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
From Engineer To Award-Winning Remodeler | Rob Stephenson
What happens when you lose everything in 2008—and still choose to pay everyone back? Rob Stephenson rebuilt not just a business, but a reputation that now wins national NARI COTY awards.
Summary:
Rob Stephenson, founder of Stephenson Construction, shares how leaving engineering, moonlighting in rental units, and surviving the 2008 collapse shaped his disciplined, integrity-first approach to design-build. We unpack his early pivots from art and engineering, learning the trades out of necessity, brand lessons from Target, and how a move to Atlanta unlocked new opportunity. Rob breaks down practical pricing, cash flow, licensing, and client selection—plus a DIY cautionary tale involving a wet metal roof, no tie-off, and a painful lesson learned.
🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@TheSmallBusinessSafari
💡 GOLD NUGGETS
• How growing up in Philadelphia sparked his love for home projects
• Art vs. engineering at Tuskegee — and the early career pivots that followed
• Learning every trade through rental-unit trial by fire
• Building the first spec home, licensing insights, and partnership lessons
• The 2008 crash: overleverage, failure, and choosing integrity over shortcuts
• Moving to Atlanta and how Target taught him branding discipline
• Building a design-build team that wins national COTY awards
• Story proof: why case studies beat sales pitches
• Cash flow, pricing, and client fit — practical rules that keep you alive
• Quickfire picks: E-Myth for Contractors, basements, and service pet peeves
• DIY disaster: the wet metal roof and the importance of safety tie-offs
🔗 Guest Links
• Website: https://www.stephensonconstructionllc.com
• NARI Directory: Search “Stephenson Construction” on NARI.org
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rsstephenson/
🌍 Follow The Small Business Safari
• Instagram | @smallbusinesssafaripodcast
• LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrislalomia/
• Website | https://chrislalomia.com
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.
Um, yeah, this guy named Carlton Sheets. Do you guys remember that guy? I know that's really familiar. Buy a house, no money down. Right. Oh, that's right. That's right, yeah, yeah. I saw him on an infomercial one right now. And he had this display$1,000. I was like, if I pay$1,000, I'll be able to buy a house and work on it. I mean, I don't know. I was but I did that and um, you know, started kind of looking at um real estate from a standpoint of investment properties. So did you do that? You bought one of those cheap houses? I did, I did, and it did work. Uh it quickly taught me that I wasn't a damn real estate manager or at that time, and people are tough, you know. Carlton flipped and lied, bro.
SPEAKER_01:Carlton's lied to me. Carlton's giving me a bunch of cheats. He was giving us a bunch of cheats in me. It's like Carlton's full of cheats.
SPEAKER_03:Welcome to the Small Business Safari, where I help guide you to avoid those traps. Pitfalls and dangers to 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 status to that Mobile Top 5. That's right, that's right, big boy. That's why I am inflecting right now. You know that. That's right. You know what, Chris? You know what? Just went up to Chicago for the board meeting. They're like, hey, I listened to your podcast. Thanks for the marriage. They did not send the limo. I I did mention, and I said no red MMs in my bowl, man. I said, I gotta have that. I gotta have that. If the if the president is coming into the house, he's gotta have some business, right? You know what I'm saying? L Epic. Oh my god, please feed the ego. That's what I kept telling everybody. Feed the ego, feed the ego. What am I? I'm just a small handyman out of Atlanta, but but man, don't let anybody else say I'm a legend in my own mind. So let's keep rolling with this, Alan. We've got another great episode for you guys. You know, you're probably driving on the truck trying to figure out how to make things happen. If you're listening to us, hopefully this is your day to get back up on it, man. We're gonna give you 25. You know what? We'll probably give you the full hour today. You know, I'm gonna give you the full hour today, Alan. I'm gonna make sure that everybody here has a great time. Full hour mean what I think it means? Uh full hour hour, by the way. That's what we do because we got to make this thing happen. We got a great guest. Um, so uh all jokes aside, um, I am the president of Nary Books. Hold on. Having mentioned that you're the president of Nary, yeah. All right, so I got times before you can make seven times before it makes an impression. So you're at three now, right? Three. So in this in this high-paying position of the dairy paid president, right? I got sucked into it, but I I got I got volunteered in, and um and one of the things I learned from people before me is that when you find the right character of people, you ask them to join you. And that's what he said. He said, Chris, I saw something in you, and I believed in what you were doing, and that's why I'm so glad you did what you did. And um I didn't say I saw this guy, but when he said, I'm gonna raise my hand and I want to get involved because I want to I want to raise the elevation of what's going on with remodeling here in Atlanta, and I got to know this guy a little bit. I'm like, oh man, I like this guy, and I really want to have this guy on the pod, and I want to talk to him more. But we've got him involved, and he has raised his hand, stepped in full force and doing some great things in our community and remodeling. We got Rob Steffenson from Stephenson Construction here in Atlanta joining us today. Rob, welcome to the show, big guy. Cheers, Rob. Thanks for cheers. Awesome. So Alan just got a chance to meet Rob and we're clinking it up. We're gonna drink a little bourbon and we're gonna have some fun with this thing. I did. I brought out the trays today, man. This is I saw that in the store, and that's coming back finally. Um, and that's been my favorite uh forever. So um let's talk about this. Rob, as I mentioned before we got on the podcast, I probably don't know as much about you as you think I did. So let's talk about this. Where'd you grow up? What were you doing? Let's talk about as young Rob Stephenson. Was it oh my god, I can't wait to start remodeling houses and helping people.
SPEAKER_02:No, it was not like that. And um, thanks for having me. Um, I'm from the Philadelphia area, a town called Gaiden Fencing. Um, it is one of those boroughs, if you will, the borough of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia area. And I got into remodeling really just kind of by chance. I um I really like we lived in a old um colonial style home, and my dad and my grandfather used to do a whole lot of stuff to that house. I mean, just you know, knocking out walls and all that type of stuff. And I just got fascinated because he was always tinkering and putting stuff together and making things work. And um I actually wanted to be an architect. So um I really uh uh I didn't get the chance because my parents told me that architects don't make any money. They were right. They could make you know like we're gonna put you in college if you're going to college, because they didn't pay for it. So but if you're going to college, you're gonna have to pick something that you can make some money in. So they're how about an engineer? Uh I didn't know one thing about engineering, but you know, in high school I was an an artist, believe it or not, I was weird like that. Well kind of uh I I just yeah, I did like uh uh what do you call freestyle painting and um realism, you know, kind of stuff like that.
SPEAKER_03:If you want to get back in it, yeah, nice. You had a very artistic bent in high school, yeah. But they told you you need to get into engineering. I was you know that's the that's the 180. Yes, you know that, right? Uh you're talking to an engineer. You're you're talking to that's that's a 180. It's a one eight. What kind of painting do you do, Chris? Uh finger. I did some pretty cool one finger for you, Alan. My paintings aren't very interesting. Yeah. Sometimes he uses two fingers, it's just one on each hand. That's true. It depends how far he gets. You know where I'm going. So you're artistic, but they said, hey, if you're gonna go, you gotta go for something that makes money.
