Ep. 59 - Big Jobs, Bigger Mistakes: What They Don’t Teach in Construction

Ever wonder why some blue-collar businesses look huge online yet struggle to keep cash in the bank? We dig into the real story behind sustainable growth with John Seaman of JC Property Professionals, how a kid raised on job sites built a company across trees, clearing, and grading, then made the tough call to walk away from custom home headaches and lean into dirt work where the math made sense. Along the way, we unpack the gear debate that quietly bankrupts operators: new machines with warranty and loaners vs. old iron and unpredictable downtime. John explains the hidden costs of diagnostics, idle crews, and client trust, and why protecting production is the most profitable decision you can make.

We get tactical on residential psychology and boundary-setting. Clear contracts, explicit notes, and pre-wired clauses for HOAs, stoppages, and changes prevent “death by favors.” John shares the exact mindset he gives his crews to stop scope creep at the first ask and keep control of the job. We contrast residential and commercial with honesty: engineers can freeze a project and make you look bad, while residential puts you face-to-face with the decision maker. The key is picking a lane that fits your temperament, team, and margins, then ignoring the vanity pressure to chase “big job” optics.

If you’re tired of pricing by gut and reconciling losses at month’s end, this conversation shows how to job cost in real time, close the loop between estimating and field performance, and build SOPs that protect profit. We also cover the go/no-go matrix for filtering red-flag clients, why quality finishes are your strongest referral engine, and how to think about lead gen only after you truly know your overhead. No fluff, just the unfiltered playbook for uptime, scope control, and margins that stack.

If this helps your business, follow the show, share it with a crew leader who needs the nudge, and leave a quick review so we can reach

Thumbtack
Stop spending all your time searching for weak leads. Book your personalized strategy session today!

Blue Collar Performance Marketing
Click the link above for a free marketing audit with insights to boost your blue collar business!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Welcome, Sponsor, and Setup

SPEAKER_00 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. Guys, welcome back to another episode of the Blue Collar Business Podcast, brought to you and sponsored by our wonderful friends over at Thumbtack. When you're ready to grow, but your systems can't keep up, you need a partner who gets how you work. Thumbtack delivers leads that match your strengths, plus data, tools, and real-time insights to help you make smart moves. Automation keeps you running smoothly, and centralized systems make scaling simple. Every day, pros use Thumbtack to hit their goals. Ready to grow? Visit thumbtack.com slash pro to book your personalized strategy session a day. Guys, I have got one that you guys have all been waiting on. I have mentioned it in a few posts prior to this point. A gentleman and a pioneer who I have looked up to through our marketing journey, who is absolutely at the pinnacle and pushing even further. Um, you guys may have seen him on TikTok, you may have seen him on Instagram. He's all over the place currently, and I'm so glad to have him on the show. We carry a lot of the same similarities and goals, mindset, and structure. None other than the one and only John Seaman, president at JC Property Professionals. The man, thank you so much for joining me, brother.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Thanks for having me on, dude. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Dude, we we I've I've been a huge fan. Uh I still do the same thing. Huge fan here, my guy. And anybody that's willing to do what we do and then talk about it, it's everybody's so close chest, everybody's so, oh, I can't tell them. That's an edge. But anybody that's willing to repetitively, consistently provide content and value to the blue-collar men and women across this country can't thank you enough for all the programs that you guys are putting out there for them. Um, YouTube and the Dirt to Dollars coaching, like John's the guy, guys. And we're gonna get to hear a little bit of his story today and go back and forth and probably reminis on some uh some probably crappy projects, maybe good projects, things we've learned. And we both have learned it the exact same way, and it's tried and true experience and throwing tens of thousands of dollars out the window to figure out ooh, we should probably do that better. But all the way from Nebo, North Carolina, my guy, give us uh give us a little rundown of how you got into this, why you got into excavation. Uh, because after you're in it for 10 years, you're like, bruh, why didn't I do this? But watching you climb them trees, dude, is uh literally above my head. Uh you ain't getting me unless it's a tree stand, my guy. You ain't getting me up in a tree. Talk a little bit for us.

From Construction Burnout to Trees

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Yeah, man. So um it's a long story, dude. But I mean, uh essentially I grew up kind of in the trades. My dad has always built houses working with other folks, you know, running crews for them. And um, some of my earliest memories is just being on the job site as like just being there, you know, because it's something that I couldn't have someone to watch me or something, you know, and or I didn't want to be stuck at the house. And um, I remember one one time I was carrying a five-gallon bucket. I tell a story all the time, and and my job uh was to go around and just clean up, you know, you know, end pieces of wood, put it all in a burn pile or dumpster or whatever, and I'd and they'd give me a five-gallon bucket to carry around and throw all the stuff in, and and the and I remember like the bucket being as tall as I was that I was carrying around. So I've literally just grew up on job sites, and um, you know, I also grew up racing dirt bikes. So, you know, my dad would work for someone, and on the weekends we'd go do side jobs to pay for going to racing dirt bikes. And um, so you know, it was like me and him just doing these small roofs and siding and windows and decks and stuff like that. And um I uh, you know, I thought, well, I you know, be coming through school, the the the teachers were really pushing me to like choose what college I wanted to go to and like really getting in my head of like if I don't go to college, I'm never gonna amount to nothing, you know.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

So it makes me so mad, but I agree, yes, yeah.

