Big Talk About Small Business
Hosted by Mark Zweig and Eric Howerton. Our Mission is to inspire, empower, and equip entrepreneurs with the knowledge and insights they need to succeed in their ventures. Through engaging conversations with industry experts, seasoned entrepreneurs, and thought leaders, we aim to provide valuable strategies, actionable advice, and real-world experiences that will enable our listeners to navigate the challenges, seize the opportunities, and build thriving businesses.
Big Talk About Small Business
Ep. 79 - How to Stand Out in a Crowded Industry
What happens when an architect actually understands construction costs and client service? Lance Cayko, founder of F9 Productions and F14 Productions, reveals how he built award-winning companies by mastering what most competitors miss.
Beginning as a teenage roofer who caught the entrepreneurial bug at 13, Lance shares his journey through multiple trades, architectural education, and eventually founding his own firms during the Great Recession. Unlike many design professionals, Lance brought practical construction experience to architecture, creating a powerful feedback loop between design and building that benefits clients through realistic budgeting and problem-solving.
The conversation explores how Lance's companies have differentiated themselves in crowded markets not through revolutionary innovation but by excelling at fundamentals. His "one-hour response" communication policy has helped win the "Best of Mile High" award for customer service three consecutive years, while his integrated design-build approach ensures designs remain practical and cost-effective. These "brilliant basics" have attracted high-net-worth clients who value reliability and quality.
Perhaps most valuable for entrepreneurs is Lance's insight into "white-collaring blue-collar businesses" - the massive opportunity in bringing professional business practices to traditional trades plagued by poor communication, unprofessional conduct, and inconsistent quality. Whether you're in construction, design, or any service business, Lance demonstrates how focusing on fundamentals like valuing clients' money, maintaining open communication, and delivering consistently can create remarkable differentiation in markets where competitors often deliver disappointing experiences.
Ready to transform your approach to business? Connect with Lance on LinkedIn or visit f9productions.com to learn more about how mastering the basics can lead to extraordinary success.
hey, everybody, we are back again in the studio, or at least I am uh in the studio. Eric's in the luxury of his own home and lance I don't know where the hell he is. I think he's at his office. I am.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is. It looks like I'm not. It looks like I'm in a garage, which I kind of am, because we have a giant glass garage door. I love it for our construction. So we have a three-story condo that we designed, built, developed first floors for our construction company. Second floor, I'm on a mezzanine and that's where both companies meet with clients and stuff in the upper floors architecture firm, so Awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's great We've got Lance Caco here in the studio and this is another episode of Big Talk about. Small Business and, lance, you're in what Colorado I believe, aren't you, lance?
Speaker 2:I am just outside the People's Republic of Boulder, yeah, okay, yeah, where it's slightly more free.
Speaker 1:It's a good area. Yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2:And one icebreaker I want to give you. Mark is my last name is actually pronounced Psycho and you can say that with full authority.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, lance, it's okay. I apologize with full authority. I'm sorry, lance, okay, I apologize. Um, it is great, okay, well, that we we've got a psycho in the office. You got it all right. I love it.
Speaker 2:Man, that's a great name, thank you. I agree my, my children hate it and I'm like why it's? I think it's the best.
Speaker 3:So it's like it's a power name.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like don't mess with this dude man man, don't do it, don't do it. So what is the origin of your name, Lance?
Speaker 2:It's originally like Yugoslavian and it was pronounced, it was spelled, it was much more phonetically akin to even Yugoslavian and it was like Chudayko. It was like C-H-Y-D-K-O or something like that. And then they thought they would come over here and Americanize it. And then everybody says, just like you said, keiko Seiko, something like that, and it's like nope Seiko, but it's a perfect icebreaker. So I just leaned into it my whole life life.
Speaker 1:That's freaking awesome. I love it. So tell us a little bit about your businesses. I know you've got a design build firm. You basically just told us it's two separate companies, though. Is that correct? The construction separate from design?
Speaker 2:Yep. Yep Architecture firm is F9 Productions Inc and then our construction firm is F14 Productions. Both companies do a variety of things. We don't just put our eggs in one basket. So we do small residential stuff, large residential stuff, multifamily, and then commercial and boutique industrial projects.
Speaker 3:What's the genesis behind the naming conventions?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, when my business partner and I started our architecture firm and, uh, in the great, in the middle of the great recession, you know, when we got fired and laid off from the other schmucks who but who ran terrible businesses, uh, we only we didn't have any work you're known for, that I will, absolutely, absolutely, yep, yep.
Speaker 1:We try to do the opposite working with them.
Speaker 2:There you go. They're just, yeah, capital A, more artists than anything. So the F9, we didn't have any built work and we had to convince clients to hire us and the only thing we had was like photorealistic renderings and the piece of software that would create them. He would. The execution key on the keyboard was F9.
Speaker 1:So we just had.
Speaker 2:F9 production.
Speaker 1:That's cool, thanks. So tell us a little bit more about your businesses, though. Give us some numbers, give us some indication of how you've grown out there doing what you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah sure, you've grown out there doing what you do. Yeah sure, we started f9 in officially in 2010, so this would be our 15th year and we've grown from just me and my business partner, al gore. He also has a pretty good icebreaker name, um, and he's, but he's he's politically the opposite of of the al gore. You know, matter of fact, he even got some hate mail yesterday. It was hilarious, like saying, like all your predictions have gone wrong. They've gone. You know, haven't been true about the climate and all this other stuff, and it was. We laughed hysterically. That's hysterical.
