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. 37 - How to Handle Honest Questions from Your Team
What truly separates successful excavation companies from those that struggle? In this revealing episode, Sy Kirby brings his core Sy-Con team—Wes, Jesus, and Sam—into the studio for an unfiltered conversation about the realities of running a blue-collar business.
The team pulls back the curtain on their transformation from a price-driven company to one that prioritizes production rates and deadlines. "Our clients are way more concerned with the interest burning every 30 days than paying an extra 2-10% if they know the job will be done on time," shares Sy, highlighting a crucial insight that many contractors miss.
Through raw, honest dialogue, we discover how Sy-Con has navigated the treacherous waters of cash flow management—dealing with payment terms averaging over 100 days—while implementing systems that bring transparency to every level of the operation. The team discusses how their YouTube strategy has unexpectedly become a powerful business development tool, generating millions of impressions monthly and directly leading to significant projects.
Perhaps most valuable is their candid discussion about job costing and financial tracking. "You can't take a bad number out there and expect them to turn it into a good job," Sy explains, emphasizing how understanding costs at a granular level has transformed their approach to estimating and project management.
Whether you're running a small crew or managing multiple superintendents, this episode delivers practical wisdom on scheduling challenges, communicating effectively between field and office, and maintaining the resilience needed to succeed in the excavation industry. As one team member simply puts it: "Just show up, put in the effort, find the work. You'll get to where you want to go."
Ready to transform your approach to running a blue-collar business? Hit play and join the conversation that might just change how you think about your operation forever.
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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, guys, of the Blue Collar Business Podcast sponsored by podcastvideoscom. I have been across the hall for the last three episodes. I'm excited to bring you guys not just one guest, but three guests today, personal and close to my heart, part of my team here at PsyCon, but in this beautiful newscast room here at podcastvideoscom in Rogers, arkansas. You guys know I've been right out of year. They just reminded me actually, I was just in here yesterday for a meeting and been here almost a year. They just reminded me actually, um, I was just in here yesterday for a meeting and been here almost a year, and I can't speak more highly of the podcast videos team and what they can do for your show and put the platform um and message out there on all platforms is what I was trying to say.
Speaker 1:But today, guys, we are going to kind of change the script up just a little bit. I brought some of my team in here. I don't just sit here and preach behind this microphone. I tell you guys, I've learned and failed so hard to get where I'm at and these guys have been with me through my learning and my failures of trying to figure out what business is and what excavation is and pipeline and all the little things that catch us off guard as a team, you know. But they brought some questions in here for me today. So I'm kind of excited about that, probably talk a little bit about the good, bad and the ugly of what we love in this industry, what we can change as a whole or what have you there, but definitely more geared around the excavation and utility side, the civil side work. But I have been telling you guys that I was going to bring the team to you. They're here now. Thank you guys for being here.
Speaker 1:We got Mr Wes and Zeus man hey, zeus himself. And then we got Sambo Sam man the man, jesus himself. And then we got Sambo Sam-Man the man, and they guys Pipe over here was Zeus, pipe was Wes and Dirt was Sam. So there's a little bit of background for you. But, sam, how long have you been here? Four years, four, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think, we've been four.
Speaker 1:You've been here four. We're like a week apart. And then how long have you been here? Almost four, two months from now. So you guys have almost been here 50% since the company has been birthed. We will start our 10th year in August.
Speaker 1:That's insane for me to say. I never even thought I'd get this far, boys, but it's because of fellows like you not giving up. And let me tell you something the audience that you guys are talking to today, they're vulnerable. They know I'm very honest with them about the transitions that we've been going through on the project management side and how we lost project managers. So they're very up to speed on what's going on behind the scenes Not super detailed. If they haven't checked out our YouTube at PsyCon, it's a shameless plug. There you can actually go see all of these guys' work week in, week out, but they obviously have a pretty good microscope as of the ugly, when it wasn't running the way it should have been as a business as a whole.
Speaker 1:But I've literally leaned on these guys very heavily and, hey, should we do this? Here we go, let's try this, let's do that. That's not working, okay, but it takes a two way street. It takes a leader willing to listen and make change and be ready to make those changes even though they suck and they're hard for you. Um, it sucks just as bad for them. So be talking back and forth and I'm excited to have a little insight today. So, um, anybody want to start us off with just a random, good soaker question? Huh, wes has got a grin over there. Come on, bud. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dude, let's give us the first topic of the day um, what do you think the difference between psycon and other construction companies in our area?
Speaker 1:oh, very good question and you guys are going to be here to agree and disagree with me and back me up when I don't. This is gonna going to be so exciting. So, um, the difference in us, straight up, is we care about our people, um, first, and family first, but the way we approach things, we're still learning. We're nine years in. We don't have the 40, 50 years, but then there's also companies that you get in bed with that should know these things, being in business 40, 50 years, and then are leaning on us, as we know, some of those companies that bug us every day, right? So I had to, literally, during this transition, dude, like pull it back a little bit and go how can we be different? And you know who? Dylan says this all the time. It's not about what they're doing, it's about what we can be doing. What are we doing? And really, my dude, he hit me hard with that About two years ago.
Speaker 1:We were sitting in the office. I was just complaining, you know, just really negative during, during that. It's about what we can do and you're, you're right, so the number one, without giving too much away of our hidden little secrets and tricks. But we're not mainly super concerned with price compared to time and deadlines. We've had to make that transition from the front of the house. We want to provide a price that is fair, honest work. We don't want to take your head off. We want you to come back and do another project. But at the same time from me to these guys, especially during this transition we have transformed into production rates, equals time schedules, driving those points home and a lot of our clients and I'm so glad we get to have this conversation because our clients are way more concerned with the interest burning every 30 days than they are having to pay an extra 2%, 3%, 10% if they know it's going to be done by May 8th and they don't have to deal with another 40, 50, 500, 600 thousand dollar interest payment. Whatever the job is. They'll avoid that and they'll soak us up because they can go watch our YouTube channel, watch Sam how he approaches constraints on a dirt job, or watch how you guys would attack a pipe job and how clean it is and how we approach shoring and trenching and benching and and ladders and OSHA safety and, and it can be done and still broadcasted.
Speaker 1:I get I hear that comment all the time and this is a compliment to you guys. It's literally clean work. I get on the phone with guys and they're like, hey, man, I can't barely even put a short together because I'm scared to death. It's going to hit the internet Like you're putting yourself out there like for everybody, and I'm like, yeah, but it also holds you guys accountable because you know it's going out there. You guys don't want to look stupid, you know, and I never want to shine a bad light on you and neither does will.
Speaker 1:That's one of his main concerns. But they get to see with us, okay, from the front end. It's not. Here's your two million dollar proposal, sign here, go into bed with me. It's like it's literally trying to hand a cake to them without them getting to slice into it. But but the difference with CyCon is we have two and a half years of every commercial project that you guys have touched is displayed for them to go. Look at, see, view how view, and see if your faces are still the same number one, how you attack the job. Is it clean? And that's the biggest compliment I get is clean, straight ditches, because utility work, as we know, is not like super fashionable. It's never clean, it's always muddy, always Dirt is too. I mean Like yeah, oh my God, stop Rain Ditches in four weeks is.
