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. 33 - The Hidden Challenges of Excavation Growth
What happens when a business owner with 22,500 TikTok followers who started pushing a mower across the street meets a podcast host who's been through the excavation industry's highest highs and lowest lows? Pure, unfiltered wisdom that every blue-collar contractor needs to hear.
Trent Harris of Blue Collar Contractors pulls back the curtain on his journey from mowing lawns as a freshman in high school to managing multiple commercial excavation sites with a growing fleet of equipment. His candid stories of working 70+ hour weeks while juggling a diesel shop and a young family will resonate with anyone who's built a business from nothing.
The conversation tackles the real challenges that excavation contractors face but rarely discuss publicly. From the cash flow nightmares of commercial work ("you're not seeing money for 90 days") to the psychological burden of making payroll while waiting on delayed payments ("there were tears shed"), Trent and Sy deliver actionable insights on navigating growth without imploding.
You'll discover why systems matter more than equipment, why documenting change orders is non-negotiable with general contractors who "know how to muddy the water," and why businesses often hit a ceiling around the $750K to $1M revenue mark. Perhaps most valuable is their discussion on building industry relationships through social media, which has transformed both their businesses in unexpected ways.
Whether you're pushing a mower, operating a mini-ex, or managing multiple crews, this episode delivers the unvarnished truth about scaling in the blue-collar world. As Trent says about getting through the toughest times: "You just keep going" - but this episode will equip you with far more than just persistence.
Ready to transform your business approach? Subscribe now and join the conversation that's helping contractors across the country build sustainable, profitable excavation companies.
Click the link above for a free marketing audit with insights to boost your blue collar business!
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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. I am pretty pumped up for this episode of the Blue Collar Business Podcast. Today. We have a wonderful sponsor helping out on this episode podcastvideoscom.
Speaker 1:We are in the standard room. The old BCB is normally shot out of, but we are coming at you through brand new, beautiful 4K capturing cameras on the wall. A little bit different angles. Let us know what you guys think. I'm really enjoying, um, the new look in this room. It's changed it completely. So shout out to podcast team always innovating quickly. Uh, shout out to miss brooke and the business development team here. They, they really are something special. But if you reach out through our website at bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom, become a sponsor or you think somebody could be a great guest, shoot it to us. Love to talk to them today, guys. Um, I've had a buddy drive over from just a state over. Come on that, didn't that buddy drive over from just a state over? Okay, it's been a long day already and, uh, you guys may already know this cat. He's pretty popular on the old Tiki Talk. He's got quite a good-sized following, about 22,500. A little over 500.
Speaker 2:I've been correcting Si all day. It's not 22,000. It's 22,500. I worked hard for the 500.
Speaker 1:Mr Trent Harris of the Blue collar contractors out of a tell Allah, oklahoma. I love saying to Lala Oklahoma, but actually we just, uh, if you guys have been watching the cyclone excavation YouTube channel or our Tiki talk, shout out there. Um, we just came over and had a freaking fantastic event. That was awesome. Dude, your yard looked beautiful. Appreciate it. Shop's. Your yard looked beautiful, appreciate it. Shop's coming soon. Yeah, hopefully sooner than later. If you guys haven't, go see some of the content and the main large video that, shout out to Mr Willie. Oh, will, behind the scenes, always editing and throwing YouTubies together. Well, shout out to Estris, because, yeah, estris is newly on that team as well. So, anyways, um, they'll be throwing the entire video of that day together. But, dude, um, tell us a little bit, a little bit about you. Let's start all the way back on the intro, where you at kind of bring us up to speed, and then, uh, I think we're going to laugh along the way.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, there's going to be some laughs. What do you?
Speaker 1:want to know. Well, obviously you started early. The biggest key factor about Trent is from the little bit of experience. I've only known you two weeks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that feels crazy. It is. It really is. It's been a couple weeks.
Speaker 1:I feel like we've known each other for years Ever ever and you're doing you're, you're concentrated on the right things. It sounds like you've got a group of individuals that care about you, but tell us about kind of where it started, what equipment we're dealing with. We're talking excavation today, guys. I know a bunch of you guys are from the excavation and utility world and I appreciate you guys, but we're talking in that realm today, so kind of pathway for the rest of the guys jumping in the world.
Speaker 2:I know sometimes that's not fun to talk about, but yeah there's a, there's a lot to it, man to to kind of skim through it uh, we started, or I started, there wasn't a we and uh, one man show started in high school, I think my freshman year blue collar lawn care and uh, that's obviously the name that we've stuck with with the blue color all the way.
Speaker 2:It's been popular here I was playing out here I know it's on your hat, it's on this screen. I mean, golly, oh shit, train morning anyways. So we had the lawn care, um. And then, uh, what year was that? 12, 2012, probably. I started mowing. Okay, I mean, like I said, I was a freshman in high school when we started that. It was before I could drive. I mean we would, we would wheel across across the street into the housing condition. You betcha start pushing a push mower around and you got zero turn and never, never, grew that into anything great big. You know, it's just a little mowing deal and got the. The skid steer started doing some tree work with a buddy who just started the tree service at the time. What was the first skid steer?
Speaker 1:seven, six, three buck you saw it at the yard. It's still there. Ideal flux capacitor issue.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's right you know, when you get that high tech like that, you'll have that kind of stuff now. So we got the little 763. We're doing some tree work. I had the diesel shop in the meantime. I went to diesel school and had blue color diesel and then, uh, but my oldest was born when I was a junior in high school and then my youngest came a few years later.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was everything, man. That's why I say, you know, when people ask kind of what the story was like, there's a lot there, you know, because we had whatever we could do to make a dollar. You know there was no concept of strategy or you know how to grow, it was just survive. Yeah, we had $ 40 in our account and then we hadn't got groceries yet. I know like it was. It was rough, but uh, so I had those deals going. And then I worked at the gas station for a little while.
Speaker 2:Well, I was working at the macy's. So when I had the diesel shop and the lawn care and doing tree work, I worked at the macy's distribution center on the weekend. So I would go in at 5 am on friday and work 3 12s. Friday, saturday, sunday I mean didn't see the light of day until monday, thursday. Thursday evening to monday morning wouldn't see the sun. I mean, you know, it was in there from from 5 am till after dark. And then, uh, getting home, you know, getting home late and then hitting the ground running after that.
Speaker 2:That didn't last very long, it couldn't have. I mean no, it all it all runs together in my head. You know, I can't really remember when, one year from then, the next began. But, yeah, had all that going and and, uh, that's that's. Yeah, it was like I said, whatever we could make a dollar, I mean whatever we could to survive, uh, randy was working as well during that time. So when we started getting further into the business, I finally was like you, just stay home, take her, take care of the girls, you know, run the household, which is where she I mean she, that's where she wanted to be yep, and uh, most generally do yeah, yeah, 100, but that's what she wanted. And I was like man, I'm, it was the most beneficial thing for the company for her to just do that. And let me focus like, I know I'm not there yet, but I can, I can make this work eventually. Let me just put all my you know energy towards this. So anyway, she stayed home.
