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. 43 – Hard Bids, Bad Clients, and Better Business Models with Mark Zweig
Mark Zweig takes us on a remarkable journey through his multiple years in architecture, engineering, and construction, sharing candid insights about the industry that few are willing to discuss.
From his early career in architecture firms to founding the Zweig Group (now in its 37th year), Mark reveals how his experience across multiple disciplines gave him unique perspective on the construction ecosystem. The conversation delves into his transition to design-build contracting and property development in Northwest Arkansas, where his team revolutionized downtown Fayetteville through high-quality renovations.
Perhaps most valuable are Mark's practical strategies for building a sustainable contracting business. He emphasizes maintaining an in-house carpentry crew as the backbone of operations, paying them consistently regardless of weather conditions, and developing strong relationships with reliable subcontractors. His approach to subcontractor management is refreshingly straightforward: avoid hard dollar bidding and pay immediately upon receiving invoices.
The discussion tackles the challenging relationship between clients, contractors, and engineers that plagues the industry. As Mark explains, "Developers hate soft costs" and "they think all contractors are criminals" – perceptions that create unnecessary friction on projects. He offers advice for navigating these challenges, stressing the importance of reaching a point where contractors can be selective about their clients.
Looking forward, Mark shares his thoughts on the growth potential of Northwest Arkansas while addressing challenges like infrastructure limitations and anti-development sentiment. He closes with an optimistic outlook for skilled trades, asserting that, unlike many white-collar professions, trade skills cannot be replaced by AI and offer both financial and personal satisfaction.
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Hey guys, welcome to the Blue Collar Business Podcast, where we discuss the realest, rawest, most relevant stories and strategies behind building every corner of a blue collar business. I'm your host, cy Kirby, and I want to help you in what it took me trial and error and a whole lot of money to learn the information that no one in this industry is willing to share. Whether you're under that shade tree or have your hard hat on, let's expand your toolbox. Welcome back, guys. Thanks for joining me on another episode of the Blue Collar Business Podcast brought to you and sponsored by podcastvideoscom. We are in. I think they believe call this a conference room. I do believe it's normally where I do my shows. The team here splendid, knowledgeable, swift in action. I couldn't have got to this show to where it is today without them, so I wanted to give them a big shout out for today's episode.
Speaker 1:Today is a guest I have been waiting for so so, so long to get on this show for you guys to hear the just raw experience. Just in his storytelling of our industry, he literally has pioneered a way for us small contractors. He's the main reason of architectural and design and planning. He's very, very high level. But you guys are going to be very treated today. He's number one, the co-host of my favorite podcast other than the Blue Collar Business Podcastcom Big talk, small business, two of who I would consider Eric much more of a mentor, but I have gotten to learn and love the wise words of Mr Mark Zweig. Thank you so much for joining me today, sir Cy thank you for pronouncing my name properly.
Speaker 2:I can't tell you how unusual that is.
Speaker 1:I've got two letters for a first name.
Speaker 2:I mean, you already distinguish yourself from 95% of the other people out there.
Speaker 1:Let me build some credibility. I appreciate that. Oh, of course, I can't tell you how many people in school just would skip over my first name and just call me Kirby. For like two months I'd be like, hey, my name's Cy, but this gentleman started a long time before I was here. But this gentleman is very, very passionate about making sure my entrepreneurship career is smooth as possible. He's down there at the Sam M Walton College of Business since 2005, pouring into entrepreneurs just like myself. He's a CFO and partner at Janus Motorcycles. We've got one here at podcastvideoscom. If you're ever in the rogers arkansas area, pop in, see that beautiful specimen right up, right up front. Um, but of course everybody knows mr swig for his design, build, contracting and not only just that, but your design and planning mentality from the get-go, just just from your experience. So there's a little bit of credibility. And he's also author of some of the greatest business books that have been written in a very, very long time. So go check those out. Where can we find those, mr Zweig?
Speaker 2:Well, my latest is Confessions of an Entrepreneur, and you can get that on Amazon or any bookseller platform.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, that's, you can get that on amazon or any book seller platform. Awesome. So well, that's, uh, my small introduction. I hope you guys go look him up on linkedin. I follow him. I love his stuff on linkedin very real, raw and, uh, there is no fluff with mr zwag from what I found out. But today, honestly, brother, I want to get in to know when you started in the construction industry. What was that? Like you know, you're probably going to blow my head off my shoulders when we're like, hey, we paid the guy when he was done.
Speaker 2:Well, that's fundamental. Well, you know, I really started in architecture and engineering.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I went to work out of grad school in 1980 for a company that served both contractors and developers and they had occasional opportunities to work with architecture and engineering firms. Nobody there liked them because they said they're too slow to make decisions and they won't pay a good fee. I gravitated to that group. I found I always wanted to be an architect, when I was a little kid.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I just got seduced away by the world of business. I started working in bike shops when I was like 12 or 13, and I made so much money that when I was in high school as a senior, I was making $600 or $700 a week. In the 80s, in the 70s, in the yeah. My first job offer with an undergraduate degree in 79 was $8,800 a year. So I got seduced away by the world of business. I always had like three cars, two motorcycles, could eat out every single meal paid for all my college had the cash saved. It was, you know, that was my thing, but anyway. So I thought I wanted to be an architect and I gravitated to the AE farms and built myself a nice little business there over a three-year period. Then I got recruited by one of my clients. I was working in St Louis at that time and I grew up in outside of St Louis, okay.
Speaker 2:And I got recruited to one of my clients. That was a firm in Memphis called the Pickering Firm. They had an office there and we had another one in Little Rock and we had another one in Huntsville, alabama, and we had one in Baton Rouge Go Tigers, yeah, greenwood, mississippi, which my boss used to say that's another country down there, it is Mississippi. I got to call it properly Mississippi, you're right. Hey, you like Mississippi. I think it's great, that's right. But anyway, then I got and I became an owner there at a young age. They'd lost a bunch of money by going into CAD when nobody had it Intergraph CAD and so this is pre CAD, this is pre CAD, this is the they dual-screen CAD workstations, and you should hear how we were using them. We were using them to do things like design aluminum siding projects for brick buildings for the Huntsville Division Corps of Engineers. I mean like the worst possible use of CAD. All you needed was like five or six standard details and you could have freaking hung siding on these brick buildings. Okay, but anyway.
