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. 23 - The Trey Bo Dirt Story: From Lawnmowers to Millions
Ever wonder how a lawn-mowing gig can lead to TikTok fame and a thriving business? Trey Bo and Big Trey from Trey Bo Dirt share their incredible journey from neighborhood landscapers to social media sensations with over 125,000 followers. We promise you'll gain insights into the blue-collar hustle, filled with humor and real-world experiences. Tune in to hear stories of entrepreneurial spirit, from buying a truck before having a driver’s license to tackling commercial contracts, and what it takes to succeed in an industry where persistence is key.
Our conversation takes a turn into the commercial landscape industry, where challenges abound, yet triumphs are even sweeter. Exploring the grit required to pass contractor license exams and the courage needed to face equipment failures and personnel issues, we highlight individuals like Trent Harris, whose resilience inspires us all. Embrace the spirit of mentorship and knowledge sharing, as we delve into stories of young leaders stepping up, and the legacy left by those who support them. In a field often protected by secrecy, openness and collaboration emerge as the true game-changers.
From leveraging social media for personal branding to the art of financial discipline, this episode covers a range of topics crucial for anyone in the trades. Learn the importance of strategic investments, maintaining strong relationships, and avoiding financial pitfalls, all while enjoying camaraderie and shared anecdotes. Whether you're contemplating a career in blue-collar trades or already navigating the challenges, this episode is full of wisdom, laughter, and practical advice to guide your journey. Join us as we celebrate the vibrant community that defines the blue-collar business landscape.
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. Welcome back to another episode of the Blue Collar Business Podcast. One I have mentioned many times before was coming at you guys. Over the last couple of months, we've been talking back and forth with these two gentlemen, both named Trey and me, and Big Trey shared each other's messages and basically what Treybo team is doing. We're super in line with what we're doing here at the Blue Collar Business Podcast. Furthermore, though, this episode is sponsored by Sycon Excavation and Utilities.
Speaker 1:If you guys have a product or a service out in the blue-collar world that you think may need some audience, targeted directly here into the blue-collar world, get with us at bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom. Furthermore, I've already we went to lunch earlier. I have been laughing since 10 am. Can we call somebody? Do whatever you like, sir. I want you in your natural environment. Furthermore, we have the story going to be told by not only Mr Trebo Dirt himself, but Big Trey. Thank you so much for joining us as well today. These two are doing something special and unique for excavation guys like myself. I've learned tidbits of literally just five minute clips in the shop and the story and the following they have on tiktok. You can check them out. They're sitting right around 125 000 followers with several million views. Um, they're changing the world. From the nostalgic point of view, 30 years of experience between like I need that and there's not as many resources out there for them to find. So, furthermore, guys, thank you so much for coming.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having us on. We've looked forward to doing this with you for a while. We watch all your content, big Trey. He keeps me updated on you every day. He's always telling me we've got to get up there and shoot that podcast.
Speaker 1:I said we're going to as soon as it rains, boys, and you ain't lying, it rained really bad last night. We were doing some night work, like I was mentioning. But, um you, talking about rain, the first, the first, I guess entrepreneurial spirit you had was mowing lawns, starting right there and, if you don't mind, kind of share how you started from where you're at and blue-colored your way all the way to where you're at today, where we all celebrate you.
Speaker 2:Well, I mow yards, you know, and I get all the kids in the neighborhood that were my age, my buddies and I'd be like, hey, you want to stay the night? Next morning we're working. You with that Waking morning, we're working. You know that. Waking up at 5 30, you know free labor, yeah, oh man, we go mow all day, just have fun. Then we go spend half that money on fireworks if not all of it and skull, you know, we just, uh, all right.
Speaker 2:So that's where I started with was just mowing when I was a kid, and then that progressed into doing, uh, landscaping at some new houses. Each house would get 1,000 yards of sod, 16 plants and some mulch, a couple pieces of steel edge and whatever it was to get the house closed out from the construction line. And I'd try to do one of those a week when I was in junior high. If I could get one a week under my belt, that was almost $2,000. Wow, yeah, back belt, that was almost two thousand. Wow, yeah, back then that was big money. Back then I, yeah, I had my own. I had a f-350 flatbed, uh, foreign pickup truck and then a little old trailer. It was called a totem trailer. It would tilt like that. And uh, and I had sandals on it. So it was, yeah, it was it. But the problem was I didn't have a driver's license. So when I bought the damn truck I rode my bicycle up there to that that car lot dealer and told that boy don king's auto sales. I'll never forget that. I told that boy, I'm going to buy a truck and and my money was over tcb bank and and it wasn't a half a mile away but my house was two miles away. So I had to go get my mom to go to the bank with me because she had to sign, get the money to run it over this bull. So when I got back up there he said I sold it to a wholesaler. I was pissed. I was pissed. I was standing there with cash money in my hand.
Speaker 2:The old man, don King, come out and this was his son-in-law. He come out. He said what's going on? And my mom said, hey, my son told your boy he's going to buy a truck. An hour later we come back with money. He said so to a wholesaler. He said shit, it's so good, everyone's got the money in their hands. And I gave him the money and I drove the damn truck home. It had a headache rack. You know anything you dream of. You know that whole thing. Yeah, you're 14. Yeah, and so that was kind of the start of that whole deal. You know a little Kubota tractor, you know.
Speaker 1:Got into custom mowing. Oh yeah, that's where that went.
Speaker 2:Then the custom mowing come along, you know, just doing commercial mowing, not just mowing residentials, and that was a new world. I had to learn how to have real insurance Billions. It just that went on. For about, say, I bought one of the first zero term mowers there was and then 60 days later I went and bought another. Hell, it might have been 30 days, 45 days later Went and bought another and everybody said I was crazy, the first one, I bought, the second one, I bought the second one, I bought hell. I take that as for it. You know, and yes, sir, dad gum, and it was on like donkey cobbett you learned a little bit about it.
Speaker 1:Huh, got a little taste.
Speaker 2:I loved it. I love my man. We'd mow all day I love it.
Speaker 1:It's that instant gratification of smelling that cut grass.
Speaker 2:I'm looking at a pretty lawn yeah, and if you've got one more, you might as well have two and one. I'm gonna keep a chain on it to pull the other one out of the ditches all the coolest, I think, part of your story.
Speaker 1:A lot of folks start out in pressure washing or etc. But you're still mowing to this day. Yeah, and you got mowing crews and that's, that's how many years Since.
Speaker 2:I was a kid. I'm 40 now.
Speaker 1:That's incredible and to keep that going and be the backbone for you to start venturing out into the art world.
Speaker 2:And I should quit mowing honestly. But I like seeing that check come every 12 months out of the year. That's cash flow. I get that order time. If it makes $50,000 a flow, I get that in order time If it makes $50,000 a month. I get that check in February, january, march, april, may and, like I told you earlier, you're in a business just like me. Each month represents a ring. In that ring you have a door you walk in and each ring you walk into the next. So we're in January now we're fixing to open the door to see what February, but we can't see on the other side of February. We don't know if we got no work, we don't know if it's snowing.
Speaker 1:We don't know. Anani Terrell's up down.
Speaker 2:You just never know. When you're working for yourself, nobody gives you nothing.
Speaker 1:If you don't sell it, you ain't like that. You know, and I think I drove that point home so hard here. Sales is everything and it's hard to say no to reoccurring passive income at that point. Of course you've still got expenses etc for the mowers and get service. But I gotta, I gotta, mention tomm Tommy. Right, he works on the overstaffing. All right, fellow Canuck, got you Tommy, I got you brother that in because he's a Canadian, that's exactly why we bring that up quite often.
