How Builders Can Raise The Standard with Andrea and Brian Seymour of Springdale Custom Builders

Reece sits down with Andrea and Brian Seymour of Springdale Custom Builders to talk about the systems, pricing discipline, and process thinking it takes to build a company that is actually worth something. For builders, this matters because bad estimating, weak operations, and owner dependence can quietly kill profit long before the work dries up.

They go over why the old three-bid mindset creates bad relationships, how Springdale qualifies clients and estimates more accurately, and what retained earnings and real financial visibility make possible. They also unpack the bigger play here: building repeatable systems, hiring the right people, and creating a business that can scale, sell, or survive without the owner pushing every button.

https://springdalecharlotte.com

Show Notes:
00:00 Show Intro
00:54 Meet Springdale
02:09 Starting On Honeymoon
05:09 Fixing The Bid Process
08:49 Sell As Advisor
10:07 Their Sales Process
15:12 Pivoting Project Types
17:03 Knowing Your Numbers
21:16 Lessons And Grit
26:12 Software For Builders
33:48 Build To Exit
37:27 Hiring The Right People
40:29 Peers Over Competitors

Find Our Hosts:
Reece Barnes
Matt Calvano

Podcast  Produced By:
Motif Media

Transcript

0:00

of everything yourself. If you think about it as peers, not competitors, you all grow together. There's enough sunshine out here for all of us. Like the people who are doing it right, they will always have sunshine. Keep doing the right thing and stay true to who you are and why you got into this business. Welcome to builders, budgets and beers. I'm Reece Barnes and I started this podcast to have real conversations about money in the building industry, the wins, the mistakes and everything in between. I believe builders deserve to feel confident about their finances, and that starts by hearing from others who've been through it too. This industry can be slow to change, but the right stories and the right tools can make profitability feel possible. Let's get into it. All right, guys, mics are hot. We're rolling. Thanks for jumping on the pod. You till. Thanks for having us. Of course. Thank you, of course, of course. Okay, so today we are joined with the Seymour family, Andrea Brian, thank you for being here, Andrea. Give us a little background on Springdale and what you guys are all about. Well, Springdale custom builders, we're excited to tell you that it is our 10 year anniversary this year, we're excited as a business and as a construction company to have reached this milestone. It's a really big deal for us and for the industry, so we're happy to still be here. We're happy to be growing and evolving with the marketplace, and we are a design build firm that is focused on providing clients with a different and better experience than they've received historically. And we'd love to help other people enhance their businesses the same way as well. I love that. I love that, Brian, do you have anything to add? No, she pretty much summed it up. You know, it's been 10 years and happy to make another 10. So, yeah, there we go. There we go. Okay, so okay. So obviously, you two are a couple. Did you start the business together? Or was this a one of you guys started it and then someone joined? Or was this a joint thing? Wild, actually, if you want a little story, I do a story. Yes. So we were sitting on the beach on our honeymoon, and we got a phone call from Brian's company that it had folded while we were on our honeymoon. No way. And yes, killer way to start a marriage, by the way. And we did. We did. And we, you know, we were sitting there, and he was like, you know, maybe this is a sign. I've always wanted to get into the more custom side of things. Anyway, he wasn't multifamily at the time, and we just decided on our honeymoon that we were going to go home and start an LLC. And so and so we did. We started it together. I was still in my full time sales career at the time, which was great, because it gave us a cushion to start with. So Brian kind of got started on the everyday, and then I folded in full time about a year and a half later. Okay, that's awesome. Okay, so your backer was in sales. I had no idea, Andrea, but, and so Brian, okay, so you were the construction guy. What was your role? That was me, you know, go ahead. What'd you do in your past? A little bit everything you know, past life was starting my framing house when I was 15, and then I went into the fast pace of commercial multifamily building for a while, and then naturally decided to go back in single family building. And here we are. Probably wouldn't have any other way looking back. I love that. I love that. Okay, so, and now today at Springdale, what are your guys's role? Brian, you can start like, what do you guys focus on in the business? Yeah, my focus right now is company operations overall, with jobs and projects, also sales and leads and estimating to make sure that we're kind of filling the pipeline and clients are happy across the board, and the team's running as efficient as possible, because that's, I think, a very important part to have, and getting on walking jobs and just enjoying what we do. I love it, you know. So that's kind of what, what I love. Okay, beautiful and Andrea, what's what are you focused on? I mean, I feel like Brian, just like, summed up, like, the entire business, what do you focus on? I was gonna say, I don't really think that was, oh no. There was a little overlap there. Yeah, my focus is sales, marketing, design and operations for the company and people. Okay, okay, so HR side and all that, yeah, so we've got a power couple here. Okay, so in terms of that, I mean, we've got heavy operations, we've got heavy, you know, pipeline, we've got heavy financials. I think just in terms of, like, just staying on brand of the podcast, I always like to get guests on that obviously, you know, resonate with our audience, right, residential and commercial contractors, right? Typically doing anywhere from, you know, less than 25 million call it in revenue. I mean, what are. What's a piece that you think the fine Contractors of America really need to hear a message on Andrea, you can kick this off. Sure. I'd love to. I think that it would be great as a unified front if, especially custom home builders, came together and decided not everybody to do it the same cookie