Ep. 58 - How GCs Win With Subs

Tired of hard-bid chaos and the “race to the bottom” that leaves everyone exhausted and underpaid? We sit down with Dylan Ream, regional manager at ARCO, to unpack how design-build flips the incentives so subs can profit, owners get clarity, and schedules stop bleeding. Dylan’s path, engineering grad to field-heavy project engineer to design-build PM, reveals why real-world problem solving beats perfect paper and how continuity from kickoff to closeout (“cradle to key”) saves owners from painful handoffs.

We pull back the curtain on performance-based specs, true value engineering, and the simple shift that speeds decisions: call the installer first. When a switchgear delay threatened a delivery by eight months, the team tapped the electrician for solutions, checked code, and brought the engineer options instead of open-ended problems. That solution-first mindset runs throughout the conversation—subs are treated as experts, not line items. We also talk culture you can feel on site: core values that stick, superintendents empowered to enforce safety with anyone, and ongoing training that keeps PMs and supers aligned when markets get choppy.

Dylan shares the 83‑day downtown build that shaped his leadership and the question that changes everything in a crunch: “What do you need?” We get candid about go/no-go discipline, choosing owners who value collaboration, and guiding design early to avoid deep utilities, long lead traps, and spec dead-ends. For the tradesperson who’s curious but burnt out, there’s practical encouragement: ask better whys, learn across disciplines, and don’t be afraid of a smart leap, your best work may be on the other side of a different delivery model.

If this conversation helps you think differently about teaming with GCs, share it with a crew mate, hit follow, and leave a quick review so more builders can find it. Got a story where field knowledge saved a job? Tell us, we might feature it next.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Sponsor And Cold Open
• 0:34 Why Thumbtack Fits Blue-Collar Teams
• 2:20 Setting The Stage: GC Stigma
• 3:39 Dylan’s Path Into Construction
• 6:40 Field Experience Beats Classroom
• 9:30 Choosing GC Over Design
• 12:00 Design-Bid-Build Vs Design-Build
• 16:45 Collaboration Over Hard-Bid Conflict
• 20:05 Performance Specs And Real-World VE
• 23:40 Switchgear Delays And Solution-First PM
• 27:00 Owners, Engineers, And Accountability
• 31:20 Cradle-To-Key Project Management
• 35:10 Relationships Beat Transactional Thinking
• 38:40 The Job That Forged A PM
• 42:05 What Do You Need: Leadership In Crisis
• 46:00 Moving To NWA And Building A Team
• 49:10 Market Cycles And Pipeline Reality
• 52:00 Culture You Can Feel On Site
• 56:00 Core Values, Safety, And Consistency
• 1:00:30 Go/No-Go And Choosing The Right Owners
• 1:04:00 Advice To Burned-Out Tradespeople
• 1:07:20 Risk, Family, And Taking The Leap

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:09

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, Ty Kirby, and I want to help you what it took me, trial and error, and a whole lot of money to learn. The information that no one in this industry is willing to share. Whether you're under that shade tree or have your hard hat on, let's expand your toolbox. Welcome back to another episode of the Blue Collar Business Podcast, sponsored and brought to you by ThumbTack today, guys. If you've owned your craft and you care about results, but you're spending too much time chasing leads that just don't fit, you need a solution that connects you directly with customers who appreciate your skills and jobs that fit your team schedule and area. Thumbtack delivers exactly that. Just subscription without subscription fees or pricing surprises as your business grows. Thumbtack's centralized tools and automation keep things running smoothly. Ready to grow? Visit thumbtack.com slash pro and book your personalized strategy session a day. Make sure you told them, you tell them that the Blue Collar Business Podcast sent you. They'll hook you guys up. Guys, today we are venturing off into we've been kind of all over the place. We've been talking a lot of equipment here lately. We've been um, you know, more topical, high-level. Yes, definitely some people that are pioneering the market, but we're gonna get back into the nitty-gritty of the uh contractual commercial land today, not specifically contracts, but a gentleman that I have met coming into the area here in our market in Northwest Arkansas area, and they we've worked there's I'll let him speak more on the plethora arms of uh what we're gonna be speaking about today, but he has uh I don't know what the word is Bravely, I think, came in under the microphone gun today. You guys know how I feel uh about general contractors if you've been a fan of the show for very long. Um there's really good ones out there, and there's there's terrible ones out there. And uh the thing that really sparked our first conversation was me complaining and moaning and groaning about hey, I don't want to work with any more GCs. And he caught me. But honestly, what he shared with me on that, it turned into an hour and a half phone call. I'm like, dude, I need to get you on the podcast. If you can just some of the variations of the things that we go through every day as subcontractors, they have seen, warranted, and fixed, and put systems and policies in place to ensure that subs don't feel or get hung out and left to dry. So I'm very excited to have the man, the myth, the legend, Dylan Reem, regional manager at Arco. Um, they are pushing super heavy into northwest Arkansas. You've been there since 2012. Thank you so much for being on the show, buddy.

SPEAKER_00: 3:08

Yeah, appreciate it. Happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01: 3:09

Thank you, man. Seriously, uh, thanks for getting in the spotlight. Let me put the guns on you today. But I I've been really excited about this because general contractors, just like the blue collar world, get this stigma about it. For sure. And my my first initial question is how'd you get into the world? Because that's that's the number one thing I always want to know about it. I mean, most of us just fall into this world, but you've been here since 2012, man. That's 13 plus years with one general contractor. Yeah, that's where I wanted you behind this microphone. Tell us how you got here.

SPEAKER_00: 3:45

Yeah, so I'll start back at the Genesis. I went to uh engineering background, you know, Taylor Ebrallah. Have uh two engineering degrees from there. Um, did some internships while I was there. Obviously, I think a lot of engineering students kind of do that path as design focus, right? Um, that's kind of what I thought I was gonna do. Got some internships at Modot and some of the other construction arm type things. Uh, found out really quickly like this is way more interesting to me than design is, but I also don't know if I want to be on that side of the table in that conversation, probably more on the GC side. Yeah. Um so uh got out and uh graduated in December of 10, which was not a great job market for those of you in the around for that fun time. Um, but ironically, when private spending goes down, government spending goes up. Yep. So I got a job doing mostly horizontal construction, uh, roadways, bridges, dams, uh core of engineer type really, that was the government spending side who were doing projects back in 10, 11, 12. Uh so did that for a few years. Great time, learned a tremendous amount of information, was on site mostly. We were uh uh an open market shop. So we were just as a I was a project engineer, but in reality, it was uh you are here to get the job done, right? So it was some blue color rows, yeah, finishing concrete, building forms, like whatever it took, we got it done. And so um, great, great experience, a lot of knowledge, learned a tremendous amount of how to build things. They don't teach you that in school. No, you can't learn that in a setting of the like uh an academic setting. So got a lot of information from that. Kind of interestingly enough, I had interviewed with Arco in college, but because of the economy, they weren't hiring. Uh somehow I was working in my other job. I got a phone call from a recruiter who had actually called my old cell phone number that was on my resume from college that now my brother had inherited um when I started my career. So um got this phone call from her, asked, Hey, we are now interested in looking to hire somebody, see you're still in construction. Would you still be interested in working for us? Came in, did an interview, and uh came on board Labor Day of 2012 and haven't looked back. Don't regret a second notice of it.

