I'm looking for. Like, hey, mr Lawyer, can you be my trusted advisor?
Speaker 1:I need to trust you and we put on that same hat as architects and builders. That's such a good point. Is the? Is that jihad with the people? It's that's so hard because they see a lot of activity framing oh my god, awesome activity. Plumbing oh awesome activity. Oh rough electrical awesome activity. Drywall well, when are you guys going to get going to the finish? Where are the cabinets? Well, we had to have the cabinets and we had to dry one to get the cabinets measured. There's going to be periods of activity, low activity. Setting expectations to exceed expectations is so huge.
Speaker 2:But you now know this rhythm and so it sounds like you actually go. Okay, they're probably going to be feeling like this right about now, so I better have that conversation before it bubbles up in their head. I mean, are you proactive about it?
Speaker 3:No, it doesn't. You can be, but it only goes so far. People have to learn their own lessons in this construction journey, whatever side of the coin they're on. I'll tell you what taught us the lesson in two different ways. Before we even had to basically learn as we go with a client, my wife and I built a, a custom house for our us and our children uh, in 2015.
Speaker 3:And I learned a lot about my own expectations. We hired a, we had to. We had to hire a developer, we had to hire a general contractor in order in order to do it. Just how the deal worked out After that. Then I also uh, we bought a third of an acre up here in Longmont, where we operate, and we became full-fledged developers too. I forgot to tell you that part of the story, too. That was another light bulb. When I got to architecture school, that was the third light bulb that went off in my head. As I went, this word developer kept coming up and I went oh my god, if I was a developer, I could make money three times and I could literally hire or fire me two times.
Speaker 1:Oh, we got to talk about that. Oh, let's back this up because, again, small business journey is huge and you've been able to pull it off and done a great job and you go hey, man, everybody can do this. But as we know and we talk about this on the pod all the time is that nine times out of ten you fail. I mean, you can really fail, and one of the big ways I've seen people fail is that they look at every shiny object and they keep going for it, keep going for it, keep going for it. Next thing you know they're back to the corporate america job going. I'm done. I'm like, yeah, man, you got to stay focused and you know what, sometimes it sucks, and it really sucks, but you got to do it. So you saw a developer early, but you decided not to go there. You ended up there. So how did you do it?
Speaker 2:well, well, well, but no, you just hijacked his answer on to my question. I thought I answered it too, you answered it. Yeah, you, you were your own. You were a customer, though, so yes, yes, yeah well, that's where I learned about the expectation.
Speaker 3:Like those, just the experience of it all and I went.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, I went okay, when I start building for people, I cannot forget the lessons that I learned myself about seeing how it all works, you know, in that, in that regard and working through it. So yeah, to push back to talk a little bit more about that, okay, do I. Am I proactive about setting their expectations? Not as much as you would think. It really is actually just sort of kind of being a punching bag and reassuring them and helping them trust the process. That's the big thing.
Speaker 1:So here's the hijack. Here's why, as a guy in it, we can't be proactive. We can set an expectation and we can try to exceed it. Can I predict every answer or every question that's going to come at me? I'm telling you, man, after 17 years and 17,000.
Speaker 2:He knows that they're going to be kind of weirded out about that split two by four. You can't just jump ahead of that. How about?
Speaker 1:this one? No, because the questions come out of nowhere.
Speaker 3:Dude, I'm telling you, you're working with the general public, nuts well, they've been hgtv'd and I'm guilty of that as, but as one who's been on hgtv with the producers saying like we should make a show like you guys had no problems building this tiny house and I'm like uh, we had no, and then too bad yeah, it's just, it's hard because what?
Speaker 1:but you get that one, the one person who goes, oh, I get it. And then you get the other person who goes no, I've actually gone on the internet and looked and the gap is too big. You're like how do you, how do you overcome that? You can't. So overcoming objections is so hard With, especially when you're in the building, especially when you're dealing with people who are in computer programming or it, which is very, very prevalent Coming from that world. It's ones and zeros man. Going back to it again as a kid who was a punch card kid, I mean, I actually went to school and made a punch card and ran computer programming.