Speaker 2:And then after that I got recruited to another one of my clients, a company called Carter Burgess, and I moved down to Fort Worth, texas, and expanded my role with a larger, more successful company. They just made a lot more money than Pickering and really dominated in land development Pickering. We had a pretty good. I started to learn about subdivision development from a guy we had there named Jim Dugan, who built a group from like zero to 20 people in about a year and a half and Jim eventually left and became a developer himself, and so I learned a lot about subdivision design. I got really interested in that and at Carter Burgess that was a big part of what we did. We really dominated DFW land development at that time and then after I guess I was there about three years, I decided I was going to go to Boston to work for this company. I had written for their newsletter since 1985.
Speaker 2:And it was a consulting management, consulting, media, publishing, training firm that served the AE industry Different. It served the AE industry, okay, different. I packed up the truck and moved to Beverly, like Uncle Jed in Beverly Hills, but no, moved up there to Boston and it was nothing like it was supposed to be. This guy had like six or seven of his family members working there. There was just a lot of bad stuff going on. Let me just say I had to turn this place around, which I did, and after six and a half months the family members, which included the guy's wife and her first cousin who worked there, went to him and said you know, either he goes or we go. So obviously you know I lost that battle.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And because they didn't like me, because I was making them do what they needed to do in order to make the business successful. What do you mean, that word of accountability? Oh geez, you wouldn't even believe it started. I've learned myself, sir. Well, I got my business cards. I was executive vice president. I got my business cards. I was executive vice president. I got my business cards and the bill was $190. Like $190 for 500 cards. I'm getting these in Fort Worth for like $35.
Speaker 1:Right. Something's wrong here.
Speaker 2:And the investigation into that, let's just say, is really what began my downfall with the family members.
Speaker 2:But so then, after that experience, I was 30 years old. I had a kid that was six months old, my then wife. She was licensed school psychologist in texas but not massachusetts, oh so she couldn't work. So here we are, unemployed, um, and just bought an old victorian pile of crap house. It was my fourth house, my first house I built new and I said I'd never do that again. Of course I ended up doing that and then I did a rehab. That was a light rehab. Then I did a more, a larger rehab, and if the first light rehab in memphis than a larger one in texas, then massachusetts was a pretty good rehab, considering was the second cheapest house in the town I moved into flips.
Speaker 1:I'm assuming when you're saying no, they're what I lived in.
Speaker 2:Oh okay, I clawed my way up the property ladder. Understood I'm trying to do the same. So that fourth house. It was an 1870 Victorian covered with lime green asbestos shingles. The entire yard had been asphalted. It had a nice chain link fence around it. It was like living in an industrial compound. It suspended ceilings in every room with like four tube fluorescent lights. You know, it was just horrible anyway. So I just got at that when I was unemployed, 13 days later after I bought it, and I'm like, oh shit, you know, I am never gonna work for anybody else again. I had my business plan ready to go to start the company that's the y group today, which is going to be 37 years old.
Speaker 1:Congratulations, sir that's a long time.
Speaker 2:That's a very, very long time started it, sold it, but the reputation turned it around and turned it around again, bought and sold it again, this time to the employees, a small group of partners in the company, and they still own it today. But you know, that's where I really learned what I did about the architecture and engineering business. I mean, I work with companies all over the United States and some foreign countries. I've been on the board of probably 12 or 13 of these companies. I've been an owner and maybe a half a dozen more over the years. I still am in a structural engineering firm out in California. That's Miyamoto International. I'm on the board and I'm one of the owners of that. I started with them when they had eight or nine people. We grew to 200. I left cashed in my stock. November last year I got re-recruited back to the company 400 employees now to be a board member and anyway, I just got back from LA on Saturday.
Speaker 2:Loving the California life there for a minute. I like California, but I tell you what downtown LA was not. Our meeting was supposed to be there, we moved it to Orange County. Let's just say, understood, sir. But anyways, I really learned a lot during that time. Okay, I mean I was involved in every aspect of these companies that you can imagine Everything. I mean I've served as an interim CAD manager, I've done the business plans for hundreds of these companies, I've done turnarounds on them, I've dealt with banks where companies had financial problems, I've done M&A, mergers and acquisitions, been involved in several hundred deals in the AE side over all that time. And so, anyway, that company that I started then it did really well, it grew, was twice on the Inc 500 before we sold it the first time. Got it back was decimated, got it back on the Inc list three years later and they were just on the Inc list last year year, again under its current ownership and management. So four times with that company. But anyway, so that's where I learned everything I knew about the AE business. The first time I sold it in 2004 is when I decided I was going to come here.
Speaker 2:My then wife was from this area originally. She was actually born in Miami, oklahoma Okay, close enough Grew up in, you know, like Pineville, anderson, bella Vista, then Bentonville and Rogers, then Fayetteville, when she was 17. So you know she wanted to come back here. I had a friend of mine, dan Wuerl, who lives in Fayetteville today, and I had been involved in bringing Dan on. I was the chairman of the board of the College of Business at Southern Illinois University, which is where I went to school I'm back on that board again, by the way, that's another one and hired Dan as our dean. Dan did an amazing job. He and I became friends and so Dan got me an interview here with the dean of the Walton College.
Speaker 1:Thank God he did.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know about that, but the guy hired me. He gave me a job one night a week as an adjunct and I flew down here from Boston, bought a house right away, before I even started working for the college. I bought a house in Fayetteville. It was the guy who started Wilson Park.
Speaker 1:It was actually Wilson Park when the tennis course came to be done.