Speaker 2:We started the firm, like I said, with no built work, no clients, no real connections. We were using Craigslist, believe it or not, for the first couple of years to obtain clients and it was a sort of a backdoor way to get in to the industry and get connections. And some of those clients people laughed at it and it was like now some of those clients have led to like giant, multi-million dollar deals, which is pretty wild. I mean, everybody was hurting back then. So you know, we struggled for the first three years, barely made payroll just for ourselves, and then the economy started to take off in 2013. And, at the same time we also had been reaching out, so we needed to hire people. So we reached out to University of Colorado, boulder, right next door, to see if we could hire some of their architecture focuses for candidates, and they were just not what we needed. They were lacking some software development and knowing the software to do the work. So we said, well, you know, we're experts in this software when we have master's degrees, like we can teach. So you guys have any, do you have any interest in us? You know teaching.
Speaker 2:And the architecture department said no, but the engineering department has an opening. And so we started to teach there, this one class, and Alice taught it for now about 13 years. I taught it with him for about seven, eight years and then I switched over to a different department. But when that also made it so, we had to hire somebody in addition to that, right. So it was like, oh, and that's when we started to multiply.
Speaker 2:And so since then we've had a beautiful trajectory for the past 12 years since 2013, growing from two people to nine, growing from low six figures to mid seven figures with the firm years, with the firm we are up for. Hopefully, next week I'll be picking up the award for the third year in a row of the Best of Mile High, which is an award in Denver for the best customer service for architecture in the entire state, and that's what we've really tried to build it on, like we were talking about with these other architects is we know we're going to be good designers, we know we're going to do cool stuff, but what I think of most architects fail on is customer service. Picking up the phone, just doing the basic stuff, like it's pretty mind blowing yeah.
Speaker 1:Number one complaint is not responding to calls and emails. I mean for design professionals. So true, yeah, I think the other problem and and you know, um again, lance, I don't know if you're aware of it, but I mean I worked 45 years in the AE business and I've been an owner in multiple firms, had my own design build firm as well, oh, uh, that, uh, was on the Inc 5,000 list in 2014. And you know we had an unlimited license. We started with historic type properties and then moved into new houses and multifamily and commercial, you know, sort of classic but, but um, that said, um, you know, aside from the, the lack of responsiveness, which is just so easy to do, you know if you're dedicated, the other thing that people complain about is just a lack of cost knowledge of architects, and I think having that construction business part as part of it has to help that. What has that been your experience?
Speaker 2:uh, yeah, 100. And then it even empowers my like employees who are, who are mostly architects right, because you know, I got into this industry when I was I'm 42 when I was 13 is I wanted to be a builder first, actually, and so I, you know, I I tried working on the farm for a week with my dad. Didn't like my dad didn't like the work, and I jumped over and called his best friend up and got a roofing job with him for the summer and Bruce really inspired me. I kind of got the rich dad, poor dad experience with between Bruce and my dad, who raised me, wasn't that Bruce was super rich, it was just that he didn't have anxiety about money. He was like the first real entrepreneur that I worked with and he explained the multiplication factor to me in terms of when you hire somebody and then if you pay them $10 an hour, you're charging the client $30, $40 an hour in profit, all of it. It made complete sense. And I go, go. At the end of the summer I was like how do I, how do I become you? And he goes, you don't work for me next summer and I was like what Cause? I was a really good worker for him I was the best gopher he ever had and he goes.
Speaker 2:But he was man enough to say well, if you want to be me, then you got to go learn another trade, like you learned roofing, now you got to do framing and you get next time you got to do concrete.
Speaker 2:So I followed in his footsteps in that way, and then I went to tech school for two years and North Dakota State School of Science for building construction tech and at the end of my two year stint there we were supposed to build a house and I started looking at the blueprints. The word architect started popping in my head and I had another sort of epiphany at like 20. I was like, if I, what? If I become a architect, I would get the clients first and then I could fold them into the building process. I mean, and I'm just like so happy that God came into my brain and said that, because I was like what a beautiful like for a 20 year old. My son is 20, one of them, and he doesn't have any of that stuff going on, you know, and I'm like, oh man, god really intervened in my life in that way.
Speaker 2:So that's what led me to actually be an architect. Then I applied 70 miles North to Fargo, where North Dakota state is, went to school there, graduated at the top of the class, moved out to Boulder, in the Boulder area, and then, like I was saying before, we started recording. The two schmucks that hired me ended up having to lay me off because of the great recession. And they're just. They put all their eggs in one basket. They were really bad at customer service. They just didn't have a you know this like a stool with four legs. They had a stool with one leg that were sitting on, and then the one leg got pushed off. So I've always uh, you know, my reaction to that was I never want to be put in that position again. I'm I'm going to put myself in the position where I'm the only one laying me off, and that ain't happening. And so then we started F9 and and then the way the building part came back around was we ended up designing and building a tiny house. We were on HGTV in 2013, 2014. And I put the bags back on, put the tool bags back on. It felt really good. We got a lot of press. Subaru saw the episode. They hired us to build two more.
Speaker 2:We did. We made the most money we ever made in a project. We bought a piece of land and then we put on another hat real estate developer and so then we built a triplex and a sixplex. We retained three of the units, one of which is my commercial office building you guys can see in the background here. And then I was like I got it. I didn't get the best taste for real estate development in my mouth after we finished and I realized I need to get my. I was like, oh, but a construction company was born out of this and I need to get it out of the startup phase and really get a good team behind me before I do another real estate development. And we're on year six of that and I'm a big believer in you got to get to year seven before you're, you know, really honed in. So that's kind of that's kind of all three of them in one.
Speaker 3:You know, lance, you you mentioned something in your discussion about when you got laid off and you're not going to let that happen again, not going to be surprised about that. And I've often talked to folks that you know that are looking to start their own business, but they've been a you know, a professional employee for 20 years. Right, and they're they're all. They're real nervous about the risk and my response is always look, you're actually as an entrepreneur, as far as knowing if you're not going to have any money, you know in the next month or two or whatever, what your future looks like. You actually have a lot more security because you have that visibility. You, you is that, do you agree with?
Speaker 2:that A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Yeah, I think that's a myth that people put in their own heads, right? Yeah, I never squared the thing.
Speaker 1:Well, you got more than one client. I mean, that's the thing If you're employed, it's like you have one client and you know that's not a good position for any business to be in.