Speaker 3:Chris, you know what else it is. Here's another. I love your zeros and ones part of it. I'm going to hijack that and use that when I talk to people too, just old people. We're all holding these. Now, right, we're all holding these perfectly machined, perfect little computers and I think the general public looks at that object so much, this perfect thing, and they forget that like that was made by machines, wherever robots. And all of a sudden, like the one of the very few things we still have in america as far as where that could even be close to something that's manufactured, is buildings and they're built by humans, and so they're. If you're gonna have these artifacts that pop up and it's like, yeah, how do you manage the objections? I that's one of the actual things that I talk about with owners is I go, hey, I think we just all need to refocus and remember we're holding these beautifully things and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I go remember these. Jose's out there building this. He's just banging sticks together Like that's what we're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just uh, it's just.
Speaker 2:It's hard to explain it to people Did you hear his customer voice, though the customer talking voice got a little high-pitched, kind of like it was talking to a puppy Actually so funny because I was like yes yes yes, and I was like oh my God.
Speaker 1:Now you say that I'm like oh well, yeah, yeah, well, it's just two contractors talking.
Speaker 2:You just happen to be here right now.
Speaker 1:You're like oh, and another thing With a southern accent, which I won't do for you again Please, which I won't do for you again. Let's go back to it. So, lance, obviously you got to the developer. I want to get back to that again. So you saw the shiny object early on, but you knew enough not to do that. Or tell us how you ended up getting to that developer. Hey, I'm going to make the big bucks.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, that's what we think right, and we barely made it out.
Speaker 3:We barely made it out. We ended up sitting pretty good after the Fed decided to print a ton of money and then double the money and then increase real estate values. Then all of a sudden, because we held on to three units, it was like, oh actually we're doing pretty good equity-wise. The cash return was not there for sure. We barely made it. We had to get hard money. It barely squeaked by even a private hard money lender to even get the $3 million project financed. Do you want to say something.
Speaker 1:No, I love that you said that, because again everybody goes oh, developer, that means I don't have to do all the hard work, I just have to develop it and I can make all the money. You just said it. Hey guys, it's the same hard, it's just a different hard. I mean, it's all the same, life's hard, and so that's a big one. I love that you said that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, so how we got into it was the first real design plus build project that we did was in about 2014. It was a tiny house and so tiny houses were all the rage back in the early 2000s. If everybody doesn't remember that, it a reaction to the mcmansion stuff. And then the fallout uh, during the during the big short and the great recession, right where you had all these mortgages that were packaged and then they were sold bad and everything fell out from the bottom. So then everybody you know all the millennials and gen x went well, screw you guys.
Speaker 3:Like we're gonna go the complete opposite direction. We want to make, we want to be mortgage free, build these super tiny houses, live off the grid. We're going to just be different. And we saw all these tiny houses being designed and built and they were just like Keechee there was like a cabin and stuff. And we went well, we're kind of modernists and, like you said, frank Lloyd Wright-y and all of that. And we were like, what is the opposite, the opposite. So we created the opposite and it's called the atlas tiny house and we're my business partner and I al gore, that's his real name.
Speaker 2:He's no psycho and al gore psycho and al gore.
Speaker 3:That'll be the. That's going to be the next architecture room if this fails, it's like gore and psycho. Gore and psycho yeah, what's the tagline?
Speaker 2:right gore and psycho we I don't know, sounds like a quentin tarantino movie dude at that gore and psycho.
Speaker 1:We can design your house. What can go wrong? There you go. Oh my god, you nailed it, chris.
Speaker 3:Thank you yeah I can't wait.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna show that without?
Speaker 3:yeah, we were. We were coming back from boulder one day because we we went and celebrated. We went and bought cheeseburgers or something we can't. We bought it. We got our first duplex project in 2010 as architects and for us it was a big deal, and so we called our one of our, one of our best friends. His name was blake.
Speaker 3:Blake was depressed. He still had his job. See, I got laid off from mine after I graduated from architecture school. That's how we started f9, because there was no jobs out there. Al got laid off from his in new york city. He's working for studio Daniel Liebskin and then we both came out here get this duplex. We call Blake. Blake's depressed Blake's gainfully employed, though with this architecture firm. We're like, well, blake, how much money do you got? And he's like I don't know, like 25,000 in the bank. We're like you should design and build a tiny house and just travel around the United States and and take photographs. And he was like, ah, yeah, okay, me and Al are very serious about stuff like that, and so I go well, we're doing it, blake. We hang up, we go to the, I go home and I buy the domain name blakestinyhousecom Genius.