Speaker 2:Yes, I like that. We're for. The decor is all right so Brian talks about.
Speaker 1:So about when was the dirt switch over? And that was kind of the jump.
Speaker 2:When I was younger, when I was about 14, I went to work for a fellow named George Spendling and George built menopause. He had his own menopause but he had a D8H, a D9, an HD16, now it's Chambers and then two big scrapers and we built ponds. Once we were done planting, we would build ponds and I loved it, you know, and so I was kind of bit then, you know, and then after that I always had a dozer road dragger. You know just something, and you know it really picked up I'm trying to think probably around when I was around 30, you know, in that area, that's when it, you know, because I had like six or eight skid steers on track, before people even had them on track, they'd still run around, bounce around on damn rubber.
Speaker 2:But you know, we were doing a lot of finish grade on these big commercial landscape jobs and these were big jobs, these aren't $10,000 jobs, these are half a million jobs. And then that just it just curbed us into more, more excavating. You know we got one dozer, then got two, got three, four, five, six, and I don't know how many we got now but it's, you know, 12, 14, damn dozers, god almighty. So it's, you know it just, it just starts growing until you, you start walking around and going what the hell's that you know? Oh, buddy, do I?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you start walking around and going what the hell's that, oh, buddy, do I? You just never know, because if you'd have asked me honestly, if you'd have asked me 30 years ago, trey, are you going to be here, I'd have said you're damn right, I love the country. I'm sitting there with a smile and a big-ass wad of chew in my mouth. You're right there, rock Center on the country. I'm in there with a smile and a big-ass wad of chew in my mouth. You know, you're right there, oh, rock Center on the podcast.
Speaker 1:Oh, I absolutely love it and then. So my question is we've actually had a few episodes Before I get too far off on the dirt side of things when did you get a commercial license in the landscaping realm?
Speaker 2:So I got a job with Navahopes Construction. It was a landscape job and they said you've got to have a commercial, you've got to be a contractor's license. I can barely ask read. And now I've got to go into this damn thing and take this test. Well, I went up there and I thought this was just my thing. I thought, okay, I'll get up there, I'll buy the damn test.
Speaker 2:So when I got there, you know you wasn't buying nothing, you had to put all your stuff in a locker and actually go in there and do it. And I remember there was a doctor sitting next to me and I failed the test and he failed the damn test. So I didn't feel as bad, you bet. So I went and bought a study guide and I really studied it and one of the questions I'll never forget that, one of the questions out of a hundred, whatever it was was how many square feet's in an acre? 43,560. I'll never forget that due to that test. But but went up there and took it the next time, passed by one point it was over with. It was over with we call that Brooks and Dunn.
Speaker 3:He quotes that square foot in the maker at least twice a day 43, 560.
Speaker 1:You and that mile is 52. Anyways, yeah, I'm with you. I got my own little quirks, so the Moen's going along. So I've had a few landscaper buddies. They're kind of stuck in that resi market and they want to break out, but they don't really know how. And I'm like, hey, from what I understand commercial license on the landscape, it's not as crazy to go get, you know, a unlimited license, grading utility license. You know what I mean. So you would say, for sure, take that next step.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah yeah, yeah, I mean you don't want to be 80 years old and go. I wonder if I could have done that. You know what I'm saying? There's no difference asking a good living girl. If you don't ask her, she's going to end up with somebody else, and that's how them damn dirt jobs are going to be. Somebody else is going to get them.
Speaker 1:That's literally it. I talk to myself as a 75-year-old man sitting on my porch all the time. Am I making that guy proud? Because at the end of the day, you've got to answer to God and him your own self. You know what I mean. And I try to make a business decision, and we were talking earlier with all the variables and parameters we have to deal with in our world and the utility sector and it's so hard to just make a solid decision and feel good about it because five minutes later it all needs to change and so whatever decision you make today is not one you'd make 10 years from now.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's the honest to God truth. You know, if I could go back 10 years from today, I'd make different decisions. You know, honestly. Would I bought different pieces of land? I would have bought, maybe, different equipment. You know, there's just so many factors that go into that. So you can't beat yourself up because you make a mistake. Because I make them every day, I'm gonna make them tomorrow. You know it. Mistakes and failure is never gonna quit. It's always gonna be there. It's just how humbled are you gonna get by the experience, man?
Speaker 1:and I I've said on this show a couple of times. I stuck my chest out there and I was peacocking there for a minute. I thought I was something and good Lord.
Speaker 2:Right. When you think you're big shit, that's when the word kicks you square in the mouth and you've got to wake up every morning and know how many times can I get kicked in the mouth today before I just throw my hands up. Just can't quit, though. It could either be an employee with a bad attitude, a flat tire on a trailer, a dozer track come off, or a DPF system failing on a machine. When you've got 10 trucks lined up and a project manager sitting there going, hey, we've got to have this done in 10 hours. That's right. That's just the reality to it.
Speaker 3:Our job if job. If it's going too smooth, that's probably scary.
Speaker 2:Yes, If you're not getting phone calls and you know that's just, it's all in how much you can take. If you can't take it, you need to always tell folks. If you don't think you can do it, go to Dollar General. They always need somebody's stock brand, that's right. Do that Well, trent Harris? He made a t-shirt about that phrase. You know, if you're scared, go to Dollar General and stop bread. And that says Trey Boderton's looking he yells them all out.
Speaker 1:I'll buy one, trent, I'm coming. I got one shirt XL.
Speaker 2:It's coming to me, trent's that young protégé that's really followed everything I say. He calls me all the time. He comes to all my expos and I met him in Vegas, you know, and Trent's got that dog in him. He's like a little pit bull. He just don't stop. You know, he just he's not scared to go buy equipment, he's not scared to ride old equipment, he's not scared to fail. Trent Harris has that dog in him. You know, if y'all listen to this, follow bleak collar contractors.
Speaker 1:That's trent harris if you ever want to meet a hell of a guy, he is dude. Uh, trent, that's your official invite to get here on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Brother trent need to drive from oklahoma and come on down and bring your mustache with you. Mustache, you know. I think he's got a different zip code. He probably made property tax.
Speaker 3:He puts it on the trailer.
Speaker 1:Oh, I can't call me in until I have a phone call with Travis. You will love Travis.
Speaker 2:He's a great guy. We did the Connex podcast on Tuesday. What is today? Thursday? Thursday, sir, today's.
Speaker 1:Thursday yes sir, Trust me, I understand. I feel the same way.
Speaker 2:Today's Friday. Damn, I thought it was off to the weekend. Hey, we can't be. We can't be. It did rain. I'm the boss.
Speaker 1:Yes you are, sir. Well, you're such a personality my guy and the team around you the other Trey yeah, you the other tray yeah. How did this all get started? From your 30 years experience not really being in the social game and now you have this crazy following kind of walk us through that story guys, I ain't there sending email.
Speaker 2:Well, I've never had Facebook knowledge yet.
Speaker 3:So it's funny, our skills, we work well together because what he's good at are things I'm probably not the best at. The things I'm really good at are probably not the things he's the best at. So we kind of merge together and it works really well. But he had gone to the National Farm Machines Show in Louisville what three years ago, yep. And he comes back in. I'll never forget it. Farm Machines Show in Louisville what three years ago, yep. And it's tens of every year. In fact we're going to it again in a few weeks and he comes back in. I'll never forget it. He flew up there and flew back the same day and he brings me this little pamphlet he'd come across. He's like, hey, this guy came up to me, kind of moved me. I want you to send me a check.
Speaker 2:He came up to me wheelchair. He couldn't talk, all he did was hand that out and I stuck it in my vest pocket. He says hey, I got it from the old damn shop.