Speaker 2:We started focusing more on the Dirk side and kind of transitioned into that and went from the little 763, which, like I said, we still have and now we've got whatever. We've got Two. We've got those two new skids, which is a Develon, develon, develon, develon, develon, de. Two, we got those two new skids, uh, which is a develop on, develop on, develop on, develop on, develop on. And then that new bobcat, t66 we got here a couple weeks ago, and then that that e60 bobcat, and then the cat 312 and the v4h and trucks and trailers and the dump truck and just all kinds of stuff that breaks all the time. So, yeah, it's always, it's always. Oh, if I could just get to this point. You just bought more shit that's gonna break, yep and solve it every time. Big dog every time. But yeah, that's kind of kind of how we got that's the, the real summed up story, kind of how we got here fair enough, and over in oklahoma we are now.
Speaker 1:We're got a bunch of gear. What are we doing to stay busy now? We're doing pond work.
Speaker 2:We're doing yeah, so last year was when we finally started to kind of transition into more commercial work. Why let me edit that part? Okay, for the last year part. Okay, go ahead here. Recently we've started to kind of transition into more commercial stuff and trying to kind of focus more there, uh, but still keeping the backlog of residential stuff. So driveways, pads, you know, demolition we love doing demos, uh, just typical excavation, grading and, uh, the site work. Like I said, it's kind of come along. We've. We've been on a few of those projects now figuring it out, you know, kind of seeing what else we need that would make stuff more efficient. The stuff that used to not be, uh, applicable to us at all, such as gps, stuff like that, yeah, uh, now we can really start to see where it fits in. You know, dude, it's such a massive job yeah hearts.
Speaker 2:There's no easy way. I've I've had plenty of phone calls with the reps and, yeah, that's what I figured. There's no easing into it, that's 750.
Speaker 1:When you start making about 750 a million a year things are if you can perfect it, you can make some good money there. That's usually you, five, six guys you know what I mean Max but there's no like that's that 750 on the low end to a million mark on the high end. Once you get past that admin staff, managers, project managers, like it starts you don't even know which direction to go. I didn't, hell, I was just throwing freaking darts at the wall trying to buy some of my time back, and nobody's going to care as much as myself. You know that's what's going in my mind instead of hey, why don't I put my mind on paper so somebody can maybe have half a clue? Anyways, that's where I'm at now. But that next jump is like monumental, and you're looking at it when you're first the first three or four years, you're finally locking in some good work.
Speaker 1:People know who you are, things are rocking and rolling and you're like man, I really want to do this thing. This is it's a two million dollar a year revenue situation that you need to even get back two to two and a half where you're feeling comfy again. There's not like, oh, I'll do another 100, 150 next year because there's so many extra assets or different equipment or whatever it is, just to make that extra 100k. Well then, you need to. You need to make a little bit more to pay for the equipment that you bought for this specific job. But you didn't really need to buy. You could have rented it, but you didn't figure it that way.
Speaker 2:And man, there's so much you learn but that's stuff people don't see and I haven't or talk about. Yes, absolutely, because you just said it. I hope people kind of caught that you can keep growing in the beginning.
Speaker 2:The earlier you are, the easier it is to grow and you know, like, if you make you know, like we did, I don't know 40000 and then 80, and then 200 and then 250. You know what I mean. That's easy but and in a way it gets easier to grow. But you have to establish those systems or you can't anymore. You hit a ceiling where you make you and we haven't transitioned through one or two million. You know what I mean. So we're not on the other side of that. Yeah, like you're talking about, but I can. We're to a point now where I can see that, like, if we don't implement systems to help this situation, you know you can't set up for expansion without systems.
Speaker 1:Oh, you definitely can. I'll tell you all about it and you will learn the hard way, the very, very hard way. You'll have good people leave, yeah, and then you'll be sitting there wondering why, like in your head, if you haven't put it on paper, put any systems in any place, nobody has any idea where we're trying to go and these guys don't even stand a chance to do what you want them to do, let alone succeed together, because nobody really has a plan and that falls back on the leader. And dude, I grew and I doubled my gross revenue and I doubled it again and I was like we got up and in 23 things were just out of control. Literally I can stand here and say that, don't get me wrong. We did a lot of work. Quality was there sometimes and I think quantity quality started to question because of quantity.
Speaker 1:24, we redacted and if I would have concentrated, dude, I had people throwing things at me, my wife, ie. Hey, can we please just slow down for two seconds and have you put this down on paper? And what you showed me today was huge early on, two smaller crews running around. Equipment feels like it's everywhere. When you don't, you know every time you need it. It's not there and you got to spend more money to move it, to get to rake out 10 rocks for Miss Sally to finish up a job, to get paid. You know what I mean, but I don't quite know where I was trending with that. But that growth and scalability is just so hard. And oh, I was talking about your scheduling piece that you were showing me and in the early years, bro, I didn't care about any of that. Yeah, I just wanted more revenue, which created more problems, and it wasn't concentrated on profitability.
Speaker 2:Right, well, and we're still figuring all that out. Yeah, I'm religious about making sure that everything's on the schedule and early on it's like, oh, I won't forget that Because it's a big enough deal. Right, if you're only doing, let's say whatever when you, when you don't have that much going on, I'll remember to do that and you will until you get busier and busier. And then now, all of a sudden, you're like we just completely forgot about a $10,000 job. When used to, I wouldn't have known how to even consider doing what. You know what I, yes, sir. And all of a sudden you're like we just we forgot about that. Like that, can't you know what I mean. So everything gets put on there, everything. When we went to that meeting this morning, I wanted to send that guy hat the, the marketing guy on the schedule. No chance, I'll remember to do that. No, but I want to do it. You know what I mean. And so if somebody texts me, hey, we need a little topsoil, we needed a sub truck here, we need you know if we're going to need sub trucks. Or one of my guys texts me and says, hey, we're gonna. You know, we got too much material on this, or whatever, like that's got to be put on here because and I can't stay sane if not like I've got to be able to sit down.
Speaker 2:You saw me miss a call earlier. Yeah, I had too much on my head at the moment to answer that phone call. Sorry, customers that are caught. You know, sometimes I can't, even if it's not loud. I do the same thing. Yeah, I'm like I, I'm I'm processing, yes, and I pull my phone. I did it, uh, for the people that weren't in the truck. Uh, as he, as this, this gentleman's calling me, I go to his contact info, I see who it is, you know where he lives and I'm like I remember that guy and I add him to the calendar and to my, my notes, before he even gets to voicemail, yo. So I know I'll, I'll be able to return that call and give that my attention when I have it, but I don't at the moment. But everything gets put on there and, uh, we follow up with it as we can, I'm telling you, dude, you're light years ahead of where I was at, uh, that phase of building PsyCon.
Speaker 1:Because it would have been, it would have the results would have been so much differently. Like I already know, because I'm on the other side of correcting all those set issues over the last 18 months, you know what I mean. So kudos to you. What do you think? This industry? You talked about GPS and in this jump, what do you think I mean? You're living it right now. What do you think the most scary thing is for a guy sitting out there just the same in your shoes in that jump, what's that first thing that you're looking at? That's glaring at you, that, hey, scary is not the word, but intimidating there's so many things.
Speaker 2:You know, and and where you're saying they're sitting where I am, but that line gets real great. You know what I mean. Yes, thinking about buying a skid string getting into it, versus the guy who's a year in, or you know, yep, but there's always and trey's always talked about this you've talked about you know it's. It never goes away, it's never any different, it's just bigger. You know what I mean? Yep. So I think we're all geared to well once we get to this, which is how we get here, yep, because we're so driven to get to that next step, but that guy on your shoulder, it'll be all right once you get there. And then you get like, like, we bought these new machines. Man, this still blows my mind To buy a brand new $100,000 machine, pull into the yard after it gets delivered and look at it this last one, I didn't even get out, and that's not to sound, it's just.