SPEAKER_02:I had a cousin that was uh actually was an artist that she was you know getting her ass kicked out there. So they I guess they called me, uh, you know, called me they're gonna save me. And so they said, Yeah, you're going in the engineering. It was kind of a downer, it was a crusher to me because I really wanted to do that. And so I enrolled at Tuskegee University for uh aerospace engineering, believe it. Now, no kidding. Yes, uh, it was an aerospace school and they had a wind tunnel and all that good stuff, yeah. Right, you know, Tuskegee Airmen, you know, yeah, industry there. That's cool, and so I went down there and uh that wind tunnel didn't work.
SPEAKER_03:By the way, uh Metro Philly to Tuskegee, Alabama, yes, pretty much the same thing, right? Okay, yeah. How did you get to go that far away to go to school? My dad wouldn't even let me get out of the freaking state.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I struggled, man. I was like, what the hell is this? We're where are the buildings Timbuktu. I had no idea. Um, everything was so much slower, and the uh the landscape, of course, definitely different. Um, and I actually didn't want to stay there. I was like, no, I want to get out of here. I told my grandmother, I was like, man, I'm out of here. She was like, stay your ass down there, you're gonna finish. Um, I had, you know, my background, um, you know, family background was really spotty, had some challenges growing up. I had, you know, drug addiction in my family. Uh, not me, but you know, my my mom was was struggling with that. Uh, you know, they my my mom and my dad didn't get along, they were all split up, it was all that going on. So it was like I gotta get the hell away from Philly, you know, it was too much going on. Was your grandmother a big influence in helping you get to Tuskegee? Absolutely. She was probably the biggest influence, along with one of my best friends who was down there at the time. It was about four years older than me. And uh got accepted to a couple schools. He was like, screw those schools, you're gonna touch ski geeks.
SPEAKER_03:And I said, All right, let's go. So you went, started to have regrets, and said no. And grandma said, No, you keep your ass there and make it happen. Oh, absolutely. And so you got your four-year degree.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I got my four-year degree. Engineering in which mechanical. Good man. I switched my major. I went to mechanical. You know, we looked at the landscape coming out. Uh I came to school to get a job, right? And um, you know, if I wasn't gonna be working in architecture, I wasn't gonna be working in aerospace. That industry is very, very volatile.
SPEAKER_03:100%. Uh, as a guy who was a mechanical engineer came out and was in the aerospace engineer school. Uh so I my first job was at Curtis Wright. And uh again, I was on the upside because they had just won the Boeing contract. Right. And a lot of engineers were moving from California to move to Little Shelby, North Carolina. So think about that. California, yeah, that's kind of like going from Philly to like Tuskegee. You're the middle of flipping nowhere, bro. Yeah. I mean, I couldn't even speak that southern language, but I learned it quick. So uh you got your mechanical engineering degree, and did you decide then you're gonna be a uh remodeler?
SPEAKER_00:No.
SPEAKER_02:Uh uh no, I I I graduated and I worked um uh interestingly enough, uh you know, in the tech United Technologies was in the aerospace industry too. Um, but I worked with carrier transit coal, which made the air conditioners. So I I kind of had like a minor in air conditioning, and that was kind of weird. But uh, so I worked with them, I co-opt with them, and then I worked with them. I was on an extended school plan. I uh it took me a while to get the hell out of school. I was okay. Then I had a great time. So all right. Once you made me stay there, you decided, okay, I'll just stay here. Yeah. So um, but one thing led to another, and um I've I started off in Athens, Georgia, and moved closer to Atlanta and uh worked for a company there and knew that okay, engineering sucks. Um, I'm I'm doing pretty good, but I hate this. I I do not like my life right now.
SPEAKER_03:Is that the artistic coming out of you? You think you think you were you're a total battle, right? It was an internal battle. Uh for me, uh same thing. I was an engineer and I was battling with I'm so extroverted that I just could not sit in front of this machine for eight hours and design it.
SPEAKER_02:What the hell? What do you mean I don't get to draw the plane and make it, you know, or design the car? Yeah. No, you you fit what other people, you know, put together and design. You fit that in and make it work in this cool design you had nothing to do with.
SPEAKER_03:But at the time, you had healthcare, you had 401k, you were sit, you you had a job. Did you have to wear a tie every day?
SPEAKER_02:No, but I did wear a damn uh you know, golf shirt or something like that every day.
SPEAKER_03:Alan, did you have to wear a tie every day? Every day, every day, buddy. That's right. Ev you gotta wear a day in the tie every day. Oh, Alan looked apart, bro. Right. Oh, yeah. No, he looked CEO. I mean, he was he was an enterprise, he was he was big daddy, he was balling hard, man. Southeast regional president, maybe my I didn't mind wearing a tie, right? You know, I just got done. Uh speaking of Halloween, went to my neighbor's house who was a Chick-fil-A, and uh he brought it his bushel bag full, a duffel bag full of Chick-fil-A ties. They gave him Chick-fil-A ties like every year, like a couple of every year. And these actually look pretty good. They're not bad. I'll show you guys after. Okay, and I'll I know and I'll post them online because they're really good. But uh, I said, you know what? I as a kid who went to a Catholic high school, I learned how to tie a tie in five seconds. Oh, yeah. Because we'd have our um, we'd have our uh oh Father Paul me holding he if you didn't have your tie on when you walked in that door, you got a detention. And we always used to make a game out of this of walking up the sidewalk and tying it right in front of him right when we get there. Tie and going on in. All right, so you back to you. Uh so you you were there, you're you're getting hey, we do have a guest, do we? We brought him here all the way here, and with a broken flipping foot. We walked for the love all the way around the house. You made him go in the back door with the brokerage boat down the stairs, and then to talk about you. I know, and you know what we're gonna make him do? Talk about you and then we're gonna make him walk back out next in the dark to get out of here. All right, it tends to rain tonight, right? Down a damn long drive. Okay, and they got a long drive. Oh no, oh just thing out of here. Oh god, that's the golf cart that he could have had even I could I could have picked you up with that day.
SPEAKER_02:He had the thing parked in the side. There's no way their thing's getting out of there. Yeah, that's how he slides it in there.
SPEAKER_03:Hey, if you can't power slide a golf cart, you can't drive a golf cart. Come on now. That's what we're doing. All right, so Rob, so you're struggling with it, but but you got the 401k, you got this, you got the other. Yeah, so were you thinking, what? What were we gonna do?
