Navigating Challenges to Success in Construction | Lawrence Naranjo

Lawrence Naranjo, a renovation and construction entrepreneur, discusses why honesty and transparency with clients matter in life, business, and construction. He shares his Arizona upbringing, family background, and experiences in sports, golf, and college, including leaving ASU’s business program a few classes short due to work demands. Lawrence recounts pursuing firefighting and EMT work during the 2006–2008 downturn when hiring froze, then building a 13-year career in plastics distribution before leaving due to micromanagement. He explains transitioning into residential remodeling, the financial risks of starting Efficient Renovations in 2020, missing payroll once, and becoming licensed (KB-1) before rebranding to LJ Builders to expand from remodels into commercial TI work, ground-up builds, and assisted living projects, emphasizing proactive project management, strong communication, and mentoring employees.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Being honest and transparent with your clients will get you so much further than trying to hide something or trying to avoid something. You just can't do that. You can't do that in life, you can't do that in business. Why would you do that to somebody's house? I would never do that to whatever I do to my house, I'm gonna do it to yours.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Hey there, welcome back to Above and Beyond where Excellence meets elevation. I'm your host, Jan Simon, and this season we're raising the bar, diving into the passion, purpose, and defining moments of leaders who don't just aim high, they live there. Big ideas, real stories. Let's get into it. Today's guest is Lawrence Naranjo, a respected entrepreneur in the world of renovations, restoration, and commercial remodels with a foundation in raw plastic sales. Lawrence brings a rare inside knowledge of materials and manufacturing to every project, blending technical expertise and exceptional craftsmanship. Beyond the job site, he's a devoted husband and father who believes adventure builds legacy. With whether that's through travel, golf, or simply creating meaningful moments with his family. Lawrence doesn't just build spaces, he builds experiences.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Welcome. That's great. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Yeah, no, I appreciate you coming on and taking the time. I know you got a busy, busy schedule, so I'm glad you took a little bit of time with me. I'm a little less better looking than your wife, I think. All right. So let's start off. Lawrence, growing up, what did your childhood look like?

SPEAKER_00 1:54

So I've lived here all my life. I was born in St. Luke's in Phoenix. Oh wow. That was 41 and a half years ago. Dang. Yep. I lived we lived in Phoenix, Tempe, Chandler, and then I ended up in Gilbert. Okay. So I think when I was five, six, we lived in Chandler. My parents got divorced. I then moved to Tempe. We were there from I think third grade till about sixth.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

And then my mom moved to Gilbert. We lived on Gilbert and Baseline. I went to Gilbert Junior High. Um that was cool. We went, I went there from I think sixth and seventh, and then we finally moved to Gilbert and Chandler Boulevard.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

That's where I finished at 18. And then I eventually moved out.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Gilbert and Chandler. So is that Gilbert School still? Is that Mesquite? What's over there? I went to Mesquite High. Okay. Let's say I was trying to figure out what's what is over there. So uh brothers and sisters? I've got one sister. Okay. Older, younger?

SPEAKER_00 2:47

She's younger. She's two years younger. All right. She keeps you in line? Sometimes. Yeah. No. We don't we don't talk. Oh, I'm sorry. She had a bad divorce in 2019, right before COVID. Okay. And she didn't like that I was hanging out, well, not hanging out, but hanging out with my niece and her ex-husband.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

So she decided to call me one night and just that was it. Yeah, that's too bad. It is. It's too bad.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

It's tough. I w going through my divorce. You know, it's interesting because you think you have good relationships with people until Yep. Until it goes bad.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

I say money and marriage. Screw everything up. She was trying to tell me who I could and couldn't hang out with.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Yeah, that's rough. That's rough. Um, so one sister. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

You got two kids? Three.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Three kids.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Seven, nine, thirteen.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Seven, nine, and thirteen. Okay. So thirteen, then you waited a while.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Yeah. So we had the first one. That was in 2012. We got pregnant again. That was a miscarriage, probably two years at two years after.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

So Owen was really hard to have. I ended up going on some male production drugs. And that kind of helped. Literally, after two and a half, three months, I think we got pregnant with Owen. Oh wow. Okay. He was the most interesting birth.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Really? Yes. What what what does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 4:02

So Owen and Millie, or I'm sorry, Gavin and Amelia were simple. Well, Millie was the probably the easiest. Owen had to be pulled out with forceps. Oh wow. It was a very interesting birth. Yeah. Yeah. My sister-in-law was there. I tried to prep her for what birth looks like.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

She didn't listen and she ended up passing out. Oh my gosh. Um, Jessica was, I think, I think she was in birth for like six hours. Wow. She had to get on all fours. We had to flip them. They put water. It was it was a process.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Was he upside down? Yes. Oh wow. You had to flip him. It was gnarly. Oh, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

And when they put the forceps in, it's just it's insane. I mean it's like salads. I moved from legs to head to hold to help and hold.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Salad tongs pulling that child. It was wicked. Oh, that's crazy. Well, I'm everybody's okay. Everybody's good. That's good. Yep. That's good. Growing up, you said Phoenix, Tempe, Chandler, Gilbert. Yes. So you just kind of kept moving east. Did you play sports?

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Yes. So my family, my my dad was a cop, my mom was a secretary to machine shop. So we didn't grow up very well off. Yeah. So I didn't start playing sports organized until seventh or sixth grade. Okay. I played in the city league. And it was only like once or twice. Um, I played basketball for I think Wham it was at the time.

SPEAKER_04 5:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

And then I played high school basketball for through two years. And then I think I played rugby sophomore junior year.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Nice. Yep. I went to the uh rugby world cup in 2015 in New Zealand. Nice. All blacks. Yeah, it was awesome. My my it was actually like right after my divorce, and my brother's like, hey, let's take this trip. And I'm like, okay. So he was there for two or three weeks, I think. I was there for like 10 days. But we did, we were all on the South Island, flew into Christchurch, you know, did basically the entire island, did it did a tour of the entire island, ended up playing in a what they call an old boys tournament in Omuru, which is a town in the south. And it's like they have these tournaments and they're like these big I mean, everybody in town comes out, and so then they've got, yeah, you know, I was gosh, what was that 15 years, 11 years ago? So I was still in my 40s at that point. But there was there was one guy who was I think 80 years old, and they they give those guys purple vests, so you can't you can't tackle them. It's like two two-hand touch. So they always give those guys the ball so you can't hit them and stuff, you know. It's like it's pretty crazy, but yeah, that was a blast. And we saw oh man, we saw Ireland and England, no, Ireland and Scotland play, and then we watched one other match. I don't remember who it was, but anyways, it was a blast. Yeah, it was so cool. That's cool. Yeah, so I love rugby, and and I played here a few a little bit. Yeah, you know, but I miss playing those guys. Those there's some islanders that are freaking they're solid. Yep. They're solid.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Yeah, so I'm I'm really allergic to grass. Oh, really? So I so we wore I had to wear long sleeves. Okay, I put tape on my ears.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Because anytime I touched the grass, I would get rashes. Yes. No kidding. So I couldn't, that's why I didn't play football. You still allergic to grass to this day? Yes. Wow. When I coached my son's football team when I was a coach on the grass, I'd get rashes on my knees. Really? Yep. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

I've never heard. I mean, I've heard of people like breaking out a little bit, but that's interesting. You're not like rubbing around. That's pretty crazy. Okay, so you played rugby a little bit, a little bit of organized sports. Was were sports when you were growing up here in the valley as club centric as they are today?

SPEAKER_00 7:45

I would think yes. My sister played club ball from 10 years to until she went to college. Oh wow. So she did that probably for eight or nine years.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

I didn't get involved in that. I just didn't.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

I don't know rem or don't know or remember why.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

But I don't I don't remember because we just can't remember. Yeah. What were you like at 16? See, I was a sophomore in high school. I was playing basketball then. I was so we'll scoot back a little. When I first got into high school, I played freshman basketball. I played the bench. Okay. I was a bench warmer. I was wanting to play more. In the summer of that year, I worked my ass off. I was in the gym every day. I did summer basketball. I had a different coach. He put me as more of a shooter versus a point guard.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

I started, I blossomed. I don't know what it was. So that that year when I came in sophomore, I was playing, I was a starter that I was a starter now. I was number two. I was a shooter. So I remember I remember playing pretty much every game. Nice. Not sitting in the bench anymore. So hard work does pay off. Oh yeah. I gained I went from 135 to 155. I gained 20 pounds in the summer.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

I put on a lot of muscle.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

That's that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

That's awesome. What kind of car did you drive? Or did you?