Speaker 2:I love it. Yeah, dude, that's awesome.
Speaker 3:I know.
Speaker 1:I know, hey Blake, the hey Blake, the only guy who has a job. You seem really depressed. Hey Blake, it's good. Hey, we're the guys without jobs. We're really happy. Hey Blake, guess what? You just have Blake's tiny houses. You know you're in business, do what.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, that was pretty much the email the next day. I think it was actually more simple than that, I think it was.
Speaker 1:I guess you're doing it along.
Speaker 3:I know he played along for three or four months and we designed it together remotely and all of that. It got so much organic traffic on the web. Places like nbc, cbs, hgtv started picking it up, all kinds of newspapers. It was pretty wild. It was like whoa, we really struck a nerve here and it and the design was cool. Right, because it was uh, we were trying to make a transformer house on wheels, like the walls could open up and fold and all of these things. It was uh, we were trying to make a transformer house on wheels, like the walls could open up and fold and all of these things. It was super, a lot of glass, super modern again, completely different than these little kitschy cabin like ones. Blake finally said I'm not doing it. Guys like this is. This is silly, but the media kept coming, kept coming, kept coming. Al goes down to a it's three or three or four.
Speaker 3:A couple years later, about 2013, he goes down to the denver home and garden show. Hgtb is there and they and they're we got a big sign. They're looking for tiny house builders and I'll go hey, that's me, we were not. I mean whatever and he comes back to the office and he goes hey, by the way, I signed us up to be on hgtv. We're gonna, we're gonna build that house. I'm like, what? Like with what money? And he's like, well, we're doing the show. We got to build it in like six weeks. I'm like, okay. And so we took out a loan uh, for 50k business loan only one we've ever taken out. What year? Uh, 2013. We designed it, we built it. We were on hgtv every two weeks.
Speaker 3:It was so it got such good reception. And then it got into dwell magazine. It just went viral all over the internet. We went on international architecture award for it. Subaru saw it and they go hey, can you guys build us two more, but bigger, stronger, faster, fancier, more foldable, all the things. And I went and I looked it out and I'm like, no, like that was so hard. We invented architecture. Like I had to conjure up all of my freaking carpentry skills that I learned my whole life to get it done. And he goes but what if I tell him this number? And I go dude, if they go for my wife, there's no way my wife could even say no. And they didn't blink.
Speaker 3:And then so we designed those two, built them, made enough money, bought that piece of land, bought this third of an acre that I'm sitting on right now, I'm in our shop, and we became developers and so we designed, we bought the land and that would have been 2017. Took a year to go through entitlements, get the building permit, built it in 2019, sold the last unit the day before the market crashed, before when COVID hit and uh, but just like, I'm like oh my, I'm like literally like, oh my God, like thank you, god, um, for all of that. So then we took a step back, because there was a period where I had my tool bags on for like 80 days in a row on the job site. You know, I like I hung all the cabinets. I did so much actual physical work wearing all three hats, still playing architect.
Speaker 3:Sometimes I'd like change out of my construction clothes. Put on nice clothes, go meet an architecture client, come back to the job site Doing the whole thing. We just barely made it out, but we ended up sitting really pretty now and like to bring people into our office. Now. That is that we designed, built, developed. Show them all the stuff we used to get a lot of like pushback on. You guys look really young. You don't look like you have experience and it's like then I bring them into the office and I go like what other architect has the kind of experience that we do? You know at that point, and then it's just hook, line and sinker so another story when balls meet opportunity yeah, right, I mean, I think that's it.
Speaker 1:So is blake still involved or no?
Speaker 3:no, no, no, I can't even get him to come fishing.
Speaker 1:That's pretty crappy oh yeah, we haven't even talked about that crappy fishing, get it. How pun they don't have crappy in colorado?
Speaker 2:oh, you don't know crappy but he's he's a professional fisherman. Did you see that?