Speaker 2:There's so much to do and it's so hard. Now they dropped off a $100,000 machine. I pulled down to the yard, looked out the window and went, yep, there it is. I got to go, I out the window and went yep, there it is. I. I gotta go. I know, I got stuff to do, you know, and a couple years ago I laid awake at night dreaming of, like one of these days I'm gonna buy a brand new one. A new one, yeah, and the first one was was surreal, you know like I bought a new one and I'm not saying that's the, but I ran all this old junk for so long and still have some old junk. You know that, that you're, you're, uh, if it, it holds a great place, right? Yes, absolutely. And if we're not keeping it busy enough, we're not going to buy a new one, you know. But Smart sir, that's a whole other topic. On Newberg, because we always ran, like I said, we always ran old, used stuff. And anyway, I'm not giving recommendations because I'm still trying to figure that out. Honestly, we're experimenting.
Speaker 2:We're experimenting with hundreds of thousands of dollars of machines right now to see if that was the ticket and, like you know, that last one we bought, I'm like I just added another $1,800 a month on that payment. I'm like, am I an idiot? Three days later, my old D4H breaks down. We lose you know, it's just a hose. We lose a couple hours of changing a hose and a couple hundred bucks on a hose and I'm like, well, that came out to I don't know 800 bucks, you know, in one day. Yeah. And now I'm out there. I was not, I was finishing that job. So I'm out there at 945 at night my wife's texting me asking if I'm still alive. I'm like I'm finishing this so this thing can be mowed tomorrow and we can stay on track. Priority and truck scheduled, yeah. And those are the times where, like I said, I'm covering hydraulic oil in the dust and I'm like, oh yeah, that's why I have that payment on that other stuff.
Speaker 1:So I don't know what the answer is there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I don't know what the answer is to me at this point, how. What my strategy is, at least for now it's maybe different month is if we're using it and staying busy, you know, especially in the compact equipment and the bigger stuff, if we've got guaranteed work and it's it's proven itself, just buy it new, eat it, roll on line stuff up in front of it, the dozer, the track they're not moving that much. I mean, we had one on rent for a 30,000-pound hoe which I own. We rented one for I don't know probably three months and I almost almost bought a new one.
Speaker 2:At that point I was like and this goes back to the money thing Like I'm 30 days out to $07,000 a month on this machine or I can finance it for three. That, whatever it came out, I don't remember, but I owe 3,500 in 30 days and then, but I owe that 3,500 in 30 days for a while. So I ended up not I'm thankful I didn't, because on the back end of that we hit winter, we hit the holidays, you know, and everything kind of dwindled out on the big.
Speaker 1:The decisions are so hard, yeah and it's I say it all the time sales is everything, because you can go out and do whatever you want to do, as long as you can sell enough work to keep it all busy. And my problem was, uh, during those times was pulling in the yard and seeing the same machine twice. I should have thought earlier and gone. That thing don't need to be here, obviously. What am I doing, you know, two weeks in a row, why is this thing sitting here half the month?
Speaker 2:imagine if you went back to your yard every day and you've got two skids and a dozer and a track hoe and trucks and trailers. Because that was me and still is a lot of you know. We'll have skids at the yard because when we need them, we need them, yeah, and the same with the big stuff. So I'm like I'll just keep dumping it, keep up, it's gonna hold value for the most part. You know like it's a good, it's a it's a good investment for when we need it.
Speaker 2:But I finally had an epiphany about you can't grow organically, like you did in the beginning of just buying more shit and working. No, and we did that for so long. I did too. And then like just buy more stuff, keep working, keep going, that's right.
Speaker 2:And then it got to the point where I'm like we have, I can only sit in one of these machines, that's it, buddy. I'm a decent operator. I can still only run one. Say it, buddy, I could probably get by running too. But uh, but you what I mean? I'm like why am I buying more seats? I've got one other guy. So the delegation and I'm pretty open about that was my kryptonite forever, trying to maintain quality, control and quantity, like you were talking about and to scale that up, I mean I was horrible, I mean trusting my guys or guy at the time to go do what, and I'm still bad about it Cause I want to make sure I don't get on the slippery slope of good enough. You know we're getting there more, more so on the residential side, right, of course, because you talk to that customer?
Speaker 1:Yes, it's your face, they remember. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and a lot of it too. Just thinking out loud here on the residential side it's, by appearance, most of the time Right, and I'm OCD about everything's got to be meticulous, you know, and I want to maintain that On the commercial side in some ways sounds counterintuitive. It's more black and white. We're not going off, look, we're going off. That needs to be at this elevation. This needs to be cut out. You what I mean? So there's a lot more bulk moving no, I do.
Speaker 1:That was my biggest struggle between residential and commercial work, empowering a team of individuals. Here's a set of equipment. Go out there and do well. Nancy said that she wanted this slope not too much slopey slope, but kind of just enough slope into the sidewalk right here and then over here. Hey, go ahead and use these machines and get that done. You know how to do that, yes they don't, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And and when you. But you set yourself up and your guys up for failure because you tell them what to do and they're, and I, I'm you can ask anybody that's around me. I'll say the same thing 200 times. We got it and then when I come back that afternoon I'm not fun to be around. What are what? This isn't, and I'm let down. They're let down. They're trying to.
Speaker 2:It just wasn't, wasn't working. So we're ironing that out now, like I said, we're getting to where I'm building more trust in them. I'm trying to actually trying to build the, the backlog up a little bit more and hire, hire another guy, another operator at the moment. And but, like I said, when you round the corner and also seeing around the corner, trey talks about this. We're talking about this all day. You're running into this right now, right with trying to keep enough coming in.
Speaker 2:But your one phone call away, I was talking to my plumber buddy, good friend, we bid a pretty good-sized project and then forgot about it. You know, just bid it turned in numbers, like we always do, didn't forget about it. You know, just bid it turned in numbers, like we always do, didn't forget about it. You know, moved on. We're trying to keep everything moving and uh, he calls me on two other little projects.
Speaker 2:I'm like we can't get to those when you need us to. You know, so we're. And he goes what are you going to do if we get that other job? I'm like no clue, buddy, but I can't. I can't just leave the schedule open, in case you know what I mean. So trying to figure out what's next, you know, for me, if we're on two months of residential stuff versus one giant commercial project, it's kind of a different set of guys, not necessarily, but you know a different set of guys. Different machines, gps versus you know. So yeah, if you can't see around the corner, but you're one phone call away from everything completely changing, you know bro, there is uh so much truth to that.
Speaker 1:We were sitting in there this morning, I'm sitting here, I. We have been a lot of work, um, oh my gosh. Uh, shout out to dylan he has, I think his fingers bled, um, from keyboard strokes, especially since february, march. But one phone call you're talking $5 million to $10 million worth of work. Yeah, and I'm not necessarily geared to do all of that together right now.
Speaker 2:Right, but what are you supposed to do? Just bid one at a time and see what happens. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:How do you balance that? And I think that's a big struggle and I even scale it down just a little bit. I think what you said is perfect and spot on. That a lot of guys struggle with is they land that commercial job and then when homeboy plumber or homeboy electrician that gives them 90 ditches a year at 250, 300 bucks a pop they're busy work he calls them while he's wrapped up on his commercial job and he's pulling his hair out and stressing out about this one particular job that's going to pay him 90K. When homeboy pays you 90K throughout the entire year yeah, year after year, exactly.