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Yes. So, oh my gosh. I had a Honda Accord, two-door. Okay. It was in 1996.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

And you were at Mesquite. I was at Mesquite High.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

The edge of the world at that point other than I was the first graduating class because it didn't open until 98. Oh wow.

unknown 9:15

Dang.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

So I drove from Gilbert and Baseline to McQueen and Elliot. Okay. Not too far. No.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

But they didn't have you going to Gilbert High School, Gilbert and Baseline.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

When that when that school opened, they split the boundaries like three times. Oh. I was supposed to go to Gilbert, and then they wanted me to go to Highland. Oh. And then it got switched to Mesquite. Okay. So they didn't know if it was going to open.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Yeah. In time. That's crazy. When did you start playing golf? Because you're an okay golfer. I mean, you're you're quasi good. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

I didn't start playing until I was 18.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Okay. High school. Just decided one day to play.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

So my uncle, there was a it was summer of actually after I graduated, there was a golf tournament for Chandler Gerbert Community College. Okay. To raise money for softball, basketball, all the teams, right? He needed a fourth. And I was like, I'll play. Never played around before. Wow. I ended up going out and playing with him and I got hooked.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

It's all it takes. He gave me an old, an old school club set, which I barely got rid of, I think, last year.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

You were still playing it, or you just had to play it. No, no. It was it was a graphite shaft with an old school, like look like blade tidalist irons. That's what I learned on.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

No kidding. That'd be tough. Playing on blades. Yes. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

The pitching wedge was very small, but that's how I learned. So I just got used to it.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Yeah. And then you go and you get hollowbacks or something. What do you play now?

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Ping I530s. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Okay. Yeah, I was gonna say you go back, get some get some forgiving clubs, and all of a sudden you're like, damn, I'm good. This makes a big difference. Exactly. Exactly. That's crazy. Did you go to college? I did. Where'd you go?

SPEAKER_00 10:48

I went to Chandler Gilbert. Okay. So after high school, my parents got divorced completely, separated. They ended up selling the house in on Greenfield and Chandler Boulevard. Okay. I ended up living with my uncle for six months. And then I ended up moving back with my dad for a while. Okay. But I went to college from 18 to 20. I graduated with a transfer ship to ASU to go to their school of business.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

That was fun.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Didn't do it? I went. Oh, you did? Yep. My dad was helping me pay for everything. We didn't, I didn't get any school any school debt. Nice. But because I was I was working at the I was working at Chandler Gilbert in the maintenance department. I was there from 18 to 21. Okay. And then I was delivering pizzas at night. And then I was also working at a machine shop. So I was extremely busy.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

I had no time. Going to school. So I eventually had to drop out of school. Once I once I moved from my dad's house to ASU, I had two jobs and going to school, and that lasted like a year and a half.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

And you study business? Yeah, I went to I went to uh WP Kerry School of Business.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Okay. And you graduated business school. I did not finish. You did not. How far how how many credits you have left to get?

SPEAKER_00 11:58

When I looked at it 10 years ago, I think I was like four classes away.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

It's close. It's so close. But you know what's when I when I get to it now, it's like, why? If I would finish it, it's just for like a personal thing. Like, yes, you got a business degree, cool. Yay. Do I need it? No. No.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

You know what's interesting? I don't remember who who somebody was on the show and we were talking about that, and they're like one or two classes short. And I'm like, why not? Why not? I mean, at that point, why not? But I can understand, like, I mean, for somebody like me, I went to college because I thought that's what I was supposed to do, right? I mean, and and I wrestled and whatever, but but I was at college because I didn't know any different. And I didn't know what I wanted to do. I went to I initially went for business, took an accounting class. I'm like, hell no. If this is what business is, want nothing to do with it. But yeah, then it's like you get out of school, and then it's like, okay, well, I've got this piece of paper, so what? You know, except for my first job at insurance, is like that was a requirement. You had to have a four-year degree. And it could be in anything, it didn't matter as long as you had a four-year degree. That was like number one requirement. So, anyways, but yeah, I mean, looking back now, if if I if I was there, if I was like three, four classes short at this point and be like, what's the point? You know, it's kind of like some of the designations you can get in insurance. It's like, whatever. I mean, could I learn more? Yes. But I've been doing this 30 years, and I don't know everything at all. But you can find stuff. And do I need to sit in class for eight hours a day to no, not interested?

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Uh so plastics. Yeah, so I'm gonna go back a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Okay, yeah, let's go back.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

2006, 7, 8. Okay. The economy took a took a dump. Yes, it did. So right out of high school, I wanted to become a firefighter.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

So I was in fire one and two, took all the fire classes, I think. I was really close to getting my fire degree. Okay, but the economy wasn't good. I tested for Chandler, Scottsdale, Phoenix twice, I think Gilbert twice, but nobody was hiring. Yeah. I passed that.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

It's it was brutal back then. It was because I remember I actually applied for the Phoenix, the Mesa Police Department, Gilbert Fire, and Mesa Fire. And I got offered a job at uh Mesa PD, but I didn't end up going that direction. But it's the same thing, it's like it was so brutally difficult to get a job. There was like this massive wait list, and that was probably around the same time six, seven, six, seven, eight. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

So I remember going to the civic center in downtown Phoenix. There was two thousand plus people testing for Phoenix. No kidding. Wow. And we filled up the Civic Center. Wow. Big time. And they had desks that were 12 inches wide. And I sat like shoulder to shoulder next to people, and I hadn't this much space to take my test.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

No kidding.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Do they have like blinders so you couldn't see I could look over if I wanted. You want to know something funny that haunts me to this day? I I was offered a job with Mesa Police. So this didn't, I don't think came into play. I think everything else I did was fine, but but on the written test, there was a section of there's an accident at this location. What's the fastest route to get there? Well, I answered it using all right turns, thinking from a civilian perspective, that's the fastest way to get there. Because I don't have to stop and wait for anything. If I take all right turns, and and it was like it's like as a police, you don't have to worry about lights. It's exactly but yeah, it's like it still haunts me to this day. It's like this is the stupidest thing. It's like, yeah, I answered all right right hand turns. That's funny. But uh, anyways. That's funny. So so Gilbert, so you so you tested for Phoenix Fire. Isn't that crazy how do you think you would have still been doing that today had you gone into that?

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Most likely.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Yeah. I I think I think had I accepted the Mesa PD position, I don't know. I maybe because I fought fire forest fire for six years and I loved fighting forest fires. Um and I loved everything about fire stuff, and Mesa and PD was just kind of another step, but always wonder like had I taken that position.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

What life would look like.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Yeah. I mean, I'd probably been some psycho messed up dude or something, but potentially I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

You'd have two jobs.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

For sure. Or I'd be retired by now, and because that was 20 years ago, and and be collecting a pension from the Mesa PD and have a second job. I don't know. All right. So you grab you you you you what made you stop school in four four classes short or whatever it was.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Life. Okay. So I think I think when I stopped school, I I had the two jobs and I was living in off of like Judd and University in downtown Terry. So I could walk to school. But I just remember like thinking, like, if I finish, because I had I think I was in I was taking two classes because I remember we're I was paying for them as I went versus getting a loan.

SPEAKER_04 17:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

And the courses that I was taking, there were there were one elective and one core. I passed the core, but the elective was one, it was like a weird cool course. I I can't remember what it was. I was like, why am I doing this to myself? Like this course isn't gonna help me. Like I'm just doing it as it's it's like a game. Yeah. It's like I'm fulfilling a need to get this degree. Then when I get out, I don't even know what I'm gonna do with it.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

And I had two jobs at the time, living on my own. I just said I made a decision.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Yep. Isn't it interesting how and and I feel like there's a there's a pendulum swing going back the other direction, but but how much emphasis we put on a four-year degree, right? Or now it's even a master's degree. But in and go down a conversation we probably shouldn't have, but but the the whole thing with regards to how broken is an education system when you take four years to go through high school to basically learn basic math, geometry, algebra, maybe get into calculus if you're a smarter kid, whatever, you know, basic English, writing, arithmetic, you know, all that stuff. And then you go to college and you're and and basically two years of your four-year degree is doing those four years all over again. And then, and then it's like you sit there as as I mean, I remember as a kid thinking that, like sitting in a math class going, I I learned this stuff in high school. Why am I doing this again? And thinking, and I didn't know what I wanted to do back then, I had no clue. Like I said, I did business for a little while. I changed around, did different majors, finally landed on I I wanted to be physical therapy, but I wasn't smart enough for that. You know, m but it's but it's a whole thing where it's like if you go in and high school actually meant something, and then you go and you say, Okay, I'm gonna do two years of whatever it is that my job is going to be, right? Let's skip over the stuff that we did in high school. The electives, the English, right, the redundancy. Yeah. I mean, oh, you've got to take a PE class in college. Like, why? Yep.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Hang your bite in your lip. I know you don't want to talk about that. I remember I remember I took because when I when I was in a senior, I only needed three courses to pat to get out of high school. So I ended up taking fire science and I went to I was taking dual dual credit at Channel Gilbert.

