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. 27 - Bridging the Contractor-Architect Gap
Join us for an enlightening conversation with Lance Cayko, the co-founder of F9 Productions and host of the Inside the Firm podcast, as he shares his transformative journey from a farm upbringing to a flourishing career in architecture. Lance's personal narrative reveals how early lessons in construction and clashing personalities with his father led him to rethink financial success and wealth. Inspired by contrasting views of money from his father and mentor Bruce, Lance learned that true wealth lies in freedom from financial stress, a realization that propelled his career forward.
This episode offers a deep dive into the world of design-build processes, and Lance provides invaluable insights into bridging the gap between finalized architectural plans and real-world construction execution. Discover how technology, such as Revit Architecture, is transforming the industry and why effective communication between entrepreneurs and architects is essential for success. Lance's commitment to innovation, fueled by a philosophy of learning from past setbacks and figures like Michael Jordan, showcases the importance of adopting new methodologies to maintain a competitive edge.
We also explore the profound impact of Stoicism on Lance's personal growth and leadership style, drawing wisdom from Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations." Lance highlights the importance of calm, constructive communication in the workplace and shares tips on balancing multiple roles as an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and family man. Whether you're drawn to architecture, construction, or personal development, this episode promises a wealth of knowledge and inspiration to fuel your own journey.
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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, guys, to another episode of the Blue Collar Business Podcast, sponsored today by podcastvideoscom, this beautiful studio here in Rogers, arkansas. You guys have heard me say I've moved, obviously, operations for the podcast out of this beautiful studio. Go check them out, podcastvideoscom.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to be talking about design build, something that you guys know I'm very passionate about. As a younger contractor, I've seen this struggle bus of a gap between hey prints are finalized. Give me the cheapest number, put it in the ground. Oh, there's a bunch of problems, and that's for my side of the coin. But I'm also going to get to learn a little bit about the topic today with you guys, because I do not do much in architecture world. We are usually slab down, so anything structural, et cetera is usually anything. So for you more, I have the wonderful co-founder and partner of F9 Productions, and he also holds his own podcast called Inside the Firm, so go check that out. With over 700 episodes, he's way farther in than this than I am, guys, so go check that out If you love this conversation. Mr Lance Syko, thank you so much for joining me, brother.
Speaker 2:My pleasure, Sy. I just love, I love your guys' logo. I had to reach out to the show and try to get on and chat with you guys.
Speaker 1:Well, if you guys know somebody like Mr Lance, it's going to be a wonderful, great conversation for the next 45 minutes that we all can learn from. Make sure you check out bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom, Get on there. There's a contact form submission in the menu link. Drop down, hit that. But if you'd like to be a sponsor here on the show, if you have a product or service for the construction-based-minded entrepreneur, all are at us there under that menu tab. But furthermore, let's get into why we're here today. We're going to be talking about some.
Speaker 1:Mr Lance is not just an architect. He had construction experience before entering into architecture. I say it all the time I wish engineers that man knows a thing or two about technology in the architecture game and how it's shaping construction moving forward. And we're also going to be talking to you guys about how you can effectively and efficiently communicate with an architect. You guys all know they're not usually the most friendly about frequently getting back to you, but also to entrepreneurs. Calm down, do your research before asking them silly questions, because a lot of times you should be knowing a lot of the knowledge you're probably pinging them 800 times a week with. So, furthermore, Mr Lance, thank you so much for joining us. Tell us a little about yourself, brother.
Speaker 2:Oh man, I'm about to be 42 in three days days. Here we're recording this on february 6, 2025, pretty pumped about it and heading out to do one of my favorite things with my favorite, some of my favorite buddies the two bills, cameraman bill, beetle, beetle bill. We're gonna head up to fort peck montana and do a lake ice ice fishing trip for lake trout fort peck is like a phenomenal place for it.
Speaker 2:Last year was our first trial run up there and we were kind of, we were mostly prepared, but this year we're back with bigger batter, uh, side-by-sides, and equipment and all kinds of good stuff. So I'm a I'm a fishing addict first and foremost, and then obviously, a serial entrepreneur. Uh, I have a construction company and architecture company, a real estate development company, and then I'm also a philanthropist. I have a nonprofit, longmont Community Gardens. Last year I taught at two universities. This year I'm only teaching at one and people always ask me how do you get it all done, lance, how are you doing this? And I go, I'm just very intentional with my time as an entrepreneur. I think that's one of the biggest things that buys you is freedom to be intentional with your time. So I make sure I have time for everybody. Like you know, I I still. I have a fiance. I make time for her and make time for my daughter, my son, all my friends, like I talked about, and so that's, that's kind of me in a nutshell.
Speaker 1:Man, you sound like a busy feller brother. Oh, my Lord, I definitely know exactly what you're meaning, as I'm learning that myself is that a lot of times? And I have personally as well, and I'm literally in the process of redoing how and recalibrating the calendar schedule, and it's those minimal things, minimalistic sounding things, but it's the big things at the end of yeah, and I think it starts with your morning.