Speaker 2:No, no, not at all.
Speaker 1:So it seems like a high risk position, but some people just don't see that, I guess, and the rest of us do, yeah, so tell me more about the development business. What is you say that you didn't have a great experience with that. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a couple fold. I mean I want to take some personal responsibility for some of it, which is like I think it would have went a lot smoother during the construction process. No-transcript. So because, like it was like, ok, you're building a tiny house, you're built, you built two tiny houses and now you're doing a a three million dollar mixed use development. It was uh, you know there's. It was definitely like a hockey stick if there was a sort of you put a chart to it, right, and it was like whoa, maybe that was, maybe that was a little too much.
Speaker 2:The buildings are beautiful, the buildings are great, the buildings are award-winning. I live in one of the condos because we retained one of them. Like I'm very happy with the construction quality. It's just, I think it would have been much less stressful and more enjoyable and I'm really one of those guys that, like I need to love my job because I'm an entrepreneur, like I have no excuse to not love my job if I'm an entrepreneur. I don't think people who go work for other people, that's a whole different story. Right, we've kind of already touched on that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Then there's also just understanding the litigious nature of the possible litigious nature of where it's at right, and so the typology I would pick for the next one would be I would just do an apartment building and I would not try to target a development where I'm looking for cash, a big cash prize at the end. I'm okay with more of a long-term return on it, where, if we built an apartment building, then maybe we hold on to that until we're through the litigation period, which in Colorado would be seven years, and then you try to entice an investor to come in, and so it's like a bigger play than where, if you're doing single family homes, which essentially is what we did because we did townhomes. So that would be my big pivot. Next is I would tackle it that way. What do you mean by litigation period is, uh, I would. I would tackle it that way. What do you mean by litigation period? Oh, yeah, so.
Speaker 2:So colorado has the worst condominium laws in the united states, worse than california, like I couldn't believe it. So, for example, uh, whether you're an architect, a builder, uh, developer, whatever is, if you build it, if you build a condominium project in Colorado, you can get sued for up to eight years, and the opening that the laws give with a metaphorical door here is all it takes is one owner to allege defects. They don't even have to prove it, they just have to allege defects. Allege defects, they don't even have to prove it, they just have to allege defects and call in and then there's no right to repair the alleged defects. In california, for example, you can't bring a case about with alleged defects. You have to show damage actually, and in california if you show the damage, then you have the right to repair. There's none of those things in colorado, wow yeah, well, stay away from condos.
Speaker 1:I mean, a lot of architects don't want to touch condos in general. In my experience they're too risky, as you say. I mean I think you know my experience has been, and I'd be curious of what you think about this that design professionals don't always do well as developers or contractors. I think that the sense of ethics is so different on that other side and you compete with outlaws. You know, particularly like if you look at the residential market I mean you're out there, if you're building stuff and you know you're competing against other quote builder slash contractors.
Speaker 1:Some of them I mean you know most of their workers are illegal aliens. They're paying people with cash, they're getting kickbacks from subs and overbilling their clients. I mean there's all this stuff going on. And then if you're out there trying to run an honest business which I architects generally are honest, they may not be the greatest business people, but they're ethical, I would agree with that. Yeah, and they've got a code of, and so are engineers, you know it. Just, it's it's difficult for them to maybe adjust their thinking. Sometimes they also don't tend to like beat people down. You know, um, somebody gives you a price, or you know they tell you that this costs more than they anticipated and they go along with it. I mean, I'm just, you know, there's just a different culture.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You know, I made the mistake and I told, I told myself I'm not doing it this year. So in 2024, I made a mistake that I said I wasn't going to do again and I did, and it's just like ah, I'm a bonehead, Like what a goofball.
Speaker 1:And it was yeah, I'm on wife number three, Lance, so you're not talking to me. It doesn't understand that. I get it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right, fair enough, I almost had wife number three. I recently got engaged and then unengaged. So there you go, mark, and I unengaged. Um, so there you go, mark, and I know we're both smokers. This is hilarious. Uh, the uh.
Speaker 2:The mistake I made was I allowed us to be hired as architects by a contractor and I didn't realize they were the contractor. And boy did they remind me of how poorly they and they just treat people like dogs, like, yeah, you're not. You can't treat a architect or an engineer or even the developer as a dog. If you're a contractor like, if there's a triangle, it's an OAC triangle owner, architect, contractor we're all, we're all equal. We're all literally equal. Right, we're all trying with one goal to build the build the thing, get the thing built, get the thing built, get the thing built. So, yeah, that's one of my goals this year is to not allow that to happen and I try to be one of those general contractors that is also very ethical. So one of the things we do is like we do open book. We do open book. Everybody sees exactly what the bids are. We do multiple bids. They see what my markup is. They have access to all those folders at any time. Our clients, and that's the deal.
Speaker 1:That's the deal. Yeah, builds trust with the client. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. So what you know, I guess the one of the issues that I found was a problem is working for a client, and most of what we did we did for ourselves. So we didn't do a lot of client work.
Speaker 1:But when we did, when the subcontractors people let's say you're building a house for somebody and they're a lawyer and the lawyer's spouse or whatever, and they think you're going to get three bids on the roof or three bids on the electrical or whatever I had trusted subs. I wasn't going to get three bids on the roof or three bids on the electrical or whatever. I had trusted subs. I wasn't going to get any bids from anybody. I put these guys to work because I worked with them for 15 years and I know their roof don't leak and if they have a problem they'll be there the next day and I know the electricians aren't going to do something stupid. So you know, because you've got a trusted relationship. But the clients don't always understand that. They just think it's all a matter of low bid.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What you experienced.