Speaker 1:I've been complaining about it on this show. It's got to stop raining. But I, I truly believe West, answer your question that they not only get to broadcast their project, they get to see the behind the scenes. We're not trying to hide anything. We're not just trying to ask for your money and an oh, they're going to be out there for three months. No, we're providing you a schedule. I don't know if you guys know this, but from the front of the house, dylan provides a schedule of an appropriate time and what we anticipate and project that we believe is going to take. Now, that may be completely different once you guys get out there, as long as we have justification hey, we didn't have a geo report on this and we're trying to lay in four foot of groundwater Okay, well, that's obviously different than what Dylan could see and set a production rate on right. We didn't have a geo report or whatever the case may be. But they get to see y'all, they get to see us what we're about people. You know what I mean. We're always smiling, like every single time I'm I'm on. I get that comment.
Speaker 1:A lot is huh, as you guys have walked with me through this personnel transition over the last, uh, two years well, now, major, major year about it has been on and off the ship, whatever. And, uh, the people that are here, man, I care and they care and it shows through their actions, and I think, not just me, but the people that reach out to me and go hey, man, your guys are always smiling. It's not like I'm running up and you guys running like ants. No, I want you guys to be the best that you can be, and whether that's better than me, whether it's better than what you want to be, whatever your dreams, goals are, I want to help there, but care about your people first. We're handing out schedules. We're caring about time, not just price.
Speaker 1:The cost is what the cost is. You guys have all experienced through that over the years of us trying to figure out and we used to. I'll be open and honest with you guys. We used to let the market, as I was learning, drive our price. That's totally wrong. I was taught that. I mean, that's all I knew, right? Well, I got to be cheaper than him, but I got to be more expensive. I got to get that job. No, boys, here's the cost. Whatever the cost is which you guys are starting to learn more job costing, knowing your cost. What's this cost, what's that cost? Where can we apply it in the job? We're doing that behind the scene more than ever. You know what I mean to.
Speaker 1:Hopefully you guys don't know this, but, like the last episode, moving this the whole way through is we want to drive this incentive program to hopefully incentivize that time base. So not only is the customer getting a good product, you guys are incentivized to get the job done on time and I literally last episode was like a basically a um, a bolt on system that integrates with builder's trend or any of them, and it can show you guys, um, how much money you can make per project and I'm really interested in it. But first thing, like I've been open, honest with you guys and the audience is inside, accounting has to be locked up. We have fractional CFO. I don't think you guys have ever met Miss Julie and she has been helping Shay, drastically help her there, and things were changing. But anyways, that's probably a little too my.
Speaker 1:But, wesley, I hope that answers your question. It's not just everybody can push dirt in my pipe. It's how we do it and when we make a mistake, which you guys don't know. I walk straight up to them and I go hey guys, I'm sorry, we made a mistake, I didn't know the guys. Should we have known? Yeah, we should have. And that's my fault, it's not their fault Psych on here and I sit there, take the tongue lashing, cussing, whatever it is. Most of the time they're understanding because I approach it with hey look, we made a mistake. Here's the three solutions I've got. This one definitely helps time, not the best on cost. This one's probably the best on cost, but it's going to push time out. Which way do you want to go?
Speaker 1:And I just wanted to finish that question up with when we hit mistakes. You guys have watched me time and time again, even when they're real bad ones that are not good. There's been lots of them, but we've learned from them together and I've been open about them. Yeah, the company takes a hit. Open about them. Yeah, the company takes a hit, but did we learn from it? Do we know the next project two weeks earlier or halfway into that project? Or you know, like we, we figured out some stuff on Sam's current dirt job and I won't go too far into detail, but, um, the things that we're doing behind the scenes within the inside accounting man.
Speaker 1:We caught that like during the undercut phase and I'm telling you guys that's insane for the admin in the back office to turn around and come up and go hey, what's going on here? Here's estimated loads. We're almost here, guys, this is huge, big stuff and you know the team's thinking I'm going to be upset because it carries a monetary value, there's no doubt. But everybody's getting to see that monetary value now, not just Cy and Sarah. And so you guys wonder why we're stressed. Well, everybody's going to start to see it now, but it's out there in the open now that we all can attack it. You know what I mean. And that's where I feel like I've kind of screwed up with you guys kind of veering off the question. I hope I answered that, but I feel like the transparency that's coming for you guys is only ultimately going to drive the success where this thing is trucking. So there's lots of differences about us. We're not and I'm not trying.
Speaker 1:There was one point 100% for factors that the audience knows that I was chasing revenue so, so hard because I didn't know anything else. Hell, I didn't know how to produce profit. I didn't know how to track profit. I didn't know how to. I thought profit was a dirty word, right. So now that we're getting there, man, and we've been doing what we've been doing over the last 18 months, I cannot wait. I have never been so excited to step into a year, and this year we can talk about all the things why this year is dragging out work-wise, commercially well, tariffs, buildings, right, development's starting to come on and the opportunities that we have either way is insane in the market that we do, and I cannot wait to give you guys the rest of this work for this year and let you fly with the systems and the things that we've been, I mean have you met with Shalina?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, well, not one-on-one none of have you, I know. No, wesley has. Well, and, and wesley is is more in a transitional period and in your role. And I got to tell you, man, big step up. And I want to tell you that on the show zeus, over here, coming out of nowhere, out of left field, over the last consistent six to eight months, where everybody's just going, who is is, what are these guys doing? And then, sam man, the things that we've learned.
Speaker 1:You know the audience here knows how you came about and you were on a job and you saw us running pipe and all of a sudden you were like, hey, dude, I'll come help you in a machine until we figure out this dirt thing. And I said, to your mark. And then we went and bought the machine and the machine until we figure out this dirt thing. And I said two year mark. And then we went and bought the machine and the hell, I was so scared to death going and buy you that machine. You have no idea I was petrified.
Speaker 1:And then the first job we walked into, them freaking developed. You know it was the contractor, actually not the developer, but it was a rough learning curve right off the bat and we've learned since then. But I'm telling you guys, I can't tell you enough, thank you in the growth that you guys have had. I've watched each and every one of you individually and you've been a part of the transition and given the feedback. And you know Ms Shalina working with these guys. Ms Shalina will be on the podcast, uh three to four episodes, so be uh listening to that, but she is. We're going to talk about her probably a couple times.
Speaker 3:definitely helped us in the project management game, right I was texting her on the way over hey, is this acceptable to ask these questions? There was one or two.
Speaker 1:She was like those are more one-on-one, but fine so I I just wanted to give her a little shout out, um, because I can't believe that I didn't realize we needed something like that and honestly, it wasn't until I was sitting here. I'll never forget it. The owner of this place actually was sitting here and going why don't you do something fractionally? I'm like what's fractional? Like what does that mean? Well, it's where you hire an expert in their field and they handle it's basically what you call in your world a subcontractor. And I'm like hell, I didn't know that was a thing you know. I mean, I had no idea and I started looking into it and I dove hard and I feel like we're on the right path. How have you guys been experiencing that?