Speaker 1:And so it's that balancing act of number one, picking the good customers, because that also helps in every category. But secondly is keep that commercial job going. But you have to find a way, whether it's working all weekend long or whether it's the evenings pulling a mini X home and doing a couple of ditches on your way home, whatever the case may be, but you've got to be. That's the key. And I can't say the key, but that is a key to moving and scaling is doing that commercial job. And you're like Cy I've got three guys Like they can only work 70 hours a week, like they're not going to show up on Sunday, I get it 104. Jesus 104.
Speaker 2:Oh my Jesus, 104 for two weeks. That's off the record. What's labor? Will look that up. Labor laws. I don't have a computer man. Oh yeah, I forgot.
Speaker 1:Poor Will Will's been with us all day. Shout out to him catching content in the behind the scenes of our day. If you guys want to go check it out, just sy-con on youtube and you'll be able to see the entire day coming up. But talking commercial, you're saying that you're trending that direction. Why do you? Why do you want to go commercial? Give me a couple reasons, because I've had a few excavation well, not a few. We've had a bunch reach out. Hey man, how do I go from doing this resi work up into the commercial game up? Of course, everybody wants to get in that commercial game it's not what it.
Speaker 2:It's not what it looks like from the outside. That's what.
Speaker 1:That's what I preach on this microphone.
Speaker 2:It's like, do you know you're not seeing money for 90 days I had some mentors you could say everybody but Trebo, trebo, come on with Papa Willie, baby, other than Trebo, I had a few others that are like, not trying to talk me out of it, but just like, hey, man, you know, kind of watch it. I'm like, no, I don't. You know, I hear you appreciate it, we won't go that route. And then a few months into we had three projects going at once and then we were able to manage them with with a couple guys. You know right. But it was a lot like when, when those phone calls, they all came in within two, three hours of each other on the same day and that and I'm like exactly what, we're just proving our point. And it was right. When I just figured out how to do all the residential stuff, you know, we just had it perfect where we're like this is gonna be a busy month. Yeah, phone rings and I told that I said, oh, I'm waiting on the next guy. He came, then he calls and I'm like I don't know what to do. So we were able to get it done.
Speaker 2:But you know, then I'm I saw what those guys meant. We worked for a few gcs. I won't get into that too deep. No, god, you've got to watch your ass. I mean, you're putting it, you really do, because I'm, I'm a good, I'm reasonable. Okay Is the best way to put it Right.
Speaker 2:Okay, you know, and I had people don't do anything for free and don't ever do it, and I'm like, man, I hear you, you're right, I don't. That's a tough one, but yeah, but I want to win in doubt, I'll help you out. Type of deal. If I'm there, you know, I mean if I'm on site. I won't get into specifics, but for all three of these GC's we ended up in a situation where, hey, could you, could you that, and we're talking 30 seconds cost me no money.
Speaker 2:Type of deal. Okay, you know, I mean, but I'm like, yeah, I'll do. Well, then, of course, they see, I see what they can take. You bet, man, we lost money on two of those jobs for two different. You see, I have the best relationship in the world with one of them. I just put it that way. My fault, I missed some stuff. You know part of it. I went into that, yeah, went into that, and we lost a lot more money. You know, on on one of the other ones and you just got to watch yourself. Like I said, you, you've got to watch uh, standing up for yourself and not letting those people you know push you around, dude, because they'll take. They'll take everything they can get, but I think it's.
Speaker 1:I think also too, dude, is the confidence within ourselves. Yes, during that time, because we're like as business owners I was in the same set of shoes, dude I gave the world away because number one I just didn't know. Yes, I didn't know I could stick up and stand up for myself and had, but it took me some time. Hey, let's be reasonable, like you're talking about. Okay, hey, buddy, this is my bid set. This is what you want me to do. It's not on this bid set.
Speaker 1:You haven't provided me anything differently up until this point. I understand you're working off of this set, but you never provided me that set. I don't care if the revision happens. Yeah, absolutely, if you ain't provided it to me, I can't price it. So I can't tell you how many times revisions just come through. Hey, we just need to change this up. Oh, need to change this up. Oh, okay, when I? Oh okay, no big deal, man, yeah, we'll just move this, add a couple materials, send a change order and never see it again. Yeah, they'll never pay it because. Oh well, you just did it. That that was just part of the contract, man, yeah, and we can go off into that. Dude, I've been burned so hot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but they know tens of thousands. They know how to muddy the water. So bad, because when I talked about why didn't you just do that I'm like I can't. Well, I would have told them I did. They said no, they know what they can, they know how. You know what I mean. They've been playing this game longer brother.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. And they've got more time and money to play the game. Oh yeah, I don't have there with four guys and four machines for five days waiting on a changeover because they're just going to wait. And so at that point we ran into this where I'm like they're calling me and I'm like, just do it, it's going to cost us five grand more, just do it. And then, hey, is that coming through? Oh yeah, we're working, oh yeah, we're. And then, once you get done with the next project, or halfway into the next project, oh yeah, that check comes in light. Hey, what about? Oh no, it didn't get approved.
Speaker 1:Cool. Cool, Because you knew I would start this one. You couldn't let me know for the last 75 days, while I was waiting on this. Yeah, you knew damn well. Oh well, I just found out yesterday on the check cut.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they know how to muddy the water just enough to drag you along, but they don't give a shit that that relationship could have been so much better. Hands down, you know what I mean. Like I'm going out, like I don't know, I'm doing whatever I possibly can to make everything right. And to where you're out nothing. And to where you called me on the next one, which they did and they do. Hey, you know, we get a ton of invites from all these same GCs when we get done working with them. That, right there, speaks to what I need to do. Yeah, we got some stuff to figure out. We always will. We're always going to have stuff that we're like huh, we got to learn something here Every day, dude. Yeah, that's just the way it goes, but we will see it through and it will be right, even if it takes us a little bit longer. I've got to eat a little bit more money on it.
Speaker 1:I just want to jump on something you said that I think could be a world of change for a lot of guys. Because, don't feel bad. I mean, I was the exact same way. He said do it and I go home, tell Mama when that check comes. And she goes hey, where is this extra money you said we billed for? And I'm looking at her and go. Well, you know. Oh, timmy, the project manager, let me call him up. Well, that sucker don't answer his phone because he's off on the next project. He don't need you, no more.
Speaker 1:No, but when you said, hey, man, just do it on the phone, my response after a couple of times was hey, brother, just shoot that into an email to me and we'll go ahead and get jumped on this. Yeah, as long as I've got written approval from somebody above, it can stand up legally down the line. But phone calls mean nothing. Right, text messages can mean a lot, nothing like an email, sure, but just hey, man, and I know a lot. Nothing like an email, sure, but just hey, man, and I know a lot of you guys are in the resi world. They're like oh well, these guys are emailing.
Speaker 1:I understand the commercial side, it's all about email. But on the resi side text message you've got to like hey, I totally want to do this for you and we're going to tackle it, no issues. Will you just shoot this into me in a text message that you're approving this? It just the transparency in the early years is everything, and I just sat on a podcast not a couple weeks ago, sitting here talking about the same thing. I was so scared to let them know I was making a little bit of money, like I was out there to do this for education or something which I was but I was learning and I was paying for my education but I still needed to make a little money at the day.