Speaker 3:He says, hey, send this guy 50 bucks. I'm like, all right. And then he walks out. Let me tell a story. He said send him 50 bucks. He gets in his truck, he comes back. I've got cameras, I can see him doing this. He comes back. I've got cameras, I can see him doing this. He comes back in. He's like man, send them $100. Okay, he gets back in his truck. He drives to the gate, turns back around, comes back in, says send them $500. I'm like, man, I'll send them whatever you want, but figure it out. Yeah, so we send them this check and all of a sudden, a couple weeks later, I get a recognizing guy on the other end saying hey, we got your check and we really appreciate it. What's your name on TikTok?
Speaker 2:Like.
Speaker 3:What.
Speaker 2:We were like what the hell?
Speaker 3:is TikTok. Yeah, I'm like I said we're not on TikTok. What are you talking about? He's like, oh well, most of our people, a lot of them we know from TikTok and I get to know him. It turns out his name is Mike Burkhart. He's like family to us now. He's like the godfather of farmhouse. He's been to us three or four times. I've been to his home a couple times. So anyway, he says, well, tell you what. I want to come meet y'all next time I'm through there. And he was close enough where he felt like he could swing in and he starts telling us about the TikTok deal and how he's met all these people across the country and what it Things.
Speaker 3:We didn't really think of TikTok as being tractors. Yeah, so we were out there. He showed me his tractors and so the next day I start this TikTok deal and I remember showing Trey and he's like, well, that's stupid, what are we going to do with that? I'm like it is stupid and we're probably not going to do anything with it, but we were putting a root rake together on a Cat D6. So we're out there and I'm just filming. It's kind of cool.
Speaker 2:I got to build the damn thing.
Speaker 3:It's kind of cool visuals because we've got this heavy machine bringing in this heavy metal, so I'm filming it. I'm like, okay, this will be our first TikTok. Whatever, put it together, put it up. He's like, why are you filming that? I'm like I'm just going to show it. A couple people asked questions about it, so I tell him what the questions are and he answers it the next day. He's like well, anybody else ask anything? I'm like, yeah, a couple people did. He's like okay, well, then the next day he comes in.
Speaker 2:He's like it's about them two old, junky-ass cars in the back shop.
Speaker 3:That's all he's worried about, I feel, the roof wreck and they're worried about a Barrac follow up on this. We're probably going to need to film this. So he's kind of buying in, and that's really where it started, as simple as that, and then just kind of kept building and we kept going with it and, as you can see, he's got the personality that just really it just brings that and we ended up seeing an opportunity to really ultimately make a difference, because he's answering questions for guys that are in this business or even across the overlot. So, yeah, it really started from that and then just kind of blossomed into what it is today.
Speaker 1:That is such a unique story. A man in a wheelchair handed you one pamphlet.
Speaker 2:It's like yeah, it's Burkhart's name and he can't speak and he can't walk. But we've become real close since then. You know, been up there, you know to their place and they come to our place and it's called the Travis Burkhardt Foundation. So we're big supporters of that. And so, yeah, mike Burkhardt, we've got to give you credit. You're the one that got us here. We do.
Speaker 3:I would say he takes all the blame.
Speaker 2:He takes all the blame.
Speaker 1:Absolute shout-out to those gentlemen, because I can't tell you how many things that you've hit home on, and I'll be sitting there with Will. Do you see this? This makes total sense to me. Does this make sense to you? Well, it's failures.
Speaker 2:Everything on their side is something I failed at and, like I said, I'm going to fail tomorrow, I'm going to fail today, I'm going to fail all the week before. It don't stop. No, how old are you now?
Speaker 1:33, sir, so you still got a whole bunch of failures, yes, sir, but that's the education. Failure is the best teacher, right? I mean, the point is there's a gentleman here that hates talking about failure, but you use that failure as the education lesson that you're paying for your own education to keep moving forward. And don't get me wrong, there's some times those education lessons get real tough all at all at one time, and then you you've got to just take a breath, one thing at a time. Here's a solution for this. Tell me how that goes. Here's a solution. And just one bite at a time. In that elephant. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:I lost some money on a rock hall and there's their contractor in our town. I think what best I ever seen in my life name was oc, cannon and oc. I was hauling, doing all the rock and placing the blue rock and and it was a cluster because the pavement company couldn't make it in in time and it was all on heels. A lot of it washed and I had to replace it and the contractor worked real good, real well. But I ended up telling him I said shit, I lost about $36,000. My dear and he goes bet you won't do that again.
Speaker 1:I literally had a gentleman reach out to us, I think via Instagram, yesterday. He's doing a construction management degree, which is great, all fine and dandy. You guys know how I feel about college here. I mean it serves its purpose. But he was asking me you know, hey, we're fixing to start our own excavation company in a couple years. And I said, man, that construction management degree is going to help you once you eventually get into the commercial world. It will help you, sir, but the first five years of your own business you will learn more in the first one and three years. If you can make it to year five, if you make it to that, that's right.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's the problem. A lot of people quit, whether their spouse says, hey, that's enough, or they say that's enough, or their financial banker says that's enough, or their financial backer says that's enough. But it's that one like Trent Harris, with nothing, started with nothing, that's got the dog in him that just keeps going. Yeah, that's right. A lot of them, yes, that's what you got to have, you know, because, hey look, I lost everything. Tomorrow, the first thing I'm going to do is wrap the mowing back up and I'm going to be right back in the dirt business within about six months. That's right, probably better than what I am. You know what I'm saying. I do I literally do, sir. So don't test me. I'll lose everything, because I will make it 10 times damn better, because I know where I screwed up over the last 30 years and I think, uh, a lot of people, a lot of people call me crazy.
Speaker 1:I've received a lot of hate for what I'm trying to bring to the market and this and the YouTube and showing commercial construction, but I think I'm not as afraid because I've already kind of lost it all. When I moved here, everything was different. I was an 11-year-old kid. Man Like that rocked my world. I was a AAA hockey player. I was going to go NHL and I moved to Arkansas. Boys Like I had no idea, so I started all over. Everything's paid in inches.
Speaker 3:Boys like I had no idea, so I started all over Everything's feet and inches.
Speaker 1:You didn't know what to do.
Speaker 2:I didn't Dude, I couldn't open a locker for three months, boys, because I couldn't figure out Like we had cubbies or no Canadians you know I was with Taylor White the other day on the Con Expo podcast, where you at Taylor, taylor, where you at, that's right, come on. But I told Taylor I said Taylor, in a man's life at some point he's going to lose 50% of all his shit. I don't care which way you look at it, whether the economy's going to take 50% at some time. A divorce is going to take 50% up, or siblings in a family-owned business when somebody passes away and it has to be bought out and sold, a farm does the same thing. A dirt contract You're going to, at some point in time, any successful man's gonna lose 50. Just got to figure out when it is and whatever it is, you'll get a tax break oh, thank you, man, the tax breaks feller I had.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry I better not go off into that, but I was gonna go somewhere else with that. But seriously, what you guys are doing in the social media, I know you had no interest in really sending down this path, but I can't thank you enough because the amount of people when I said the name trebo, people were like trebo, they're coming here. You know, come on, you're, you're, I've got, I've got local buddies around here giving me crap that this wasn't going to happen and I'm like guys, he's got the exact same message in a different platform and I wanted to get you on here. To number one understand how it all started. Number two you've taken it from mowing to I mean 12 dozers to have just be able to say that Got your own shop. The role of social media in a growing blue collar business and yeah I've been going country needs blue collar.