cutter way, but as a unified front for clients, because I think that they can go and get so many different messages from people if there was a more of a new industry expectation, whereas the industry of old was free estimates and people bidding against each other, if we all came together and provided a better unified front of, you know, identify the builder that you're going to work the best with and have, you know, maybe get a couple estimates, but don't run everybody around each other and do all these multiple rounds of bidding like it's not a good experience for anybody when you start a conversation with show me all your bids, you know. And so I think as an industry, we could do a better job of educating folks and helping them, guide them to the builder that's best for them, and then starting a relationship from there where they can trust the estimating that they're getting from the get go, totally, totally and so first off, like, Why do you think we'll call them the consumer, right, or the customer, right? The person who's ending up with the home? Why do they do that? Andrea Brian, whoever you guys can go. I think they do that because they've been conditioned to do that. I think that over the years, it's just always get three bids, get three bids, and unfortunately, there are a lot of industry partners who still encourage that. And I don't, personally, I don't think it's the right thing. I don't think it's a healthy way to start a relationship for anyone. And I think that a lot of people, I'll just say, for like, on the GC side, like a lot of people end up not spending a lot of time on the initial estimate, because they can't when they're just doing a bunch of estimates all the time. And then what happens with that is it, the quality of it isn't as great, so the client isn't receiving the top quality estimate. And then I just feel like the root of a relationship, the root of the relationship, sorry, starts at the estimate. And if that part isn't dialed in from day one, I think it can just be kind of messy. Totally, totally well. And you think about, like, why do they do this? Like, it's, it's safe to assume. And Brian, I'd love to hear your take on this, but like, I you'd imagine that the consumer is going out there and getting multiple estimates right, multiple bids to shop price right? But we all know, or at least my speculation, is, is that if we are going to be a consumer that's shopping price or the lowest estimate, right? It's never going to be that that number is going to get hit. It's only a matter of, like, how much is that GC pulling over your eyes and that you're going to get hit with change orders on the back end, right? Like, Brian, check me on that. But like, that's my general take, is what, like, what's the what's the actual outcome? What is the consumer trying to accomplish by getting multiple estimates or bids? I think just getting comfortable with the numbers. I mean, it's a large amount of sum that people are spending on these projects. And, you know, vetting people out. And, yeah, that's a process, but that's that amount on value. And what value do you bring? And do we jive, or have the vibe together with each other? Because it's a large sum of money, not just buying a car, your biggest financial investment. And if you don't vibe with the contractor, probably not a good fit, right? And contractor that's real with you and honest and says, you know, hey, we can do this, Hey, we can't do this. Or, Hey, we have a problem here, but here's what we're doing. Those are the ones you doing. Those are the ones you want to work with, you know? And it all comes down to your what do you value with the dollar amount you're spending? So totally, totally, well, and you, and you mentioned vibe and, like, honestly, Andrea, like, I'd love to hear your take on this, just with, like, a career of sales, right? But it's like, when you say, like, do you vibe with the contractor? What does that actually mean? And like, how and then further, like, how do you standardize that, right? Like, in terms of, like, unifying this industry? Go ahead. Yeah, I'm actually really passionate about this, and I think it's another area of our industry that just is missing the mark in a lot of ways. Because I think that the number one thing that you need to do with a client from day one is you need to effectively listen to their problem, respond effectively to the problems that they're having or the concerns that they have, and build a relationship as an advisor and as a partner. Because I think when they feel like they're being sold something, or they feel like you have an ulterior motive, it doesn't, they can feel that right, like people aren't stupid. So I think that when you truly go into it with clear eyes and and hear them and respond to them and deliver what they're looking for, and you still may not be the right fit for them, but you're at least you're doing right by yourself, and what your goals are for your business, totally, totally. I mean, it just goes into like this, like, I guess you could call it to label it, to label it, from like, a sales standpoint, is that, like, consultative sell, right? Like, you're actually listening to what's going on, and you're providing like, based on your expertise, what you think the best solution is, or the like, the most realistic outcome is that you could deliver like, tactically. How do you do that? Like, for the listeners out there that are thinking like, yeah, like, I need to get better. At this or yes, this topic resonates with me. What are some of the things that you guys are doing that land really well? Do you want me to take that one? Brian, we are, like, heavy communicators, and so I guess this part of the process too is something that I kind of own. So it's probably just makes sense. But from day one, our lead form that we have for our clients, it are very direct questions, and they're very they're very well researched, and they're asked for a very specific reason, every single one of the questions that's on there. From there, we schedule like a 10 minute introduction call. We want to make sure the vibe check is right on our end too. So if after that 10 minute introduction call the vibe check. Isn't right, we'll send a very nice email. You know, we may not be the right person for you. Here's a recommendation or not, just like, good luck with your project, totally. But we try to be really honest with people, because