Trees to Clearing to Grading: The Shift

New vs Used Equipment: Downtime Math

SPEAKER_01 4:49

They convinced me, man. They convinced me. So I uh uh I I left um you know in in 2009. I graduated high school and I went to Florida and I and I went to school there. And um then I'd had a job traveling for a few years, which was uh installing illumination control and automation and stuff in hotels, so kind of back in the trades already, you know, right out of right back out of county. Um and I and I enjoyed that, you know. We we traveled all over the United States and and and it was um hands-on work and it was on the cleaner side because it's more like electrical, you know. Right. Um and I made really great money, but uh, you know, like my life was just work. I mean, I traveled every single day to a new state and worked in that state, you know, all day long, and then I traveled somewhere else. And and I also had went as far as I could go in that company as a PM in a pretty short amount of time because believe it or not, in the trades you can excel pretty pretty fast if you just work hard, you know. And um uh you know, I've I've just got a business owner, entrepreneurial mindset, and was, you know, I didn't want to be an employee forever, so I just I asked if I could buy into the company or have some partial ownership or something, you know, and it was a family-owned company and they wanted to keep it family-owned, and I respected that and just put a notice in and um worked the notice and come home and started my own thing. And I was able to hire my pops, you know, he was still working for someone that he's pretty much worked for my whole life, you know. And I said, Hey dad, I'm gonna start doing this thing. You want to come and help me? And he he came on and um we just kind of picked right back up, like before from before I went to college. We just started doing small things again, you know, did lots and lots of roofs, and um we kept growing and getting a little bigger and bigger, and uh we got to the point where we were doing additions, and I had to go get my GC license and we would start doing full-size builds and custom homes, and um did that for several years and really just got burnt out with like the emotion involved in in the construction with materials, and you know, when someone thinks about building their custom home their entire life, you know, like typically that's their that's their final home, you know, and so like they've already thought about all the materials, the light fixtures, the plumbing fixtures, and when you can't get those items, uh they get pretty emotional pretty quick. And it's you know, for us, it's just a job. Like, you know, we're not married to the home, you know, and we of course want to deliver the best job possible, but uh, you know, at the end of the day, like my job is to deliver the house, but I was then having to be a psychiatrist, and it wasn't for me, man. Um before I got to that point of being like, hey, I'm done with the construction part, I had some folks come to me who were really, really great at cutting trees. Uh, they they were working for another guy that they that relationship kind of had come to an end. And um, I had known the guys for a little while, and they said, Hey, you know, we're really good at at doing the work, but we can't get the business. You seem to be able to get a lot of business, so let's do something together. And so uh uh we started doing a tree business together, you know, and I sold a lot of tree work and I had a lot of relationships with um some areas, some folks in some really high-end areas, and um sometimes in those areas when you kind of tap into them, it's like keeping up with the Joneses, and everyone just has to have their trees trimmed. And you know, we were really fortunate there, and uh so we, you know, I was kind of running the construction and trees parallel. And um, I tell these tell a lot of folks in in my coaching program that a lot of times with trees that turns into bigger and bigger projects because you may be trimming a small Bradford pier, or you may be taking out eight large, massive oaks, and you need some heavy equipment to remove them, and then someone sees you taking all these trees out with the equipment. It looks like you're doing a clearing project, and they approach you for that, and and that's naturally just what happened, you know. And um, so we got we started getting land clearing projects, and we had already bought the equipment that we were using for the tree work, and then all of a sudden the the grading side started, you know. And so what my idea was then was like again, I'm still doing construction at this point, and so my idea was well, I'll I'm running these businesses, and and and at that point, like you know, my pops was kind of running the construction side that had the main guy on the tree side that was running it, and I had hired some guys that were doing the grading and they're running it, and and and our sale was you know, you hire you you there's one name, one known name that can come in and build the house, clear the lot, do the whole nine guards, maintain the property afterwards, you know, and um that worked really great because you know, in in in the blue-collar world, it's hard to find folks that you can trust, you know, and um entrepreneurship. That's what they want. Like at the end of the day, like people you people just want you to make their life easier, you know, and if they can trust you and pick they can pick the phone up and call you and have whatever service done, and it it naturally it just works really, really well, you know. And then like I said, I was just kind of getting burnt out on the on the construction. And I maybe because I have done it my whole life, it's just it just wasn't as sexy anymore. And um still really enjoyed doing the trees and and the grading because it was all new and fascinating, and I was learning a lot and um no emotion because no one cares typically about their tree that's having to be removed. Sometimes there's a little bit of sentimental there, but um the the as far as the dirt goes, like nobody cares until the house is being built, you know. So all right, dude. So uh and typically like no one's even on the site with you because they don't even want to show up until foundation's coming out of the ground. So we get to come in, not have anyone looking over our shoulder, come in and develop the whole site and get out of there and collect a check and and have no one like fussing at me because the painter wasn't there today, or we couldn't get the plumbing fixture that they wanted, you know. Um, so I just leaned into that. And and really at the end of the day, like if you uh you have more volume with the dirt work than you do with a custom home, obviously. But with the volume with the volume, if you look at gross profits, um, the dirt work was much better than all the stress and everything that came with the custom home stuff, you know? So we were very analytical before making a decision of obviously after building you know stuff up over time, you don't want to disquander that. But um, yeah, we decided to stop doing construction. Um I sold the tree division to the fellow that was uh kind of leading it up and was just solely going into dirt and exhibition, you know. Um we've we did that now for several years, and um the the tree business that I had sold, I sold it on a uh a a profit payback. That was not working well any longer because that fella developed a couple habits and that wasn't going good and the profit wasn't there because the you know when when you do any business, you you work every single day, you know, and and and you kind of have to because uh your projections are off of working every day like we were. And that that was just his way of running the business was different. So we ended up taking that business back. So we've got the treaty business kind of just sitting, you know, on the sideline, and we don't advertise for it. People call us from obviously the years and years and years that we have built relationships, and um I I really enjoy that part of it too, you know. I'm a little bit of an adrenaline junkie and uh like doing that, and the the margins there can be absolutely insane. Um, and it's a lot of fun, you know. So, and we have all the equipment from any size job, you know, all the way up to big larger jobs, which then typically will just funnel into the grading side. Um, so yeah, we just do the tree stuff every once in a while when we get calls for it, and uh equipment sits when we don't, it's all paid for, and uh just push the dirt work.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Wow. That's uh that's something to say, dude. All your equipment's paid for, dude. That's uh well all the tree equipment is.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

I just bought I just bought three new cap machines uh for the site work side. So those that stuff's new. Um we've got out on a four-year term, but all the other stuff is paid for, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Yeah, no, I'm I'm the same here. I'm either people give me crap all the time, I run a lot of newer gear, but I'm a payments versus repairs guy. I'm not a knowledgeable jump in there, fix it. No, I want a service package on my machine. If it's down, hey, I've even got a loaner in my paperwork on my cat stuff. Hey, this thing, come get it, fix it. It's under warranty, it's your problem. I did the same thing with like all the way up to our 360, like our big gear. Same deal. If I bought it new, put service packages on it. I can I don't want a$3,500 random nope uh thousand hour, you know, the service has to happen for the machine to hold its value.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