SPEAKER_02:Well, you know, my first baby kind of uh made my mind up for me. Um I'm wondering when that yeah, I had a I had a baby girl, and uh, you know, my wife and I were here, and you know, just we didn't have family and stuff like that. We're struggling, and I was going to this place, so I didn't really like yeah, all of that stuff was there, and yes, the insurance paid for the birth of the baby. So look, I'm not complaining, but um I I was I didn't know how, but I was getting myself back into the housing industry. I don't know. Um, yeah, this guy named Carlton Sheets. Do you guys remember that guy? That's really familiar. Buy a house, no money down. Right.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, that's right. Remember, yeah, that's right, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I saw him on an infomercial one and he had this$1,000. I was like, if I pay a thousand dollars, I'll be able to buy a house and work on it. I mean, I don't know. I was but I did that and um you know started kind of looking at um real estate from a standpoint of investment properties. So did you do that? You bought one of those cheap houses? I did, I did, and it did work. Uh it quickly taught me that I wasn't a damn real estate manager or at bad idea, and people are tough, you know. Carlton flipping lied, bro.
SPEAKER_01:Carlton's lied to me. Carlton's give me a bunch of sheets. He was with a bunch of sheets in me. It's like Carlton's wolf sheets full of sheets. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And uh, but but what kind of you know caught me again was I bought a little four-plex unit, no money down. Um yeah, yeah, I had to say that word. So that part worked. That worked, that did work. Okay, yeah. Two houses or two properties like that I bought. I, you know, and one of them was a four-plex unit, and I actually started doing work in here. So I learned all the trades kind of on that house and watching people come and do stuff. And I have a moonlight, so I would go in there if I had a tenant coming in, I would go in and fix it up. And each place needed some work, each place needed a bunch of you know stuff done with it. I mean, uh honestly, how did you learn to do that? Was this stuff you learned from your your dad? Or because it was YouTube. I mean, well, yeah, there was no YouTube yet. I just took took an interest in it and just would ask and watch and figure stuff out. I mean, I really wanted to learn how to do it. So I learned how to do trim and read books. I had all these books on building houses and how to renovate. And you know, Home Depot used to sell those electric uh one, two, three, you know, books and how to fire up.
SPEAKER_03:One, two, three, one, two, three. Yeah, yeah. Those books, remember that that used to be a big part of where you walked in. Yeah, all those books right in the front. Yeah, look at guess what's not there anymore?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because nobody's reading them. No, and they don't want you to know that, they want you to, you know, buy them. But I I I read a lot of those books and just you know uh poured through a lot of literature and questions, and I would hire a trade and work with them and watch them, you know, do stuff. I guess I'm gonna do sheetrock. When one thing led to another, um, I got I got my ass handed to me with those properties. I no longer have those are valuable lessons.
SPEAKER_03:Why do they always cost us so much, Rob? Why do I have to why does it always cost me so much to learn a lesson?
SPEAKER_02:It's it's either use your stuff or pay for it or you know, out of your pocket, or you pay for it with your time and effort.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And when it's both, boy, doubly so when you sit there and pour it all. Yeah, I'll learn that one day.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but no, we won't.
SPEAKER_03:I probably knows. See, Rob, you know what? I think Rob knows me better than me. I think so. You don't know one thing, but not everything else. Right, so you're doing this, you're moonlighting, but you're keeping your real job, if you will. Yeah, uh, that's paying the bills, and that's taking care of the uh mama, and that's taking care of the baby and doing all this stuff. So now what?
SPEAKER_02:I got to the point where I was like, I want to do this professional. Um, I was like, okay, you know, uh apartment rentals and all, you know, management. That's not my bag, but I really do like doing this other stuff, like you know, uh building cabinets and you know, uh putting roofing on and stuff like that. I got some real cool stories to tell about getting caught on the metal roof in the rain. Whoa! We'll come back to that. That would be uh the uh condition.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that'll be the that'll be the question of I want a DIY neighbor's too. Oh, dude, because I know we had some because he did he did it very similar to what I've done, right? I was not born in the trades, but you were introduced to it early. I mean, that's and that's how I was. That's how I ended up getting into my business was my my growing up, every vacation I ever took, all we did was work on somebody's house. And then, oh, by the way, we can go see the beach. Oh, hey, you can go to the amusement park on Sunday. Yeah, we're gonna be working on Saturday.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. I'll see how this gets back to Chris every time.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. We can't show it's this show.
SPEAKER_03:He's got people, don't feed his ego, he's gonna feed his ego. Thank you, Rob. Hey Rob, I'm looking for a new co-host. Yeah, Rob would be a good co-host.
SPEAKER_02:Where'd you meet your wife? At Tuspeggy, actually. Yep. Is she is she from she's from Birmingham, Alabama? Okay, yeah, and actually, interestingly enough, that's where I started this business. So that you know, properties I was talking about. Uh that didn't start here in Atlanta. We needed family to help us raise the baby girl. So we left everything here and moved to Birmingham where I thought I had a job lined up for me, and I did not. So another lesson. First months. Yeah. I I uh, you know, did odd jobs, uh mowed grass and you know, did stuff like that, had a a little circuit that I that I that I ran for cutting grass.
SPEAKER_03:All right, hang on. You skipped over a big part there. So you left the high-paying job here in Atlanta and moved to Birmingham because I thought I had a job. You thought you had a job. And now you're telling me the engineer, yeah, uh, on the way up, who had properties and was a millionaire, multi-billionaire mogul of properties is now mowing grass. Well, mowing grass. Tell me where your mental state was right there.
SPEAKER_02:So uh I think I mixed um some chronological order there. I actually moved to Birmingham first before all the um properties. And I thought I had a job and I had interviewed, and you know, at that time in the job market, if somebody says, Hey, we're gonna bring you on in two weeks, you knew you had a job. Right. When was this? This was uh 2000, 2000. Yeah, 2000, 2002.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so it was a pretty stable job market. And when somebody says, you know, again, we're talking about today's world where you have no idea if you have a job tomorrow, today, whatever. But back then, uh, especially where we were, this wasn't the you know, people probably don't remember this. The dot com bubble wasn't then, it didn't happen. It was a very stable job market. It was, it was. Remember that too, right? Oh, I remember the bubble because I was such a genius at investing in e trade until it was hot. I know.
SPEAKER_02:Did you I did somebody's got your
SPEAKER_03:I got it. Somebody got it. No, it ain't sitting at this table.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um, all right. So so yeah, just to clean that up a little bit, I I I moved to Birmingham first. Then I was cutting grass, I was working in odd jobs, and uh then then the the Vulcan Materials, which is where I you know went back to being an engineer, they called me. And I was working as a rock quarry engineer slash field engineer for a number of years. And that is when it really took off. I bought the properties, so on and so forth. I was like, I can't do this. So it was really my second corporate job that was crazy, you know, raising crazy hours. And but I got a little bit of experience uh in working crews and then learning how to do things. And that's when I bought the properties, I started moonlighting, I had lights in my truck. My boss was like, What the hell are you doing? Why you have a company truck with lights in the back? I mean, you know, what's going on? The saws and stuff in your bed, your truck bed. It's been a little remote, like little stuff. And then that's when I said, Okay, I want to do this for a living. There's got to be some way for me to do this. And then I understood how that uh in Alabama they had the home builder's license. And everybody that I could see was building houses, you know. It's like, damn, this that that would fit right with what I want to do.