SPEAKER_01: 6:17

My question, real quick, how'd they contact you back then?

SPEAKER_00: 6:20

Yeah, it was again, it was kind of a so so they uh so they had my resume from college, which had my college cell phone number. Got it. When I got out of school, uh, which was probably, if I'm thinking now, for those of you of that age, I was probably a razor. Yeah, come on, let's talk about it. T9 texting real fast, you know, nine nine nine nine. Yeah. Uh and I still to this day, when they called it, my brother picked up. I as as much as we fought, I mean, we're brothers, right? So, like as much as we fought growing up, how or why he said, I think you're trying to get a hold of my brother, let me give you his new survey. Oh man, that's soaking. He did, and they called me, and it was it was a very like special circumstances because I'm I'm surveying on a riverbank in August. I'm sweating through thrusts here, and I'm sitting there thinking, I went to school for four and a half years to do this with my degree. Like, what am I doing? So uh yeah, it was very kind of serendipitous about how all that kind of came together. It was such a cool story. It was it was great. It was is it worked out well. I've like I said, been here ever since. Um and I I've always been interested in the GC world more than the design. I thought, again, going into school, I think a lot of young kids coming out of high school, going into engineering, you see skyscrapers and bridges, and like I'm gonna design something really cool. And I think that's a lot of what the early classes are showing you is like design heavy things. And we've noticed even going to like U of A, where we recruit from for our new project managers, like in the world of engineering specifically, a lot of people don't see project management in construction as an avenue. It's just not something that they know about, it's not discussed, dude.

SPEAKER_01: 8:03

Yeah, it goes back to, and I talk about it on the show all the time, is that especially when we were going through school, there was this giant switch up that it if you weren't going to college, if you weren't dealing with computers, if you weren't doing any of that avenue, this wasn't even a possibility. And and now we've created such a gap. I speak about it. It's literally one of the reasons I started the show is to highlight, no, we need project managers and skilled project managers that have gone through internships, that have sat there and gone, no, this storm box is wrong because this is why, and actually have an understanding, not going, hey, what's wrong out there? Concrete's misshaped, and you know you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00: 8:43

Exactly. So we tell we tell everybody, especially from our internship level and younger project management. We particularly our business, the majority of our newer project managers we will hire will be engineer backgrounds. And I tell all of them, regardless of discipline, mechanical engineering, electrical, chemical, doesn't matter what we're here to do and what we're looking for, someone with critical thinking and problem solving skills. That's all we're after. Like the engineering degree will teach you some of that and a lot of that, but the construction side, no one will teach you. No, you you just have to experience it. As you've seen, and a lot of people I think that listen to the show know like it, you can't sit in the classroom and learn this stuff. So I can teach you those components. We can show you and bring you up to speed from that perspective. But I need from a project management level, to your point, someone who's going to be able to accept the challenge and problem solve it quickly without having to just sit back and say, I don't know what to do. Can someone help me? Yeah, yeah. Durable thought. Not to say we can't help, right? We need a support, but at the same token, you do have to kind of have a little bit of that ambition and and and drive to say, no, let me give it a shot and see what I can come up with.

SPEAKER_01: 9:53

So you were at that project engineer, and you when I assuming from the design coming from your resume, etc., they they were like, oh, okay, this guy's got an understanding of design. Um before we go too much further, would you or would you have not, now that you've been 13 years in this industry after college, would you have gone to college still?

SPEAKER_00: 10:19

That's a good question. And I I pause it's prestigious that you have, sir. Yeah, yeah. I I I would say um, because we have this conversation internally all the time regarding again the critical thinking and problem solving. Yeah, our our intern right now from U of A is smart kid, he's he asked us as we had those different discussion points and conversations of like his and I think his philosophical question, which I think holds really true, is like, well, do you think college teaches you the critical thinking and problem solving? Or do you think that's like an inherent trait that a lot of engineering students just kind of have by nature that they're inquisitive, they're looking for an answer, you know, that kind of thing. And it does kind of make you step back to think about it of like, yeah, I I do feel like a lot of us growing up had, you know, through high school and younger ages, kind of had that already wiring predisposition, if you will, that I think you to your point, I think school definitely emphasized that and and worked that muscle, if you will, to try to help hone it in. I think back to the original question of would I still go to school or not? I think I personally would have, just because I I do just I enjoy the challenge. I look for the next step of the challenge, if you will. You utilized it. Yeah, do I think it's necessary? I don't think it's necessary. Right. Um, I think it's a benefit. And I think from our perspective too, as a as a GC world, um, even regardless of what the discipline might be, it does show a certain level of commitment. Yeah. You know, to stick through whatever that may be during the duration you're there.

SPEAKER_01: 11:58

Isn't it funny the things you that you look at on resumes? And I know we're getting a little far off of topic here, but that exact, you're exactly right, is if I see a construction management degree, yeah, they're probably not going to be the most savvy boots on the ground person yet. Sure. Are they willing to gain that experience and humble themselves and understand that, yeah, you may have a degree. I think it's extra looking from the resume standpoint is people that I go after, but I have been burned where they have construction management degree, and I meet them and I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. How did you? I mean, it is what it is. But at the same time, I say it all the time education's expensive, but experience is priceless. And you can go get a a degree, but uh, we need our doctors, we need our nurses, we we need engineers, we need architects. But um, when you were speaking about the engineering students, they uh they must be different than the engineers we have around here, brother, because uh I think that's what a lot of the guys, ambitious, looking to find the right answers from the contractor's perspective. I've got, you know, you as a project manager going, hey Cy, I've got this issue. What are we doing about it? Yeah. And and I'm as a professional, you know what? That is an issue. I didn't see that. I'm glad you did. Here's my solution, A, B, or C. Let's get it with the civil engineer. Yeah. And it may wait a little bit. Although I I two hours after I had the problem in the intro to me, here I am, solution A, B, C. Hey, Mr. Civil Engineer, please just give me an answer. Please just give me an answer. And you wait a week. Yeah. And then you're like, hey man, where are we at? Hey, dude, can you call a civil for me? And then all of a sudden, here we go. You know, and it doesn't always work like that. But no, I agree with you. I think I think it does go back to a little bit of the personal trait of having that ambition because before I was an entrepreneur, I knew in my mind I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I had no idea what it was going to take and the level of drive and ambition, and I've had to learn that. No, don't get me wrong, it was wired. I displayed it differently prior. But no, man, back from moving from project to engineer, I just wanted to highlight that real quick and moving into project manager. You've been in that role a long time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 14:15

Over 10 years.

SPEAKER_01: 14:15

Tell us tell us how the transitional walk from engineer up to manager, and yeah, tell us some horror stories.