Speaker 2:So it was AL Trent. You'll notice, like their streets around there are called Trenton, it was named after him. I was up on top of the hill. It was a rock house. It was really cool. Did a major redo of that, built an art studio and two car garage, built another two-car garage guest house, expanded the house, put a pool in redid the whole house. Um, it was in a bunch of magazines as you're transforming businesses over here.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, that's I was, you know, but I'd sold my company, I had my cash, understood, sir, started working at the Walton College and anyway, then, in January of 05, I had so much fun redoing that house, sort of.
Speaker 1:I'd never. Remodels are oof not my cup of tea.
Speaker 2:It was a challenge. I bought that house for $307,000. I had about a million plus in it when I was done, but today it's worth several million. The CEO and founder of Acre Trader lives there now, but anyway. So in January of 2005, I had a new company. I started a Mark Zweig Inc. And I started buying properties.
Speaker 2:By then I'd had quite a bit of experience. Like you know, I, as I said, I clawed up the property ladder. Last house I had in the Boston area had a like 5200 square foot Austin beam on the Charles River, next door to Pierre Dupont. The fifth come on, of course, jesus got it really cheap. Okay, that was my specialty is like buy the worst derelict you can't you know and redo it. So we start doing that here. We started buying these old houses and redoing them in downtown fayetteville. Really, uh, you know I I think it's most people would say we started the rehab boom in downtown fayetteville. Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 2:The first house I did, you know, know, I was asking like at the time it was like 200 bucks a square foot and people thought that was crazy. They're like you're never going to get that. Well, the next one I did, I got 300 bucks a foot for it. They're like, who's going to buy these houses? And I knew exactly who was going to buy them is older people who are retiring and went to school here or had kids here, okay, and were self-employed or had a lot of cash. Yeah, that's it. Had this fantasy that they were going to walk to wherever and live in a college town.
Speaker 2:That was my very slight slender market there, sir they probably got in their prius to go into town two blocks to the food co-op anyway, but anyway, so that was a great market.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because there was nobody serving it. Okay, and so we built a reputation there by doing a really high-quality job. Yes, sir, I had my own carpentry crew, which was absolutely essential. Great guys Headed up by a guy named Jack kid he's he's gone now, unfortunately and Jack's, he had trained all these guys. They were all from Prairie Grove. They were all like non drinkers non smokers just like super solid citizens.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So it's not like all construction trades people. Let's be honest.
Speaker 1:That's right, the stigma we talk about on this show that just comes with them immediately. There are high skilled tradesmen that have professionalism about them. I try to be one, you know.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean Jack was like amazing. He had a seventh grade education, but he was brilliant, that's right, had to be one. You know, absolutely. I mean Jack was like amazing. He had a seventh grade education, but he was brilliant, that's right. Had nothing to do. You know, he was a great photographer. He had design. Sense that I could. He and I would talk at night Every night we talk about the jobs because he was into it like I was, and when he showed up it'd be everything with jack was jack.
Speaker 2:You know, we buy this house. It's like the foundations. It's listing seven inches on one side. We got a jacket up and replace three quarters of foundation. Jack, can we do that? Yeah, yep, it was never like, well, I don't, I don't know that, you're gonna be right. Never got that from jack, always sure we could do that 100%, and then, without breaking a sweat, that's exactly what we did, yeah, and we had our own laborers, and so that was really part of the strategy, I think was having these carpenters, never letting anybody. I paid everybody for 40 hours a week, always Okay. So I never sent anybody home due to lack of work or weather. We just always worked our way, it's hard for a side worker.
Speaker 1:I try. I'm literally living this battle with myself right now. And we've had historic amounts of rain.
Speaker 2:And I'm trying to do the same battle myself because I don't.
Speaker 1:These guys have families. They're my families, right, they're my families I. They're depending on me exactly. So no, I understand that point. It is definitely harder being a sideward guy, but jack and the carpentry guys is was the backbone it was absolutely the backbone, because a good carpenter is really a master builder.
Speaker 2:They know all the trades and they would keep an eye on, like if the plumber did something stupid or the electric. You know, I mean at first there were some little battles. I did pretty well though, cause I, I put a really good team together early on in the way I was able to do that. Of course experimentation, of course you know, but very quickly I had good electrician, good plumber, good roofer, good, you know, um, site work people, whatever foundations, whatever I needed. But, um, you know, I think the key in our case was I did not make people hard dollar bid okay, oh, that that is so fundamental. And same thing with you know. Now I'm not going to say I never got a bids out of my painter I did I I will, I I bet I didn't.
Speaker 2:Always there were times I just say go um, and you know, by not making people hard dollar bid, small contractors, subcontractors, hate bidding okay especially if they don't have any time or accounting inside accounting.
Speaker 1:They don't even know their cost to be able to preclude an estimate, which is the big problem exactly and, um, you know.
Speaker 2:So they got no real vehicle for doing estimates. That's one thing, and the other thing is they don't know what it's going to take, especially on these renovations you't know what it's going to take, especially on these renovations.
Speaker 2:You never know what you're going to discover. Okay, so if you had these people that you trusted and you didn't make them bid, and then the other thing is pay them as soon as you get their bill your bill, I get it at Friday at 3, at Friday at 3.05. Here's your check, that's okay. That's what they wanted. Yep, and you know. And they wanted to do quality stuff too.
Speaker 2:Of course, it wasn't like I was beating on everybody saying give me the lowest price. You know, I want that done cheap or half-ass, that you can get away with it. You know, I mean some people you had to train because that's the way they were used to doing things. Yes, sir, I mean, you know as well as I do. The residential market, oh, it's been atrocious. It's not like commercial. The better contractors, better clients, better architects and engineers are working over there on that side. Generally speaking. Yes, sir, not in all cases, no, I would agree with that are working over there on that side. Generally speaking. Yes, sir, not in all cases. No, I would agree with that. And so, anyway. So we built a nice team of people who worked together and weren't, you know if something had to be fixed or redone, they'd help the other guy out because they were going to get paid for it.
Speaker 2:Yep, it's real simple.
Speaker 1:You know the design-build conversation, especially for somebody like myself. I, as you know, have done this marketing thing to you know. Raise myself up into that conversation, sure, and hopefully I'm starting to see some success of being brought in on pre-plat of these subdivisions.