SPEAKER_03:That fits your artistic and your engineering. Everything kind of brings it together, right? Brings your process, brings your creative outlet. And you're in Alabama at the time in you said I'm gonna be a home builder. And at the time, you're saying in 2000 you had to have a license? Uh yep.
SPEAKER_02:Um, well, 2000 now here with 2004. Yeah, that is when they changed that because they were they were grandfathering in. So I worked, you know, all the about 2004 is when I started, you know, that a licensing, you know, piece, you know. So I got my license in two four 2004.
SPEAKER_03:Don't quote me on this, but there's no flipping away they had in Georgia then. No, no, they didn't, as a matter of fact. I remember that you could do any, you could, you could go build a house anywhere, right? I mean, no, it was uh right when I started 2008. Yeah, 2008, roughly thousand nine is when they had I switched you. Had I started the business in seven, well, I'd be out of business, but that's another story. Um, but I could have been able to just grandfathered in because I had documented work that I had done, you know, in my own basement. I had helped my other buddy with, and I had people vouch for me. I could have, yeah. But I've been in good shape. So your wife's on board with all this. Not really.
SPEAKER_02:Let's keep going.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, let's pick at that thread, shall we? Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, you know, I I I was I would say I was a little bit of a gambler back then because, you know, sh, you know, going back to when we moved from the Atlanta area to Birmingham, uh, we both had employment lined up. You know, we wouldn't have just left. And we got baby, you know, we we wouldn't have just left. And so she came over and she was working with technical recruiting at the time. That was a helified field. Like people were making all types of money doing that, you know, recruiting people for these, you know, dot-com or technical uh um companies. So she had employment and I had it lined up. And when we got, you know, all finished with that, like that first year, neither one of us had a job. Neither one of us were working. And that was some scary shit. And that was before 2008, you know, that that bubble hit. You hadn't even said it. Yeah, you haven't even seen that yet. It's just 2001 uh one, 2002. I'm I'm you know, freaked the hell out. So I once I finally got the the job with Vulcan and I started down the path of getting my my my my builder's license. Um I then built my first house. You built a spec home? Built a spec home. That's policy. The spec home. I I they used to have these loans where you could, you know, it was a w of uh, you know, a con that was a contract to perm or something like that. What was it called?
SPEAKER_03:It was uh construction to perm loan. Construction to perm loans, yeah. As in fact, uh at the time, the bank I was working at, Sun Trust, was the best construction perm loan in the southeast. You probably had a sun trust perm. And by the way, by the way, at that time, probably my organization was the one who was servicing your loan. Um, as I said on my big cushy ass job. Um, so you did this about the time when you had that day where it was like, thanks for calling Sun Trust pullback. That was actually that was prior to Sun Trust with Greg. Thank you for calling Bank of America. Goodbye. Thank you very much. Goodbye. Uh, another story for a different podcast. That's the Greg Spencer podcast. It's Greg Spencer's uh Greg Spencer's episode. We talked about that. You go back and listen to that one. This is another guy's good great friend of mine who did it. But back to Rob doing this. So you pulled out a construction deprimant, uh, but then you're working for Vulcan. And I'm I'm assuming your wife had her job in the back. She wasn't working yet.
SPEAKER_02:It was it was hell for her trying to get a job in Birmingham. Yeah, look as hell.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, she she wasn't working then, and I was, you know, trying to people don't remember this, but you think about this for a minute. You didn't work remote, quote unquote, in 2001. Uh you're like, Well, well, the the the the the internet, Alan. Oh, AI. No, none of that shit was around, dude. Yeah, you had to be in a place, and Birmingham was not the place. And you had a baby at this time, yes.
SPEAKER_02:And we had another one on our way.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, good. Way to go, double down.
SPEAKER_02:It was it was like, okay, what the have I got myself? Like so spend the first spec home, modest yeah. I was a modest. I was probably about a little 1700 square foot home. Okay. Um, you know, block uh foundation. Um pretty, pretty nice neighborhood. It wasn't, you know, a gated community or anything like that. Little community was called Million Dollar Lakes in Tuscaloosa County. And it's really a old coal town. But um, you know, that was a nice little place. It really wasn't a million dollar lake, but you know, the houses were, you know, at that time.
SPEAKER_03:In Alabama, everything they call is a million dollar Alabama, million-dollar ban, bullshit, whatever. Um, I mean if you like Alabama, I'll screw you. You know, we're running out of states, right? Offended. I pissed off. Well, actually, I told you I got yelled at in Chicago. We're like, what are you picking on Illinois for? Why didn't you back us up? I'm like lost Illinois. No, I'm not I am not I'm not running for president, Alan. I'm just running the podcast here, my friends. All right, so Rob, you're built you so you sold it.
SPEAKER_02:I sold that house before it was done being built. Yeah, pretty cool. And you were feeling pretty high. I was pretty, I was like, Oh, this is it. I see I can do a tunnel. I I've got pictures of me and the babies. We're all hanging out standing in front of the house, and it was it was I mean, it was awesome. Um, I I had I looked back at the house, I screwed some shit up on the house. I mean, I had guys working on there stealing money from me. It was just like, what? But it was a uh hell of a beginning, you know. And um, I had this partner I was working with. Um his name was worth his name's a true crime. His name was John Place, and John Place was a uh home inspector, okay, and um place-to-place inspection or something like that. He was a good guy, but yeah, he he uh um he didn't he didn't make it through the um entire partnership. He introduced me to some really cool people and actually was instrumental in me getting the next four properties. Um no, sorry, two, the next two properties in a subdivision that his buddy owned. So, you know, from that standpoint, he opened he helped open some doors for me.
SPEAKER_03:So clearly you're establishing you got the grit, you got the scrappiness, you got the stick to itiness, you're you're making this thing happen, you're still making this all go. You got rid of the partner, great move. Uh, so hard partnerships. You know, we've had some great partnership with the stories on here, but it it is tough for a lot of us. Yep. But you're in Birmingham doing all this, and we're doing this here right now in Atlanta. Yeah. I want to hear how the heck you got here. Okay. So that's full. You're killing it in Birmingham. No, no, not wait a minute. Hey, he just quadrupled. He went from one spec that was successful to four.
SPEAKER_02:I went to, yeah, what's it? Yeah, but the fourth wasn't a spec. I'm taking pictures of my babies.
SPEAKER_03:I'm telling them, I'm I'm telling I'm telling I'm telling my wife, look, I'm making, I'm toning it. We're in Birmingham.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you know, we're gonna go have we're gonna go eat hot and fish. I saw the end of the tunnel. I was like, I okay, and so I quit Vulcan, I got out of there, left them behind while I was building.
SPEAKER_03:Let's go back to that. You quit Vulcan. Did you come back and tell your wife you quit, or did you explain to her what you're about to do? I didn't tell her shit.