Speaker 1:yeah, I did see that, so let's talk about that, because I mean, oh, my god, I can talk all day, but you know what? You've got to have me on your podcast, bro, because I can't come out and talk construction. Yeah, all right, let's talk, let's talk fishermen. So in your spare time, your funsies, you're in, uh, colorado, yep, you fish. What do you fish for?
Speaker 3:it's gonna be trout. Oh man, it mostly trout.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mostly trout, but this weekend I mean questions here, yeah I'm gonna shoot you with this rubber band like tomorrow.
Speaker 3:tomorrow we're going on our annual trip up to north dakota. Each may we go up there for a weekend and we go after these paddlefish. They're huge, they're like 100 pounds. You snag them. It's one of the best fishing trips on the planet, for sure that's like Neanderthal fishing.
Speaker 2:Oh, they're dinosaurs.
Speaker 1:You're a big fisherman. Have you ever fished for sturgeon or some like the? Uh, like these crazy fish well, that's like that sounds like he is that's what these are. Yeah, yeah, well, it's dirt is so sturgeon fish in michigan so I'm not a fisherman uh now we had him in oregon too you have sturgeon there yeah, he's got those razor teeth that like rip the uh things. They are prehistoric-looking things, yeah, they are too, man, they're crazy.
Speaker 1:So I grew up in Michigan and my dad was from Little Italy, italian immigrant. We don't even have guns. We never had fish bowls. But I got to do all that with my buds, except they never gave me a gun. Long story. So let's go back to the fishing. So you're fishing, you're going for these paddle fish. So what do you do for fun? I mean, you do regular fishing for trout in colorado, or what well, yeah, but, and this kind of ties into the development.
Speaker 3:So after the development, I kind of had my, I had a midlife, I kind of had a midlife crisis because kovat hit at the same time and so it was just. It felt like armageddon. You know, in so many different ways there's so many different people and and I was just like I was burnt out from work because I'd been working so hard to get the development done and we finish it, and I thought it would be elation, but it was more of just like stagnation. And then COVID hit and we weren't suddenly going on family vacations and there was nothing we could do. And at the same time, my children there's four of them now 21, 20, 18, 16, when they all at that point that's a whole other podcast right there.
Speaker 1:I know this would have been 2020.
Speaker 3:And they got to the age where they don't care about you anymore.
Speaker 1:They're like bye.
Speaker 2:I don't even want you around. I'm like. I'm like, oh, what oh?
Speaker 1:alan and I have older kids than that and that never happened. Yeah, of course it did. She doesn't listen to the show, his kids, uh, don't either. But yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. Oh we all know my friends yep.
Speaker 3:So they hit that age and my I got to. I was looking, you know, on there, but there was nothing to do. So even if I just sat there and looked at my wife, I'm like, wow, I forgot I. I was so busy being super dad, super architect, builder, developer, all these other things and I went, oh frick, I forgot why I moved to colorado in 2008. It was for the mountains and the fishing. And I went, wow, now I don't, I have, I have, I have enough cash to buy whatever I want fishing-wise for the first time in my life. And there's these mountains and there's nothing else to do.
Speaker 3:So I became obsessed with hiking 10 to 16 miles round trip each day and I would go out Saturday, sunday, and then I took off Wednesdays and I did this for like two or three years in a row and I would go all the way up.
Speaker 3:I would start about 8,000 or 9,000 feet in the air and I'd go all the way up to like 11 or 12,000 and reach these very remote Alpine lakes that you can see like 25 feet into the water and do these catching cooks. Where I wouldn't bring any food, I'd bring a little bit of water and I would catch these like the most pristine protein in the world and then fry them up on the shore and I just had to like go to all the way back to like primalness. And I just recently finished this book. It's called the comfort crisis. I I recommend every man reads it, every man who's doing any kind of you know, in the modern society work where we're just like, oh, we're punching spreadsheets and stuff like that comfort crisis. I've read that book just this winter and that book reflected me exactly and I went. I was like walking through the woods listening to it and I was like, oh my gosh, I could have wrote this book.