But I I know I'm jumping off there, but no, you're you're you're 100% right. I'm I'm 1,000 with you on that, man. And that's why, you know, we're we're replacing some of the older stuff with new stuff. And and that's also why, of course, we went with CAD. Is uh there's no questions asked, man, when when the machine goes down. If you've got the warranty package with loaner, I mean it's they're out there at seven o'clock the next morning, no matter what time you call them. Uh they get it repaired very quickly. And if they know they're not gonna be able to, they're bringing you a new machine so it doesn't hold you up. I'll I'll pay any amount of money for that versus uh an old clunky machine that you don't know when it's gonna go down or when you can get a mechanic to come out and fix it, and when you can get parts for it, you know, and in the meantime, you're looking like a ding-dong to your customer because you got a machine broke on their job and don't know when you're gonna move forward with production.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

And you got three guys standing there picking boogers and they can't really do anything because they need the tool to do their job. And they what people don't understand early on when you're jumping into the excavation, you start machine ownership. The number one thing you have to avoid is downtime. It kills everything. Uh it kills it for labor, it kills it for productivity, it kills it from your customer standpoint, going, oh, these guys know what they're doing. Don't get me wrong, there's there's a lot of lot of gentlemen out there that have some paid-off gear that know how to work on it and keep it up, and they probably do a lot better preventive maintenance than most of us are used to doing. But that payment versus repairs conversation, I just recently myself cycled out a 308, which is I'm pretty sure you got 308 as well, do you not? Yeah. Uh being a utility man, that that boom, articulating boom, is like the utility guy's dream. And we had 3200 hours on it, I think. We bought it and a skid steer at the same time. And actually there are leases to be specific, but they're sitting there at that 3,200 hour mark. Am I gonna pay these guys to put pipe and push dirt with it? Or am I gonna be paying these guys? Although it's almost paid off. I mean, that's where people's arguments are like yeah, you could almost not have a payment. But it's I I get, I get it, guys. You're not gonna have a payment, but I would rather choose to have my known cost per month for those guys be able to get in that machine, do their job, and drive away, then oh hey, and it still happens, but hey, it's no skin off our back. We make a phone call to the guy we trust, run out there, fix it up, and we'll explain to the customer what's going on. But that's literally, I see all the time guys get in early and they're like, they want to buy all this used gear, and they'll go to the bank to buy used gear. And I'm like, guys, twice twice upside down. Yeah, exactly. And they and and it's a it's experience, right? Education's expensive, but experience is freaking priceless, buddy.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

But and there's there's a time and place for it. Like we've got a stump dump, there's older equipment there. If it goes down, it doesn't cost us anything, you know. And and you know, there's there's other small projects that we will keep something old on, you know, where it's it's where production isn't gonna screw you up if if something happens, you know. And and really you and I understand that, but someone who doesn't understand their their true cost to do business doesn't understand how impactful it is when that machine does go down and now you've got guys just standing around and you're eating up overhead costs, you know. If you truly know your numbers, the the argument of old and repairs or brand new with a payment is it's it sells itself, you know.

Field Reality: Technicians, Diagnostics, Delays

SPEAKER_00 17:29

And especially now, I just did an episode, I think it actually comes out today as we're recording this with a gentleman who is changing up the game, uh, Uber for literally heavy mechanics, but literally with all the software integration with new stuff, what's the point of trying to work on it yourself? I mean, if I don't care if you go change a hose now, it's a sealed system and they got to come in and 1900 bucks, please. And you're like, God bless, dude. I just want to work on this thing. And when when I eventually at the life cycle of this machine, then I'm gonna have to be dealing with computer problems on top of mechanical problems. I'm like, no, I don't even want to own it, man. Yeah, like here you go. This is your freaking problem. I just need to use it to get this job done.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

That so the I think there, you know, there could have been an argument a long time ago when like everything was mechanical versus you know, something brand new. But anything in between there where you're dealing with mechanical and having to do calibrations with computers and stuff, like dude, it's it it's impossible, man. You know, and then you're forced to go through the dealership, you know, where if like you got an old 4BT motor machine, like you know, most of us guys can work on something like that, but anything in between, uh, man, you it's impossible. So it yeah, it it it's every time, dude.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

You gotta have them, you gotta have them out, you gotta have them to scan it, diagnostic, and it's multiple trips, then you know, they're they're coming out the scan, going back to get a part.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Yeah, it's crazy, man. We I've got a what's that?

SPEAKER_00 19:04

I said you're eating mileage the whole time when he's going back to get his air filter because he didn't think to, oh well, this is what's going on with the machine, and that the level of technician we are getting nowadays, my guy, isn't the same 20 years ago when you were trying true. You do, man.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

They go to the computer, the computer tells them the steps to do, and they go run back, grab whatever the part is, they fix symptoms, not the problem. Uh, don't get me started, dude.