Speaker 2:That's this country got enough. Put pencil, push where there ain't pencils. No more keyboard warriors, whatever. We need folks working. I mean, that's what this country needs is folks out there getting after it it. You know what? The most valuable thing to me right now is An educated mechanic that can work on this high-tech stuff. If a kid come out of 10th grade, quit school, told him to kiss his ass, he could be making $50,000 a year on his own if he could just have ass. Learn how to delete some of this shit. Can you say?
Speaker 1:that Audie. Well, now, yes, I think. Anyways, we're not going to go there on this show today, but I think that's going to be a thing moving forward.
Speaker 2:But you know what they can learn how to change it. It's mainly sensors. These boys come out from these equipment companies. They plug a computer in our stuff. I'm getting billed for $60,000 for a liter of rock down there.
Speaker 1:To plug a computer in.
Speaker 2:Plugging it in. They're going oh, this sensor in your death tank is bad, or whatever. I get a bill for $2,500 to $4,000 every time. That phone call is mine and you do that once or twice a month. Well, that starts getting into my doing cool shit money. You know what I that once or twice a month. Well, that starts getting into my doing cool shit money. I'm telling you, if a young man was young and he knew the school, quit in the 10th grade and go on out and learn to be a damn mechanic and pop a wheelie. I'm just telling you, this world needs that.
Speaker 3:I think things are kind of turning that direction. You're seeing stuff, you know the pushback from student loans and all this stuff and education's great. There's a purpose for that. No, education isn't great, education sucks.
Speaker 2:But what I'm saying is these kids algebra and trigonometry and literature. They're never going to use that shit. They need to go quit in the 10th grade and go out and start working.
Speaker 3:So you've got that maturity. Now you can make good money, that's right. You can do it in blue collar and people aren't going to the trades, so people need to understand that you don't have to go to college. It's not for everybody. So go out and learn how to be a mechanic, learn how to do a welder, plumbing, dirt contractor, whatever it is. You can make a really good living really quick without $100,000 loans paid back when you do it. That's right, and people it's getting more respected. It used to be kind of shunned, and that's not. It was never right and now I think it's more accessible and people are realizing oh, this is probably a really good direction for me.
Speaker 1:I think it's also from a standpoint of. I think we're all afraid of not having plumbers in here.
Speaker 2:I need to correct what I said about kids dropping out of school in the 10th grade. If you get a chance kids stop in the 9th grade, they'll give you another year's advantage because their school ain't going to do nothing for you.
Speaker 1:I'm with you. I am Thank God for our doctors and all of the educated folk. It has its place, but in our world it's funny To this point. I was sitting there with my CPA a couple weeks ago, down around in y'all's neck of the woods, but anyhow, sitting there talking with him and he said Si, do you understand that a brain surgeon can go to school for 12 years and the best he's going to make every single year is a million dollars, that's it. He went to school for 12 years. That's a long time. He accrued debt with hardly enough income, right, but that's all he can make. You can go out there and do four or five million pretty quick. You're talking about a month and a half worth of work. That's right, but that's what I'm saying. On a high school education. I was in the work program my senior year. I had to get out of there. I couldn't handle it. I don't want my CPA dropping out, but exactly.
Speaker 2:No, I need my, we need our CPA, because we're not smart. We've got to yeah, we have to have educated people.
Speaker 1:Yes, but my question would be we know how important the blue-collar world is, but would you I know you probably would now, but would you have two years ago encourage that guy, as he's going through that mechanic school, sharing his story on a platform like Tik TOK or YouTube and gaining that audience as he's going through it? Um, it can be done, it's completely free, like you know what I mean, and start obtaining that audience, or we need in america is a program for these kids when they start high school.
Speaker 2:If they don't feel like they're gonna go save taxpayers some money or put a damn mechanic school in there. If they want to be hairstylist, put a hairstylist school in the school. Save them that 20 000. They're gonna have to pay and work for eight months without making a dollar. Same thing with mechanics. So when do graduate? If they want to stick around and graduate, they're walking out making damn money. Guess what happens, America? Then they're paying taxes and then that goes right back into the system. I'm just like that's just my country, boy, two cents.
Speaker 1:I've got to get you over here to Springdale because we just did a video a lot of them on life, what I said no, I couldn't.
Speaker 1:No, I need you the exactly what you're talking. There's a diesel shop, mechanic school right there. Um, they do have a cdl program. They now have a d3, a motor grader, a 308 roller, all with tremble on it, ready to go, and they're teaching these high school students. We're fixing to have two. That's the best I've ever heard. Then I promise you it'll blow your mind it's exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna see that we've. We're gonna hook you. I didn't know anything like that was going on either literally until two months ago.
Speaker 1:We were like uh, shout out to rodney ellis and chad burkhardt, who absolutely would, is a godsend in that program. He's an ag teacher. I gotta give him a major shout out.
Speaker 2:It's teachers like that that want to make a difference. You know they care and can see the future. Some people only see tomorrow. I look, I don't look at tomorrow. I don't buy land on, I want it tomorrow. Or a piece of equipment I want tomorrow, I'll I buy it on. Hey, five year outlook, that's right, five years.
Speaker 2:And any young man like you, right now you need to be be buying land. If you get $20,000, go to the bank and tell them say, hey, I want to buy this, I'm going to put a down payment on this, four acres or five or just whatever you know and get that and then use that to build off other stuff, use that as a collateral point, equity. You know, however, you know how Rick speaks about bigger capitalism. You know all that bullshit. No, just use it to bridge off of and go on. You know, but nobody teaches young people how to invest like that. You know, I've always invested in land, land and equipment and you know my bike cap might be empty, but I got a bunch of land and I got a bunch of equipment and I got a decent shop. Scooby, scooby, scooby, scooby is famous now. So shit, I don't know what I'm going to do with Scooby.
Speaker 1:No, we've got actually two of the kids that are Chad Burkhardt. He teaches school all day and then he'll go out there from four o'clock till nine o'clock in the evening all summer long, six days a week with these kids oh, he does a Saturday program as well out there running all this equipment, see people like that should be awarded and put on a platform where they don't.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying. Yes, sir, our society is designed to not reward people like that. You know what I'm saying. So, chad, I don't know you, but I'm rewarding you right now. Keep up that good work and the rest will follow, because something's got to give.
Speaker 3:But those high schools doing that. Back home, Watson Chapel High School, Central Maloney, which is a factory in our town they started a deal where they literally went into Watson Chapel, paid for a welding program. They were saying they couldn't hire welders, so they were proactive, went into the school, said, listen, we'll put the program together. But they got one of the best CEOs in the world, Chris Horner. So we're going to sit there and do this and then when they get out of high school we'll hire them day one. They walk right out of there. They're ready. They had two kids get through the program and took the job, so they're going to build it. It's going to have to get there, but you need the participation. But that is definitely the right approach.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that company has a CEO named Chris Hart. He can see he's looking at thanks five or 10 years ahead. He's not looking at tomorrow. That's right, this guy is he's legendary in our time.
Speaker 1:The blue collar world, if you, if you're not picking up what Trey's putting down? I've said it on here it's not about the short term, it's, it's always about the long term. A five-year plan, a 10-year plan, I get it. Things can change before we get to 10 years, but every move you make need to be thinking about that long-term longevity of this thing, because if you're thinking short term, that's about how fast your business is going to be.
Speaker 2:It's going to be short term well, most kids come out of school now and they want to be a influencer or a jammer. You know, yes, sir, and and none of that's going to pay off and you're not going to become a professional athlete unless you put in a ton of work and you have the skills you know. But that's what society has taught. That's all they see on tv and the social media is that? You know, where nobody promotes work. You know, I'm saying hey, if you get out there and you work really hard, you get dirty, you're going to be rewarded.