SPEAKER_04 20:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

So I was taking pre-calc. I had a full day when I was a senior, and I ended up going to two schools. I went to Mesquite High and Gilbert High. So I I was at Mesquite in the morning and then I would go to Gilbert High in the afternoon, and Gilbert High was my fire science.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

And we actually had a class in the afternoon, and it was with two Gilbert Fire guys. And that was in great. Okay. It was awesome. And I learned a whole lot from those guys because they actually took us to the station. We got to meet a lot of people. That's when I knew I'm like, that's what I want to do.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Yeah. See, that's just I it it blows me away that we don't. I mean, they're they're obviously in construction and stuff now. You know, had somebody I think had somebody introduced me to construction as a kid, I probably would have stuck with it. I mean, as a as an actual career. Sure. Like I helped. We redid houses. I feel like every house we moved into needed tons of work. So, you know, I'm I remember one of the houses we moved into still had knob, what what's it called with the electrical, the knob and uh fiberglass wiring and knobs, like the the ceramic knobs. And so I'm the only one small enough to fit up in the attic. So my dad's standing down on the, you know, he's like, okay, now you see this, da-da-da-da-da. And I'm like, Yeah, I see it. Don't touch it. You know, it's like, and and we're running electrical upstairs. So, I mean, we did that stuff, but I never it was never a concept that that was a career that could be had, right? And I look back now and I love doing woodworking and I love doing that stuff, and I think now, like from a craftsman perspective, you know, now that's extremely hard on the body, but there's something to be said about a project, and I I'm should probably ask this question before I just blanket statement, but there's something to be said about a project conceptualized to finished and being able to step back and go, that is freaking awesome. But anyways, yeah, college, fun times. When when when you were when you were at that age, what did success look like to you?

SPEAKER_00 22:03

I didn't know. Yeah. Not finishing school. Being 21, being 21, 22, yeah, I I felt like I failed myself a little bit. But at the same time, did you feel like because you stopped school? No. I I think because uh so I was at a machine shop working in engineering. Okay. So I was actively looking at plans for for materials, for stainless steel, for m plastic materials, everything. Okay. So I was helping engineering develop products, so when I would look at plans and we'd actually bid the jobs and get them, I could actually see them in production. So that was a cool thing. I could help help engineering bid the projects, and then we'd get if we get the jobs with either I think Raytheon, ATK, Simula, all those machine um bigger, bigger companies, it was a cool thing to see. And then the the the delivering the pizza at the night was kind of like just my cash. Yeah. Because I wouldn't leave hundreds, two hundred dollars, three hundred. On a on a weekend.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Going out and partying and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Yeah. So success for me, I didn't really know until Did you know did you have any idea where you were going at that time?

SPEAKER_01 23:09

No. You were just kind of going through the motions.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Going through the motions, just kind of meeting. I didn't do any networking at the time. I was just working at the machine shop, working, going to school, and then working at night. So I didn't have any time for anything. When did you meet your wife? I didn't meet her in two 2000 oh my gosh, eight. Would she answer the same way?

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Just kidding.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

Me? Put you on the spot.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

I feel I I I sense a little bit of hesitation there.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

I just because even at even in 2008, success probably wasn't even in the in the cards yet. Yeah. Because we're still trying to figure out each other and figure out what we're doing. Because at that time, 2008, I was at the plastic company then. I was still going to school. Because I remember taking my EMT class in 2008 in August in August. Okay. Because I was still t I was still active.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Did you ever existing? Did you ever work with like AMR or an ambulance service or anything like that? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

If I wanted to do it, I would have had to take a pay cut because at that time I think there were $12 an hour. Plus or minus. That's so crazy. To be an EMT? That's crazy. Yeah. $12. $12 or $15. It was one of those two.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

I remember my first job in insurance. I went from, I mean, in college I had so many jobs, it was stupid. But my first job in insurance, it was twenty-six thousand four hundred dollars a year. And I thought I was rich. I'm like, fucking made it. Yes. It's like, and I look back now, I'm like, wow.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

I won't even cover my mortgage.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

No, that's just crazy.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

It's disgusting. It's crazy. Inflation. Yeah, $12 an hour. So plastics. Tell me about plastics. Sure. So when I was at the machine shop, I remember calling the manager of the company that I used to call for all my materials. And she needed a warehouse person. I think I was 20, 23, 24 at the time. Okay. So she hired me to be a part-time warehouse guy. So I did that from like 7 30 to 12. So I could still go to school. Okay. And I could still do my pizzas at night because I was still living in the same place. I ended up working for 13 years. Who who did you deliver pizzas for? Rosadis.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Rosadis. Okay. Not Domino's.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

No way. Chicago pizzas. Rosadis.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Yeah. Yeah. Anyways. I was gonna say, you know who has really good pizzas? Rosati.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Vero. Have you ever had a Vero's a really good pizza? It's a great Chicago style.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

Yeah. Love that pizza. Anyways, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Go ahead. You're good. So sorry, sorry. So going back to 2000, oh my gosh. I think that was 6'7. Okay. I left the machine shop, went to the plastic company. I was working there part-time. I worked in the warehouse, and then I ended up working my way into the office.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

Doing, oh my gosh, I don't remember what she had me do. But anyways, I worked my way all the way up for 13 years into outside sales. And the reason why I left, I liked what I did. My manager was a very was a micromanager. Anything I did, anything I touched, everything was scrutinized under us extreme microscope. Drove me absolutely crazy.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

They say people don't leave a bit a job, they leave a person.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Yes, and that's exactly what I did.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

I had opportunities to do a lot of things with that business because they're they got bought out countrywide. So they're they're they're over the place. So I could have I could have ran a branch probably potentially. Oh wow. So like, but my manager wanted me to stay there. Yeah. And it was very apparent after the last two years when I was there, options came out for I could so I could go. No. No, you need to stay here. You have goals you need to meet here.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

You made him look good. Made her look good. Or you were hot and she just had a thing for you.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Uh she's old enough to be my mom. Ah, well, that's really I I learned a lot of how how not to treat people. So I never look at a situation being negative. I just know that I don't I will never treat somebody that way.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

So and everybody that I've employed knows that.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Yeah. That's awesome. Before the business ever came into we'll say vision.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Oh, I got it. I can give you a good story with that.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

What what is it that you you what what what did life look like? Like like when you were in that position working the plastics, doing the stuff that you were doing, and and maybe the business was starting to kind of slowly come into mind, but what what is it that life looked like at that point?

SPEAKER_00 27:22

So when I was in the plastic distribution life, I guess you could say, I didn't I didn't know, like I was kind of maxed out pay wise. The only other option would be to run a branch or to leave. Because I already maxed out, and I remember telling my boss that when I put in my two weeks, I was like, I'm already kind of capped.

SPEAKER_04 27:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

And I think she looked at me like, yeah, you are. So when I told her that when I put in my two weeks, when I was leaving to go into construction, because I literally left, I put in my two week notice and I was like, I'm leaving. She let me go the next day.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Really? Yep. Walk you to the door.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

She said, Where would you like to have lunch? I said, What? You're fired, but hey, let's go to lunch. You want me to no, how about we just order order wings for everybody and I'll pack my stuff and I'll leave.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

It was awkward, very weird.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

That is weird. It's it is so weird. I've been in that position before where where there's the I'm letting you go. Now let me be your best friend.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

And then she was like, Well, if you want to put in your two weeks, you can go work in the warehouse if you want.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

What? And I was like, Yeah, no, I'm good. I'm good. So so moving into construction at that point, was it into LJ builders or was it?

