Blue Collar Business Podcast
Welcome to the Blue Collar Business Podcast with Sy Kirby. Dive deep into the world of hands-on entrepreneurship and the gritty side of making things happen. Join us for actionable tips on scaling your blue-collar business, managing teams, and staying ahead in an ever-evolving market. We'll also discuss the latest industry trends and innovations that could impact your bottom line. If you're passionate about the blue-collar world and eager to learn from those who've thrived in it, this podcast is a must-listen. Stay tuned for engaging conversations and real-world advice that can take your blue-collar business to new heights.
Blue Collar Business Podcast
Ep. 11 - Act Like a Boss: How to Transition from Worker to Owner
Unlock the secrets to building a resilient blue-collar business as I, Sy Kirby, chat with Nick Peters, an authority in construction insurance and bonding with over 30 years of experience. This episode promises insights that could transform your approach to entrepreneurship, particularly in industries like excavation, utilities, HVAC, or electrical contracting. Learn from Nick's extensive knowledge about the vital role of effective communication among your business's backbone—accountants, lawyers, and insurance agents—and how these relationships can prevent costly mistakes and bolster your business's foundation.
Explore the raw and unfiltered journey of entrepreneurship, where perseverance and learning from failures are your greatest allies. Through our conversation, Nick and I shed light on the importance of humility and the power of mentorship, emphasizing that the road to success is often paved with challenges. Discover why embracing adversity and viewing education—even the expensive kind—as an invaluable investment can be the catalyst for your business's growth and sustainability.
Join us as we dissect the mechanics of effective leadership and the transition to an ownership mindset. We discuss the critical nature of understanding your business costs and implementing structured processes that empower your team to thrive. From mastering estimating and production accountability to supporting your blue-collar workforce, this episode is packed with actionable strategies that can elevate your business operations and drive long-term success. Don't miss out on Nick's practical advice and the motivational insights offered in this comprehensive discussion.
Sy-Con is a family-owned civil contractor specializing in water, sewer, storm drains, & earthwork.
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Hey guys, welcome to the Blue Collar Business Podcast, where we discuss the realest, rawest, most relevant stories and strategies behind building every corner of a blue collar business. I'm your host, cy Kirby, and I want to help you in what it took me trial and error and a whole lot of money to learn the information that no one in this industry is willing to share. Whether you're under that shade tree or have your hard hat on, let's expand your toolbox, guys. Welcome back. Thank you so much. I have been waiting for this one.
Speaker 1:I feel like I say that every time, but, um, truly, uh, gentlemen that I'm very, very appreciative for um to come into my life me and sarah's life. Uh, just not business wise, but personally as well. Uh, he's my bonding and insurance guy, um, but comes with a wealth of knowledge in business and in general contracting as well, and I'd love to introduce him here, nick Nick Peters. He's a partner at Sterling Seacrest Perichard. We're going to be talking about some interesting things today that he has a wealth of knowledge on, but furthermore, nick has three freaking decades years worth of experience in the construction industry exactly what we do in the blue collar world, but mainly through the bonding and insurance world. Um nicks, the certified insurance counselor, fully licensed insurance agent, has passed all three levels of the naspbp man, that's a mouthful national association of shirty bond producers and the will J Engel Shirty School.
Speaker 1:Is that where you did it? I assume that's it, obviously. And my guy here has got a passion for waterfowl hunting a little bit of personal knowledge about him and myself. We're kind of trying to link up this year and maybe shoot a few ducks and get moose after a few. It will happen. It will happen. I sure hope so. And last but not least, your heart for the Lord. Medical mission trips deep into the jungles of South America and Suriname. That's a little bit of crazy knowledge there, but man furthermore, thank you so much for joining me today, sure Seriously.
Speaker 1:I can't tell you guys how many times we have done exactly what we're fixing to do. For the next 60, 90 minutes I have spent slouched over in my truck in my pickup listening to Nick. Hey, nick, I got this problem and it's not a bonding and insurance problem. Normally yeah, it's relative to that, but don't get me wrong. I have also called Nick and go hey, what happens here If I go this way, if I go that way, what have you seen in your experience? And I can't tell you the amount of times, just his words alone, whether it's what I really wanted to hear or not. Give me a little bit of comfort, because he is.
Speaker 1:I talked to you guys about relationships and those, those important three that accountant, that lawyer, relationships and those important three that accountant, that lawyer and in my world bonding and insurance guy has got to talk to each other. And Nick also kind of taught me that how much easier it is when people speak to each other. But a little last little bit of history of me and Nick I've been talking to you guys about how much restructuring I have been doing in cyclone excavation and utilities and it has been painful, it has had a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of long days, but I couldn't be any more grateful for somebody hitting me in the face and going, hey man, look, it's kind of cool what you got going on and stuff. But if you really want to make some money or you really want to be a successful business and be able to have a very secure place for your employees to come to, here's a couple of strategies we need to rock with, and so, basically, we're going to be talking about the mistakes that lead to failure. Basically, we're going to be talking about the mistakes that lead to failure. Nick has seen a plethora of them, and some of which to me how to act like a business owner. I can't tell you how much he's weighed just into me personally and I hope he helps you guys, especially you excavation contractors, utility contractors geared towards you guys, conservation contractors utility contractors geared towards you guys, but anybody HVAC electricians.
Speaker 1:We're going to be going over generalistic business points and one of the last things I got to say that I cannot wait to get into is common mistakes just from the blue collar man, and entrepreneurship, and maybe not even just entrepreneurship leadership in general. You've helped me with not just me, but also my leadership. So furthermore, brother, sorry to keep you waiting. Oh, one last thing, of course, if you guys love hearing these topics, you can find everything you need and more at bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom you can hit. I think there's roughly 10 episodes by the time this is coming at you guys. Roughly 10 episodes in. We're coming at you guys every Wednesday, so make sure you guys are listening in there. And if you're listening on a streaming platform Spotify, apple, iheart give us a like and follow and give us a good rating on there.
Speaker 2:So, furthermore, mr Nick, thanks for joining me yeah, man, glad to be here, been looking forward to it we've been talking about it for a minute.
Speaker 1:We have we have it's here.
Speaker 2:It's time, so let's jump in. Man. So just a little more background on myself, the. When you're a construction insurance and bonding agent, you know you get to look behind everybody's curtain you know, you do right up the skirt. Oh man, I see it all the good, the bad and the ugly yes, sir and so you do that for enough years.
Speaker 2:You kind of start catching on to some things, and so this isn't something I read in a book. Uh, this is something that I've experienced. I've watched my clients some not around anymore, because at that point in my career I had I had not come up with all of this knowledge or not experienced it enough to share it on the level that I can today.
Speaker 2:So, over those years of watching contractors succeed and fail, you start picking up on what I call best business practices, common threads. You know, you see two guys doing the exact same thing. This guy's killing it, this one isn't. It's got to make you wonder, like what's the difference, man, this guy's killing it? I mean, they're doing almost the same thing, you know. And so, anyway, over those years of just kind of observing that, so that that kind of got me to going. Another thing that that, uh, I thought about was you know, hey, if you go out of business, man, you're not buying insurance or bonds from anybody. So is there something else I can bring to the table that ensures your success? And if, if it's a win, win, win for everybody involved?