Speaker 2:And what are you doing each morning? I know one of the biggest steps. I live by the law of polarity, so there's negative stuff that happens and then a positive thing has to happen. You can't have I'm a big believer in God and try to be as faithful in that kind of a way. I pray every morning but, like you know, there's it's an actual physical law, so if something bad happens, something good has to happen. You can't happen, you can't have electricity without negative. You have to be negative, it has to be a positive.
Speaker 2:And one of the things that a lot of people could have seen it as a negative was like I became a father at 21. And that was in. That was in like year two of me going to architecture school and a lot of people would have said like oh, you probably got to drop out. You know, and like you, this is now, now you're, now you're. How are you going to survive like this with you know, with having a child in school? But I took it as a positive. Like the negative part was like well, I can't. I can't like party with my friends anymore. I have to be much more intentional with my time, like how am I going to be able to do put in the 10,000 hours it takes to become a good architect and a designer in in architecture school and I, I I shifted the way I operated so all of a sudden I had to become a morning person and that was the positive part of it and that's where it all really started.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of the success in my life has started is I would. I started being that person that would go to bed as early as possible before we put put baby Kyler down, and I'd wake up as early as possible, like four or 5.00 AM, and I would always be that person and I would. So I'd get a couple hours of work in before we'd have to take him to daycare. Then I would be the first one to architecture studio and then one of the first ones to leave, though right at the end too. And you know, I thought a lot of there's a badge of honor in architecture school of like pulling these all-nighters.
Speaker 2:You know this idea that you're going to stay up all night for multiple days and like be productive and make zero sense. So the way that's translated into my professional life is once I started, you know I carried that through all the way through grad school, graduated at the top of the class as a result, but then when we started the architecture business, it's always been that way. And what I like to think of those hours in the morning where it's me waking up and I'll tell you about my typical morning, where it's kind of evolved to now, is I like to I call them the golden hours, like literally and metaphorically right, because like literally, as an outdoors person, you know, like that golden hour in the morning is just, it changes your whole life, I mean, especially if you're a hunter or fisher or anything like that like it just is, it's, it's, it's totally energetic, know, in such a positive way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I wake up at usually about 5am, uh, go downstairs pour myself a glass of electrolyte water. Water, get rehydrated, grind the coffee, get it kind of set in the in the French press, get the kettle going on the stove, go right down and, uh, down to my floor. I, I stretch, I pray the rosary, I finish. That water's ready to put on the french press. Get the french press going and I'm going right to work between like 5 30 and 7 30, while everybody else is just getting ready for work yeah, I'm already there my daughter's, you know, getting ready upstairs and all that kind of good stuff.
Speaker 2:But that's where most of my like the most creative things I've ever come up with, whether it's like things in the business, marketing ideas or architectural designs or creative processes with the construction industry, with our construction firm, real estate, all the things that we do. I am ahead of everybody. I check my calendar right away when I get to that computer, have that first cup of coffee and see like what's happening for the day. Are there any things I need to move? Is there anything I need to schedule With knock down emails as I need to do? And then by the time I'm leaving the door like I'm pulling the world in the directions I want it to go and it's not pulling me. And I think that's the fatal flaw for anybody who's trying to do start your first business first of all. But if you're trying to do multiple businesses and you're trying to really kind of make that of effect in the world, it all starts with those golden hours, dude literally, and it sounds like you learned it really early in life.
Speaker 1:Our first baby I was 24. We had Noah's 23. It was two days after I started Cycle and we had been trying for three years at that point. But it's a long drawn-out story, so it was motivation for myself. It was an instant switch of hey, dude, you got to get your stuff together. It's time to make or break it with this business. And at that point I had had a failed business, sunk our equity of our house and we're living in a freaking camper and so, um, I had to put up or shut up with with mama bear, and I didn't. The sacrifices are is the word. I think that most people aren't willing to make the sacrifice to get to that successful meter, whatever parameter that may be in inversion of success. But man, I want to hear you hit on the early years. Um, coolest thing about I think your story is that you started in construction and now, of course, you're ending in construction as well. But tell us a little bit about that construction background and why we slid into that architecture. A little bit, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, it actually starts on the farm. So I grew up between a. I grew up in Northwest I have to go to a very rural area and I grew up between a cattle ranch and a sugar beet farm and on the sugar beet farm my dad was running the farm with his father. If it wasn't for dad running the farm grandpa God rest his soul, he's deceased he was a bad farmer and a drunk and if it wasn't for dad doing it, it wouldn't have survived Now. We wouldn't have the land I mean, we still own it and everything like that and generational wealth and all the good stuff. Any ducks up there, feller, there's some ducks, a lot more pheasants. If you're into pheasants, that's probably what you'd want as a southern boy coming up there. Yeah, Fair enough, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I tried farming with him, irrigating sugar beets, specifically one summer. My dad who raised me and I didn't get along with him that well. He was very type A, I'm very type a and I just didn't like the work either. It wasn't that I was adverse to hard work, because clearly I've been in construction my whole life. Right, it was that I just I did. Environment was just not for me.