Speaker 2:Which you should be.
Speaker 1:Hey, do you see any VE options? Yes, do you see? You know how can we? Can we do this before it gets sent down to the state? Yes, I can help you VE value engineer for those members that don't know, but those VE options can swing and win the job for you.
Speaker 1:And right now, as you guys are listening, I know the oversaturated market and everybody's trying to get their hands on something, and the weather, etc. But being able to raise yourself up and that was the problem I didn't know how and other than putting myself out there and going, hey, I'm here and I want to do this the right way, but I need payment terms below 100 days if you don't mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm kidding. How in the world can you survive 100 days as a little guy? You can't.
Speaker 1:I tried my average day to pay between two quarters and 23 was over 100.
Speaker 2:That's terrible. It was unbelievable. I mean you must be working for a lot of big companies. They're the ones that do that.
Speaker 1:We got into this commercial game because all we hear is commercial, commercial, commercial. As a smaller guy, just to your point, was the bigger companies more reputation, all this stuff, but nobody tells anybody about cashflow that is a problem? Definitely a problem, and I had to experience it with my own money and figure out the hard way that Cy. You overextended yourself here a year ago. That's why you're dealing with this after two 90 day cycles and no, you can't just fix it.
Speaker 1:It's a compounded problem. Now you got to bring out compounded solutions to fight them and get to swinging, because you got yourself in, I get yourself out well, hopefully you got yourself a bank and got a line of credit that helps you with the AR. Yes, yes and no, but I got it. You know, on that point, mr Zweig, they don't, they don't want to touch guys like us. Even if I'm starting our 10th year in business in August it's unbelievable, but um yeah, like anybody that's conservative it's unbelievable and since COVID, and
Speaker 1:since risk and analysis, as you know, know from the higher level is just so minute and just microscopic. They just want to know every little thing. And I'm like at the commercial side of the things, like we were just talking about when shot into this coin, because it's just what I thought I had to do, I didn't realize that this resi work over here that paid within 30 days you know it's not big screaming valued contracts, but it's consistent cashflow. If I'd have kept that going a little bit more, you got to have both, exactly. And now you know the commercial world I've been. I didn't realize that, hey, there's industrial type, there is retail type, exactly, they're all different. There is land development and land development. I graduated in 2009. So, everybody around here after the 08.
Speaker 2:They're all scared of land development. They're scared to death. All those guys went broke Exactly.
Speaker 1:I mean you should be scared when I started my business. Here comes this next boom. I'm like all right, subdivisions, history repeats itself. You don't know what you don't know, and so I didn't jump into that game as hard as I could have at first, and I should have now looking back, but at the same time We've all made those kinds of mistakes.
Speaker 1:I've jumped so hard in the commercial game, dealt with these hard bid GC nasty, and you'd have 10 or 12 or 15 of those contracts happening and you know, within a six month period, yeah, your volatile cash flow. Yeah, your cash flow is completely volatile because it's all dependent on a pay, on pay contract, cause nobody teaches you how to freaking red line a contract and then you can push that contract back before you sign it and go hey, I'm not waiting to you get paid. You're a GC, it's your problem.
Speaker 2:Exactly, or just let me contract directly with the owner. I'm glad to do that.
Speaker 1:And in the design build conversation it is such a different conversation from a civil application. I've gone to these developers and go hey look, I understand, I don't care who you pick to build your building, but let me control the site for you before you build. Your tin can Normally retail, let me take care of all of this. Get it up that way. Your guys just show up, cut footers and they're going vertical. You don't have to worry about track out, you don't have to worry about a guy, a sky track, getting stuck in the brick pallet. Sell off, ruining some.
Speaker 2:Italy yeah, exactly something.
Speaker 2:Italy, yeah, exactly, I know it's funny, you say that because, like behind where I live now, I live on mount sequoia and I got a pretty big old mid-century modern house and behind I got maybe a little bit, I got maybe acre and a half, something like that. Behind me they're building a new house, okay, and it's massive. I I don't know how. I could not believe how long it took for them to do the foundation in the framing. I mean, I've never seen anything like this. They start at 6 am. It doesn't even matter what's happening with the weather. They're out there. That's a good way.
Speaker 2:So I've got all these trees back there that are falling like trees falling on other trees that if that tree falls, crash into my house, okay, a bunch of these things. And we go to the guy, the first off, the general contractor. He won't do anything about it says well, the city won't, let us take those up. Well, that's bull. We talked to the tree warden. Tree warden said anything you want to take out over there, you can take out my god and and so anyway. So and they've got this insane grading. I don't know how they could get away with the slope. I mean, the house is so close to the property line and so big it's got about a 45 degree slope off one side of it, directly from the house. Okay, I mean, I can't believe the runoff problems that they're going to create.
Speaker 2:But anyway, like, and then they go. Well, we can't get, and the owner is a doctor out of state, he's a jerk. Okay, you wouldn't have. You didn't want to even cut these trees. I'm like, are you kidding me? If I was building the house for anybody and somebody had a tree that was falling into their property, he had one fall over into my. I go, of course we take care of that. We're out there, you know, but they didn't do this first because we can't even get a bucket truck back there now or whatever. Like, you're idiots, that's your problem. The first thing I would have done is the tree work, then I do all my grading. Okay, then I do.
Speaker 1:I mean all my grading. Okay, then I do. I mean it's like there's just no sense and that general contractor, you know, doesn't even if he was a good one. Um, I'm not saying that he's a bad one, but that's right. You know that's on you, sir. That's your piece of property that you're representing for the owner, and it's like these gcs want to do an absolute minimalistic other than passing they don't do anything.
Speaker 2:They are pimps. It's they consider themselves pimps and then you know, they just pimp out subcontractors, mark them up and give no quality control and whatever happens happens. Maybe the homeowner provides quality control or the city building inspector. We know how good they are right. Yes, sir, that's where the quality control is.