Speaker 2:I have. What I'll do is it's exactly what I experienced. So I would say, most of the time when we're building for folks, we just do the selected subs and like I'll give them a, I'll give them a little, and what I do is, but, but every but, like, maybe one out of three or one out of four clients, then I'll I'll go, for example, for map, because that's a, that's usually a big line item is, uh, I'll have another sub, bid against us, bid against my typical sub, and then I just so I have some empirical data to show them that like, look, hey, just so. You know, our standard practice is 75, 90 percent of the time is we're just doing the selected subs. But if you really don't believe me, here's a. Here's an example from last quarter we had, we had a bid out and look, every time somebody else is more expensive, it's just, or, or they're pretty close to the other sub, and I go.
Speaker 2:But I've worked with this person for a decade and, like you said, mark, I trust them. Like, and then I'll tell them a story about my plumbers, for example, when they owned up and pulled insurance on a problem that we had on a project and like save their butt, save my butt, save the owner's butt, and showed the integrity. Yeah, it's difficult because like I don't want to uh how many times it gets exhausting for the subs too. It's like sure you know, to have them like bid and bid and bid and bid, and it's like I'd rather just have that. Those trusted, I try to, you know, those trusted subs, trusted advisors, all that stuff they hate bidding.
Speaker 1:If they have to bid, they're probably going to bid high, I mean because they don't know for sure. So yeah, if you've got people you can trust. Now, the other hand, though you did make a statement, that is true Some of them it's a good idea to keep them on us by shopping them, just because they'll creep up the pricing over time, and that's another thing that I've experienced. So, yeah, sometimes you do have to get another bid to keep them honest. But the problem with a lot of residential construction, as you know, is I get two bids from HVAC subs or whatever. They're not bidding apples for apples. We don't have really detailed plans and specs on the HVAC. We don't have, like, really detailed plans and specs on the HVAC. So one guy's bid is for really essentially a different system and, you know, maybe it's just cheaper. You know, and you don't know, the customer is not really equipped to make the distinction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's true. It's true, I know they don't. They don't know. Yeah, exactly, no-transcript.
Speaker 1:You like we had to make a field modification like relax sally, and then you know how can we make that happen yeah, but you get that bad plumber, though, and they're the ones that get their saws all out and talk and and hack through three floor joists oh my god, over and over again, like I don't know how many that's.
Speaker 2:That's a tricky part with all any of those mep subs. I'm like, how many times do we have to tell you guys, if you need to saw through something, we understand, but you just gotta ask us, like, just ask us, like, just ask us. We've given them like the manuals too, you know of like Trust, joyce Institute stuff, yeah, and it never fails to surprise me where I'm like. Once again, here we are and now I got to backbill you because now my carpenter's got to repair the Joyce and everybody's pissed off.
Speaker 3:Everybody's pissed. How much is the repair of a Joyce like that?
Speaker 2:I mean it's like the full thing you got to do, or what the last one was the last one where this happened, where it was the same shit. It was the same stuff. It was like the electricians just kind of went nuts and I went, and this is the third time we had then had to get after them. Finally, the boss had a big meeting with his guys. It was about five, six thousand, so not cheap. I mean, you know, if their bid was 50, 50 000, that's 10, that's, that's your profit. Good job, yeah yeah, it's a.
Speaker 1:It's a tough business for sure. Eric is in the middle of a big project. Personally, he's got, he bought this, this site, and he's building. He, it's a. It's a on a giant hill and he has this crazy driveway that winds up the hill. That was done wrong the first time and he's out there. He's got all this heavy equipment he likes operating now, and now he's going to build a commercial building at the base of this thing that he can use as a toy storage and party center and then build his mansion up top with smaller houses for each of his kids as his master plan. And so, anyway, you know Eric, of course he's talking with builders and my first advice to him is like, get yourself somebody that can plan this whole thing, this site plan, plan this master plan. Please.
Speaker 3:These contractors, you can't trust these guys, man so mark, mark embellished the magnificence of his property. He does it every, every time he gets a chance, I mean it's, it's not that much, but it is really was a one.
Speaker 3:I mean, I did find myself become a developer all of a sudden. I didn't even know what that meant. I was just trying to be a homeowner building a house, Right, yeah, man, I mean I've dealt with. I mean utilities are cutting a new sewer, main or main pipe that runs pressure pipe Twelve inch going through my property. You know all these easements rides. I mean it's just, it's crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have clients, a lot like first time, first time developers, right, we have a lot of those. And, uh, this gal there's. There was this gentleman actually probably like four or five years ago, and we do these group assisted group homes, so like they're for dementia patients. It's a really good feel good typology that we do. And he so he buys this huge, uh, single family house and then it's zoned up in Fort Collins where it can actually be converted in this way and in the preliminary we signed the contract and we have the pre-application meeting with the city and they start throwing all the red tape at us, right, and he calls me back and I go, because I always have that Like after those meetings, I'm like, would you like?
Speaker 2:I'm like, hey, should we have a quick recap of Colin? And he's like panicking. And I'm like, would you look back? I'm like, hey, should we have a quick recap of Colin? And he's like panicking. And I'm like, welcome to development. You're officially a developer. And he didn't realize that he was like. He just like did not want to own that title. And I'm like, look, I don't know why you don't want to own that title, but you got to man up about it because like that you are doing real estate development like get put the hat on.
Speaker 1:You know it's a lot of pain yeah, I don't know about in fort collins, but here if you're a developer, the presumption is you're a criminal, you're greedy, you're rich and you have unlimited funds. Okay to do anything they want you to do. That's the presumption that you go into it with with the city, particularly here in fayetteville where I live. Um eric's moved out of fayetteville.
Speaker 3:Now he's over there in benton county, which is a little different, but uh well, the most, the most surprising thing to me is that there's not anyone that really knows anything for sure and it's always.
Speaker 3:it's always and it's always an astronomical fee for everything. It's like, I mean, I really feel like everyone's just trying to basically retire just because I have, you know, I have some land and I'm trying to build something. I mean it's the most insane scenario. And then I don't know that I've been, I mean, and the work is almost always done, right, you know, but there's always something Like I get trashed, I get left behind. It's just like when people come do work, like I don't understand, like when we had the dry land, the concrete.