SPEAKER_00: 14:23

Unfortunately, yeah, I got a lot of those uh over 10 years. You're you're not wrong. So I say, so again, kind of tying back to the previous work that I did, heavy design, bid, build, very cannon spec. You're gonna have a fully set, draw a full drawing set, a full spec book that's 250 pages. Yes, like there is no budging. We will not, you know, when for supplemental and for me, like hard bid, race to the bottom, see how fast you can get there, try to find the changes later, right? Um, that's the world I started in out of college. And then with Arco and and specifically the design build model they have was what really kind of had a lot of my interest when I started the conversations with them of coming to them because to your point about design issues, design challenges, I was seeing firsthand in the field on a job site. Yeah, man. How do we find this? We in the field spend however long try to find those solutions, take it to the engineering team and/or the ownership group and whoever that may be, for them to say, no, we don't like that, we're gonna do it this way, or you know, instead we're gonna like it, we we'd rather this be like this. So the the benefit I really saw from a design build component perspective was the collaboration that you're talking about. I think I you to your point of the design teams that can get involved in that, like it it is a it does take particular designers to be on board with these conversations, right? Like I try to tell design teams if they if we're doing a design assist or something that is not a true design build project, like how we operate, right? I try to preface a lot of those conversations with just like we discussed of like, hey, this this is not me attacking your design, right? Look, I I know that what you have on paper works looks fantastic in two dimensions, right? Uh once we put the third in there, it gets really challenging. Oh, you might find some problems. And so I'm here, we are here, the subs, me, the GC, whoever that that issue may be touching. Like we're here to try to solve the problem. Yep. And we're asking for you to be part of that because once again, you're the engineer of record, you're the designer. We don't want you to feel left out of this solution. Um, but at the same token, we're we're gonna need you to play along with us here to try to make sure we can either stay on schedule, find a readily available product, whatever that solution may look like in the green scene.

SPEAKER_01: 16:51

No, one you hit that nail on the head. It's it's it's a collab effort. And I agree, design build, I would like to maybe hear more about the design build as a project manager because you you probably caught a lot of guys' attention when you said race to the bottom, hard bid, this is what it is, because that's 80% of the market, right? And and the sure in the 20%, another thing I say on the show on the time on the show all the time, guys. It's been a long week. I'm sorry, is that literally relationships are everything. And in that 20% world is based on relationships, not necessarily how big or how fast your company moves, is how you react during mistakes, problematic scenarios, because you're always going to run into them and not standing in the middle of the deadgum road, picking a lane, whether it's right or wrong. At least you're only getting run over one way if you are wrong. You know what I mean? Yeah. But I know a lot of those guys are working for those companies, and I will tell you straight up, SciCon, I'm we're nine, nine and a half years in working on our tent here, and uh I got caught up in that because you don't know the difference. There's not a resource that I was listening to, like a podcast going, hey guys, don't get in bed with those guys. They're gonna tell you about the next job and the next job and the next job. But I'm talking about this job, homie. Like I want this job to run smooth. I don't care about the next job. We haven't even started this first job. Well, it's all about race to the bottom and price, price, price, and then they want it done as fast as humanly possible. Well, you can't have cheap and fast, and yeah, it's it's two now three. Exactly. And I missed one there, but yeah, the old adage. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 18:35

But yeah, I I think to your point of the design build world, what always speaks to me is the fact that we we approach every project with the mindset, like you mentioned, is we're gonna build this team around us that we feel has the best chance of succeeding at the end goal, right? Which is on time, yeah, their budget, safely. And those are the three big things that we shoot for on every project that we have, that it's really difficult in the what I'll call plan and spec world, right? And and how that is historically operated, just because you have a very confined set of rules, right? You have a drawing set, you have a spec book that like that these are the only things that you can really price. And then at some level, it becomes a game of who feels like they can be the most aggressive on production raise or who made the biggest mistake and is gonna find out about it down the road, right? Um, and so that's that's the world that really because in the end of the day, in our in our mind from a general contracting perspective, we do not self-perform our own work, we subcontract all the work out underneath us. So our messaging from our internal trainings and everything like that is constantly you will be as successful as your subs are. That's right. If your subs are not happy, if they are not making money, if they are not successful, they will not bid to you, and then you will not get their participation being forward, right? And so um yeah, I I also want to make sure to clarify like that doesn't mean I think we take a step back and don't have accountability. That's right. Like accountability always exists in that world, but it's definitely a different scenario where, like, for instance, our spec books that we'll put together on a design build project, they're gonna be nine times out of ten. Sometimes it isn't, but nine times out of ten, it's performance-based. You bet it I don't care um, you know, what brand this is, I need it to meet these performance specifications. And as long as it is code compliant, we're not going to be a stickler on what the stamp on the name of the nameplate is. That's right. Um, and we feel like that allows a lot of again, collaboration and in problem solving as well as from a design perspective, getting interest and buy-in from those that are involved early on to say, like, hey, again, from a I think of like a site perspective, right? Like, if we find out, because designers and engineers, architects aren't involved in the market as much as everyone.

SPEAKER_01: 21:08

What? Wait a minute. So you mean the engineer's estimate starting off on the job that they give initially to the customer, I shouldn't have to adhere to that every time?

SPEAKER_00: 21:17

What shattering info you're gonna say that, I think there's a lot of times where you can have scenarios, especially as we saw through COVID and the post-COVID market volatility of product availability, product cost implications, things that are having like direct in you know, direct impacts to jobs that a spec book that's been copy and pasted from five years ago or 20. Or 20 or more that says we want this specific pipe material for our sanitary line that us in the market today know, hey, we don't even make it. Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, it's not even available. I can't get it. This is what that looks like instead. Can I price that differently? Or or you know, I I go back to I think of specifically in COVID one huge issue that I got run up on on a project I was doing with the the switch gear and the huge back order of switch gear. Transformers, everything like we we were literally six weeks away from receiving our switch gear on a job that I got an email on saying it was gonna be eight months. And we were supposed to be known in a language right, so um you know, it in those moments, having the the team with you from a subcontractor execution knowledge base perspective of like, okay, here's our problem, but how can we solve this? Right. I think a lot of times on the project management side, we we try to teach them, you know, utilize the resources that you have, which is the subcontractors you've hired for their expertise in the field that they're performing, right? That like I don't need to my first call should not be to the electrical engineer. No, the first call is to the electrician that I've hired to say, okay, you do this for a living, you know how this goes together.

SPEAKER_01: 22:58

I hired you to be a professional, give me an opinion.

