Ep. 74 - Scaling Slow, Winning Big With Matt Bachtel

If you think durable companies are built on flash, this conversation will change your mind. We sit down with excavation leader Matt Bachtel to unpack a 26-year journey powered by humble starts, careful decisions, and an unwavering investment in people. From mowing lawns and delivering filters at a dealership to running multi-crew water and sewer work across Northeast Ohio, Matt shows how steady growth and clean execution beat speed every time.

We dig into the early years, mentors who opened doors, a chicken coop yard organized like a showroom, and the hard choice to rent equipment until the numbers said buy. Matt explains why he dumped spreadsheets for industry software long before it was cool, and how proper cost codes, AIA billing, and change-order discipline turned a small firm into a professional outfit. You’ll hear how foremen were grown from parts runners and pipe layers, how GPS skills evolved into drones and precision layout, and how a modest barn operation matured into a facility that earned customer confidence without losing its roots.

Then the playbook exploded. A culture scare, a sudden retirement, and COVID-era shocks collided with inflation and supply shortages. Matt walks through promoting young standouts to foremen, adding a fourth crew, and rebuilding systems that broke under rapid growth. The customer-facing quality never slipped, because the team communicated, adapted, and kept documentation tight. 

Looking to 2026, we break down the firm’s two-year public service line replacement contract for 1,245 homes, the five-page procedure that makes it possible, and the personal discipline that keeps momentum alive when January hype fades.

If you’re a blue-collar owner or manager trying to scale without losing your soul, this is your field guide: know your market, hire for humility, rent smart, promote from within, and turn repeat pain into written process. 

Subscribe, share this with a teammate who’s ready to level up, and leave a review with the toughest operational challenge you want us to tackle next.

Transcript

Meet Matt Bactel And His Roots

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, Sai 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. I am I I feel like I say this every week, but uh truly deep down, I am I have been excited. There's some of these I'm super excited to get out to you guys, but I am truly excited to listen to our guest here tell the story of 25 years of in the excavation space where a lot of you guys come from, from over at Sycon, YouTube. Uh, we just hit 32,000 over there. I know a lot of you guys have navigated from there. And this gentleman is inspirational when it comes from the standpoint of the humbleness that I try to carry with you know within myself every single day. You know, I there's so much flash out there, guys, that oh, I've got this figured out. This many leads equals this revenue equals that, blah, blah, blah. Like you got to find somebody that's willing to truly tell the story like it is, not like we want you to view it as. And I believe there's so much of that out there. This gentleman has been up in the northeast Ohio area pretty much his entire life. Ohio State alumni, he shared. Um 26 years at Bactel Excavating, the president and the one and only Matt Bactel. Thank you so much for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to join you.

From Dealership Grit To First Excavator

SPEAKER_00 2:10

I uh I think the audiences too. If you guys, anybody that's on LinkedIn that that watches or listens to the show on any podcast platform, I really appreciate you guys. But if you guys are on LinkedIn, you have maybe seen this maybe a post here, or if you're in any type of the excavation utility space, the roundabout pages were always commenting, it seems like, on the same pain points and same problems. And uh um, man, I've had to learn a lot of them the hard way. And you shared a little bit. We had a phone call earlier this week and wanted to spend some time getting to know you before we hopped on the camera. And man, just some of the things that you shared with me are truly inspirational. And you know, we're hitting 10 years this year, and I I can't even fathom what 25 is. But if you wouldn't mind, just talk about, you know, you came from the heavy equipment sales world. You you have a background working for one of the major dealers, you had an insight in that, and then all of a sudden, here's the excavation world. Give us the story, sir. The floor is yours.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Um, you know, really, it's like a lot of a lot of people's story. You're a kid that likes the trucks, you know, that sort of thing, and and that draws you to it, right? The the yellow iron, all of that draws you to it. And then um, you know, I mowed lawns since seventh grade, you know, and then my my dad worked for a local water department, he'd take me on jobs, and all the excavators that I ran into said, hey, go to college, you don't want to do this. You know, we're beat up, you you know, that sort of thing. So um, and I always intended to go to college, but at 15 I went to work for an excavator, and um I think his mission was to make me appreciate it and go to college and never come back to excavating. If that if it makes sense, you know, it was to work you hard, but he was fair. Like I I owe so much to Bill and his dad, Don. They they had very just top-notch guys, they they poured into me. Um, so you know, did that in high school, college. That's how I paid for it. But then at some point, you know, I'm working on a business marketing degree, and you go, I gotta start working to out of the field and and into something else. So back then it was it was 96 that there's not a lot of internships in the construction industry at that point, maybe a little bit on the heavy civil side, but not not in that that world. So I um I wrote a letter to every single dealership in Columbus because I had an apartment, that sort of thing, and I got my I'm getting old, so the memory's not as good, but I'd say I got four to five responses, and I know I did uh uh case, cat, bobcat, John Deere. I interviewed with all of them. Again, not not at the and these are at the dealership level, and um was very fortunate. I had a uh gentleman, Mike, that that he said, hey, we have nothing, but we've been thinking about this. We have to we have to recruit and bring in salesmen, but you gotta prove yourself. So he's like, we work in parts and service, we'll pay you. And so I would work there on Saturdays between classes, that sort of thing. I worked there my summer, the summer between my junior and senior year. So kind of left the excavating, went to the dealership. But when you're in that role, I delivered a lot of parts. So I'm going to the biggest highway contractor in Ohio, going to their shop, and you're seeing it firsthand. And I'm putting in filters on a Saturday, and the owner of the biggest, now they're almost a three billion dollar company, is in the shop on a Saturday with his hard hat on his vest. He's having lunch with me and the other guys, you know, he bought pizza. And we moved all I did was move filters. It was truly just the basics, right? But that was they had a three-story parts department with a you know, this is back then probably an eighty, ninety thousand dollar a year guy managing the parts. So you're learning like about barcoding and in inventory, but the meticulous nature of it, right? So so you you know, so I did what I always do, I I worked hard, uh, learned the parts side, I cleaned that shop, I you know, pressure washed equipment, and then I earned the right to clean up the customer list. So, you know, so now it's fresh uh fall of my senior year, and they say, hey, here's the customer list. We don't know if these people are dead or alive. Will you call and clean up the list and and rate them, you know, all that stuff. So I did that and I must have done okay. Uh I called everybody in in their four dealership or four locations and just cleaned up the list. They said, Hey, would you like to take on half of Franklin County and five other counties as our skid steer salesman? So I'm not even graduated. They give me a truck, you know, the whole nine yards. So I'm a full-time salesman, my final quarter at Ohio State, and um was very blessed and fortunate. They took me under their wing. Um, I got to sell some of the bulldozers, rubber tire backhoes, skid steers, um, and did that. But then at some point, you know, I was married at this point, had just built a or not built a house, had rent owed a house thinking I'd be settled there, and I realized that I was living a compromise. I'd listened to so many of those people tell me, you know, uh, you don't want to get dirty, you don't want to be the excavator. And I just felt like even though I had a dream job making great money, none of that mattered. So, and and then we we were two hours from our hometown, so we we in a year's time we we sold a house, and luckily we made a profit on it because we bought it cheap, did the work ourselves. And I even even rental in that house gave me the confidence. It needed waterproof, like so I I rented a mini and you know, waterproof the place, and and just I think that was a a foundation for for that. So um in 2000, you know, February 2000, I turned in my notice. I had to give a 60-day notice. I was there for a while and and continued to sell nights and weekends. I'm learning QuickBooks, that sort of thing. So I think the the college and the dealership experience gave me that business side. So like I had two months, and a lot of guys would have concentrated on the equipment and like the fun stuff, and I bought QuickBooks and learned how to do it. So I was building out my processes before I started. So then we we sell a house, we take a little chunk for down payment on an excavator, a little chunk for down payment on a one-ton dump truck, a little chunk, you know, for a down payment on a modest, very modest house in Masslin, Ohio, which is much lower cost of living. And um started May 5th, uh, 2000 was the incorporation date. So does that get you get you up to speed?