Speaker 2:Nope, that's not the next no, it's not, and it's and that's why we know, you know and you too, we do an educated we don't make any money off of. We do it all for free and pretty much any money we've ever made we gave away to donations and stuff like that foundations, but it's all to help people, you know, to just do better.
Speaker 3:Well, let me tell you what I kind of saw from this early on is I was very fortunate coming up, you know, two-parent household, having a father that was very involved, grandparents very involved. Trey has a father that he's very involved with. He had George talking about OC Cannon back when he was going. He had somebody that he could talk to and mentor and ask questions to. And it's easy to assume we've all got that and that everybody's got it. What we discovered from this channel was that people were writing in. We were hearing, almost like this awful story that you know, my dad was a dirt contractor. I'm 18 years old. My dad died. I don't know what to do with all this stuff. Now what? And you're hearing all these stories of people who they need mentors, they need people who are willing to talk to them, because a lot of and this is probably every industry but in construction they're protective of what they think they know Like.
Speaker 2:I don't want to share my information. I don't understand any of that. It's like all right, go tell Cy, this new glue works better on this bike. That's right, do not let him know. Why not call and say hey, man, cy, you ain't going to believe this we found this new manufacturer for this glue man. It's half the price. It dries faster, no issues. And with that call being made, you will help me on something. Of course, me and my neighbors get along great. Any of my competition, we get along great.
Speaker 3:The competition can't be ruined. Our first dirt pit was sold to us by a guy who sells dirt on the other side of town. That's it.
Speaker 2:He did that to help me out. Never crawled fish he wanted to help.
Speaker 1:It's hard to find nowadays. It is.
Speaker 2:But people are still out there like that. But a lot of these older people. They don't really want to share their knowledge either, but you know what you think about it. When they're gone in life or whatever, their name won't ever be mentioned, but the ones that mentor people and help out their name will live on forever.
Speaker 1:Herb Sargent, I'll give you a shout-out. He'll be coming here. Herb Sargent, I'll give you a shout out. He'll be coming here. He owns a well, he was, yeah, sargent Utilities up in the northeastern part of the state.
Speaker 1:I was reading through LinkedIn the other day and he said legacy is not what you leave behind, it's what you leave in people when you're gone. That's it, and it almost changed my life. As soon as I read it I'm like I'm thinking about this all differently. What I'm doing every day is what I'm building. It's all about the people.
Speaker 1:But that mentorship talk a little bit about. You seem to be both of you very networked. You have a very heavy network, but the mentorship that you guys are already providing, it's so important, important, the investment in the trades and having that person some of it's my competition. I still called it today. I called him this morning hey, man, you got a four inch by two inch flange and oh well, I got some sixes. No, dang it, I gotta go buy them. You know, and he'll call me the same way. Hey, you got these over.
Speaker 1:It's odd ballpark, but he's been a super mentor to me over the years and found your videos and small little bits and resources, but there hasn't been this giant resourceful area that a construction minded individual that wants to start a business whether it be hvac, concrete, steel, I don't care what you choose dirt, landscaping, um, it doesn't matter but there's really not a place that they can go and go. Well, I'm really good at what I do, but I really don't know how to keep. I don't know how to scale. I don't know how to grow. I don't know how to keep money in my bank account. I don't know how to buy equipment oh, you figure that out.
Speaker 2:You know, if you don't know how to scale, you don't lose money on that job. If you ain't got money in your bank account, you go figure out how to get it. That's one of them growing process. That's how I did it. You make it, just get it and get it. If you fail, do it again After about the fourth, fifth time. You'll figure shit out.
Speaker 3:Watch the videos and figure it out from what he did.
Speaker 2:That's right, and once you do figure it out, it ain't nothing but Cadillacs and baby bags. Son.
Speaker 1:So many one-liters today. Come on, you back, son. What's up? So many one lighters today? Come on back, I'm loving it. Um, the social media side for us um has changed. Have you guys, since you've been in tiktok this is a little off topic here have you seen any uptick in sales per se from where you're at with the tiktok channel? It's not really a channel, it's more or less treybo himself rather than it's.
Speaker 3:Let me take this basically what I see to answer your question. No, okay, because the channel is more focused on treybo dirt and more about it's, not about our business. The information generated, of course it comes from the business experience, yep, but you know our business design. One contract it is very rarely mentioned, um, and I can really think of one job. There was a contractor at kansas that we did a fast food restaurant that he reached out and basically like hey, I just saw your stuff, I saw your you're in that area. So that was a great contract. We got it and I think a lot of it is because of that, but for the most part not.
Speaker 2:That was a million dollars.
Speaker 3:About that. Hey, we moved eight foot of dirt. What are we? 30 feet, oh God.
Speaker 2:There was no gun. 11 foot was the tallest field on it. It was clear of the job. Popped the stops, they built a Chick-fil-A in a swamp Swamp. I mean, we had to knock gators out of the way we sell dirt for a living.
Speaker 3:So great, Build them all up in a swamp. Yeah, a pond damn swamp.
Speaker 3:We went to clear it and everything, but that one kind of went back to that. So I guess you could potentially say that. And one thing we get asked a lot about is using social media to kind of promote a business. That's one thing. It's a great tool for that. It's not necessarily how we've grown, because ours functions different, with ours being commercial. When we get a job put in front of us, it's because of e-mail demand. It's general contractors from sometimes across town, sometimes across the country, but they're not buying us from that. But if you're starting small, I think it's a great tool.
Speaker 1:I think so. Yeah, I agree with you 100% and I've seen just a little bit more honest to God, a little insight here LinkedIn guys if you're in the dirt world and you're young or in any of the trade worlds, get on LinkedIn. The white collar folk that you're looking for the bankers, the investors, the developers, above that general contractor they're on there. I didn't really realize that until this year, and it has transformed a few things for us, landed a few bits and pieces of work and put us in front of new sales opportunities. It's been a little different, but we've been trying to promote the business rather than the education of it. You've already gone through 30 years of this and you're young and you're in that stage right now.
Speaker 2:I don't know how you did all that is. Oh, that's terrible. You've got to focus the next five years to get this equipment paid for. That needs to be your only goal. Hey, and you know, like I told you earlier, you know some years.
Speaker 2:I feel like we worked all year just to break in. That's right. You can't look at pay. I worked all year and I don't have much in the account because you knocked out 12 months of Payments so you built 12 months worth of equity. That's one of the big rich people words equity. But uh, you know, so you got. You got to look at it like it. You can't just go well, we worked all damn year, man, we ain't got $30,000 in the account. Well, if you only got $30,000 in the account, you're better off than a lot, that's right. Come on, you know. So you knocked out a bunch of debt. Now you only got four more years to work. That's right, you know. That's just the way I look at it.
Speaker 2:Let's say you bought a dozer for $200,000. We work it for the five years. It's going to be worth $80,000. So after five years it's worth $80,000. That's probably what the dealership is going to give you is trade in. You know what I'm saying? Yes, sir, toward that new one, but you're always going to be in debt. Debt does not scare me not to owe too much. I like to pay something off before I go buy something. But if you're going to get out there and be successful and make any money, you've got to initially throw something out there and sacrifice. You might not have that boat or might not get to go on that damn Disney trip with all that price-ass shit. So there's certain things you're not going to be able to get to go on, but you're going to have that dojo that can make you money, isn't that?
Speaker 1:or mini x or skid steer. I uh, I had a boat.
Speaker 2:I like to duck out myself and I told you what trans said about the boat, what he said no, I can't remember burn the boat, burn the boats that had gum in the boat. And you know, a big sticker on my desk says burn the boats treymo dirt right there.