Speaker 3:I think it's been huge At least for organization ways to go about thinking about production, how it kind of transfers into you guys in the office, easier ways to, I guess, translate it from, because it doesn't always translate Because we don't speak the same language. No, what we produce in the field doesn't always translate to something that the office understands. They see just their numbers and they don't understand that.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's pretty straightforward when you look at it like that, but it usually takes a little bit extra that you don't know A hundred percent it does and it and and that's one of the biggest struggles, I mean, for me right now I'm wearing so many hats and I'm looking at so many numbers is that this has been a really hard transition on me personally. Just open and honest with you guys, because I've had to, like I've got such a big heart and I've led with my heart for so many years, it's hard for me to rewire myself into. Hey, now I have the information in front of me, I can't move differently. That's because I mean, I told you guys, like um two years ago, christmas party, I or yeah, I looked at him. I was like all their families. I stood there in my living room and I said, hey, it's not about making money, it's if we can survive, and if we can survive next year, we have got this thing made. And, man boy, did I have any clue of what I was actually foreshad result for you guys? Because we're doing all of this and that's what kind of makes me upset with some of the other folks that maybe didn't reach out as much is like we're spending money here to make y'all's job run easier, to get the information out of you. But not only that, but to get the information to you in an organizable spot where you don't have to spend time on your phone, and QR systems for inspection sheets and and really starting to bring in this new age kind of thing is is insane. To be honest with you, but it's the little things, right. It's like to be honest with you, but it's the little things, right. It's like. I really wish I would have had any clue. But, guys, we're only nine years in this and I think a lot of people fault me for letting it grow as fast as it did.
Speaker 1:But everybody that carries expectations in the marketplace, that carries expectations with employees, it just does. Once you get to that certain level, you're expected, compared to the other people that they may be coming from, to have this or that and if you don't, well, you got to get it. And so all of these gps we're in two months, we're fitting on them. Basin rovers, boys like, like, own them. We're fitting to own the lower, the lower too, yeah, I know, well, that's okay. But once, like, I'm sitting here with a plan and a strategy and boys, I'm so excited for what's coming. But I've testing equipment, sewer testing equipment.
Speaker 1:I had an insurance renewal meeting today and we were just going through all of our assets about what's insured and what's not insured, et cetera, and sewer testing equipment that's 30 grand literally. I'm sorry to just take this for a spin here, but he threw a scenario at me. He's like, hey, you got an enclosed trailer and she pulled with a bunch of tools and I said, eh, we don't really do tools, but we have our testing equipment in there a lot of times. And he's like, just say, the boys left it for lunch one day and they locked it up real good and ran down the road and somebody grabbed that trailer and I asked him you know, for this scenario is am I insured right now? He's like, yes, up to this amount per this occurrence and I'm getting the time more now than ever is where I was going with this is to make sure that we're covered on the.
Speaker 1:On the business stuff, well, I have folks like you working on in the business. But he was blown away to carry out what I was saying how expensive the sewer test and equipment was. The yellow box is like 12 or 14 grand by itself, the triple hose and, and we won't even get started in your world. So actually we actually talked about your world in the insurance for an all and I'm I'm hopefully I'm providing a little insight to you guys with what I've been working on. But we were talking about, hey, we're at rental rates and if we run into a scenario where we have to rent a track on a dozer to complete a job because our stuff's tied up, are we insured and we are 100%?
Speaker 1:But say I had an iMachine is 370 000, now the same dozer run every day, brand new for a guy to go by, um, and say we had a 210 or uh, something in between there, right, 210, whatever, 240, well, that's 600 000 turning them to,000. And that's what our limit was. Was that $500,000. I said I'm just playing devil's advocate here because all the crazy crap that's happened in our world over the last couple of years by the way, you two were both some of my only complaints of the year. It's just funny you guys are here. I forgot about that. I did not. I never minded today. But thank God you guys are both here and everything's okay. But anyways, dude, got something else. Zeus, you got something. Yeah, I already said nothing over there.
Speaker 3:Did you expect more?
Speaker 1:No, I didn't. I'll just give you a little Quiet person.
Speaker 1:He really is. He lets action speak for words and I will tell you this, though, um, a little brag on you for just a second the interpersonal even. I want everybody that's listening out there don't discount the fact if they can't communicate verbally and you and you feel like that's lacking, as long as the the like hey, zeus here, email daily logs. I never have to question it, I haven't ever, and so there's not as much communication needed because I can go and look and see and what. Okay, use his logs, send it out. Here's the email. This is exactly what happened and this is like across the board for the first time ever.
Speaker 1:You guys probably don't know this, but I'm scrolling through builder's trend way more than you would ever imagine at this point, trying to get used to it, trying to find things to tweak and, um, try and make your systems run easier. Right, and I saw both y'all schedules. That was big and they put them. Have you done one for Ducati yet? Okay, it's fine, it's fine, you've been a little tied up, but either way, sam has actually entered into the takeoff world and he's helping out Dylan big time, and Dylan's been bragging hardcore that you just walked in there, clicky clicky clicky.
Speaker 3:Well, I had a little experience coming in Right. I'm glad we finally switched over. I mean, as you can tell the quantity differences, it's just absolutely massive, but just don't.
Speaker 1:We also did a personality and disc assessment and I learned so much. Did you do your disc assessment? I don't think I read yours yet, but anyways, we'll skip over that. But I want to highlight scheduling. Just, we can talk about scheduling for the next hour, but it's literally the most crucial thing between us. Four is scheduling and that communication. And and Jesus, yes, you're you're not the most vocal guy at the company, but at the same time, when we need an email or we need something, we can always call you and go hey man, what are you thinking on this? And you can spit out that information accurately.
Speaker 1:But watching you guys put those schedules in there, I'm telling you I was smiling ear to ear. I watched and I went in and Chalina showed me how to break it, cause she's teaching me too, guys like hardcore, what I need to be looking for to hold these systems accountable, or the next project manager, or the next operations manager, where those breaks are. I'm trying to figure all of that out. So that way we're not just moving through this as we're moving through this, we're writing new job descriptions and standard operating procedures for those. So when those do come available and we do take that next step in that growth. We're going to be ready to support at whatever level that is, and so, but to see that schedule, I just wanted to highlight kudos to both of you. But Sam, no, you have, thank God, we switched to playing Swift and um, that's a whole different topic. But, um, scheduling, I want to highlight that for a minute because I want to, I want to share, I want you guys to share Sam, you, uh, I just want to share, I want you guys to share Sam. I just want to share what his personality type was. Commander Sam's usually real good about having things in a line and ducks in a row and doesn't necessarily love when things get outside of those ducks in those rows. He's real quick Get back in the line, boy. But Zeus, you carry your own very unique scheduling approach and they both work. And Wes, dude, I got to tell you you have been killing it right off the bat and I'm loving what we've got going on currently logs, scheduling, et cetera.
Speaker 1:But share a little Excel spreadsheet. Excel spreadsheet, did you first? Excel punch list, like that was big and that took it off of my plate and we've all walked VBT, but I went out there just to fill you in a little bit audience. I mean, it's these little things and you have to celebrate these things. This is where I also failed. I went out to VBT, took pictures of everything. I personally walked it because I didn't want to play this back and forth game with Anyways, that's a whole different topic for another day as well.