Speaker 2:So I had like a backup plan and everything, because I told him I was going to quit and I was like I was like, don't worry, I'm leaving it high and dry, but this isn't for me. Like I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go try construction with your, with your best friend bruce. Like that's, I just want to try that. And, uh, so chris, you know, my best friend chris took my job, whatever, and I called up bruce and I that night and I said, hey, I want to try construction. Like you got any openings, you have any jobs. And he goes you know, we just landed a big contract. We're going to do 80 roofs this summer. We're going to tear them off. Tear one roof off a day, put it back on Like we're going to wake up at 4 or 5 am, have it torn off by 10 am, have it put back on by 2 or 3 pm. And he goes I'll pay're going to go for this, you're going to go for that. When you're done, go for the things. Then you can get up on the roof and learn.
Speaker 2:I was the best, I was the best gopher he ever had. I bet you were, you know, because I just wanted to. I wanted to learn, I wanted to. I was like, and one of the things that I noticed right away after getting that contrast between I got the if you, if you might've read this book and I maybe your listeners have to. Rich, dad, poor dad right, robert Kiyosaki.
Speaker 2:So I got, I got the rich dad, poor dad experience before I even read the book, like I only read the book about 10 years ago. And then, and then in hindsight I was like, oh, I got the rich dad, poor dad experience about 10 years ago. And then in hindsight I was like, oh, I got the rich dad, poor dad experience. My dad the farmer was the poor dad and money was anything related to money with him and mom was just anxiety, just fear. It was not freedom for them and I just I hated it. I hated one of the phrases they used to say and they stopped it now because I corrected them. It took me a long time to become an adult to figure it out. The phrase they used to say was like having money isn't everything, and it always bugged me. I was like, yeah, well, we don't have any. And then Kanye West, my favorite rapper. He finished that sentence for me about 10 years ago On one of his albums. He goes having money isn't everything, but not having it is.
Speaker 1:And I went oh now. I get it.
Speaker 2:Now I get it. I mean, I literally call my mom and I go look, I don't ever want to hear that again. I've completed it. Some of us don't look at money that way. Right, and Cy, it's not about possessions. I assure you, like I, it is not about possessions. I drive a 2015 Suburban with 246,000 miles on it. The front end is like a little broken, I don't you know. It's not about that. Yo, chevy wobble.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly so Bruce was my rich dad and the way he thought about it it was not like he had all kinds of possessions, it was just there was no anxiety about it and I was like, oh, I need the freedom from anxiety with this money. So I want to be like Bruce. So I worked so hard. But halfway through the summer he pulls me aside one day and he goes. He goes hey, I'm paying you $7.25 an hour. How much do you think I'm charging the customer for your labor? I go $7.25 an hour and he laughed and laughed and laughed and I go I was embarrassed. He's like no, like two or three times what I pay you, I charge him, I go why he broke it all down. What I pay you, I charge him, I go why he broke it all down. He broke it all down like a blue collar businessman would you know.
Speaker 2:You bet yep and just explain profit overhead all of it. And and I go, oh, and when he told me that that was the biggest, probably, mind shift I ever had in my life, because I, the town I grew up in, was like 500 people, not not hardly no entrepreneurs in the family, right, and people that just worked for other people. My mom, like she's still working the same job 40 years got you know, god bless her. Like we need you know, thank god she did. But nope, that's, that's, that's where I'm, that's where I come from. Is that kind of a background? So you know, that's, that's what led me to construction.
Speaker 2:So I go, bruce, at the end of the summer. I go well, how do I become what you do? And he goes here's what you're going to do next summer. And I actually couldn't believe he told me what I'm about to tell you, because it's hard to find good help in the construction industry. What a confident man and a generous man to tell me I don't want you to work for me next summer.
Speaker 2:I go what he goes. You need to go work for somebody else and learn a different trade. And then after that you go work for somebody else and learn a different trade. He goes. You need to learn every part of the trade, the whole construction, if you're going to do this. He goes. You know, know, siding, windows, foundations, whatever. So that's what I did. I did that from 18 to 20, 21 right around there. Uh, graduated high school barely made honors, went to tech school just because everybody was going to school for building construction tech in wapiton and just actually became like a straight-a student once I got into that program because it was like I got to pick what I want to do. I'm very much a. It's got to be kind of my decision to be happy sort of thing.