Early Years: Mentors And First Hires

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Yes, sir. Got me up to speed. And this is all in the 90s, man. You should. I mean, that's that's really cool just to hear. You know, it's it's crazy. I have so many different types of guests on here. That's what's so cool about this show. And the influences and impacts that, you know, at the dealership level, you know, you mentioned Bill. Um, you know, that's such a common place. And be willing enough to accept that mentorship and understand you're being taught without knowing you're being taught at the same time, it's like that concept is kind of gone. You can still see it in in hungry individuals, it's just not as common. And to, I mean, literally work your way into cleaning up the list, working your way into a sales position, you earned all of that. And I think that's absolutely a ramp to you know, a little bit of confidence boost here of waterproofing uh, I can actually go out, get the materials, get the machine, and do the job myself. Like set same thing here happened. I was replacing a few uh water services here, or digging on the weekend there, setting a septic tank or whatever it was helping on the weekends. And I was like, I can do this, I can really do this. I understand what you mean by the confidence booster, but man, I would love to hear more from 2000. Take us through those few startup years that are always a struggle, but obviously talk a little bit about the scalability and where you went from there, because that's what so many of these guys are wondering. How is it even a possibility?

SPEAKER_01 11:37

It is a possibility. I think first thing I would advise to me is just to know who you are. So I knew who I was in the sense that I'd watched guys go from one to two to ten to thirty to out of business. So I was very I'm I'm boring. Okay, like so I'm watching I I don't want to name names, but I see guys that are famous on LinkedIn, but that you gotta understand they're in Nashville, Tennessee, they're in Fort Worth, Texas, they're in markets that are just exploding. I'm in Northeast Ohio, so I understood where I lived, who I was at my core, my can entrepreneurial, but more conservative than maybe some others, and and I and and cautious. So people will um I want to go back one step. You talk about these men mentors. One thing about these podcasts is you go on a podcast, you post something on LinkedIn. I'm the maybe the face of Bactle, but none of it's possible without a lot of people, right? So I want to I want to preference that before I even go into like so Bill and Don, and then I'm gonna Mike, my boss at at Tiger Machinery in Columbus, Ohio, you know, and it wasn't just him, it was all the other guys that I earned their respect and they they mentored. And the guy at the billion-dollar construction company didn't even realize he was better at me. But then you know, I I moved back home, and my aunt and uncle allowed me to park in their their commercial parking lot of their remodeling building company for free for a year. And my uncle's this the there was a little chicken coop in the back, and I wish I had a picture of it. I think it's on a phone that's dead, but I had this chicken coop, but it was organized. The cones were stacked real nice. There was five shovels, rakes, and stuff in there. You know what I'm saying? One wheelbarrow, like, but it was it was ours. But if my aunt and uncle they would go to the building association meetings, and my aunt would be like, You gotta talk to my my nephew, and I'm like, she put her neck on the line, right? So so I I think that I want to really concentrate as I'm telling my story of just acknowledging these people along the way that either trusted or had faith when maybe I hadn't even earned it yet. You know, so I think about that first year, I was fortunate that that they supported me, and one one thing led to the the next and and the next, and then you know, my brother came home from college and we worked together, and then uh Keith, one of my great friends from high school, he comes on board. He's a grocery store manager, and he was off on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and he worked for free the first song. So he's married, uh he's a full-time job as a manager, and he's working for free. You know, so you know, you you know, and he's here now went from a grocery store manager to a laborer, to a pipeline, to an operator, to a foreman, to a uh foreman that can work independent of the owner, to the superintendent, to the operations manager, and is the the conscious, the heart, the soul of the operations side. Right? So his stories, the the story, it's not mine, you know, and I could go I'll name y you know, you know, my wife's involved in the business, so she's uh uh raised our six kids, she's uh an accountant prior to the kids, you know, with but when and the time we've been together, her primary focus is raising the kids, but she was always mentoring and and giving insight to me at a high level. Now we're getting closer to empty nesters, uh she's involved in the business, so so it's a teen, and I always end up uh getting kind of the recognition and the credit. But this you know, like where I was at is I could work a 12-hour day because I knew that that my my family was was was safe and taken care of, you know. So so really I know I jumped around, but it's really important to acknowledge that it's a series of people and things. Luck. You make a little luck. I mean, it it's there's just a lot that goes into it.