Speaker 1:I shared the pictures with Wes and again Shalina was like hey, wes, you think you could help us out? He's like well, yeah, I can try. And so we airdropped them and he worked his way through an Excel punch list or built it on an Excel spreadsheet and I got to tell you if you're an iron guy out there, a concrete guy, or these guys are pipe layers and dirt guys, like they're so far away from Excel. But I'm so proud of you guys because you're going to see it. You guys hopefully see the stepping stones that we're taking of where we are going to get to this wonderful plateaued landing of consistency and it's baby steps. And I just want you guys to share a little bit of insight on big things in the utility world, dirt world, on scheduling, and it's the simple things that you guys skip over, like the tab situation, and you got it, zeus. Kick us off with some bad-to-the-bone scheduling tips, come on.
Speaker 4:I think the main setbacks on scheduling utility-wise are usually plan changes. Those will definitely throw you off Bruh yeah.
Speaker 2:Or other contractors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how do you deal with dirt guys?
Speaker 3:you know dirt guys are slow, not ours, others, which the weather's been the worst for us, I mean, we're already in a swamp. You have a three foot undercut and then it rains 20 inches, and it's every other two days, literally. How do you get anything done? And luckily there's been what Last, because last week we didn't really do anything. We couldn't. The week before we got one day we ran drugs to 150 loads. You know, outside of that, you just have to do as much as you can on the good days and try your hardest on the bad days to limit how long it lasts yeah, and prepare for the bad days too.
Speaker 1:I think we've made a more of a shift now than ever, rather than working right up to that rain day and then shutting down, I feel like we've all been communicative and I've always been so scared that we weren't going to get enough production. Because why? Because I couldn't track it. Now I can track production on a totally different report that you guys can't see, and I can see red flags like, hey, we're getting close on this or getting close on whatever, and go out there and go, hey, why did this happen? Not jump down the throat and I hope you guys can attest that I don't jump down your throats. I really try to coach and learn and be in the moment with you. Yeah, there's moments that I get mad, absolutely. I probably don't get mad enough, but I want to be able to understand why what's happening right now more than ever. Is it a production issue? Is it an estimation issue? Is it an accounting issue? Did somebody enter something in wrong? We don't know any of that information, so let's not just rush to assume, but at least we know. And what I'm talking about, guys, is there was years here at Sycon and Nick uses this analogy, and you guys will reference this very well Say we've got 20 mantles to do on a project.
Speaker 1:We've put the pipe in, everything's great, and I hope Mr Burr is coming through to put in 20 mantles. I'm sorry, we've got a PsyCon Maybe. Shout out to Mr Bill Come on back. Bill's out there forming us up some manholes and bill's pretty conscious about labor. This is nothing, no reference to him, it was just a shout out to him. But in this conversation we've got two days of labor per manhole. Um, estimated in, we've got one day a machine, or maybe two days machine, two days there. We got two guys in it. Okay, there's 20 of them to do. Um, uh, bill decided that Nate wasn't busy, so he picks up Nate and he's with them for four or five days or maybe the entire duration.
Speaker 1:When do you know Number one, number two? Uh, it took them four days actually per manhole. Well, the big question is do you know in manhole two, do you know manhole 10 after the job's done? Never, that's serious and that is where we fail as a business. We take excavations as a whole because we don't even understand that concept. I had no idea, but when they broke it down to me. I'm like I got to know, like I got to know, like I have to have that power, because once I have that power, now, if I know what manhole two well, obviously I'm going to cut the labor and go back to redirect and say, hey, we got to. What do we need? Maybe we need a different machine.
Speaker 1:Again that approach so like, yes, the monetary is everything and it sucks, and we have to live through these hits and we're not going to make as much profit, et cetera. But as long as we're learning and say, you know, we make a mistake on the undercut, we've got the entire job to make it up. Yeah, instead of oh my God, where did this $90,000 worth of trucking come from? And we're all scratching our heads. Or whatever the case may be, why did we put in an extra 500 feet of pipe out of here? Like, why do I have this invoice and why is it in the ground? When we only proposed 2,800 feet, when somebody didn't have a conversation? When do we know that? And that's the biggest question, and the quicker you guys get that information into the office, where they can use that accurate information to tell the decision makers.
Speaker 1:Hopefully, folks, we're going to be having a PM and an ops, and then there's even broken down more steps and details to be analyzing and really support you guys while you're out there, so that you're not asking so many questions, because those questions suck when you're sitting there, and I know we've all sat there, including myself on a project, and we're just sitting there going, damn, I don't know if we're making money. I really don't know if we're going to get this done on time. Do we have? Is this the right material? Like we've. I've done that, growing this thing and obviously we're in a much different spot than that. But I know there's guys out there wondering they've got a great group of guys like you and all their crew members and their admin staff and they're seven, eight years in. They got 15, 20 employees and they still don't know if they're making money. They don't know why they're losing money. They just don't know because all they are is a dirt and pop guy at the end of the day, that's all I am, that's all I have ever known. I didn't just wake up and be a CEO and so, anyways, I kind of went off on a tangent there, but literally the three words that I've been hammering down to these guys more in the admin staff.
Speaker 1:But it's know your cost. Because as long as I know the cost, we know how much money we can make on top of it. And profit's not a dirty word. We need profit. We need indirect and overhead to be paid for annually, like we've got to find a way to do that. So if we're just here's our cost, here's 10%, sending it out the door, we aren't making money, like we're negative margins before we even hit the job and you can't take a bad number out there and give it to you guys and expect you to turn it into a good job. Well, it will not happen. I've tried it myself. It can't happen and it takes up here knowing that that can't happen and you only figure that out by experience.
Speaker 3:Which I kind of touch on that. Come on, like you know, we bid jobs for what it costs plus a little. How do you balance that with hey? We had a job fall through. We need a job, it's. How do you balance the? We bid this way. Do you start tailoring it to hey? You know we're close on all these bids, but we need one just to get us through the next three months. Do you start?
Speaker 1:no tinkering. So this is such a good question because we are living through it right now. Boys, we have I just left a meeting. We definitely have more on the backlog than I thought for dang sure, especially in in the pipe world. But before Sam, there's what I call the hamster wheel of death as an entrepreneur and it is, and you guys have watched me do it and felt the repercussions of it. It is you have estimation and production and as an entrepreneur, as the leader, you run in there, estimate a bunch of work, because you're a sales guy and hopefully you're the one selling the work. Whatever the case may be, you run in there, sell a bunch of work. Well, then you got a bunch of team members out here that don't have systems, they don't have processes, there's no procedures, there's no nothing. So they're all looking at the same guy that estimated the job to answer all the questions through the job. So instead of him sitting in the office, he's going to run out there. What's he now focused on? Production? Has anybody even opened up any estimates or talked to anybody or anything? No, so we run out here, get a bunch of work done and then, all of a sudden, we open up our eyes and what are we going to do in 30 days? So what do I do? Run back up here and so for the second year in a row, I have not. Well, this is the. I got to be honest with you. This is the first time when our backlog has dwindled that I haven't freaked out and ran up there. And I'll be honest with you and the personality tests. You guys wouldn't think that I've read into those as hard as I have, but me and Shalane have broke them down and I've really tried to understand you guys and how you tick and and I I've.