Speaker 1:Um, I I had, bo, like I told you, got a little unfocused the three or four years, but when you're doing this and you get past that three or four year mark for myself, you can't buy anything that doesn't not make you money. As soon as you start down that path, it's a huge red flag for not only it should be for yourself, but to the banks, to anybody that is making these deals happen. They're going well. You may be living a little high on the hog, and that's exactly what they did with me and I had to really rigor, and you don't need no boats right now.
Speaker 2:We're five years into a business, son, let's go and always pay your house off as fast as you can. You know, get in there and pay that sucker off, because, because if you do go broke, you can at least go home. That's right. At least lay your head down, you know you don't want to pay Dozier off of it. And then the hell Damn. I'm sorry. All right, this is not even sleeping Dozier. No, boys, do your best to pay your house off as fast as you can, trust me.
Speaker 3:When you're putting your money into things that make you money and a bit worried about putting your money into things that make your neighbors be impressed, that's when you really start doing it.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. And being good to your people. Oh, you got to. I know we're. I mean, I'm nothing without my people, 100%. Big Trey runs the logistics on all trucks. We can be running two trucks today. We could be running 40 to 60 tomorrow. So two trucks today, we could be running 40 to 60 tomorrow. He has to make individual phone calls to well. Some truck companies have what? Five, ten trucks, so sometimes he can shortstop a whole bunch of calls at one. But once we get on these jobs and we're running a bunch of sub-trucks, I have to put him on suicide watch.
Speaker 1:It's like hurting cats. I'm not a big truck driver fan anymore either.
Speaker 3:Oh, we're so bad. Here's my eight hours of work today and the four hours of being at the parking lot eating a sandwich.
Speaker 1:They like to keep that left door open a lot of them, and that's the problem.
Speaker 2:It's a tough world with trucks. We got our own trucks and then we sub trucks, and then our trucks are older trucks. I don't think we got one that's less than 20 years old.
Speaker 3:We always say everything we buy has got to be old enough to vote.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's got to be old enough, you know, but you know them old trucks. If you have an airbag blowout or a line blowout, you know, or burn, you know, or how the hell we replace the rear end and whatnot. That's just part of it. You know, you're always gonna be working on the damn things and so, but if you, if you go into a job going on, we're not even gonna have to get out of the cab, you're wrong. Yeah, because yeah, I mean we can't afford 250 000 trucks. I can't go buy two and a half million dollars worth of damn trucks and and make a living I I could take them old, wore out ass trucks we got. And if somebody, at the end of the day, if somebody tears something up on the bed or whatever with the track, coat it no sweat off my back. Yeah, you know, it doesn't bother me as bad, you know.
Speaker 1:But uh, I've talked about several times on this show there's two routes and the two different routes are sitting here is I've gone the more uh, payment route newer equipment and, like I was telling you at lunch, I got all these maintenance packages packaged into them. So the preventive stuff is happening to 500 to 4,000 in the scale. Anything that goes wrong there's heavy warranty. But coming from my neck of the woods, I grew up in car shops and holding flashlights. You know how to work on them. I got an idea about diagnosing some stuff.
Speaker 2:I don't want to work stuff and if you're going to work on trucks, have a really good friend that owns a record company.
Speaker 3:Come on Freak and I can tell you, when we're interviewing drivers I try to get drivers that know I don't expect them to fix it, but I do expect them to be like hey, there's a problem.
Speaker 2:Diagnose the problem. Hey, I got an air leak, that's it. Hey, I can't build air pressure. Okay, shut the truck off. Go out there and see if you can hear where it's leaking. They call you back. I can't hear nothing. Do you have any air pressure? No, it could be a double-edged sword. It might be so bad you can't get air pressure. But you know, we had a damn head gasket on the compressor. Go out there, we, we get so much air pressure, but then you use it a little bit, that truck, you pump the brakes a few times, you lose it. It was that. It was all the damn head gasket on that compressor. Most folks replace the old compressor. I doesn't stick a damn gasket on it.
Speaker 1:Let's go I wish I had more of an option to do that. You know what I mean and run a little bit older of a fleet. But when I made that jump I actually went, bought that gear when interest was low, but that's good, yes when sky high. And then I went back to my bank and go hey look, I have all this zero percent interest here, but can you give me like a three percent before all this thing goes up and down and everywhere and lock me in over the next couple of years? And they did well, ideally you can get a truck.
Speaker 3:That's kind of you know, falcon, but also you know you're taking a risk but you know something that you won't have to work on all the time but you know you're going to Anytime he goes to buy the truck, I immediately go buy a Raleigh stock Filters. Make that money.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, that's just part of it, you know. And something else I wanted to talk about on this podcast, which is line of credit. A lot podcast, we size line of credit. A lot of young guys always ask yes, sir, I never had a line of credit in my life and hope I don't never have to.
Speaker 2:But if you can stay away from a line of credit, please stay away from it, because them bankers that you thank your friends and say what's the line of credit? Damn, interest, 10, 12 right now, I think so high. You know, yeah, and that line of credits backed by something you already got paid off. You know what I'm saying? Some equity and something. So it's like going in reverse. If you can stay away from line of credit, do your best. You know, I always tell folks if folks is calling you and you owe them a bunch of money, that's their problem. Is that how that works? Well, I always think about time, but I'm just telling you. You know, if anybody owes me money, it's always my problem. They don't lose no sleep over it. That is such the truth. So just stay away from the line of credit, man, it's such a pitfall, you know.
Speaker 1:It really is, and it gets you into a vicious cycle and when you're younger and you're trying, you're like oh well, I can scale if I do this and I can sit here and honest, be honest with you. We bought too much of this and too much of that and my worst pitfall over the last nine years was going and buying five freaking dump trucks peter builds because they all said peter builds on them. I had a, I had you really. I had an rd mac that I paid 20 grand for and that thing went up and down the road with that 350 in it.
Speaker 1:How many axles did you break?
Speaker 2:in.
Speaker 1:No, you know what I can't say.
Speaker 2:We couldn't keep axles in there.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm just saying it was the cheapest truck. The driver never broke down on me. A couple airbags, tires, miscellaneous them Peterbilt side bots.
Speaker 3:We're running 10 trucks in a day and I'm seeing one that's beautiful. I think it's got wax on it that morning. I think he puts armor on. That's the first one to go down before 10. Well, but he'll get his 10 loads. And the one that's running on fumes that they're over here barely getting through, guess what? They got their 10, too.
Speaker 2:That's right. And then they're the ones that see in the evenings. We run evening runs and that's all the calls that come to office. I need to load an SB2. I need four loads of dirt or I need some bad you know all this other stuff or B-stone. So he'll have a list of ten places in the evening for trucks that come off the jobs to come to the yard grab material and go deliver, and they might run to it way after dark, but it's normally the junkie trucks that do it.
Speaker 3:We've been very fortunate. We've been very fortunate. We've got a lot of great drivers, a lot of great guys we get to be involved with, but they'll weed themselves out pretty quick.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially when you've got a team of y'all's stature across the board. Been there a couple decades at this point. Not drivers, I understand, we saw you through them, but the camaraderie and the culture that you guys built.
Speaker 3:Well, we've done a special lot of those sub-trucks and other people we've worked with have worked with us for years and that's because they've had a good experience with that. Our whole idea here is that everybody's got to make money. It can't just be the company and us. It's got to be, and we do it.
Speaker 2:And he'll tell you, if we do really good on a job, he'll come to an office. He'll go hey, we made this on this, this, what should I do? And I'll say, well, just what are you going to do? And he'll make a lot of extra money.
