Ep. 86 - Machine Control Secrets for Grading and Utilities with Matt Gillett

Downtime is not a mechanic problem, it is a profit leak that can wipe out a week of work in two days. We sit down with Matt Gillett, founder of Gillett Excavating in Michigan, to tell the truth about what it takes to grow an excavation company from a $500 start into a full service heavy civil construction and underground utilities contractor. The stories are raw because the lessons are expensive, and we want you to steal the learning without paying the same tuition.

We get into the real-world tech debate around GPS machine control and total station guided grading: when it boosts production, when it creates another failure point, and why operator skill still has to come first. Matt breaks down his switch back to Trimble after trying Topcon, plus how he thinks about automated dozers, 3D excavators, and “indicate only” setups for tighter sites and faster decision making. If you are bidding commercial work, expanding into mass grading, or trying to decide whether to invest in GPS guided equipment, this will help you ask better questions.

Then we go where most podcasts avoid: equipment payments, cash flow, and the brutal moments that force clarity. Matt shares what late pay can do to a growing contractor, the hard cuts he made when life changed, and why the real mission is family, not a never-ending business fire drill. We close with leadership that scales: core values you can hire and fire by, and the “first 30 last 30” system that sets expectations, improves safety, and keeps crews productive.

Subscribe for more blue collar business advice, share this with a contractor who is feeling the pressure, and leave a review so more excavation and heavy civil owners can find these conversations.

Transcript

Welcome Sponsor And Mission

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Hey guys, welcome to the Blue Collar Business Podcast where we discuss the realest, rawest, most relevant stories and strategies behind building every corner of a blue-collar business. I'm your host, Sy 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 today by Paidwort Support. Check them out at paydordsupport.com. As you guys know, Ben and the team over there are amazing when it comes to civil takeoffs, civil quantification, anything on the front of house, your, you know, maybe your first commercial job, and you really want some extra eyes on it and have an understanding of what that job is before you sign that contract, get with paydirdsupport.com. They can also not just on the takeoff quantification part, they can also build you a model for what's going on within that job. And especially you guys that are just tipping your toe in the commercial world, they're a great asset and resource to reach out to. Guys, I have been a fan of this gentleman for a little while on LinkedIn. Uh, today is a very, I think you guys will carry on a few laughs in today's. The similar stories that we were just sharing in the green room was kind of uncanny. Um the length of time, how we did it, the trials and tribulations, it's all there. And it's the things that you guys are facing every day. And I hope to shed some light through today's episode. Um, gentlemen is a founder and ex I'm sorry, founder and executive manager of Gillette Excavating, established in 2015. Started from absolutely nothing. I know I have a feeling how that feels, feller. Um, scaled the company from a solo operation to a full service, heavy civil construction firm. Um, they they started out on a little bit of fine grading, utility, you dirt work guys, stay tuned. We're we're talking about you guys today. And one of the other conversations that I'm really excited to share with our guests today is all about GPS guided equipment. We haven't had that conversation on the show in a little bit, and I know it's such a um uh just a general question for everybody in our industry. Do it, don't do it. Who, who, what, what brand do you select? What equipment do you go with? Why, how, when, all of that. And so I'm excited to get get into that. Furthermore, Matt Gillette, Gillette excavating, straight up out of the upland of Michigan. Thank you for joining me today, big dog.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Thanks for having me, man. Appreciate it.

Building From Nothing To Civil

SPEAKER_01 2:59

No, we were uh guys, we were talking just super briefly in the green room, and man, Matt was literally talking about my story. He seemed like I was I was sharing his story, and it was just so similar. We're about it's got about a year on me in business and obviously a totally different area of the country, um, but very similar size. It sounds um very similar in job scopes as well. Matt, if you wouldn't mind giving us a little bit of a background of uh you can take us as far back as you'd like, but um give us a little background to what Gillette Excavating started from and what it is today.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Yeah, so I mean, I was telling me earlier, I was 19 years old when I pulled the uh LLC filings for this thing. Um really I did it because I told my dad, like, hey man, I I love you, dad, but I want to do something different and I think I can run a business better than you, right? So the whole young kid knowing better than dad. Um, so I started this thing in 19, uh slowly raised through, you know, built it up from the ground up, made made a lot of mistakes, like a lot of people do, right? Uh, especially the founders, right? The founders are the ones that have their hearts in it. You know, we we started off with a you know, I literally had$500 for my name in a rotted out pickup truck. And next thing I know, I'm doing 10-acre site development at 20 years old and and thinking I own the world, right? Um, you know, and we we built it up and so we we kind of went from doing some residential, kind of playing around in the site market um to jumping into fine grading. Uh that's where we really cut our teeth and and I think we did very well there, uh, but we grew past what that market was allowed to basically provide us. Um so then we jumped back into commercial. Uh, had a great mentor um get me into underground, civil underground. Uh, we had, I don't know, a couple years into getting into you know large commercial, medium commercial, underground, and subdivisions, you know, residential development underground. And then last two years we've been really trying to develop our dirt dirt side. You know, we had a mass grading slash kind of getting back into the fine grading a little bit, but more high scale.

The Mentor Who Changed Everything

SPEAKER_01 5:17

So you know, it sounds very similar in markets, doing kind of the similar thing as well. Obviously, pipe guy did the dirt thing for three years that really we cut our teeth and learned some really hard, valuable lessons. And as you know, they're very expensive in that world. Um, but man, it's so funny you say I had a mentor, and we talk about this all the time, and I don't think we shine enough light on when you're making these big pivots, have somebody that's done it before and talk a little bit about, you know, don't have to drop any names or anything like that, but having that mentor to call and go, hey man, because I've done it too. No shame. Hey man, what is this you just sent me? I I'm I'm looking at these set of prints, I want to bid it, I want to do it. I I know it's waterline, I can put it in the ground, but make this make sense to me. And um, uh, you know, talk a little bit about that that mentor that helped you get into this trade.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

So to start off, and I think it's important to say our my mentor, uh he he didn't know me from Adam, right? He he gave me a little edge drain job that me and a couple of guys knocked out in in record time, and the guy's like, Man, these kids, these kids hustle. And and at that time, I think it was probably these kids are you know pretty dumb, but man, they're fighting through it, right? And we we did, I don't know, a few jobs for him. He ended up retiring, and he says, Hey, I I wanna I don't want to sell you this business because he was tied to the union. He goes, I wanna I want to be a consultant for you and I want to help you build your underground side deal. So I mean, I we talk three times a day. I mean, this guy is super close. I you know, he's almost like a relative, like a father in some sort. Um, but he's just he's he's probably the the best main line digger in Michigan that I know of. I mean, he is the most efficient that I've ever met, and we gotten really lucky to be able to bounce ideas off of and and learn how to put in pipe from I mean, a guy who has a reputation that is unrivaled in the east side of Michigan. So it's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

So take us through that, and I'm gonna assume a huge difference between me and you in uh frost depth. I'm assuming like 18 inches is our frost line here. I'm assuming no water lines going in the ground up there at three feet deep, eh?

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Yeah, no, no, no, not unless you want them to break. Uh so Michigan, like we're putting water main in five and a half foot berry, six and a half foot berry. Um, so it's you know, our frost lines right around there, you know, and this year was a testament to that. I think we were digging an open field, not a roadway, but a snow covered field, and the frost is four and a half foot deep. So we were it when it gets cold in Michigan, it gets cold. We were, I guess unfortunate, but fortunate we had a nice cold winter, you know, good for the snowmobilers, but bad for the dirt eyes.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Do you, I guess every excavation guy, do you guys do snow removal in the winter?