Career Pivots, Respect, and Ownership

SPEAKER_00 19:30

It's a me and you both, right? Okay, so literally, you have been on a job site your entire life. We were uh talking just a moment there on the intro. That's kind of how I grew up with my grandfather in downtown Toronto, and it's just the inspiration to I'm assuming that's why you went off on your own, but I wanted to hit a key point that I also did in my entrepreneurial jump is that you went to your family-owned business and said, Hey guys, I love and respect you enough. I want it, I want something to motivate me to do better for you. Hey, I think it's this, totally respect their decision. I did the exact same thing. I was uh I was running about 20 guys for my best man at my wedding, dude. Uh, running an entire county, moving all these gas meters for the public safety commission. I mean, 15 piece equipment, bunch of people had everything under control, driving my own pickup, paying for my own gas, getting an hourly rage. And so I just, hey man, look, I I've we've gone from here and and now we're here. Proof is in the pudding. But hey, man, like, is are is there a plan for me? What's the plan? And I had a water and sewer background straight out of high school, man. I didn't go to college. I jumped off working for municipality, chasing water main brakes, fixing freaking force main shooting poop 20 feet in the sky, like crazy stuff. And so I learned through the city and the municipality of more repairing a distribution system rather than putting new installs in. But I jumped over to the contractor side because I figured that, you know, the municipality game, it's great for a guy that wants to be there 30 years, uh, benefits and work eight to five and not do anything with his life. That this wasn't me, my guy. I got my CDL, exited out of the municipality game, got in the contractor game. But I went through two other contractors, learned a little bit, six, eight months, their work dried up, whatever. I'd been with this guy almost two years at this point. And I go to him and I'm like, hey man, this is 12 plus years ago when I say this, but hey man,$17 an hour ain't gonna cut this no more. I'm running everybody, I'm dealing with the meetings with the with the commission and the and the entity, like maybe a truck, if if if you don't mind, you know. And he looked at me and he said, You get paid more than I do. And so it wasn't uh, yeah, it was pretty rough to take. And I proposed, hey man, let's use my water license and my water knowledge. You've got this gas division, let me start uh bidding on some new installs and and truly went to them because I loved and respected them, just like you, you know. And I didn't want to step on any toast, but when I got that response, I was just like, Yeah, are you kidding me? But it goes to show if we're not opening our minds as entrepreneurs and understanding those conversations, there's a lot of good people that will come through. I mean, you probably can admit this. I know I can. I've lost good people because of my crappy systems or the way I've yeah, you know, I uh you you push good people away and you don't even know yet that you're doing it until two years down the road, something hits you, and you're like, oh, that's why that guy repeatedly this would get very frustrating. So, anyways, I started my own uh my own thing, and it here we are. But I just thought it was so funny how we both were at the tippy top very quickly. I went straight to the top very quickly and resonated there, excelled, the company grew everything, and we just hey man, want to be a part of this. How can I be a part of this? Nah, this is this is just gonna be us. Okay, no problem. Can you help me out here? Like raise something. So went on my different path. But I just thought it was cool the connotation between our stories that we both respectfully loved and admired where we came from. Yes, it was just a job. Yes, it could have been a career. You never know what it could have been, but God sure has a different plan in both of our lives, I guess. But uh, I just wanted to shine light on that. So past that, man. You're climbing freaking trees 40 feet in the sky over people's houses, which I think you're freaking nuts for. But you know, you I heard you the other day, the oversaturation in our marketplace and the excavation, not so much in the utility side, and hopefully we can help guys get into the pipe side as we were talking earlier. But, you know, the tree work side of things, I've got a question for you because isn't it pretty low barrier of entry? Even lower than uh$18,000,$2,000 a month. You just got to have a guy to be able to climb up consistently. Now, don't get me wrong, professional, things are falling, extremely dangerous. I couldn't imagine the insurance, but I mean, a couple chainsaws, and you're off to the races, right? Or am I just overthinking this?

SPEAKER_01 24:21

No, you're 100% correct. So the I I think the bigger challenge obviously is the skill set there, you know. It's uh number one, you know, there's lots of trees you can just cut from the ground, but there's a certain amount of skill set with that. I mean, obviously, there's uh a large percentage of America's funny in some videos. You just the option of that, you know. Um, but then once you start climbing, there's multiple layers of of new skill sets. You know, of just getting to the top of the tree and coming back down, you know, climbing safely is one thing. Um, now you also have all the things that you had to know out on the ground of you know, looking up and assessing the tree and kind of understanding where things are gonna go when you cut them. And then if it's over a home, that then you have another layer of of rigging and roping things down safely, you know, and then there's another layer if you're gonna use mechanical stuff with cranes and stuff like that, you know. But oh my god, as far as like getting started with it, uh, I mean, yeah, dude, if you have a chainsaw and some climbing gear and um the balls, a ball wasn't gonna say it, but um, yeah, a big set of nuts, then you can you can make really great money, and that's really all you gotta have. There's actually a lot of tree jobs that we sell uh as cut and leaves, also. You know, like there's a lot of homeowners here in in the mountains that um will either burn the wood or want to do the cleanup themselves and save some money. And so they just say, hey man, get it on the ground. We work for a lot of contractors in our area, even other dirt guys that um, you know, they don't feel as comfortable doing some of the removals, and but they're they're they got excavators and they say, Hey man, just come and get these things on the ground for me. And so you don't even need stuff for cleanup on a lot of these jobs, but let's say you do on some of the residential. I mean, you go in and get things on the ground, and you know, you and two two laborers or I mean, really, if you want to do it yourself, just depends on how much you know overhead you want, and you got a trailer. I mean, you've just led the stuff out on a trailer and get it out of there. I mean, there's that the the way to start is is is next to nothing, you know, and then you can go all the way up to multi-million dollar cranes and grapple saws and all kinds of stuff like that. But to start, you don't have to have any bit of that stuff. It can make really great cash flow doing it because a lot of these jobs are you know a couple hours long and you can do two or three jobs a day and you know, bring. I mean, if I if if I just stopped doing everything and I didn't have any equipment right now, there's every single day I get calls for um cut and leaves that I could sell for 500 to a thousand bucks a day or or or more. I mean, you know, and uh I mean that's great cash flow for someone who has no overhead, you know.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

And the in the margins, my guy, there is no overhead, there's no machines, there's no fuel, there's no downtime, there's no stupid. I mean, don't get me wrong, you can definitely cut the tree the wrong way. I could only imagine that.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

That's the thing is like risk risk and reward, you know what I mean? Like if it goes wrong, it's it's typically not like ooh, that sucks. It's like number one, it's our name is destroyed because we put something on the house, and and hopefully we've got great insurance, but even with that, you're gonna be all over the the all the forums, you know. Um, and and that's best case scenario. Worst case scenario is you've you've lost your life because you did something foolish in a tree, you know, or even even even cutting them from the ground, man. I've I know lots and lots of guys from doing this for so long that have either lost their life or paralyzed or majorly injured, you know. So it it is risk and reward. Yeah, there's no almost no barrier to entry, but the risk there is is insane as well, you know. But but the reward the reward too though is the the the almost unlimited amounts of quick cash he could make, you know.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