Speaker 1:Dylan was the first ever employee here. I thought I knew that guy like back of my hand, not all the way, and one of the worst things possible for him is in a high stress environment Situation like we are. He feels it more than you guys would ever imagine. He cares so much right now. He wants to give you guys the answers. Here's where you're going for the next two months, three months, eight months, whatever, and it's coming. He has been working his tail off, but when you start feeling all that pressure and you succumb to it and then you've got somebody you care about or superior or whatever, coming in there and adding a little bit of pressure, or I start taking over and go hey, dude, just give me that job. Hey, just give me that job. And I've done it before. I did it to him last year. Obviously he wasn't in the spot that he's in. He's had a full almost two years, three years now Long time estimate. He didn't have as much experience but I caught myself. That was literally the handcuffs.
Speaker 1:Now we took some work last year at the when I said after that Christmas party was at 23 into 24, when Huntsville came about and stuff like that, it was literally survival work, a hundred percent. But if I would have been doing what we're doing right now, we would have never been in that position to have to take that work. And I know that now. I didn't know that then. So now it's, we're positioning ourself for the next lull.
Speaker 1:So what am I doing right now? Because we've did what 23, 24? There was a bunch, bunch of work out there and we're in every conversation. But we're in two different positions with development and the commercial game. We've not everybody you guys don't understand has done the commercial game Like we've done the commercial game. There's a lot of guys out there that do a crap ton of subdivisions. That would lose their butt going and doing a dadgum Starbucks. But it's a lot easier for a guy that's astringent on the commercial game to run over here and do a subdivision. Put us out in the fields, eh? Boys Like, can you? I can't wait, dude. Honestly I can't wait. But we're sitting in two very unique positions. We have all these numbers out. We're not getting as much feedback back.
Speaker 1:But that is a time for me to go all right. Hit the CRM something totally different. I know every bid that's gone out the door in the last 60, 90, 80, whatever since the start of the year. I can start going through. All right, I know him. Where's this at, where's that at? Hey, I picked up the phone yesterday to a five and a half billion dollar GC that's moving in here. He has an office here. They are huge. They do more warehouse square footage than anybody by any metric in the country.
Speaker 1:I sat on a conversation with him for an hour and a half because I picked up the phone off a bid that we already sent out.
Speaker 1:We talked a little bit about that, but he talked about two other jobs that we're involved with that he's backdooring into not backdooring, but been approached about, etc. So it is very hard for me, sam, because I want to run up there so bad and sling shit out the door as fast as I humanly possibly can to get some ink on a piece of paper. Why? To make me feel better. That's it. Why to make me feel better? That's it because what I'm doing, although I'm ultimately hey guys, we've got some work to go do have I set us up for the best chance of success throughout the project? No, I haven't. I'm just doing whatever I can to get us working. Now, there was times we've had to do that and I saw that time coming. But if we would have been set up differently and things didn't go the way they did? That's going to happen year over year over year. But it's all about being prepared, having the systems and holding each other accountable to get us there.
Speaker 3:And but literally, sam, I don't have a great answer for you, but I am living by faith, brother because, you know, working with him the last few days you know I'm having a little bit of prior experience in estimating I was like, dude, if someone says you're close, well call them. Don't be afraid to call an estimator and say, hey, dude, where did I go like, am I high, am I low, am I within 10k? Yep, because we can cut 10k. You know we just get money. We can find 10k, like we can find 10k on a job. So if you can do that and you get a job, make the call, yeah, but you got to make the call, yeah.
Speaker 1:You can't just be like well, I never applied to my yeah, it is what it is, sorry no, and we had a working system upfront with uh, heath was you know kind of running the CRM system back and forth and he had Dylan and and through this transitional period, I'm starting to find that if folks have strengths, that's cool. Don't compile what I already know their weaknesses on them just because it's part of their job duty. We're not doing that crap anymore, dude. I mean, it's whoever's the best of the best, to give us, the entire company, a chance. And we've got to look at it not from a Zeus's perspective or a Wes or Sam's perspective or a me perspective. It has to be this one goal mindset and understand that we got to win each day, to make it to the end of the year in every single direction, in every single department. And that's hard, it's freaking hard. And not make a mistake, we're underground guys.
Speaker 2:Too bad.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean, and there's unforeseen things that we're going to miss immediately as soon as we step on it. Do copy Literally, sam, it's on. Go check it out on the YouTube. Oh, I probably need to Real quick, I'll pick that up.
Speaker 1:Blue Collar Performance Marketing guys, I got to give a shout out to my man, ike and his team the value they're bringing the behind the scenes of PsyCon, the marketing campaign. Everything that they're doing is astonishing. I love the look of our website. Check that out PsyConEXCcom. And while you're over there making peeky boos at our stuff, you can check out bcperformancemarketingcom backslash bcbpodcast. Click the link in the description below and they'll give you a free discovery call. He will also give you a free comp on a basically outlook overlook of your marketing campaign and your website. Whether there is none, whether there is some or you went in the wrong direction. I'm telling you the values there to help you and him get to where you want to go. He will help you and his team. So shout out to Ike and the boys From there, literally the YouTube side of things. I know it's been. I want to ask you guys, while I got you in here, what's been your thoughts on the YouTube and having your work displayed and out there for everybody to see.
Speaker 2:My wife really enjoys it. Okay, okay, I'll take that she gets to see what I do every day, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, relatable right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it'd be cool, you know, in the future to show my son and my kids and love that and even like my parents, you know they live six hours south. They don't know what I do Yep, so they can watch it whenever.
Speaker 3:I love it, man, glad it's drone footage. No audio how?
Speaker 4:do you like it, Zeus? I think it's really cool because a lot of my family asks me what I do for work and I'm like, oh, I lay pipe. What does that mean? I bet you do I go call up the E-team and be like, oh, this is what it means. So I really like it. It's really cool.
Speaker 1:It is. I can't tell you the amount of hate that we've got over it, but we had. I'll tell you guys this I don't even know if you know this, but the really large job in Bentonville that we've been on for a very long time um that we're fixing to wrap up, we received because we had videos out and the one person had no idea that we had the size of machines that we did to solve the problem. No idea that we had the size of machines that we did to solve the problem. We had 72 subscribers.
Speaker 1:And we landed that phone call and I was all in and Dylan was standing there. He heard it straight from the horse's mouth hey, what took you so long? Well, I had no idea. I saw one of your videos. I was blown away, guys. I doubled down and I know folks have talked crap and everything else behind the scenes.
Speaker 1:But the consistency to get where we're at it is now a weapon for what we do and the people we reach. Do you understand that? Literally the videos, the average impressions of what Saigon Excavation and Utilities does, impressions that means an ad, I'm sorry, a video scrolled by them. Okay, is a million a month. A month August of last year when we did some strategic stuff 6.4 million. There was a little bit of ad spend in there, but I'm talking. You guys know me, I haven't been pumping into that Will's done such a great job but it's been hard to cover costs there, especially something like this. And thank God there's sponsors like Blue Collar Performance Marketing and Podcast Videos and PsyCon and the other few that are fixing to join the team. And if you guys want to join the team, check out Blue Collar Business Podcastcom, hit the Become a Sponsor tab and shoot us an email if there's a product or service that you might want to be able to support and help the community.