Speaker 2:And so by the time I our capstone project at that two-year degree was, we had to build a house together, you know. But I got to looking at the blueprints and I was like, well, why did the architect draw it like this? I just want to know if there's like, what's the rationality? It's not that it was a bad design, it was just like how do they start? I mean, I instantly became curious and then another light bulb went off and I went, oh, if I became an architect, I figured out how to monetize school. I've got scholarships now I don't have any responsibilities like as far as a family or anything Like I could keep going to school. Actually, right. And if I became an architect, first man, I'd get the clients first and that like what a sales funnel. I mean it really like to get a light bulb like that at 20 is insane.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and so that's what? Yeah, and so that's what. I applied to North Dakota State, 70 miles north, to the architecture program. It's a selective program. They accept 350 at the beginning. You have to be really good and then get down to the 50. And I somehow was, and then accelerated again top of the class, graduated with the best thesis, and that's kind of what encapsulates where the budding part of my two professional careers and eventually real estate development.
Speaker 1:Well, of course it kind of all equals. But you're right, and not 20 years old, 22 years old, thinking about a sales funnel of oh, I can get to the customer first, and utility guy we I mean 100 delivered, I, by the local engineering firms that either recommend us or hey, I've heard.
Speaker 1:What have you heard about them? Oh well, we've worked with him on several jobs. They're great or it can be. Well. They're the one to stay away from, and and it can be. It can be turned around so quickly like that. So you have been basically in architecture for how long?
Speaker 2:wait, yeah, so if I started in architecture school, I went from art and went to architecture school from 2003 2008 and then have been out practicing uh since 2008, so about 17 years yeah, I started I had two internships. One was in fargo when I was going to school and then the other one after I graduated. Then I came down to boulder, colorado, got one of the I think one of the last internships down here before the great recession hit and then I got laid off nine months later and I'm again sort of this back to this law of polarity.
Speaker 2:Sigh, you know I was devastated driving home that day. I was like I had a newborn child. So I had my second child, Kaya, and I was married to Kyler's mother at the time and I remember just calling my wife Like no man wants to go home. It's awful, right, I mean, whether you're so just like totally devastating was crying Called grandma. Just like totally devastating. He was crying, Called grandma, just big letdown. And if you're a 90s kid like me, then you are also a big Michael Jordan fan.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:You remember the story about the chip on the shoulder and you remember about him getting cut from the basketball team that one summer and then him just using all of that hurt and like. This is what I love about us as men is like we take that hurt and we turn it into fuel. Man, yeah, you do. We put it in our belly and then god gives, god gave us this unlimited amount of masculine energy. And then, and then it's war. And then it's like, well, now it's war, and so you, if anybody goes, looks on like my linkedin profile.
Speaker 2:My preferred pronouns are positive reactionary, because that's what I am. It's like all that negative that I got from those shitty business owners who laid me off, those architects who put all their eggs in one basket. It's like I'm going to do, thank God, good. I'm glad they taught me all the bad business lessons, because I'm going to do the complete opposite of what they've done. And now, now, not only are those guys that that firm imploded a couple of about four or five years ago the one remaining partner who's still practicing and has his own, like we are.
Speaker 2:We are twice the size, twice the revenue and now we go head to head to him with him on projects. My business partner just told me that the other day that he goes like, by the way we interviewed for this house out in Kansas Cool one, like a shipping container kind of modern thing and he goes guess who they mentioned that we're competing against and he said the name and I was like just Providence, dude, just Providence all the time and that kind of stuff. So yeah, that's all that kind of is where the architecture company is, has formed from, and that is just, and that's why we win, you know, the best customer service in Colorado for an architecture firm over and over and over again, because we just do the opposite of what those guys did.
Speaker 1:Dude, I'm a man. Similar stories, brother, very similar stories, and I learned very quickly from the mistakes that were around me. Um, at a very young age and I, literally to this day me and my sales team has been up front like how do we do this differently? Just how do we do construction from a civil standpoint? To these ownership groups, what are they looking for? What are they looking for? What are they longing for? Is it Gantt charts? Is it? What is it? Is it snapshots? Every single day Over-enclode them with information, because in the blue collar sector, we think our communication is I will be done by Friday.
Speaker 1:And these guys on the ownership side? That's, of course, where you want to be working directly for the client as a subcontractor or yourself. You're want to be working directly for the client as a subcontractor or yourself. You're going to be working directly for the client. You're the first guy that gets brought to the table in a lot of sense. How did we get to here? You know what I mean, no doubt Construction-wise. You know, like the system that I fought for the last nine years. How did we get to here and why is nobody trying to change it? Because paying subcontractors in 90 to 120 days because of these, all these extra new systems and this crazy stuff like come on these guys, we're never going to get new, younger faces working out in the world is where I was going with that. But staying on the architecture subject, you have over 20 years here, 17 house technology, just absolutely rampant change in your world and if you're the guy like we're all hearing that is running opposite, I'm assuming you probably dove hard in that realm.