everybody's time here is valuable. It's our only commodity. So, but from there, you know, we do a site visit, if we move on from that, which is 30 minutes in person with Brian and I typically on the, you know, at the client's home or at their job site. And we really talk through things. We really get kind of down into the nitty gritty as much as you can in 30 minutes. And then after that, if we go on from that step, we have put together a proprietary finish level assessment that we send to all of our clients so that we understand what their objectives are from the start, as far as, like, finish levels are concerned, on every aspect of the project, windows, shingles, doors, cabinet, hardware, countertop material, plumbing, fixture. Level, like you want the $1 sign, or do you want the $7 sign? You know, like we that way, we're estimating accurately too, and so with the subliminal message is there that may or may not be so subliminal, but it's that we care. We're listening, we're doing what you need, and we're addressing your specific needs. We're not just throwing numbers at a wall and hope they stick totally, totally, I mean, I'm thinking about this like, like, you're literally controlling this from the very top of funnel, from the contact form, extremely intentional, right? And then in a 10 Minute vibe check call, right? It's like, Is this somebody that has like, they're an open, honest communicator, right? Is this someone that we can like we could see ourselves working with on a 1218, month relationship, right? Whatever the build cycle time is, then it's going deeper and deeper. I'm curious to know, like, what were some of the stories and how long did it take to build you don't have to share the proprietary plan, but what were some of the because I can only imagine that there was a ton of adjusting and concept that goes into it. What are some of the stories and, like, how did you guys come up with this proprietary finish list that you guys run? Brian, it looks like you guys, yeah, yeah. You know, when we started, it was myself and I and, you know, I'll try and do everything, and that's not possible. And having an amazing life and partner, like Andrea and board, she's like, What are you doing? Like, this is sales. Like, you're not being sales. You're just trying to solve their problem. Like, okay. So we sat down a conversation about how to work, and it was really 15 minutes, like, you need to do X, Y, Z, and, know these things. I'm like, Oh, okay. And then she started doing it, and then she was making sales. And I was like, how did you do that? And you know, it's just one of those things that you know as a contractor, like build all day long. You want to try to meet all the goals of your prospective client or client, but you have to be comfortable telling them, No, I can't do that. And that was something in my younger days I didn't have comfortability with, and Andrea brought that out, which is saying, can't do this. You can't do that because you're setting up the expectations, but you can. You can't do so just having some coaching on how to make it happen instead of a process. And there's so many things out there, you know, and what she brought to the business is incredible, yeah, dude, I love that. I love that. And that's where it's like, okay, when you and this even goes like, of course, you guys are married, right, you know. Or honeymoon, just starting this lifelong journey together, Brian's company folds right then we're like, just kind of in this situation where we're starting a business. But I think like you guys, like really lucked out to get partners that had different skill sets and trades, right? And like you guys are coming together and doing this extremely well. And I think the one piece that stands out to me is like you you can start to say no to things that you can't do when you confidently know what you can do, right? And I think that's one thing a lot of contractors struggle with. And I think the temptation is real, like, we can't be short sighted in the sense that you know, like, if you if you say no to every all the things you can't do, you'll just plateau and like, you'll only ever do what you can do. What you can do. Like, there's some element of risk taking there and exploration. But when you are, like, building this reputation, these processes, I think becoming extremely clear in what product are you building and then selling to the market, what does that look like? Right? What is going to go into this? How do we know that we can be competitive in these sales? Cycles in these conversations to clearly articulate what value Springdale brings over XYZ competitor. So in terms of that, I mean, or go ahead, Brian, no, yeah. I mean, we've been iterating that process for a while now. And like you said, sales cycles. You know, things change in the market. People are doing no homes, or they're doing more renovations. We have a skill set at both. At one point in the ministry said we're just going to do x size of project in terms of whole house renovation or new build. And that was our neat, our niche, you know, and at some point in the business, you got to make that decision, and it just depends on where you're at in sales, you know, totally, totally, I mean, and that's the other side of it too. Is like, with contractors, like, you got to keep money coming in, right? So then you add like, that additional pressure of, like, God, like I was doing new construction, but now, for whatever reason, that fell through and people are wanting remodels, like, how do we pivot? And how do we make sure that we can be competitive in remodeling? Because it's not just as simple as showing up and, like, doing a remodel on someone's house. It really is like a completely different expertise and process that you need to understand and and issues that you need to be able to forecast and plan through. So I love that, yeah, and I mean, making that, that shift could take over a year or two to make in a sales cycle in your pipeline, and you know, having the right sales and getting to know your financials and being honest about your financials to set yourself up to a dry season when you're making that shift. Because we've made that shift, and we're like, oh, this hurts, because, you know, the sales were hurting, but we planned for it, and we were like, All right, we made it through the other side. And it's just, it's gonna hurt, but once you do it, it's