Speaker 1:That's, uh, it's. And I want to be transparent with you because on this side of the table, when we first met, dude, it's so weird for my ears to even hear that somebody is wanting to help me outside of getting my money in theirs, getting my money out of my pocket and into theirs. And you guys are so damaged. Trust me, I know you guys are from repetitive salesman, vendors, people that you think you can trust, and then you finally find somebody you can trust. You almost are so damaged walking into the situation when you first walked onto the scene because I was like, dude, you were talking about some crazy stuff, but it was so accurate. I you can compare me to somebody else in town. They're killing it. Why am I struggling? You know so, I know, you've seen it a hundred times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the you know. The other thing that kind of you know I got to thinking about is like who, who in your business life brings you this knowledge? Your, your, your accountant, your accountant, your lawyer, your banker, your pipe salesman, your equipment salesman, your next door neighbor? Maybe you're one of the fortunate ones that had the mentor and you worked under him for so many years and you're very fortunate. Maybe you got it there.
Speaker 1:I didn't have it any other, I didn't have it Any of those sources. Right Up until this point.
Speaker 2:Right and so. So maybe you did have the mentor that said, hey, this is how you lay pipe Right, this is how you do dirt, this is how you lay asphalt, this is how you pour concrete. I get that part, but that's. That's not the business side of, and that's kind of what I want to talk about today. Is your blue collar guys out there that comes to the point in time in their life where, hey, I want to make a change, man, I want to own the business.
Speaker 2:So now we're moving out of blue collar world into white collar world, and so that transition is where problems start, and they happen very often. When I talk about this a lot of times Si, this is what I equate it to is if you're a doctor and it's in flu season in the wintertime, there's a 99% chance that 99% of your patients coming in there are suffering all from the same thing.
Speaker 1:And so when I walk into, a contractor's office after about an hour of conversation, Like you did mine dude.
Speaker 2:He picked me apart, guys, I mean so you's, you're in the majority, not the minority. I mean, it's a very, very common problem in construction. So when guys like yourself say, hey, I'm going to go hang my own shingle, I'm going to start my own business, you know you got to. You don't realize it, but you need to start transitioning your thoughts. You realize it, but you need to start transitioning your thoughts, your intentions, towards white collar things.
Speaker 1:But all you've ever known, your whole life is blue collar. The whole reason behind this podcast is exactly what you just talked about. Right is exactly why I started taking the time and sitting down at a microphone with guys with wealth of knowledge like yourself, because I struggled so hard with that, so so hard with that and to folks listening, don't get down on yourself, because I was down on myself, mr Peters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you was.
Speaker 1:I was beat down. I was burnt out beyond any burnt out. I was burnout beyond any burnout. It was rough, but continue, brother.
Speaker 2:It's not fun, you know, and so, as crazy as this business is, it has to have a little fun every now and then to make it worth it, right Right Outside of profitability. You know, the sanity has its price and you know if you chose the construction profession, you chose next to restaurants. I think the business that's most likely to fail right.
Speaker 2:Right so the more we can do to ensure your chances of success. That's what we want to do. Chances, yeah, that's right. And so it's tough enough as it is out there. That's kind of what led me up to this point was just observing the struggle of my employees or, excuse me, my clients. Once I started thinking about this, I'm like all right, I've got to do something, I've got to elevate myself. There's a little bit of competitor involved in me. I'm out there competing against my competition. So what else can I bring to the table? But speaking to your side of the table, the you know it's. So I took off down the road of education, you know, and so I took what I was observing, what I was seeing. One of my really good friends in the business is a guy named Richard Newland. He owns a firm in Little Rock called Ferguson Cobb Associates CPAs. He's the man. Shout out to Richard Shout out.
Speaker 1:You're coming on here, buddy, you're coming.
Speaker 2:We've got to get you on here, richard. So Richard is very well versed in construction, accounting and just the fights that happen in a contractor's life, and so there's some legal in there, there's best business practice. There's a lot of ingredients baked in this pie, right. And so Richard and I started working together probably 25 years ago, and so he started investing in me and knowledge that only a CPA would know a construction CPA, and so you know, you take all of that, it kind of boils up to what it is today. And so I run into someone like you and I start asking you a few questions and I'm like you know.
Speaker 1:So this old boy's sick.
Speaker 2:Si is suffering from the same symptoms that I see on a very common basis and, by the way, sometimes you can be in business for a while. It's not just the first few years that you may suffer from some of these symptoms, and so what I find sigh is that everyone needs it. Very few want it, and and the reason that that's good, brother, that very few want it is because it's hard. It's freaking hard, bro. It's real hard, real hard, and so it's freaking hard, bro. It's real hard, real hard, and so Si's been getting him a big dose of hard since I've come into his life. That ain't no joke, bud. But on a personal level, though, I like to see that happen.
Speaker 2:I like to see it be hard for you, and the reason that I like that way is because I want to see how much fight you got in there you got to want it, man you got to want it, man, you got to want it, and so if I'm going to invest in you and if I'm going to share with you in what I'm more than happy to do, I want to put it into someone that I know is going to take it and run with it.
Speaker 2:You don't want to waste your time, so there's a little bit of me sizing you up too in this thing, but I could tell right away that sy really, really, really, really needed it and he really really wanted it, and he's he's proven me right with his there's a big difference between that need and I want and hitting on that year goal.
Speaker 1:I guys, I was in business eight and a half years and I was. I doubled my gross every year. Whoop-dee-whoop, that means diddly nothing without nothing. On the bottom, everybody wanted to come into my office and go uh, you're here, you're scary, I need you to get to here. And that was it. Like nobody would say, hey, this is a good path, hey, this is a great. And it, this isn't just year three. I would have loved to learn it in year three. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:But, to your point of sizing me up a little bit. You kind of have to get to the great mentors that are going to help you move in business. They're not going to waste their time either, guys. You have got to have gone through a few things to get to a certain level before you get to that right person You're going to struggle with, trust me. Let's see one, two, three.
Speaker 1:I went through five CPAs before Mr Newland even remotely was like so who are you? Well, I've been in business for eight years. I'm Saucon up here in Northeastern. Okay, how can I help you, you know? And so there was some sizing up there. Now that I was at this level. They didn't have to help me by any means of a long shot, but they chose to help me and I wanted to make that point. And there's a lot of people that sit in the same seat that I was sitting in, nick, that need the help. But there is two totally different groups of people that need the help, which is a majority, but the minority in that situation are the people that want the help and are willing to go through it Right, go ahead.
Speaker 2:You endure a lot when you go through these changes. And I would also just give a little bit of a tidbit to your audience from the standpoint of knowing what wrong looks like is very, very, very valuable.
Speaker 2:So don't underestimate the struggle and the value of it in the first few years, because here's our hope is that you struggle and, uh, at the end of that struggle some five years, some 10 years, somewhere in between that you're able to apply lessons learned to the next 20. And that's really when you make your big bucks. You know, I'm hoping Come on. So unfortunately, sometimes you don't survive those first few years, that's right, so you never get the opportunity to apply lessons learned, you know.
Speaker 1:Expensive in our world.
Speaker 2:You got it right. You're getting a college education, and so a Harvard education.
Speaker 1:Over and over again. I'm going for vet school at this point. Come on.
Speaker 2:Si's trying to run up a sizable education expense. But I would just encourage your listeners to know that don't undervalue the struggle in knowing what wrong looks like.
Speaker 1:Man. That's so spot on, man, because it is a struggle. It's like business owners are. From my experience guys, don't roast me too far here 90% sucks, 8%. It's going okay 2% of the time.