SPEAKER_00 8:22

No, I did it one year and I said never again.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

You know, it's funny. I did the same thing on the public side of things. Um, like, hey, let me come plow your commercial lot. Well, now we just do it for two very select clients that have some commercial property, and um it's been blessed to have that for the last couple of years. But yeah, no, the snow removal thing ain't for me, but I figured up there you guys would have snow for a couple of months at a time. But um no, where I was going with the the depth thing is you know, hearing your mentors' efficiencies, like what uh most generally everything on average up there is going to be a little bit deeper, which creates some um problematic procedures when you're putting in just pipe. And when you're brand new, I could only imagine um, just like myself walking out there, I knew how to put a pipe in the ground, but did I know how to do it the most efficient? It's cost saving and safe for people to get in and out of the hole. No, I didn't. And I had to learn from either people literally walking up job supers, you know, on these commercial sites. Hey man, you gonna bench that out? Well, yeah, man, I I apologize. That's that's we we don't tolerate that here. And so I had to really raise my expectations. But you know, when you're you're so fearful uh out on those first couple of underground uh jobs, and you were sharing there briefly about you know one of your first jobs. I if you wouldn't mind kind of talking about like you, you you dove right off in it, dude. You didn't just you know the fine grading, but you know, that first major job for you that kind of elevated you into the commercial world.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Yeah, so I mean, you're talking the first year, the first year I was in business, I did take a job working for a local underground company. That's kind of where I cut my teeth. I was a loader operator for most of the year. And I think I got, I don't know, 30 days into a seat of a mainline digger, and then I got laid off for winter layoff. But man, I'm not gonna do this. I'm not gonna sit and do nothing, right? I'm not, I'm gonna build what I started. And it just somehow relationship after you know meeting a couple of guys and and you know, my desire to build something. I met this customer and we got a 10-acre commercial site development on TM. And then it was one of those, like, you know, you people get their lucky breaks, right? And you you see, you know, bigger companies like, man, them guys are lucky, right? They might get their lucky breaks later in life. I got mine early in life, and maybe only one or two of them, right? So we got, I mean, the we sent them a bill and the guy writes check the same day or next day, right? I mean, as a 20-year-old that I was renting all my equipment, I had three employees at that time, and they were part-time employees, right? We I mean, you didn't have enough work to keep full-time guys in the beginning. Um, and I I mean, I still look back at those pictures today. I mean, there's pictures of us putting storm sewer in in the middle of winter, and here I am, a 20-year-old kid that mainline dug for 30 days, never even shot grades on a pipe or knew what invert meant, right? And I'm putting a whole storm sewer system and digging attention pond and putting a building pad in, and you know, the the mistakes I made, right? The mistakes I made and the what I learned, right, was just great. And it was what I mean, what an awesome job to do it, right? T and M couldn't have couldn't have had a better opportunity to learn. It was like the only time we were able to get that.

Fine Grading As The Growth Engine

SPEAKER_01 11:45

See what I was gonna say. I've been in it 10 years and I ain't never had no 10 acre on a T and M. Like man, gosh was literally giving and man, you were destined to make it. I mean, honestly, what an opportunity to start out with. But at the same time, kudos to you, man. 20 years old, what a light of desire. That guy didn't just um obviously some see some punk kid, he saw something in you and look at you now, like the what you've done with that opportunity. And um, man, the the 20 years old, rocking and rolling, here you are, and you're not worried about winter layoff that year. You're you're you're literally taking it. So fine grading, you move from there and you kind of you said fine grading market. Is that like literally what I'm thinking? Jobs done, backfill of curb, or talk me through that. Well, how was that transition?

SPEAKER_00 12:36

So we were doing, I remember we were doing this little underground job for one of my competitors, and this guy pulls up in a white pickup, like, hey man, you got a dozer? Yeah, I got a dozer. Well, you need grading? He goes, Yeah, I got a parking lot that I need graded. We we we're a paver. And I didn't know this guy, I didn't give him a bit. He goes, I'll give you, I'll give you four grand to go go grade it. Well, okay, cool. Well, I wasn't doing nothing on Friday and Saturday. Let's go make four grand, right? So I go grade this parking lot and I was there by myself. And then the guy says up and goes, Man, I love what you do, I love your work ethic. Be my fine grade guy, right? And from there on out, we were fine grading for three or four different pavers across uh southeast Michigan, and that's what we were doing. We were we were fine graded, we would grade 60,000, 70,000 square foot with a D5 dozer and a couple of guys checking grade with string line, and that's that's what that's how we made it. That's what we made our profit on. So you go grade a job for 15, 20 cents a square foot, and you could do 60,000 square foot in a day, you're you're doing all right, you know, a little dozer. Yeah, wow, and uh we cut our teeth on too. I'm not saying it's without without you know trials and tribulations. Like uh one of my favorite pavers, we we do a lot of partner paving with them now. Um one of their foremans. I remember him grabbing me by my ear, like physically grabbing my ear, dragging me around the site and saying, dude, you screwed that up, you screwed that up, go fix it. And it it made us one of the and I'm not you know, ego aside, we were one of the probably premier grading guys in that area, but it was because of me. It was a non-repeatable system because fine grading was a skill that you either got it or you don't, and that's why we scaled past it.

Total Station Control Productivity Jump

SPEAKER_01 14:25

You know, we call that a reference term is blue topping down here, getting ready for asphalt. And anybody that's listened to this that's ever pushed a cubic yard of material, they know how picky asphalt guys and how picky concrete guys are. So if you're going around grading out and getting this ready for asphalt, you're doing something, dude, and doing four companies at a time. Yeah. And so you said string lines and check and grade. I mean, that's how we always did it back in the day. Like when we first started, GPS was like this super high-level conversation, even more than it is now. Like it was unobtainable for guys like me and you in before the early 20s, you know, 2020s there, and and they started coming out with some products that made a little bit more affordable sense. But at the same time, like I'm assuming, did you enter the GPS world during the fine grading world? That was my big question there. Okay. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Yeah. So when we entered uh and I'll call it machine control realm, when we entered a machine control realm, it was probably my second year in in the paving sector. And what we did instead of GPS, we did UTF. So we did uh total station guided grading uh for the tolerance because our tolerance were typically plus or minus quarter, three-eighths of an inch. Uh, so we ran a UTS system on our D5, and I would go out there with my little yeah, UTS rover, and I would go out and I would, you know, topo the entire lot and build a 3D file on the the tablet in the field, and then we would go bang it out and grade it. And it took our grading up from like, I think we were doing anywhere from 40 to 65,000 square foot, you know, with string line to 80 to 120,000 square foot in a day.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

With at least one one less guy, I would assume as well.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

One less guy. Yeah, well, we put that other guy in an excavator ripping ash flow out, so we're using them somewhere else making money. Yeah. And on top of that, I didn't have to be in the seat. Yep.

GPS Debate And Training Operators

SPEAKER_01 16:32

That's where I was literally that's literally where I was going next, is like, yeah, where what kind of a rocket launch after that? I I you said you earlier made earlier mention that you kind of um moved away from the fine grading when obviously this this is about when underground's really starting to take off for you, I'm assuming, as well. Right there. And then obviously you've already had machine control. Um, did you have any machine control excavators indicate anything like that on on your underground side of things?