Speaker 1:So, like I, I would be. And that builds distrust immediately and they it's going to drive more questions. And then because, dude, in those years I'd be like, why are these guys asking so many questions like, did you not see how much freaking work I did? And it's like, nope, they don't. But they do remember that little 10 by 10 area you didn't get because you wanted more money for it. You wouldn't do it until you had this sign. So there is a gray area there. Hardcore. But in the commercial GC world there is no gray area. If you don't see why a boys and girls you are hosed, they're not looking out for you. Yeah, just their project yeah, coming under budget.
Speaker 2:But for me, if you're that gc and you've got more stuff lined up and you just keep burning every damn bridge you've got with every sub you've had there's- they're still out there though, bro, the every single, and I don't understand how they keep getting work.
Speaker 1:People, stop giving these crap. Gcs freaking work. Well, they're the cheapest.
Speaker 2:Well don't be mad. They're taking three grand from every effing sub on the whole damn job. That can't afford it. And I say three grand. They're taking 15 grand from the framer.
Speaker 1:I love when the owners I can't tell you how many projects I've I've been on and an owner walkthrough will happen and I'm and I was there, I was the cheapest guy. I'm not saying anything, but I could never understand. They would just come on site. Everything would be wrong the, the building, whatever the material, this, the, these guys didn't show up on time and I'm like, why is this? Is not something I want to do every day? Yeah, why do I keep getting with these lack for a better word shit bags and dealing with the same superintendent that doesn't have a freaking clue what he's doing? And they're brand new?
Speaker 2:but you get punished for their disorganization. They don't have their shit in a pile, no, and so that costs you money around every corner of the entire damn project day, and you can't fight that. You know what I mean. It's too. It's too muddied up where you can't be like well, this is, I tried it's. It's such a convoluted bullshit by that point that I'm like you guys don't have your shit figured out at all. Yeah, and I'm suffering, you know, day after day.
Speaker 1:I will. I'll tell a story right now on that subject. And we are on the billing side of things. You figure out after you miss one or two pay apps. You figure out you have billing meetings and every single month, like we've got that locked, sewed up AIA structure and we can handle whatever size project, but GCs, they'll bring you portals, okay. And once you get going in, these larger commercial projects or a certain GC may just pay Procore to handle their invoicing and you have to oblige by their portal, okay.
Speaker 1:So, um, shout out to miss shay in the office she handles our billing in and out, handles these portals, and then maybe five different contractors in a month with five different portals on the 20th that she has to hit and they have to. They're all different. There's no helper structure. You can't pick up the phone and call somebody over there and go hey, I'm having trouble. Well, the 20th is the deadline. They're hoping you freaking miss it so they don't have to pay out on the next month. And the other day we were in a Tuesday meeting and she made a reference. She's just like I cannot figure out this portal and and nobody over there has any idea what I'm talking about, but they're requiring us and if we don't make it by this day, we're not getting in on this payout. This job is done. We did it in a 30 day timeframe and she's like we have to recoup.
Speaker 1:We got material and I said, shay, calm down, we will figure it out and she walked me through this portal process Of course, I'm not sitting there going through every one of them and I was blown away. I was like all of this to send you an AIA through email? This builds the AIA for you. Anyways, okay, we oblige. I make a few phone calls, calls and nobody, literally nobody. It was brand new to them. This is like their second month putting it out and I'm like guys, well, literally bank draws on the 22nd. They were new contractor, never worked with them before, so I didn't really have any pull, leverage or anything else. Got recommended through another contractor and I I was really questioning the whole structure of the industry during this.
Speaker 1:A snow on the ground dude like uh, this couple months ago. And this is exactly what I'm fighting against. And not only do we got to go through this portal process. Now there's three approvals in the portal process with three different people in the office before it gets ejected out to ownership and then ownership gets 15 days and then 20 days and then back to them in 30 and it the commercial game on the.
Speaker 1:If you want to make money, it's hard, oh, oh. And then, after you get everything done, they only pay you 90 percent of your money and they hold 10 percent and as dirt and pipe guys, my guy, we're the first ones on and off the job. And then we gotta wait. If this is big multi-family, I've waited two and a half years for 30, 50, 80 grand for them to just finally release it. It's just that's why literally this show was created was to warn guys wanting to walk into this, because I wanted it more than anybody, dude, I wanted it right now, I wanted all the equipment, I wanted all the jobs and I'm like, right now, right now and I wasn't even looking at any of this, didn't care about any of that problem Well, the money will just come. You know, that's not how it works.
Speaker 2:Well, and you see, for me, you know, you see what that top number is and you're like we got to make money. We can't, you know, it can't cost that much to do that project. And then you get a couple months in you're like, damn, it did, we screwed up here heavy. And then you get a few of those at the same time. Obviously, for me being at the size we are, it's me and two other guys at the moment, a couple part-time guys, and we end up on again, you're bidding multiple, right, you get those phone calls all at once and you're I'm, I'm too bad at saying no, hey, I'm getting better at it, but entrepreneurs were really bad at it. Yeah, in general, I'm like, oh, we'll find a way, we'll find a way and we do. You know, we, we have so far. But you end up so spread and like we, we cash flowed all the subs on all those jobs out of pocket, you know, out of the bank.
Speaker 2:You were telling me that, yeah, and, and just paid it out and it wasn't massive, tiny to you know, compared to some of your at the same time, dude cash flow, cash flow yeah I mean we, like you know, we're right now, you know I don't know how much on materials 30 grand on sub, more than that one check was 30 to sub trucks, and you know I mean fuel, all that kind of stuff, and there's so much in the operating account going in that you're like you know, we'll be okay, we've got what this project's worth. So, in theory, if we have in the bank what we bid this project for, we'll be okay. That's right. Well, when it costs you more to do the damn project than what you billed for it and you're already going to lose money on the job, you know what I mean you can get upside down in a hurry. I guess is what I sum it up as.
Speaker 1:And if you don't have proper documentation in place and reporting, you won't even know until it's done. Instead of week two this is a little on down the line, but like a WIP report, which is a work in progress report of your estimated costs and here's your known costs. I know week per week of hey, this is my screaming problem job right here what happened, and you may go out there and it may not be anything, but we talked about it early. Somebody just may have put the wrong bucket on and we didn't. We didn't discuss that in our own internal pre-con before we attacked it. Um, but it's.
Speaker 1:You just don't know what you don't know and yeah we said that I don't know how many times today, bro, but like, literally, we were talking about this uh two days ago, uh, me and the team on Monday. It's like we're spotlighting our problems in quarter one, start of quarter two here, rather than going through the chunk of our year, looking in Q3, q4 and going why didn't we do so good this year? I dude, I can't. I will be right there with you and be the first person to say when I see three or five million dollars on that top line, I was like there ain't no way, we ain't making money you know, oh, dude, you're telling me I put three or five or seven million dollars through this account in a annual period and you're telling me we didn't make money how, yeah, that doesn't even compute in my damn head.
Speaker 1:Well then, then business starts excavating, operating. You're working in the business, in the business, in the business, and then boom, here's all the shit that you need to do right now and work on the business and you're like, hey, dude, I'm still over here digging ditches I got time for all that yeah, I just moved dirt.