Speaker 1:But the new age of what we're trying to do, guys, is so different. It's crazy to think, but in 10 years the baby boomer generation is gone out of the workforce. Retired average age of 65, right. So it's the tail end of it, and there's a lot of. If you look up statistics about folks handing companies down, et cetera, there's just not a lot. And and there's a lot of. If you look up statistics about folks handing companies down, et cetera, there's just not a lot and dang sure not a lot of young faces hide gain whatsoever. And so to have the full understanding, the team that we have and the way we approach projects and complete them consistently is don't get me wrong, we have our struggles, we make mistakes. We're not trying to hide them. Check out the YouTube channel. I discuss them all the time and I get people think probably I'm a giant narcissist because I'm trying to do everything that I'm trying to do.
Speaker 1:But I want you guys displayed. I want what you guys do to be proud. I'm the same boat. Your folks live six hours away. My dad lives 18 hours away. I want him to see what's going on. Oh, what do you mean? It drives a little bit of sales and conversion for the company. Oh, it's now doing this. Oh, now we're picking up employees. Oh, now we're getting in front of the right people. Oh, now we're like, literally there's I was expressing this at the Trebo Expo that you guys don't even know this.
Speaker 1:We have a project coming that's completely under-negotiated with one of the major name developers in town and it is a prime location, unbelievable, and we have been brought in as consultants and he's been watching you guys in town for six months. Um, because he watches the videos. He's a sill fence and go see, oh see, how this is going. He knew your name. He would be weird. Yeah, sam, on that note, like the least I know, but anyhow, it's putting us in a unique spot. I know people are very one track minded in our world, in our industry and in general, and I'm trying to do something different and I really appreciate you guys understanding, you know, taking a risk. Eat a fish heads man.
Speaker 3:I just gonna hate Eat a fish head man, I ain't just going to hate.
Speaker 1:You ain't lying buddy, but what else you got? What other questions you got? You got any other?
Speaker 2:burners. Yeah, I know you do. You've got one. This is from the office, ladies.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Let's see.
Speaker 3:While he's searching which one he wants to talk about, I do have one. What's the hardest part of trying to keep a cushion, with GCs just taking their sweet time to pay? Oh my God, buddy, that is such a 90 days plus Yep, our average.
Speaker 1:How do you even try and Our average day to pay in 2024 was over 100 days.
Speaker 3:Which is insane To us.
Speaker 1:Receivables. You could only imagine on the payables, which you guys felt that and I'm very open and honest about you know, not 24, 23, I'm sorry and we were right at our peak of our growth and then like everything just knocked out from underneath us All this work that was coming, but um man, because a lot of people don't think about that, bro.
Speaker 3:You know they think. Well, you have a contract. Their contract says you're going to be paid on the the first in the 20th of every month. Well, that's not always the case and there's nothing we can really do about it.
Speaker 1:There is three words cash flow management and hell, I didn't know what cash flow was until I've always heard the word, but hell, I never had any cash, you know. So that's kind of what I thought, but that was my ignorance and me educating myself and what you guys don't know. Over the last year and a half, every single week, myself, sarah and Shea have sat down and literally gone week for week. What's coming out of the bank? Here's going this and made this massive change up to okay, we're going to be I can't tell you how many conversations they've come to me and we're sitting in there hey, we're 200 grand short next month. What are we going to do? Well, we're going to move this and shuffle this. And hey, we're 100 grand short next month. What are you going to do? Well, we're going to do this and we're going to do this, but the numbers are starting to dwindle and we're hey, we're all right for a week or two. And I'm like, what'd you just say?
Speaker 1:But we've had a bunch of compounded problems and me and Sarah myself, more or less than anybody, I was always trying to find that one solution. And I'm coming back to your cashflow, I promise. But I was trying to find this one solution. Oh man, compounded problems need compounded solutions. But it didn't. It didn't just happen overnight. We were doing great, great, great, great great. It's not like we just fell off a cliff. It started. It's just a roller coaster, guys. But it's what you do in those downturns to learn about the next upturn, to recoup for the next downturn, because it's coming. You can't just act like you're going up and staying up. I would love to stay at that plateau and hopefully nobody feels anything. But it's from cashflow management. There is no cushion in our world. We didn't start with money. I started with a whole lot less money. You know what I mean. And it just left every month and I had a very negative cashflow for the first couple of years in this business and I've shared with you guys where that came from.
Speaker 1:But at the same time, it takes looking at the whole ball of wax and not going oh well, 200k next month, no, hey, we're short $200,000 next month. What are we going to do? And that's the accounting. Looking at production Production. Talking to accounting Production guy goes back to production team and goes hey guys, vbt, we got to be done by the 20th because accounting is driving that. But for years, okay around here, production just did production things. Accounting wasn't driving production. Accounting needs to drive whatever opportunity she has to capture money. We have to go and execute to get that cash flow, to ensure that those bills get paid on that cash flow. But if we don't hit those dates, then that cash flow doesn't hit. That whole plan that we just made for the entire week's got blown up in flames. When you can't get any traction moving forward and you're really watching it, that close, something's got to change and pressure started and schedules, and that's where all of this started coming from.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, sarah and Chase sat down one day and made this entire year spreadsheet, our entire year, every single bill, that is. I'm so glad I get to share all this with you guys because this has been a little bit of time to share some insight of literally oh my God, I had no idea but the entire year from January to December. Every single fixed bill, every single variable bill, every single average is in there and it's budgeted and forecasted out. So we know how much revenue by the end of the year. We know how much overhead we need to capture by the end of the year. Like, those are things that we had no clue. Why are we just oh, whatever we get, go run. Well, I didn't know any different, neither did you guys, and nobody suggested anything during that time. But at the same time, we've positioned ourselves to let accounting tell us hey, what's going on with this job? If we can finish this up and knock these punch list items up, there's 20, 30, 80 grand there we can capture this month to divvy up this hole, or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 1:So, cashflow management, you have to do it, and if you don't do it, find a system that works. Ask ChatGPT. I don't care what you do, but I'm telling you, if you're out there and you don't know, week for week, month for month, when things are hidden, like we have our payables, I'm sorry, our receivables which is money coming in, we may be short there. So we're always preparing 45, 60, 80, 90 days ahead of time. We were never doing that for the first five, six years, and now that we've had that system, what I'm trying to tell you is to get to the problem. It all stacked and it took time to get to the solutions. It stacks and it takes time, and we're feeling the little wins. We're wrong.
Speaker 1:Things happen, oh, setback. Okay, it's a setback, but what are we doing about the setback now compared to what we used to do about it? Okay, this happened on this job, let's talk about it. We're going to talk about whatever comes this year, whatever hit we take as a company. We're going to do these post analysis Now that we're giving you enough information on the front of the job. Now, once the job's complete and behind, I'm going to pull you in there and we're going to talk about with the estimator, you and me, and sit there and go. What went good, can we repeat it? Was it profitable? What went bad? Let's talk about it and we're going to find out what went bad where it happened. And luckily, I keep coming back to the dirt Cause it's just sorry, it's just new. It's new right now and and at the same time, we already know what caused this problem written documentation, training called a whole nine and it's I already know guys.
Speaker 3:So um but in this instance it's when it's not us, when it's just someone just not paying their bill. You know, recently we had this issue Lean them up, dude you just straight to the lean you have.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's the easiest You've got lawyers, you have to have a good lawyer, cpa and a banker them three. And if you do utilities, public infrastructure, you need a good bonding and insurance guy. And they all need to talk to each other and have to know each other. They don't need to all hate each other. That makes your life hell, but literally, man, I used to take folks' word a lot more than I do. Now I don't care anymore.