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Uh not at not at that point. We did end up getting uh a 245 John Deere has 3D earthworks on it. Um, and specifically, it's actually not for the pipe side, it's we use it uh primarily just for grading tight lots where you can't get a dozer in. You know, we do like there's a point where we were doing a ton of condos uh where they stuff them in and you got 10 feet, 12 feet, and and you know, in between them. So our 245 will fit in in there, and you can just grade out for sidewalks using GPS, and it was it was baller, it worked great. Pipe sign, I got a little old school mentality. I'm uh well, I can grade faster than that machine, so we're gonna pound some pipe in.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

So, you know, it's funny, and that's kind of I was kind of hoping you would say that is that's exactly what we're kind of seeing down here. We're we don't have any we had an eye machine on the dozer and the earthwork side of things, but never on the excavator side of things for the pipe guys, always basin rover, very traditional. Um, but at the same time, we've demoed a couple of these fully auto machines, and for pipe, I'm like, man, dude, I get it. It's it's like finite, but man, does that not just slow you down like crazy? And so we've been kind of going back and forth. Um, but I do uh I will kind of throw a shameless plug here for CHC Nav, this GPS stuff that we've been using, we've got it bolted on our 210, and it is two sensors straight to the iPad, two pucks. It's super simple, real-time elevation. And I will tell you, I have seen gains and benefits um with one guy in the tracco, but he's still got to operate. He's got a line now that you know indicate makes a little bit more sense, in my opinion, than having a fully auto excavator. Is it precise? No argument there. Uh, I I get all that, but we've been precise for so long without it. I don't want it slowing me down. You can't keep it in fully auto. So that's kind of my argument there with excavators. But um what brand did you go with?

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Just by so I I'm a trimble guy. I I start I tried TopCon for a year, and we ended up actually selling all of our Trimble gear to go to TopCon. And I said, hey, no, this ain't working for us. Our customer support, it was okay. I like my sales rep, but Topcon itself wasn't wasn't doing what we needed to. So we switched back to Trimble and we went all in in Triple. I think we got two fully automated GPS auto dozers. Uh, you got a 3D excavator, I got another cab kit coming for a dozer uh probably two months. Um, and then we're probably gonna, depending on how we're doing our dirt true. I'm still trying to figure that out. We might end up going indicate only on the excavators, just so we know where we're at. And that's you know, to go back on your point, indicate only. You don't you don't want to take the autos away to where you eliminate the skill. You need the skill, but you you have the autos there to make a good operator look better, not a bad operator look okay. And that's I'm I'm a big proponent of you know, even my my new dozer operators, we throw them on a D6R four-way blade for a year and say, hey, you got to fine grade with this, you know, and they do, dude.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

I in your money ahead in your training program doing that because having GPS only operators, like there's a time and a place for it. But I had that iMachine, and I'll tell you, I probably only use that machine 20 minutes out of the 3,000 hours that was in our fleet that under the GPS, just to say I did it. Like when I get in it, it's therapeutic almost for me to design build a pad, and like it's not even something you're really thinking about and checking great. And but it that's the way you started. Like, that's that's the uh in my opinion, and probably yours, Matt. Shared here, like you have to learn in your seat. It's not your hands, it's second nature, you should see it, feel it, and and and know it. So you can uh not just trust this GPS system, but you can also verify it when you're like, man, that pass just looks completely different than the rest. Why? Oh well, this tenth, whatever, we we can go off into, but you've got to. I think there's such a race where I was going with all this, is there's such a race to uh import this 18-year-old straight out of high school directly into that machine, and he should just be able to be proficient day one. I don't think we're ever gonna get away in our trade from training. Like I'm sorry, especially pipe guys, like it's just not going to happen. So, in my opinion, I think we need to be a little bit more focused on uh training as an operator rather than just having the machine do it for them, right? As owners, we're sitting here trying to navigate so many different styles of um. You've got the younger generation, you've got this older generation. And this older generation doesn't want anything to do with GPS. Some of them have dealt with it a little bit, but this younger generation coming in, obviously, they've already been on a tablet. It's much easier to transfer. But there has to be some type of fine line. And I'd love to hear your input on this because that fine line for me is you have to have some type of grade base knowledge, uh, no pun intended there, but literally just baseline knowledge of how that equipment operates before we start worrying about a specific task uh for profitability, et cetera. Like you have got to have spent some time, number one, to ensure that nobody's going to get hurt. Like I get it, we can put all these walls and these ceilings and all this stuff on this excavator. But if that guy doesn't have a freaking clue what he's doing and never been on a job site for more than a week or two, let's not stick them in a 80,000 pound, oh, it might kill somebody in a swipe. Like, we just need to have a little bit more thinking knowledge than that, in my opinion. What's your thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 23:05

Yeah, no, I totally agree. I think, you know, for for us, like there's there's two takes on this, right? One, my take is like you went to Con Expo, you've seen how everybody's got efense now, everybody's got they're they're jamming tech into these excavators. And I had a salesman walk walk up to me and he says, Hey, what do you think about all this tech? I'm like, dude, great, it's just something to go wrong. And I mean, real operators don't need it. And I and you know, of course, everybody laughs when you say real operators, right? But at the at the end of the day, this trade, one, it can't go anywhere, right? We we have a need for qualified skilled operators with this. If we don't fill that gap and fill like pass the knowledge on, then there's gonna be two things that happen. One, the lack, there's gonna be a lack of quality, and project cost is gonna skyrocket. The second thing is the guys that have the skilled trade, the guys that invested in your people and training them the right way, are gonna make a ton of money. I mean, and that and that's just the simple fact of it. So you kind of got two roads to go down. You're at a crossroad, right, when it comes to technology. You can either buy the technology, which is gonna come the machines anyways, now you can buy the technology and force it down the guy's throat and say, Hey, Mr. 18-year-old, come on in here. Or you can do the hard thing and say, it's gonna take you five years to be a qualified operator and you're starting in a shovel. And in my opinion, the guys who have and excuse my language when I say this, but when you have the balls to say that you're starting with a shovel and you're I'm not accepting anything less, and that is our standard, you're going to be the supreme contractor in the area 100%.