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Oh, so a good friend of mine has a con had a construction company, and I interviewed with them prior to that to that two-week notice because I it took me four or five months to finally get an answer from them.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

I was hired as a superintendent to run remodeling. So residential? Residential remodeling.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Little did I know that it would turn into this, but it took a lot. So I was there from September until December of 2020.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

It took me that long to realize that you know what, I can do this.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Because I learned a lot, I was getting paid very minimal to do a lot of work. I was basically running my own business. Yeah. Because I would get leads and I would be responsible for them from start to finish.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 29:15

I didn't have a PM. I didn't have anybody to help me.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

So if I had stuff I had to do in the morning or at night, it was all me.

unknown 29:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

So I was commission-based, heavily commission-based, which is a is a it's a double-edged sword because you're working on the money.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

You make a lot of money making commission.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

You can. But it's feast or famine. But the months that you're not getting closed jobs, you're like, well, I'm just getting my salary this week.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

And then and then if you get, I'll call it distracted, right? Or you get fat and happy. It's like all of a sudden everything's good. You can't. And you take your foot off the pedal.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

I couldn't. Yeah. So when I when I left Port Plastics, I killed my 401k. I had I had to. Yep. Um, because I went to a business where I was gonna make half of my salary. I had a mortgage, three kids. I was like, so we were fortunate that that lasted, I think, a year-ish. And we were fortunate to get other under other funding from other people at the time to keep us afloat. But man, that was the scariest time.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

It it is Jessica's your wife, right? Jessica. Yes. Did she have experience in what what's her background?

SPEAKER_00 30:24

So Jessica's a coach. She has a like a life coach? She's a she coached synchronized swimming. Oh, okay. Basically, time she was 16, 17, 18. No kidding. Like literally recently. Okay. A couple years ago, she retired.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Okay. So, and I'm probably jumping a little bit forward here, but in in some of the imagery that you have on the website, some of the work is absolutely stunning. Is is that her? Is that you?

SPEAKER_00 30:50

Is that do you have a design manager that so depending upon the project, a lot of that's me.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Okay, wow.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

I do a lot of my own designs.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

A lot of help can be with with the client's um knowledge. I'll put that into play.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

But I try to do my own designs because I feel like I have a good eye for things. And so I can try and guide you to yes, try that or try this, or and then I also have designers that help with colors and material selections if if need be. Gotcha. But a lot of a lot of the kitchens, a lot of the stuff I design.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Okay. Is the majority of what you're doing? And again, I'm I'm I'm jumping way ahead of myself here. I should just retain this question later. Most of what you do, is it residential? Are you more commercial, or where's your split?

SPEAKER_00 31:33

So when we first started, it was all residential. Okay. A lot of it was. Till recently, we've started getting into more commercial.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Um, which commercial is great because now we're starting to do build-outs for companies versus homeowners.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Which is a whole different ammo. A lot of money. It's this different problems.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

Are you doing TI work or you're commercial TIs? Okay. Okay. Up until that point. Up up until let's say when when when you started the business. What would you say was one of the we'll say heaviest? I don't know that's the right word I want, but one of the heaviest times in your transition from high school into college, out of college, working with plastics. I mean, did you have did you have any situations where you were like having to to to work through an issue or a problem that could have kicked your ass or did kick your ass?

unknown 33:04

Man.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

So when we started efficient renovations in 2020, there wasn't there wasn't anybody giving me jobs. There wasn't anybody giving me checks. I had to generate everything from nothing. I remember missing payroll once. That was that was scary.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

And it was only to me. I paid the guys because the guys should be paid first, I'll get paid last. That's how construct that's how owning a business is.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

Well they say owning a business, pay everybody else first. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

And literally, when I I remember when that time frame came, the the general manager at the time called me and said, Hey, there's X amount of dollars in your checking account this week. We can make payroll, but I can't pay you, we can't pay you until you get more cash.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

So from that point on, I told myself, I'm never gonna miss another payroll.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Yeah. That is I think I think one of the in my view, one of the most uh misunderstood aspects of owning, operating, running, building a business is payroll. Bringing somebody on and the weight that that carries when it's just you or when when when I have my business and it's just me, you know what, it might be a tight month, right? I can do this. I can I can make it to next month. When you've got somebody that's like, okay, I gotta make this payroll, that's a heavy, heavy weight that I don't think people when I say people, and and I don't want to offend anybody, but the general public that that has never owned and operated a business would really understand the magnitude of being responsible for not just yourself but somebody else and potentially somebody else's family. I mean, if they're a sole income and all of a sudden you're like, right. And thankfully, never had to do that. Yeah. Yeah. With with regards to the business, now or then, what is the number one thing that you feel that that you're most afraid of with the business that keeps you up at night? Or is there anything are you at the point now where you're like, this is awesome? I'm a golden child.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Never never think that. Man, that's a tough question. Every week decide I get a different challenge in front of us, and it could be a big contract that we're trying to sign, trying to make sure we're making payroll for that week, um, making sure we're buttoning up a particular project. Because I know we're we're we're we're doing a lot more permitting now, so dealing with the cities is always a always a fun joy. Phoenix Scots Del Tempe.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

I was gonna say, is there a city that's easier to deal with than others?

SPEAKER_00 35:41

They all have their own issues. It's just dealing with them as they come versus trying to it's just a lot.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

You've taken on responsibility that is outside my perception, and maybe somebody's actually mentored you. Has somebody mentored you in all of that? Because I mean that's that's a huge piece in and of itself. Understanding and learning, okay, if I go to the city of Phoenix versus Tempe or the town of Gilbert or whatever, I mean, these are the different permitting aspects I have to do. This is how how they're gonna want their plans to look. Oh, I know that this inspector is gonna look for this specifically, so I gotta make sure that's there.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

I've been fortunate to work with really good engineers. Okay, I've got one really good one now, higher ground engineering Greg. He him and I talk daily, and anytime there's any issues with him and I, we deal with it with the cities. Nice. Prior to him, I dealt with everything on my own. So like I would call, I would have I would have a couple engineers, but anytime there was any city interaction, yeah, it was me.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

That's rough.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

That uh again, things that people don't see, right? You've got the job and then you have the job after the job. In your case, you probably have the third job where the bookkeeping and paying the bills and the accounting and all that other stuff takes in after the job and the job and the job. You know, it's like a lot of hours.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Yes. So go back and go going back to your question. Yeah, there's just with construction, there's just so many things that hit hit you differently. It's just dealing with it as it comes. I try to deal with stuff before they come because I'm very proactive. So I can tell you like when I'm running, when I'm running a job, if the PM's running the job, I'm always two weeks ahead.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

So if he's doing framing, all right, so who's who's right, who's next? I've got HVAC, plumbing, electrical. I gotta get all those guys in. Yeah. Who's doing the insulation after him? Do we have a price for that?

unknown 37:34

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

Where's this at? Where I'm always two weeks, and you can ask all the guys. They're like, yeah, I don't know how he does it.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

Can can you do ADUs with a workshop on the ground floor and an ADU above it in Morrison Ranch?

SPEAKER_00 37:48

We'll have to get the CCNRs from Morrison Ranch, and then we'll have to contact the city of Gilbert.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

Can you build it over the top of where the pool is today? Asking for a friend. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

Yeah, because that that happens more than you think.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

I'm telling you, pools, man, I get it, but why?

SPEAKER_00 38:04

I mean pool codes, uh window codes, glass door codes. Windows. It's it's bizarre. The things they make us do.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

800 windows in our house, and it's like, what the hell? We live in the desert. When I'm first moved to Arizona, that just popped in my head. When I first moved to Arizona and we were looking at houses, and I've been here since 99, it blew my mind that there were no subtraining or basement homes. I mean, and I say no, very few, unless you get into high-end homes. Washington State, man, almost every house is a little rambler, it's got a basement. It's unfinished, whatever, but you do whatever you want with it. And I get down here, I'm like, it's 120 degrees. Why aren't you building stuff underground? Makes sense. And somebody's like, oh, well, it costs so much more to it's like dig a hole. I mean, yeah, it's got clichate.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

The ground here is really hard.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

It is. Throw some water on it, dig a hole. Whatever. That's a contractor's excuse. Wait, we're gonna charge you extra to dig the hole. If we gotta go below the topsoil, it's it's extra. And we get to use dynamite? We should, actually. That would be fun. Blow that shit up. Oh, yeah. I I I I don't know that this is really a question that that would be surprising to anybody, but maybe it is. Maybe there's somebody other than who I would think the answer would be. On the day-to-day, who do you want to not disappoint?

unknown 39:34

Day-to-day.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

First would be probably the wife, and then the second are all the employees. What motivates you to make sure that they're happy?

unknown 39:41

Man.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

I gotta see them every day, and I would never want anybody to walk into my office or see me and just not want to say hi or look at me. I I that's that's a loaded question. Yeah. I'm very what's the I don't even know what the word would be.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

Are you sensitive?