Speaker 3:I mean you know good, you got the project done, congratulations. But you walk up there afterwards and there's like freaking two by fours laying around everywhere T-shirts, water bottles, I mean rebar.
Speaker 2:Well, at least they didn't leave piss bottles, did they?
Speaker 4:Because that's the other part of it.
Speaker 2:I'm just like never shocked at like every single job site Doesn't matter how much we reprimand people, doesn't matter how much we remind them, doesn't matter, even if I have sent my son.
Speaker 1:How many porta potties you got.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it doesn't matter, it's like the weirdness. There's going to be one weird goofy thing. I swear to God, we's we, we were we, we like we are. We were reworking on our, our contracts with owners and they're like we're having to put in like a checklist of like 10 things I need to them, them to initial at the end of it, for example, like client understands, you know there will be anomalies on the, on the job site, such as you know, and I'm like possible feces, like I'm not joking, because it's like how do you, how do you get these people we're going to build one time in their lives to understand what we know for?
Speaker 1:30 years, lance. That's so. That's so funny. My wife my wife does some work for clients, design work and inevitably they sucker into bringing in subs okay, which is always a mistake, but the last project she did, they found feces in the crawl space somebody went down there.
Speaker 1:now why would they think that's okay I mean, it's all plastic and it's insulated and it's free, you know it's gonna be inspected, okay and that somebody goes down there and does and it's, you know it's going to be inspected, ok. And then somebody goes down there and does that. It's just mind boggling.
Speaker 2:It is. It's totally mind blowing. I mean, my wife and I second wife when we, when we built we, we designed, built and developed this beautiful house it was like we had, you know, our four children and all that masterpiece and the, the amount of like at the end, eric, you're talking about like the trash it was like, and and the development, the where the house was is in a brand new development. Um, very like well-to-do neighborhood bunch of doctors, lawyers and all this other stuff. Everybody finished their house almost the same time and then we all went and met the neighbors and stuff when we were we need to have a community cleanup day, so we'd add a community. It was just like, garbage bag after garbage bag after garbage bag, and in the garbage bags, like over and over again, the kids would be finding like here's a piss bottle, here's another one.
Speaker 4:I'm like oh my God.
Speaker 2:But it wasn't just our property, it was like all over the place.
Speaker 3:I'm literally I think that there's like through my experiences with this, you know just entrepreneurial thinking. I'm like I'm gonna start a freaking construction company and I don't have to know a dang thing about it, but I'm gonna call it clean construction.
Speaker 2:No kidding dude I have, I have, I have thought of, I have thought of a painting company just like that, where it's sober painters, that's all it's called that's called only hire mexican painters.
Speaker 1:Okay, here they are not. They're the ones. It's like we have white guys or do we have mexicans? It's, it's supposed to be done on next tuesday. Do we have white guys or mexican? We have mexican. Okay, it'll be done. Yeah, we have white guys. Oh, no, forget it. You know, as soon as we write their check on Friday afternoon, they go to the casino in Oklahoma and blow it and they're calling us at 10 o'clock asking for an advance on the next payment.
Speaker 1:But you know, it's so true. I mean, it's funny how we've digressed into this. But so I've got a landscaper that I use and we're doing this house. That's two doors away and he's a great guy. You know, he came out of corporate America and he got into this business and it's quote retirement gig and so I just had him do a whole bunch of work on this property, all right, removing railroad ties, bringing a machine in, regrading, getting rid of all these rocks and everything. And then, you know, remulching the beds and and things like that, and you know what? At the end I go around and there are water bottles thrown in each of the beds. I picked five water bottles up. It's like you guys did this whole thing. And then they just throw a water bottle in the bed and there's a dumpster right there. It's not like you know, it's a 20 cubic yard dumpster and the kid and it's like I'm gonna leave my little rat turds there as evidence that I've been here or something it blows my mind.
Speaker 1:And then and then, here's a pile of rocks and and pieces of concrete and stuff that's just left right there in one place. You know, it's like 15 feet away from the dumpster.
Speaker 3:And it's like I mean, I guess, like it's just amazing that I just can't even imagine, dude, I'd wig out every time Like I was that guy that was obviously not experiencing construction and everybody knew it, because I'd be like I just I'm literally in my brain. I cannot comprehend, can't square, why you would leave all that shit after you get done with your job. I mean, it's like, did mom and dad never tell you, pick up after yourself? Yeah, I mean, is that, does that?
Speaker 1:exist. That exist. Listen, I'll give you another one. I got a carpenter working on this house and I had some exterior repairs that were all minor. Okay, this is after we did all the exterior repairs, then painted it, and then stuff evidenced itself after it was painted. I don't know if you ever have that problem, lance, but I did in this case like, yeah, now the soffit looks like it's delaminating, but you couldn't tell before because it was all dirty and flat or whatever. So he fixes it and you know what I find yesterday? A pile of materials on the roof of the garage that you see from the street. Why was that left there? Okay, now I got to get somebody to freaking, get a ladder and climb up there and take this stuff down. But let's just bring this back to a business conversation.
Speaker 2:But, guys, I just want to say I'm glad we talked about that stuff.
Speaker 3:Hey, like I think it's therapeutic for all of us. It is, but it probably is for our audience, but also I mean from a business conversation.
Speaker 1:I think it is a business conversation it is because this is where the opportunity is for people like Lance. All right can identify with his customer base and the way they're thinking his client base and maybe be a little bit better able to relate to sort of their orientation, values and thought process and what's important to them, and then just doing a better job in little ways creates an opportunity to have a growth company in a very crowded market.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Well, exactly that's why. That's why I sorry I interrupted earlier, Eric about like the, the, the sober painters, Cause I mean I'm so glad you're on the same wavelength, it's like, and this is honestly what I've been trying to tell people. This is why I do. You know we have a podcast too, and that's why I try to really explain this to people or just put the idea in the ether of there is a huge opportunity in the blue collar environment right now to start a company and make a ton of money and then, like, have honor in your life just because you know you could support a family much more than going to going to school, for and I'm a professor and I'm saying there's too many kids going to school, way too many kids I could probably hunt probably a 50 percent don't need to be here. It just devalues the degrees and it's like look at all these opportunities that lance and mark and eric are talking about, If you can white collar some blue businesses.