Downtime Costs More Than Payments

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Not only that, dude, the best operator on the site is also the best spotter because he spent absolutely years swamping for somebody and understands the visual line sight from that operator. Like we can see it here, but if he's got a small hump in front of him, he can see it. No, you're not done. Clean it all off so he can see what he's doing. And until you've spent time in both situations, like everybody wants to be a daggum dirt guy and an operator and being a dozer tomorrow. And I it drives me crazy. Everybody wants to jump out there on a pipe crew and be the main line digging guy and don't understand any of the responsibilities that it takes. And you know what you said, you're right. I was at Con Expo, man, and I was seeing what I'm seeing, and I tell this to people all the time, they give me crap about running a little bit newer gear. And I keep everything with under warranty. And um, man, I can't work on nothing. Like, can I? Yeah, can I die e something? Absolutely. Can I change a hose? Can I do that? Absolutely. But man, I cannot tell you how upset it makes me to make a payment every month and have to go work on something at the same time. It infuriates me. It's that should not happen. And so now, you know, uh, let me get not above my skis here in front of my skis. You were saying, like, yeah, I I am kind of excited, but at the same time, there's this like, yeah, just something else I gotta pay for to go wrong. And they're not building machines like they were, let alone 10 years ago when we started. Talk about 20 years ago. All of our influences that are older than us in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, they're gonna sit there and go, no, you need to go buy the cheapest machine you possibly can. And as long as it's got good life in it for what you're doing, repair it and fix it, etc. Yeah. Uh-oh. Okay, go find me a machine pre-death, pre-EGR, pre-all the crap where I could actually work on it and when I'm done with it, it can go back to work. Find me that machine because that that's not a machine that you you you can own and operate. That there's dinosaurs out there and unicorns out there. I totally get that. But what I'm trying to get at is that no matter what, in the last 15 years, you've got to have them come out and plug into something, anyways. Make it their freaking problem. They're making a machine just for five years, literally to stay under the warranty. They're not making a machine like our grandfathers and our dads used to be able to go out, go down to the dealer, buy something for five years, and know that you're six through nine, I'm gonna make my money with that excavator. They ain't making that unit anymore. You can't keep it alive that long, in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, we're very, we're very equipment maintenance heavy, daily checklists, like we don't play. But at the same time, you can do all of that, have the dealer service it at 500,000, all the way to 4,000 warranty. You do have a nice machine at the end of that, but downtime, in my opinion, and I'd love to hear your opinion here, Matt. Downtime's my biggest fear. Like, I can't it drives me crazy because it's not just the repair in the machine, guys, and I know we've been over this on the show, but it's the freaking two days of labor. You got a whole crew standing around waiting on the rental to get there. You got to get this machine worked on, and you got to get a rental there to get production going again. It's an extremely costly expense in our world. Matt, what's your take?

SPEAKER_00 28:24

Yeah, you got to be jumping out of this chair right now because so I've been preaching downtime for years, and and unfortunately, I was the mentality that I wanted to buy cheap and get into a machine at a lesser payment so we could be able to afford to build and grow as we needed to. I mean, you're you're talking to a company that three years ago we only owned one excavator and it was a 14-ton excavator, and now we own two 50-ton excavators and five dozers or six dozers, right? Like you don't buy all brand new stuff doing that, right? Like you kind of got to go to the Richie Brother auction and pick up a piece of junk once in a while. But you know, it afforded us to do that to set the footprint that we now have, and we're in the same boat. Like, we're we're pricing out brand new iron because it is cheaper for me to have a brand new iron than it is to pay my two mechanics, which I love my mechanics, but at the end of the day, cost is cost. The killer is the downtime. So let's say if a pipe crew is gonna make ten thousand dollars a day or fifteen thousand dollars a day, right? In that machine, your mainline digger breaks down. It is not a four, three, four, or five thousand dollar repair, it is a twenty thousand dollar repair, right? Because you're losing what you could have made. Plus, if you're gonna keep your guys paid that day, you're gonna have to pay pay them payroll, you know, and it's it goes the same with you know equipment downtime as it is with reworks. The money lost sitting is more expensive than the payment if you take it over a day by day.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

No, I completely agree with you, dude. And I'm take my main lane mainline digger. I'm dealing with this exact scenario right now. I got a 360 kamatsu. It's got 6,100 hours on it. I bought it, it was a Richie Brothers pickup when we were starting to move off into this earth moving lane. I needed a larger excavator to properly move cut and fill operations in and out of the side. Anyways, long story short, it's got 6,100 hours on it. The guys are sitting there going, boss, we'll make it happen this year, but you're looking. I mean, we do daily equipment sheets, and they remind me, they'll send them to my email, hey, this still ain't fixed, this little thing, that little thing. And it's all a bunch of knickknacky stuff, but it will all lead to a major downtime item. And big iron means big problems, means big money. There is no lie about that in this business. And so I'm sitting here going, okay, I got a 6,000 hour tracco. Will it do the same job as the new tracco? Absolutely it will. But let me just run this scenario down for you guys when me and Matt are talking about 6,000-hour uh tracco, three, 80,000-pound tracco. Will it dig water, sewer, and storm? Absolutely no problem in a in a subdivision. But when it does go down, and she's going to probably go down at some point this year, not by any abuse. I'm just talking general wear and tear, it's 6,000 hours. When she goes down, that is not, that's across state lines. So I got to find a way to get it to a shop. And we don't really have many local shops that work on old iron anymore. They're not a thing anymore. It's basically the dealer or bust. So I've either got to pay the dealer to come out or find a third-party guy. Yep. Uh, shout out to Heave. I could use Heave, Alex, there you go. But at the same time, I it's not just the$15,000 repair with this big iron I've got to deal with. I got to find another digger the same size that's$10,000 a month or$15,000 a month to get up there, run the two weeks or maybe the four weeks, or maybe the month, or whatever it takes until that repair is done. And I've also got to pay labor downtime two or three times while this is all happening and taking place. So that you okay, let's just be fair. Matt, would you say on that$15,000 repair rental all in 30K?

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Oh, easily. All day long.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

So how much how much would your payment be on an expeditor, though?

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Here we go.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

How like a part is$30,000 pay your monthly? So I I see it every day.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

So I'm sitting here kind of giddy because I knew this answer was uh this question was coming. Because at the same time, I can take$1,400 extra dollars a month. I'm still making a payment on the$66,000 hours. It's not much, but it is it is a payment. It's$1,400 extra a month, and I can have me a brand new unit. The guys are gonna be jumping for joy. They're my and and that's another thing that's a whole different off in the weeds. You got to keep your guys happy, keep them in newer iron, they love it. But at the same time, that$1,400 over 12 months, they have all the PM agreements, they have all the warranty. Anything that happens this year during my main season goes down, it's on them, has nothing to do with me. And guess what? We know they're piling a crap load of technology in them, anyways. Something's almost bound to happen, man. And so put it on there. So I can take a uh, let's say$60,$18,$17,000. So check my math there, guys, a$17,000, break it up over 12 months and get rid of the repair and maintenance item, or I can just roll the roll the dice. The guys aren't gonna be as happy, of course. They're in this old thing that air conditioner don't keep up, etc., etc. So, what would you do in that situation? Would you roll the dice? And uh, don't get me wrong, I know what me and Matt have done. We've done it before. We have rolled the dice on old iron and we've dealt with the experience of man, I freaking knew what I was gonna do. And here we are sitting, and everybody's calling me, and the track goes down, and we just shut the whole job site down. And then we feel even worse because we knew we could have done something about it, and so that's literally the scenario I'm living right now, dude.