Speaker 2:Yep, one of our. So yeah, so like, on our website, f9productionscom, if you, we have these principles right, so you go to about and you'll see. Like f9 principles there's nine of them, and one of them is model it like it's built. So, uh, when we first started the architecture firm way back in 2010, it, we were young, we had no built work, we uh, we weren't even licensed, and so we had to be really careful what we could and couldn't do. Like, we had to look at all the regulations like, yep, so like state of Colorado, you can do a single family homes with either 13,000 square feet or less. You can do really small commercial and institutional stuff. So we concentrated on residential. I mean, that's where my bread and butter from the beginning anyway, you know is a young guy from 13 and all that.
Speaker 2:And so one of the ways, though, that we sort of had to catch ourselves up by not having all of that architectural and structural engineering experience, because our internships were so short compared to other architects, while we were in layoffs, because of the layoff and everything was we really we? I said, well, why aren't we like modeling in the software we're using, which is revit architecture, like we're like it's actually going to get built. And my business partner was like what do you mean? And I go look out of the box when you open up rabbit, like if you have a wall type, it has all the layers on it right, so like it goes all the way from, like, the siding on the outside to the gypsum on the inside right. It has like all, like it has the weather barrier, the vapor barrier, the whole insulation everything right and I go but that's not how it's built like.
Speaker 2:It's built in stages. I mean, you start with foundation, you know it's just like dig a hole. So I like I constructed how we architected, based on all the construction experience that that I had and that leveled us up, that allowed us to, especially after we first, after we were hired and then we produced our first set of construction drawings for a local developer, he was like everybody's telling me these are the best drawings I've ever seen. And I go, yeah, because it's like we model like. And he goes I have had hardly any change orders because you guys virtually tested the model and so that's how we've done it. So over the past 15 years we've just continually done that and continually done that.
Speaker 2:And the most beautiful thing that it does for our architects if they haven't had any construction experience and I do pull them out in the field so they get it at our firm, which is not usual because we have the sister firms Thank you, yeah, but what helps them virtually do that stuff is they have to model it like it's built Like. They have to model all the layers, all the structural beams, everything. We take on much more responsibility at F9 to do all of that stuff than most other architects do. Most architects will sub out completely the structural engineering. We insist on modeling it so that the architecture and the architectural model live together.
Speaker 1:And then an engineer?
Speaker 2:yes, then we work with engineers. We look it over, do the calcs. You know we share the model back and forth and all that kind of good stuff. Right, for us, that's been the biggest thing, I mean. So one of our first design build projects was these tiny houses. We built it and then we were on HGTV every two, you know, two weeks in 2013. Subaru saw it. They wanted two more and they go.
Speaker 2:And I use the Revit model as like a working shop drawing. That's because it was like those, why I'm citing those tiny houses, like they had foldable decks and awnings and they were like real. They were like transformers on wheels. And the reason why we got hired to do the Subaru ones is because, like they were like nobody else is doing this, nobody can do it, we can't do it, can you guys do it? And I go, yeah, because we wore both hats and we actually use the model like that. So for me, that's really what's everything around. As a matter of fact.
Speaker 2:Here's one last story about the technology. Please go ahead. It just happened today. So we have these series of homes that we do. They're super modern looking, they've got these big planar roofs. They're under our residential tab on the website and they're called the Eastwatch series and the latest one we're doing is at 9,600 feet above sea level. It looks at the continental divide. It's got a ton of structural steel in this big little low slanting roof up on the mountain and the contractor is one of my best friends.
Speaker 2:I'm not building that one, but he's sending the drawings to the steel fabricators same ones I use and they they can't. They can't figure it out, they can't get the dimensions correct right, because it's it's like angled on two axes and stuff like that. It's kind of tricky. Okay, well, we just sent them the shop drawings. Like we ended up producing the shop drawings for that uh, which is not typical, like we had. I had to like legally do some stuff and say like brian, you need to like alleviate us of if a beam is wrong length, but like we're the only like, if it wasn't for us actually doing that, the engineer couldn't do it, shop fabricator couldn't do it, gc couldn't do it, f9 could do it because we model it like it's built. So for us it's just been able to like you know, really sort of help like pull the industry forward, because we're literally seeing like oh, our designs are too much for these local fabricators like that we gotta.
Speaker 1:we have to pull them forward, dude bravo, sir, for jumping on that train early, because we are just now getting into for our side, into the GPS realm and the modeling realm and the oh my God, I can't believe I missed the boat for the couple of years that I did. But you're speaking of like an entire architecture model that you can see lifetime right, 3d live and you can sit there and show the customer. I mean, 10 years ago I was probably like crazy to look at compared to other architecture companies that are like, oh, here's our, here's our, what we're thinking, you know. So you were like way ahead and I'm trying to do the same thing within project coordination and how we effectively just smaller things that I have found within our industry that need some drastic help. So I figured you were a pioneering in the technology sense.