Speaker 3:This book is about me, and so it made everything click of like why I got back into it. These adventures are so magical, I mean because they're like remote. They. These adventures are so magical, I mean because they're like remote. They're lakes that some people will never see. It's so hard to get there and I was like I got to start filming this. I want to share this with, not only when I'm dead or like on my deathbed, like I can watch them and share them with my kids, but like the world. So I started a YouTube channel called Fishing with Lance and a bunch of other channels and then we became monetized and we get sponsors and all kinds of good stuff and kind of fulfilled one of my last little checkbox of entrepreneurs like professional fishermen. So that's, that's the story, Holy crap.
Speaker 1:That's a professional fisherman, Alan we need to do over. Hey Lance, can you carry me up there?
Speaker 2:Cause. Can you drive a golf cart to these lakes?
Speaker 1:Yeah, or if you put me on a ski lift. That's the only way I go to bed high. Can you drive a golf cart to these lakes? Yeah, or if you put me on a ski lift, that's the only way I'm making it. Bro, dude, this has been amazing. Huh, kinship, we're there. Love what he's doing, love everything he's going about. So kids are a little bit younger than ourselves.
Speaker 1:Another super quality guy right, yeah, yeah, with good hair. Well, let's talk biz for a minute, all right. So lance, uh, let's talk biz, shall we yeah? How can everybody find you? Let's go check out f9. We already talked about that earlier. How else can people find you? Just hit that couple more things. Let's hit that up and let's go the final four questions okay, cool, yeah, uh, yeah, linkedin.
Speaker 3:I'm posting on LinkedIn quite often. I will link in with almost anybody. There's only one of me because of the very unique last name. So if you go to LinkedIn, you type in L-A-N-C-E last name, c-a-y-k-o Link in with me. It doesn't matter, even if you're an Indian scammer, I will link in with you. Really, do you do that?
Speaker 1:Oh my God, it's so funny. Holy shit, Dude my wife was like you're psychotic, and I'm like, no, I'm just a troll too. So you're the guy who, when somebody, calls you like hello.
Speaker 3:It's a scam call calling Hello and then they'll ask for my business partner if here's what they do, yeah, they go can I uh, can I speak to al gore and I'll go. Oh, he, he died yesterday he's sitting right next to me. Oh my god, it's so fun I go to. I got I gotta go to confession.
Speaker 1:Geez, oh, he says confession, oh he's part of a family baby cast the guy right here.
Speaker 3:I figured you guys were.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah, so alan not so much yeah, he's close.
Speaker 2:You know he's gonna want crush going on here, don't you, we're gonna watch the pope, right?
Speaker 1:you're gonna watch? Yeah, I'll watch, of course you sure, so fun. So I got up at 4 am the other morning just to watch it. That's how stupid it was. I just, oh really, I knew it was going down, so I recorded it, and I got up at 4 am the other morning just to watch it.
Speaker 1:That's how stupid it wasi just oh really, I knew it was going down so I recorded it and I ended up waking up and I'm like all right, I'll just watch it. But I do what I do every time I go to bass. I fell asleep in the hobbly but there was an italian man. Come on, I mean come on. He hit an italian. I was like I don't know italian, I don't know what oh sure, so yeah, but but that's not my excuse when I'm here.
Speaker 1:So all right, let's go back. Lance, you brought up a great book. We're going to use that one. Comfort Crisis Got to use that one.
Speaker 2:So now, we got to move. This is going to be probably one of the more interesting answers to favorite feature of the home.
Speaker 1:What is the favorite feature of your home? Because these from a design dynamite bro, what's the favorite feature of your home?
Speaker 3:my, the one that I live in.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, oh, okay and not the garage that we're uh podcasting out of, where I watch the garage door go up and down, I was like what is going on, oh?
Speaker 2:it's a garage door dude.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well my son is in the background here. He's burning wood for one of these houses we're uh building where he's charring it Custom stuff he's working with you doing it. He's working with me.
Speaker 1:yeah, Another winner Another thing he does better than us.
Speaker 2:Lance wins again because Chris and Alan can't seem to get the kids to come anywhere near us. Nope, toxic. Back to Lance and how awesome.