Cash Flow Crisis And Hard Resets

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Yep, and the only caveat that I would say to that is we've been in business 10 years, right? I I'm lucky to have a six, eight-month backlog. Um, guys, the guys that are in this first, second, third, maybe even fourth year, guys. Maybe new iron isn't it? You need maybe you need a light payment to get you through the light times, or maybe you guys got to do an RPO system where you're renting, and if you hey, I got that six-month backlog, okay. Now let's buy this thing. Because it's very easy. I mean, Cat wants to give you credit, right? John Deere wants to give you credit, they want you to buy equipment, so it's very easy to get underwater payments, right? And that was, I mean, I'm sure the story is gonna come up, but I made I made a decision when my kid was born, and that was one of the reasons why.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

No, literally, Todd, expand on that because uh pretty impactful little story. Um, as business owners, a lot of people listening to this show. If you're not an entrepreneur, you won't get what he's fixing to say because I've been in those moments. I've been in those shoes. It hit me pretty hard when he said it because I I was there and um it only took me a couple extra extra ones to realize it. But uh please share share that story if you don't mind.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

Yeah, so and I'm gonna start off and give a little context on the story. So 2021, we were doing right around 1.4, 1.5 million dollars a year. Um, and then 2000, so it's uh 2020. 2021, we were able to line up somewhere close to three million dollars in the work. Well, same thing when I was talking to the payments, you can have all the work you want, but if you don't have the cash flow coming in and the checks declaring, those payments aren't gonna do you any good. They're boat anchors, so we ended up having$1.8 million uh late pay us 180 days, which you know put us in a terrible spot. And we spent years rebuilding. Um, so we I got married in 21, beautiful wife. Uh, very, very lucky to have her. She's actually my office manager in my company. And at 22, we had our first kid. Um, the day my kid was born, and I remember you know, people that have a kid, you know, you they have the kid, then you got to step out for a minute. Um, I walked down to the front of the hospital. I called my dealership and I said, All right, we're selling seven pieces of equipment, and then I fired 10 people that day. I mean, before I even walked back up to see my kid again. And that was my life-changing moment because I was being drowned. I was I was being held down by this anchor, equipment payments, bad people, um, you know, dead weight. And there's a certain point where, like, okay, I wanted to be a nice boss, I want to build a culture, but man, what's it worth? And now, now being four years into my my kid's life, now I can look at we know what the real mission is, right? The real mission is your family, the real mission is your kids, your wife, your friends, your mom and dad. This business is a side mission, right? Don't don't let it consume your life. And that was one of the big things is hey, these payments, they're consuming my life. These this dead weight guys, they're consuming my life. We gotta, we gotta cleanse.

Working With Your Wife With Boundaries

SPEAKER_01 38:30

So impactful. I did the same thing uh in 2023. Uh in 24, we had a small layoff, not a small layoff, I laid off six guys right there. That's not small to me for an operation that's you know 30 or 20 in size. Like, you know, Matt, and you probably can agree with this because it sounds like we got caught up in the same thing and it was caught up in owning equipment and uh having people rather than making money. And it's so easy, like it's so easy in our line of work for what you just said, man. In our industry, everybody and our overhead lines, guys, are ridiculous. Like, we we decided to pick the most capital-intensive and the most overhead heavy business to operate out of any of the subcontractors, in my opinion, on a commercial site. Like the amount of iron that we have to have, it's doubled like a skid steer when you bought it in 2015 compared to what you're buying now, it boggles your mind. I bought it for six. Makes you cry. It does, dude. 59,000, all the bells and whistles and 16 AC and heat. Buddy, I thought I was top of the world. When we we traded in our uh D3 model Caterpillar and got one of these 265s, 120 something plus thousand dollars, and I about fell over. I couldn't believe it just in a 10-year span. And so um no man, I completely want to say thank you for sharing that because there is so many moments in our walks, walks of faith, walks with our with our family. You're exactly right. We get so caught up, and it's so easy, even good people, like people that you would never guess. Like, you just get caught up, you're supporting this team. You have so many people reaching out to you all day long. All you're doing is fixing and band-aiding, fixing and band-aiding. And at the end of the day, you know, you finally get to the weekend, and you know, here comes Friday, and this has happened so many times. We just had the best week we've ever had. I want to celebrate it. Woo-hoo! But I never missed any ball games, I've never missed any of that. But if I didn't do something perfect at not perfect, but necessarily, you know, on track at home, and maybe I missed something that was important to the family, well then my beautiful wife would be not as uh intrigued as I guess I would be, you know? And that's where I was leading this into, man, working with your wife. Like uh we did a four-part mini-series here on the show that helped a lot of people. We were very vulnerable, it's not easy. We talked from sex life all the way to how do you do business and kids, like all of it. And it was uh very freeing, relieving, I guess you would see. Honestly, I learned so much about my wife during those four days, and I learned some things about myself. But man, talk about the dichotomy of working with the missus and uh how challenging it can be, but how rewarding it can be as well.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

Oh, yeah, yeah. Challenging is definitely the word for it, right? I mean, is anybody that anybody that doesn't know? I mean, you know, I I love my wife, and she is an amazing mother, she's an amazing wife, and she's amazing at what she does. She's uh she runs the office, she runs HR, and she just she does a great job at it. But also at the same time, there are boundaries that you have to be respected outside of the home. And in the workplace, you know, when we decided this a long time ago, we are not husband and wife in the workplace. Now, doesn't mean I'm not gonna go up down the office and give my wife a kiss, but that means I am 100% principal owner of this company. If I tell you to do something, it's getting done. And that was that's a hard bullet for people to swallow. I mean, even for us, it caused a lot of aminosity in our in our you know, because we were dating when we started working together. Um, dating first and then she came in, so to clear that up. Uh so when we got married, it was yeah, obviously easier, right? Because now she's invested, right? And she's part of the family, she's part of the business. Um, but in the beginning, it was tough to separate that. And even me, I mean, well, you know, I was young, I was just a baby, you know, and trying to trying to decipher how to navigate this business with someone I absolutely loved and adored, but I had to tell her, like, I need you, I need you to do your job. And she needed me to do my job. Like, it wasn't one-sided. Like, she needed me to be an owner, she needed me, man. We have broken systems, we need to fix them, you know, and okay, let's get it done. Right. And then you, you know, even to this day, man, you're not following the process. Follow the process. Cool. Thank you. Anyway, let's get on it, right? I know you do. Put it on for me. I'll be right back.

Systems Processes And Ego Discipline

SPEAKER_01 43:21

Um, the transition we have been making over the last two to three years in 23, man, I had seven crews. We were going gangbusters, we had all the work running out our ears. Don't get me wrong, it helps to be in one of the fastest growing places in the country. But the one thing I absolutely sucked at, don't get me wrong, we had minimalistic systems, minimalistic procedure, um, core values that were understood, but never really read aloud. Um, we were just broken straight up. And that was my fault. That really sucked for me to hear. And I thought, you know, man, we're killing it. We got all these people, we're doing things, we got all the equipment, we're just rock and rolling, we're doing millions, hey, yeah, yeah. And then all of a sudden, you finally, I don't I don't know what the light switch was. Maybe the last person going, Hey, I'm I'm done here, or whether it was um my CPA, more or less than anybody, looking at me and going, Hey, you suck at business. You're an incredible tradesman. You have all the work coming out of your ears, there's no doubt. But you suck at business. I'm gonna help you get better. And it was those key mentors and key influences that didn't give up on me and went, hey man, do you even know what this is? No, actually, nobody's ever took the time to teach me and make me understand. I'll learn from you. And you know, from there, this was roughly four ish years ago. I really started working on me and really started working on me as a manager, learning. To be a leader, learning to be a manager, but also to working on systems and processes and disciplines within my own self. People only want to follow a true leader. And I wasn't acting like a true leader and had to the big man humbled me straight at my knees in 24, 25. And of course, this year was uh incredible rebuild years and then the systems and the things that uh it's just an encouragement is what I'm trying to get at is yeah, were those two to three years incredibly savagely, brutally hard? Absolutely it was, and most of the time it's the owner going, Yeah, I let that slide. Oh, I created that problem. Oh, I'm sorry, I said this that one time, and they take it for absolute concrete. But to really peel back not just the band-aids, but go to the core of the problem and go, why does this happen? Well, the estimator, da da da da da da, and that creates this problem in production. And by the time it gets to accounting, well, then why don't we start up here with estimation? Hey, show me why this occurs and really diving into these individualized problems that actually create seven or eight more problems for you, but it took time and with an exceptional team that didn't give up. And dude, talk a little bit about systems and processes because you want to talk about a guy that loves to step out of line with processes and his own procedures. We're so quick to just go, and it's for you, not for me. You know, I'm doing this to get that next job or whatever we want to tell ourselves in our heads as owners. But like, truly talk about those systems and good on good on missus for absolutely just hammering you, hey, this is broken, we need to fix this, and somebody that you love and care about telling you that you receive that totally different.