SPEAKER_00: 23:00

Yes, this is our issue. How do how what would you be doing? Yeah, how can we troubleshoot this from here? Because in my world of design bill, we want to bring solutions to the design team and not just go to the design team with a problem. We all know the solutions come back and how that can continue to either A extend the duration of that time that it takes to resolve the problem, yeah, or B, uh can increase cost to a point where it becomes very financially challenging. Right. So like we try to be very uh responsive on our end of saying, okay, to solve this issue, we've reached out to those that will be doing the work, right? And ask them their thoughts and opinions on how we think we can do that. Now, have I passed that I still want to engage the design team you have to want to make sure it's code compliant, but it's not, yeah, not something here that I'm missing or that we don't know that it needs to comply with. But at the end of the day, I try to tell owners and design teams alike like if if this issue with the switch gear is being solved with what I would call a non-design solution, right? If there's a problem that comes up down the line from this, the owner's not calling the designer. He his first calls to me, and then my first calls to the guy that did it. I'm calling Sakatan and saying, You got a problem. Can you come out and look at it? So I try to tell owners and designers again, the intention is not for us to you know circumnavigate their involvement, but it's really more of those that are coming up with these solutions in the design build world are the guys that are owning it long term in the at the end anyway. Yeah, that we have to trust that they're not gonna provide us of a subpar solution when they know in six months if it blows up on them, you're calling them anybody. There's a warranty letter in the commercial world and it's uh yeah, I found out the hard way. It's fair psych, a lot of psych. Yeah, it is. So I we we try to always have the subs involved in that process because of that exact issue. That at the end of the day, if this product that we're all we're talking about using doesn't perform, they're never calling the designers to come fix that issue. They're calling us, who's then calling the sub that did work. So at the end of the day, if they're going to be owning it, I don't know why we wouldn't have them part of that process to be able to then find the solution that it sounds so simple, dude.

SPEAKER_01: 25:23

I mean, like, I know it's earth-shattering to some of these guys. Some of these guys are like screaming at the radio, like, yes, my God, just what I cannot stand is hey guys, got a problem. This is, you know, kind of what I was thinking, solution-wise, do you want something drawn up? No, we'll get with the civil. He'll he'll reach out to you. Thanks. Yeah, that's what I can't stand. And that is against what we were just talking about, collaboration, bringing a team together. But yeah, you hit such a good point, dude. Two things. First thing, don't bring the design team problems because they're we got to be the solution team. We just need their agreements to make sure we are within their guidelines and parameters that we are contractually bound to. So, okay, cool. But that that goes for the field team too. Back to the project managers. You know, if you're trying, if you're going to your ops guy or you're seeing your project manager and go, man, I don't we've got all this going on, I don't know what to do. That's not gonna get you very far in life. I'll just tell you that right now. Hey, uh waterline guy up front, a utility sub, he's got a hydrant that is in conflict with this. Uh over here, the electricians involved, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And these are my solutions. What do you think within your guidelines? No, I really like how you dealt with that. This, let's check with so-and-so, and and and and get the subs on the phone. Let's talk about this. Just the collaboration of it. Because you're the second point I want to hit home is I don't want to freaking leave you a bad product because I'm gonna have to fix it. And like, I especially in the utility world, 90% of the time it's bonded if you're doing public infrastructure. So it's like, well, not just you, but I've got a city entity that I've been working with for the past 10 years. I don't want them to come out and go, who put that in the ground? This day blew out, and thank God, you know, we haven't had anything like that whatsoever. But yeah, why to the it's more, I guess, to the racing to the bottom GC hard-bed world. And and that's what I want to try and drive home with you guys today, is that they're just like there's dirt and pipe guys, but we all call each other excavation, right? There, we have professional um guidelines that we stay in. I know pipe, but I also know dirt. But pipe is my game in and out. You'll meet another guy just like me, excavation utility guy, and dirt is his game. Yeah, and he does a little bit of pipe where he brings somebody that has the pipe. Same deal in the GC world, not just the GC world, design world, architect world. There is people that want to work as a team to meet a schedule and meet a budget, and there are people that just want to do a project. Yes, 100%. And that's what I'm trying to hammer on here.

SPEAKER_00: 28:04

And there's there's that transactional mindset, right? Of just I'm uh we I again I will say like that's why for us a lot of times there's certain product types we I wouldn't say don't perform, but probably don't continue to like pursue heavily. Yeah, those are usually like in what I call like institutional work, and that's you know, government agencies. I say like cord engineers earlier, or do uh DOD work, like again, entities that again, not saying 100%, but historically have been very plan and spec, yeah, very, very design, bid, build, where it it's very transactional, right? Just like you said, like we're here to do this, we've hired you to do this, and that is your lane, and you stay in that lane. If there's an issue with the design, we will then have the designer solve it. Yeah, we don't need your help. Um, and it's a different animal, you know, from a GC side, like how those GCs operate and what their typical day-to-day looks like compared to a design build, where from our perspective, our process, we have our project managers doing a hundred percent of the work. I I've coined the first like cradle the key, right? So, like our guys are and gals are in the first meeting with the owner. It's how like thinking to them of like, okay, what is it you need? What does your facility have look like? What is it you're trying to achieve? Then we're managing the design process right alongside with them and the design team. Then we're our project managers are estimating it, they're buying it out, they're awarding subcontracts, and I say that from an owner's perspective.

SPEAKER_01: 29:31

Or collaborating and getting VE options, saving the owners' money while hopefully making the sub's life easier and changing the design up pre-like that's a huge piece.

SPEAKER_00: 29:40

100%. I'm glad you said it because that's I'd be that's a lot of what we've been doing lately, especially when yeah, economies are starting to get tougher, jobs are starting to tougher, get tougher to go, you know, at in just today's general marketplace where you you really rely on here's a set of information, here's a set of bid documents, but we are all ears for For things you see because you are the expert on how to do your job, that hey, if you change this one detail or if you change this one spec, we can save X amount of dollars. All those options are part of the discussion because we don't want to, again, bring something back to an owner and say, You're 10% over budget. What do you want to do? The only thing you can do is delete square footage when there are levers, levers, excuse me, that are available for us to find some of those cost savings that don't sacrifice the overall design intent, but could maybe take some tweaks here, there, and in between to get you that gap that you're seeing the day.

SPEAKER_01: 30:37

And I know there's guys out there that have done just like me and Dylan in the front offices and got a hard bed date, got a set of plans, got a set of specs, they're an out-of-town developer, they're coming through, and they've got their same engineer that's drawn 85 of these projects this year, and you're looking at this and going, I'm gonna send over an egregious price because like what you're bidding here, hey, and you can send all the RFIs you want, they're unresponded, right? You know, and and hey guys, have you looked at this? Hey guys, have you looked at this? If we could get this approved, but they don't have the time. Yeah, they don't have the time to go back and VE anything, they're just gonna ramrod through the project exactly how that design and spec is. Material type may not even be the same connotation of what's going in the ground or in the wall or vertical or whatever it may be. But I'm just letting you guys know there is two different types. This design build model is I have wasted hundreds, if not thousands, of hours between my me, Dylan, and anybody up in the front of the house trying to find solutions for those hard bids and never understanding why they wouldn't spark on them. Well, it took me some years through experience of figuring out, oh, you don't care. Yeah. Because you're just transaction, okay, cool. Another project, okay, cool. Over here, I am I love the cradle to key method. That that are I guess just saying in general, because I I've got projects that are have been in talks for almost two years at this point that I am almost 90% CDs and and literally helping the engineer draw it. Hey, keep the water line out of the road. We need 10-foot separation, but if you put sewer here, water here, we cover all services and keep the owner from having to spend 10-foot deep full base combaction backfill on 2,000 foot of sewer line. Yeah, it's things like that that people they just pick their engineer, draw me this picture, here's my piece of land. Yeah, we don't want you as involved, but bring a contractor in as soon as possible, especially from the design build model, so they can not only have their project manager that's going to be doing the dang job, is going to be back here in the design part. Come on, man. Come on.