Speaker 3:He is In our development. It's there was, it's a. It's an urban infill project. It's the sixplex duplex. There's a 24 foot drive aisle in between the two buildings. What I'm trying to describe is there is no front or backyard, right Like it's in. It's in a city a little city, but we have. I have a better, I have more privacy and I have more of a of a backyard, but we called it an up yard. We each unit has a rooftop deck that is designed so perfectly to where when you're sitting down. We made the parapet walls 48 inches so that when you're sitting down, you can't see anybody else and nobody can see you, but you can see the sky and the mountain peaks and all of that. And then we also put astroturf on top so you can play mini golf up there and stuff that's my favorite part.
Speaker 1:My favorite part is up yards. God, you've got to send me a picture of that dude. I will. We'll get that after. Oh, my god, I'm gonna post that sucker, sucker. Oh, that's amazing. That is amazing. You know what's more amazing? The fact that his kid wants to work with him, or that he has that. That thing's freaking me out. My kids go no dad, your kids went no dad, all right, but they still love us.
Speaker 2:Let's go to question three. I don't want to dwell on that any further.
Speaker 1:Alan and I have talked a lot about it in our podcast. We love customer service, love everything about it. That's the only way I build my business. We're kind of customer service freaks. So what's the customer service pet peeve of yours that you don't like when you're out there Bad?
Speaker 3:communication. Number one. Number one easily is bad communication because we have a rule at both of our firms, the architecture and the construction companies If a client, a consultant, anybody is trying to get something from us that we need to do with them or whatever. We have nine principles that's where kind of part of F9 plays into is. And the fourth one is communication. Everybody has to get back to whoever is asking something of them within one hour or less, no questions asked. And if they can't, if they can't get you in, that there's a little bit of wiggle room with it, like if it's a long, detailed answer, we need to find for somebody codes or whatever. You can just get back to the client and say hey, got your email. I see you, I'm swamped. I promise I'll have the detailed answer within 24 hours of this email that I'm sending you, or text or phone or whatever, and then you can do the longer one.
Speaker 3:That alone is just giant. Alone is just giant. I mean I'm just continually shocked about how poor of communicators society has become. I don't know if it is ever good, but maybe my problem with it is is like why I'm so hard on people about it is because I'm like yes, thank you, chris. You, I was gonna just pick up mine. I was like we got this freaking thing in our hands. That's a tricorder. Like you grew up watching star trek, it's like we have the tricorder now oh, you did not.
Speaker 1:Just don't do that. Don't do that, lance. I'm way older than you. That's that we didn't know those things would be around and here they are. All right, lance. That was awesome because you're right. Because today, in today's world, nobody wants to go back to the world we grew up in, which is, if I called my buddy on the phone and we only had to use four digits to get him because you had party lines out north dakota. There's no way you had anything other than that um and and he didn't answer, you assumed nobody's home. He was not there because he didn't answer, not, he ignored you. But now, if I send you a text message, you don't respond within an hour. I am smoking and you leave your read receipts on you.
Speaker 1:Oh my god oh, you read it and you didn't get back to me. Well, you're dead to me. Oh, you are so dead to me. What if I'm in a ball game, still dead, alan gone. Well, actually, I'll give you a break.
Speaker 1:My wife, no, no, my wife will absolutely like she'll blow me up. She knows I do training with my guys every other wednesday 7, 30, 8, 30. I start getting blown up at 7 30 he goes hey, I need an answer. I need an answer. I'm like I'm up there presenting in front of 35 people. I'm like I got back to her. She goes um, okay, thank you, that's all I got. I'm like do better. Yeah, yeah, all right, lance. Oh, buddy, this is gonna be a good one. I mean, you gotta, you've got to go extra special. I want a DIY nightmare story. So I'm in the biz, you've been in the biz. I mean, my hand clamp has scars that you can't imagine. I just used that in one of the buddies, by the way. He was like what's that mean? I said every time I put trim up, I'd shoot my gun two and a half and if I missed it, come through my finger. I said my finger is mangled and you can see it here.
Speaker 2:Oh god, oh yeah, that's nasty, I know, thank you, don't show that to me ever again.