Speaker 1:There's no management well and at the same time by the. If you hard bid a job, you're under such time constraints because you had to bid the job so stinking tight just to be able to get on the site, so you think quality is really going to be performed there. It's very hard, of course. It's like well, we tried to offer that option up there at that pre-contract but it was going to toss us out of the job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I understand it's got to be a challenge.
Speaker 1:It's unbelievable and that's what I wanted to pick your brain about. Yes, you've had so much success with turning folks around and starting companies, and what is what needs to happen in this new age, what you see from your perspective? What was so successful? Yes, obviously any good subcontractor is going to show up for payment, but from the A you know the A E side of it it's civil engineers and myself. I can't tell you. I've respect the crap out of them. I can't do their job, but I don't believe they can do my job. Most of the time. They believe that they can and we get into well there's big differences with civil engineers.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's face it, the guys that do multi-site development are not the same guys that do subdivisions, or not the same guys doing municipal engineering and roads and and streets and you know water and sewer line extensions yeah, they shouldn't be there we go, it's right, okay.
Speaker 2:When they all start straying into territories that they're not really good at, it takes a lot of specialization. Same thing with the surveyors. It's like there's construction staking people and then there's boundary survey people. They're not even the same. In many cases they may think they are that's right. So all that it, you know the specialization drives it. In my experience, yeah, you get the ones that really know what the hell they're doing.
Speaker 1:That's a starting point it's part of our no-go go matrix. When we have leads and opportunities, we have literally a civil engineer classification. If we've number one drawings were this, we bid to that and then we get out there and find out oh, they didn't even come out and survey at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like no topo done, but here it is, I've had a job here in town on a major collector.
Speaker 1:We shut down at night. You'll get an absolute kick of this Perpendicular manhole in the road bringing a service out nothing crazy. But we suggested to do it at night work.
Speaker 1:Sure, I've done this at night before I absolutely love it for the safety of my guys Traffic nowadays but anyhow, instead of going, there was a storm drain we came across running perpendicular into the job and I'm like, well, wait a minute, this wasn't on our prints, I'm sure this last item of the job there was curb inlets on the property nobody went out there, nobody shot them. Don't even shot the top of the curb inlets, didn't even shoot the pipe within it.
Speaker 2:The engineer probably never even went out on the site, no, and he didn't. And that's the thing I mean.
Speaker 1:It's like, yeah, it's, it's sloppy, very, there's no question about it and that's our bottom line, picking it up unless we push back and from you know to somebody like yourself that can decipher well, this is the engineer being an engineer, this is legit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what you're saying exactly, but there's a legit problem a lot of times is that it just gets shoved on to the installer. Well, all these engineering problems that he didn't take care of. Well, you're on the job, fix it. You do it. Well, wait a minute. No, no, no, no, I don't have the degree.
Speaker 2:You're the last guy there.
Speaker 1:That's the problem and it's part of the system. End of the food line. But why would you not? You know we've we discussed this, I think, on big talk before shout out to big talk, small business. Catch an episode over there, guys. It's really insightful if you want to hear more of mr zwag. But literally I just don't understand why civil engineers and a contractor can get together on a project if you really have vision for that project. You mentioned subdivision development earlier. We have been, oh my gosh, takeoff after takeoff on subdivisions.
Speaker 1:But we catch things through our programs, pre-contract that we bring up RFI and most of the time nowadays, mr Zweig, we get met with silence Because I don't know On RFIs, they don't even answer them literally if, especially if you're bringing out a problem that the engineers got to go back and fix or make attention to, well, once we get there, you get this roundabout explanation and how this is still your problem, as the installer kind of figure it out and we'll work through it. And it's like, if you push back, you want to push back because you're sitting here looking at your bottom line, you're looking at your customer, the owner, and going, hey, I want to do this, but I need him to draw this and to navigate that line. Over the last couple of years, it's all about this installer is crap. That engineer, that's my engineer, you're the, you're the problem, fix it. And I'm like, and I'm like, how do I even prove this disconnect in the world to other incoming developers to this area?
Speaker 2:I mean, look, cy, I think a lot of the problem comes down to the client. The client, I mean, first off. Developers hate soft costs. Engineering is a soft cost, okay, soft costs, engineering is a soft cost, okay. They want to spend the least amount of money on that that they have to in order to get whatever it is they want built. So that's a fundamental thing, right there. That's where the problem starts. They don't necessarily pay their engineers to get good engineers or pay them to do what they really need to do. They might say we need to do soil borings, we need a good topo, whatever, okay, and they don't get it. That's correct. And so, because they're not paying for it, the packages Okay. So that's part of the problem. And then, so that's one thing. They hate soft costs. And then the other thing is they think all contractors are criminals.
Speaker 2:That's the other part of it please, sir, talk about it for just a minute, okay I mean some of them are, there, are, of course, there, some are, I'm look, I've said it before. I mean, if I was to say, if I took a group of contractors versus a group architects and engineers engineers.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you honestly, the architects and engineers. They may be screwed up in plenty of ways, believe me, I can talk about that. But they're not criminals, that's right. Okay, some of the contractors I've worked for flat out are Yep, yes, sir, but that said, they're not all. Obviously they're good contractors, they're honest people who are trying to do a good job. But the presumption is that you're trying to screw them, so they don't mind trying to do it to you. That's right. I mean from the client standpoint. That's a big part of the problem Client education.
Speaker 1:The culture, the engineer as well. Oh yeah, I think is an issue. Think the engineer to your point. Engineer provides pricing packages. Here's your three tiers. You really need this tier, but you can get away with exactly.
Speaker 2:You got three tiers. Okay, this is the. This is the bottom line good, better and best. It's like sears, but what they don't understand.
Speaker 1:Is that right if they don't take that best package right off the bat?
Speaker 2:you're going to see ceos and they're going to chip away at you later 100 and it's going to be me and you're going to call me well, that's the problem with design, build.
Speaker 2:Okay, that that's a problem right there too, because you know, a lot of times they they'll win the job with a low bid but then later it's going to be change order, change order, change order, change order. I can't, I didn't think. You know, this is what we said we're going to do, and the client's not sophisticated enough to understand that that's not really what they need. Therefore, it's out of scope.