SPEAKER_00 46:45

Yeah. So I'm gonna touch before we get on systems process, I want to touch on something you brought up two times now, and I absolutely love it. So with equipment, right? And you said it with when you're running seven crews. I run seven crews and I have all this equipment. The biggest problem with this trade is ego, and you need to leave your ego at the door, right? If you want to be successful, you need to check your ego at the door and learn one, we're all in this together, right? And that's either you and your employees, you and your wife, you and your fellow contractor, your competitors, we're all in this together, right? And we're all dealing with the same stuff. But the other side of the fact is the iron's pig iron, right? We can get rid of it anytime. Like I buy off-road haul trucks for a job and I sell them at the end of the job. I don't care to have off-road haul trucks, I don't care to have excavators. It's pig iron. So the one the one thing I want to bring up, dude, you gotta you gotta leave the ego at the alignment and uh leave that door. But with this, ties directly into systems and processes. We have a systems process. Right before I jumped on this call, I have a truck driver walk in and goes, hey man, you didn't shovel out the box when you drove that sunlight the other day. And you know what I was gonna say is I was gonna make up an excuse and I was like, you're absolutely right. I'm sorry. Next time I'll shovel your box out. And with that, you cannot have a systematic and procedural company without leaving the ego at the door. Because when you're wrong, you have to show humility and say, brother, I made a mistake. I'm gonna go fix it, I'm gonna go make it right. And so with that, procedures and systems, life-changing. If you can get around the ability to take one, accountability and check your ego, and two, you got to look into the root cause. And sometimes that root cause, like when you're smaller, that root cause is gonna be you, you know, and I hate to be that way, but it was me. I made a lot of mistakes and we we lost a lot of profits from you know myself either not following a process that we had, which you know, up until two years ago, we really didn't have any processes, or not following any sort of processes, we didn't have them. And now we're at the point where I mean, we even had an email today. Unfortunately, we had to uh sever waves with an employee, and we got great feedback off it because we stuck to a procedure of how we were terminating the person. And one of them, one of our part of our procedure is we're gonna do it with kindness and we're gonna do it with clarity. We're gonna let you know everything that we're basing our decision off of. And they came back with feedback. Well, yeah, because of this, and because of that, we're like, man, the first thing we did when they walked out the door was fire up an email. We have to change some procedures. We are we have broken procedures we need to fix. And you know, does it make the situation any better? No, it's still a bad situation, but he has clarity, he knows what to do in his next position. We have clarity, we know how to fix it so we can prevent this in the future. And everything becomes smoother, clearer, and well functioning at that point, you know. Like I said, Pat, unfortunate story to tell, but it's real, man. I mean, those are the those are the bad things that nobody likes to do. And thank God for procedure, it got me through it because unfortunately, I'm I'm terrible at that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 50:08

No, dude, love, love the realness because I'm I'm so glad you drove that point home because you're exactly right. Um, in my opinion, I think this uh this trade and subcontract industry is literally ego-filled and ego-driven majority of the time. And majority companies that people see, there's not many owners that just like what we're doing, man. We're sitting here talking about all the mistakes and experience that we've gained over the last 10 years. There's not many people in our industry willing to do this. Number one, to even put them on sales as a public display. But if I can help one person not do what I did to get where I'm at, buddy, they're gonna be 10 times ahead of me and they're gonna be able to help me in 10 years. Like, but the other thing I want just kind of a small little add-on to that ego point before we go down the systems rabbit hole here. You know, it seems like about year seven, year eight, systems, in my experience, were more important. And more and more business owners that I talk to and entrepreneurs, especially in the trade space, they hit that seven, eight year, they figured out how to make a million rev. They're figuring out how to stay alive, they're figuring out how to pay their bills, pay all their taxes, all their stuff. But once they get to this point, they're like, it's this weird feeling, and uh I have a feeling you've probably experienced it as well. They almost start feeling like they're losing the grip on the business and they're getting replaced. And like, well, if this is in place and that's in place, well, what how are you gonna need my you know input? Or if you guys round table this, well, how am I gonna know what's happening? Well, if you check your dang reports, silly, you you'll see what's happening. And if you're doing your job and concentrated on being that leader manager, CEO, ops manager, whatever your title is, if you're more concerned with doing that and having your team provide you information, what I'm trying to get at is I I said it a couple episodes ago, and I I think I came off a little strong, but I literally said the whole point of being an entrepreneur is to be replaced and to have a business running efficiently without you being there every minute of the day. That's the whole point. But I think as entrepreneurs like me and you, Matt, we sit here and we we navigate our journey, but then there comes a point that it all gets different for us. Everything gets nobody prepared us for this. We just feel our are starting to feel comfortable about what we got going on. And here's this whole new level that we're not even ready for. And you know what? It's that weird revenue jumps as you start jumping revenue, but it's all about systems and processes and procedures. Yes, owner guys, we love to step outside of our own processes and procedures. But Matt, you're exactly freaking right. The amount of respect I have gained during this procedural change going, damn, we put that system together and I flat busted it, dude. I just didn't even, I was just old side doing it the old way. Guys, I apologize. Can you coach me through this? What's my first step? Navigate me through this so I understand the process to ensure that I in line with the team. Because a lot of these owners, man, especially those ego-filled owners, well, the team's over here and I'm here. That's not how it's supposed to work. You got to have I owner buy-in to elevate this team, and you're serving and supporting them, is how it's supposed to be. And just like myself, didn't quite understand all that because it was coming at me so fast while everything was growing, I lost people. Good dang people, Matt, over it that if I would have had a system and a processing plate, that wouldn't even have been a thing to begin with, of why they left. And so, anyways, man, no, I'm so glad you you highlighted that because I do believe this industry is filled with nothing but egotistical um maniac to get them where they're at, to be honest with you. But the guys like myself and yourself that are sitting down going, man, I've really screwed this up a couple of different ways. And and here's what I would probably do different and look at different. And you know, you said even back to equipment. I know we got a little far off into equipment, but RPOs, like these guys don't even know what an RPO is, what that option is. But again, to what you said earlier was if you've got six months of backlog, if you've got three months of backlog, and I through all of this equipment and people conversation today, sales is everything. Don't, don't navigate off of that. You gotta have sales before you can have people and equipment. And as you're going along this hamster wheel of death, you're gonna step off that for a second and just worry about all production or worry about all estimating. It all has to move. The team has to move, and you need to support and serve that team as they move all together. It may not be as fast as you want, Mr. Owner Man. Trust me, I wanted to go. We I know what the problem is now. We're not stopping until we fix. Push, push, push, push. You're gonna drive your team away. You've got to do it together, one step at a time. And you, Mr. Owner Man, have got to build every brick and every piece of wood to them stairwell because it is excruciating, excruciatingly hard. But the the amount of reward on the other side, and Matt, I'll let you kind of take it from here. When you walk out to that job in this process or system you have been begging for, and it's now implemented, and you're three or six months down the line, and you see the results or feel the results, or something's happening around you, and you're like, oh, you have that epiphany. You're like, oh my God, that used to not happen without me doing this, this, and this, and it's just here and it's happening. And and talk about a little bit of the other side of the reward for your people, job sites, projects, profitability, et cetera.