SPEAKER_02:Oh and still married today. Oh man, she will not let me live that. I've done that more than one time, so I I'll revisit that in the future. But feel married, yeah. Still married.
SPEAKER_03:So I told her I was quitting, and I I I'm still married, yeah. Probably not as happily as you are, but I uh uh but but I even told her to ask for marriedness on that. Oh my god, for forgiveness, um, I have a couple times. Have you? It hasn't worked. I still chew too. That is like an echo change. Let's keep going, please. Back to Rob. It's not about me. Let's go back to Rob.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean, you know, right after that, um, you know, when I I walked away from Vulcan, when I walked away, um, it looked good, you know. Um, I had a couple I had those spec houses going on. I had your license. Oh, yeah, and definitely had a license. Um I had um, you know, we were flipping houses at the time. Remember those properties I told you I was I I I had some, you know, I was managing, you know, at the fourplex and then another little house. Man, it looked really good. But I was over-leveraged in debt. And um, you know, most of the time when you buy a house, you're gonna have debt, you know, it's good debt, whatever. But you don't want your payment of your um, you know, loan to be more than what you're collecting in rent. In other words, you know, you don't paying. If somebody's living there, they need to be covering whole rent and expenses.
SPEAKER_03:Right. So some of it, it just to lay it out there, people think about this all the time. You're like, oh, I'm gonna rent. Okay, good. So you need to get$2,000 in rent if you got$1,500 in debt obligations at least in debt obligations property taxes. Right. It's called loan service, right? Correct. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:And if you're not handy and shit goes wrong, then you're going, but it's not personal.
SPEAKER_03:That ship is past, way past. We we haven't we haven't bleed shit so far. So let's keep going.
SPEAKER_02:Uh, but you you you have to have enough to be able to cover that. And one of the things that also motivated me to do some of that work was that I I didn't have enough money to cover the repairs. So I almost had to learn how to do it anyway. So, yeah, I I it's something I wanted to do. I was like, ah, I'm not worried about that. I'll fix that myself. I do that type of thing. So that went, you know, that went on for years. Um, but when when it really changed was um in 2008. So I got my license in 2004, you know, fast forward, you know, about you know, four years, and all of a sudden, the subprime market, you know, if you remember all that and people getting no, I don't remember a thing about 2008.
SPEAKER_03:You've just picked Allen's cab, and Alan's gonna go dark for a little bit. We're gonna put him on mute and put him in the timeout vibe really nice. And he needs to drink a lot of so 2008, you're in Birmingham and you're over-leveraged. I'm over-leveraged.
SPEAKER_02:So I lost my house. I lost that fourplex, I lost um that rental property I had. I had two houses that were coming out of the ground. The first house I you know sold, those two that were coming out of the ground, I'm paying interest-only payments on. I had um, you know, two flips that we were doing, a couple of my buddies, and we were working together, and the people who were um you know pre-qualified to buy the house and started everything, they've gone away, so now we're scrambling trying to find buyers for that. And, you know, my ass was tight. Your world evaporated. And I mean, just in like a matter of months, it was all over. So I know a house, you know, we were what do you call it? Um uh when you when you when you're when you stand a place where you're not supposed to.
SPEAKER_03:Um that was my house, but at the same time, you're squatting in your own house. We were squatting. Oh, yeah, it's funny because the first word that came to mind started with an F and then with uh duck. Um so holy shit, man. I mean, so you're staring at it, right?
SPEAKER_02:You're staring at the you're staring at the bottom of the bottom. Yeah, people looking for subs, like, yo, man, we're gonna get paid. Yeah, I'm going to pay you, but I can't right now.
SPEAKER_03:That's not the place you want to be. No. And that's not the way you came up. That's not the way you were about about so as a person, tell us how you got because today, Stephenson Construction, LLC. These guys have won national awards at Neri for the work they do. And I'm telling you, man, I've seen the work. It is amazing. So this story is so is so good because everybody who's listening out there, you know, for the people that are just going through a rough time, you're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_02:But you're staring at the belly of the beast. Yeah. The one thing that I had in my mind that I I I didn't want to let go or compromise was my uh my name, my character, um, all that Stephanie's in construction has been around. You know, when I started and I started building and all that, I never bellied up the company, you know, never you know, bankrupt the company and just went to another name. I was like, I and maybe I was a fool for doing it that way because some you know, the you know, the American way is hey, what do you think, Calendar? Let's talk about that.
SPEAKER_03:Is he a fool for doing that? He is who he is, because everybody is. You know what? Um, I will tell you 100% respect that because you know what you could, and you know contractors have done it, and you know that that probably saves your family. That probably saves putting uh you're right. Uh a lot of guys do it, but you know what? It's just not the way you're raised. You can tell that's not your character, it's not your integrity. That's yeah, it's hard. And I I know many guys who've done it. Um, and you know what? And uh do it. I I thought I was like I didn't see the way out of it either. I mean when when my store went, we we did the same thing. Every vendor was paid, everybody did say, yeah, I know you did, and then we just went boom. I know you did, yeah. And we could we could have pulled the plug earlier and screwed everybody, and I'd have been a lot better off. I'll never forget watching you. Uh I mean, there is nothing, absolutely literally nothing you could have done to get around 2008 as a guy with a big lease, interior decorator, and furniture uh vendor with a with a franchise over top of you. You get I mean, it's like one, two, three, and then you you can't get out from it. But you could, I mean, you could have bankrupt, you could have done that, you know, and said, Hey, screw you guys, yeah. I'm taking care of my family. That's right. But you know what? And a lot of guys out there thinking, hey, why aren't you taking care of your family? Because you know what? I'll I'll I'll do it. I'll I'll take care of my family another way, but I'm not gonna, I'm not putting that in the universe. I'm not putting that, you know, God didn't tell me whatever you guys think. Yeah, you can't do that.
SPEAKER_02:Right. You gotta figure it out because not only are you dealing with your family, you're dealing with other people.
SPEAKER_03:And here we are in 2025. I'll tell you what, it didn't feel good at the time, but you know what? That's what it looks like today. Yeah, because right now, man, you're doing great, and you know that. Yeah, and you know what, you could have been the other guy, and yeah, maybe you'd be doing good, but I I guarantee you, next time good feels bad, you get out of it again, and good is good, but you can't be great, it can't feel great, it can't feel good being a douchebag anymore, right? And yeah, you're ducking people, you're not listening to this podcast if you're doing that. All right, uh, so you you hit it, you're still at the belly.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, at that point, it was like, okay, you got to do something, and you can't stay here because your world's falling apart around you. And I was like, okay, no, I probably could come back, you know, but I know a lot of people in Atlanta. Um, you know, a lot of my my schoolmates uh had a little bit more of a uh support system, and and let's just face it, in Birmingham, Birmingham's still stuff in the 60s, man. They are still stuffed with those water holes and dog biting days, man. They are still stuck there, and so I don't care how professional or how prepared I came to a job in certain communities, I was gonna get that job.