SPEAKER_00: 32:58

That's a key thing that I try to tell a lot of clients and owners that we've worked with in the past of like, again, our structure is a little different than some GCs, where there's some GCs that have like a procurement group, yeah, or a pre-construction group. Yeah. Like they do they they do their jobs very well of doing the pre-construction portion. But what we have found in the you know, the 30 some odd years this company has been in business, wow, man, um, that what we were finding time and time again were clients, which at this point were up to like about 75% of our repeat clients. And and for that reason is because they were getting so frustrated with the process of getting to a job, getting halfway through a job, having a problem, and then going to a meeting and the and the per and the PM in the office is saying, Well, I know you've got this issue, but Jimmy was with pre-construction. You be you need to call Jimmy, right? Like, I'm sure again, anybody that's listening to this has probably dealt with that in any in some form of their life, right? Of a sales team and an execution team. Yeah, then it's a push and pull of like, well, well, he told me this or they told me this, but that's not what's happening right now. Well, then you need to call them. I'm just the guy who's out here doing it, right? Oh, and so there can't be anything that's as infuriating as that kind of circumstance. So we try to maintain that continuity for that exact reason to make sure that the people, as you said, like the people that are doing the work are the ones that were there in the design process, they were there in the design. Like they heard, I don't know how many times in c and projects I've done where we've heard things come up of like, you know, a sub or someone who's a superintendent who wasn't there during the design, of something like, hey, why are we doing it this way? This doesn't make sense. Oh, well, here, let me explain to you. Because in the design process, they said this, and this is why we're doing, oh, that all adds up, right? Like, and to your point, from like a VE perspective, it's really powerful for us in the conversations with subs to provide them information and say, Hey, I need a price to do this work. But just so you know, right, we've already had these conversations on the design side, like the plate glass mirrors cannot change. Like, don't bother. We've already ran the rails. Like, we've we've gone down that path, we've had that conversation with the owner, they are not budging. Don't bother trying to enter that. Again, from our perspective, the more efficient we can make everybody from a resource allocation perspective, a timing perspective, like yes, I fully understand this detail may be very expensive, but this is why. And maybe that could be a design component, that could be an owner preference component. I think of one client that I used to work with that is an electrical supply house that obviously is tied with certain individual companies that they provide information for. So when we are products for, so when we would go build their facilities, we would typically use all of their stuff. Right. And so then one of the projects we did, I think it was in like California, the sub came to us and was like, hey, if you used a different product, we could save you like 15, 20, whatever that number was.

SPEAKER_01: 36:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 36:02

Totally appreciate that. Definitely understand it. For these reasons, we aren't, but I do appreciate you bringing that to our attention. Yeah, that like again, that's the kind of thing from a GC's perspective that is invaluable from a from a subcontractor that you're gonna want to keep working with. Oh, 100%.

SPEAKER_01: 36:19

That's a big piece of it. No, for sure, for sure. Stretching gears just a little bit on you. I want to know over the last decade as a project manager, what's that one job? Yeah. I want to know the one job. It can be the good job or the bad job that turned into the good job or just bad, and it taught you so much. But that has we always have that one job. If I know I've got one job that comes immediately to mind that shaped me as a leader, as now you're walking into this regional manager role. Talk about that one or two jobs or whatever it may be that kind of really shaped you as a leader.

SPEAKER_00: 36:53

Now that's a good question I get a lot of times too from like younger project managers, it's similar to like, what's your favorite, what's your favorite project you worked on? And I uh my response I think surprises a lot of them because I've done some really cool stuff in my years, but the one project to your point of just like why it's so near and dear to my heart, it was probably three or four years into our working with Arco. I was still kind of figuring out the design build stuff coming from the plan and spec world, a little bit of a transition. And we were working on a project in downtown St. Louis on the ninth floor of a high-rise building that was 16,000 square foot office that we were completely gutting and rebuilding in 83 days. And I know, and and when we first got the RFP on it, uh, the client uh who we knew from other dealings that we've done in the past, there was a property management group that uh was a construction arm, small construction that owned and operated the maintenance of that building. My immediate question was like, Well, why aren't you talking to these guys? Why am I getting this phone call? Like, they're very capable people, why don't you have them do it? And they said, Well, they said that you can't do the schedule, this the schedule doesn't work. And so our group, probably egotistically, right, was like, Well, the gauntlet's been thrown. We're gonna make this job happen. And at that I've been there, yeah, three, four years into my career at this company. I'm working side by side, yeah, with a uh also I'm gonna say still to this day, my favorite one of my favorite people in the world, but uh a crusty superintendent. Everybody who's listening to this is probably picturing the exact person I'm talking about. Um and obviously very intimidated. This guy knows way more about this than I do. I I'm bidding it. We bid it, we get a contract, we get off to the races, and he shows up, and it would I'd say the stereotypical first day walkthrough, right? Like, are you out of your mind? There is no way, right? On and on and on. And so um, I mean, it was a it was brutal. Like I we were counting minutes and seconds of every day, inspections and material, long lead time, material delivery of mill work and doors and like all these things that were just like high stress, high anxiety, superintendent that you know wants to at every turn remind me that he told me so, right? That anytime we're gonna do a problem, but to his credit, very on board. How can I help? What can I do? And I I think that's what always always resonated for me in that in that project. By the way, when we we made it, everything went good, like it was it was crazy. But the one thing that always resonated with him that I still kind of try to use to this day is he would never ask, like if I came in, I was like, Man, this issue came up, like did the the millwork got back, or this whatever happened, right? I got this problem. And he would never say, like, well, how can I help? You know, he'd say, What do you need? Yeah, like that was always his question. What do you need? Like, because he may not be able to do that, right? But like in that moment, it gave you a sense of like having to just slow down, yeah, take the breath of like, okay, well, that's a good question. I like if you asked how can I help, I'd say, I don't know, let me think about it. Yeah, I'd move on with my day. But what he'd say, well, what do you need? I'd have to kind of sit back and think, like, okay, dissect it and go, all right, well, I I need this and this, so you call that guy, and I'll call this guy, and then we move on. And and it kind of always gave you that moment of pause of like reflecting on the issue, dissecting the information, and then finding the path forward to be like, okay, this is how we can get from A to B. And again, he and I continued, I did more work with him than any of our other superintendents, just really happenstance. We just kept hopping to the next jog with each other, and he was phenomenal. And I learned so much from him. Um, and it did ever grateful for what he taught me. Um, but he always, like I said, I always appreciated his kind of like air, again, uh not like confidence, but like experience talking directly to you.

SPEAKER_01: 41:02

Hey, and what and once and once you get with that crusty superintendent, we call him the old head in the in the civil world, you know, you know, the hard hat throwing, you know, they'll teach you so much without you ever even being knowing that you're being taught.