Speaker 3:Because a lot of those drivers like I may go in there and say, hey, you know what, here's what we want to pay you either by the load or by the hour or whatever. And I'll be a little conservative because we're not sure yet and then we're going to I think it's kind of went better than we thought. We can afford to pay a little more, we will.
Speaker 2:Yep, so they love those calls? Oh, of course, absolutely love them.
Speaker 1:That ain't happened to me in nine years, fellas.
Speaker 2:But that's how we keep. So not a lot of people keep the sub trucks we do. So a lot of people sub through us. They might have a big dirt job going and they taking a lot of risk, but you know we make it all work because we can put 30 trucks in a phone call.
Speaker 1:That's so cool and it's the relationships and to who you guys are in the testament over the decades of putting work together.
Speaker 2:Well, we failed, trust me. There have been a lot of times where we didn't make no money.
Speaker 3:I figured out. You know what I'm going to do this.
Speaker 2:Hey, y'all want to hear a funny-ass story? Yes, I do. So I took off for a week on my birthday. I went down to my fish camp. I said, well, I'm going to go fish. And I went down there on the north unit at White River Refuge, and then I rode into my truck nine miles and unloaded my can-am. I rode another 10 back to this lake on a long road back there, you know, and uh, so I'm pretty much 20 miles in the middle of nowhere and I'm sitting there, I done fished, pulled my little two-man boat back up to my rig and I'm sitting there eating a sandwich. And uh, I look up and wherever one of my drivers, jason, said, hey, 100 miles from the shot in the middle of the woods, where can't and barely get down, they're delivering beast on to a logger down there.
Speaker 1:There's no shit isn't that so cool? It's, it's I love you can't get away from them. They like me that much, then they love you, bud. We all do the from the entire excavation business and utility, community and audience. We all love the trebo team. Um, please don't stop anytime soon. Seriously.
Speaker 2:We enjoy it. We enjoy traveling. We just got back from Vegas. World of Concrete. Yeah, where are you going to?
Speaker 3:be there here this year. Guys, I'll tell you we've got the National Farmers' Year show in Louisville. We're going to be there. We're going to get there Thursday. I think. We'll be there on the fourth, friday and Saturday. Okay, we'll be announcing that We've got the World of Asphalt, which is, I think, the latter. It's in the 20s part of March. We'll be there and the Con Expo That'll be next year. It'll be at World of Con Expo in January next year. We'll be at Con Expo in March of next year. So we get out and about.
Speaker 2:Con Expo's going to be a big party.
Speaker 3:It always is Always is. We'll have the Trayvon Expo. That stuff is going to be coming up in April. This will be the third one. Excited about that. That grows every year. We'll be announcing that stuff soon.
Speaker 2:Trayvon Expo. It took off, but you know it's pretty much everybody comes in on Friday evening. They'll people from five states away show up and help us get stuff out, get ready. We have steak dinner that night. It's all catered, you know, and these equipment companies pay for everything, so we just charge them nothing. And then um the uh, what are all the steak dinners?
Speaker 3:A steak dinner. Back to all the steak $25. $25.
Speaker 2:So you're not going to get that, that's to get a head count.
Speaker 3:That's the head count. We've got to go to this catering center for Saturday. So I'm like I need to know something, because a lot of people they'll kind of start like, hey, we're coming, we're coming, we're coming.
Speaker 2:Well, we bring in all these equipment companies Caterpillar, komatsu, lugon, kubota, john Deere, I mean it's and essentially what this is okay like.
Speaker 3:Okay, you're coming in for the Trayvill Expo, what do you expect you come in on Friday? It's more about hanging out at the shop. They get to tour the shop, look around and the casino is right next door.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so meet other guys. There were some that popped a wheelie that first night stayed out all night.
Speaker 3:We had 11 states represent last year at this deal. They all get to know each other. Some of them they know from social media already as a person on their phone. So do all that. And then Saturday we start off generally. We have a major player in the general contract world comes in and talks about how you work for the general contract, what their process is like. United Rental and Equipment Center came in how do you rent equipment, how does that work? Why these guys haven't done it before. We had somebody from the insurance. We had somebody from the DOT coming in from the Department of Transportation, talking about here's your home.
Speaker 2:He was a big hit last year. God that dude was so cool. He even gave an award and everything, so it's real. So if you pull one of my trucks over, Mr Award-winning DOT dude, cut us some slack before you're a little overloaded Play GPS.
Speaker 3:But the beauty of it is, instead of sitting there for an hour in the classroom and saying what we're doing, we're going to let them kind of introduce themselves, talk a little bit about what they do and then say you know what I'm going to be over here in the corner for the rest of the day and if that applies to you and you want more of us talking about it, so you're not hearing all day about things that may not apply to you, but you've got the ability to learn more if you want to.
Speaker 2:Oh, and then we have the Mini-X Rodeo. So last year we gave a trophy out to a plaque and it says the world champion. There's no world champion Mini-X Rodeo. So we made our own. There is none. And so we said I told them guys, I said, look, you can walk into any bar in the world and you can walk out with a 10. You know what I'm saying? You know what's funny? You won't have to pay for a drag if you've got this plaque, and I'd be damned if a kid didn't win it.
Speaker 3:So this kid, he's 18 years old and he's from Wisconsin. He also won the award for the farthest track. He was a laborer, he was not an. I mean, you'd thought he was born in this machine. Really I was like man, is he your best operator? And the kid's like I'm not even an operator and the boss goes. He is now.
Speaker 2:So he got a promotion out of that and there were some girls there that put it on pretty good too. I mean them girls. I don't know if they'd been on them or not, but they were stacking tires and they were damn near winning the challenge the whole time.
Speaker 1:They're the great ones. One at that high school trade, high school trade in the field, sitting there that night watching this dozer run back and forth. I asked Chad, the teacher there. I said now who's in that dozer? I mean like it's clicking along, it's moving, like I actually got a little sense about him. That's gabrielle. And I'm like who's gabrielle? Little tiny, four, five foot she's. I think she's coming on the show, but uh, man, tracking that, she went over there. That's all the traco that thumb started set. They're tearing up chicken house and so they're separating the metal and they're separating this and they're separating trash and I think women are better than guys.
Speaker 2:That's holding me anyway. My mom, she was attracted better my dad. Any day of the week she could run a combine better than my dad when I was a kid. I mean, my mom, is she cooking anything? And she? Women have a different outlook on things. They, they just go and get shit done where us, us guys, we're going to sit there complaining about it.
Speaker 1:Well, we can do it this way.
Speaker 2:I don't want to go on that vacation.
Speaker 3:We went out to Clayton, north Carolina, back in the spring Caterpillar to the training facility and they were having these skilled competitions and they were doing all this stuff. There were a lot of women operators, some were even operators, but they don't operate. You know, cynthia, she's a monster truck driver.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she drives the Lucas monitor truck. Cynthia's gone up there. She's the coolest chick in the world. Yeah, she's so cool. I call her Frenchie because she's real cool.
Speaker 3:She's Canadian. Yeah, you'll love her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do you know what? She don't speak English. I mean, she speaks English, but it's like so broken up. Le Vufranc.
Speaker 3:Hi. She lives in New York now. Oh, okay, but there were several women operators that were awesome and it's funny. The Caterpillar people were telling us that in their experience they're seeing the men want to be like more power, more this, more that, and the women are more meticulous, more consistent. I'm telling you they're like. These women are out there beating the men pretty much every time.
Speaker 2:I bet that cat stays cleaner too. Oh yeah, I mean. But that's just a really amazing fact. I know men are great at doing everything, but the things I've seen firsthand, these women, they ain't no joke. On the day I'm trying to go wear a dozer it's crazy or an off-road truck you bet there's plenty of them.