SPEAKER_00 39:57

No, I'm not sensitive. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

I I thought that's where that was going. No, I don't you carry the responsibility in a very I'm a dad at home.

SPEAKER_00 40:07

I'm also a dad at work. Yeah. Well, I like that. And it's and it's not it's not like a like I'm a dad at work, but I'm more of a mentor. I'm I'm helping them, I'm guiding them, making sure if if they're the sales guy, we're doing the sales properly. If we're doing project management, if somebody has a question, I'm making sure that it's done properly. Like there's a lot of there's a lot of guidance and advice that I'm trying to give them that I didn't really get when I was doing going through what what they're going through. And so that's how I pre how I perceive it.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

How do you how do you create correct mistakes and behavior?

SPEAKER_00 40:43

How do you go about that? Sit-down conversations, just kind of like what you and I are doing. I don't get upset. I have a conversation because I at my other job, anytime anything would go south, it was always pointing a finger. Like, yes, you made a mistake. You're gonna be hard on yourself because of the mistake. Yes, it costs money to fix it, yeah, but you don't have to tell the person that, hey, that mistake's gonna cost you $5,000 and I'm gonna take it out of your bonus.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Like that's not fair.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

Like, yes, we're all humans, we're all gonna make mistakes. I make mistakes.

SPEAKER_01 41:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

Just own them, fix it, let's move forward. Yeah. Don't dwell on it. How do we come up with a solution? How do how are we gonna get this repaired so that we don't we don't upset the homeowner, we don't lose any time, and we don't, and we don't, it doesn't kill us on the cost side. Yeah, we gotta do it right.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

Makes sense. Makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 41:31

We have to do it right.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

Jumping back to Jessica for a second. You said that she was a coach up until recently. Yes. Is she in the business now?

SPEAKER_00 41:38

Yes, she helps.

SPEAKER_01 41:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

What does she do? She's our product support specialist. So because we have the three kids, she can only work basically part-time. Yeah. So she helps with our with the marketing. Okay. Um, she helps with following up with sales. She does everything that basically Jose and myself don't have time for. Okay. Which has been a blessing.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Yeah. Isn't that amazing? I keep I keep going back and forth with regards to um hiring a personal assistant, which to me like sounds odd. Like it's taken me a long time to get used to having people in the office that are amazing that I can just take care of this, take care of this. Because I I've always had to do it myself. So then it's like now you're it's almost like you're shluffing off responsibility. And it's like, okay, I'm you can feel that way. Yeah. It's and so, but I keep thinking about a personal assistant because I think the number of emails that I get in a day, like today, I was stuck at about 35, 40 emails in my inbox. I'd do four or five, and then I'd go back and look, and I got 35 or 40 emails. And I do four or five, I got 35 or it's like I could not get further ahead. And I'm like, come on, people, stop sending me emails. You need them, right? But I kept thinking, okay, of and not today, but but I've thought, if let's say I get 75 or 100 emails in a day and I gotta spend a minute or two per email, and and those emails that are a minute or two aren't really anything that I technically need to take care of. There's things that my staff's taking care of or something along those lines. How much time could I save if I had some somebody who's just monitoring my email that's just doing that for me and going, okay, here's four emails you need to respond to. Perfect. You know, some of me thinks, well, then do I really know what's going on with the business, right? Or am I am I losing touch with my clients, which I don't want to lose touch with my clients? I mean, you need to stay front of house. Yes. But at the same time, it's like, okay, but I still gotta get I gotta get new business and I gotta grow this and I gotta do that and I gotta take care of, but anyway, so I don't know where I was going with that. I think yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:49

Kind of like Copilot, how you can set up auto responses. Yeah, there needs to be something that we can I'm sure there is. I'm sure there's something that can filter because it's it's on Outlook.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:59

It'll kind of give you a brief synopsis of whatever that email pertains to, yeah, and you can respond accordingly.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

I would I would assume there's probably some way to create some bot or AI that would respond. Yeah, just respond or or move it. If there's nothing in there that's asking for me to do something, how does that take that and just move it off to something else? That would be cool. Yeah, they need an app for that. I need time to figure that out. Yes. Who believed in you before you believed in yourself? Man, that's tough.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

Probably my family. Jessica, big one.

SPEAKER_01 44:36

Yeah. She big support. That's awesome. It's good that you've got that. How long have you guys been together?

SPEAKER_00 44:41

It'll be wow, 15 years in uh November. Wow. You're in married 15 years. Married 15 years, dated 15 years in a month. Just kidding. 16 years in a month.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

Yeah, you don't have to give that away. It was pretty close. What does doubt sound like in your head? When when when whether you're taking on something new, you started the business. I mean, do you have doubt? Oh, yeah. Do you have fear? Are you afraid the business is gonna make it?

SPEAKER_00 45:08

I think in internally I always think like what it could be, but I don't I don't let that d deter me from what I'm what I want to do. Um doubt is just I don't I mean, everybody has doubt. Yeah. But I try not to let that get into my way.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

Yeah. Do you have moments when let's say you go you go bid a job and you think I got this in the bag? It's mine. And then you get a call and they're gonna like, yeah, we're gonna go a different direction because somebody underbid you by $400. How did how does that mess with your psyche, or do you let it? I don't let it. Yeah. Just move on. Yep. Next. Yep. They obviously don't want a good job.

SPEAKER_00 45:47

Well, when I first started, it was a little more personal because it was just me bidding out projects. Yeah. And so now that I've been doing it for so much longer, if somebody tells me that I need to change my costs, or I we typically don't do that anymore.

SPEAKER_04 46:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Because you you're gonna get what you pay for. Yeah. And predominantly over the past, I've given bids to people that are past clients, and they'll call us and go, you know what, I really I should have hired you. Can you come by to fix this? Can you come by to check that out? It's gonna cost you twice. And I'm like, to be honest with you, I can't I can't touch that because if I do, I'm gonna avoid their warranty. And they're like, Whoa, and nobody ever told me that. I'm like, well, yeah, if I can go and touch that valve, I can go and do some alterations. But if somebody finds out, it's gonna be me and you that are gonna know.

unknown 46:32

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

I never thought about that.

SPEAKER_00 46:34

Yeah. Hmm. I can't if it's before two years, you have to call your last contractor. If it's after two years, anybody can touch it.

SPEAKER_01 46:43

So use the right contractor the first time.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

You should. Yeah. Always.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

What what what keeps you in that feeling that morally or ethically you're gonna do the right thing every single time? Versus I could drop my prices, I could get more business, I could, you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 47:38

If you drop your prices, predominantly what you're gonna see is you're gonna see a lack of workmanship on the job. So if we're if we're dropping our our pants to make somebody happy, if we have to go back multiple times to do something, we're negative. Yeah. Because now we're we're trying to use somebody less expensive to go do a repair or whatever it is. And if it goes south, there's there's no way to like re- recoup your your losses.

SPEAKER_01 48:04

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 48:06

So we try not I try not to do that. I mean, I did it, I think we did it at the beginning, and I probably even did some things where a client would say, Hey, you know what, I want to do a kitchen remodel, but I want to use my own drywall guy, I don't want to use my own electrician. And at the beginning, we're like, cool, we can we can work with you guys, right?

SPEAKER_04 48:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

But what we found, we get into it, now the electrician is two or three weeks out, her drywall guy can't make it until next week, and now we're we give her a price based on the lead time, yeah, and now we can't get back for three to four weeks because her drywall guy or or her trades are not available. And because we're trying to save X amount of dollars when we could have done it faster and been done at their lead time.

SPEAKER_01 48:45

Yeah. Was there anybody while you were growing up that you would say influenced your work ethic?

SPEAKER_00 48:53

There's only one thing that stands out, not one person or one thing. My dad always said, do better than your parents. So I never knew what that looked like or what that felt until recent because I've already exceeded and pushed way past any barrier that they've both done.

SPEAKER_01 49:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:11

That interesting. And it's it's humbling. I don't I don't think at it, and it's like it's is it positive? Great, yes. But I've just learned like when I grew up, we didn't grow up with hardly anything, and I'm able to give my kids what I didn't grow up with.