Literally, dude.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

I'm a gambler. I like that I like the risk for award game, you know.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

I do like the roll, I do like to roll the dice myself, Mr. Seaman. There's a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

But I gamble every day.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

Well, I I'm assuming you got, you know, you set your seat and in that air conditioned skid steer cab a couple of times, and you're like, well, you know, I might be able to figure this out too and move the logs and you know, talk about that kind of transition. What when you're first getting started in the excavation space, it's so hard to race to the bottom. And I think you also hit something earlier on the call, my guy. It's know your cost. I get phone calls, I know you do all the time. It's like, hey man, how do I it could be a guy just brand new, just bought a skits here? How do I even price this? And well, number one, it it definitely takes some repetition of doing a couple of jobs and just flat screwing it up. I'll do it for 2,500 bucks. But when you do it for 2,500 bucks, calculate and tally everything that equals to$3,800 and you lost your butt on that job. Now you can take those numbers, use them against yourself, and go next time this job similarity comes around comes around, this is kind of the price point. But if you're not tracking those costs, if you're not job costing and the big jump into the commercial world, and I'll tell them myself and as the channel knows here, that it took me years to figure out as I uh resi space, year three, year four. I don't know how you you handle the resi space. That's where we're going next. But like I knew as soon as I wanted to make that next scaling jump, I wanted to get off to the commercial side. Number one fact was. Was there's a set of freaking plans, and this is what we get paid to do. Change orders with Resi customers is like the biggest nightmare for me. And I know you deal with it all the time, but back then, what I didn't know, my guy, was clear expectations up front lead to clear conversations in the middle of the project. And contractually, if you have that ironed out, you know, you know whatever specifically could happen on this job. It's talked about in the proposal. Hey, if this does come about, this might transpire. Here's the adder. They know all up front. I mean, at the end of the day, we're still underground contractors. You know what I mean? But man, I wanted to scale and get into that freaking commercial world because I couldn't figure out. And you're a lot better at it me that than me, obviously, because I couldn't figure out to get the guys in the resie space to buy into the owner's mindset and taking that customers go out there, consult. Hey, this is where we're at. This is what I think we can do with the property. Okay, thanks, uh, Mr. Bob. Go back, talk to the team. Hey, Bob wants this. But when Sally gets home and Sally walks out there and talks to your boys, I I mean Bob did not talk about this. We need this, this, and this. And it's like, I just wanted to pull my hair out, my guy. And the guys that were working for me were doing fantastic jobs. You know, we're not definitely cleaning up, doing the extra five and 10%, but we were going the five and 10% in the wrong direction that Miss Sally didn't like, and I could never figure that out. I'd love to hear some insight.

Guardrails for Crews: Stop Scope Creep

SPEAKER_01 31:37

Yeah, so keep in mind um that starting doing the construction, it is way, way, way, way, way worse with Sally and Bob wanting to go different directions. So I already had that background um of of like having to deal with that. And uh, I guess dealing with that for so many years, it it's exactly what you said of like make sure that during the seal, you set the expectation of this is extremely clear of what we're doing. We put it all in in and clear notes. There's no like weird verbiage of trying to weasel things into the contract. It's it's extremely deliberate so that if so you you, Mr. Customer, understand exactly what I'm selling. And if there's any questions along the way, we're going right back to this contract. Um, and then there's there's variables that that we all know we're gonna run into. Uh the contract spells a lot of that out. Um, and then there's also stuff in the contract that's like if we get, you know, during this project and and there's something someone doesn't like and we have to pause and stop, that time is being paid for as well. Because we we we can't go to another job. We're stuck here on your job until you two make a decision. I've even got verbiage, and and again, this isn't like weird fine print stuff. This is very clear, deliberate stuff in the contract that says if you don't have your ducks in a row with your HOA and your HOA now comes and stops the project, it's you, Mr. Customer, who's responsible for that. And that's not I say all of this stuff verbally during the sale in a manner that's like, hey, we want to deliver the best job for you. We don't want any of these holdups. I don't want to cause you any more money on on this because we're we're already pricing things on on the higher end of stuff, so we don't want like a bad feeling when we leave from the customer, you know. So we're we're trying to set all this stuff up so that there is no weird thing that happens along the way. And then the second thing is like let's say I I I missed that target somehow, or the or the customer is they understand it, but they're still trying to get something in there, which that kind of is going back to like making sure you're working for the right folks in in the first place, right? You know. Um, but let's say I let's say I missed all that as the salesman here. Um my guys also understand that like a lot of this is sales and psychology, which your guys have to understand too, you know, which is a real weird dichotomy because these are all operators and laborers, you know. Um, but so I'm like constantly coaching them on like what to say to the customer if the customer approaches them and is like, uh, can we go a little further with that? Or uh that that that just isn't can we move the dirt down to here? And uh, you know, I'll tell them hey, we nip it in the butt immediately. We don't do uh the let's do this now, and then there's 10 more things that are gonna be added because if the customer kind of feels like they are now suedeing the job in whichever direction they want to go, they it's it's again it's weird psychology, but like now they're controlling, and when you lose the control of the flow of the job, you might as well just pack your shit up and leave and give them their money back because there's it's never gonna get back on the good term after that. Uh so it's it's really just setting the expectation and knowing to make sure that your guys know the verbiage and when to pump the brakes on hey, we there that's outside of our contract, you know. And and there's nicer ways to say it, of course, you know. It in uh but yeah, we you you just can't let it get too far off the path before you're way off the path and you can't get it back.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