SPEAKER_03:All right, so we're on a podcast, and Rob, we gotta say it. Uh I mean, obviously you don't look like Alan, other than we're all bald. We are all bald, we got we got that going for us, but you're a black man, yeah, and you're saying that that did not work. Oh no. We gotta, I mean, we gotta address the elephant in the room. I we don't know what that means. Uh well, I I don't use it as a crutch or an excuse, you know. You never have. I never I never knew you to see that, but but I think people need to understand that because it's important.
SPEAKER_02:Well, there is definitely uh some advantage advantages that whites may have over blacks in this industry only because most of the people that are you know conducting the business are white. So what does that mean? That means that no kind of like will favor likes um just because they you know a little bit more familiar with that. You're not familiar with um, you know, who am I coming in this house? You know, um, I I never always went to to to racism or you know, they don't like me because I'm you know I'm black first. You can tell when somebody's a little bit uncomfortable with you know your your physical uh uh being, whoever you are, you know, they're looking at you like, okay, well, I don't know where this guy came from, and I don't really know. And then if you're going head to head with somebody, you know, they may feel more comfortable saying, you know what, this guy seems like a good old boy, you know, he he he understands, you know, what we're doing. I'm gonna go ahead and give him the job. Even if he's not qualified as much as this other guy, I don't know him, and and he's not believable. And so I just run into that a lot. Okay, that is how do you overcome that? Yeah. I you know, uh, it's a good question. Um I I don't really focus on um what people think of me, I focus on who I am and what I provide. And if you don't like that, screw you. I'll move on to the next. But there are certain areas in this country where that thought process doesn't work. And Birmingham was one of them. I couldn't work for all the black people in Birmingham and make the type of living that I wanted to make. I mean, I could, and I had great, you know, clients and you know, great experiences, but I wanted to be diverse. I wanted to do work for everybody. I don't care what color you were, I wanted to do the work. I wanted to be the guy that everybody calls to do remalin. And I just happened to be. Um, and uh actually I want people to kind of look past that, even if it I'm I'm okay with it being upfront and personal, even looking. Yeah, that's a black dude. Yeah, I am. I'm a damn good looking one, too. You know?
SPEAKER_03:Ah, for the record, if you're not watching another podcast, you gotta go check out other YouTube. Yes, he's a good looking man. I'm not gonna lie. And I'm not like that either. And again, we love that. Hey, I'm not doing everything. We're just talking about it, but but you talk about this. I mean, it had to be hard. I mean, we know it is, and but we don't know it is because Alan and I cannot relate. I've I've said this over and over to all the guys who work for me. I have black guys, I have Hispanic guys, I have guys from uh the Middle East. I don't know. What you guys go through. It's gotta be hard uh to work through that. So how do you do it?
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so when you think of that in your statement there, when we say it's hard, when you think about this, I've always been black. I've always waited what Alan. Right. This this is not new. I did not know that. You know, being you know, I always woke up in the morning and saw this. I may be an engineer, but I'm dumb still. You know, I it it didn't happen overnight, so that it's something that, you know, I'm like, oh shit. Now oh, all of a sudden I can't do X, Y, and Z. It's always been there. It's always been there. I've always had to deal with it. So as I get older, and it's like, okay, this is who I am. I mean, what what else can I what else can I do? The only thing I can do is put my best foot forward and try to be the best that I can be and put myself in a position where there's people who don't necessarily care what color you are. They just want the work done the way they want it done. You know, Atlanta's great for that because it's a melting pot's all type of people here. They're not um um afraid of seeing, you know, uh a person like me driving in a ripped, very nice truck through a neighborhood that's predominantly one uh nationality or another. They don't care. But now very cosmopolitan, I would say that. I I so another thing is I I try to keep myself as you know clean cut as possible. Um, I speak intelligently. Yeah, when people talk to me, um, they may look at me one way and then start talking. It's like, oh, okay, he he's an intelligent person. He's he's somebody I can have a conversation with. Um, I don't really meet a stranger. And so these things I I think kind of helped me. And I went to a university, I give Tuskegee a lot of credit for this, that you know, nothing was really given to us there. It wouldn't have like the state-of-the-art everything. Like our our library wasn't the best. So we would have to find a way to get things done um that either utilized um, you know, as traveling or you know, working in groups or going somewhere because I couldn't just go into the library and find a book I was looking for. I I might have to go to Auburn's library. Well, how do you get into Auburn's library? Um, meet some friends, talk to some people, get in there somehow, some way, talk to the person at the front, you know, make friends, you know, and that I could think, God, I'm studying an Auburn library. You know, the those are the kind of things that you would wind up doing. And it just gave you a little bit more confidence to uh excel in places where you normally might not.
SPEAKER_03:Wow, what a great life lesson, right there, Alan. Well, he he figures out ways to get stuff done, really. He always has, yeah. The the his stick-to-itiveness, the gravity, the the grit, the everything you have to have to be a great entrepreneur to be where he's at. He he's he's been establishing that and filing that away and doing that, and had to go through all those problems. I mean some shit.
SPEAKER_02:You have I don't rest my laurels on the problems like that. You know, they're there, and sometimes I look back and I say, oh wow, that was that was that was a lot to get through. That was a lot to to do. But I'm sure there were other entrepreneurs and people out there that had very similar stories, right? So I don't walk around with this badge saying like, oh, I had to go through all these different things and good turn. I I listen, I want to be the best remodeler in Georgia, right? And I can't do it online, can't do it alone. I have to have great people around me. I have to have a I have to be a little bit crazy to try to do things a certain way. Like, you know, you have a you gotta be a little bit off to be an entrepreneur, a little bit of a gambler, you know, you gotta have that in your in your fatally optimistic. Yes, fatally that's a great one.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you can't. You know, I've often said that. I'm kidding. That's Alan's light. I love it. Fatally optimistic. Yeah, you are, you can tell because you just said, um, I think we caught this. You said, Hey, mama, we're picking up the babies, we're moving back to Atlanta. To what? Man, and you came back, and so that was crazy. And I I keep thinking, and this is kind of a constant theme with somebody who's just really built themselves. Uh, and I mean it wasn't from nothing. I mean, you had an engineering degree, yeah, but you kind of created a nothing when things imploded around you, yeah. But you you had to learn how to sell and you had to learn how to hire, you had to learn how to motivate and lead, and then you had to learn the whole bureaucracy of I mean, there's so much that you had to learn, man along the way. Uh did you have somebody in your ear? Did you have a mentor?
SPEAKER_02:Did you been uh blessed uh along the way with mentors? Sometimes I didn't even realize they were. It's like, okay, my dad, I give him all credit. Even though I was pissed off at him when I was in school and I didn't even talk to him. Uh as we as I became a grown-ass man and realized that him and my mom, you know, they were different people. Um I I I gained a lot from from him. Uh just as, you know, hey son, you might not want to go that route. You know, look about look at this, look at this, you know, maybe this is the way to go. Or thought processes and stuff like that. Um, we had a good relationship that way. My dad wasn't the guy who was a come on, son, we're going to the game. No. It was sit down, let's talk, let's figure this out, you know, what's going on in your head, you know. Really? Yeah. He was a he was a cerebral cat, you know.