Speaker 1:But you know there's so many back and forth between engineers and architects and contractors. That's obviously probably why all one stop shop for certain designs etc. But man, if there's a couple of guys out there listening maybe steel guys, maybe wood guys, maybe carpenters, whatever electricians or plumbers, whoever's got to email back and forth with you maybe talk about some effective communication that, hey, I've got a problem on my job. Number one. Give me the problem, maybe offer me a solution. How does you know Lance go through that kind of thing in the F9 team and how can they communicate better than ever back and forth with you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, people are watching. Right, I'm holding up my phone right now. Like, we have these, we have these, we have these computers, supercomputers in our pockets. Right, we have these supercomputers in our pockets. Like, I just want to acknowledge that. So that gives us like multiple ways to communicate, if you like, if, si, if you had an iphone I have an iphone and actually carries, it gives us at least four. It gives us we could, we could text, we could call, we could facetime, we could email, like very obvious, right, I start with a macro like that, because I think it's a two, it's a two-way conversation, right at the beginning.
Speaker 2:It's you know where it's like I really encourage my uh architects, as soon as the field starts calling them on a project, or or I general contractors introduced in the project, because it might be at the very end, like you were saying. So I like we put together all the drawings, then it goes out to hard bid. You know, like sometimes it works. You know, like, like I'd say, 50% of the time it's there, they're going to get through, they're going to get through. It's going to be painful. Exactly, it's not the best way, for sure, you and I agree. Like design, build 150%, 150%, yeah, but either way, day one, they've already selected a contractor in some kind of way, right, okay, is I tell my architects, like you need to ask that general contractor what is their preferred method of communication? I go, because you guys can't default to email. That's not how the blue collar rule works.
Speaker 1:We're trying. Yeah, it's okay.
Speaker 2:And we actually have some really good blue collar folks that I work with, like our steel fabricators, fantastic emailers. They reply, all they're good. Marking up drawings, those guys are right with us. But drywallers, nope. Painters, some there's this whole different scale.
Speaker 2:So I think that's the first and foremost is like the architect's got to seek to understand what is your preferred method of communication. But the blue-collar side I would just encourage the same thing First and foremost. Hey, what's your preferred method of communication? Do you want phone calls? Do you want emails? Do you want texts? Texts, and let's say the boot caller says I would prefer phone calls.
Speaker 2:And maybe the pushback is from the architects like, well, how do we record what we said and hold people accountable? Well then that onus is on the architect to like take meeting notes of the phone call and then write them up and say like, hey, here's what we talked about. Do you agree? Did I miss anything? Like you got to make create your own paper trails and that kind of that. So that's the biggest thing is I just like I'm okay with any form of communication, as long as you tell me which one is best for you, it's all good. Like I like that. We have this diversity communication. The second thing I would encourage the blue color folks to do is please stop. Please stop like, if something is wrong with the drawings and no drawing is perfect or something that the Fufu architects or whoever engineers are suggesting can get built, can't get built. I mean, I've seen it a million times.
Speaker 2:A lot of it comes down to on construction side. I'm like, how are they going to fit a palm nailer in here? You guys, yes, it works on paper, but like you can't fit a palm nailer in here, yeah, but something like that, you know, is, uh, it's okay if there's a problem. But like, let's just tone down the language with, like I, I hate this crap. I had to train some of our general contractors to say, like quit calling me and tell me you got a fire. Like that's silly. Just say hey, and there's a of things on the plans that we need to talk about. Here's what they are. And then I like your idea, cy, of like cinching it up with like here's what they are, here's some solutions we think that work with your design intent. That'd be the last, like third piece I'd offer for the blue collar folks is like you guys got to understand, there is a design story, even even on the civil engineering side.
Speaker 2:There is a design story every single time and it's not not necessarily this poetic thing sometimes it is but like, even on the civil engineering side, it's like, well, there was, you don't even know about all these planning meetings we had with the city and the county and and like we could be, we be, our solution on the civil engineering side could be like upstream 500 miles. And it's still affecting this project and so like for you to understand that will help you present better solutions to the problems that will occur in the field.
Speaker 1:Literally dude, and that's exactly how I deal with my guys. Yeah, if you want to get somebody, you got to blow them up sometimes, and sometimes they're not very effective communicators, so we get them on the phone. We have a conversation, the engineer said this, this and this. I'll take it upon my guys, my superintendents hey, follow directly up with an email. What's your meeting notes? What we just discussed? Here's the solution we worked up together and this is how we're moving forward. Do you approve? Like you can ask for their stinking approval. Yes, that's exactly what we talked about. You're not doing anything. They know exactly what you're doing, but we're just covering both sides.
Speaker 1:Okay, at least we have documentation of how we're moving forward. So I encourage you guys. Hey, text works. That's great for small in and out stuff, but literally phone calls and just follow up with one email, that's all you got to do. Get a good thread going and update that email. Hey, we effectively made that change work. Mr Architect man, Thanks for your help. Those little emails right there. He's going to respond a little bit faster on the next one because you guys were effective with the last time and he's not feeling like he's wasting his time with the actual fires he has to deal with, and so is the gc, and I'll tell you, I agree with you there.