Speaker 2:I had a guy reach out to me on LinkedIn like about a year ago. Local guy out of nowhere, came in and talked to me and he goes look, I buy businesses. He goes. I'm not trying to buy your business. But I know you're this local entrepreneur who has all these companies and is pretty successful. It's like, do you have any ideas for me for what to buy? And I go plumbing. If you could white collar a plumbing business, oh my god, you would make money. Handle. It makes me so mad. I'm like I want to do it no, that's the problem, right.
Speaker 3:Like there's so many opportunities like you get, we're getting paralyzed because we just don't have enough time to do it. But I mean like, yeah, it's true, here's, you know, here's the thing, like, when I think about business, what's what's so wonderful about the construction business is that you don't need so many, you don't need such a high quantity of sales yes like if you're, if you're branding houses, how many can do you? I mean you could. You could be at eight jobs a year and you would be freaking, stacked and doing really well.
Speaker 1:Well, you're paying your framers too much if you think that, eric. But anyway, I said you're paying your framers too much if you think that. But we'll come back to that one.
Speaker 3:No, what is it? What do you mean? What do you?
Speaker 1:mean by that? I mean, you know, here you can get framers for like $5.50 or $6 a square foot. No, no, no, I mean like eight projects in the year. I understand, but I'm saying, if I had eight projects and they're 4,000 square foot houses, then I'm only getting like $20,000 out of that project. So eight of them would be $160,000.
Speaker 3:It's not great, I'm just doing the back of the envelope. Man, you went really deep bro, it went so deep.
Speaker 1:You went well, marcus wog and general contractor and you're building houses that cost a million five. Yeah, I'll agree with that okay.
Speaker 3:so yeah, because, like I mean, first of all, that's a good point. Yeah, if I was starting a business, I wouldn't be trying to do mass freaking construction. I'd be going after very high net worth income folks that have the money, yes, and like to pay cash if they need to. No problems there. So I would target that audience and then I would do just. You know the quantity enough. So I'm doing a really good job because you know that's like you don't have to go out and do so much of a sales process.
Speaker 3:Yes, you could. Just because my thing is is like, if I paid you to do work right and you did a good job and you and literally you will ruin everything that you did, that's good. If I had to pick up water bottles in framing, framing freaking hardware and whatever the hell else is going on by myself because I'm, I'm just like it just ruins your reputation. But if you did it well and cleaned up, I would go tell my other rich friggins exactly, use these people, and you would. You could probably have 30 years worth of business.
Speaker 2:And that's exactly our sales funnel, eric. Yeah, because people will come to us and they're like you build too, I love it and I go. Yep, we build too, but not for everybody and it's very selective. They have to be like. Our criteria is you got to be within 30 to 45 minutes of my office, because in case of an emergency, I need to be there. You got to be cash, and so they're high net worth individuals.
Speaker 2:Not that we're skirting the IRS, even though I hate taxes, it's just that I don't want to deal with the banks. Why do I have earned the privilege of not dealing with the bank, hopefully, and then I got to like the client, so we get to interview them through the architectural process. It's awesome To go on the front of the envelope, though, eric, of what you were saying is like there's also a very low startup cost, exactly To join to do one of these trades. You could just be a guy in a pickup, that's what. Like Gary Johnson, I don't remember him. He ran for president, he started for the Libertarian Party and that's what he did. He was just a guy in a truck, and then he grew this multimillion dollar company just out of the back of his truck.
Speaker 3:It was amazing, that's probably how they do it right. I mean, like you do see, these developers like there's some around here that are, I mean, like freaking stack loaded man, like the family is just, I mean they're good for three, you know, you know legacies, multi-generational wealth. Legacies, multi-generational wealth. It's probably because they were one out of the thousand that were actually doing good work, good project management, good communication and good follow-up and cleanup, and they didn't ruin the reputation and they built wealth. And then everybody else is going. I don't understand why I can't get that. I don't understand why in their minds, they can't put that together.
Speaker 2:We have a like what I say is be brilliant at the basics, like that's a motto of ours, that both companies just be brilliant at the basics, that's all it's like, so simple there's so many businesses like that.
Speaker 1:They're mature markets. You don't have to convince anybody that they need it. They know they want their house or their building or whatever. Right. It's not like I got to go convince them to go build something. They know they need it and yet the providers that are out there are all mediocre or the majority of them are just mediocre. So if you just do basic stuff and do it well, you can be successful. There's just a million businesses like that. I don't care if we're talking about restaurants or lawn services or car repair or whatever. It just translates to the same thing. And then there are people like yourself. We're intelligent people. They're motivated. They're not going to just shut down at five o'clock I'm sure you don't Um and you know or the weekend, because shit comes up right. I mean it's you know and and and. Then you go out there and you just do well, because you do these things that other people are not doing.
Speaker 3:Because you do these things that other people are not doing. I had a tree or a yeah, I guess a tree trimming company come out Best contractor I ever met in my life. Dude, I mean just did awesome and I had so much other work and he just never would call me back. I'm like bro, why I?
Speaker 1:got the tree guy for you when you need him next time. Bud, okay, yeah fantastic.
Speaker 3:good, yeah, I'm not a holler at you, but I mean I'm just like, why do people let it die on the phone like that? Well, it's like why I mean like, like, can you, can you like being in the business? Can you express the psychology that's going on with folks that would do something like that, like on some of these contractors? I wish I knew I wish I knew.