SPEAKER_03:He was well, your dad was very cerebral. My dad, again, very cerebral, but was very like, uh, what are you doing? Let's get to work. Hey, it's seven o'clock in the morning. We gotta shovel snow. What? Yeah, get up. What? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And he was the guy, he was the corporate guy all his life. So, all right, so you started this business. We gotta wrap this stuff up a little bit. Um, oh my god, are you just this is why people will buy what you're talking about? So, Stefan's in construction today. You do, you have a team, yeah, it's a design build firm here in Atlanta. Right. Um, you work for everybody, all walks of life. I know that. Uh you do some amazing stuff. Thank you. Talk about what you guys have done and where you're at today.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so um, when we got back here, uh it was 2009, 2010, and I got an opportunity to do a basement. Uh I had really had done like a real basement like that, and I did a lot of work myself, but quickly learned that Atlanta's different than Burmian, and that I can't you couldn't go all over the place and do work. You know, you can't go to Fulton Dale and then turn around and come back to Buford and then go up to, you know, Cherokee. Yeah, I mean, it was crazy. And so Atlanta traps legendary. That's my first, you know, back then I I spent like$900 on gas, like the first month here, and I was like, okay, uh so um the the bubble caught up to me even in remodeling or the 2008, it it caught up to me in like 2011 to 2012. All right, you know, even paying people off and getting people back on track. I just couldn't make it because I had too much going on. And so I took another corporate job and I got lucky. Um, I worked for Target, all right, as a what they call a uh um an ETL, which is a basically assistant store manager. And while I was working at Target, uh I worked there for a couple years, and while I was working at Target, I I didn't know anything about marketing, and I didn't understand, you know, how to get people who don't know you to know you and ask for your services. I really didn't. It sounds silly, but I didn't know how to do that. Coming from engineering, sales and marketing were foreign to me 100%. So um I uh uh this this is this is great. I I worked over in Johns Creek at the Johns Creek Target super target over there. Okay. Have you guys been in that target?
SPEAKER_03:My my son did a Chris's job there. Super Target up on Brooklyn on 141. Yes, yeah, yeah, that's a big one.
SPEAKER_02:So some beautiful people that come in there, okay? It's it's they are beautiful people. Oh my goodness. And I I would be working and I'd look up and there would be this beautiful woman asking me where something was. Uh, and then eventually, and then Target markets two women, they tell it in their books it says she probably doesn't anymore, but when I was there, it's like she wants to come in and find this. If you're going to help her, XYZ, I was like, damn, they're they're not real size than they now.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it was Alan continuously.
SPEAKER_02:Made an emphasis for them how how how clean the store was, and um you know, but uh they came in the store one time and I was over the logistics aspect of it, and we used to do all uh changes on the floor, and we just got done with a change, and all of a sudden there were people, ladies coming in, okay. Where's this? And they're going right to it. I mean, how the hell do they know? I just I just set this up to date. There's no way. I mean, they haven't been in the store. How did they know this? And then I saw the commercial now. That may sound silly, but it all clicked. And that's what I was like, okay, now I understand what this marketing thing is. And this is how people find out who you are, what you do, without you actually having to tell them personally. It's like you gotta understand how to get this information out there to them. Branding. They were talking about brand, brand, brand. Well, what was brand? Well, the floors are clean, the lights are bright, the shelves are immaculate, you're lining these things up every night before you go home. And that's when it dawned on me. First of all, who am I selling to? Uh uh, what am I uh proposing that I'm selling? What, what, what's the market? Who is it? And and what type of people do I want coming in my quote unquote store? You know, uh, what does my store look like? So that's when I really started spending more emphasis on capturing what my projects look like. Um, you know, making sure I had on, you know, professional-looking clothes or whatever, where I'm going, what I'm doing, making sure that I'm always on brand, and then making sure that you know my advertising and marketing and what I'm on what I'm doing and selling meets that criteria that the target client wants.
SPEAKER_03:Because your target client is your client, and that's what you figured out. And then I think that's the hard part for all of us is that hard. We we just talked about this at an area about educational what we're gonna do. Who's the president of an area?
SPEAKER_00:I forget.
SPEAKER_03:Um, oh you know what? We'll uh put that in the show notes. That's big old moi. All right, let's keep going. Um, but you hit on this is that you you've got to go through that whole thing because cash makes ear flow, right? But the sales make the cash register rig. But if you don't have that brand out there, people don't want to see you. It's called the funnel, it's the magic funnel, all them thing down. So you're doing it now. How big is your team? Tell us a little bit about what you do.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. So now we're a team of five. I just uh basically hired my wife as um out coming outside of sales business development. We'll talk about that one after the show. Right. But I have my day-to-day team because she's kind of like Savite. But my my day-to-day team, I have two designers and I have a project manager, and then there's me.
SPEAKER_03:Nice. And you guys are delivering on projects, you guys have won awards. Uh, how can everybody find you here in Atlanta?
SPEAKER_02:Um, you can find me at www.stepinsonconstructionlc.com. Uh, you can find me on the Nary website, the National Association of Home Builders website. Um, and just do a Google search in your neighborhood for best basements in Atlanta, and hopefully my name will come up. But we know what kind of a tell me a couple of awards. What are the awards? Absolutely. That's well, hit it. We've we we won the um National Association of Remodelers Industry uh contractor of the year national, two years in a row.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so two years in a row against all the nation, all the contractors, all the nation. I'm talking about what's the criteria for that? I mean, that's uh that's huge. Uh well you're in his category. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's a the category is with basements over$250,000, right? And so, you know, you have to you know submit a particular documentation and pictures and tell a story from start to finish, um, you know, and then get the consent of the homeowner.
SPEAKER_03:So he's doing it a little bit downplayed. So over 250, that means no, there's no cap, Alan. In fact, we're sitting in my basement right now. I could do this thing to a million. I mean, I probably should. Uh, but another story. But if you go out to Silicon Valley, if you go to New York, if you go to Texas, if you go to Florida, where he's up against all of them and the 250 plus private wine cellars and the new yeah, with the private wine cellars, with the automatic wine cellar, uh the whole thing, automation, the the entire thing. He wins, and I was there for it. He wins over the entire nation. And I'm telling you, man, you're like, you want to, you know, I was like Atlanta Proud. I was like, ATL, ATL. I mean, you would have thought I you thought I was like ATL. I was big boy. I was I was I was I was it was everybody but yeah, good time. That was big. I was so happy for Rob and uh Rob's team does a great job. Absolutely. Rob, we're gonna end with our final four questions because you bring uh so much that we've uh we've really enjoyed here, but we gotta talk about this. Okay, what's the number one book you would recommend to our audience? Somebody trying to start a business, somebody trying to scale a business. Uh the e-myth for contractors. Nice, and I go Gerber. Big one. So there's the e-myth, and then there's the e-myth for contractors. That's it. Yeah, yes. I've read it and it uh it still has a resume for me because I keep I keep absolutely picking myself in the key on it. Listen to it. That's why I probably needed it. Listen at like three times speech. You hear me? Are you done? Cindy comments gets phone. All right, you leave it. Oh my god. Oh, Cindy, why do I have him with me? I don't know. All right, number two. What's the favorite feature of your own home?