Speaker 1:As an entrepreneur, sitting here on this side of the table, people are looking at PsyCon and going man, wow, ooh-wee, look at this, especially as you push into a marketing campaign, it gets even worse. But really, behind the scenes, what's going on? What are you doing? Are you willing to sit here and talk about hey, I haven't been doing the right things because I didn't freaking know what to do things, because I didn't freaking know what to do. But use what you have.
Speaker 1:Every single year you've been in business is an education lesson. Experience is priceless. Education, I'm sorry, education is expensive, but experience is priceless. Say it time and time again on here. But literally some guys pay for chiropractic school. Some guys just keep on rocking, racking it up and it took me some years to go. Oh, my God, I'm doing this wrong. I know how to do this. Not the right way. Hey guys, I need some help. I've done it up to this point. I've had some success. Nick helped me, you know. And the most common mistakes is I think you've already hit one on the head is that people get so focused on what they're doing wrong. They never even believe that they're ever right and they can't ever stray away from. I'm this person and I need to be. Humbling yourself is what I'm trying to get at. It took a lot of humbling for me.
Speaker 1:It'll break it out of you and humility I had to build within myself and my character, not just as an operations manager, bro, as a freaking leader, as a person. I'm leading this bunch you know what I mean, before we get too far. But well, you know there's two kind of leaders.
Speaker 2:You know, this was always uh. I heard this recently actually, and I thought it was a great visual. You know, you've got the one leader that's behind the pack and he's cracking the wheel hollering and screaming at them. You've got the next leader that's in front of the pack, looking back, going hey, y'all, we're going this way and you need to get on the train.
Speaker 1:I'm just leaving now. Get in your spot or I'll feel it Come on right and so.
Speaker 2:So I think that's a simple way of thinking about being a leader is don't be the guy behind the pack cracking the wheel and and um and doing that. Now you. You touched on a while ago some common mistakes, so let me give you just two that that jump out, jump out hugely to me, and so this is 30 years of experience talking I'm still taking notes, guys guys and it kind of goes into being a good leader is, I would say.
Speaker 2:one of the first things that I recognized right off the bat was and there's a few different ways you can say this, but leaders that have an aversion to confrontation.
Speaker 2:I was one of them in one period of time yesterday and that's a hard thing because you, it doesn't, just because you're the owner doesn't give you the license to you know, be a pecker wood to everybody. But you gotta, you gotta, you gotta bow up sometimes, and I'm talking about. You may have to be this way with your insurance guy, your bonding guy, your banker, your lawyer, Entity engineer, your engineer, the people you're working for, the city, the state, whoever, the municipality, your employees, your suppliers, and so don't be a pushover man Can't. So there's a lot that goes into that, but generally speaking, if you have an aversion to confrontation and you can't overcome, it's going to be tough on you, you're going to struggle.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying you can't do it, but I'm going to put you in the good luck column. You're going to struggle. You're going to struggle a lot, and so there's lots of techniques. There's lots of, and it comes down to a lot of personality too, you know it's just the way, the good Lord made you, you know, and if you're a person that doesn't like confrontation.
Speaker 2:so if you said, hey, nick, if you look back on your 30 years of doing what you do and you deal with nothing but commercial contractors of all shapes, kinds and sizes, what would be the common denominator of failure? And I would put this variable at the very top? And I've had some great dudes. I mean, I'm talking about good Christian guys. Paid their bills wouldn't lie to you if their life depended on it. Paid their bills wouldn't lie to you if their life depended on it. I mean, you couldn't think of or visualize a better person, good moral character, but they couldn't overcome avoiding conflict and so it led to their demise. And so you know so I would just put that out there that that's a big thing.
Speaker 1:The non-confrontation thing. I've got to speak on myself just a little bit to tie that in, because I can't sit here and act like it wasn't me. It was me, but I was just so beat down and burnt out that I had no gumption about me to go. Hey, dude, no, that's not right, it was just lay over and just be a pushover time and time again.
Speaker 1:So maybe you don't start out that way. But that C word, that complacency that you enter after a while of just getting run over, I promise you it's every business owner I don't care what you do, from HVAC to Sparky's, to plumbers, to concrete guys, I do not care you will get burned out as a business owner. And I think if you don't find your personal outlet or find a way to back some of that pressure off of you, the aversion to conflict you're going to keep struggling with. And that's just from my side of the table, what I was struggling with. It's not that I don't have the gumption about me to set my foot down and go hey, dude, you're wrong and this is why. But sometimes you just get burned out.
Speaker 1:But on the other side of the coin, of course, ninety nine point five percent of entrepreneurs don't need to be entrepreneurs. Why do you think and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but it does it comes down to personality. Is that entrepreneur a leader? Is he a businessman? Can he absolutely be the? If you looked at him, you knew for a fact he was the King diddly dick of his trade. Those are the three keys to success. Why is there so many freaking coaching programs out there for electrician entrepreneurs? Now, don't get me wrong. There's some guys that are trying to figure out, and they don't have a Nick, they don't have a new one, they don't. They don't have those people to lean on, and I didn't either for years and years. So I've looked for outlets, but I'm also telling you, there it's not that bad.
Speaker 1:Being the second, the second in command, the right hand man, he usually makes a little bit more money than the CEO, I'm telling you guys. So I just wanted to bring that up as well. Personality wise, I couldn't agree more with you, man, and some of them just ain't got it. And I'm not saying I got it, sir, but I've been blessed with some attributes that I believe carry my success, no doubt, and one of them happens to be one of my largest insecurities of being so close to failure, and I think that pushes me more than anything. So I just wanted to hop on that train real quick. No, no.
Speaker 2:As I stated, there's lots of ways of saying this and so avoiding conflict doesn't, and so that ties into the accountability piece. Right, because you're calling somebody out which is more than likely going to lead to a conflict, so very uncomfortable with that. The second piece I would say is that internal accounting and it'll wreck you, man. Just punch me in the gut bud. Right right, and I really like talking about this part and shout out to Richard again what he's taught us on this.
Speaker 2:But so you know, when you start off as a contractor and and you're the blue collar guy, you go, hey, I'm gonna hang my own shingle. Then you go and you got one employee, and you got two employees, you got three employees, and then you know it's kind of getting going and now you drag the wife into it. So the wife was perfectly fine cutting hair in her life at the. You know she had always wanted to be a beautician and, um, this is one of my other clients this is a true story on. And so he drags her out of the beauty parlor and puts her in a chair and guess how many construction companies she's been involved in in her life?
Speaker 2:not zero, not a few bud you know how many paychecks she's written, you know how many estimates she's turned in, you know how many tax forms she's filed? The answer would be zero. So not only do you have the husband, you know the ringleader trying to make the transition from blue-collar guy into something more white-collar. As the owner of a construction business, you're bringing the wife in now. Yeah, you know, that's a whole other diamond. We'll save that for another show. But my point here is internal accounting and being able to break down a bid and knowing that there's more involved than just direct cost for material and labor. There's things that we like to call indirect costs and there's overhead and contingencies.
Speaker 1:Labor burden.
Speaker 2:Labor burden, there's all these little nuances that when you start counting your bucks up at the end of the job, you didn't make near as much money as you thought you were. You're trying to figure out why. More than likely, you're probably not trying to figure out why. What I observe is you're so busy, you're on to the next one and man and you ain't got time to worry about it, and so you know that's not a good position to be in, and so when you start, out as a terrible position and so when you start out as a guy and there's two or three of you and you only got one or two jobs going, si, you bid the job, you're on the job every day, so you bid it, you're eyeballing production.