Speaker 1:I have been guilty of it too. Oh my god, mr engineer, we got a fire. I need you out of here right now, and I mean just rip his head off and that gets us nowhere yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Hey now. Good leadership does not include like yelling and even metaphorical yelling, you know, with a use of like language that is just like obtuse, like that, like fire it just drew. Al is the one who really got. My business partner brought that to my attention a long, long time ago. You're right, we need to stop. We need to like, stop using that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like a lot of times, it's not really a fire, it's something. Yeah, we're allowed to make mistakes, everybody the contractor's going to make mistakes and we're all going to, but it's all of our job as a team to the client to ensure that we come together, make a solution for said issue and then go back to the client. Hey, there was a small delay. This is what happened. Solution was here. We're back on schedule in two days because of set, set, set. So, um, no, I I appreciate you taking the time and sharing that. You know what? Give me a couple of stories of some biggest breakdown in communications in your world. Oh, man.
Speaker 2:You know, the most recent one is the yelling. I have to, I have to, I have to talk about it, I cannot talk about it. So there's, I'm an owner. I'm an owner of real estate property because we have the real estate investment. Now, investment firm was a development firm, owner of multiple businesses, right, and this, just because I'm the owner who writes the checks, does not give me license to mistreat people. What it does do is it gives me the authority to set expectations, it gives me the authority to make rules and then it gives me the responsibility to lead in a way where people want to follow for a long enough time minimum to complete the job.
Speaker 2:Right, and on our builds, some of these custom homes that we're building here in Colorado which have like budgets of like three million dollars that's a 15, 20 month build. They're very complicated, they're huge. You know there's a bureaucracy involved with the whole situation and all of that. You know there's a bureaucracy involved with the whole situation and all of that. And so I have just experienced this with one of the, with one of the owners that we're building for I was just like that was his take.
Speaker 2:Actually was to me that you know like, well, I'm, I'm the owner, I write the checks and I really had to bug the heck out of me because I'm, like I am, I know I'm a leader, right, I have nine architects, I have five people on the construction side of things, I'm a teacher um, I'm leading. And then if you add the subcontractors and like we're talking like actually probably like 100 employees, like it's a lot of people, right? So construction already is one of the most dangerous, hardest professions out there and it's also the least respected, right, like at this point, like it's for some reason in society we think everybody needs to go to a four year school, get a five year master's.
Speaker 1:And I'm saying absolutely it's trash.
Speaker 2:Because like and I'm saying that is like somebody who literally is a professor, an adjunct professor and a high somebody with those degrees go swimming in both worlds on going like hey, there's a big problem here, Society. Like, we need to start venerating these people that are literally risking their lives to build your building Right. So, having some respect for the people like that because what do you, what is it, what does it accomplish? If you, if that's your level of communication with people, if you're a yeller my dad was a yeller, that's one of the reasons we didn't get along is like that's not a good environment to be in. I didn't want to be there. Now I'm here because I didn't want to be there.
Speaker 2:Well, if you're yelling at the drywaller who I hired but not him if you're yelling at the drywaller, are you losing sight of the fact that we go under warranty after we get the certificate of occupancy and move into your house and then there's probably going to be a little bit cracking, a little bit of repairs, maybe here and there that need to happen, and is that drywaller going to want to come back and match the art he's done on the wall? Because that's what it is that Some of the texture drywall is literally art.
Speaker 2:These guys are artisans and so you think he's going to want to happily come back into your house. He could tell us to piss off.
Speaker 2:And now you're going to have another drywaller come in there and try to match your drywall. Think about it. I'm a huge fan, cy, of Marcus Aurelius and his book Meditations. If you haven't ever read that, I encourage every man I interact with in this format to go. Try to read Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. I read it about four or five years ago. It changed my life and it's all about Stoicism. And it's not Stoicism from the standpoint of what I thought it originally was. That's one of my favorite parts about reading books is like coming to understand what I thought this was is not what it is. What I thought it was was stoicism. Is me and Cy are going to sit here and just look at each other? That's not it. Stoicism is.
Speaker 2:Stoicism is what can I control in my life every day? Right, not to get political, but to touch on on a little bit. It's like yes, we all vote. Yes, yes, it counts sometimes, right, you can get in all of that, and it's like but beyond that, once they're in office, they're kind of just doing what they want. So my, my influence on that was very small.
Speaker 2:But what, what, what, what is the influence more for me as a, as a leader, as it relates to that communication styles right. It's like well, you already talked about the morning routine. I'm controlling me and myself and my day. Then what's the next thing I can control and influence positively? Right, probably my family bringing my daughter to school in a positive way, not yelling at her to get ready, setting her off straight in the morning, picking her up happy again at the end of the day. Then it's me walking to the office, hopefully lighting it up with good energy, holly, jolly, getting stuff done. Sometimes you got to get a little stern. There's no yelling, it's not necessary, nope At all. That's kind of where I land lately with communication.