No, it's dude, solid point because you're right. I train my supers all the time in the field and the in the commercial world, like GCs, superintendents in those job trailers, they will try not all of them, but a lot of them, they'll they'll play us office against the field guys all the time. Well, I talked to your office, they said it was all good. Oh, yeah, they said it was all good. Just go ahead and do that. And he's looking at that my guys know through experience, like we have learned to your point, like you know, Sally and Bob back in the house building days, I don't know how you ever build houses. This guy could not do that. I I would try my absolute damnedest for the folks, but man, it would be it'd be pretty rough from the emotional. So I mean, you've kind of already got that figured out, there's no doubt about it. But when you're still trying to project the same thing over and over again to your team and your team's out there working diligently hard for you because that's what you've asked them to do, it gets it gets monotonous when homeowners are coming out there changing up. So you have to set yourself some type of standard and procedure for your guys to follow. I wish you would have told me that eight years ago, John, damn it, you know, because it would have helped me so much to understand. Because in the early years, maybe this is just me, but you you you feel like you don't want to show them that you're gonna make a little bit of money. And so you're trying to, oh no, here's you know, it's five grand. And they're like, well, wait a minute, the gravel's only, you know, 5500 or 550 bucks. Like, where's all this transparency? More transparency you can build, and more clear expectations are up front, most of the time, uh, it's going to lead to more money because you have clear expectations set up and they're gonna respond well to that. But you're exactly right. If your guy in that machine ends up telling your customer, oh yeah, sure, we got it, well, then you just look like a dick when you show up and go, Well, actually, it's gonna cost you another 2,500 bucks. And they're like, Yeah, or your guy said it.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

Yeah, or if you know, you've like you said, like you had these clear reels of this is what things are costing, and now your guys over here doing shit really for free. Then it's like, Well, what is the true cost of him doing that over there? And why was he so willing to go and do that? Like now, these numbers you just lost your validity for all the the itemized numbers that you took the time to sold to sell and build trust with your customer, you know. So, um and and I I I you know, a lot of this, like I keep saying, is psychology when and and it's not manipulation, it's just transparency and understanding how other folks think and how your your what your words mean to them, you know. So when we say stuff like this on social media, people are like, oh, you're manipulating people, and it's like, no, dude, we are setting clear guidelines of what we're doing and what our expectation is. There's no manipulation. Uh it's it's manipulation when you try to just hide shit from them. Yeah, and yeah, and then you your guy got does go and do something, and you show up and say, Oh, well, that's gonna be 2,500 bucks. Like, dude, you just burnt that customer for life, they're never gonna work for you, they're never gonna hire you again to come and do stuff, you know.

Commercial vs Residential: Choosing Your Lane

SPEAKER_00 38:42

So neither is their cousins or any of the bridge club that they're a part of, or anybody on their ball team, like that goes so far. And when you get stuck in those situations, you're like, nope. I mean, if my guy said it, I can't tell you how many times I did it. Yep, I understand that's that is gonna cost me some money, but I need you to understand that's on us. I apologize, we're gonna get the job done. But to your point, my guy, just like your HOA line item in your proposal, and as it's going out, we had the same thing with civil engineers on our side, and GCs don't want to sign it half the time. And I don't, I'm getting to a point where I just do not care because civil engineers, we're coming across an engineering epidemic in this country. It's like rush it through design, get it into the contractor's hands, give me the price. And you're looking at it and you're like, well, this is like 60% of the way, guys. I can't even, I can't even give you material types. Like, you're not calling out meter sizing and all of this, and so you start pushing back, but then you you you okay, say we take that job, we end up getting 100% CDs, and we get off into the job contractually, and then you really start showing the engineer mistakes, and it's you sitting there waiting for him because he's got that fancy piece of paper saying that he can draw this crap together. So you're waiting on him. You got Trecos sitting out there, dozers, skid loaders, all of it, dump trucks waiting, you got a concrete guy you're pushing back, like all of this is happening. So now, from things that we have learned, no, not a lot of the time can you just pick up, you know, 500,000 pounds of gear between four units, five units, and just move it across town. It's not feasible. Mobilization is expensive. And so if you're sitting there waiting on this engineer or HOA says, wait, wait, wait, you don't have this permit, that permit, this permit, it costs us and it costs you guys. Listen to this, and you have to prepare yourself. You're like, how does how does commercial when you get into commercial, why do they hand us a 50-page contract? Well, they've learned along the way. What happens and they've learned from experiences? Stick that in the proposal for the next go round. And guess what? They're not all hard line item. If they have some validity to why this or this needs to come out of that contract, willing to work with you. But at the same time, there is standards that we have set because of$50,000,$100,000 mistakes that we've made to get to this point. You know what I mean? So, but and one last thing is the go-no-go matrix with bad owners, dude, bad customers in general. I have learned the freaking hard way, my guy. And now on the commercial sector, we we we have like five buckets. An owner is one of them. Have we worked for them? Do we know somebody that's working for them? How do they pay? Uh, are they just gonna be up the engineer's butt the entire time, changing the whatever the case may be? But on the resie side too, I still have customers that we've worked for nine, 10 years ago that could call me today, and I don't care if it's$500, we're gonna go take care of it because they called me. You know what I mean? Yeah, am I gonna pull the guys off a commercial job to go do a$500 gig? No, but we are damn sure gonna communicate and say, yes, Miss Sally, we got you. We'll get that driveway fix that we did seven years ago, add you a little and prove it. But you've got to stray away from them stinking bad owners that would also, you know, alleviate some of these struggles that we're dealing with, you know? Yeah, for sure. And um next thing, my guy, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 42:13

I I I it maybe you're getting to this, but I I think earlier you said you wanted to ask why am I doing residential and not commercial, right? So that's yeah, sir. Go ahead. And not to jump ahead if that's what you're gonna get to, but you know, everything that you're talking about of all these issues with the engineers and stuff like that, is that's exactly why I don't like doing commercial. Like I want the decision makers, the customer, and me. That's it. Uh, because at the end of the day, I'm sure it sounds like you've been in this spot a bunch of times where an engineer handed you a plan or the contractor handed you a plan from the engineer who rushed through it just to get some numbers. And then, you know, long story short, you get to a point you're like, we can't move forward anymore because we don't these things aren't called out to us on this paper. I need these answers, dude. That's you know who looks bad, right? It's not the engineer, yeah. It's it's you because they think, well, why didn't why didn't why didn't we have all that before we started? You know, and the the engineer doesn't get crucified for it, you know, and and so then it, you know, then the relationship starts to get a little funky with you and the contractor, you know. And um, and dude, who's it costing money? It's costing you the money, it's not costing the engineer any money, you know. Uh so we have done a lot of commercial and and and we still do a lot of commercial, uh, but I prefer the residential because I prefer it just be a one-on-one relationship. I don't like there to be a bunch of people in the middle that can deter how my job goes, you know. Um, and and and yeah, the other thing is just the making sure you work for the right folks. And and in the beginning, it's kind of hard, right, to be able to pick and choose who you're working for when you need the leads and you need work. But but what I tell guys in the coaching program all the time is like, I know it feels like you have to do that job because you have to get the reviews and you have to get your name out there and you have to get cash flow and you got to keep your guys busy. But the your gut feeling when it feels like, man, I shouldn't do this. 100% of the time I have lost money on those jobs, or maybe I thought I made money on it, and then it came to bite me in the ass six months down the road, you know. And so it's like, I know it feels like you need to do it, but I promise you, if you walk away from it, there's someone, there's someone better waiting for you, you know. So it's it takes a lot of discipline, man, early on to be able to do that. But um man, I wish I wished I listened to my gut on every single time it told me not to work for that person.