Speaker 2:I wish I knew. I know it's like I don't understand it. I don't understand it and because that's how we operate both that's how we operate all of our businesses is we have a rule with communication. It's like there's F9. I've told you the origin story of it previously but, like then, there's nine principles that we made up for. Number four is communication. So our staff in both companies is trained to.
Speaker 2:You got to get back. When we get an inquiry, a question, whatever, you got to get back to that person internal, external within one hour and it could be as simple as got it. I'm looking into it, Thank you. Make them feel as if they're the number one client. You can go, look at our Google business reviews and they literally say that they're like I know we weren't there Smallest clients, like small job, a couple thousand dollars, you know, for architecture or something like that, Just simple stuff, and they'll leave us a five-star review because they know we have huge clients and they go.
Speaker 2:But they made me feel like number one and then if they can't get back to them with a detailed answer, that's fine. I'm 24 hours but that's it, and I don't know how many times I've picked up a phone in the past 15 years where I go, F9 Productions, Lance speaking oh, you're like the 10th architect I've tried to get a hold of and I'm like cool, Like thank you, other architects for being so crappy at your job. So I don't understand. On even the white collar side, Eric, I wish I did yeah.
Speaker 1:It's nuts, man, it is nuts. There's just no magic to this stuff. You know, I teach entrepreneurship here. I've been doing it for 20 years. I also taught in the school of architecture for a couple years. Lance, a class called everything they don't usually teach you at architectural school. Oh cool, that was the fifth year students and uh but like a pro practice.
Speaker 2:Like a pro practice kind of, yeah, except it was even more than pro practice.
Speaker 1:I mean the pro practice. They just focus on the B one, 41, nine or whatever the hell the architectural contract was, and more about liability and stuff. I would take them out in the field and say, okay, here's a carpenter, ask this guy what the problem is with the plans that you guys prepare. Okay, and so they'd tell them. Or you know, bring in architects who make $15 million a year to talk to him, because their professors are like you can't make any money in this business and you got to take a vow of poverty. And you know, yeah, and if you're not breaking new ground, doing something that's never been done before, you've failed. Yeah, like it's totally bad programming terrible.
Speaker 2:I agree, mark, I gotta. I really want to have you on our show then to do an episode of that. That would be fantastic.
Speaker 1:I would love to hear that but it's great, I'd love to do it. But anyway, I was just gonna say I always say to my entrepreneurship students it's just not that hard to be successful if you just have some common sense and you do the work. That it takes, you know. Just do the work, be responsive, do what you say you're going to do, follow up, you know a big thing to you.
Speaker 3:Here's what I would add to that. Like, I agree a hundred percent work ethic, but value other people's money yeah, that's. That's another thing that we did, especially in the yeah that's another thing Treat it like it's your own, especially in the construction industry. It's like is my money? I mean like I literally feel like is this $100 that I'm giving you is not the same type of $100 that you get? I mean, don't you need, don't you want this $100 bill? Is it not value to? Can you not use this thing Because, like it?
Speaker 4:feels like I'm just taking and just trashing it, man.
Speaker 3:I mean like cause, if I get a business, you know, if I get a hundred bucks, it's a. I mean dude, I'm like man, this is thank you, you know.
Speaker 2:I appreciate this money and what I'm doing. Yeah, mark was asking is like how is how? Is then like us being builders also then round sort of had a feedback loop into the architecture firm with costs and stuff, right, yes, so that's you, eric. You actually answered it for me, eric, which was then now we're conscious of people's money as it applies to design, right. So a really good example lately is, uh, these little tenant finishes.
Speaker 2:Right now the market for us is, uh, for building and even architecture is like there's still people in the commercial sector doing a lot of work. Little businesses are still starting up. Uh, you know, the 10, the thousandth is 2 000 square foot um, they're going to start up a dog doggy daycare or something like that. There's still a lot of that going on. The multifamily is completely dead.
Speaker 2:But one of the big factors is like cost factors right away is what's going to be the most cost effective way to frame this in the inside? And it's like steel, studs or wood and we're back to wood and that has been a big piece lately on these tenant finishes that I'm going after on the construction side that we've designed is like and then the interest rates are very high still. So we're having people really, really having to shave things off and it's like, can we still? Can we frame this with wood instead of steel and still work with code and all the other good stuff? And I try to bring those lessons right back into the firm, the architecture firm, from the field all the time and have a feedback loop constant feedback loop that is so critical.
Speaker 1:I mean I just what you were just saying about tenant build outs. I mean I'll never forget. So years ago I had a friend and I lived in the boston area and he broke away from Skidmore SOM he was a senior associate there, you know brand name architecture firm and started his own firm that did tenant buildouts for commercial clients. That's all they did is tenant buildouts, office work office and maybe a little retail, Anyway. So we have a new 10,000 square foot office we were doing and it didn't need much.
Speaker 1:Okay, we said our budget was 200 grand to do this job because that was the deal we negotiated with the landlord for him to put 200 K into it. And it comes back with this design and we get the contractor that the developer owner worked with and it comes in. The price is $440,000. Like, how can you miss it by that much? Okay, $200,000 or $440,000? Because you have no sense of what the ceiling is going to cost. All right, Just nothing. You have no sense of what the electrical is going to cost here. In any case, we went directly to the contractor and my business partner, Fred White, who was just an intelligent guy, just value engineered it, got the whole thing done for 180 grand. I mean, you know, it just was a matter of simple changes here and there that ended up reducing the cost by that much, because he had more common sense about costs and wasn't even that knowledgeable about construction compared to the architect.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know it's, you know one of the. So we use this piece of stuff we're called Revit Architecture. Oh yeah, revit, we use Revit, yeah, and what I do is I, I try to, I try to update it once a year with what things cost so that my, my architects are armed with it. So like, for example, we get this question a lot. It's a well, that's saying, you know, that sounds expensive, or that reaction, rather like that We'll talk about a steel beam and they'll go sure, that sounds expensive. Well, I have, I have the steel beam. Uh, in revit, I have it uh, uh, correlated to a cost per lineal foot, according to the pound poundage, which hasn't really changed too much, especially since, after covid and printing, all the money and everything, we're kind of stabilized.