SPEAKER_00: 41:19

100%.

SPEAKER_01: 41:20

And you know, what do you need? Well, he probably has a connotation of a clue of what you need with the problem that you just vented on him. But what do you need? What's your first move? How that is, how can I help? Just tell me, yeah, good cop, bad cop scenario. Hey, I'll call this person, you call this person, let's get the information and move forward, whatever it may be. But no, that's that's really cool that you're that you gave him a shout out because man, there's so many people on these projects that have taught me so much. Project managers like yourself, but I can't tell you how many other times that I've heard in the field, oh, this young PM, oh God, this and superintendents that have been doing this for 30 years, but that PM won't open his ears up. And or, you know, hey, oh, it's Johnny out there, he's been in his 25 years. I'm gonna go over here and hit golf three more times, you know, in this project, because it happens every day and leave him out there high to dry. So, but there is such a, you know, the younger generation, man. That's what I'm very focused on in landing in the project manager world. Look at yourself, you're an actual inspiration, come out of college. Hey, you know what, I have this college degree, but probably gonna have to finish some concrete and run some wire and do a bunch of crap that I don't want to do to gain the respect of the peers that have been doing this for 10 years before I got here with or without my degree. And let's see if I can keep going. And now you're working your way all the way up into our neck of the woods. Are you living here now?

SPEAKER_00: 42:50

Yeah, we are. We moved in the day of the tornado last year. Oh my gosh. Yeah, moved in about a little year ago. Uh, no, no issue, no problems from our end of where we're at. But uh, but yeah, we lived in St. Louis. Uh the group I worked for before is out of Columbia, Missouri. So we go to Columbia, Missouri for a few years, moved to St. Louis, lived in St. Louis for about 12 years, and then last May was when we moved down uh to northwest Arkansas. So family and everybody's here.

SPEAKER_01: 43:17

Building the office, getting things going.

SPEAKER_00: 43:19

Yeah, I got a uh project manager there now, full-time. We've got an intern uh that's in there now and looking to continue to expand as quickly as we can, right? In the sense of workload and make sure we don't overextend ourselves into a circumstance where we have people that aren't working on something. But yeah, it's obviously a very, as anyone in this area would attest to, a very growing market, a very busy market. Um you know, I think our intention obviously is to one thing we really saw that we wanted to try to bring to this area was kind of how we like to go about general contracting. I think that was one thing that we I don't want to say saw lacking in this area, but saw an opportunity from perspective to, you know, I'd I'd say us as a business, we're in 51 cities, coast to coast, one in Toronto. Hey man, Canuckies hollering at you today. Shout out one up in Toronto, so uh, and that's what's created the growth, right? Of like to your point, of the there's different kinds of GCs that do things differently. And I'd say the like we have a very proven track record of you can be successful doing business this way, right? Like, this is not a one-way street only, and you you've just again transactional, they're here to do a job and then they're off. Like there we have multiple, multiple examples of why this model works, and we've been able to make it grow time and time and time again. When I started with the company, we were in six offices in the United States as far as we went was Kansas City, and uh that's rapid growth, yeah, dude. Well, if you were yeah, like late teens was when you saw the boom. I mean, it was like well, 17, 18, 19, we were uh you were getting like 10 offices a year getting announced, like one after another after another after another. So yeah, there's a again, I think there was just a huge part of us that kept consistently seeing like positive scenarios when we can take this on the road to other locations and show a different market that this is how we can do work, this is how the work can be done, and it's something that makes sense from top bottom, right? It's we're all successful if everybody in the ladder is successful. Yes, and the more we can prop each other up and support each other, the better we're all gonna be at the end of the day. That doesn't have to be at the detriment of, from a client's perspective, a contract value, or from a GC's perspective of a sub's change order tallies, yeah, or from a sub's perspective of getting stuck with a bunch of extra cough up, right? So um, we hope to try to make it enjoyable for all so that way we can continue to keep repeating that process. That's the intention.

SPEAKER_01: 46:00

No, dude, I I think it's it's it's kind of actually astonishing if you think about it. I thought you guys were a little bit older than that. I mean, 30 years and being in 51 something cities, that's uh pretty crazy, man. Yeah. But no, this market here, very interesting market, no doubt about it. A lot of um, I don't know what the word is, uh local uh economy helpers, let's put it that way in our local area. But man, in the last 18 months, pillars is a that's a great word. They are and because we are definitely, if you've if you've never been here, guys, northwest Arkansas is just this little bubble. You guys think of Arkansas and you're like, La Delta, uh you shoot any ducks? Well, we're up here in the hills, yeah. You know, the delta's out east, or you think Little Rock, but beautiful little area up here in the, you know, the foothills of the Ozarks, and it's just beautiful, but it's it's definitely growing to something. I moved uh in from Canada in 2001, and I can still think of places that I'm like, this right where we're sitting, this entire hillside, we helped on just about everything on this hillside. Track to track goes down these hills, anyways, but it was insane. And that boom 16, 17, 18, 19, you know, before pre-COVID was insane. I can imagine. It really was. And it just seeing from the civil perspective what's coming in the next year or two, we have been in a major lull. There's no doubt about it. Uh and and I'm I was on the phone with uh Estimating Takeoff Service. Uh, shout out Ben Brunei at uh Pay Dirt Estimating just quickly there. Um, but I was on the phone with him and he's like, hey man, we're we're gonna be pushing into marketing a little bit. You know, I've seen the market kind of really, you know, draw up. I mean, I think we can all talk about the several different variables of what's going on in that, but that's not where I'm going with that. You hit it on the head when private spending comes down, government spending comes up. And yeah, that is there's no better truth to that. But you have to be ready to make that jump on the government side. When you're set up in the private development space, it's real hard to just yeah, they're they're different worlds. It's for two totally different worlds. So I wanted to highlight that earlier when you said that. But in the last 18, 20, I'd say the last 12 months for sure, we have been declining on uh bid invites. There was some big you know spikes to this year, but man, the fluidity flow of the normal area, and I I I have a feeling we're seeing that in a lot of places and in and many markets, but um I'm excited to watch you guys bring this design build to this area. Don't get me wrong, there are some other larger GCs in the area area that do very great um with with this model, but the way you guys do it, I have experienced uh one of y'all's first contracts here. We didn't have much on it. We weren't the full utility package or anything, but we had three or four buildings uh with you guys doing some underground, etc. And just the level of care, like there was a major problem they had that I fixed for them. They didn't know I could fix for them, yeah, but I could tell the way it wasn't uh, hey, you're gonna do this, but and um, you know, most of the time you're like, what project is this? You know, like this was six months ago, whatever. Yeah, but they were new to town. They didn't really to the point of where I'm going with this, is they leaned on me, man. Yeah, a guy, uh I I assume I don't quite remember his uh his name. He was the regional guy, came up from St. Louis, but he'd been here a couple of days, yeah, and he started leaning on his resources. He's like, Look, I've got some problems. I'm calling my subs that are kind of in this area. Can you help me with this? Yeah, I know the city really well here. Let me let me give a ring over at the water department. Let me let me call the civil, let me get some information, collab back to you, and let's see where this is at. Yeah, and he man, I appreciate that. And it just worked, everything worked out really, really well, but diligently he stayed on me and I I stayed on the on the solution. And but I I can attest to that. We've done just a a little bit of work together, hoping to do some more um as you move into what I believe is going to be another pretty good little spike of work here, October, November. Thank God for the Fed cut last year.