Speaker 1:And they're looking at you like, no, you don't have, you don't have the time not to do this. Like right now or in six months you're gonna be here and you're like, bro, get out of here. Yeah, no way. And then in six months you're like driving down the road, it's nine o'clock at night, you're sweating your balls off, it's 98 degrees still and you're like, damn, that cpa was right. Oh, my god, I'm right where he said I was gonna be. Yeah, I'm telling you, I've had the self-realizations and I had to make those phone calls and go hey, sir, I kind of know I didn't listen to you, but I'm sorry and, uh, I gotta eat crow here because I'm exactly exactly where you said I was gonna be. Yeah, help me out.
Speaker 2:Yep, man, that's, that's it. It's uh, make your right to not not to try to talk anybody out of it, because if they're like us, you know like, oh, I can't do that, watch this. I'm like no dumbass, I said that too. Okay, I'm not saying you can't, I'm saying pay attention, you know, and cover your tracks, watch your ass.
Speaker 1:And uh, I think a lot of people think I'm a narcissist and just love watching myself on camera. But when I sit here, as you have gotten to know me, I try to talk from experience.
Speaker 2:Dude, I'm not just sitting here spewing a bunch of stuff I want, but the reason you don't listen or you didn't listen to those people and I didn't listen to those people is the same reason. Most of these people won't listen to any. They don't want to hear warnings. Get out of here. I know what I'm doing and I'm the same way and I'm still that way. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I do.
Speaker 2:I'm a lot better at taking advice now and I appreciate everybody that goes out of their way. Shout out to Drew Gardner out of Alabama. He's in Alabama. People like that, you, trebo, obviously, and plenty of others that really help. And I don't take on as much of that advice as I hear it all Yep, but some of it I'm like, eh, I know you know what I mean I do. So I don't agree with everything everybody says. I don't agree with everything you say or what Drew says. You know, trebo, golly, that guy. Trebo's the man. I don't agree with everything, trebo, you know what I mean I take pieces from everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can't agree.
Speaker 1:He's a wild man.
Speaker 2:Come on back, try both.
Speaker 1:Something else man well, let me jump in here real quick, uh, before we go on to our next little segment here. Um, one of the main reasons I I brought trend here is he has a pretty good size, following on tiktok and is marketing his business in a different venture and I wanted to shine some light on that. But, man, I don't know if you guys are watching on YouTube or Spotify, but you can see my new gray ropey cap I got on today. Shout out to Blue Collar Performance Marketing. They have been a sponsor, avid sponsor, of the show and I truly can't say enough about Ike and his team. I actually had a two hour strategy meeting for the umbrella of what we're trying to do with Sycon and the marketing strategy that we're imploding, exploding all together all at the one time. But if you're looking for a true blue-collar, valuable marketing company that has the knowledge, you're man. I want to do targeted ads. Or why don't I have a Facebook? I don't know how to even start on a website, all those questions that you hear everybody in the Facebook comments tell you. Give them a shout at bluecollarperformancemarketingcom, bcperformancemarketingcom, slash BCB podcast and you'll get your a free, completely free comp on the podcast show, an audit of your marketing, whether you have a website already or you have a marketing campaign. Ike and his team will sit with you guys and go over what you would like to see and see if he can help you. So give them a shout.
Speaker 1:Blue Collar, I mean, it just seems to be the running name, I don't know if I had it before. He did, you did, you did, you fully did. But shout out to Ike, give them a call, get a discovery call, get started over there and start building a marketing campaign, because that's obviously one of the main reasons I found you. My guy was here. I am on this crazy marketing campaign. Have no clue what I'm doing again. You know it's another business venture, almost if you want to go in that route. But you've got 22,500 on TikTok for the second time in the episode. But talk about why you even started that. Was it a gimmick? Did you just started doing it for fun? Was it a personal account, or did you even see any strategy behind?
Speaker 2:no, zero, zero strategy early on. I mean, my wife kept telling me about it. I made fun of it, I'm not getting that. And then I ended up, uh, this is when I had the diesel shop, and I just kept noticing like I would start looking stuff up on hers like on fixes, and I'm like, oh, people are fixing, they're not just dancing like people are working on stuff. And people are like huh. So I end up getting it and I'm like, wow, look at that, that guy's fixing that I can work on this.
Speaker 2:And then that transitioned into the dirt side and then, uh, like brennan bags was one of the first ones. So I added him and then we kind of got to talking and then stars, you know, there's all these different people that we started kind of talking to and we had a couple of videos that we threw on there just because and I'm like that one did good, and then we would post something, you know, and it started growing and I was like, man, this is, this is cool, this is cool, like this is a pretty cool little network where I can.
Speaker 2:You're starting to build relationships, yes, yes, with people. Without that would, that would never happen. I would have never heard of them and I would have never been able to communicate with them. So, and now I mean that I'm you know, I hate saying this tiktok changed everything for us in one way or another.
Speaker 1:Yep, maybe indirectly, but I can say our marketing campaign changed everything for what we're doing.
Speaker 2:I mean from from the my company too, you know, for where we're at. Like it's weird. It's been a weird series of events, but tiktok got me in touch with all those guys. We ended up going to con expo together.
Speaker 1:I can't believe I didn't run into you guys.
Speaker 2:There's only like a million people, right, but hey, quick side note, maybe people won't think it's as funny as I did. We can edit this out if we need to. Me and Kyler Robertson shout out to Kyler are walking through Con Expo, you're a Canadian, you'll like this. We run into this Canadian couple. I don't even remember how we got to talking. Nope, excuse me, whatever, I'm like, oh where are you guys from Sorry talking?
Speaker 1:nope, excuse me, whatever I'm like. Oh, where are you guys?
Speaker 2:sorry, yeah, sorry, sorry, watch you walk on your own feet and whatever they said, and uh, so we're talking to them. We're like where are you guys from? They're like, oh, canada. They probably said whatever area. And we're like oh really, you know, taylor, dude, I swear we're talking about taylor. It's like you know, taylor, they're like taylor who I'm like taylor white, of course, where he from and we look at each other it's Canada.
Speaker 1:No, you didn't.
Speaker 2:I swear to God. And they look at us like we are the. They're like Ottawa bub Garp. Actually, Okay, we didn't know or care. We're like you're from Canada, he's from Canada, you must know each other. And I'm turning to Kyler, and I'm like brother. That's like if they asked us if we knew Dale from America. Sorry, guys, have a good day.
Speaker 1:Intoxication included in that scenario let's say yes. Assured Okay.
Speaker 2:Absolutely not.
Speaker 1:He's actually Mr Taylor, about four hours, about five hours, from where I was born. I was born in Torontoonto, he's up in ottawa. He's just probably a senator's fan. This is probably why we haven't spoke yet. Anyhow, uh, short plug, but anyways, you were saying but tiktok, literally changes.
Speaker 2:So we went there to con expo, uh in the. Because of that we met trey and uh and taylor and those guys and you know literally everyone, yeah, I mean whoever you wanted to, right, and. But we had already kind of had some prior connections because we were, you know, we were friends on or, you know, followed each other, whatever. So we met trey and then we're in a limo. I told you the story. Everybody knows all these traybo stories. Nobody knows this one. I've got a little clip.
Speaker 2:After I told you the story the other day, I found a clip on my phone of this happening. Uh, I don't remember exactly what happened, but trey's walking out of the, the show with us and you what go? You know, whatever the hell we're going to do, and we're like all right, we'll call the uber uber, we ain't running no damn uber and he goes. There's a damno right there and there's a guy standing beside the limo, clearly there to pick someone up. All right, trey, that's pretty sure that's reserved bud, no shit, no, watch, this Walks over there. It's the first time I've known Trey, all of about seven minutes at this point, starts whipping out $100 bills and I can't hear. You know, he's just talking to this guy. The guy's like no, I'm here to whatever Pulls out the wall. Next, thing, you know, we're all getting in the limo.