Speaker 1:I think that's the biggest breakdown I've seen lately is the yelling dude. I have to agree with you, sir, because, uh, I can't tell you how many hard hats were thrown at me and the yelling and I don't learn that way and one of it was one of the biggest issues that I had. Hell, I had a three inch water pump while I was working at a municipality, picked up by a large man and thrown across the stinking shop at me, like these terrible environments, like I knew I could do it better. And don't get me wrong, sir, I'm a redhead, I have a temper and but if you talk to any of my guys, they will tell you I, in those heightened situations, I usually calm. Let's get through it. It sucks, but let's get through it together.
Speaker 1:And then, on the other side of it, let's sit down, let's break this situation down, because something went seriously wrong for me to get to this heightened, elevated you know anger or upsetness because something happened. Yeah, you're still going to be upset about it, you're still going to be mad about it. Like, but it's your duty and how your output in your delivery. People will never remember what you say, never remember what you do, but they always remember how you make them feel, and I've moved my leadership team Like, hey, I get it. The kid's 19 years old, he ain't got a freaking clue what's going on.
Speaker 1:But it's your job, mr Superintendent, to ensure that he has a good plan, he has a chance to be successful at the day and when, at 10 o'clock, he's standing there on his phone and he's not on the plan you've given him. Yes, it's time to get a little bit more stern, understand that this isn't playtime. We've got a job to do in production, to hit, and if that's not a wake-up call, then let's go ahead and remove him from the environment, because that's not the environment we need. So I a lot of times yeah, don't get me wrong, I have most I've. I have one time, I will tell you, yelled at an ex-employee, um, where I regretted it and I had to apologize directly, but literally the yelling interpersonally. Any type of work environment is so non-conducive to any type of success. Like you're talking about bureaucracy, cities, planning boards, like you ain't getting nowhere. They'll just go who whoop, bottom of the inbox bottom of the pile.
Speaker 1:You nailed it and then it's your customer that's fixing to be really yelling at you because they can't get their freaking project started so um, man, I've got one more thing for you, brother.
Speaker 1:Um, what's the takeaway for the blue collar? The blue collar man or woman sitting on this side of the table, who's just mentally you've hit some really good points already but mentally, physically, just emotionally, just stuck. They're just stuck in the mud and they don't know the first thing about putting their first step forward and they're just doing the thing over and over again, like we referenced earlier yeah, well, I talked about being a man of faith.
Speaker 2:Uh, a little bit, a little bit before, you know, throughout this podcast, and I think that's it took me, it took me 40, it took me 40, 40, about 40 years to just really go. Yeah, I just gotta keep faith. I just gotta keep the faith like it's all providential, it's so providential and I like I I know some people don't like the idea that like a predetermined destiny, so like okay, well then, can we think about it a little bit different way? Can we think about it sort of like a, like a tree that, uh, where the it's you? You start at the trunk but then like there's all these different paths you can take as you move up the tree, right, so, so like god is infinitely more smart than any of us, you know he's got, so he's like he sort of has all this planned out, but then at the same time he gave us freedom of association, right, so that's like the closest thing I can kind of like make as far as an analogy goes with it.
Speaker 2:But you never, you're never going to get to those other paths until you start. People ask me all the time Ash, lance, I just look up to you. You have all these businesses and you seem successful. When is the best time to start a business? And I go in a great recession or a great depression, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And I go. What?
Speaker 2:And I go. You will never be hungrier, you will never be more creative. I go. No diamond was created without intense heat and pressure as a piece of coal. And then I go. The third best time is now. Like you just got to do it. If I can do it, with no clients, no built work, unlicensed even, and carefully having to navigate through how we could still do design work without calling ourselves architects and survive until we got licensed, finally, after being there, you guys can do it too, and right now is a really great environment. I mean, I am so excited as an entrepreneur seeing what's going, hopefully with deregulation and less taxation and more openness and just just just a general optimism.
Speaker 1:Finally like an optimism.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, like I said, best time great depression. Second best time great recession. Third best time right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, this, Mr Lance, I can't tell you. I really appreciate your time. If you guys have loved this episode right here, you can check them all out on bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom. You can watch and listen directly from the website, but if you have your podcast subscription Spotify, iHeart, Amazon, Apple you can check us out there. Make sure and drop a follow and a rating once you're done with an episode. I would greatly appreciate that. Mr Lance, thank you for taking your time Busy, busy schedule to cut out some time with me and talk about architecture and technology and where you think things are going. I mean, the success you've had is uncanny and I commend you and keep it going. It sounds like you're doing it the right dang way, right reasons, right purposes, brother.
Speaker 2:Thanks, brother, appreciate having me on. This is an absolute pleasure.
Speaker 1:Thanks, we're going to do it again. Stay tuned for more. Lance, 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. Till next time, guys.