Cautious Growth And Renting Smart

SPEAKER_00 16:29

You hit a few nails there. I really want to hit home. Number one, I know exactly what you mean by putting yourself out there, you're kind of the face in whatever marketing extravaganza you want to say, you know, whether it's just uh TikTok or whether it's a LinkedIn or whatever it may be, it may be ads on Facebook. But you when you're it's kind of a weird position because you don't really want the credit. You're like, no, no, no. I need you to understand how hard my, you know, your Keith is my Dylan. And uh how much work he did last year. Like, if it wasn't for him, if it wasn't for Jesus sticking it out on this project with these parameters to get us to this point, I wouldn't be here. Like, like these guys are the whole reason we're here. But the other cornerstone that I think we share is the uh the partners that we have. My wife, I we did a small mini-series on here that a lot of people enjoyed, got pretty vulnerable. It's not easy, and you've got double the kids I got. And uh, you know, raising young families and young businesses is extremely tough. But for you for your wife to have that accounting background is unbelievable. See, neither one of us did. So that was a recipe for disaster. And, you know, we used the old Google, uh, Google University and YouTube university to get us to where we were, and then led down the wrong road a couple of times. But no, the other thing you said was series of people. And I think that is so key that I think a lot of people get caught up in. They they've gotta, oh, I gotta be here, I gotta be there. The connections that you meet every single day are so vital to your future. And yeah, you can uh you can limit the time that you give those people, but the people that you do give your time to and they give it back, you will be astonished where a relationship can take you. I say it on this show, I mean almost weekly. It is everything. So be taking the time to talk to that homeowner that you're doing whatever for. Take the time, listen to him. You do have 30 minutes before you get home to mama, and make sure that you know that older gentleman has somebody to talk to. You'll be astonished where he he puts you.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

But uh yeah, continue, sir. So really just you know, um growing with quality people. You know, so so you you Keith and I are figuring things out, and we realize we need somebody else, and he's like, Hey, my brother's a heating and cooling guy. If we're gonna if we're gonna make this big jump, let's just not run an ad. He wants to join, let's let's let's do this. And and Eric's been with us for 23, 24 years. I I apologize, the math isn't the best, but so so you you know, so you take a heating and cooling guy. Well, we know he's got the character, we know he's got the work ethic. He's he he's a uh grade older than me, and we used to wrestle each other and he used to kick my butt all the time. So so you know, so so here, but here's the thing is right, he's a grade older than me, he's a grade older than his brother, but what's the word it he's he's humble. So he didn't come in here and say, Hey, I'm the older. Guy, I'm gonna take he's like, hey, I want to be a part of something. Teach me, you know, and him and I ran together. So that that gave Keith the opportunity to, you know, he's running the 50 mini, and I bought the the 80 mini excavator, and Eric and I are figuring out things, and and you you we're we're doing utilities and water services in year one, right? Digging for plumbers and electricians, new housing. And then one builder in year two says, Hey, I know you don't want to dig basements, and you don't even have anything to do it, but I I see how precise you guys are. I think I'd like you to dig all my slab condos. And they're one unit, two units, three units, and four units wide. So, what you don't realize is now you're doing, we had to figure out things. Oh, we're gonna get an 80 and we're gonna get a little eight-foot box to go with it because we're not gonna risk safety and all that stuff, but you learn how to use a trench box, you learn how to dig a precise footer, and then you're putting the water in, the electric service, the downspouts, and then he's like, hey, the the the development excavator um didn't run this storm sewer through between the houses. Now you're doing a 12-inch storm in a catch basin with a slope laser, right? It's it but then you realize a four-unit condo is bigger than the new bank branch they put in, and then you just see how that all goes. But again, I was super cautious, and I had all that dealership experience, so I knew about RPs, rental purchases, finance. So you would rent the heck out of it to the point where most people would have already bought, but we're either RP in it or we're renting it till we're blue in the face, you know. So I don't know if that gives you insight. You know, we're only on year two here, but that's we can fast forward after that. But the gist of it is is you just build one person at a time.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

No, you dude, the the key thing you just said for me, well, two things, yeah, growing with your people, but growing with great people. That that's can't just skip over that. It's all about them, anyways, and the moments with them and growing them. And you know, as long as they're a better individual before they, you know, if they worked at Scicon, I want them to say I worked at Scicon and made me better. That's that's truly what I built this place for. It's a stepping stone. I, you know, have some guys that are gonna hopefully be here for life. That's what they tell me.