Speaker 1:I know it's bad, so but but it's a great hand clamp it got so it got so bad. I got numb Lance. We want a DIY nightmare story of a client. Yes, no oh me oh, you did. Oh no, I want fire water impalement. I've done that too, okay I'll tell you.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you one about the development, right, and this is uh, so I did mention the, so this is, it is diy, diy. I mean, we are doing, we were doing it ourselves. Yeah, man, come on, we all make mistakes, yeah, well, well, this was. I couldn't believe this happened. So if anybody wants to hear the actual story, they could go to. They could just Google Inside the Firm Podcast. Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls Inside the Firm Podcast. You know where I'm going with this. I'm going to listen to that. Let's go.
Speaker 1:Don't let's go, don't go chasing, and no, it is not the tlc song.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the firm podcast. Don't yep. Pc mortar falls. Let's do it. Uh, it is uh. So we are scrambling to get this development done. It is the end of 2019. It's cold, it's bitter, I'm exhausted. We're everybody's working. It's all hands on deck. We even I even called uh. No, I didn't call my dad down at that point. I did after this. I broke down. I broke down as a man in this one. It was bad. Um, we are like a week away from co the project, the. You know, we're final trim out. Caulk is in, like it's that kind of stuff. Final cleanings are happening.
Speaker 3:But I'm still kind of upbeat this day and I wake up even earlier than usual. It's like 4 am and I'm like today I'm going to just, it's going to be an awesome day. It's going to be one of the best days on site. Oh yeah, coffee's cranked, I'm just pumped. I'm listening to some good music, whatever it was.
Speaker 3:I get there and I start. I'm like, okay, I'm going to start opening doors, getting ready for everybody to come in and start making punch list walks and all that. I open up the building. I'm sitting in now. Everything looks fine.
Speaker 3:I start opening up the building behind me and I go to the first unit Good. Second unit, good. Third, fourth, get to the sixth and I hear this like beeping and it seems like it smells a little funny and I opened the door and it was just a waterfall and it caught me down to my knees. I mean, it was just like I was like no way, like no way, no way. I'm like what, what is going on? And this is me leading up to this.
Speaker 3:By the way, we were one of the first townhome projects in the city we built in to have to put in sprinkler systems, to have to put in sprinkler systems in a house, and the whole time I'm very anti-government. I'm very like, like, just stop the bureaucracy stuff, you know, and uh, and I'm like, I'm like, sure enough, I knew this was gonna happen. Like the sprinklers, like this is so dumb that they're putting them in single family homes and all this other stuff. And I call my, I call my business partner, I'm freaking out, or whatever. And I call the plumber, I call the sprinkler people, I call I, I call, I call my mom, I call I. Just it was panic attack, right. Come to find out it was a plumber and instead of using the nice threaded uh connections for sinks underneath.
Speaker 3:They had like the plug and play ones, and he just didn't plug it in far enough and it ended up we had to file an insurance claim. Our plumber thankfully owned up to it. But that is my biggest DIY nightmare ever. But that unit ended up selling, by the grace of God, I swear on that last. That was the last one that sold, right before the market crashed and we squeezed out of the deal and could breathe again.
Speaker 1:We got to end on that one. F9 productions lance what's that?
Speaker 2:what's f stand for?
Speaker 3:I gotta know that the f9 is the hot key on the keyboard for x. We're doing these architectural renderings. When we first started the business, we didn't have any built work, no clients, nothing. All we had was f9 productions.
Speaker 1:So here, we are nice. That's awesome f9 productions. Go check him out, lance. How can people find you online?
Speaker 3:well, they could google me, find me anywhere, if you google me. There's all kinds of other guests spots that I've done on shows like this. Um, you can listen to us. I'm gonna have chris on the show. I definitely need him on the show. Uh, you can go to inside the firm podcast. You can go to f9productionscom, um, and find us on all, all places. Cool, don't forget fishing with lance to youtube, subscribe, don't forget that.
Speaker 1:Man guys, if you've learned something, that's on you, man, because this has been amazing, what a great venture, what a great time, because you're in your truck, you're taking a walk, you're doing your thing. I'm sure you came back to it because lance killed it. This is awesome. The garage door is going up. It's time to get out of here. We got to make things happen.
Speaker 3:Thank you for listening to this episode of the Small.
Speaker 1:Business Safari. Remember your positive attitude will help you achieve that higher altitude you're looking for in the wild world of small business ownership. And until next time, make it a great day. Outro Music.
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