Scale, Systems, and Job Costing Truths

SPEAKER_00 44:45

Dude, same here, my guy. Literally, same here. And it's just so cool to hear our two different perspectives. You know, they audience gets to look at both sides of us anytime they want, you know. We we try to be as forthgiving with information as possible, and so we're kind of putting ourselves out there, but there's we're we're about the same age in in in business, but we've gone two different routes, and but it's that was my number one, and it makes sense for exactly what you're saying. You've from your experience in life, you've you have the homeowner stuff you've dealt with, you know how to process it to your guys, but you that's that's so cool, man.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

And and just pick your pick your battles, right? Like, I'm choosing my battle with the residential stuff, you're choosing your battle with the engineers, like what whatever your skill set is, and if and whatever you know to navigate better, dude, just just do that. Like, and and that's the thing, too. Like, some guys just try to do too many different things, like they want to be in in so many different spaces, and and we get it all the time. Like, people on our social media are like, it's time to move up to big projects. Well, dude, I've been doing this for 11 years, dog. If I wanted the the big project, I could be I just prefer to stick to that's right, and I make great margins at what I'm doing, and I enjoy it, you know. Uh it doesn't, it's not it's not fun for me to be on a job for for months, you know, these big commercial jobs that that we've done, you can go through our social media and find dude. I get bored, like I don't like to just it's cool because you can then just send your guys with the plan, and as long as they're good, you're you don't have to babysit the project. And as a business owner, you can go either work on the business or do whatever you want to do. But um, man, I enjoy the hustle of the residential of like selling work and meeting new people and meeting cool customers, you know, and and and and developing all these sites, man. Like we touch so many properties that after 11 years of doing this in Western North Carolina, like it's pretty hard to go a couple miles down the road and not see something we've worked on, you know, which is cool for me. And that's why we use to do that, you know. And so it's really just choose what what works for you, man, you know, and uh and and and and stick in a lane, you know. And if you can build a residential crew and a commercial crew and it worked great, good. But I think too many folks just try to do everything, or there there's a vanity thing where where you know, like the guys who are saying, Oh, go do the big project. Well, dude, the big project margins aren't always there, you know what I mean? Like you there's there's there's tons of guys that are bidding on those, and there's tons of qualified guys because it's because it is easier like to just give the guys a plan and go. So there's a lot of companies that will sell that job just to have the little bit of cash flow coming in from it, you know, and have have have predictions of money coming in versus where residential is like a little wonky sometimes, you know. Um, but it's just not me, you know, it's just it doesn't get me excited, so it's not what I do.

SPEAKER_00 47:37

Well, and I think it also too, it comes from my pipe background. Like the only way I was gonna do pipe repetitively, don't get me wrong, man. Uh I I thoroughly enjoyed. We have just like you know, yourself, you're up in those mountains, and I'm gonna get to that vanity piece here in just a minute. But up in those mountains, dude, there's something about sipping a coffee, going to start the track going looking down those mountain lines and going, man, this is so freaking cool. And we've we've done some crazy projects. Uh, there's a larger White River Lake right here called Beaver Lake, and some crazy home sites up and down, in and around, just to get to the house. And you got to build a road to get frame and semis in. And I do miss that, man. It's so much fun. The guys enjoy it, they don't have the pressure. But honestly, as an entrepreneur in our space, I didn't know how to scale uh straight up in the resie space, other than just keep stacking crews. Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, and so like I was like, all right, if I can get this pipe thing going, keep the resie stuff feeding, keep the resi stuff feeding. I will tell you the one of the mistakes I made was killing the reszi too early. About year five, I was like, oh, we've got way too much commercial work, let's go until winter hit, and then I'm sitting here going, Oh god, we've got that one or two over there, but uh, have you sold any work? You know, and start it's just it's an absolute rat race for me to scale in the resi world. And I just kept feeling like I was running in circles, and so I had some success. Not saying uh uh uh I just ran with it. I mean, we struggle gold, bro, on every project we got on. We got I'm not telling you, oh, we made plethors of money. No, I got freaking punched in the teeth every project because I didn't know about this, I didn't know about that, I didn't know about this insurance. And so, but you're right, once you pick that lane and stay in that lane, that's the thing I see, guys. They want to stray. Well, this looks great for six months, yeah. In that six months, you're just gonna get punched. You you need to use those punches as experience to move up.

SPEAKER_01 49:46

You're gonna pay for your education somehow, dude. So when you you you're you're almost over the cusp of learning in that six months, and you like a ding-dong, go a different direction to go learn more shit, you know. Like learn that, get going with that, make some money. Yeah, I don't like getting punched to the teeth, bro. You know, like I'll I'll do it long enough until I'm profitable and I'm I'm I don't yeah, I'm not I don't like navigating back and forth, you know.