Surviving 2008 And Thinking Conservatively

SPEAKER_01 23:36

But you know what, you have the guy that you pour into that leaves after three years, and you try to figure that out. But here's the thing is that that guy we poured into him, and he gave and we knew about a year and a half in he said to us, hey, I love it here. You guys treat me well, you're teaching me a lot. But my dream is to work for like a public entity, like a water department, something like that. You know, I really want to do that. And it made sense. His dad was a fireman, like you, you know what I mean? So like he he grew up in that that world. So he communicated well. We weren't surprised when he said, Hey, I passed whatever civil service test or whatever. He gave us two weeks' notice. In his two weeks, he worked as if he was going to be there for life. So he went and got this job, but then like two years later, he had a better job at a better water department, needed a reference. So he earned my respect, the team's respect. And when they came to call it, they checked the references, and then somebody else called and said, Hey, are you related to him? Because your reference is so glad glowing. And I was like, No, it's just the truth. He earned it, you know. So, so even when you you you can either be bitter, but here's that thing. That poor guy also had to watch Keith and I learn how to be managers. So, so he was using half the hand tools that we're using today, right? You know, like now, now we have specialty wrenches for everything. He was using a uh pipe wrench where we would use a specialty wrench now, a water main wrench or something, right? So, so you know what? We weren't polished either. So he was patient with us. We we gave him everything he got, and he gave us everything he he had until the day he left. So I I do think that there are people you want people to you want to build an organization where people want to stay for life, but timing marriages, everything. You you gotta, you know, so if somebody gives you everything they got for a period of time, you don't want churn. Churn is is costly, but there's gonna be attrition over time.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Yeah, and I think you I yeah, you as long as it's a stepping stone, but you're right, people move, force can be a whole loot, a whole list of things, but as long as they're there, they give you everything, and I just don't understand after pouring in some of these individuals like four or five years within my short term, why they would want to exit any other way than on good terms, because love these people, they have poured their amount of time of life into what I was trying to build. My my vision, you know, all of our vision now. But at the same time, I want nothing but to be able to speak about just the great things. And I have some people just like that that I would write an essay on if I have if whatever they asked me, because what they gave me during the time when I needed it was unbelievable. But man, I I know exactly what you're talking about when you're saying learning to be a manager. I I used to tell these guys, man, I didn't just wake up and be a CEO, I'm making mistakes left and right. They're watching me just fold over on myself because I don't know what I'm doing, because you don't know what you don't know. And without resources like exactly what we're doing, discussing and bringing awareness that, oh, look, Matt and Cy made the kind of the same common mistakes in the first couple of years. They didn't know what they were doing. Oh, now we're 10 years in and they're kind of getting an understanding of what it means to uh be uh you know a president or whatever. But no, can that's that's spot on.

Systems Leap: Ditching Spreadsheets

Building A Team Culture That Sticks

SPEAKER_01 27:31

So so I guess really the I'm gonna try to fast-forward it. So you you kind of see the foundation, you you learn one thing, you build the next, you know, and then you so you get to 2000, 2008, recession hits. You know, we in 07, we just made our we just grossed our first million, right? And then we slid back a little bit. But here's the thing is we were financially sound. Didn't again goes back to the dealership, the college education, uh, even goes back further to my grandmothers who grew up in the depression, telling me depression stories, like literally, like the this this conservative nature that I was was brought up in, and you you learn from that and we weather it, but now we gotta we gotta look around, you know. So we we backslid a little bit in 2008, but then in from nine to now, we've just methodically grown. But we've grown in revenue, equipment, men, but we've really grown as people, like with confidence, skills, and and just building those layers uh of skills. So so you you know, I I see like fancy shops, uh jacked-up trucks, whatever that is, and that would and I'm not judging anybody's stuff, but for me personally, it was very clean, neat trucks. The tools that I would have wanted in 07. I worked with a business coach to transition from the field to more of a management office role, okay? But I never forgot where I came from. So if I'm gonna, if I'm gonna buy, you know, if I needed a radio and AC to run a 50 all day, everybody like that shouldn't change because I'm no longer in the field, right? Like if I have amenities, they need amenities. And I hope that it's kind of like your kids, you want them to be better than you, you want them to have better amenities than you had, or better tools and equipment, right? So so you build it up. So there was this era post-08 recession where it was scary because two guys that mentored me, they were excavating companies with about 30 people, both of them second generation, um, very well respected. Like if you went to their yards, the trucks were crisp, the shops were crisp, everything. One had to auction in 09 and one thought in 10, and neither of them missed a payment. It's then you start learning about did you read the fine print when you signed your line of credit? There's a covenant in there. So in college, they I probably had a whole semester on whatever whether that's accounting, business law or whatever, but you don't really pay attention to that. But all of a sudden now they're sh they're they're sharing their stories and they're telling me like, hey, we never missed a payment. The the banks got nervous and they pulled their chips off the table. And so all those guys landed well, but it didn't, they no longer have those businesses. So I attribute a lot of my growth because now I'm the 30-person company. So I can't sit here and go, wow, we did so much that we we we were lucky to be, I don't know, let's say we're six guys or five guys, and then we're lucky to get through that patch with with a strategy, right? Low debt, pay your bills on time, and then but then that that dealership, that sales experience comes in. You you know, the the ability to go out and ask for work, ask you, you know, so to to make relationships and to let those relationships carry you through a tough time. So that the so there was this era there. So then, you know, we're working our way up, and then something that you know, around I think was 16, you know. Maybe we're doing actually now, I'll take it back in 13. We were using QuickBooks, and my wife came to me again, she's she's paying some bills and that, but the kids are number one focus, but she's still giving me high, high-level good