Speaker 2:There's no way that, most likely, that could get away from you, unless you just missed the estimate.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so so boots on site management is what we call that, and that's an efficient way of doing it up to a certain level of volume. You know you get started getting north of 45 million. You physically can't be on every job every day.
Speaker 2:So you don't know if it's being built the way that you bid it, and so there has to become another layer to this onion, if you will, of how you manage that company. And I'm not trying to accelerate too quick, I'm trying to keep this conversation somewhere between year one and year five of your life. You know yours was one to nine. So those would be the two common failures. We could probably make three podcasts out of in construction accounting.
Speaker 1:I sure hope you come back, brother.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can do that. That's a deeper dive. But, just to stand on a higher level today is uh, those are the two common traits. There is just poor internal accounting. Didn't know where you were at, you thought you were making money, you wouldn't, and um, and then the accountability, or confrontational piece, so that in my 30 years I would say those are the two leading factors to failure.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent, and I'm so surprised you didn't say these three words. They were been beat into my brain and from that discussion straight up. Take the guys running two crews. I've been there myself. He needs material, this one needs a machine. This one needs to locate that one needs this form, this one needs a safety, this one needs that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah the three words that line up with inside accounting that transformed Saigon, excavation and utilities.
Speaker 1:Know your cost. Amen, oh my God. Plaster it on everything. Embed it in emails, embed it in text messages, embed it to to your foreman, embed it to superintendents, to the guys Make sure everyone knows the costs.
Speaker 1:Like, why are you hiding this information? Number one is it because you don't know your cost? Yes, that was this guy. I didn't want to share what I was doing because I was that guy. I bid the job. We're out here doing a job. We're going to make some money, cool.
Speaker 1:But I wasn't making nothing. I was mainly running behind a lot of times and until I even freaking knew my cost of what I'm putting out. How was I ever going to figure out on the back end of production? How was I ever going to figure out on the back end of production, figuring out exactly what to compare that cost to Like. Is it $17? Is it $100,000? I mean you don't know, because I didn't, I dang sure didn't, but know your cost.
Speaker 1:When I mean know your cost, I mean you better know that 4.23 freaking gallons an hour gets burnt in a PC 360 if it's going to be on your job site. You better know what hours it's at, how far you're at from a 2,500 hour service, 5,000 hour service, overhaul, whatever. That better be worked into your overhead percentage Labor burden. Listen to me guys. Listen to me please. For the love of God, if you're not going to listen to me on anything else, build in labor burden into your labor cost.
Speaker 1:Nick taught me what Nick and Mr Newland, the government likes about six or seven different taxes. At this point I'm not going to go off too far there. But if you don't build in for those taxes and you don't build in for what your labor's out there they're costing you per hour for Uncle Sam, for whatever they're costing you money. So if you don't know that cost past your labor, that labor only is not going to pay for the cost of those human beings doing the job during, even if you slotted three weeks in the estimate and you have three weeks of freaking time and you just bill 50, 50 an hour for your super, $25 an hour for your operators and you think you're making money.
Speaker 2:Just to give them a real quick glance on that most labor burdens run between 30% to 50%. So if you got $10,000 in labor on a job. You better be adding somewhere between another $3,000 to $5,000. And that don't sound like much on one job. But how many $10,000 labor jobs you got in a year? And let's add that up, so it's a big number.
Speaker 1:And Uncle Sam he wants paid.
Speaker 2:That's right, and so here's kind of a cool story on how the know your cost thing come about other than it just being a good knowledge point. So Peter Kiewit is probably the largest contracting firm on the globe Yep and Kiewit does a lot of work in Arkansas.
Speaker 2:And once upon a time they did a job widening the Main Street Bridge downtown Little Rock over the Arkansas River. They were adding a trolley tracks to an existing bridge. So it was a widening project of an existing bridge. So typical signs you would normally see as you approach a construction site all the orange signs, slow down, minute work. You know there are all these signs out there, right in the very middle of this project is another orange sign with a triangle on it or diamond shape, just like you would normally see, and it said Know your Cost. And I was like that's a weird sign to have in the middle of a construction project. So it just so happens that the central United States manager for Kiewit was next door neighbors to one of my best friends.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:He has birthday parties. I'd see him over there. So I ran into him there at a party one day and I said hey, man, what's up with that sign out there he goes. Oh, you like my sign?
Speaker 1:huh, I was like I don't know, I don't even know what it means.
Speaker 2:He said I'll tell you what it means.
Speaker 1:And so, boy, he changed the octaves about.
Speaker 2:You know you can know your cost means we poured, and he gave me this manhole thing as an example. He said we poured a million manholes at least probably 10 times that in our life. Trust us, we know how much it takes to bid a manhole. So I'm just going to use 25 hours 25 hours per manhole. There's 30 manholes to do on this job. He assigns Nick and Cy to do the manhole. There's 30 manholes to do on this job. He assigns Nick and Cy to do the manholes. It's taken Nick and Cy 10 hours more, maybe 15 hours more per manhole to do it Right. So, as the owner or the project manager, you got 30 manholes going, your two man crews going over 10, 15 hours per manhole. At what point did you figure that out?
Speaker 1:Manhole number one manhole number five.
Speaker 2:Manhole number 10.
Speaker 1:All of them, all of them. End of job A week after job is over Never I'm going to go with never, you're not wrong.
Speaker 2:So why Kiewit makes that such a big point is they want the lowest man on the totem pole, they want know your costs be into his brain. Because they want them to understand the concept that when it is Nick and Cy and we're in the bottom of the manhole forums doing the hard labor, that we have some understanding of know your cost. Now we don't tell them anything about the profits. Profits are nobody's business but the owner, nobody's business but yours. But cost should always be shared Absolutely. And uh, so that was my um, that was how I learned. You know what really struck home with me. And so to this day you can, in my conference room and my office back in Little Rock, we have a know your cost sign framed, and I preach that to all of my clients, as does Richard Newland. And so that's a little bit deeper dive on the cost side of it.
Speaker 2:But we can circle back to a lot deeper. Dive on on uh, on on um, on know your cost, but that's just, that's the genesis of of it. And man, that just took me off down the road and I can give you 10 other, you know that's a labor example I'll give you one other quick and real quick we'll move on is um.
Speaker 2:So I met a contractor like yourself, been in business 20 years. The day I met them, I looked at their financial statement. They were worth 200 grand and I'm thinking y'all been in business for 20 years. Your company's only worked. Oh God, what have y'all been doing? And so, anyway, I got in there, jumped in them, started investing in them, just like I did you. And so fast forward three, four years down the road they've adopted a lot of the things that we want them to do to change accounting, blah, blah, blah. And so they had a job where the gravel kept going over on the pipe and I think there was 10,000 foot, 18 inch pipe and the specs wouldn't allow you to backfill what come out of the trench.
Speaker 2:And so SB2, you know was a big part of it. And so they started looking at all the reports coming back into the office from the field and they're going what in the hell is our gravel always running over on this job? So finally I get the sigh of the operation. I get him to get out of it. All he wanted to do was run the track code.
Speaker 1:By the way, so all you blue collar guys out there, listen up.
Speaker 2:This other side that I'm talking about was a textbook case of a guy that was an owner of a construction company which is going to tire our next point in a minute that I could not get him out of the track code. All he wanted to do was run the track cove and I'm like bro, you're the owner of the company Owners of companies Now if you're the only employee, I get it.