Speaker 1:And I'm like this In Vegas buddy.
Speaker 2:I was like this is the G right here. I'll send you that little clip. Yeah, I'm going to need that.
Speaker 2:But so we're in the limo and we're like man, we don. I wish we could do something else. So we kind of dreamt up and named it the Traybo Expo that we have every year in April. Now this year it's the 25th and 26th. Get your tickets if you haven't. Yeah, traybo Expo Hell of a time, maybe sold out. I mean, they did a hell of a job on the whole deal.
Speaker 2:But you know that first year it was basically our little group that had the house in vegas, trey's guys, maybe a couple, you know, I don't remember exactly how many. And then year two, which was last year, I mean, you walk into the shop and it's full. I'm outside with like 15, 20 other guys. I thought that was it like. I thought I thought that was it. You know, we're just out there walking around equipment and stuff and like, well, I guess let's make our way into the shop. We open the door and it's every seat's taken, like holy cow, this is cool, you know Like people showed up. So.
Speaker 2:But you know that's where we got to hear the GC's talk. He had a couple guys come out, superintendents and whatnot, you know, kind of talk about how to get into commercial work and how they're. You know what they're looking at. So key man. So key man. Yeah, because I'm sitting there like huh, I guess I'm just waiting on that to happen. You know what I mean? I didn't know. You gotta put yourself getting on bitterswiss and getting. You know what I mean. Yeah, putting yourself in front of these, that's right. And, uh, that started the process for us to kind of transition into more commercial stuff. Um, like I said that those first two years he was talking, they had, uh, uh, scitechtech, psytech, you're right Reps coming out, or at least tremble reps. I'm assuming they're Psytech, whatever Talking about. You know GPS technology and I'm sitting there. This is a good time to go to the bathroom or step out. You know Over my head. You know what I mean. I don't need that for pushing pawns or whatever, you know.
Speaker 1:Man.
Speaker 2:And then, a year later, I'm like Like I'm looking forward to talking to these people now, but it's just crazy how it went full circle and like we talked about getting in connection with people from a long ways away through social media, Through the same audience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Like we all share the same audience, Absolutely. I don't say I can't say we're trying to capture audience, but we are trying to obviously put content out there for the like-minded individuals that we all try and share and put content out for. Why would we not?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You know, yeah, yeah, just like we were talking about right before we started this. It makes it a small world when you know, oh, you know that guy. And you know, like I keep mentioning trey, I had buddies that are like, didn't you say you've met that guy? I'm like like it's a big deal, yeah, it's a huge deal. Like you, you, somebody, my brother, was telling me that you've met him and I'm like I just got off the phone well, you know what I mean like it's a big deal.
Speaker 1:I'm like, yeah, dude, I know all these people because we're all kind of, you know, in her, you called him 10 minutes before this and you called him trent did on a random wednesday, I don't think trey, I don't think treybo even uh knew that you were coming out here, no, and we. He was on speaker and trent hollered at him and Trent hollered at him and I hollered at him and he said y'all both together, and I said you already know my voice. This is not good. Oh, shout out though, I mean. And that was so cool. Trebo and Big Trey. I'm glad I got to shine some light on Big Trey because, literally, because the man behind it all, literally, and showing Trebo and the entire world that folks like me and you that are begging for Tre on the 30 years and three decades of knowledge just to share the bits and pieces, just like him standing there at your event, dude, at the Skid Street. What did you call that event? I don't think it had a name, did?
Speaker 2:it. Maybe people need to comment on what we should call it. The idea is I think it's wrong the shop gets built. You already know it's going to be the Blue Collar Show. Blue Collar Expo, that's what.
Speaker 1:It's going to be the Blue Collar.
Speaker 2:Expo All trades welcome.
Speaker 1:It's mostly going to be dirt type of deal. That one I had broke down to either the skid show or the skid event, skid event, skid event. He was standing there and I I had told trent that I literally we moved everything on our dagum low boy, and since we've had it and basically dealing with some issues on the fifth wheel, to not drag out the story and trebo was standing there and I was kind of complaining about it and I was like, yeah, I've been having trouble with this truck and trailer hooking up oh hell that's just a fifth wheel plate.
Speaker 1:Just take her off there, yank her, nigger down our truck, bro, when they'll get you found, they'll find your rebuild kit. And I'm like buddy, I've been dealing with this for two weeks calling manufacturers, distributor. I mean, yeah, this is a 2004 trailer that got bought out by another manufacturer. They overcomplicated it and it was a giant nightmare. And I'm like I wish somebody through this two-week process of me calling just go. Hey, that's just a standard whole fifth wheel plate on there. I don't know Hell. I've only owned a semi a couple of years, driven a bunch of them, but I've never had to own maintain. You know I have in the last couple years, but in this particular situation you're going to be in those deals I ain't never had no experience in this and I don't have somebody.
Speaker 1:I don't have a daddy that I can go. Hi, uh. Well, shout out to melcher's mobile. My stepdad came over and unbolted the whole thing and threw it in my truck, but I don't have a daddy that I can turn around and go. Hey, what happened in 1980 when, when the last little boy fell apart, like I don't think you do either, you?
Speaker 2:know what I mean, right, yeah, and so yeah, I got help, but no, it's not. It's not all passed down of what happened the last time I just bought the. You know, you bet, we haven't owned this machine for eight years. You know what I'm saying. I don't know what the hell to do here, and that info is priceless when you pull your hair out all night for four days in a row.
Speaker 1:The relationships in business is everything, and I would encourage you guys that are listening, that are like man, I've thought about starting this TikTok thing. I've got a really good idea for a podcast that would help people Quit talking about it. Dude, dude just got to do it and you're going to catch hate Everybody in your tiny little town or your big little town that's usually how they are Coverage area there's going to be some folks that hate on you and I've been having to deal with that a little bit myself, not going to lie for everything that I've been doing but at the same time, I'm starting to realize that, okay, am I going to stop what I'm doing for these 30 or 50 people when there's seven and a half billion?
Speaker 2:people on this planet. If you're bettering yourself, who gives a shit what everybody else has to say about it?
Speaker 1:Like and don't get me wrong everybody's plan strategy about how to get there. We can talk and talk to coaches and we can talk to people that have done it. For third, we're all going to do it a little differently. Yeah, and it's because, if it's our own hardened experience and what we've dealt with and the guards and fences we build um for our business personally, whatever it may be, to to make sure we don't do it again. Yeah, you know what I mean. But all right, dude, um, I got one last thing for you. What you got on this one I he's an avid listener.
Speaker 1:I finally have a listener on this show. How cool is that today? But I ask everybody, man, um, every blue collar guy that's just absolutely sick and tired of being stuck in the mud maybe it's a guy that's been at the same job for seven years, maybe it's the owner that's trying to make that first new purchase. Maybe it's mental, maybe it's physical, maybe it's emotional, going through some hard stuff at home and you just can't capture the right mindset to show up every day and keep going how do they give us a key takeaway that's helped you do everything that you're doing mentally, man, or physically, but stuck in the mud.