Speaker 1:well, it's going to go up now, depending on where the steel comes from. Yeah, depending, yep.
Speaker 2:But now my architects can go oh, actually, let me just show you that's what it costs. And they go oh, that's actually not that much. You know stuff like that. We try to just be a little. All it took is a couple little tweaks for us to be totally different than the other architects in colorado yeah, I see so many things that are done.
Speaker 1:I just wonder what are they smoking? I mean, why does it need this giant cantilever here when we could stick a column right there and make this whole thing cost 200 grand less?
Speaker 3:I don't understand it, but I see it every day I think it's the lack of appreciation of the value of money, like when, when people like if they're wanting, they get a sense that there's money, but they don't ever think about how hard that person probably has worked for that money.
Speaker 1:This house we're doing right now. Eric has a detached garage. It's all connected with covered walkways and stuff Not much, but it's covered and the garage has a cantilever off the back that's like five feet. So when you pull your car in, you got five more feet of cantilevered space. Now what do you do with that? Nothing. It's like two feet off the ground to four feet off the ground. No purpose for it, it's just's just dirt. Okay and it added to the cost. It just makes no sense at all. It was completely dumb. How do you account for stuff like that?
Speaker 3:I think that that's the same stuff that like runs right, but through the software industry, for design industry, you know, like creative design, like folks get too busy and then they're just trying to push things through, push things through. There's not enough check, auditing, qa checking, going on, you know, and it's hard for some people to qa check themselves, which I think has been in existence for a long time like even caught. That's why you have copy editors for newspapers, right, sure you know, and so it's just hard for people to do that. But I mean, I think a business that would put that process in place would save a lot of grief. Because when that's what you're talking about, like when you go to a client with a proposal and you have things that you cannot answer and you're sitting down with money and they're like questioning it but you're like, well, it's just what it costs, you're ruining that relationship.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 3:But if you can go there a little bit and you've done a QA, that meeting goes so much better. If you know why you have the numbers that you do and you can back them up, then things go on. The client's happy, the project moves on, you get the job. I mean, it went.
Speaker 2:It even starts before the proposal lately. For me, anyway, I I'm just like to you know, even though I I we talked about me having a sort of a sour taste at the end of our first development, like the, the silver lining and the caveat that is super positive about it has been like when I get developers that come in for the first time, I'm speaking their language right away. I've been there, yeah, like I haven't even shown them numbers, I haven't even. It's like I'm already their trusted advisor guiding them through this process, even before we present their proposal. I've already won, like I've already got them hook, line and sinker.
Speaker 2:I mean it's just like the ease. It's so dramatically easier, so much more dramatically easier than when we first started and we didn't have that under our belt. Like, especially when they come into our office and I go oh, by the way, we designed, built and developed this, the amount of confidence it gives them at the end of the day is just unbelievable. And that's what they want they, they need it, they want a trusted advisor. It's like, as much as maybe we all probably don't like attorneys like I do love a good attorney. Amen, like you know, like we're invaluable, absolutely. Yep, that's my trusted advisor. I need, I need him to. I need brett to pick up the phone that's my guy yeah, hey guys, I have to run to another.
Speaker 3:Y'all can keep chatting, maybe, no, we're gonna wrap it up here.
Speaker 1:Eric, we've got, we've got to move on. But I mean we could talk with lance here probably all day about this stuff.
Speaker 3:I know you guys could like spend years together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I just think you know. In summary, if I were to summarize this discussion, lance demonstrates what one can do in a very crowded market. Where it's a big market, demand is high. There's a zillion providers out there to differentiate yourself. Okay, he's become more vertically integrated, you know, started as a design firm, then was a contractor, then was a developer. That helps him really be able to better relate to his clients. And he's got his basic principles that you follow, such as respond to everybody in one hour.
Speaker 1:F4 of f9. This is not brain surgery, people. Okay, you can make yourself a damn good business if you operate with some freaking common sense and act like you really care. All right, you don't have to reinvent anything new here, and that's you know. I think if anything's been a message of this podcast over and over, it's you know this common perception of what entrepreneurship is in pop culture. Yeah, it invents something new. Yeah, not necessary. Okay, then you know, go out and test the market as to whether they like it or not. We know they need x. They buy millions and billions of dollars with a bit and then go raise outside equity capital. Okay, you're just one more demonstration of that lance.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks, mark I mean isn't that true? Well, what I do is, I like to say to even my design students is I'm like the wheel was only invented one time. That's it. Quit pretending like you got to invent the wheel again. Just modify the wheel, that's it. All you got to do is tweak the wheel, make it run better, that's done.
Speaker 1:Just just make the damn thing and make sure it freaking, it doesn't break you know that's a common uh failing of architectural education right there, yeah, but that's like a subject for a completely different podcast. Yeah, on why they are not equipped to go out into the business world and practice as professionals and actually make a living. So, all right, well, this has been a lot of fun. Lance, we wish you the best. If somebody wants to reach out to you, what is your contact information?
Speaker 2:Yeah, just go to LinkedIn. I'm the only one that's with this name spelled L-A-N-C-E. Last name Psycho C-A-Y-K-O. You can also sign up with our newsletter at f9productionscom and please check out our podcast inside the firm podcastcom.
Speaker 1:And where is that available to view? Oh YouTube.
Speaker 2:You can see all platforms.
Speaker 1:YouTube, itunes, spotify all the good stuff Sounds great, all right, well, lance, we appreciate your time today and wish you very much success, continued success in your future endeavors.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. Thanks, guys Appreciate you. Thank you, lance, good to meet you more.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Lance, Until next time. This has been another episode of that Big Talk. Talk about Small Business Business. Thank you.
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