Speaker 1:But at this point, in this guy's life.
Speaker 2:he's got 20 employees, so best use of his time is out checking on his jobs. Anyway, I finally get him out of the track cove. He goes and checks on the job, Would you One? We had laid 5,000 foot of pipe with gravel. That went way over.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can tell you because of that experience. But that'd be too big of a bucket there, sir.
Speaker 2:Well, that's all it was.
Speaker 1:There was nothing else.
Speaker 2:It was a 36-inch wide bucket and it should have been an 18. The pipe diameter is a little smaller than previously stated, but that was literally the problem, so you know. So that's kind of that's why knowing your cost is such a good thing to know, and getting that cost from the field back into the office. And as you grow bigger. That's another subject for another day, but so let's jump ahead. One thing I touched on there about acting like an owner You're an owner act like one right.
Speaker 2:And so I see, and this guy here was a textbook case man he could run a track hoe he could carve his name in the dirt and cursive. I mean, you know, he would not spill one drop, he would not bang one board on top of a track.
Speaker 2:So I mean he was the best track co-operator ever. You probably know a guy like that I do but I could not get him out of the truck, and so I needed him in the truck running around checking on the jobs, and so, anyway, what I would challenge your listeners with is, if you're going to be a freaking owner, act like one, bro Buddy. Act like one, it's hard.
Speaker 1:So can I tell a story on your side, please?
Speaker 2:So it's kind of funny that it's all worked out this way, you know. So Si, as y'all well know, has this podcast and he's all about social media and all this crap. And I'm a little old school and I'm not into all that. And so as I'm a little old school and I'm not into all that, and so as I'm getting to know Si and Si goes yeah, man, hey, I'm doing content and all this, I'm like, all right, let me check this guy out, you know. And so what do I see? All I see is Si running around videoing himself, driving the low boy, loading the machine up, going to the job site, delivering the machine, honking, with everybody in the cab at the horn. We drove by having a big old time, that's right.
Speaker 2:Now I'm not saying that he didn't enjoy that, but the whole time that I'm observing, si, the only thing in my brain I'm thinking is bro, you're an owner, why are you driving the low boy?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that one really hit home with me.
Speaker 2:Why.
Speaker 1:When you looked at me and you were like, you want to get paid $25 an hour. That. When you looked at me and you were like, why you want to get paid 25 bucks an hour? That's 25 an hour job. Find somebody quickly. You need your, you need to get your ass out of the truck.
Speaker 2:Now you need to be dealing with 300 an hour problems, not 20 an hour problems. Now freaking.
Speaker 1:Next time I got in that truck, all I could sit there. I had zero enjoyment because I was sitting there thinking, okay, he's so right, oh my god. And now we have Mr Jim and he runs three days a week but continue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so so that is a. I guess that's a. Maybe a third thing I should say is we spoke about, you know, avoiding conflict and not knowing your costs, but maybe a third thing, is acting like an owner, and so so and I get it man that all you've ever known is hard work, man, You've been the blue collar guy. You've been that guy your whole life.
Speaker 2:And now you're supposed to just snap fingers and change, like, hey, it's a new day, I'm a new guy, right, so it's not easily done. I think the purpose of you having me on the podcast today is just to bring attention to it, so that you hear someone going, hey man, these are things you need to think about. And I mean you may not be doing it today, but you need to be doing it. And so get out of the track, go, get out of the low boy and get in your pickup truck and drive around to your jobs, where the money's being made and lost, and observe.
Speaker 1:Everything, everything, everything Get down there and everything I mean I've been in and out of ditches more. I literally at this the only reason I'm at a job finishing a job on a track. I've been on a track and I can't tell you how long it took me. A minute, guys. I ain't gonna lie to you. But before I came to this podcast, in the studio I have got a job that is running over on labor and I mean it is plumb way too far over on labor.
Speaker 1:Owner keeps changing things. Every time I send somebody out there it's a big nightmare and I need them elsewhere. So I am running hitting all my jobs making sure it's good, but I am also hey, you're not going to change this up, I'm doing this. The rest of the way it's okay.
Speaker 1:There is times if you own a bunch of track coats, you're not going to get it on a track coat, but it should not be on billable time or where you can basically input somebody that you should be able to train within your systems that you have displayed in your company. And if you can't, that's where you should be working on on your processes and procedures so you can implant and 10X every single crew doing it the Saigon way or the blank way and not the other company's way. Oh, not the. This is how we did it 10 years ago. Oh, this, this, this. No, this is how we do it. Here's our processes and procedures and I have spent hours writing this do this or, or go, and that way, when you're in that track and you're working with your guys all day, you think you think you're saving yourself money. You're costing yourself money more than you ever realize.
Speaker 1:Until you listen and go, maybe they're on to some maybe these guys on this podcast you got something going on because, man, I wish I'd have listened more and I think I know the gentleman you're speaking of and he, honestly, he's been a client of, uh, these two gentlemen for a long time as well. Um well, either way, um, long story short, told me he said you buy into the system and don't wait. He said I waited around, I waited around six, 12 months, and shout out to Mr Newland again, told me exactly where I was going to be. And, by God, that gentleman told me he said you don't wait, you go and go as hard as you can. Problems are going to come at you worse than you ever have, and you better be ready to face it and figure it out and keep moving, because on the other side of it you will get there.
Speaker 1:But acting like an owner man is so tough Back to what I was saying earlier you're so beat down and just distraught in your own brain you can't view you like everybody else is viewing you and you're you're struggling just to oh it's, either I've got this insecurity, so I'm going to show pride, or it's I'm so burnt down. I really don't care, and I've been on both sides of that coin and there is a middle ground that you can find and I promise you you will if you literally put it in the forefront of your mind. Why am I running these guys today when I have three foremen on my crew? Why am I doing this? Is it because scheduling? Is it because it's never? Because Let me just get this through your head right now Sales, do not slow your sales down.
Speaker 1:Owners, processes and procedures allow you to keep selling work. More processes and procedures you have best practices. Business practices are great. That's one thing, but past that, you implement those best business practices into your SOPs of standard operating procedure of whatever company you're dealing with. This is how we do it. And if they read that packet, we call them here at PsyCon and shout out to Eric Howerton.
Speaker 1:Actually, another mentor of mine grabbed me by the freaking shirt collar. He said you not tomorrow, today you make an hour, a freaking day, and start writing this crap down. Man, you're never going to get anywhere if everything is right here. So I just wanted to throw that at you guys. You may be thinking it's a trap of getting work working in the business and it's so hard to delineate the line of, hey, I'm working in the business or I'm working on the business and I understand you guys that are sitting there going. Oh man, you don't understand. You know I'm dealing with all these contractors and all the guys and all this crap during the day. How do I have time to even think about knowing quote my cost.
Speaker 2:Like I've been there, guys, I have you did sign up for 80 to 100 hour a week job. Just by the way, I'm just going to put that out there, please.
Speaker 1:I wish you would, because it's been. I screw this word every time and they love making fun of me for it, but it's been glamorified, over-glamorified, glamorified, whatever the word is. Canadian, give me a break.