advice. She's like, I think the amount of commercial you're getting into, AIA billing, we need to look at something else. So we bought a software and we overbought for our size. Like if you looked at our gross revenue, we overbought for our size, and we we still run that software. But I'm gonna tell you is that the cost of the software, like let's say we bought it in the end of 12, going into 13. I implemented the estimating and takeoff portion, but I could not get over the hump. My personal aptitude, nobody, even though I went to college, had this, I could not get the accounting built out. So my wife came in, we brought in um colleagues from her former accounting firm, and we hired them and we paid them almost as much to help us build out cost codes, implement the data, like data entry, because mind you, I'm still trying to estimate, run crews, you know, maybe jump on a dozer here or there. So I guess my point is that this this the software wasn't the be-all end all, and I don't know that it would have ever gotten implemented if my wife didn't have previous industry knowledge of she had done big implementations, but that didn't happen at the dealership. That was a baked system. So you to see how like that I stalled, she advised, she knew who to bring in. We weren't afraid to spend some money that maybe we didn't even have completely, but that like unlocked us. It allowed us to go from like two and a half million to say four or five million because we were processing change orders better than peers, not better than the big guys, but better than an eight-person company. So we were we were um operating like a 30-person company with eight people. So then you're building your reputation for professionalism, not just in the field, because you remember you got Keith leading the charge and taking what I taught him and making it better. Then you got what my wife advised me on, and I'm digging in, so I was learning the to do the payroll, those sort of things. So, like, so so that's a big milestone was that getting away from QuickBooks and Excel spreadsheets and using an industry, industry-specific software. It really did have a big impact. But then, mind you, we had a three-acre plot of land with a house we rented on it, another house that that we rented, a 30 by 30 barn, we had a half-stall garage and 10,000 square feet of gravel. And that was our operation for 16 years. And we had a home office because we had six kids, and that was the way my wife and I could manage it, right? So, so like we didn't need other people were like, why didn't you build a shop yet? Why haven't you done this? So, so people look at our shop and office now and they're like, wow, this is a great thing, but it was 16 years in the making, you know. So that kind of gets us up into that 15 and 16, and we hired I'm horrible at math in my head, but we we hoarded hired a crop of guys during that time, and I'm talking guys from the 18 years old to about 30, 32, and we have a bunch of them here. So there's three of us that were kind of the OGs from the early 2000s, and then there's this awesome crop of guys that three three of our foreman, three of our four foreman are from that kind of 15, 16 hiring window. And um, you know, one of them is is Keith Jake's Keith and Eric's cousin. Okay, so it's it's referrals, it you know, so Jake's 18. What did Jake do? He swept the shop floor, he ran parts, he applies to OSU's two-year construction management program. He works here 40 hours a week and goes to school full-time and worked his way up from sweeping the floor to running the parts to labor, pipe layer, top man, topak guy, skid steer guy, uh, operator. So that was in like I I'm gonna get the years wrong, but the gist of it is from 16 and then in 20, at 23 years old or 22, he's promoted to foreign. Okay, so there's this, so there's this crop that is building it's it's uh Dominic, Jake, and and Chris are that foreman group, but then like Joe, our GPS manager. I think this is year nine, almost 10. I think he's crossing into 10 this year, and he was in the he was interviewed in the half-stall garage, right? He he he tells all these guys that work out of this nice professional facility, Chris and I, we got interviewed in the garage, and then you know, you know, that sort of thing. So I think that that you know, but at that time we were still professional. When they came to our 30 by 30 barn and and our half stall garage, the other stall was rented to my renter to make ends meet on that property, right? You know, but they they did all those things, and so so you know, um Jakes went to college, has that two-year degree. Dominic's comes in a year later. Domit showed up at my house. Remember, my my office is at my house, so the mailing address for the business is actually my house, it's not even near our shop. He knocks on the door, hey, you hiring? I'd love to be an excavator. It's like, sorry, man, we're looking for somebody with a CDL. So he leaves, goes to work for the railroad for a year, gets a CDL. Now we've moved to this new shop in 17. He shows up and he's like, I got my CDL, like you said. And I was like, Well, I guess we got to hire you, you know, right? So you talk about these generations that doesn't work. I don't I don't buy that, you know. So so then, you know, we we hire Chris at the same time in this same era as we hired Joe. He's I I'm gonna get the years wrong. I'm gonna say he's in his 30s, but he's landfill, recycling facilities, mechanical, but he doesn't know water main, commercial construction, all that. But you stick Chris with Keith, because Keith now is is a working foreman. So you have a uh somebody with age, experience, and knowledge, and then you you put those guys together. Now, now Chris, I'll put him against anybody on water main in the in the state. You know what I mean? Like he he tackles the hardest stuff. So so it those four guys, you know, and Joe, Joe was a our labor operator, top man, all that. And then he showed a propensity for GPS, and now he's been in the office for three years, and he not only did the the GPS, but you know, he's just bought us a drone. And but we we when you show aptitude, we pour into you. We got him. Um, I'm gonna shout out Rock Pile Solutions. If you run Trimble, you should you should have a membership to Rock Pile Solutions because they have trained that crap out of Joe, and and he's he's a a sponge, so he gives back to them too, and they enjoy his his good nature and and his passion for the industry, right? So so I there's this process. So I kind of got you from the beginning to like 17, 18, you know, and we're growing. We're now we're in a new facility with you know 8,000 square feet of shop and you know, all that stuff. And again, we probably bought the shop a little before we needed it, but it was it was a good investment for my wife and I in that. So then you you get that. Well, now all of a sudden, when you're interviewing people, they look at you a little different. Now you're instead of meeting your customer at a job site, you're inviting them to your conference table to have a meeting. So so you But it was like people look at it online in 2025 when I post on LinkedIn, and they're like, but they don't know that that was blood, sweat, and tears, and that was a very conservative path. So you know, we didn't move into this for 17 years. So, anyways, I I know I'm going chronological, and you probably have questions. You want me to you, you, you roll however you want.