Speaker 1:It is your 75 days. If you hit that 90 mark at 75 days, our admin team is shooting down to the legal team hey, look, this might be coming just like we're forecasting. Right, we're already probably sent eight or nine emails back and forth, not really getting anywhere. It's just kicking the can, kicking the can, kicking the can. And it will matter. On volume. I'll be fair, because if there's a job that we have a bunch of hard costs in, that we haven't recouped a bunch of money on yet, like that first pay app, yeah, we're going to tiptoe that line, get that cost covered and then from there we're going to be much more careful about that job. But if we have to get to that 75 day mark, it is a lean conversation. But the only time I step outside of that now is hey, we've got 150, 200 grand hard cost in this thing and this dude's paid us like 20 grand. Like we have got to get to that payout. I'll tiptoe for sure. But in the state of Arkansas the last working day. That's why it's so important to log. Even if you're there for 10 minutes, it can change my lien rights, the whole company's lien rights. So if you're the job, job's been done since December. But you were out there handling punch list items in February 29th you just gained 60 days. So from the last point when you guys were there from then to day 75, that's the window I've got to pre-lean and start the lean notice. So if I get outside those terms in the state of Arkansas, you're pretty much hoes. So if you're not having that conversation, you literally let your lean rights go. Done that. It's not a fun conversation. You don't have no leverage. So sorry, we put the cost in the ground.
Speaker 1:The boys worked the freaking balls off. We especially. If we hit a time crunch or a schedule, I give them zero. Hey look, contract says 45 days. 45 days means 45 days. Hey, uh, okay, gc's gonna pay us in 10 days. Hey, man, okay, cool, we'll deal with that like I'm not going to be up on you about 45 if you're communicating, hey looks, take a little bit. We move a lot of money, like in this game, like it takes a lot of money to pay a lot of money, and I I understand that and as long as they're communicating with me.
Speaker 1:But there comes a point where I have to look at it from a legal perspective and go, hmm, are we really, do we trust this guy enough? How much is this money? Is this two grand or is this 200,000? Is this 20 grand? I don't care if it's 10 grand or above, I'm going to, I'm going to lean you up. That's our money, we worked for it. And why are we waiting 90 to 100 days in the first place? But I need you guys to know this. So if it's 20 grand, it costs us $3,000 to $4,000 to fully lean a project. So that goes lawyer fee or just lean fee itself.
Speaker 1:All inclusive, all inclusive. We pay them, them, they take care of all the all county state, all that. But I mean, it's done and you pay for that speed as well. And then within a couple of days they are blowing your phone up, going.
Speaker 1:What is this letter? My owner's pissed off. Well, you know what. Have you not had a conversation with your owner? That's your freaking fault. Gc man or developer man, or don't put me in that spot I've got. Did you tell him I got three hundred thousand dollars for the pipe and everything else in the ground out there? What do you mean? You ain't freaking told him, or whatever the case may be. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Um, that first job you were on there p ridge, that was that. Was that case? Is that a bad contractor didn't, although we were doing. Everything we were supposed to do was in the parameters that we were told. We notified who we were supposed to notify, but they didn't notify the owner and man, that was the ugly of the industry. Right there, it's people, gcs, literally.
Speaker 1:I cannot express this to you guys enough, especially as we're first walking the commercial game. If they can find a way to take advantage of you, oh, dude, they sick on you like dogs on freaking, like leftovers, dude, like scraps, and they just use and abuse you. I just had Trent Harris on here with Blue Collar Contractors. He did some seven brews, did some grade for the concrete guys. He found out what a back charge is because he thought he was just and we've. We found that out over the years. I did personally millwood, millwood church parking lot and we thought we're just going to do the parking lot and, as sam, you have very good at blue topping with a dozer and a roller, like there's a process to get that and that's ass grade. You got to come down to this level and start thinking at this level, to this level to make sure when you compact it down to this much, it's there and like there's no holes right totally different thing I want.
Speaker 1:I want a freaking blade one of these days. Well, it's coming anyways. But especially, we started doing a bunch more subdivisions. Yeah, that I come home, I'm a big old monsoon, all right. So so what else you guys got? Yeah, you had one. You were looking up I didn't know it came from the girls. So, yeah, sorry, that's how I work here, guys. You guys should know that better.
Speaker 3:These guys hate when they're like hey, boss, we got a question about this and it should be just a very easy, direct answer, and sometimes I give the 25 minute squirrel airplane which is funny because in the way shaylene is like you should ask him what is big out of the box, uh ideas, and I was like no, that's like a three-day conversation, we don't need that.
Speaker 1:My big out of the box idea. Well see, you See, you're already coming. You go, hit me, hit me, hit me, hit me hit me Ready, you sure, yep.
Speaker 2:What do you think about the idea of supers being more aware of financial costs and being more responsible for keeping the profit margin? Love this. In doing that, do you think it will help us be more able to track the project and lead the crews?
Speaker 1:Completely agree. This was me and Sarah learning business. We didn't know any better. We figured transparency isn't what you. Now I'm sitting here, I can't believe I'm saying this, but the least transparency as possible how you thought we did business, like you keep things personal and you keep things quiet, like and everything. But transparency is the biggest struggle for guys in the three to five years because they want to shoulder everything. But that they want to bitch about shouldering everything and it's like you're not even. You're not even giving them a chance. Number one like pre-cons, internal pre-cons we talked about that didn't really ever materialize. And then we finally like, okay, we have got to do this with production rates. But transparency building you guys, the trans.
Speaker 1:The thing I was afraid of to get to this point and it takes time to get here is working on that inside accounting and going from where we were taught. And then our new lady is so wonderful. Shout out to Ms Julieie. She just gave the girls a huge compliment. Look, girls, you did great about job costing and knowing everything at the end of the year, but they didn't know where to put it. There's such a fine it is 100 and um, but literally job costing is the way to build profit and if you don't let the guys that are doing the dang work know the job costing, how in the hell do you ever stand a chance at succeeding or making a little extra on the job? And so, literally I had a January.
Speaker 1:First week of January I went down to our big CPA lawyer man and I said, hey, my number one goal this year is accounting. I'm kind of getting this production thing figured out, working together Estimation. We're really I felt really good set in stone. Heath helped there with Dylan. Dylan man shout out to Dylan dude, he is cranking it, he really is. But I felt good about both of those.
Speaker 1:My main number one goal was accounting. We had to figure that piece out. Is that Sarah? Because give me a little bit of grace here, which I don't think a lot of people are realizing I was trying to plan and forecast like, hey, what are we going to do when, when you guys go on maternity leave here? Like I lost Shay for two to 10 weeks, eight to 10 weeks, I don't know exactly and then I lost. We had four days and then Sarah was gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so for five months last year I was obviously within a two ladies system and we're fixing to do another support role. But like trying to navigate system and we're fixing to do another support role, but like trying to navigate, pushing this new system, trying to figure this all out with who, who's going to be doing it. I don't want to train the wrong person, is this? Hey, I had to look at Sarah and go, hey, you, you really want to be the in the business person and I need her up here working with me on the business bad, her up here working with me on the business bad. And so, and shay is, as you guys know, more than capable and what a godsend she's been and empowering her, just like we're empowering you guys with chalene. We've got her miss julie like totally outside force, bringing her up that ladder.