Speaker 1:Basically, entrepreneurship, like we mentioned mentioned earlier, isn't for everybody and it's hard it's so it's hard to do it right, it's hard it's so easy to run out there and make you look like you something and got a bunch of trucks, a bunch of crap, bunch of payments and a bunch of debt and and then a couple of years go by and you're like man, I ain't made no money. I'm broke every freaking week. I ain't never got no money and no accounts. I'm always trying to freak out about payroll or pay. You know, if you pay weekly, you're freaking out about that. Oh, here comes the end of month. Now we got vendors to worry about. Oh, what about the tax man? Oh, oh, oh.
Speaker 1:And it's all this constant pressure on you of working on the business. Discipline is the number one thing that's going to help you move out of where you're at right now. Nobody's coming to rescue you boys, girls, nobody's coming to save the day. You got to do it. You got to freaking want it. You got to want to not feel like that anymore. And the other thing I would say, guys, the good old, good Lord man above I would be nowhere in the last year and a half without him. Because just find an outlet. I'm not trying to push any way there, but find an outlet for your peace is all I'm saying, saying so you can focus, because come Monday all them people are showing up that you paying, that are supposed to just be taking care of everything. They're waiting on you to take these steps, they're waiting on you to be the leader. They have been waiting and half of them know you're capable of doing and they don't understand why you're not doing it because they're not in your head.
Speaker 1:So I just wanted to share a little bit there on owner act like one, um, and it actually slides in. You'd wonder why I'm wearing a hoodie today, because I don't know if you guys can tell. But psychonexccom slash merge, go pick you upa graveyard shift psychon excavation hoodie, shameless plug. They're getting ready for Halloween, coming up in a few short weeks and check us out there. And if you guys have been loving this talk because I promise you I have it's been so enlightening and it's actually been a little bit of fun to be six, eight months into this, to be a little bit more up to speed about what's going on, but please check out bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom, subscribe to that newsletter down in the bottom right-hand corner and you guys can check out the various topics we have discussed on this channel.
Speaker 1:So I appreciate you. But furthermore, the question of the day oh boy, here we go, here we go and we've kind of been all over it, right, but not more or less just down to you know these two things, the common mistakes you have seen over the years, dude, just easy mistakes, not just the 18 inch bucket, 36 inch sitting here, it's simple like why didn't you get that right?
Speaker 1:and save yourself tens of thousands of dollars. But, man, you have seen myself. You have seen a lot of contractors in 30 years. And I also want to add, before we go off in common mistakes no, no, no, I'm not. But, nick, I'm gonna let you take over. I'm sorry, I wanted to go off.
Speaker 2:You know we've kind of touched on a lot of them. You know we've talked about the, the we've kind of touched on a lot of them. You know the we talked about the. You know holding people accountable uh, we've talked about, uh, internal accounting. Uh, we talked about um, you're an owner at like one um, and so it still stings. Yeah, yeah, that that one normally does. Yeah, that one that usually gets them um, you know it's because you got to remember, man, you're in the construction business and there's no harder business out there, I think, to succeed in, because there's so many factors you can't control and so it's tough, man, and it's hard and it's easy not to do it right.
Speaker 1:It's really easy. That used to sting me so hard like 12 months ago too, when you say that man. Because I'm like man this is what I'm doing right now. Ain't easy, Nick.
Speaker 2:It ain't easy keeping this alive.
Speaker 1:And you're staring at Nick and you're like, don't sit there and tell me that.
Speaker 2:But I'm telling you guys, it is real easy, so let me throw out one more layer to this onion and maybe it'll be a little bit of a cliffhanger to the next episode.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'd love that he's coming back.
Speaker 2:You heard him Kick it up a notch here. So one of the things that you know, si is a few months now into the program, as we call it, and so I've been on him about his estimating oh man, and so some I've been on him about his estimating oh man. One of the things that we like to put out there is estimating reliability, production accountability.
Speaker 1:That's right and it works.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a little thing I come up with because I think that's really where the rubber meets the road, and so, if you take all these things that we've talked about up to this point, we touched a little bit on labor burden, we touched on the accountability piece, act like an owner, so it all has kind of been building up to this thing here that we call production accountability, estimating, reliability, and when you said work in your business, not on your business, or vice versa, you were talking about developing your SOPs. Yep, and why that is so critical is because it feeds into the estimating piece of your business, which is extremely critical. So if you have three crews and crew A is doing it different from B and B doing it different from C, and you happen to have somewhat mastered your ability to get costs captured in the field into the office and into a spreadsheet in a timely manner.
Speaker 1:I think that's our next episode is talking about how to get documentation from field office.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a biggie. It's very easy to say Sorry to interrupt there.
Speaker 1:It's hard to execute.
Speaker 2:Yes, so we're looking at these spreadsheets and we're trying to determine profitability of work. How are we getting a constant baseline if everyone is doing it different? Right, it is giving you mass chaos. You can't manage mass chaos. You can try. You can try.
Speaker 1:I'll get me a six-pack and a lawn chair and sit back and watch for a little entertainment, but um, it's not going to end well no uh, because I, I've, I can, I can tell you it's not.
Speaker 2:I've witnessed it, it. And so I would stress to your audience out there that maybe you have made it into, you're busting $5 million and you're getting a little bit north of that. Maybe that's the point in life you are, forget how many years. Let's just say volume. That's where you're at. You've got to focus on this space. You can't figure this out at 20 million.
Speaker 1:You don't want to go to 20 and go you know what.
Speaker 2:I remember that guy talking about that that day.
Speaker 2:That was a great idea imagine, because the chaos at 20 million versus the chaos at 5 million in in you you're trying to manage it. That's a bad idea. So I would beg your audience to do the hard thing and develop SOPs, because think about it, cy, let's say that we start getting decent data, accurate data from the field in terms of knowing our cost. That's right. And so we've got estimated cost and now our costs are known. It's happened. So we lay known down beside estimated and we're looking at it and we're doing okay. So obviously you got a problem. The job did not come in on budget. Would you please tell me was it in a estimating problem or a production problem?
Speaker 1:mm-hmm, now there's not many other possibilities that exist.
Speaker 2:It's one of those two. So how do you know, as an owner, if you're going to address the issue? You got a bad estimator. You got a bad pusher in the field. You got both.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:But if you don't have good SOPs, there's no way you will ever be able to come up with reliable estimating and production accountability.
Speaker 1:You can't.
Speaker 2:Because you can't go to your guy in the field and lay the data down in front of him and go bro, what are you doing? That's right, I mean, it has to be accurate, it has to be timely. What are you doing, man? Are you going to your estimator and you're going? Who thought it was a good idea to bid that at 20 or 200 foot a day? Did you not look at the tech report, geotech report? Yep, dude, if we get two joints a pipe a day, we're doing good, that's right.
Speaker 2:Who come up with that idea? You know, and so we had to sell the job. You know. So. So you know, one of the hard parts about knowing your cost is knowing your production rate. You know you can get your supplier to give you the takeoff for the amount of pipe and fittings and hydrants and manholes. You know we can come up with pretty damn close to the amount of material we're going to have to put back in the trench. But how many foot of pipe can you lay a day? That's right.
Speaker 2:And uh, and when you're bidding these jobs, let's get another layer going here. You're bidding these jobs, which is your ace superintendent gonna be on this job. Your next best, your next best. So how you bidding a job to account for that? So I don't want to get too far off on that man, because we could spend days talking about that, but keeping it on the level where we want it to be today, working on your business and working in your business, is a huge thing. So I would let me put it another way, cy, why is the guy that can't start the low boy calling you in the morning, telling you about the problem? Why, why? And so one of the answers that you, that I can tell you, the answer to that is you don't have good structure in your company.