New Facility, New Credibility

SPEAKER_00 41:20

So, man, you I literally have a feeling that every individual is bought into your story just like I am. Couple key notes here that I didn't want to pass up. You used 2008 as a ramp because you were financially sound, stable to mentors, competitors. They, you know, auction up. Here you are going, oh my gosh, this is a prime example. You were smart though, preparing I that accounting background and jumping on a software as early as you did. But the cost codes and the implementation of it, man, we went through the, I'll say it, I went through the two years of Procore. We could never get to that point. Um, you know, we've used some other accounting software, but we've always been QuickBooks because that's what my wife learned through our YouTube university and reaching out here, checking these, checking this report. Oh, that doesn't look good. Okay, what did I not do? You know, that's how we learned, man. We didn't have that background, but how instrumental is it for your wife to have that background and go, hey, you need a little bit of help. Let's go over here. And back then, I guess that would be called, you know, some fractional help. You bring in the experts. Hey guys, this is what our goal is. This is where I need. And I just wanted to shine light on that because, man, I've done that for the last 18 months. That's what I'm doing. I'm bringing in experts because I don't, I get, I guess I didn't know how to build systems as much as I thought I did because they weren't freaking working time and time again. So way to see that and give credit where credit's due. I can't tell you how many times my wife, Sarah, has tried to rein me back in during my rapid, sloppy growth period. And I can be honest about it because I didn't know what I was doing. I just kept chasing and kept chasing. So to hear the other side of it, bringing a business coach in to help, of course, migrate yourself from working in the business and not on the business, and not and and help you fight that internal struggle of I gotta be on that track to help that guy because this is what I know, and I know that's a tough situation. And being, man, you just hit so many wonderful key things, but the software implementation, as you know, I want uh I just recently came off of QuickBooks and I am trying a new different accounting software we were kind of talking about. Shout out to the control core boys and uh Josh Lubecker over there with construction CFO. They are in 60 days really doing some crazy stuff that I wish I would have known about 10 years ago when I started, of course, and and did more of that conservative path. I'm I'm more of the opposite where reins were off and I just went. There's reasons behind that as we shared off camera. And a lot of these guys have been listening to the show long enough, knew the early years of the blood, sweat, and tears when no profitability. And but to to hear you recurringly have people willing to buy into what you guys are doing, and not only I don't want to come in, I'm I'm a tracco operator, I've been doing it 30 years. You know, you hear those people all the time, but willing to come in as a pipeline, just straight up laborer, parch runner, learn what we do here, figure out um, you know, walking up to a tracco is dangerous within this 30-foot or swing radius. Obviously, we should you know we should have had a talk about that or or you know, before we get them on site, but at the same time, you don't know that stuff in the early years. You you start figuring that out. So the best way to do that is running parts. You're learning the parts, you're figuring out when they need them in the ditch. And you know, there's not many water and sewer guys, so this is why I was so excited to sit here and talk with you because we have the same mindset. And, you know, talking about the tools that these guys are using. I I literally tell Dylan all the time, do you see what these guys got in the ditch? You remember the freaking channel logs and crescent wrenches we were doing to bust megalugs off with, you know. Anyways, but um some absolute key moments. Number one, congratulations. Seriously, uh, it's in order. We don't clap for each other loud enough, not just me and you, but just in the industry in general. And uh to make it five years, but to make it 25 is unbelievable. The and I I want to hear about how it's gone from you know propelling, you've got this software, you're starting to understand job costing eventually after it gets implemented, so you can start seeing accurate and timely reporting and how that unlocked for your business. But take us, you know, to this present day, man. I'm interested in it.

SPEAKER_01 46:19

I think it's important to because people are gonna they see the progression and it sounds all linear. It's not, it's it was a stair step up so up plateau, up plateau. But the when you were on that plateau, there were a couple dips on the plateau and then up. So I think it's the it sounds good when I I can tell a good story, but like the reality of it is there was a lot of dips, right? So then we get to 2019. We we got a great group of guys, landed a huge water main job. We just it just seemed like everything was clicking in 19, right? So then um we had our best sales year and our best net profit year. And we've got this great group of guys, right? And I I'm getting ready to uh go on a family trip the week between Christmas and New Year's, and on December 20th, one of our guys walks in, and mind you, this is at this point 10 field guys and three office people, right? And puts a handwritten request to switch crews on my desk. Okay. I wish he would have just come and talked to me, but I have this, you know, so it's the last night before we're off till like after the new year, right? So I was like, hey, I I got your request. I will talk to you when we get back. It basically it said that our foreman who had been with us 13 years was spinning out. So one of our guys, our our commercial foremans, just so so you you're like it is you're you're at this peak. And and if that was it, you you so we attacked that. So we came back after the first of the year because basically I don't want to get too detailed, but just basically there was personal things, uh, and then he it just w was putting a lot of burden on the other guys. And like we came in and we sat at that new conference table, and it was like a counseling session, like family counseling. Like we worked through it, we we figured out a lot and made sure that the culture and everything we built was intact, right? So this is this is uh January, February of 2020, right? Right before COVID hits. So we get that right. Well then March comes, March 16th, Ohio. They announce we're shutting down. Luckily we didn't shut down very long, but so everything that got us to December 20th and 19th, throw that out the window. And the last five years have been the wildest um business lesson ride. So I that's what I I don't like you don't if you think, oh I did I got to 20 and I got it all figured out. No, like you so we we set a record here, then we backslid a little bit in 2020, but that gentleman that was spinning out, unfortunately we had to dismiss him. So we went from we had three crews at that time with three foremen. I don't know why we had the equipment to do it. Those two guys, Domek and Jake, we promoted both of them. So in the heart of COVID, no written plan, but but a a a communicated plan of their future. We just fast forwarded it. And we went to four crews and promoted both of them because they both deserved it. And right in the heart of of something you and I've never experienced, we did that. Okay, and we're trucking along, and we're like, okay, we're figuring it out. We we're I'm a rule follower, we were keeping our people safe and working on that. My estimator, who was in his 60s, we'd had him I'd been remote for years because our home office. So we didn't have to like invent remote, we had already switched to remote everything. He he comes back to work after a couple weeks, he turns in his his two-week notice. He so he's the estimator project manager, we have all our systems in place, and and you know what? He he had earned it. But I think that the like the COVID scare, you know, you're in your 60s, you you thought you maybe you'd work another year or two. He was like, What am I doing? I've done I've earned enough money to retire. So you know, he we ended up having a nice conversation, he stayed on a little longer. But we we uh in 2020, in the heart of COVID, lost a 13-year veteran of our company that we had groomed from from a labor to foreman, lost this veteran guy who had mentored the crap out of me, and then um you're dealing with all the the COVID stuff, gross revenues down a little bit, net profits down, and you're promoting guys. So then then you're like, okay, but you figure it out and you do that, and then you that that r remember that kind of rush, everybody was pent up aggression, so now they're starting to spend money 21, 22, but you're dealing with the most rapid inflation I'd ever dealt with. First time I'd ever dealt with material shortages, the equipment shortage, so everything I learned at the dealership ship about RPs and long-term rentals went out the window. So you had to like so I'm and I'm gonna say none of this from a negative standpoint, it's the facts of what we've dealt with the five years. So we had to rewrite the playbook while working, while raising families and kids, so there was births in there, there were and I'm talking about the team, right? The whole faculty births, deaths, graduations, major surgeries, you name it. So everybody's also so you're doing all this on the fly, and in the process, we kept we we methodic we kept that methodical approach and saying yes. Well then we well now we built this professional organization. So these guys that crop from 16, Chris is inviting his brother to come work for us. He's telling another guy to and you see how so we went from we basically doubled in size from 20 to 25 or 24. So we doubled in revenue and doubled in manpower. So we had all these beautiful systems in place, and we started to break those systems. So our customers never knew it, our employees, I don't believe, knew it, but the office knew it. Like we were like, we know that we're we're getting RFIs out, we're getting things billed, change orders done, but we're not doing it as efficiently as we did at a we've just broke the systems, so 23, 24, and 25, we're kind of breaking the systems and then building them back up. So we're we're good, we're successful, but does that make sense?