SPEAKER_00: 50:25

Yeah, I think there's a lot of promise, promising stuff that's coming out of the last week or so. Yeah. That's gonna help, I think, you know, move things. I think a lot of it's the stability, right? Of just like knowing this is the trajectory and this is kind of what we can expect. That piece has been missing for a while that I think's caused a lot of anxieties the market. So I agree. I I think we'll start seeing some stuff and lose.

SPEAKER_01: 50:48

It's just been crazy, man. But um, this area has been so protected locally and to be in is you know, the last 10 years, I didn't live, I graduated high school in 2009. Yeah, so I came out to a pretty jobless market, like it was it was since incredibly tough. But um, you know, Arco is 100% known for its culture too. I have heard I have every single meeting, every phone call, I can't tell you that I have been spoke spoken to nothing but with grace and uh directness, but I mean direct to the problem. Can you help me? Can you not? But how it's it's not about what you say, it's how you say it. Yeah, a lot of times, you know what I mean? You can ask me the same thing three different ways, and about one, well, the only there's only one way you're gonna get me to do anything. You know what I mean? And GCs have that, oh, you're gonna do what I say. And sure, but talk a little bit about Arcos culture, man.

SPEAKER_00: 51:52

Yeah, I mean, I think we've built uh I mean again, I go back to like having come from a different world, coming into this world, people ask me like again, what's kept me here? And the the the cheesy but accurate answer is always the the people and the culture, right? And that's because we we really do see of again the from a top-down mentality within the business, like people, as long as people are going to be happy and successful, then you are going to get their maximum effort. Yep, right. And I feel like that same mentality which is used on internal associates to us as a business, is the same projection we try to put out towards our subcontractors and our vendors that we work with, right? Again, you will you will be able to get people to buy into the process, to buy into the collaboration, to be part of something that's going to be successful as long as that they feel that same mindset, right? Of again, how can we help you? What is it that we can be doing? You know, short of obviously everybody saying, cut me a check and I'll be good. But like in the sense of I I keep I kind of keep continuing to come back to like a a mindset from a subcontractor community of we want you to be as successful as we are, because again, if you if you're making money, we're making money, and everyone is happy. Like we didn't literally, man. Yeah, to your point of the like, you're to do what I say, not what I'm asking. And you know, like that kind of mentality starts to become very adversarial and can be very challenging to then, you know, I tell subs or uh younger P's with certain subs on jobs where I'm like, your like your best approach to trying to get from this issue to the solution is to support those that are in the midst of it versus just uh threatening to axe somebody and find someone else. I completely agree. Um, because that's the nuclear option. Yep. That is the there's no going back when you pull that grenade pin, right?

SPEAKER_01: 53:48

Bro, supplemental is not fun, yeah. And or for the guy that gets involved either.

SPEAKER_00: 53:54

Yeah, right. And so for our perspective, it's a it's a constant like, what can we do to help? Right? Like, what how can we help you? Do is it do I need to find a different vendor for this product that I can call and get that here instead of you purchasing, or is it is it this, is it that? Like, how can we try to help make you successful and support you in being successful? Because that success will inevitably be part of our success story of the project, right? Um, and so I think the culture and the people within Arco um are kind of, I wouldn't say ingrained with that, but you know, for instance, I'm literally leaving tonight. Part of the reason we're typing it now, because I'm leaving tonight to go to our superintendent training, where we have every superintendent across the U.S. for our group come to our training facility right outside St. Louis. Um, a lot of social stuff that we're doing was part of that, just to kind of you know maintain a culture from that perspective. But one of the things that we're training on this week is core values and and um, you know, ethics. That again, this is the ARCO way, right? Like this is how we do things, this is how we treat people. Similarly with our project managers, we have project manager training where twice a year, spring and fall, we have our groups get together and we have almost the exact same technical conversations as well as you know, morals, ethics, values, like core values as a business. It's huge, myth. This is this is how we want to try to implement these things, and it is constantly discussed and reviewed and talked about all the time, from a to your point of a perspective of those of you that are like thinking about the smaller group that you're trying to grow to a larger piece, like that's something that's really hard to try to like I'll say hold together in that growth, right? It is actually massive, rapid expansion. It's very challenging to try to maintain that that culture and that mindset while you expand at that rate. Um it's extremely hard. It's it's a it's a challenge, I think. A lot of business, a lot of growing pains from a lot of companies that deal with that. Um, and I wish I had the silver bullet for all of you guys to let you know what that solution is. I think honestly, I think it's a lot of us, like at this company in particular, I can think of many examples where it's leadership, ownership, all the above, all from top to bottom of the of the ladder within the company doing and saying what they practice what you preach. Yeah, man. That's the that you know I I still remember one of my superintendents on a project. My uh we literally had the co-founder of the company showing up to the job site. He was out riding his bike, his bicycle rode by the job site, just happened to walk off, and my superintendent just dresses him down for not having on a hard hat, all a safety vest, right? And he leaves and I come back to him later. He's like, I'm like, Do you have any idea who that was? And he said, Well, it doesn't matter. He doesn't have on a safety gear. And next day in the office, I happen to see him. I I kind of catch him and tell him, you know, hey, heard you stopped by the job yesterday. How did that go? But he was so happy, he was so excited. He's like, I'm I'm so glad that he did that. He was absolutely right. He had every reason to be saying what an honor he is like that's that's the kind of mentality of like what how can we continue to try to maintain this mindset and thought moving forward? And I think it's something that's again practiced and pushed at all levels.

SPEAKER_01: 57:18

I that's I have a similar story. Uh we were just talking about Northwest Arkansas. We have a huge biking biking community, road biking community, and I have a developer that I work for in downtown Bentonville that rides his bike to every single project, and he picks projects based on being able to ride proximity of his bike route. Sure. And uh he showed up one day before I had met him. I had never met him, and the job, terribly drawn job, and it was just a water main extension. We were kind of handling just everything in encompassing. It was small enough that we took everything we normally don't take, you know what I mean? But we wanted the water line. And so he shows up one morning on his bike, very preppy ja definitely not showing up to work, you know what I mean? Work at time, you bet. And I'm sitting there like, hmm, who is this guy? He is being super nosy. And I kind of put two and two together. I've talked to him multiple times on the phone, length on email. And I just walked up and I said, Hey Mark. And he said, Yes, sir, how are you doing, sir? And I said, Thank God. Because I first thing I'm like, this guy's riding his bike, you know, he's gonna get clipped by the skid steer. He's come out and he he stayed on the sidewalk and just kind of pushed his bike into the job, but he was looking at some design stuff. And anyways, wonderful customer, but yeah, he about he about caught the wrong side of me that day because we don't I don't play with PPE and safety and stuff, and I'm glad you guys don't either that.