like a next level of growth. You just keep going totally and Brian, you said the hot word. You said financials. Now I'm wanting to dig in. Yeah, now I'm wanting to dig in. Oh, god. What? So what all goes into that, in terms of, like, how you guys insulated yourself through those types of pivots, what did you like out from an evaluation standpoint? What were you looking at from your financials and saying, This is what we need. Like, give me some of the details there, sure. Well, one thing is, we need to be able to hit profitability on projects that we sell on that know our numbers is real, and being honest about where we're not making our numbers, you know, could never just mask it over with another sale that's not gonna solve your problem. Then, once you're doing that, you're done retained earnings at that point. And really, you know, huge piece in our history was partnering with you guys, four or five years ago with adaptive completely changed our cycle of closing out the books on a monthly basis. Now we're third week of the month the previous month is closed out, sealed and done. We know our numbers spend a huge adjustment, and then having the right financial team around you. And it wasn't easy, because as a builder, you're like, Let's build a house. No one teaches you how to do financial let alone construction accounting, is probably one most complicated accounting there is because it's not a point of sale. It's reoccurring over 12 months of work and whip adjustments and all that fun stuff. So as a builder, we could build all day long. But there's really not a whole information about how to be financially well at your business, it takes time and iteration and weekly repetition to get yourself fear of going through a financial process that you know I do every day for two hours every Tuesday, right? Yep, and having that discipline to get you that point to where you start building up retained earnings to make these moves right, and you're planning out two, three years in advance, totally. So touch on the retained earnings. Bit a little bit like, like, what are some, yeah, benchmarks that you guys look for. Go ahead. You know, just, just being able to manage your overhead to make the company a profit the other day and then put that away and not spend it and let that grow and compound, so you can actually have a buffer for a dry season and keep yourself in business, feed your family. You could pay employees, or you could use it to expand and growth in other areas of development, you know? And that's discipline. It's financial discipline all day long. That's what it takes. And you could do that, and you can master and you take your time, you can get yourself there totally well. And I think that kind of like comes back to this conversation of like, unifying the message, right? And the approach that contractors are taking. And I think when you look at the obviously, like the discipline that it takes, right? I mean, you can be disciplined, but not know your numbers, right? Like you even talk about overhead, like, how many contractors don't even know their overhead, right? And, or they're like, just severely under marking their overhead, right? So it's like the first part of this, like unifying the messaging is like, as a business owner, like you owe it not just to yourself, not just to your employees, but to the market, to be a professional business and know your numbers to so then you can start going into these conversations and the consumers out there not getting three different estimates, and one estimate is on this. Severe low end, and the other one is on the severe high end. But really, the one on the high end is the most accurate, because they know their numbers. They're properly accounting for their overhead. They actually are making enough money to stay in business, whereas the guy on the bottom end is like, actually doing this for free, will never be in business for more than five years, or whatever it is, right? And hopefully they're in business to finish your project, but, yeah, it's just, you know, and the other guy that doesn't know the numbers and lower, there's no discredit to them as a human. They just probably never ran a business. And no one teaches you that. You know, it's just, they're just good builders. They just actually take the pride and want to be a good builder. But running a business is a whole different animal. I've learned over the past 10 years, and trust me, I've had my pitfalls, and I'm not perfect and but it takes some tenacity, and getting that next level is hard, and I understand totally, totally. Andrea, what are, what are some of the, what are some of the the battle scars that you guys came across as you were learning what it's like to build a business and start to find these like these, these strokes of process and the importance of understanding like we need to track these types of things. What are some of the war stories? I mean, there are many, I think that 10 years and you feel like by now, you will have stopped learning lessons, and we continue to learn lessons. Yeah, every day, every week, every month, and a lot of that's because we want to learn. One of our core values is to always be learning, and we encourage that with our team ourselves all the time. I'm a serial learner myself, so part of it is always looking for those learning opportunities, and not just like, letting things slide, but new learning from them and doing better. You know, I think that one of the things that we've learned through the challenges that we've faced is like, what is the core of that? How do we fix it? And usually it comes back to we need to process our procedure, to tie to it, to make sure that doesn't happen again, or quality control check, or training internally. Or, you know, you just have to find what the core issue is, and you've got to work out from there, because the lessons are never going to stop coming. I mean, I think as a business owner, that's one of the things, but that makes a lot of people not succeed and not be able to continue on is that they just don't. It's hard, and so a lot of people don't have it in them to get up and do it every single day, Up Downs all around, and you have to have that certain level of grit that just you are never going to quit, you're never going to give up, you're going to push through no matter what, and you're going to fix it. And I think that's not everyone. It's not for everyone