Speaker 2:Dude how they get out of that mud so here do it been in a lot of of bad situations, right, like everybody has, and everybody's bad situations, or you know what I mean? My bad situation is way worse than somebody that probably doesn't own a company, arguably you know what I'm saying. And then I'll call Trey to complain about it and he's like, oh, you know that's a Tuesday. Yeah, exactly Like you know. So, everybody's problem, but what's a huge deal to them, right? This is not fair to me to say that that's no big deal, because it would be if I was in that boat, right? So, anyways, I say that to say when I've been in all those situations and there's times where, like when we had multiple commercial sites going at once and we're getting screwed around on stuff that we can't control and man, it's running, you were talking about answering to your wife when she's like where's this money and where's man? It takes a toll on your employees, yourself, your wife, your kids, your everything. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I mean it runs you into the ground. You know it's funny, dude, you didn't say yourself in there and we always. It's like we always not to cut you off, but it's like we always place ourselves completely last, yeah, in this equation, because we have so many people responsible I don't have time for that?
Speaker 2:I don't have time to think about my feelings, exactly yeah. But then you know, you get to the point where, like you, you're so run down like you can't. You know what I mean mentally, yes, like I can't. And I finally got to that breaking point, you know. And when I get in those situations here's what I started doing, and this is easy sitting right here. It's harder when it's happening. But you end up in that boat where, like, I'll mourn, so to speak, that situation. Right, like I'll go through it. So, yeah, deal with. You know what I mean. Go on for a day or two or three or a week, or whatever it takes.
Speaker 2:I mean, during that last, most recent process, I mean there was tears, shed, dude, like I'll be honest Between me and my wife, you know, down at the yard, like, just I don't know what we're going to do. Yeah, we tried, and we were that way in the beginning, when we had $20. You know what I mean. Now we're about to lose another $40,000. You know, and it's like, how did we try this hard and end up? You know, now she's crying because I'm going through this, I'm you know, I'm like how, anyways?
Speaker 1:Buddy, do I get what you're saying? Yes, man.
Speaker 2:I lived it and that's the stuff. Nobody's gonna understand, nor should they. Right, they won't ever know without going through what we're, what we're into. But I'll go through those situations, and they used to be smaller, you know. In hindsight it's like why did I care that much about that? Right, eventually I'll be saying the same thing about this most recent situation.
Speaker 2:If you're growing problems, get bigger, right, but I'll go through and more in that situation, like I said, not make any rash decisions, deal with it for a few days and then eventually I have to logically look at the situation and say, okay, I've got. What are my options here? Right, shut down. And so, like, I have to honestly answer this question to myself a couple times because it got so bad, do I quit? Do I close the doors? Do I give up? And I have to sit there you know what I mean for a couple minutes, you know, and like, don't be prideful, is that the best option? And maybe it is. But every time I'm like, you know, either either keep going or shut her down, and every time I'm like, well, I can't, I can't, freaking quit at this point, you know. So I just get away from everything changing, exactly you know it's all up and downhill. If you get a call, a bad call, you're about to get a good call. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So there's usually a string of bad calls, there's a string of good calls and it's just up and down. But it's finding that middle ground and keeping everybody level which sounds so easy sitting there it's so easy.
Speaker 2:But every time I talk to, like I said, like treybo for going through, I just keep on keeping all you know, just keep going, and I'm like, yeah, dude, I get it, but that's really it.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean it really is like when you're like, how do you get through those times, dude? You just keep going. And that's so easy to say do it, yeah, like you just put another foot in front of the other and if you're going to fail you're going to go down swinging. I mean we might go under. As Trayvon says, I'll be back in business the next day. That's right. I mean I don't know. That's what it boils down. To me it's so easy to sit here and say you just keep going, but that's a given, that's a prerequisite. Hard work alone won't get you there.
Speaker 1:Network, learn, give a shit, you know what I mean and then and work your ass off and relationships keep going, yeah relationships are absolutely everything, having those influences, like you've mentioned, to not even really just vent to man, yeah, and them just not really give you any keep on keeping on. You know what I mean. And you're like did you just hear what I said? I'm fixing to go bankrupt. And they're like boy, you don't know even close to bankrupt. Get your ass out there and go back to work. You know what I mean yes.
Speaker 1:And it's just that comfort and the confidence over just decades of just keep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they've seen those situations and they seem small to them. They don't have that much empathy because they forgot that. You know what I mean. Like they went through that too and they care, but like, dude, it's gonna be okay. Yeah, you know what I mean. Like you're gonna survive. You have this far. So it reminds me real quick that there's a tick, tock. I don't know if you've seen it, I don't remember the guy's name, I'm gonna butcher it. But he says he's talking to his mentor. He's owed a million bucks, he's down. You know, he's down, bad. Whatever he. They've refinanced, they've done everything they can. They're about to go bankrupt. He's talking to one of his mentors and he's like you know, tells him the story and he's like I don't know what I'm gonna do. And he said the guy looks at me and laughs and says son, if you're not worried about going bankrupt about every three years, you ain't doing shit anyway justin winn waller.
Speaker 1:I know exactly. Yeah, justin waller, that's what it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my god where you at king. I've watched that clip to like in some lows you know what I mean. And then, because it right after, he says he goes, I can't explain it. Or he said it's not the answer I wanted, but I just felt better and that's so true. Like every time I think of that, I'm like, and you know, like I said, what you just said about trey is the same way of like dude, either like that's part of the growth, right. Like if you're not worried about going bankrupt, you're not doing shit. You're not doing shit.
Speaker 1:If the IRS or you ain't going bankrupt or you're not pushing the envelope, yeah, like literally. Now there's so many probably 30-year business snooties that would probably sit here and tell you otherwise. But for a guy like me and you, brother, that had nothing, started now and said I'm going to do this, there ain't no other freaking way for us, right, dog, right, and it's not like the bank gonna help a little old, dirt guy like we're, uh, we are a screaming red flag for any bank we walk into in the beginning. Then they, oh, they still are. Let me tell you, you can have a stack full of backlog contracts three, five million dollars worth of work, but they still, uh, they still get theirs. I'll tell you that I'm not a big fan of, uh, the banks. I'll just tell you that. But you need them. They have their place. Anyways, guys, I hope we've kind of been absolutely all over the place. Oh, absolutely. We kind of knew that was going to happen. Yeah, but it was entertaining will, wasn't it? Was it entertaining, buddy?
Speaker 2:and we have covered a lot of ground yeah, we have I guess.
Speaker 1:I guess we're gonna have to do probably a part two. Part two probably come at some point this year. I have a. I'd like to do a couple of sessions at con expo next year. I will, we'll get you on here before then. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm always down to come back hang out for the day again too. So, dude, that was a blast.
Speaker 1:I needed that, I think, more than anybody had fun man well, dude, till next time. Guys. I hope we brought you some value, hope you learned something, picked up a little bit of insight on something we said today yeah, hopefully some of this.
Speaker 2:Hopefully it doesn't sound like we're just dragging on, but it's stuff we're passionate about. At least give us that. I'm trying to help, you know. Hopefully somebody takes one piece off of that and run with it, guys, till next time.
Speaker 1:Every single week comes out 5 am on the website. Don't have to have any subscriptions bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom, or if you have a streaming subscription already, we should be on any streaming platform that you're already on. If you wouldn't mind, give us a rate and a follow and, while you're on the website, hit subscribe on that newsletter so you know every single time when we're bringing an episode and if you miss it, you get to read about it. So until next time, trent. Thank you so much for coming and we will catch you, guys, next time. Be safe, appreciate it. 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.