Speaker 1:Therefore, you know and the problem with being a contractor trying to provide their client education is I can't tell you how many times that man. I've worked almost a year on a project via talk with city talk, with whatever needs to happen to get that project into a budget and then a month later they're using somebody else that's terrible, I mean.
Speaker 2:I mean they're just using you and abusing you, but that's the market I mean it's not all of them to be in their defense, but it's.
Speaker 2:Here's the thing, okay. I mean, obviously you have to survive those clients. You know as well as I do the first order for any business is survival. Yes, okay, that's the first order. So you got to survive all that. But you need to put yourself you and any other subcontractor like you needs to put yourself in a position where demand exceeds supply. When you have more opportunities than you can possibly respond to or do, then you're going to be more selective about the clients you work for. As long as that's not the case, where you need these jobs, you will end up working for bad clients. So it's one of the fundamental things is somehow you've got to survive long enough to learn who's good and who's bad and drive demand beyond your ability to supply it. So you just can say no to people and that's the way it goes, and you work only for the good clients.
Speaker 1:In the first five years you don't know what a good or bad client is. And to Mr Zweig's point, it's the experience of going through those jobs and going man. This client I really don't want to deal with man. We need the revenue right now. Let's chalk it up as experience, learn, take from it, analyze what went good and bad about that job and don't do it again.
Speaker 2:If we have the time to do that. That's another key point Post-mortems don't get done. I mean, you know as well as I do. We're on to the next one. It's already a crisis. I can literally I can talk on my own Crisis, crisis, crisis.
Speaker 2:I don't go ahead. No, I was just going to say I mean, I have to think, knowing, with the experience that I've had with subcontractors and site contractors, you know people in your business that an intelligent guy like yourself, who's well-spoken and comes across as being an honest guy, I got to believe there's people out there who will respond to that and go this guy, you know what he is, forget everything else. Just as an individual, I put him notches above these other guys I'm dealing with who come out here and drink like a case of beer in one day on the job site each one. I used to have this guy that did my concrete finishing. He looked like he was 75 when he was about 45.
Speaker 2:It's like well, my doctor says I says I gotta slow down on my drink and I, I'm done. I cut down to eight beers a day. Now. Well, what were you drinking candy? I'm drinking a case case a day. You know I'm like so there's so many guys out there like that yep, and that you come out, you come across somebody like you's younger, he's educated, he's well-spoken, he's he's, you know, clean-cut guy and there's going to be clients that are going to respect that. I appreciate those client.
Speaker 1:You know kind words and and we are seeing success from that, but from putting ourselves out there on this youtube endeavor and sure, doing this podcast yeah bringing other, you know folks in, but yeah I, I do, and I think, do, and I think to your point, sir, it's just time.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is.
Speaker 1:And it's grinding, not stopping when it gets hard and not getting stuck as long as you don't run out of cash.
Speaker 2:That's literally, you know. I mean that's because you got equipment and payments on that, I'm sure, which is a big deal.
Speaker 1:And anybody. That's a new age yeah oh, my gl auto, commercial auto, like you're going to do everything by the book. I know nowadays, it's not even worth it.
Speaker 2:I'm not trying to be any way dude. I used to have a gc license, unlimited residential commercial. I gave it up because when we decided we wanted to slow down, I mean the overhead that goes along with that, yes, sir, and and the warehouse and the office, and the vehicles, and the accountant and the you know, you just go down the line of the overhead that you build up, then you have to take jobs that you don't want because I gotta keep everybody busy, I gotta keep some cash flowing in. That's death. It's literally the hamster. Okay, death it is. Yeah, I understand that it's.
Speaker 1:It's such a tough, so hard to navigate.
Speaker 2:It really is um, but you need that overhead too to grow.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's the thing, but then you can't get a bank to help you with that overhead. I mean you can very structured, but I want to hop on this real quick Blue Collar Performance Marketing, results-driven marketing agency. I talk about Ike and his team all the time, each and every episode, as you guys have heard here. In this episode I've been talking how important the marketing campaign has been for me to put myself out there and ensure the right folks are finding me and not just wasting time making sure Ike and the team has the information about the company to make sure we can get it out in front of the right eyeballs on those social media platforms. You need a website anything in the regards of marketing. Get over to bcperformancemarketingcom, backslash bcbpodcast. Click the link in the description just below this video and you'll get a free discovery call. He'll completely comprehensive, look, get you an idea what your website needs to be looking at. And if you guys want to go check out psyconexccom, you can definitely take a look at the product that you're going to get. I can speak on the results. Get over there with Ike, he's going to help you guys.
Speaker 1:But, mr Zweig, where do you see this? Do you see? What do you see? I'm going to totally switch the ball game up on you, northwest Arkansas. I'm going to totally switch the ball game up on you, northwest Arkansas. Let's talk about it. What, from your mind, sir, who has lived, eaten, slept and breathed this area for 20 years, do you really see it being the DFW? I know what work is coming in the public side. What is your perceptive view? And maybe some blockades that might not get us there.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean it's yeah, this is a boom area, yep, and it's got every reason why it'll continue to unless Walmart falters. If Walmart falters, it's really going to put a kink in the works. They have put so much money into all these communities and there's so many companies that support them and there's so much growth related to their employment and all the companies that support them that Walmart faltering is a is a potential threat. Okay. Now, on the other hand, they sell stuff that everybody needs and they are a really smart group of people over there. Yes, sir, they are, so I wouldn't sell them short. They have shown that they can adapt and move where they need to in order to keep everything going. So that's a potential threat.
Speaker 2:I mean, a general recession is always a threat. I mean, the interest rates are high. I don't know how people can afford all the housing today for what people make and what average house is selling for. I mean, there's condos in downtown Bentonville for $2,000 a square foot. That's 1,000 square feet for $2 million. Believe it or not, that blows me away. That makes me just cringe a little bit. I know it's mind-boggling. So there are those. Now, that threat's not unique to our area, that's basically anywhere. Okay, sir um. And then I think, the other, you know the other. Well, there's a couple other threats. I mean anti-growth sentiment of the people who are already here. That's right, okay, they want to fight everything. It's like and now I'm in, now nobody else can come in. Okay, that that would always get. I mean, you know, I've gone tirades about that, I was driving crazy just squeaking that door open just a little bit, you know that that I mean that, just so.