totally owning a business. It's hard totally well. And even, like on this, like, how do you? How do you? And maybe I'm like, coming out of context with this unifying thread. But like, I look at that and I think it's more like a self awareness thing. Like, do you in terms of, like, unifying the industry, I think, like, Just overall, do you just educate the market and what actual business ownership looks like and what to expect with business ownership? Or do you think there's just, like, inevitably going to get this pipeline of people that are incredibly skilled at building homes or in the trades and they want to start their own company, and then you can't limit that, right? Of course, you're not going to limit that, especially in, like, a capitalistic market, right? Free market, anyone can go out and do it. But like, what do you think are some big points that you could in terms of, like, just promoting this, like unifying conversation around the contractors that don't have it in them, or don't have the grit, like, what are some pieces that you could share? I mean, I would say education. I think we need to educate ourselves, but we also need to educate clients, future clients, you know, teach them how to have better conversations. I'm actually writing a blog post right now about questions not to ask when you're interviewing general contractors. Yes, I love it, because when we talk to people on those 10 Minute Calls, the questions that we get sometimes I'm like, It's evident that people just went on to Google and said, What are the five questions I should ask when I talk to a general contractor today? And it's literally, like, the same textbook list 70% of the time, 20% of the time you have, like, a really, really thoughtful conversation where somebody is, like, genuinely asking thoughtful questions that actually matter. I think one of the questions for me that's like the most, like, nails on a chalkboard question is when people say, like, well, how many projects are you working on right now? Like, what does that matter? As though, number one, it's any of their business. So number two, they have any idea what the size of our team is or what our bandwidth is, and so, you know, I always kind of try to educate people gently in that moment, like you know that a lot of factors play into how many projects we take on at any given time. We don't take on any more than we can handle at any given time because we commit to providing our clients with a certain level of experience that we are never going to sacrifice. Because saying, like, I have we take 30 projects at a time, well, I could have 30 PMS. Yeah, that. So that's way overstaffed. Or it could say we take on four projects, but we only have 1pm and that's too many for one, you know what I mean. So it's like, it's just an irrelevant conversation, but edgy. Hating them on what to actually ask. It will be beneficial to them to selecting the right team for them. Can you give us a little sneak peek on the blog? Or at least, like, what is it going to be titled? How do we find this? Or do you have a title for it? It's the 10 things not, yeah, the 10 things not to ask when you're by Andrea Seymour, okay. Okay. Okay. Cool. Cool. Like, okay, so I don't know, like, what are some of the big pieces? Can you do a sneak peek on the 10? Yeah. I mean, I don't have it pulled up right now, but I could. Okay, bad question, bad question. But I love it. Okay, so you get, like, you're actually, like, putting together these resources and content. I think that's a part of this grit thing, right? And like, what does it actually take to be like a business owner? That's why I want to have you guys on because you are such thoughtful business owners. And that's a part of it. Is when you see these problems in the market, how do you get in front of them to change how the consumer market is looking at things? But I think even internally, like as a industry, how do you start to pivot that? I mean, are you working on anything internally to help not the consumer, but the industry, like actually run a more unified process. Maybe that was a little question. I don't know where that came from. Yeah, indeed, indeed, we are. What are you working on? What are you working on? I want to hear it. Well, we have seen a bit of a gap in the marketplace for a certain type of software for builders, custom builders, specifically. And we just think that there is a lot of room for opportunity to have a software that's built for builders by builders, and that helps guide them in the processes on how to really capitalize their business the best and how to make it the best business it can be, because, like we were talking about earlier, you know, people get into building homes because they like to build homes. What they don't realize is that when you own a business, you have to be the marketer and the salesperson and the accounting department and the HR department, and also build houses and communicate with clients, and most people aren't good at all those things. Those are very different skill sets. And so what we intend to do, we hope to do with the product that we are working on right now, is to provide people with almost like a business in a box, where it guides you through the process, it workflows, it helps you make your life better and improves your quality of life through the simplification of a process that we've figured out. I love that. I love that. Can you get, like, more specific, like, what are the features going to be? And I say this because, like, just in, like, my background, like, when I was at builder trend, right? It was on site consulting, right? That was the service that I stood up and we were scaling and selling to all these contractors. That's all they want, right? They want. They want, like, there's all these people out there that are running these businesses successfully, and, like, it's all about this process, and like, employees generally have the same problems, right? It's like, Why does everyone have to recreate the wheel? So I'm curious, like, Do you have any like, specifics that you can share, that you're willing to share on the software, sure it's going to have everything everyone else has to market. You know, your client portal, your choices with clients, you know, RFIs and messaging and the basics of software, let's just call it that they've had the financials and stuff like that. And then there's a deeper level that we're building out with our experience and processes that will make it full circle, you know, and make things close out and be more intuitive to today's custom builder, you know, like you said, we're all building great products, but we're all doing things slightly different, and some things work, some things don't. And, you know, I talk with peers and what they do, and we're actually developing our first beta test group now for the product to start up in a couple of months, and because we're running it on one product now internally, and you know, it's great stuff behind it, and it's going to be very pointed focus towards a certain group, and that's fine, and it's gonna kind of help some people scale and grow their business. That's the goal. Is to take somebody that's really good at building that doesn't have the operational process down and just kind of here, you know, work with this is how we do it. It might help run and take it from there. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Okay, so you're talking even, like, specifically for the group you mentioned, custom home builders. That's, that's my art. Like, how specific do you go in who the software is for? Like, if I'm, if I'm a listener, and I'm, like, I'm, I've seen what's available in terms of project management software out there. None of this really landed with me. Should I look at this? Should I not? Who is that person who should look at your software? If you're running fixed contracts, okay, fixed contracts or renovations, or new builds, or, you know, any kind of build really, okay? You know, it's a software for you, okay? So that's like, the big piece is, like, the fixed contract, the fixed price builder, yeah? Right? I also think, if I can add to that, I think design build firms, this is going to be a game changer for okay. And Brian had mentioned, like, choices or selections, like, when you say for the design build side, like, what is really going to pop like, what would be like? The compelling part for design build shops to look, oh, that's some good information. I don't know if we give that. Hey, you guys complete the fifth whenever you want. I know this is new software stuff. Yeah, totally. Get it. Go ahead. It's going to solve a lot of things behind the scenes that you're dealing with now, yeah, because the selections is selection, but there's a lot behind those selections you got to work through Right? And, dude, I love it. Yeah? You go, yeah, no. I mean, I think the process piece of it and the workflow piece of it is going to be a major differentiator for the marketplace. It's something right now where most every software that I'm aware of is analog. Everything you do is you have to press a button to make it go, and this is going to help move your business along on the back end, so that you can focus on the front end and taking care of your clients and building the house that you love to build. Obviously, it's not going to build your business for you, but it's going to make it a lot simpler for it to keep flowing while you are out there building the house. Okay, so you mentioned the analog piece, and I, I carry a very similar line of thought, like when I so we work with tons of contractors, right? And they always ask. They're like, what do you think about this project management software? What do you think about this project management software? What software do you recommend? What do you see other builders using? And I'm like, Look, I see people bounce around from project management software, one to the other. When I look at their functionality, none of us that's compelling or that different. They'll have, like, certain modules that are better than the others. But it's really kind of like splitting hairs, and it's like, all preferential at that point. At the end of the day, everything that's on the market is, like, very analog to your point. Like, the only way for that thing to show value is that it is getting kept up to date, and you have processes internally and accountability internally for people to actually use that software. So I'm going with this is, is there an AI component to what you're building? Yes, there will be. It's coming in the next version. Let's go okay, so an AI native project management software. Yep, it will have some controls that won't run wild on you, but it's gonna be very process oriented. It's gonna know the steps it does and it runs, you know. And excited about you guys, too, Luke and you guys, totally adaptive team, totally, totally well. And so I want to see this thing I haven't seen. Is there a name for it yet? Yeah, do you want to share? Not gonna share anything you don't want to share. Not today. The it's actually in trademarking right now. So once the trademark is fully like submitted, then yes, we've been going through iterations with our trademark attorneys, but it's close. That's awesome. That's awesome. I'm so stoked. I want, I want to get a sneak peek. So bad we will get because you will be, well, we'll see in a week and a half. I know, yeah, if you're gonna, if you're gonna be fired up at the builder show, we should, we should definitely take a little look, little look, ski. But no, I love that. I love that. And in terms of, like, unifying I think that's great. I mean, it's like, when you think generally across the board, like, why, why can't these processes be followed by or, like, builders across the country, and that's like, always, the linchpin is the process. And no one wants to sit down and document the process and build this big manual and then have processes change and then go back through and update it. It's like, like, what works like? Can we just run this playbook and that you're automating it? I think it's fantastic well. And something that I'll say to that that ties into something that we talked about at the beginning is that the more process oriented and the more autonomous your business can be, the better you can set it up for yourself now, but also for your future, because if your business is heavily reliant on you pushing a button, you'll never be able to exit that business. Ever, yeah, ever. Which is why this business runs on a hamster wheel. I mean, I've watched it. My own father owns a plumbing company since before I was born. It's like, if he's not there, it's not there, you know. And so if you can't find a way to automate, or at least, you know, create systems that are easily repeatable for folks to take it and