SPEAKER_02:Um, I'm gonna say the basement because we're working on it right now, and that's you know, gonna be pretty cool. I'll have some pictures, you know.
SPEAKER_03:What do you what's the favorite part though? Why is it I your bourbon bar like me? Or you hunt. I hunt. Oh, guess what? Rob is gonna be heading up. Uh he's not heading up, but he's heading up our membership. I thought about it.
SPEAKER_02:I thought about it.
SPEAKER_03:He wanted to, yeah. He wanted, we're gonna have our first first clay southern shootout at the uh nice, yeah. I called it code name shooting shit. I said, for the love of God, we're the southeast, we have got to be shooting shit. Didn't we invent guns? And they're like, Yes, Chris, we gotta do it, we gotta do it. And so somebody came up to me and says, So you shoot. I'm like, no, never. He's going to. I'm gonna. No, I'm going. Oh, yeah, I'm gonna be there. I I'm gonna get on team. So what's the what's the craziest thing somebody's asked you to do in their basement? Oh boy.
SPEAKER_02:Uh, let's see. Oh, that's a tough one.
SPEAKER_03:Well, it's not as crazy, but um, safe rooms, you know, that uh safe room, yeah. Nice, that's kind of weird. You know, yeah, put your safes in the basement. I know that. Yeah, uh, I mean, no, no, this is how about exercise room. How about exercise pull?
SPEAKER_02:It's like a panic room. How about exercise pull? I've had somebody ask me to do that, but not inside of the house. Oh, did they?
SPEAKER_03:No, I I put I put the exercise pole in the house. You did? I did. Back in the day. Oh no. In your in big daddy's house. Uh no. I was back in my handyman days. She says she calls up, says, I'd like to have a pole put in my house. I'm like, I can't have an exercise. I thought you said pool. Well, all right, we we would call them boys, we would call call them stripper poles. All right, hello. Oh my god. She says that's pool, right? I said pull it. My accent's bad down here. Oh, for the love of God. You're from Pennsylvania, you're from you're from getting a chance to come see if it worked. I I I put that thing because I saw her and I was like, Oh, this is good. Oh, you got on there, didn't you? Uh I gave it a couple of stings. I did, just I did. But let me say that just girlfriend was not the petite. Girlfriend was not the petite 5-1 girl. And I was like, I made sure this thing was anchored down, but I was never gonna send one of my guys over there because I knew because when you walked in there, it was now chicken room. I was like, oh damn, yeah, I busted one of my guys there. I said I knew I could keep my shit together and get in, get out, get paid. I'm done, I'm out of here.
SPEAKER_02:All right. Oh, yeah, like a panic room was probably the you know, the panic room instrument. What do you okay?
SPEAKER_03:But yeah, people want them. Yeah, I like that one. All right, let's go on. Yep. Next question. Yeah, what's a customer service pet peeve of yours? Because Alan and I haven't talked about customer service much, but if you don't know this, we're kind of customer service freaks. What's a customer service pet peeve of yours and you're the customer?
SPEAKER_02:Um, yeah, that's a very good one. Um well, not being transparent with them. Um, you know, so are you it's just a question for what when you're out there, you're at a restaurant, yeah, you're going to Target. Oh, when they don't acknowledge you when you walk into the space, into their space, and they don't not acknowledge you, and uh, you know, they they they act like you're you you're just supposed to be there and they're gonna they're gonna uh you're gonna wait for them to get to it's like they're annoyed that you that you're Alan. Check this out.
SPEAKER_03:I just did training for two new uh technicians that started with us this morning. I said, so when you walk into Chick-fil-A, both of them say, Do we know what a Chick-fil-A? I'm like, uh-oh. Okay. So when you walk into Chick-fil-A, what do they say? You know, welcome to Chick-fil-A. When you walk in McDonald's, there's the yeah thing that you have to hit to come talk to me. So you don't want me to talk to you? No. How about when I'm at Walmart and I clearly have that look like I need help? And they run. They walk the other way at Target, but Target. We always said target. Yes, target. That was upscale for me growing up. What can I help you find? Bright? What can I help you find? Can I help you find? Right? Oh, can I help you find something? All right, last, Rob, you started out early. I want you to think early back. What is a DIY nightmare story of yours? Metal roof. Oh, let's go metal roof. Uh should we?
SPEAKER_02:So, okay, but it was this was for me. It wasn't for a client. I would say for a client, it was a tile job that I had to rip out and redo. That does that doesn't sound good. I was on top of that during rental property thing I had a fourplex. And the then the tenant was, you know, complaining that there was a leak coming from the roof. And, you know, I thought I can do everything. And I looked up there and I said, Oh, okay, it's just a little sheet metal blase blah. If you get that from Home Declub, and so I get up there with my makeshift tie-off, and I'm walking on this roof. And it's probably about a 4 and 12 pitch. It's not a very steep pitch. So makeshift tie-off for the uninitiated is was what? Was a trick? A D loop that I screwed into you know the fair the ridge. And the ridge was just a popped-up piece of metal. So I just screwed it in there, and I was gonna come back and silicon it later. All right, and that's supposed to be a good idea. That wasn't the problem. That wasn't the problem. That ain't the problem. The problem is it started raining when I was on that roof. And I didn't get off immediately. And I had a rubber sole shoes. Mm-hmm. And I thought I was coming off that damn roof. I started slipping and sliding, my behind got tight. I mean, I I I you know I was like, I was gonna have to buckle down. I found the chimney and I slid down to the chimney. I just stayed there until it stopped raining. And then I just made my way up in front of the chimney to the ridge and tiptoed off. When I tell you I was scared, that was a three-story drop. How old were you then? Twenty no.
SPEAKER_03:Maybe three five. Today, would you do that? Hell no. Exactly right. I'm telling you. And on that note, we get out of here. You guys gotta learn something, right? I said you've learned a lot of stories on this one. You know, Rob's steppers at construction has done some great stuff, but you know what? He went through the trials, he went through the tribulations. We all do it. He came up, he said he could have stayed there in the corporate world and been all cushy and done the whole thing, but he said, No, I gotta go make it happen. Keep making it happen, make it up the mountain. We gotta get going. We gotta get out of here. Cheers, everybody. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it was awesome. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Small Business Safari. Remember, your positive attitude will help you achieve that higher altitude you're looking for in a wild world small business ownership. And until next time, make it a great day.
%20png.png)