Speaker 2:The anti-growth sentiment makes everything so hard to do at some level that developers and business owners and you know, multi-site restaurant whatever they just say that's not worth going there. So that could be a problem. Okay, it's probably worse in Fayetteville than it is Anywhere, yeah, than Rogers or Bentonville or springdale, for that matter, but um, but anyway, so you know. But I think overall, if you look at this area, I mean there's so many things that are working in our favor. Um, it's, it's a sane area. We don't have um, we've got pretty good water quality and air quality. We never had like big, heavy, dirty industries here. So that's like older places in the northeast. Like you know, we're going to develop this site.
Speaker 2:Oh, they had a manufactured gas plant site there in 1790. The soil is completely contaminated with arsenic. You know what I mean. It's like we just don't have some of those problems that they have in these other places. We get a lot of press of being a great place to be. I mean, with all the new restaurants and hotels and museums and bike trails and every other thing that's happening around here. It's mind boggling because 20 years ago there was nothing happening it's, it's mind-boggling, because 20 years ago there was nothing happening.
Speaker 1:I immigrated in 2001 and I can remember there being three gates at the airport yeah, just being a123, and it I mean you went downstairs you walked out on the tarmac when you got your plane.
Speaker 2:Exactly that's the way it used to be, and to see what.
Speaker 1:it don't get me wrong, I have that little bit of anti-gross, you know, in me, but at the same time, how can I be, you know? Right, here's the thing. I'm more of a realist. People need houses. People are coming to this area why. Cost of living is lower than percentage base of the rest of the country. Yes, it's a great place to raise a family. Yeah, the crime is lower than most percentage places right there. I mean, I leave my truck running at the gas station.
Speaker 1:still, I mean probably not need to do that, but I just don't understand the we are I don't know if you've heard of this, I hope I'm the first one to tell you for this little area, but, as we have, I have two jobs currently subdivisionsisions out western Bennett County, okay, and the smaller towns up the 59 corridor there, gentry, decatur, kind of outside of Centerton, and we are really they're growing Ooh yeah, and but we're in a momentary where they can't accept the sewer capacity. And this is in Decatur, this is in Gentry.
Speaker 2:I'm sure that's happening. I'm not surprised I hear this.
Speaker 1:The public infrastructure that is fixing to come out. I was in the city of Fort Smith yesterday. There's 17 sub basins of Fort Smith that are completely getting new sewer line re-infrastructured during their existing. It's just crazy the amount of public stuff that's coming to Northwest Arkansas. I should probably not be sharing this on the show, but either way, come on over, but it's already. I'm just trying to let the developers and the clients know that may be thinking about this area. It's happening. Yes, there's some blockades. Gentry Decatur is really like ah, I've had a subdivision on Paws since November of last year. Also killing that old, that rain this year there's so many parameters coming at us, right? No, I believe it.
Speaker 2:It's definitely Well in the cities and towns around here. Well, I can't speak for all of them. I've had limited experience in Benton County. I had some here, okay it was good. Yeah, county, I had some here, okay it was good, yeah, okay, I'll be honest with you. But you know, over there in washington county, um, in in fayetteville, like, and you know it's so different than a lot of other cities where they just don't really want to support any kind of growth or utility construction in places like downtown should have good water and sewer. But you could do a project right in the middle of downtown and they'll still make you, as the developer, pay to run a bigger water line from your site to. You know, and it's just like they're just so anti-development. I mean like in texas when I lived there in the early mid mid-'80s, I mean they built the infrastructure before the development. That like dictated the development, you know, and we just don't do that here.
Speaker 1:No, we're behind the planning. Your mind is what's needed in so many. I wish you could just get these four or five larger cities together and go. Hey, at least agree on a pipe style so we don't all have to. I mean, it's like from Germany to the US, from Rogers to Bentonville, sure.
Speaker 2:I understand. Yeah, there's no reason for that. I mean, the Northwest Arkansas Council has done a good job in the sense of trying to develop sort of a unique place for each of these major cities like role in the area. But then there's things like that that just—.
Speaker 1:It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:And then the same contractor that just came to town is over here in Bentonville and it's plastic pipe. We ran 2,000 foot. And then we come over here to Rogers and the pipe alone swings $25 foot and they're like, hey, what is going on? We just did this over here. Your numbers don't even make sense, but I just wanted to highlight coming from your mind. I completely agree on that aspect. I don't think it has a choice. Pea Ridge, all these outlying cities are growing, the beautiful new home campus, I mean, oh my.
Speaker 2:God, it's mind-boggling, it's unbelievable. It's like it came out of nowhere. Here is this unbelievable city, yep, now that you drive through.
Speaker 1:We helped on five of the buildings, just some underground water infrastructure. But it was cool to say yeah and we got out of there pretty quickly. As that started coming across, I'm like, well, you either go all in over there and there's a lot of residual companies that are sitting in the Northwest Arkansas market that were flooded here and the labor market really took a toll with that being in town. But now that it's all opened up, every single one of them companies got an office here now as another general contractor and another percent of profit, bringing people in.
Speaker 2:You're saying that they're used to working with. Where would they come from?
Speaker 1:yes, sir, yeah, and and of course you can talk about local knowledge has to be so critical.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you're smart, you know anything about construction. Okay, like site work in particular, I mean, yeah, maybe you can take your building contractor and move them around or whatever, but I would think, like your site work people, you'd try to get that local.
Speaker 1:Yep, and they're not as necessarily bringing. There's out-of-towners coming in, but there's even more guys here in the area.