Speaker 2:That's correct your employees do not know who they report to. That's right now I get it.
Speaker 2:They all started out with you. It's the first four guys you ever had. Y'all know each other like brothers. You work day and night. You were there together all the way through it, but now you're up to 15 or 20 guys. You've added new guys in, that's right, and so you can't really talk to those original four guys all day, every day, like you always did. That's right. So they have to understand that things are changing at Saigon and you're growing and you can't manage it the way that you used to so you can't manage it the way that you used to so you can't.
Speaker 2:As you, as a leader, you have to sit down with everyone and explain, especially those that have been with you the longest, so they don't get their feelings hurt, because when you stop answering their phone, they're going to be like you know what that's. Si, he's even got too big for his bridges.
Speaker 1:He won't answer my call. No more, that's right, and he's going to steal something from you.
Speaker 2:That's right. Maybe it's time, maybe it's fuel, I don't know but there will be paybacks.
Speaker 1:Resentment builds quickly.
Speaker 2:Resentment builds quickly, so it's very important that you have a corporate structure out there, and we can talk about that another day. But SOPs, man, I'm glad you said that a while ago, because there's no way you'll ever get to the point of production accountability and estimating reliability without those it's impossible.
Speaker 1:So and the but I would say that's that's, you know, some of the common mistakes.
Speaker 2:That would probably be another layer to it. Now, if I've left out something you want me to talk about bring it up, but those are really the ones, that I mean we can do some really deeper dives on honestly everything we talked about today, but you've taught me and it was so.
Speaker 1:I remember sitting there in my office discussing and you put your little fingers up at me estimation production, it's your only two problems. And I'm like, oh well, I got the best dang guys. And I literally said this to nick I got the best dang crew out there. And nick goes okay, go out there and prove it. And I called nick within 48 hours and I go oh my god, it is so much further than I thought it was backwards and back to where nick was talking about earlier on in our conversation that he now, with the experience he has, gets to walk into these new contractors as the doctor and finding out what the symptoms are and what the sickness is and to be able to even get them on the right track. But no, 100% dude production accountability has changed me. 100% dude production accountability has changed me.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about another scenario of the overworked estimator and the underworked production manager, and those two can cause you a lot of trouble. And those two I don't care if you're running $100 million worth of work, $5 million worth of work those two departments have got to talk. Beginning of the job, end of job. It shouldn't be Weekly. Exactly that's where I was going with. That is where we have leadership meetings at Icon and we bring all departments together, we discuss where estimators are at off of the scheduling of the production, and it happens right now. The production manager happens to be me currently and I'm actually kind of enjoying it. Just wish I had more time to work on the business. Nine years in still struggle with it.
Speaker 1:But I was in a hole not just to talk about myself here a little bit, but I was in a spot where I had an extremely complacent project manager and I had a willing and wanting to learn estimator but didn't have enough guidance. So I jumped in, put a lot and I mean a lot of time in estimation. I also grabbed another gentleman and brought him into that equation as a salesman. I know a lot of people would call me crazy, but I promise you in 2024, we're sitting here with more work at the end of this year than I even thought was possible from some of these practices that I've put in place this year. And I also want to hit to another point some of these practices that I've put in place this year. And I also want to hit to another point.
Speaker 1:I know what some of you guys are sitting there thinking, as in, these guys are freaking nuts 40% here, 30% there, 10%, 10%, 15% here. And we're like you're sitting there crying. I know because I was doing the same thing, guys. You guys are sitting there going I ain't never going to be busy. I mean, how am I supposed to sell that?
Speaker 1:Well, it may be a little bit about you're doing the right work and you're good at it for the wrong price. And that goes back into know your cost. And once you figure out your cost, you figure out how backwards you've been running on your estimating when you thought, quote unquote, you were making money. I've been there too, guys, you weren't, and now you have to. If I, like you, were saying 20 million, I don't know how somebody gets there and deals with the chaos that I'm dealing with and hovering around the 5 million annually again here this year and the things I've inputted, I could see now my business going to 20 million and it not being, you know, suicidal for me as an entrepreneur you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Gotta be fun, but I'm taking what's in my brain and I'm putting it on paper so everybody around me understands and I mean to the how I want. The intro call from the salesman team, like I call them. Bibles is what we've got and this is how we do it, and I know I'm harping on it right now. I'm going through it myself. I just wish I would have had somebody bend my ear six freaking years ago, eight years ago. I understand you're only a year in business, but you're out here, write it down as you're doing it, and there's apps that do it. Now there's literally apps it's crazy. I know you're not too much fan of the tech. You work but there is AI now It'll be funny, since we've been sitting here talking about it that literally write your SOPs for you. Wow, cool With your thought process and your concept. And so don't leave any excuse out there. Don't wait till you're doing five $10 million in revenue. Don't wait till you're doing two $3 million in revenue. I'm telling you, if you're hanging around that million dollar mark, you're making 10, 20% on that every year, having to send that crap and get rid of that money before the end of the year. Figure out what you're doing, right, put it on paper 10x, that crap. When you come into a freaking problem, slow down, look at your costs, look at your estimation, look at your production and if there's something in your way of making money and it's a person, I don't care if he's been there five, 10, 15, 20, 80 years, I don't care Get rid of them. And it sucks to say, and I can sit here and I can say that now, going through what I've gone through this year, um, but you have to all you're doing is robbing from your kids and their kids at the end of the day, because why? You don't want to have a tough conversation, you don't want to go. Hey, nick, you've really, really screwed the pooch here in the last couple of jobs. I don't know what else to tell you.
Speaker 1:I literally did it on monday, bro, with a superintendent, that is, I got guys and I know I'm a little bit all over the place, but I just want to bring this in and bring it home to you guys that we're not crazy. I'm telling you, once you get on the other side of this, estimating-wise, you figure out your cost, you're going to go through a quarter, maybe two, not win nothing. You're not going to hear back on anything. You're going to hear around town that you're high as hell, that everybody's laughing at your price, guess what. You're not even working for the right freaking folks to begin with. Right, and I found that out Like I'm doing survival work here with the display of quality of 25%, 35% margin and I'm just robbing my daggum self over and over again.
Speaker 1:But I wish somebody would have said this calm down. Your problem is you got to bid more. You got to bid a lot more If you're converting on 50, 60, 80% of your leads. I've seen this crap on these Facebook groups and it freaks me out. I'm like I was there. I was there. I bet you got so much work you don't know what to do with, but you can't put tires on your freaking trailer.
Speaker 1:You know, I've been there and now I'm sitting on the other side of this. I went through that six months and let me tell you I was scared to death to do it in 2024, up against what we're facing next month Well hell, two weeks from now and I was scared to death. A lot of people didn't believe in what I was doing. A lot of people left because of it, and that's a-okay, because I can sit here and honestly say I'm doing the right things Now. Has the money caught up yet? Hell no, the money ain't caught up yet and it's not gonna.
Speaker 1:But keep bidding, Don't stop. Sales, sales fixes, everything, literally Managing production and estimation. We can go in further than that, but if you're struggling in the sales world and then we're especially 2024, and then we're sitting here talking about adding 50, 60% on the job, you're like these guys are idiots. And I get it. I did the same damn thing. I did the same damn thing. I did the exact same thing, and it took me time and experience of figuring it out. And then I started bidding more. We're shooting for $5 to $7, $8 million this year. That's what we're hoping for. The guys have bid north of $50 million out of our office this year. That's insane.