Peaks, Plateaus, And Painful Dips

SPEAKER_00 53:47

I'm just so glad to hear somebody else talk about the brutal beating we went through of that time. Like I had only been in business five years, at four years at that point, and they were rough four years just trying to get this thing off the ground. Then this COVID thing, I'm trying to learn to be a manager, trying to be rule follower. I don't ever want to put my people in place, you know. And we worked right through that, but I had to start, I had to literally haul my own pipe. I was a little guy, man. I was just breaking into the market. So I started up, at least a truck on, got a flatbed, and I backdoored a distribution deal coming out of Alabama, and I got, and this is absolutely crazy. This is the complete opposite, but I had to buy 12,000 feet of pipe, uh literal a bundle, and I had two big jobs that were knuckle jobs. And if it sounded like I was gonna get them, I was 15 days away from contract and I started hauling pipe into my yard because I knew if I signed the con, if they brought me the contracts and I didn't make this deal happen, there was no pipe. Like there wasn't, and people didn't understand that. And people were like, why is this guy starting a trucking company? Well, I it really didn't want to start a trucking company. I had to move my own freaking material across the country and make some something happen. And then, oh, the package of machinery that I was gonna buy and and and lock in at 0% before all this volatility happened with the interest. Oh, your machine's delayed. Oh, your machine's delayed. Do what? So now I'm dealing with material shortages, equipment shortages. Oh, and everything, you can't tell me what a cost is because you can't get it. So by the time I get it, is the cost going to be different? How can I project for this? Here I am dealing with all of this, breaking out into the commercial world, terrible timing, but I didn't know. I had a grade 19, 20, you know, I had just bought out my partners and I had to run revenue, you know? And so it was such a difficult time. Hyperinflation, hyper costs that we're just now starting to see some softening in. Thank God fuel's coming down. You know, PVC's starting to soften from what I'm hearing and it's it's crazy. We're we're in 2026. This was six years ago, and we're still dealing with residuals. So it's just so reassuring for me. Like I told you guys, I was so excited to literally hear the story myself along with you guys, but it's just so much reassurance for myself to hear somebody like you. Man, the last five years completely different from the first 20 that I tried this thing. And I was really, you know, nailing coffin. But no, I had some of that rapid growth within that volatile time. And I just wanted, you know, I I felt like I was on an island some of the time because, you know, I was new in business and it probably wasn't affecting these bigger guys that way. Well, to hear somebody else that it directly affected is is personally reassuring. But man, did you just I know what you mean when you say, man, Dominic and Jake deserved it? What was I supposed to do? I I like me and my wife, we we butted heads on some of that. This guy's been here four years, the spot's open, and every time I've tried hiring externally for more experience, I bring him in, culture killer, throws everything. Now, don't get me wrong, very small percentage of time it works out. And we've had a gentleman that has worked out, and thank God he's here today. But at the same time, 90% of the time, if they haven't worked their way up from that ditch, by the time they actually get to a sound of accountability, it's uh it's pretty hard to really understand what we're doing here. And especially the way Bactel does it or the way Sycon does it, where it sounds like we have the same common denominator is we built this for our people. Yes, it feeds our family, but all these other families that are connected to it too, that's what I want to see. I want to see their personal growth. I want to see them be better people. I want to see the family started, the houses built. That's what I built this for. And to have somebody sharing a common goal and to hear a quarter of a century you've been at this is just unbelievable to be shared with the audience today. And number one, thank you for carrying the humbleness to sit here on the show with me and and talk about this story because we need it more in the industry.

SPEAKER_01 58:31

Yeah, I mean, here's the thing is I'm a student, a dirt nerd, whatever you want to call it. I enjoy it. That's why I get on LinkedIn, you know, I it and all that stuff. But because of my sales background, I I had I do talk to a lot of people. And I talk to bigger excavating contractors, my wife and I are in a peer group, and I we're gonna be with them in the first week of February. And and a lot of those gentlemen are about 10 years older than I am, maybe, maybe 15, and they've seen a lot. And that when they tell you this is this was a new playbook, they didn't whine about it. They all came through it, right? So you roll up your sleeves, but if you if you sit there and think you've you've made it, you're gonna you're gonna get knocked off that pedestal. So that that's that's really my point. And I I think that I don't want anybody to think like when I say it was that painful or whatever, that like that's just the burden that myself, my wife, Keith, we try to keep that the the executive team understanding it, and we would communicate with the team like hey, we're sorry guys, that like materials aren't getting to you the way it they used to. And we'd explain it. We have pretty regular meetings, uh, and we would give them enough uh to to know like we're just we're we didn't lose our touch, uh the the the things just changed, right? And if you keep everybody in the loop and communicating that, uh and and then our customers, they didn't notice it at all. I think actually our uh the customers saw each of these guys that are are learning that had been there from 16 and on, they were getting better. So the customer facing art was actually improving while we were working through the it really it's just process and procedure, right? It's not it was it wasn't that like we couldn't do the work, it's just we knew that a task that took four hours, either with a better process or procedure or better paperwork, we could get it back down to two hours. So that that's all we're doing. And and we're not there yet, but we've we made great strides in the last two years. But we're kind of in that plateau of we yeah, we're still we'll bring on one person this year or two if if the right person comes on, but we're not looking. to to to then ramp up. Let's get the foundation right and then we can we can jump off of a solid foundation.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:03

I am in the same exact mindset my my friend. I am like trying to ensure I'm going back to my roots and I've changed the playbook a little bit, but uh the numbers don't lie. And uh being willing to listen to them and being willing to set the ego aside and go, ooh, maybe maybe this isn't the venture I need to be doing right now. And um you know you're a pipe guy through and through stick to being a pipe. But it's been tough. And so let's let's flip the script. What about 2026? You know we just come through this crazy year. How's 2026 looking for you guys? And uh what are you most excited about probably within what Backdolls do?