Speaker 1:I mean the saturated market because it's been a market key takeaway, sir, is if, where, if a subcontractor was like myself and this is kind of what I've been trying to necessarily do in the civil side of things, or I guess it could be, uh say, a carpenter you kind of referenced to this with Jack, but how does a subcontractor take that next leap, like? We have been trying to present this to customers and we have been working on the public side of COIN, directly with the city as a civil general contractor on some other things.
Speaker 2:I mean are you saying like are we going to be in the design bid build business or we're going to go all design build? What do you forecast? I mean, I think more jobs are going design build and more design build jobs are led by contractors than they are AE firms. They're just better at dealing with the risk associated with it. The AE firms are just too risk averse. They can't you know. Plus, they're also bad managers.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, I mean so, you know you got. So I mean contractor-led design build seems to me to be the way a lot of things are going Okay. I would agree, lot of things are going okay, I would agree. And the other side of that is program managers, you know whatever we want to call them. I mean they don't do anything but they, they hire everybody yes they put the thing together.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. That's another thing. But like the bigger clients, you know that they, they, they, they're really going that way. I think we're. You know they got somebody that's running their building program or they've got they're doing that big job with a program manager if it's like a big public works job.
Speaker 1:That seems to be the other thing that I see happening yeah, and there's some big public work stuff coming in the state arkansas I mean that's where to me it seems like your political connections in your relationships yeah, that's what it's.
Speaker 2:All you know that's going to be critical to you last question for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the takeaway for the blue collar worker skilled tradesman out there yeah that's just sick and tired of being stuck in the mud could be mentally, physically, emotionally, how I? You just got to keep going. I understand, but what's your iteration of that, sir?
Speaker 2:I mean, what would I say to that person? I mean I'd say, look, you're not going to be replaced by ai. Okay, that's the good news. Somebody actually has to do stuff at some point, and you know, we all know that a lot of these jobs are hard to fill. There's a shortage of people. If you're skilled, you could make yourself a very nice life, and not only that, you'll actually have more satisfaction than the guy who's over there with his degree working in an office in a mega corp. Yep, because you're going to see things get done as a result of your effort. That's very satisfying, okay. I mean, let's talk about what's satisfying in life. We need to create, we need to build okay, that's a human need, and so that's going to be fulfilled by people like yourself. I think there's certainly more respect is coming down to the people that actually do things, people in the trades. I mean, look at the latest money, you know, higher ed money in the state of Arkansas that's going to flow to trade schools instead of all four-year universities.
Speaker 1:I'm a big supporter of the Springdale School District. I had them on the show. They're unbelievable people. Man, I had no idea they have heavy equipment in high school. These kids are graduating with OSHA 30. They're graduating with CDLs heavy equipment GPS college 30. They're graduating with CDLs heavy equipment GPS knowledge, diesel mechanics school.
Speaker 2:I had no idea that was a high school 20 years ago. It wasn't. That's why Real skills that will allow them to get decent jobs out there where there's more demand than there is supply.
Speaker 1:AI is going to hurt the white-collar world too. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2:I'm not going to claim I know much about it. I'm 67 years old, cy, I ain't frigging old my wife's like. This summer we got to really understand AI. Okay, I mean I'm not going to say I haven't had any experience with it. I have had some and it's not all been good. I mean, I was just at this meeting for the earthquake engineering firm. I was bored. I'm on out in California last weekend and the CEO was trying to tell me how a particular performance metric was defined and I said that's wrong. His CFO had it right, had it wrong. He said. Google said and the ai response quotes us is why crew wrong, wrong, okay, oh my gosh. So I'm like how the heck does that happen?
Speaker 1:Because there's hundreds of places where it's defined properly.
Speaker 2:Somebody wrote an article for one of our publications in 2018 or 2019, and that's what AI picked up. So it's you know, like I said, my experience with it is it's not always right, dude, that's right. No Trust, but verify it's my first motto. It's just not, but anyway, yeah, it is going to replace a lot of these white collar traps. I mean, if you look at, like, what you can do and design and how fast you can do it, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:It's bizarre. If you've listened to this whole episode, I'll give you a little. This is scary, but I can take a picture of your driveway with a scale and tell JetGPT to tell me how much six inches of gravel is going to take in that driveway, and they'll spit it out. Tell me the entire conversion. Beautiful, Break it all out. Well, for training new folks in our industry could be super helpful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or it'll make them super lazy because they won't know how to actually do it if they don't have that ai. That's the flip side of it you know.
Speaker 1:But see, like it's so hard for me, mr's white, I'll push back on that because it's about the only thing I will push back on with you, because you have the, the overall not, yeah, the overall guy out there doing dirt work, you know, like myself, but here I am trying to do new age. It's all this GPS technology. I'm just trying to train a guy that's coming out of school to do it. I can't find anybody that knows what a grade freaking stake is anymore.
Speaker 2:Sure, it's a tool. Okay, it's a great tool. There's no question about it. I'm not going to argue with you about that. It's a great tool.
Speaker 1:I'm not a big lover of AI.
Speaker 2:I just wanted your personal opinion. No, I mean, like I said, I'm so ignorant. I don't claim to be any expert in it. All I know is what I read and what I'm told, and that it's going to change everything. You know, some of the writing I've seen done is not great either. I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 1:But I'm sure it's all going to get better over time as we train and work and plan. But I can't tell you how much the audience appreciates your knowledge and expertise. Coming in today and just fun. It has been truly very special for me. I've been waiting for about a year at this point to get you here and now you guys understand why and I hope you love this episode.
Speaker 1:And if you want any more, I think this is episode 4243 here, guys, Bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom. You can watch or listen straight from there, no subscription needed. You can watch it directly from the website. But if you have a podcast subscription you can catch them on any of those podcast subscriptions. Make sure and drop a like and a follow at the end of this episode if you wouldn't mind. That sure helps the show out so much. And if you might happen to be a product or a service in the blue collar skilled trades world that you may want me to highlight on this show, hop over to bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom, become a sponsor, shoot us over an inquiry and we will get back to you. Mr Zweig, thank you so much for today. We'll catch you next time, Thanks it's been fun.
Speaker 1: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.