do something with it without you there, it's just never going to materialize in anything. And so, you know, the goal for us is to truly, though, I mean, make it better for people, I think it's just, it's really harder than it has to be right now. And I think a lot of that relies on what you just said. It's hard to sit down, take the time to write out the processes, write out the procedures, iterate them, make them better. Revisit, refine and keep moving forward. And when you but when you take the time. Time to do it. And, you know, so we have a really, a team that's really engaged and, like, participates in that with us. It makes a big difference, because you can do better when you know better, totally, totally, and I like just to, I just think to that point is, is reducing the friction and removing yourself from the business is a goal that every small business owner contractor wants to do. And I just did a podcast with with a gentleman on like, wealth planning, right? It's like everyone knows the stat. Well, everyone knows the stat. I don't even know the exact numbers, but the point is, is there's a lot of general contractors that are getting ready to retire, right? And they built these businesses. These are great businesses right there. I mean, they're 510, $15 million companies. But then when you really sit down and look at it, it's like, if I'm trying to go through and get this like evaluation on this thing, and the repeatability and the opportunity for someone to buy this asset that I've spent an entire lifetime building, to come in and operate it, to hit the margin that makes this thing worth it. Instead of just liquidating the assets and the brand, like, you're going to get whatever your your assets are worth that's such a big, big component that builders need in that process. And the operating cadence and rhythm is like, has everything to do with it. I don't know, Brian, do you have any anything in terms of, like, what you guys are doing over at Springdale, aside from the software that you're doing, just thinking more forward thinking, like, how do we remove Brian and Andrea from the equation? Like, how do we start building in layers? How do we start scaling? How do we do that stuff? Yeah, no, that conversation is always there. You know, always training process, procedures and growing there. You know, putting right people in place have been with us for a while, to take over the spots, and we're making that transition. And it's definitely not the easiest of transitions. But, you know, I think next few years, we're going to be there hopefully, and it's just time and just buying it in the process as a team and doing it. You you made one comment that this gentleman that I had on, John Steiger, talking about the same thing as, like, the succession planning, right? Like grooming talent. Do you have anything tactical that you guys look for internally, that you were looking for with your employees, that you're like, These people are the succession like this is what we looked for. Do you have anything on those lines that you guys could share with the audience? It's very simple. For me. Personally, I hire for the human. Yeah, if the human isn't right, if the person doesn't have, you know, communication skills, if they're not dedicated, if they're not devoted to what their craft is. It's not going to work, especially in a small business. It's lean like ours, and my team hears me say all the time, like, I can teach somebody XYZ skill most of the time. I mean, maybe not where it's like a project manager's concern on the job site. But like you know, most a lot of skills we can teach, we can refine over time. But I cannot teach you how to be kind to our clients. I cannot teach you how to show up every day. I cannot teach you how to want to be here and do better and also be a contributing member of this society, but also our team, like, I can't train you how to do that. So first things, first has to be good people. You can't skimp on that. And I see it happen a lot like we see people project managing job sites that aren't trained in construction, and it like tears my soul apart because I'm like, This is too serious for it not to be a highly trained person, you know. So I think that. But at the end of the day, though, they still have to be the right person, not just a person who knows how to do a job right. How do you find those people just, like, repetition, like, out, like, how do you guys repetition? And that takes time. I mean, honestly, like, I will say, you know, they always say, like, hire, slow, fire, fast. You know, that will dad, yeah, like, the higher, slow piece, it really matters. I think there are times when you definitely need people faster than others, but I think that if you could try to stay ahead of it and like, always have certain positions posted, because you just never know when things could change for folks, and keep your feelers out there, you know, network with the community around you so that you know maybe you're appealing to people to come to when you need somebody that was, I was, that was gonna be one piece that I was gonna throw on is like, always be recruiting. Like, that's one thing that I hear, like, the best business owners do, is it's not like, oh shoot, like someone turned in there two weeks or quit, or they're gonna give us a month or quarter notice. Like, no. It's like, always have your feelers out there. And it's like, it's not to, like, intimidate a team or anything like that. It's just to constantly have a pulse on the market. Know, who's out there, who's available? Like, to your point, talking to community, like, what builders are running really good shops, or shops that you guys want to, you know, look like, and what are their project managers doing? What do they actually look like? Nothing. Gonna be sniping talent from people, but to position yourself and be always available, to be like, yeah. Like, if this is. Working out over X, Y and Z. This is what we're about over here. So I love it. Um, okay, guys, well, no, this was, this was an awesome episode. I'm super stoked for you guys to release. Hopefully, when this episode releases, you guys are ripping and roaring on software x, at the very least, our website will be up by then, yes. So yeah, we're excited to start telling people about it. We're excited to be a resource for people, because our this industry is too awesome not to have good resources. Totally. Yeah. And