Speaker 1:And you're like, well, sorry, that's 10% of conversion rate, but I promise you the 10% of jobs that I'm doing. It's the right, freaking 10%. Don't get me wrong. Would I like to grow it? Well, yeah, but I have been playing around with it for literally 10 to 12 months of trying to find the market and don't let the market drive your costs. Let your costs drive your costs. Who cares about what the market's doing? I'm telling you, I'm sitting here in 24 of the most epic chaotic year we've ever had for investors and debts high, et cetera, for moving projects, and there's a lot of guys sitting at home listening to this project or this podcast right now and I feel for you Bid more, bid a whole lot more with a whole lot more money on there, and it should help you. I wish somebody would have told me that while this was going on, not saying that you guys didn't or anything, but it resonated in my brain. It was easy.
Speaker 2:Bid more, win more. In my brain it was easy Bid more, win more. That is, I've never gone into a contractor and invested in them and told them the things that we tell them without them looking at me and almost kicking me out of their office. You're an idiot. I don't know what the hell you're talking about, but you're crazy. I need to show you the door and I could Almost all of them react that way because you've been doing it like that so long. That's all you know, and even though the financial results speak poorly, you're still hanging dearly to that business method and we're going.
Speaker 2:Why are you fighting so hard on this man? I mean, there's nothing in your past nine years that's saying you're doing anything right, so why not try something different?
Speaker 1:That ain't working. Nothing changes, if nothing changes guys.
Speaker 2:The easiest leadership principle it's hard, it's hard, it's real hard.
Speaker 1:It's worth it though. It's real hard. And I'm sitting here. I ain't trying to butter no bread, I am sitting here right in the middle of it. I can't wait to watch this podcast 10 years from now and get to look back and go. Nick, I mean, if you didn't, you and Mr Newland and taking the time and investing in me. Anyways, guys, moving past that, the last question I got for you for the day.
Speaker 1:Okay, the last easy one, all right, and we've been all over it, but this is foreman superintendent on any job site, all the way to entrepreneurial owner. Or how about the guy that's just getting in a trade that's not really seeing the way out 90 days in this? He's really tired of that rock bar this summer really seeing the way out 90 days in this. He's really tired of that rock bar this summer. What's a takeaway for the blue collar worker who's just physically, mentally, emotionally, just stuck in the mud, or, quite literally, how do we help him?
Speaker 2:um, well, I think first we got to understand what his goal is, you know, because when we talk about blue-collar guys, there's a lot of them that I don't know that they really want to be anything more than a ditch hand.
Speaker 1:You're right.
Speaker 2:They may not want to be more than a foreman. They may not want to be more than a superintendent. They may not want to come in the office and be the project manager. They're the guy that wants to be out in the elements every day. So I think we've got to understand what they want first, and once you identify that person, then I think you just need to feed them and encourage them, man, that's right.
Speaker 2:You know, get down on their level and talk to them, whatever level that is. You know, and don't, because I can tell you, dude, this hand's the hardest work there is going on a construction project you bet so, um, you better appreciate them, and so I.
Speaker 2:I would just say that, um, to all the guys out there that maybe are struggling. You know, if you're not getting that kind of encouragement from, from the people you work for, maybe you're not working for the right, right people. Maybe you need to be looking for another place to work, someone that's going to encourage you and help you. Now you've got to do your part too. You can't call in on Mondays and Fridays, sick all the time.
Speaker 1:Come on Talk about it.
Speaker 2:You can't have no Monday and Friday-itis. So you've, got to do your part too, no matter what level you're at, but I would just say, um, the culture of the company that you work for is is what you should be sizing up. Uh, that's what you should be looking for, and if you're not feeling there right now, and it's got you in that place you just described where it's, it's a life ain't fun right now then um it's hard.
Speaker 1:It's hard to stay motivated. Yeah, it's hard, you know it's hard, hard to stay motivated, man.
Speaker 2:And so you know, you got, you got. You got your wife at home hollering at you because you ain't bringing home enough money pay the bills um, mine happens to be the pay lady I mean I'm usually yelling at her I need numbers.
Speaker 1:You know she's like I need money, right so so you know it's.
Speaker 2:It's all a challenge. I no matter what level you're in, but I would just encourage those guys out there to look for a better place to work, man because they're out there. If you're a good construction worker, I promise you there's people looking for you right now.
Speaker 1:Because I talk to owners just like you. Every day you bet.
Speaker 2:And I've yet to talk to one in the last I don't know how many years that said man, I don't need nobody, I got plenty. I'm having to turn guys down and that conversation, very quickly, is always about man. If I could just find a couple more good guys that's right and that could be ditching and that could be for literally superintendent, literally shop. I'm going to be superintendent, I'm going to be shop hand.
Speaker 1:I hired a guy on Monday. Two new faces on Monday. We've hired a few in the last couple of weeks because we've got a ton of work. This guy called my office 14 times in three days.
Speaker 2:That's like he's wanting to work.
Speaker 1:He's wanting to work and it turns out he don't want to work, so he's going to go down a road. But what I'm getting at is I wasn't really looking for that extra, extra one. But if somebody wants to show me, man, dude, all I need is a chance. All I need is a chance. I am the guy that gives the chances.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, and normally I get burnt.
Speaker 1:But at the same time I try to take care of my people, et cetera. It's a long road out there, man, it's hard man, it's a long road.
Speaker 2:You're not picking an easy profession.
Speaker 1:No, and any of you guys listening. I encourage you, man, because we're all grinding this out together and 2024 has been hard. I don't care what level you're at, it has been been hard. I don't care what level you're at. It has been brutally hard at home, which of course drives a lot of our attitudes during business, during the day, because I don't care if you're an employer, an employee or you're pretty much trying to just get by this year. That's right. And just by living, I mean groceries and gas and everything's. Sedate them high. But at the same time I just encourage you, get up. Nothing changes if nothing changes. And just change something small about your day. Just one, carry that for a week. Second week, make sure we're still doing that change. Add another change Discipline of course equates into that. Another change Discipline of course equates into that. But, man, I hope you guys have thoroughly enjoyed this episode as much as I have.
Speaker 1:It's been a long waited to get Mr Nick Peters here on the show. I've been waiting for his knowledge and wisdom to hit you guys. Him and Mr Newland were a lot of the inspiration of. Oh my God, how are I see the piece, the missing piece puzzle? I need to share it with people, and so so honored, literally, for you to come up here and talk about these simplistic. When you sit here and you've heard them for the first time, you're like, well, that kind of makes sense, this kind of don't make sense. But man going in depth and helping every single blue collar man and woman out there, they're just trying to make it.
Speaker 1:They're just trying to learn a skill in a trade. But if you've enjoyed this episode, make sure we check out bluecollar businesspodcastcom Roughly 10 episodes on there at this point, coming to you at you every single Wednesday. Subscribe to that newsletter on that website so you get alerted when we go live. If you're listening to us on a streaming platform, I really appreciate you guys there, make sure and hit that follow so you know when new episodes are coming out, and give us a rating once this is done, or a follow or whatever platform you're on. So until next time, guys. I really appreciate you listening and tuning in and we'll catch you on the next one. Be good, if you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to give it a like. Share it with the fellers. Check out our website to send us any questions and comments about your experience in the blue collar business. Who do you want to hear from? Send them our way and we'll do our best to answer any questions you may have. Until next time, guys.