SPEAKER_01 49:22

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:23

I can I can do the ice skating, I can do the hockey, I can do the football. Whereas if I wanted to do that, it's like, yeah, we can, but you're gonna have to do it over here, or you can do it over there. We can do street hockey with these rollerblades and the skates.

SPEAKER_01 49:35

Yeah, yeah. That's uh as I was growing up, my my dad was a teacher, my mom worked odds and end jobs. Most of the time, most of it she worked either at the school or she worked with the physical therapy department, but um we didn't have a ton of money. And uh I grew up just going, I'm gonna give my kids more. My kids will have more, kids will have more, kids have more.

SPEAKER_00 49:55

And I didn't know that I would be saying that my kids would have more until I had the kids.

SPEAKER_01 49:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

Because I remember when Jessica and I were looking at a house pre-marriage, we were looking at a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house, and it was just the two of us. We didn't have any, we had one dog at the time, and it was in 2010. And I looked at Jess, I'm like, what are we buying this house for? I go, it's just you and I. Yeah, what do we need all these rooms for? Freaking fast forward 15 years, yeah. All the bedrooms are full.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

Same house? Yeah, same house. Nice. I'll bet you got that thing for a steal.

SPEAKER_00 50:27

We did in 2011. We bought it for 155. It's worth 550 plus right now. Wow. That's crazy. Yep, and I've I've remodeled every inch of that house.

SPEAKER_01 50:38

Yeah, that's crazy. That's awesome. I I think about our first house we bought down here is a 2100 square feet. It was like 117 or something like that. And I'm like, that was back in 90, well, 2000, I guess. Um, what's a lesson that you learned through your development, through the business, through growing up, that at the time maybe you thought was, you know, a frustration, pain in the ass was gonna stop you. But now looking back, it was like, okay, that was exactly where it needed to be at that time.

SPEAKER_00 51:13

Persistence. Yeah. I never gave up.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 51:17

In 2020, I remember sitting at a restaurant, I was working for that other company at the time, and I remember sitting down, I was working on a bid, and I was trying to order I ordered dinner, I was sitting there by myself, it was like six o'clock. And I remember I called my old business partner, and he told me he had an LLC. He just needed somebody to take the license. I was like, hmm, that door opened. I walked through it.

SPEAKER_01 51:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:44

I'm a big proponent of walk through that door. Yeah. You never know what's gonna be on the other side.

SPEAKER_01 51:49

For sure. Talk to me about that, because you didn't start out as LJ builders.

SPEAKER_00 51:53

No, so 2020, December 6, 2020, it was six o'clock at night. I remember sitting at the restaurant, I had my computer, pretty sure I had a beer there, and I was ordering ordering food, and I remember calling Justin because I was calling him for a roof for a bid that I needed to do because I had a couple bids I needed to get out, and I was like, I gotta get these done before I go home. I was telling him how frustrated I was because I think I just got paid that day, because it was Friday, and it was $265 after taxes. And I was like, How the heck am I gonna make mortgage?

SPEAKER_01 52:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

Because it was due, I think it was due the week after or whatever, and I was like, How the hell am I gonna come home and tell Jessica this? So once he told me that, the next day I put in my notice and I didn't stop. I didn't turn around. It was like non-stop, balls to the wall, gas pedaled down. I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do it all the way. Nobody's getting in my way. And New Year's happened. Literally, January, I was working, working the business with Justin. I was taking my ROC test and working in the afternoons every day until I passed. I passed that test before the end of the month in January.

SPEAKER_01 53:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 53:03

We were licensed, fully licensed in March, 90 days later.

SPEAKER_01 53:06

Isn't it incredible when that fire lights?

SPEAKER_00 53:09

It was engulfed. How motivating that is. I was motivated.

SPEAKER_01 53:13

That was starting the business. I did the same thing. I mean, uh different circumstances, whatever, but when I finally, because I had always said, ah, someday when I'm ready, someday, someday, someday, someday, I'm gonna do this, blah, blah, blah. Finally, the circumstances just hit, and I'm like, I'm done. Blinders are on, I'm going full steam, full forward. I don't care. Nobody's gonna tell me, and I'll bulldoze anybody that gets in my.

SPEAKER_00 53:37

It was like I remember getting up at getting up, being there at 7, going through all the courses until 10 30, 11, trying to answer my phone when I could, working, working the jobs in the afternoons, and then working looking at the looking at my books at night and just reading those books, getting familiar with them. Because I wasn't there wasn't any turning back at that point. I had to I had to pass because I had goals. I wanted a KB1 license, and that's what I got.

SPEAKER_01 54:04

Wow. That's impressive. Do you use mostly subs or do you have in-house guys that use it? We sub it all out. Okay, okay. So you're your paper. Okay. That's impressive though. I mean, that's that's pretty freaking crazy. How how would you say success is has changed your view of responsibility? Do you feel like you're successful? I guess I should ask.

SPEAKER_00 54:25

Yes, but there's there's more to that. We're fortunate where we can kind of if Jessica says, Hey, can we go to dinner tonight? Sure, we can. Can we go somewhere? Yes, we can. But we've I put myself in that that place where we can. Which literally the last that's only been the last, I would say, year and a half we've been able to do that.

SPEAKER_04 54:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 54:46

Because prior to that, I'm I'm a big proponent of pay the guys first. Yeah. Pay me pay me last. I've never ever given myself a bonus. Yeah. To this day. Really? Yep.

SPEAKER_01 54:56

You need to take one.

SPEAKER_00 54:57

I don't.

SPEAKER_01 54:57

Give it to Jessica.

SPEAKER_00 54:59

Yeah. She she gets to see the the vacations and the the trips. That's our that's her that's our bonus, but I don't, I don't give myself like an actual write a check to myself. Yeah, yeah. What here's what you've done. No. Yeah. Because I'd rather see, you know, give myself a check to Jose or give it to Henry or give it to Tone, like give it to somebody that's gonna blossom. Because if you never know what some $5,000 or $10,000 is gonna do to their perspective.

SPEAKER_01 55:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

What's that gonna do to me? Cool. We can we can I can go buy a set of golf clubs or blow it up. Like I've already I wouldn't say that I've already gotten that, but I'm not a materialistic person. Yeah, I don't need a a giant GMC AT4 lifted to make myself feel better about myself. I have it, I'm good with my truck.

SPEAKER_01 55:40

It sounds like you're gonna have somebody in mind that you're just kidding. You know what's funny though is I feel like there are so many AT4s out there right now. It's like I swear to God, every time I turn around, I don't know who all of a sudden decided that was the best truck to buy, but I feel like everybody's got one.

SPEAKER_00 55:57

AT4 and a trailboss.

SPEAKER_01 55:58

Yeah, yeah. Where do you hope the business goes from here? I mean, what's what's your what's your vision for what you want to happen?

SPEAKER_00 56:07

So because because of last year, we did a rebrand. We went from efficient renovations to LJ builders.

SPEAKER_01 56:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 56:13

The reason for that big change was the builder part.

SPEAKER_01 56:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 56:17

When you call efficient renovations, you think I can only renovate, I can only remodel, I can only do your kitchen, I can only do your bathroom. Yeah, I can't add an addition, I can't add a casita, I can't do your house. That's my goal.

SPEAKER_01 56:29

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 56:29

Um, this year I'm hoping to start building ground up. Okay. Um, we have a couple of clients that we're actually actively doing that for.

SPEAKER_04 56:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 56:37

It's just a matter of when. Yeah. Um, we're looking at a couple of properties out in Queen Creek this weekend. Um, I've got a permit that's been on hold for 18 months.

SPEAKER_01 56:46

So almost doing like a spec home or a or a semi-custom customer.

SPEAKER_00 56:50

Potentially, but I think we're we're jumping over that. We're going directly into the assisted living houses. Oh, nice. Okay. We're gonna start. Hopefully, we can start doing a couple a year. Okay. 13 to 18 house, um, 13 to 18 bathrooms for the people for for our clients. Nice. Okay. Interesting. And that's that's more of the commercial side. Obviously, we love doing we love doing residential. Residential just you gotta be more hands-on because you're dealing with people when they come home from work, you're gonna get you're gonna get pictures of, hey, why does this look like that? So a lot of the PMs deal with that on the on the daily.

SPEAKER_01 57:22

Yeah. You have your kids, obviously you're out and about in the community. Do you do you have a sense or do you feel like you're called to give back or pay back maybe some of the success you've experienced? And where would that be?