Overhead Before Leads: Numbers First

SPEAKER_00 50:14

I've learned a lot enough at this point. I've um learning every day, but the vanity business thing like you're talking about, dude, that's exactly it's so true. And especially on social media, yes, we can pick them apart pretty quickly. And when you're building this big thing for views and it looks great, and but you ain't got no monies in the bank, and you ain't got no systems, and your people are pissed off. Man, you look like you got it all together. And and don't get me wrong, dude. At one point, I was absolutely there. I was on this scale grow, and uh, we'll probably talk more as to why I did that so fast, probably a little bit more, uh coming up in a couple of weeks. But long story short, my dude, I had to build these four or five crews, and I had to have this, and I had to have that, and I had to have everything right now, and that's that is not the case, man. And as I was building this thing, I thought I was just rising to the top, everything's great, everybody's happy, and then all of a sudden this guy's pissed off and he's gone. This guy that's been here so long, he keeps coming to me with the same issue. And I'm like, I keep correcting it, don't I? You need systems, you need processes, you need SOPs to run a freaking business to have any type of freedom as an entrepreneur. If you want them set up for success, you got to start building those systems. And how do you build those systems? Know your cost, job cost while you're on the project, so your estimator knows what the freaking estimate for the next project. So you stand to make a little bit of money before you even get out there because you can't take a bad number off the desk and go turn it into a good number in the field. I promise you you cannot do it. I have uh learned the very, very hard way. But knowing those numbers, dude, and I talk about very heavily on this show, is inside internal account reporting. Accounting is everything. And if you don't have it every 30 days, you don't know what your business is doing. And for years, dude, I didn't either. I mean, straight up. I didn't. And and it took me going out and finding the help and going, hey, I really don't know what I'm doing. And I think that's what a lot of guys are like shameful or prideful to do. Like, I'm not an accountant. My wife tried her butt off to be an accountant, dude. She was a great bookkeeper, CFO, all the things, but she's not that. She is an incredible mother to my children and an incredible wife. And I would love for her to do that and be my business partner up here rather than waiting on uh her to update uh receivables and and payables so I can have an accurate report. And so I've I've I've really strived hard to make sure I understand where we're spending the money, but that's where I see a lot of guys make mistakes, man.

SPEAKER_01 52:59

Yeah, me too, man. In in the coaching program, it even goes back to like the everyone's question is uh how do I get better leads? Or, you know, what's the lead flow? And I'm like, fuck that. What's your numbers? You know, don't even ask me about all the other stuff, dude, until we know what your numbers are because you don't even know what you can go spend to generate leads right now. Uh and and like you said earlier, like they're asking, they're asking, how do I price this job or price that job? Don't worry about what the market analysis for the job is. Worry about what your cost to go and perform the job is first, and then let's compare that to what the market will dictate you can charge. You know, but these guys are worried about like what the market says they can charge when they're overhead because the vanity thing, right? They they've got this big badass truck that they don't need. They've got all these new machines that they didn't have to have right right out the gate. And now they they have to charge so much, if they knew their number, they have to charge so much that it's over the market analysis, you know? Or they they stick to what the market will allow for them to charge and they're losing money on every single job. They think they're making money, but by the time they pay all their bills at the end of the month, they're sitting there with no money in their account, or they can't pay their bills because they just went off the market. So I tell them right out the gate like, know what your overhead is. No one knows their true overhead ever. Know what your overhead is and know what it costs for you to go perform the job, and then let's worry about what the job should cost and how to get more of them, you know. But they're they're starting backwards. So these guys want all these leads coming in. That's what they keep asking me. How do I get more leads? How do I keep getting more leads? And they're going and doing the job for the lead and losing money on it. Like, forget the lead, dude. Let's know your numbers first and then get qualified lead, you know? Like, let's reverse engineer this thing a little bit.

Quality as Lead Engine, Smart Lead Gen

SPEAKER_00 54:48

Just just the tad and the you want to know how you get more leads, guys? Do better work every single time. That's literally the number one answer. Every single lead and every single opportunity that you turn to contract. I say it on this show all the time. Do I'm not saying this, do this for free, but the extra little five percent here and there along that job that's going to make that job look fully and complete the first time the customer walks it, I promise you, is the biggest lead generator that you can freaking have in your resie business starting off. There is no doubt about it. Because when she goes to bridge club or he goes to uh hang out at the gym with his buddies, man, dude, I'm thinking about putting in a pool. Hey, dude, I had I had John, dude. He made this entire freaking area ready for a pool on the side of a goat's bluff. And dude, you need him. Call him. He did an exceptional job. And not just with that, dude, way he stacked my rack wall and asked exactly and put it, dude. I'm telling you, you won't go wrong. And then all of a sudden, you get your phone phone ringing. And and people don't, I I guess put that together, but quality of work is everything when you're first starting out. And word of mouth is true. Yeah, there's so many different lead gen softwares and put your money here, and you get 100 leads, like casino machines, and like, oh my god, dude, it's so annoying. And um thank God there's things like Thumbtack out there that you can go visit, thumbtack.com slash pro, jump on there. And if you're struggling in between this part of this contract to this part of this contract, and you need to fill a little gap, that's what those lead gens are for. But if you're just basing, hey man, I need more leads, I need more leads. No, you need to convert some leads. Let me know your cost on that project. Did you make money? Did you not? And tell me how you're gonna do it better the next time before I give you five more leads, please.

SPEAKER_01 56:47

Because I was there myself, dude. Yeah, same. I you know how I know to coach is I've done it. I've been there, I got halfway through a job and I realized shit, I'm I'm gonna lose money on this. And and and what do you do? You let you either keep losing money to perform the job to 100% and exceed the customer's expectation, or you can make the decision of, okay, let me just rush to get to the end of this so I don't lose as much money, and then there goes your cheerleader. You know, you're that now you don't have that person that's gonna go to the gym and sell the next pool for you, you know. So if you know your numbers and you know to price accordingly, and you can get to the finish line and still be making money and deliver the quality job, then it's gonna turn into more leads. But if you didn't price it right in the first place, it's hard for even an honest man, dude, to get to the finish line and not skip corners because as a business owner, like you're just trying to survive at that point, you know. So it's dude, is this is just a big revolving circle, man, that it all has to work together, you know.

SPEAKER_00 57:50

It it does, man. Don't worry, guys, conversation doesn't end here. Next week, John breaks down how dirt to dollars even started, why content became a growth engine, and how his team showed up for the community after Hurricane Helene. Tune in, guys.