Speaker 1:I always, uh, last thing I've kind of got for you guys and I think this one will probably run off into a little bit of a longer segment. But what's, I ask everybody that comes on the show, what's the takeaway for the blue collar worker who is sick and tired of being stuck in the mud? And that's not just physically, I'm talking about mentally, as you guys know what we've gone through over the years, just talking about putting Trey on suicide watch when he's got 67-inch ropes running. There's so much more of a mental game going up here. But what about that labor hand that hasn't had the opportunity? And he's the greatest operator out there in the world and nobody knows him and he hasn't been given that opportunity. You know what can they use every day to keep going.
Speaker 2:What can they use every day to keep going? Well, a Red Bull will start it off pretty damn good. Or a Monster Drag All our guys do it. There'll be a trash can full of empty cans. Noses, celsius, all our guys do it. There'll be a trash can full of empty cans. No, I'll sue. You Say I'll sue you.
Speaker 2:You know, if you get that young guy or woman that doesn't feel like that they're going up. You know what I'm saying. Yes, sir, maybe go talk to the boss, just go have a good talk. But if you're working for somebody that's an asshole, just quit tomorrow because you can go work for somebody that appreciates you. If Just quit tomorrow because you can go work for somebody that appreciates you, you know, if you ever work for somebody that don't appreciate you, you're in the wrong spot. Agreed, don't never work for somebody that don't appreciate you. But you know. And if you're working for a boss that is not just a total ass, he's going to listen to you and he's going to say you know what, tomorrow let's go put some time in this machine, you know.
Speaker 3:Or if you're on this job, get out of the water truck, go over tell the excavator operator to let you run the last two hours and speak up. You won't see them, ideally, but what you want to do is you want to be the guy that's on the job site, that that boss whoever's running it for your company knows whether they're like hey, you need to go fill up the water jugs, they're the one that'll go do it. But if you're also, you know you want to be the one. You got no water jug.
Speaker 2:But if they're a problem solver man that water jug in 15 years we got pallets of bottled water. They'll have to drink two drinks and set it on the machine. You got to knock it off, oh it drives me crazy.
Speaker 3:He did that to If he did not see us.
Speaker 1:It drives me crazy.
Speaker 2:And then you know you get an operator like one track of an operator gets in there and he goes who's been running this machine? Oh God, shout out to CMoy. Gotta listen to that bullshit. You know Well, it was the guy that ran it yesterday because you had to take off early.
Speaker 1:What you still needed my production set.
Speaker 2:What are you talking about? We really didn't, but the biker was looking at us. Oh my Lord, have you ever noticed that Somebody gets in somebody else's dump truck or off-road truck or damn track or dozer? Who was in there? They put cigarette butts in the bottle. I remember one guy you ever just had, a truck driver. That was just a total dumbass. Yes, sir, we had this boy and I'll say his name on there. His name was Kevin, and one boy had spit some sunflower seeds out in the damn thing and the next day he was like I'm not cleaning those out. I said, well, don't clean them out, they were in the out. There were like three, you bet. And he ended up getting fired which we call that Brooks and done because he tried to blow up on Brooksy and that was a mistake. Shout out to Brooksy. He's doing great. Yeah, brooksy's doing great, and Kevin's stocking pickles at the grocery store.
Speaker 3:That's true, that's a true story Okay, brooksie is doing great. Brooksie's doing really good. Shout out to Dr Estes, he's on the road to recovery. Yeah, he was out at World of Concrete with us as well. Awesome, awesome. And hey, one day, I think, I walked 13,000 steps. That sucker was with me every step of the way.
Speaker 1:So I Wow A little short of breath, Well of course, but good to have him back working, I'm assuming.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, brooks, he's part of the family. We took him to Vegas, you bet, and I think the walking got him a little bit, but he just had a good time. I think he just genuinely had a good time when we did. We drove, he flew in and flew out. I wasn't riding with him. He wants to go see the world's largest damn ball of yarn and shit like that. I'm trying to get somewhere.
Speaker 3:110 miles away, a little bit bigger than the last two years when I saw it. Yeah, I think really. No, we saw Billy the Kid's grave. We went through, you bet we went to the down airs.
Speaker 2:Billy the Kid did not die young, it was brushy Bill Robertson. He lived to be like 104.
Speaker 3:Okay, we've seen one Somebody backtracked out.
Speaker 1:He's so good to me, we're going to need some backtrack.
Speaker 3:I called him. Hey man, I'm Billy the Kid's gravy. I bet you're not, hey buddy.
Speaker 2:No, I told him. I said Billy the Kid did not die. I've watched Young Guns like 20 times Pat Garrett. Let Billy the Kid walk, oh my Lord. He died brushing Bill Roberts on the side of a highway talking to some news journalist. I don't know.
Speaker 3:I'd go back and watch a movie. That's the one I've been to, so I'm saying he's dead there.
Speaker 2:He might still be alive. Billy the Kid might still be alive. Are you, billy the Kid? No, I don't want to be shot at.
Speaker 1:Guys, I've got to tell you thank you again. It's been a big thing. A lot of us younger guys here at psycon, fanboys of all the trayboat team and um, I really appreciate you coming on here shedding a little light on the exact message that you guys are already doing.
Speaker 2:I hope it helps somebody you know, and if it just helps one person, if this show just helps one person, that's all it matters. 20 years from now you might see them in gas station. They'll come up to you and say you know what you changed my life. I'm stocking bread at Dollar General. I own a big excavation company.
Speaker 1:Buddy. I'm trying to help them because if there's some things that, through this show, I sit down and learn every single time I sit down at this table, it's so awesome. But if we can portray that and help them stray away from some of the curves that we had to take and just listen to what we're saying long term, it's because we're talking from experience. It's not because, uh, we, we chose to go that direction. It's because it was the wrong direction and we learned from it and move forward.
Speaker 2:So and and just because somebody's older than you does not mean they're smarter than you. And that's true. I know that. True, I'm three weeks older than him. I said that because, when I was young, the older people would always tell me you ain't going to be able to do this, you're not going to be able to do that. I'd always just sit back and watch this wheelie, one-handed, waving at them with middle fingers.
Speaker 1:I love it. I seriously I can't wait. We're actually going to be heading on down. So if you guys are watching us on YouTube with Saigon, you'll see us heading down with the Trevo team. We're going to do some things down there this summer. Be looking for that. But if you've loved this content this is the type of content we're trying to produce and help you guys. Every single episode, every single Wednesday. You can catch them on bluecollar business podcastcom. If you've got a streaming service, great, but if you don't, that's fine. Go straight to the website. You can listen to the audio and watch it straight from there. Don't have to have no subscription, nothing like that. Just watch it straight from the website while you're out there on that machine. But, um, I hope you guys have picked up a few things I always do every single time I watch one of these videos and to to be live action with these guys, and I really appreciate it. And till next time, guys, y'all it's been great.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having us on. I want to give the folks one tip of advice please, if you get out at my shop to visit with us, don don't let Scooby bite you in the ass, because he will. Scooby's a nipper, he will nip you on the back of the leg, he will, and so it's best to honk. Wouldn't see you on the camera. Then get out and you can take pictures and do all that. But if Scooby's out and about I know you see him on the videos and he's a big love muffin and all that but Scooby will bite your ass. He's your love muffin, he's my love muffin man. Golly, we should have brought him and mic'd him up today. I would have loved that. We'll do it at the shop. Yeah, we'll do it at the shop.
Speaker 2:We've got another episode coming. We ordered him a Scooby collar. We ordered him a true Scooby collar. Yeah, he don't know it yet, though no.
Speaker 1:I loved his high vis and the boots and the lock. You know, I think that was hilarious. 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.