SPEAKER_00 57:38

Man, it's it's kind of what we're doing. If we're building an assisted living, we're helping somebody move into a facility that they're not having to look for. I've I donate, I we do a lot of fundraisers all the time. I do a lot of golf tournaments, I donate to schools. Big proponent of that. Yeah. I'm just fortunate that we're able to.

SPEAKER_01 57:58

Yeah, yeah. You said your kids are 14, 9, and 7. 13, 9, 7. 13, 9 and 7. Trying to think of is 13 at junior high?

SPEAKER_00 58:08

13's in yep, seventh grade.

SPEAKER_01 58:09

Okay. I was trying to think of it's been a long time since my kids were that age. You forget quickly. How where where do they fit into that? How old was I? If let's let's say when your kids look back on your life, what do you hope that they say about you?

SPEAKER_00 58:27

Ooh. I'm hoping that I push them to meet their goals and their ambitions. I mean, we we try to keep them in line because they're kids. Man, that's a that's a loaded question, too. Because now that Gavin's 13, I can I can see sense that he needs more male guidance. I've been fortunate he's playing football, which that's on his own his own um goal. I didn't push him on there. When he quit, we when his season was over for Santana youth, I told him that's a big goal. If you want to play football again in the in the winter, we need to work out. Gavin would set his alarm at six. I'd be waiting for him in my garage. He would open the door and he'd be ready to work out.

SPEAKER_01 59:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 59:08

I didn't force him, he did it on his own. So I think just showing him that it's a I'm available for you if you need it and want it is big. Because when I was 13, my dad was wasn't there for me like he like I am for him. Yeah. I had a garage gym, but it wasn't I was on my own. I had my little stereo put on Metallica and I'd work out.

SPEAKER_01 59:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:29

But for him, I'm actually in there to actually help him to make sure he doesn't hurt himself, to make sure he's working out properly, which he he loves it.

SPEAKER_01 59:37

Yeah, that's awesome. What position is he playing football?

SPEAKER_00 59:41

He's O-line and D-line. Okay. He's 13, he weighs a buck 60.

SPEAKER_01 59:45

No kidding. He's a tank. Where'd he get his size? I don't know. I mean, you're kind of a small guy. I am. I mean, no offense. I'm 185 soaking wet.

SPEAKER_00 59:55

He's almost as big as you. Uh-huh. I tell him that. Wow. You keep this up, dude. Ah. He told me in December before Christmas he wants to play for ASU. No kidding. Like, dude, that's good.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:05

That's awesome. Keep it. Keep it. And you know what? Mindset over. I I if I was a coach, I would take somebody with the right mindset over talent.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:17

That's what I tell him.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:19

Any day.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:19

He is the hardest working kid. He might not get it the first or second time, but if you keep on him, he'll get it eventually.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:26

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:26

And he he's like he's stubborn. He'll keep doing it.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:29

That's good. That's good. Freaking awesome, man. Um, with regards to the leadership of your organization, what do you hope your employees are saying about you when you're not around? I'm asking.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:42

I don't know. You're you're good there. I don't have any negativity on any of the employees. They're all amazing, all of them. And I I think and no, they all speak highly of myself because I don't I'm not I give them enough rope to hang themselves. Yeah. I don't I'm not gonna call somebody and go, hey, it's 9 30. You're your location shows you're still at home. What's going on? That's not me.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:05

You're at home for a reason. I'm assuming you're either working from home, you're probably answering emails, you're doing stuff because you're at home. There's no reason to to like go to a job site unless you're needed.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:15

Yeah. I've had I had I had a boss at one point in my career that was like like that opposite of what you are. You know, it was like, how come you only made four calls today? You know, four site visits today versus six or eight or whatever the requirement was. How come this? How come that? How come this? You need to be better at this. It's like, and my whole thing was look, relationships are developed over time. And I can't stop in to talk to somebody for five minutes and develop a relationship and think that that's gonna go anywhere. So I may stop in and it could be an hour, it could be two hours, it could be three minutes. Don't know. Just know that I'm out here doing my best to bust my ass for you to make sure that your business is succeeding. You know, it's like it just used to drive me crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:07

Yeah. On my phone, I could literally pull it up now and I can look at everybody's location. And everybody knows where I'm at, too. They can see that I'm right here. Yeah, I don't I don't I don't need to hide from them. Yeah, I don't hide from them. They don't and they don't need to hide from me. Yeah, I'm not gonna call them and ask what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:24

Yeah, where are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:25

Unless the only way I'm gonna call and ask is if a client calls me and says, Hey, where's Tony at? Oh shoot, he is, I'm gonna call him.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:34

But that doesn't happen. Yeah. Because I let them do what they need to get the job done. Very big proponent on that. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:41

When when the shit hits a fan, when things go sideways, when the job's not getting done the way it should be, how do you stay steady? Or do you?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:53

Do you blow up? No. We've had a couple of projects that obviously they go south, but it's how you take care of it and how you manage it. Typically, I will take it over with another PM's assistance, so that I'm not there all the time, but I will I will be there to make sure it gets done. Those are probably the worst, because by the time it hits the fan and I'm involved, it's bad.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:15

And that doesn't happen. It happened once last year. We had an ROC complaint, and I ended up having to fix everything that she wanted, in addition to giving her money to base fix it what we couldn't, and it was minimal.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:30

That's frustrating. It is. That's really frustrating. Talk to me about LG Builders. Tell tell me tell me what you guys do, what your focus is, and and how you operate.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:41

So LG Builders has a KB1 construction license, meaning we can build your house or we can build a commercial structure. So, with that in mind, when I first started, obviously building giant houses are because you have a relationship with someone. So my relationship with people were basically I'm gonna do your kitchen, I'm gonna do your bathroom. We stayed on the small scale. Well, now that we're getting into more in commercial, it's been different better. Because now we can I can put all the expertise that we have on the residential side and put it into the commercial side. Commercials are a lot different. You're dealing with property management companies, you're dealing with tenants. So if we're gonna be jackhammering and saw cutting next to a mailbox place that is on the phone all the time, we can't do it Monday through Friday. Yeah, it's just different, different animals, different problems.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:25

Are there different specs that go into residential versus commercial or different kind of kind of sort of?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:31

It just depends on depends on what it is. Okay. If we're doing commercial, we're dealing with the more ADA compliant stuff. Residential can be ADA if we're doing an ADA bathroom. Just different different animals. Gotcha. Um LJ builders, our goal is to start building houses. I'm not sure if that's gonna if that'll happen. You never know. We might start getting into the commercial assisted living and we're gonna start doing that, which which is fine too. As long as we're I want to get into more of the building aspect from ground up, from ground up. That's that's more fun. Yeah, doing doing remodels is actually harder than doing the build out because when you're doing builds, you're not having to worry about what's behind the wall. Yeah. What's in what's all what somebody else did.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:16

We pulled this down, and there's yes, you find something every time. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:21

Been there, yeah. Not that I do construction. We did a condo, a condo in right outside of TPC, and when we took out all the drywall, we found a bunch of exposed junction boxes that weren't properly harnessed.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:35

No kidding.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:36

We found about 13 of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:37

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:38

So it's an insurance job that we're like, okay, so we have to fit we can't put drywall back. We have to we have to fix this. Here's the cost. Um, we found a 1986 or 1988 Budweiser can in the drywall. No kidding. Just funny things you find.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:53

Yeah, yeah. Have you ever found uh like a time capsule or anything like that?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:58

I wish that would be cool. Yeah, that would be pretty awesome. Yeah, because you we'd have to read it and trying to contact whoever wrote it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:03

Right, right. Yeah, we found this. That'd be that would be crazy. If if somebody wanted to hire LJ builders, what what could they expect as far as what you guys do? What's what makes you different, I should say, thanks.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:16

So if depending upon what it is they call for, we strive, we s we pride ourselves on communication. So we try to give whoever the client is, hey, this person's coming, this person's gonna show up, they're gonna do this, this, and this. Any change orders you're gonna be notified. Anything up front, you're gonna know. That is a big thing with residential. On the commercial side, it's a it's it's totally different. Typically, they don't want to be bothered as much, they just want to know, hey, I'm gonna contract you for this to build a TI. If you need me for anything, call me, but pretty much leave me alone.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:51

Get it done and call me on it. Get it done and call me when it's over. Yeah. And oh, by the way, you got 24 hours to get it done.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:56

Yeah, yeah, because we want to open on March 1st.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:58

Right, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:00

But for for the residential clients, especially on the build aspect, we try to do more design build.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:06