COVID Shock: Promotions And Pivots

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

Uh we got an exciting project we when we saw the slowdown in 25 we went we've been doing water services for years but we landed a uh a public works led service line replacement contract 1245 houses two-year contract um so we own all the equipment we have the knowledge but if you've seen the intensity of our meetings because it's not about doing the work we actually have to contact 1245 people set up an appointment get in their house so it it's a great contract but we're gonna like we wrote a procedure yesterday for from the time basically and it's four pages long currently and it'll probably top off in that five pages so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel every week for the next two weeks. And that's Zach Estes, that's Benjamin Holgram that's you know what I'm saying like that's that influence of watching their webinars and doing that stuff. Okay. So so that's that whole LinkedIn network that if you didn't if if you weren't a dirt nerd surfing the LinkedIn stuff and making those relationships you wouldn't have known like let's make it visible. Let's do write all these these things that they're talking about. So um so that's that's that's what I'm excited about. We we're gonna we we moved a lot of uh process and procedure forward while Keith's mentoring that field group of people so I'm seeing we're gonna be able to move some people around because they just are getting more skilled so I'm excited for our team but there is a lot a lot of um grunt work to to continue it and then me personally one of my things that I gotta really be cautious of is getting excited about something and putting a ton of energy in it for three months and either not finishing it or or not being consistent afterwards. So I'm really as a man I'm focusing on that both with my health watching what I eat working out and you know applying that to the business too so we can't get all wound up in January and then fall back into the old habits in August when it's hot and we're all wore out right so so that's good that's our 26.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:14

Man that's exciting times and I wanna one last point I got one last question for you. I want to make sure everybody heard what Matt said he wrote a procedure yesterday. Man's been in business 26 years wrote a procedure yesterday they're living documents you always are improving that system that process that procedure however you especially customer relations in any type of regard of how do we deal with this yes or no and the flow charts like it really they need it your team needs that structure to have an understandability of success like how do they get there and if you don't paint them a roadmap and put it together not just out of your head but the team that's dealing with it bring them in figure out send them I'm a meeting heavy guy too and but at the same time I I have reshaped them over the year to be more direct more effective with their time because we can only retain about an hour at a time anyways but hey guys look what are uh my at the kickoff meeting what is something that has been repeatable if it happens twice in the same thing it's time to build a system somebody send an email get it on the list next brainstorm rain day let's sit together let's figure these out because this is common over and over again but dude I just wanted to shine some some light on that because I think a lot of these younger guys they're hearing processes and systems like, you know, oh I I get this section of my business done. No man it's an everyday thing. Every single time you hit a repeatable subject matter that is either costing you money or missing the opportunity of making money for the love of God write a system and a process it doesn't even have to be anything fancy. It's hey this problem arose three times in this month this is how we deal with it next time file it next time that gets arose review this document.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:20

And and one final thought on that is it I was the facilitator but it was a pro Chad my project manager Robbie my office manager Keith my superintendent operations manager Chris our foreman so um it was a team effort and if Joe hadn't been on jury duty he would have probably our GPS manager who had been in the field would have thrown his two cents in and Jeff our estimator he popped in so it was truly a team effort to get that because we're all going to have to touch the parts of it. So we're trying to stay within the confines of our processes that we've already got but knowing that the the repetitiveness and the scale of this needs to be repetitive in in in even better. So we're gonna be better for in the long but it was it it was a true team effort in getting it to to that point.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:14

So 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 dot com backslash BCB podcast or click the link in the show notes slash description below. Thanks guys unbelievable number one I can't thank you enough for your time but I got one more final question for you that I ask everybody from all different types of uh the world at this point and all different types of the industry that that affect the the blue collar guy but what's some advice or a takeaway for for that blue collar guy as you know you've been that laborer in that water ditch in an August day when it's 110 degrees outside but those guys that are just mentally stuck in the mud maybe emotionally stuck in the mud or literally physically what's some insight for them on a personal level counseling I'm a big proponent of that go put the work in if you're willing to go to the gym if you're willing to to take a uh Benjamin Holgram class to improve your efficiency or Zach Estes you better do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:05

I would I'd highly recommend it and I encourage all my my team to do that. So um so on a personal level if you if you personally feel stuck get a mentor if you're if you're into into church dig back into my you know I dig back into my devotionals I get a little lazy and when I'm getting off track you know doing that stuff and then then just just uh ask for help. Men stink at that right but just ask for help I guarantee you have a teammate that's dealt with it whether it's a field a quick excavating problem or a home problem. If you got a good team around you they should be able to support you. And if you don't have anybody that can support you probably should look for another place to work.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:52

Great answer sir. Uh if you guys didn't hear the mention earlier go find Matt on LinkedIn give him a follow he's always sharing some some great bit of news from either Zach or Ben, those guys I had Zach on the show but it sounds like I need to get Mr. Olgram on the show and and shine some light on what he does. I've heard this out of a couple of different folks and and maybe get in it myself. So um Matt I can't tell I tell you how much I appreciate your time seriously and jumping on and being willing to tell your story here. It's so relatable oh my gosh our our stories are very relatable obviously yours a lot more elongated than mine but um sir I I commend you for wanting to help change the industry and show some insight as to hey we all struggle to get where we're at it's not all rainbows and freaking unicorns like everybody's painting it to be and we're struggling every month every day to get where we're trying to go but the discipline just like you said I'm also doing that this year for 2026 guys is sending some different disciplines because nothing changes if nothing changes. So create the change be the facilitator in the change go check out um backdelexcavating.com correct sir okay good backdleexcavating calm uh if you're in the northeastern in the northeastern ohio area regional anywhere in that region give them a ring they've got the team to support your needs uh again mr backel thank you very much and uh hope to catch you at Con Expo not this year upon enough to the to come we don't need to learn anything new we need to to finish the projects we started 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