SPEAKER_00: 58:51

But no, but it's like I said, I think it just shows of like again from the top-down mentality of like the more you can just support and emphasize those kind of things. Again, like you said, it could have been very easy for him to be like, Do you know who I am? That's right. I don't have to put any of this on. Do you have to find your like I'm cutting Jacks here, blah blah blah, and has the exact opposite reason that's so cool.

SPEAKER_01: 59:12

That's when you know your front of house team, okay, to your point, PM's coming up, being more involved in the design side. That's when you know, because we even at Scicon, I have a go no, we have a go-no-go matrix, man. We've bid a lot of work this year. We have bid a lot of work. There is some that I still did not bid out because either we've got basically five legs to our go-no-go matrix, but um, owner is is one of them. And if you're a crappy owner, I don't want to deal with you, man. And but, you know, maybe it's somebody we've never worked with before, but I'm always gonna do my homework. Hey, I know somebody that's worked for this guy, unless he's a first time developer, first time contractor, and I'm normally not trying to jump in bed with that either. But hey, we've We've learned from our mistakes, but um it's pretty crazy, man. Yeah, it truly is. Blue collar performance marketing's passion is to bring attention to the honest work done in blue-collar industries through effective results-driven marketing tactics. They specialize in comprehensive digital marketing services from paid advertising on Google and Facebook to website development and content strategy. I started working with Ike and the team earlier this year, and they've had a huge impact on our specific marketing campaign and trajectory of our overall company. Their expertise in digital ad management, website development, social media, and overall marketing strategy has been an absolute game changer for our sales and marketing at SciCon. If you're looking to work with a marketing team who does what they say, does it well, and is always looking for ways to help your company grow, book a discovery call with Ike by going to BCPerformancemarketing.com backslash BCB podcast, or click the link in the show notes slash description below. Thanks, guys. I've got one more question. Sorry to just kill that. But I I what's the takeaway for you know, we've talked about your subs so much. Think about that guy at his day one, day two, trying to figure out being an electrical apprentice or a plumbing apprentice or a drywall guy or the new roofing guy. Jumping on a crew, day one, blue-collar guy who's just mentally sick and tired, physically sick and tired, and emotionally sick and tired. He may be 10 years in a company and sitting there burnt out completely. Sure. Give him a few pointers.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:36

Yeah, uh, I would say um, I would say definitely being curious and asking a lot of the right questions, good answered one. I think because I think at any level at any job that works, right? I think at any at any spot in your career, whether you're the 50-year veteran or the five-year veteran, right? Like I think at any level, because as construction world has told you, and as anybody who's been in it has seen, it is not stagnant. It is a constantly evolving, constantly changing, ever changing right now with AI, yeah, that's meal machine control, software, technology, and all kinds of things that again, even the guys that have been doing it since they were right in high school are still learning that time. So I think big inquisitive and asking the right questions, and that's just a right any questions, really. I it's a cliche, but there is no stupid question. Like, because I do feel like the more people can see that interest and that that you know intrigue to what they're doing, the was I've catching on. Yeah, the why. The once they can start understanding the why, and and you can see people wanting to know it, yeah, you really start latching on to that concept of okay, well, this person wants more, this person can handle more. We can start figuring out their ladder path throughout this process. Um and I think also, you know, uh, as we mentioned earlier, too, you know, going through school thinking I was gonna do design, coming out of school thinking I was gonna do construction, going into plan and spec construction, then going over and design build, like it's never too late to find the thing that interests you the most, right? And there's plenty of things out there I go back to as an engineering student, I never would have thought the construction world was even a possibility. Right. Like it takes going to that one meeting or that one um, you know, uh presentation from somebody in the industry that's showing you a new widget or something and talking to the right person at a table or group that you're sitting at at dinner or what whatever that is, that like things can change and and opportunities can present themselves that um again you may not even be aware exist right now, but they are. You just have to try to find them. And there's again no magical roadmap to show you how to get there from A to B. Um, but it's those that are willing to to look at it, and I g I it's I still go back to like um taking the leak to try to make sure it's never gonna feel right. No, it's it's always gonna be scary. I go back to my risky, scary, all of it. Well, when I was trying to take the position at Arco, quick anecdotal story. Like, I was I interviewed, I'd come back and I was sitting in the office and I was working still at my other job, and I felt honestly, I felt terrible. Yeah, I was guilty almost. Yes, yeah. I almost had this like, you know, these guys took a chance on me, yeah. They hired me out of college, like they were a great group of people. Like, I hate just leaving, like, this just doesn't feel right. And I kept going round and round with this decision and through other factors and other things. Um, my wife at the time, at the time, my wife was extremely supportive and just said, you know, whatever you need to do, however I can help, let me know. And uh, I was like, Well, you know, I'll think about it. So I took a little while and I finally kind of decided I was like, Well, I'm gonna take the job, I'm gonna I'm gonna accept it. So I I came home that night and I told her, I was like, Well, I called, called up, I accepted the job, I'm getting our start day worked out right now. And she said, That's fantastic. I'm pregnant. Like that. I was like, Well, uh, that's new. And she's like, Well, I I didn't want it to affect your decision, I wanted you to make it on your own terms. Um, wow, what a G, bro. I honestly, because I told her, I was like, it absolutely would have affected it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:26

Oh, you bet your bottom dollar it would.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:29

No doubt. And so it and it was it was probably the most anxious I've ever felt. It was those three or four days trying to make that decision. And I and here I am today, exactly where I am because of that decision that I made. But at the time it felt like climbing Mount Everest.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:44

But dude, quick story. It's funny. The most most everybody's heard this story at this point, but literally I had uh jumped off on my own, went and bought a truck, and this old boy bought the machine and the trailer, and we went at it as a partnership. I sold my house, uh, every dollar I ever had, savings, breaking horses when I was a kid, all of it. Yeah, never saw a check, never saw any money for 16 weeks, and we were living in a camper on my in-law's property, and we had sold our house because we were going to build a house. There's nothing about this business stuff, and so this guy presented an opportunity, went terribly, and now I'm sitting here in a camper, uh, broker than I've ever been broke. I ever knew broke. Yeah. And I'm like, all right, I'll just go rent machines and keep going, you know? And look at my wife, that was Monday. Skycon started after all of this, and we didn't have a freaking two nickels. And in that camper, she looked at me on Wednesday and she said, I'm pregnant.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:51

Yeah, it's it's always that time.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:54

And we we spent three years trying to have coal. It was like it was a monumental, huge deal. I I have dealt with some major pressures in my life over the last ten years, sir. But it wasn't nothing like that moment. Yeah. I had no not saying that I've succeeded perfectly now, sir. I've still fail and I make mistakes every day, but there was no way I could fail after Shaitan's right. So that's probably uh how many you got?

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:23

Uh we got two now. He was our first.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:26

Yeah. If you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to give it a like, share it with the fellas, 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.