we love, you know, local networking with contractors here. We know a lot of them, and a lot of them run just like us, maybe a little bit differently, you know, and we also, you know, learn things from each other, what to do, right or wrong. So I got other builders out there. You communicate and talk within your community, of builders in your local market, you'd be surprised what other people are doing to be operationally focused, you know, I spoke with a guy out of Louisiana not too long ago who I met in one of my groups now and in the middle of, like, Louisiana, and he is so operationally driven, and is brilliant too. And I'm like, just like, wow. So he and I are passing things off on ideas and, like, concept. It's always good to have that creative community to to grow, because you can't think of everything yourself, and it's always good to share those kind of things. Because I think, yes, there's other bills here that they're not competitors, they're peers. And, you know, if you think about as peers, not competitors, you all grow together, you know? And that's one narrative we probably got changed in the industry, is like people doing it right, share some things together, and kind of work together, and before you know it, you're not bidding. You have to each other on turn around projects you're negotiating with, you know, with a client and liaison through, versus being a hard bid situation. So totally, I will say, like, I can only imagine, like, with you guys being contractors in the industry, in your specific market, right heads down, building, growing, developing a business like it can seem like we need to push more of this narrative of, like, peers over competitors, collaboration over competition, is what I've heard as well. But I will say in like, the last call it five years that is, I'm hearing more and more of that across the country, like, there is certainly go ahead. No, yeah, I've seen that same appetite is been incredible. I don't know what changed it, but kind of covid, post covid, it's changed quite a bit to where was we're talking and it's been very helpful, totally. I think just like, just like an off the cuff speculation of mine is, like, you see this, like, severe inventory shortage, right? And it's flip flopped so much in, like, the last five years. I mean, not necessarily the inventory, but just like, who's buying homes, right? Like the Blackrock thing, and, like these huge PE groups, like picking up all the single families and turning them into, you know, investment properties. And then what is the, what is the population going to do in terms of home ownership? Like, I think, that type of, like, inventory shortage, but then labor shortage, or rather, inventory surplus, inventory shortage, right? Is, like, it's driving all of these pieces together for builders to be like, okay, like, there's enough work out there for everyone. There's not enough of us to, like, actually get it done. We have to run healthier businesses. And if we are, then we're going to be able to capture, capture the opportunity. So, yeah, I think, yeah. And I think too, like groups like CB USA, they were a part of Yes, which is custom builders, of the US. I think groups like that are really, really great for collaboration with in the custom builder sphere, because I think that there are only so many of us out here, but there are enough of us, and we are strong in numbers that, you know, we can, we can all tides, you know, raise ships, or whatever thing is. But I, my I simplify it, and I just say, like, there's enough sunshine out here for all of us, like the people who are doing it right, they will always have sunshine. And so I think that just keep doing the right thing and stay true to who you are and why you got into this business. Totally, totally. I mean the Oh, go ahead, Brian, I had one guy younger, yeah. I told him about a problem. I had it, and it was a cost associated with that, right? It costs company money. And he said, Congratulations, you paid your tuition. And it's like, one of those jokes that just senior level people could laugh down on and be like, I get it. I've been there. You know, it's about passing information down and and also just knowing that the struggle is real and someone else has been through it, if they've been doing it, 20, 3040, years, you know, so totally talk to those people, totally well. And I think that's why it's great that you guys are taking the approach that you are with your software, of like, you're essentially doing that just in a way that it can be packaged and, like, distributed to tons of people. Because I asked the question often on the podcast is, like, does everybody have to go through these badge of honor moments? No to where it's like, they have the hard lesson, right? They have the hard lesson. They have to, they have to pay their tuition. I would love to. Yes, and you should eliminate that for people. It's not necessary. It's really not we've well enough of us have done it enough times. Like, Enough Enough already. Like, we can make this easier for the folks who are coming up. And Brian and I talked about that at length. You know, when we were getting started, how nice it would have been to have had a software like that, but that was also accessible for us, because I think cost is such an issue when you're starting out. And so we've talked a lot about, you know, offering some sort of, like incentive for like, people who are in like, years one to three of their business to, like, get in at a really desirable rate, like, something that's really, really, really, like, honestly, beyond reasonable, so that it just makes sense for their business and they just get started on the right foot. Because, like, how great would that be for folks who are getting into the industry to not have to stumble through and waste 10s of 1000s of dollars on things that, like, could have completely been avoided if they had the right partner to show them the way. Totally, totally. No, I think you guys are fighting the fight, so keep fighting it. This is awesome. I'm so excited to to get the sneak peek. Hopefully in Orlando you will, but if not, I'm excited for you guys to start broadcasting. Okay with that? Well, I'll let you guys get back to it. Thank you for the episode. So much insight and again, just super stoked to see what you guys are putting together. But I appreciate it. Thank you, Reese, thanks for having us.