SPEAKER_00 56:14

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's it's without saying, like, you know, everybody starts this out because they're either good at operating or they really want to do it, right? And you know, to go back to one thing you said, like, yeah, when I stepped out of the field, and let's say stepped out of the field, when I stepped out of an operating position and I started letting other people do it, like my purpose was lost. But was it more interesting to kind of analyze was that the employees' purpose were they gained purpose, right? They gained responsibility, and with that, like you know, systems and processes, you know, are like the tip of the iceberg, right? And for me, it was giving the guy like it was the leash to give the crew so they could be on their own, right? So we could train them to start walking next to us, and without the systems and processes to do that, it was trust. And then when they screw up because you're an owner, you're going to get emotional about it. When you get emotional about it, you make bad decisions. Now we have a system about okay, you made a mistake. Here's how we're gonna fix it. All right, it, you know, was it was it you know deliberate? Here's how we're gonna here's how we're gonna handle that, right? And there's no emotion in it, it's just calm, cool, collective. You know, and that's what the people need. They need they need to see the owner in their court supporting them. And need to they need to know what's expected of them, what's expected of them, how you know, if they do screw up, is it the end of the world for them, or is there opportunity for reform? You know, and as soon as you lay that out for them, as soon as you have this roadmap for your guys and they can follow it and say, okay, this is what I need to do to be successful, now your profitability goes up. Now your time frees up and you can start bidding work, more work. You can start developing other sides of the company, uh, investing you know, your time elsewhere, or you know, we talked about the most important thing spend it with your family. I worked 100 hours a week for five, six years straight. And I mean, there's times I hadn't seen my brother, sister, my mom and dad for two months, three months. I'm working. You know, it allows you to do the things that we were brought on earth to be able to do. And that's like I like I said before, the main mission, right? The family, the life, the the the you know, vacations with your friends, you know, you you can't do that when it all lands out of your head. And the only way that you get away from that is systems and processes, or fight it, fight it and pray to God your neck doesn't break when you hit the wall. Cool.

Core Values For Coaching The Field

First 30 Last 30 Standard

SPEAKER_01 58:59

We don't, that's just not that's everybody understood that it's respect, right? But how do you deal with people problems out there in the field when it should be a pretty systematic thing, right? And I'm not talking about, hey, this dude screwed up on an estimate or this dude used the wrong bucket. I'm talking about the dude that used the wrong bucket. How does he feel when he's going? If that's a part of my leadership, I care about how that man feels. I've got to navigate a workable solution past this point. Now, if if it's something, what I tell my guys all the time, if it's something that reoccurred twice, three times, same exact result from whatever's happening, there needs to be and it's negative towards us. We have got to change that. There is no reason it should continue two to three times. If it's a total accident, cool, it shed light on something. But um man. I just absolutely blanked again. I'm so sorry, brother. That's twice now. I've read two different I've read two different messages. Anyways, um there'd be another little edit at a minute here. Um that's where I was going. Jeep as tits, man. I'm so sorry. Um, nah, dude, the core values is where what I where I was trying to land back at is when you're going out to a job site, we came up with um, so we pay our guys off. I know it's a little different up there winter, but we work through the winter. So we give them from before Christmas, like the 23rd, until the Monday after New Year's. Nobody really does anything in the utility world. And as you know, takes an ex inspector to make any money in our world. They gotta be there. Federal holidays, they use all their time. So it's and at any point in the entire year, if there's gonna be family around, it's usually gonna be around that time, right? So as long as we have a year, that's somewhat of their bonus. Hey, go sit at home for two weeks, love you. We'll see you when you get back. Every the last two years, I have sent out these goal sheets 15 things professional, personal. I learned so much. Some things I don't want to learn about my business, but I'm glad they told me that I've got to fix because I don't want to lose people, right? But at the same time, dude, first hour, first day we're back, everybody's all relaxed. Hey guys, here's our seven core values. Let's talk about them individually. And families first. Um accountability drives excellence, safety uh drives, I can go on and on, but what it has done for me, I said all of that to say this. What it has done for me walking out to a job site and talking to a superintendent who made a bad decision. It's not a bad person, made a bad decision through the day, or even a labor hand made a bad decision. Hey man, is that uh teamwork builds excellence, or is that family first or or any of these? Like, can you point me in any uh core value that you agreed with me in front of the entire company that this is who we are, this is who we represent. What's going on, man? Is there something more that I don't realize? Number one, number two, hey, if it's not, and the response I've had, Matt, has been crazy. Man, you're right, boss. You're right. That's that's not who I am. I apologize. Like, even from guys that are like super stone cold, old head, rough around the edges, like they're even buying into it because I'm being so intentional with it, right? I'm also trying to carry it out. I'm revisiting it every month at our monthly get-togethers. We cook them breakfast every first Monday of the month. We talk about some housekeeping issues, but we also talk and shine a little light on somebody that has been providing the core values in a good way. It's a negative, it's a great tool to have there when a negative situation arises, but you also have to have some positive reinforcement. So if there's one system, you guys are sitting there scratching your heads, you don't know what me and Matt are talking about. If there's one system I can encourage you to do right now is make seven, even five, five core values of who the people at your business represent. What do they represent? What are you trying to do together? And watch what it'll do for your business. We can talk about production and estimation, and we can talk about all of that fine-tooth comb and every piece of rock and dirt. But at the end of the day, like Matt said, what's most important? It's you, your family, and also the families that you support and pouring back into them. And so that has been the major, major one for just dealing with little problems that really aren't that big of a deal, but need corrective change in order for profitability. And that's what they're all the systems and processes, they all need to understand that you guys control our profitability out there in the field. We, as the office, serve you, but at the same time, you serve back with information so we can track and understand these projects from your point of view. So I said a lot there, and that's probably a little bit to unpack, but maybe is there one system, maybe outside of core values, you may just agree there. Is there one system you would encourage these guys to nail down right now and stop what you're doing? It's too important.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:32

Absolutely. My favorite system we ever uh implemented is our first 30 and our last 30, how you start today and how you end the day. It is the same. Or, you know, so we got it's it's different for the pipe crew versus the mechanics versus the office versus the superintendents, but everybody's got their expected first 30, last 30. Our our crews, our dirt crews and pipe crews, you know, you're supposed to start the day by showing a form in plan in writing, right? That you've submitted the night before. And then we'll get to that in a minute. But you'll you'll you're supposed to have a meeting on site, right? Say, hey, this is what we're doing. You know, John, this is what you're doing. Dave, this is what you're doing, Zach, this is what you're doing. And then these are our production goals that we're doing for the day here. We're gonna talk about safety. We're gonna talk about here's the tools and stuff you need that you might not be privy to, and then it goes to you do your pre or your equipment pre-check and inspections, clean the windshields on the or clean the windows on windshields on the machines, and then you go to work. That's your first 30. Your last 30 is we clean up the site, we park the equipment, we fuel and grease the equipment, park it in an organized manner, and the foreman is supposed to submit a plan to our you know, company chat for that job. He's supposed to submit a written plan by the end of the day so the guys know what they're supposed to do the next day. And I watched that system be broke just-I mean, just last week, right? And I and I came on the site, just happened to come on the site for a seven o'clock meeting with a foreman, and I says, 'Hey, anybody know what they're doing? Let's know. You didn't do the meeting. Like this is not what we do, right? And the day turned to crap, no production. We had a rework, you know, equipment had a malfunction on it that we didn't catch, and all that stuff catches up to you. So our first three, last 30. If you start the day good and end the day preparing for tomorrow, you are setting yourself up for success. And that is by far the most important procedure that we have in our company.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:38

That's incredible, man. That's incredible. I may even steal it to be honest with you.