Speaker 1:And that's what miss mr richard told me down there in the first week of January. He said, hey, look, that's fine, but this is these steps that you have got to do, because literally, I was looking at him and how do we get from here to an incentive-based structure? How do we do that? Mr Richard, I have no clue. Well, number one you clean up inside accounting and you get to this point. Then we look at this and then we look at this and then, once we have a couple of quarters of consistency that we can analyze and make sure everything's going in the right buckets and it's getting paid and everything's going, then we can roll out the incentive-based structure program, because we should have a foundational base After looking at accounting and bookkeeping.
Speaker 1:It may take a year or two. I'm hoping, truly hoping, through this navigation of the financial world through the end of this year, that next year we're rolling out some type of even small incentives. Whatever we got to do, it doesn't matter. But to Wesley's point and through the last podcast I was literally talking. I think it's pro-tive and I'm sorry that I can't quite remember, but it's pro-tive and you guys will be able to see from day one how you can swing the job and it's broken out. The entire costs are there and it can bolt on to any program that we choose. It's basically an Excel spreadsheet and it's all legal. Beagle, even in California. Shout out which when I say that it's extreme labor laws over there and it's really stringent and it's union. So I know it's working for somebody else and it changes the game.
Speaker 1:You know what he said to me guys. He said how do you expect, from an owner standpoint, to sit here and base everything around time but then pay your guys on time, and I was like I get that, but I don't know any other way. Yeah Right, you don't know what, you don't know Exactly and, dude, I can't tell you the amount of hours I've spent at this desk and across the hall learning. I have been doing this for us, for me to learn, sharpen me so I can be a better leader, and while putting it on display for everybody else to come along with us, and hopefully there's some guys out there that I can help along the way. You know, but I number one. I can't tell you guys how much I appreciate you just coming in here and talking on a rainy day.
Speaker 1:But, um, I've got one, one last question for you guys and I hope you guys all have some insight, and if you've listened to the show so many times, I know I have so much freaking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. Uh, what's a takeaway, I ask? I ask this to every single person on the show and I have almost. We are now this will be episode 37 or 38. It's kind of crazy. Yeah, a plethora. So check that out at bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom or any of your streaming platforms and here at the end of the show, make sure and grab us a rating and a follow, please. But, guys, the takeaway for you know, the the you guys that are out there that maybe doesn't have a resource like this, maybe listening the first time what's the takeaway for him when he's just stuck in the mud? And, as we know, we can use that as a physical sense, but I mean that more in a mental and emotional and, as we've gone through what we've gone through as a company, as this structure, think about those days that were hard and what'd you do on those days? Though that's what I'm looking.
Speaker 3:She got for me the 2d just keep digging dude just do yeah yeah, I mean, I think it kind of comes down to what your vision is, as in the superintendent, like do you see it getting to that point? Because you have to have faith in it too. Like you have to have that belief or you don't have that drive. That's right. You don't have that motivation to wake up every day, knowing it's going to be a crappy day, tough one, just coming in and saying you know what. But I can see what the potential is and I know that hard work can get it there. But I've got to show up every day to even have the chance it shows character.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a percent of it does. It's the one day at a time I can't tell you guys how many times I've said that to myself in the last couple of years Like one day at a time You've got to win the damn day, that's all it is, and then string a couple of them together.
Speaker 4:You got any advice for them? Just show up, put in the effort, find the work. You'll get to where you want to go.
Speaker 1:Literally, it's that simple, though. There's no some big show up. Put in the work and you'll get to where you want to go, like Zeus. That was the most prophetic thing you said all night. I really appreciate your insight today. No, I do, it's just stepping out of the shell for all three of these guys. But I'll show you the responses that this episode comes from and you'll realize why I do.
Speaker 1:What I do here is to help this guy at the end of this podcast where he's just like bro, am I really got to do another day of hanging steel? You're talking to concrete guys, plumbers, electricians, not just popping dirt guys. Obviously it's relatable to us. But you're talking to entrepreneurs that are listening to you that hoping they they can just have three guys, let alone superintendents or a leadership or whatever you know, and it it's. It's so easy to not win the day. It's so easy to make it look like you got it all together. It's. It is hard, it's not easy. Like I don't want any to paint that picture for anybody. It's not easy, it's. It's not easy to be, it's. I'm sorry, it's not as easy as everybody just talks about. Well, you just got. It's a mindset thing, dude, you've got to click it up here. Hey look, today's going to suck, but it could suck a little less, because we're going to do this and this plan, whatever.
Speaker 3:But mindset is everything guys show up put in the word and just got to keep it managed, like the emotional mindset and the mindset you've got to keep it managed. Try and keep it managed like the emotional mindset and the minds that you've gotta keep it managed. Try and keep it even keel. You know, for the longest time people said speak it into existence. And I was like man, that's what you can tell me, that that is a pile of diamonds. But if it's a pile of shit, it's still a pile of diamonds. But if it's a pile of shit, it's still a pile of shit. Honestly, the more you speak positively to yourself, that may be the only positive thing you hear all day is what you tell yourself. That's right. But as long as you keep telling yourself, hey, dude, you know, today wasn't the best, we didn't do near what we need to do, but we still progressed, that's how you, the little wins, stack into big wins.
Speaker 1:That's right, just got to keep stacking and everybody you know, within the company has to stack individual wins to compound into company win, to compound into wins upon wins, upon months, upon quarters, upon years. And then, all of a sudden, you wake up and you're like, oh my God, we're doing this thing and I can't tell you the amount of wins. We don't celebrate them near often enough because we're so concentrated on getting to the next one, especially myself. But, man, the wins are stacking, it's compounding, and so scared to let you guys down, and I know you guys are scared to let you guys down, and I know you guys are scared to let the company down, myself down, and but uh, truly, I can't wait to see. I hope we get to sit here in a couple of years, or maybe in a different studio shout out podcastvideoscom, though, but who knows where we'll be in two years? You know what I mean. And, uh, sitting in our shop and being glassed.
Speaker 4:You never know I'm just kidding, Be down in Bama dude.
Speaker 3:Be on the beach. Oh man Podcasting lawn chairs, let's go, Dude let's do it Bet. I'm down.
Speaker 1:There is a mobile kid here that podcastvideoscom offers. Come on, man. Guys, I really appreciate you tuning in today. I really hope the insight and a little bit of credibility to what I'm sitting here trying to tell you. Guys, I am not sitting here telling you plan, strategize, budget forecast for any reason other than I didn't do it. Now we're doing it. I see the reasons why you do it and I'm trying to make sure you don't make the mistakes that we made along the way. And if you're blessed enough to have individuals that stick it out with you to see the other side of it, kudos to them and make sure you let them know. Thank you, you're proud of them. I see the transition, I see the change. I try to be conscious about that. When I see it, I call it out, whether it's in front of anybody or whether it's individually, and try and celebrate that win. But, guys, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Check out bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom. Watch or listen straight from there, totally subscription free. But if you've got a subscription, give us a rating and follow on there. And I appreciate you guys so much and until next time, y'all be safe, be kind and be humble. Bye-bye. 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.