LinkedIn Community And Closing

SPEAKER_00 1:06:43

Yeah, I'm I'm willing to share it. You can you can share it up on the community as well, because you know everything with me is pretty open book. We, you know, to go back in your core values, our core values. Is right there. It's uh humility, communication, integrity, and uh quality and safety. And to go back in your conversation, you know, like we talked, we had to you know part ways with an employee today. We had I had to make the decision because the the situation affected somebody else and it had lying involved. So we were terminating on the basis of integrity, right? The person that it affected, the guy lied to them too and affected their life in a negative manner outside of this organization. So I sat there weighing, like, right, we're gonna we're gonna fire this guy based on a uh you know value um you know misalignment, right? But what does it say to me now that I know what's going on, if I don't go back and help that person outside of our organization? And when you live your core values and you demonstrate to your people, your people are going to follow to a T. And when you do pick your core values, guys, I mean, maybe I said it wrong. I I still don't think the first three, last three is the most important. Them core values, we hire and fire based on them. And they are absolutely amazing. They're who we are, and you know, it it's not only when we built them, it's not who I am, it's who I want to be. Who do I what do I want to build this company to and what is important? And no ego. I said it before, humility. Leave the ego at the door, you know. So don't be afraid to get out of your comfort zone and and hey, maybe I don't like the version of me right now, so we can build different, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:32

Just starts today, buddy. Just starts by making a different decision for a different result. One last question for you, buddy, before we get out of here. Um, ask every single episode. I think we're like 85 or 86. It's incrazy, man. We're encroaching on 100 episodes very, very quickly. Got a little something coming for you guys too for the 100th episode. So be staying tuned. Um, man, what's the takeaway maybe for you yourself back at 20 years old making or running 100 hours a week, or maybe somebody on your crew that you're seeing is like checking out just a little bit. What's the takeaway for those guys that are just mentally, physically, emotionally, they're just stuck in the mud? Something in life, maybe some at work. Give them a little bit of uh advice to get past this hurdle in life, as you've obviously scaled a few of them, just like me.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:26

Yeah, so anybody that wants to look me up, I'm on LinkedIn. Um, I'll be honest with you. I was going through our toughest time and I shared the stories raw on LinkedIn. Um, you know, there's there's stories of us talking about the 2021-2022 episode. There's stories of talking about me sinking an excavator and losing 50,000, 60,000,$70,000 on that. Um and what I gained from it was insight. I gained friends that I never thought I'd ever meet. You know, I I have the opportunity to be able to do great things because I communicate in an open way. And you know, with that, you're not alone, right? And we've talked about this in the green room. You know, you go through these hard times, and as a business owner, there is isolation in the way you feel, and the feeling shouldn't be that, but it is, and just remember that there's guys like me, and I look like I might have got it figured out and I don't, right? Sai, you you might look like you got it figured out and you got it figured out. No, sir. So we're and go back to the comment I made earlier. We're all in this together, right? Lean on people, lead on a friend, and yeah, maybe your friends at home aren't business owners, get on LinkedIn, talk to people, share your story. You wouldn't believe how much reverence there is in communicating with people that are going through the same thing you're doing. And while it may help you, it's probably gonna help them just as much.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:07

I would have to agree, man. The amount of people that we've that I've helped literally through the podcast, through the YouTube, or that's the whole reason I put myself out there is these amazing, just like you, man. You know, we had never really spoken up until this point other than LinkedIn. That's where I found you. And guys, if you're not on LinkedIn, here's another episode of the year, me talking about you need to be on LinkedIn. Um, it's a weapon as a business owner, it really is. But you're exactly right. It is a different demographic for sure. There is much more of an inclusive entrepreneurial mindset on there than there is on any other social or interest platform that I have found as well. You know, I've been daily posting this year on LinkedIn for my personal account, personal things I'm going through. Um, you know, my kids, my family, but also too, Sharon wins, but also Sharon fails. But no, I've I've read, um, and honestly, one of those posts literally was like, dude, this is my guy. This guy right here, don't give a damn. He's throwing it right out there, take it or leave it. This is my experience. I'm like, and since then, that's probably been a year or plus go. I was like, we gotta get and and and finally we're here, man. And what an incredible episode it was from just some small hourly insight from us talking, man. I really appreciate your time joining us today. Uh, where can we find you other than LinkedIn? You're a great follow on LinkedIn. Is there any other place that we're skipping over here?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:42

You know, I'm I'm on LinkedIn. I don't do a whole lot on Facebook. Um, yeah, you can you can follow the company on Facebook, Instagram, stuff like that. But LinkedIn, if you want to know the raw and the real, LinkedIn is our deal. Um, that's that's where I share the trials and the tribulations, the wins, the losses, and that's where you're gonna get the real, you know. Besides, come up to Michigan, drive up. If I'm not in the office, I'm on a job site, ask the secretary, and I'll give you an address.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:10

There you go. Well, we may uh our plan here over the next 12 to 24 months is to get out and about uh with the YouTube channel. And if you would have us literally come spend a couple of days, see what the difference is up there in Michigan compared to Florida or Arkansas or California, all over, but just the insight that would help the younger us now starting at I couldn't imagine starting at 23 and doing it all over again with what they're facing. And it's scary, man. It really is. And they just keep jumping into that 84 months, kids to your payment by God. And I'm like, guys, I'm telling you, uh, anyways, I will I will keep being here every single week with you guys with a new guest every single week. Yeah, there is a solo episode coming up. Shoot your questions in uh directly for me. I'll be reading those uh aloud on an episode coming here shortly. Uh that will be before uh probably after episode 100. So you've got some time. Just want to shout out our steel toe members that support the uh podcast behind the scenes. And again, shout out our sponsor, PadertSupport.com. Go check out for takeoff and quantification services. Guys, from all the support that we've had on this show, Matt, thank you again so much for being our guest. I can't tell you guys how much I appreciate it. Hearing your bits and peace, wherever you're at in the world, hearing how this show has affected you, how it's helped somebody else, or you have used this to send to somebody else. Man, this was my buddy. This is exactly what they talked about. Send it to them, share it out. It's only going to help the show and help more people at the end of the day. And that's the ultimate goal, is to, as you just witnessed and heard for the last hour and 15 minutes, is me and Matt sitting here going, ha ha, don't do all this crap. We done listen to us, start in year two, start in year one. And and there is resources nowadays to get plugged in to ensure that you're moving the correct way in business. And it's never correct, it's your specific way with the most amount of knowledge and education that you can have until you gain the experience. So, guys, uh until then, I really appreciate over the all the overwhelming support from YouTube. If you're listening to us, uh, we've got a huge bunch of you that are uh on Spotify and are very dedicated weekly listeners. I appreciate you guys so much. And until next time, we'll catch you next week, Wednesday at 5 a.m. Y'all be good. 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. We'll do our best to answer any questions you may have. Till next time, guys.