What that looks like is we're gonna go in with an architect or a drafter, whoever that may be, and we're gonna help design build your job with your budget. Why is that important? We've done a couple jobs last year where we deal with their architect or their design firm, and now we're trying to see their vision, and because we're coming into it much later when the plans are already done, yeah, we're assuming whatever that's on the plan set is what you wanted. So if something gets altered or changed and they didn't put that into play, that's gonna be an issue. Yeah, and and and it's funny, I have a barn dominion that we're building in Gilbert right now that that happened to.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:44

I need a barn dominion.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:46

It's a 60 by 60, 28 foot tall, where we finished us, we finished all the framing. So it's a residential on the top and then barn on the bottom. The whole thing's a barn, but we're building we're building a kitchen and a mezzanine, and it it it's um it's gonna look amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:59

You don't you know what I want? I'm sorry to cut you off. Good. I I'll Christine and I talk about a barn dominion all the time. Like I get an acre property. Barnuminium, so I can do my wood shop in the front, but I want like a full glass wall, like a bulletproof, thick wall. Oh, yeah. So that you're in the house, but you're looking at the shop, and then you've got, you know, I just think it'd be like in the living room looking at the shop. I don't know if I get sick of that at some point, but I'd have to have a really clean shop, probably. Yeah. But I just think it'd be cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:29

There's a glass manufacturer that you can actually install glass if you push a button, it'll turn matte, so you can't see.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:35

Oh, that'd be cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:36

And they're local.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:37

That would be cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:39

I'm sure it's probably not cheap though. No, it's not.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:42

So, anyways, I'm sorry. So, so going back to the barn, yeah. So she hired her own drafter architect to design it. So when we started doing the build-out, they started asking us, well, where's this and where's this and where's this? And come to find out, that never made it to her plans. That approved plan. So we're actually in the process since October 15th. I've been dealing with Maricopa County and her architect to resubmit plans based on what she wanted. So we've lost three months. Wow. Sorry, four months.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:12

Yeah. Ah, that would piss me off. Yeah. Yeah. That would that'd be frustrating. But you have your own architects.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:20

I do. I have I've I have two or three that we use, one heavily.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:24

And it's better because now he knows or she knows we're gonna put that into play. You're gonna know what the cost is up front. So before we submit anything to the county or the city, you know you're all in costs. Yeah. Because that's the worst thing is the unknown.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:38

Right. Right. Oh, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:40

Oh, by the way, that slab that you wanted is X. Like, wait, what?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:45

Yeah. That's rough.

unknown 1:09:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:48

Yeah. Being honest and transparent with your clients will get you so much further than trying to hide something or trying to avoid something. You you just can't do that. You can't do that in life, you can't do that in business. Why would you do that to somebody's house? I would never do that to whatever I do to my house, I'm gonna do it to yours.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:06

Yeah. Which hopefully you like to do nice things to your house. I do. What what should we know about you that I didn't ask? Or about LJ builders. Is there anything important? Is there anything important about you, Lawrence?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:19

Man, anything important? That's a tough question. Yeah, boast. There's gotta be I mean I don't talk about myself at all. Like for me, it's for me, it's what I've what I've gotten to and like what I'm producing on pr the kids.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:36

I'm trying to like put my hard work ethic into them so they can see it. Like, hey, dad's in the gym at five o'clock in the morning or six o'clock in the morning on Wednesday before he goes to work.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:45

What's he what's he doing that for? Or hey, he's in he's in there on Saturday before we're going to football. Like I'm just trying to live my life so they can see how I am.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:54

Yeah. Good examples. It's powerful.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:57

It is. It is if they can reciprocate it and put it into their lives too.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:01

Yeah, because my two youngest are probably the most competitive kids you'll meet. I took Amelia and Owen to my son, I just started getting him golf lessons. He went to one golf lesson and he said, Dad, hey, can you teach me? I'm like, sure. So last Saturday, I went to Greenfield Lakes and I took my my daughter and my son. Owen, I just taught him the grip, showed him a couple of things. My daughter is very competitive. She wants to hit the ball like Owen does. So she hits and hits and hits and gets upset and sits and pouts and sits on the chair. And it's hard to like get upset because she wants to hit the ball like her brother.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:39

But at the same time, you can't be pouting like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:41

So it's like, how long have you been golfing?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:43

Five minutes.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:45

For you to hit the ball the way I do, or even the way Owen does, you need to spend at least a couple of hours. Yeah. Because I've been playing golf for 22 years now.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:52

Yeah. And that's tough to help a kid understand that my son, who's he's started playing very well, very well now. I mean, he's had some incredible shots, and I assume he's probably gonna get a hole in one before I do at this point. But when I first tried to teach him, and I'm not a good teacher, like I get very impatient and very frustrated very quickly. I try, but I just it's like just do this. You know, why can't you just watch me and do it? So I'm not a good person in that that regard. But he started to get really, really good. But we used to go play. My point being, we used to go play, and even still to this day we play, and and he will get so frustrated because he's comparing himself to me. And I'm like, don't compare yourself to me. I've been playing since I was 16, 17 years old, and I'm 55. Like, I've been playing a long time, and I'm not, I don't consider myself good. A lot of people are like, Oh, you're a good golfer. I was like, if I was a good golfer, I'd be hitting birdies all the time, right? Like, like, I watch professional golfers and I think you play this game every day, religiously, you should be able to hit a perfect shot every single time. That's the type of pressure I would put on myself if I was a professional golfer. But it's just the whole thing where it's like he, you know, and I would assume your kids are the same way or your daughter's the same way. It's like you want to be able to pick something up and just do it. And it's like, nope, it takes work.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:24

They both do. Yeah. They're both wanting to get really good at that without putting in the work, and that's not that's not realistic. That's not how it happens, not especially in golf. Yeah. Golf's one of the hardest sports they're ever gonna play.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:35

Not only physically, mentally. It sucks mentally. Oh, yeah. I mean, there's days you know, and I think what messes me up a lot of times on the golf course is playing in scrambles because I feel like I can't get in a rhythm, or I'm like somebody hits a ball in in the fair way and they're good. And it's like, okay, I'm gonna crush this, and then I'm over swinging, I'm trying to just, you know, monkey the ball, and and then I'm playing horrible, and I just get so pissed off. So so scrambles drive me nuts. I love playing in them, but they drive me nuts. You should start playing in the scramble, you should hit first every time. I I was actually I thought about that the last I don't remember I don't think I was playing with you last time, but the last one I was playing in, I actually did that where I started hitting the putts first because I was trying to read the other people's putts, and I'm like, let me putt first. And I started, I mean, I was I wasn't syncing every one, but I was getting close, you know. Yeah, because it's like now I'm doing my thing, I'm not oh, you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:40

So yeah, when I play scrambles, I like to go last.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:43

Yeah. Well, I love going last with the driver because then it's like I can just unleash it, but then I'm way over swinging, you know? It's like I'm just gonna crush this thing. I either top the ball or I banana slice the crap out of it, or it goes straight, but I'm I'm more uh aimed left because I know I'm gonna banana slice it, but it goes straight as a freaking arrow. I'm like, God dang it. So, but anyways, yeah. Well, I really appreciate you coming on. Have a great time getting to know you a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:16

It's a good time.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:17

If there's anything I need to know, nothing.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:20

Man, yeah, because you asked me what I could do you build pools? We want to.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:26

So with with our license, we can do pretty much anything and everything. Yeah. And Lance Landscape is one of them that we're kind of running more into recently. Just because we're doing more. Anytime you do an addition, you're altering dreams dreamscape type stuff. Yeah, you're altering the existing landscape per se. So a lot of times we'll put in a budget for something. Gotcha. And then it turns into more, more paver, more turf, more this, more that. Makes sense. So that's that's been a goal of ours. I'm actually meeting with somebody on Friday to go over that. That's what we're lacking currently.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:58

Because in the past, I've just been, hey, call this guy or call that guy and they'll help you. But what I've been finding is when we refer them, it's not going the way that the homeowner would want. So it's like, okay, so what are they what are they lacking? Is it is it the project management? Is it is it the communication? What is it? Because we that's where we've that's where we shine. So it's just finding that middle ground of hey, we can do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:22

Where do people find you? Man, a lot of it's work some of it's word of mouth, but a l of a majority of our business comes from Google. Okay. Anytime that anybody types in construction stuff, we kind of we pull up pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:34

LJ Builders.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:35

Yep. LJ Builders on Google.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:37

Okay. Well, cool. Well, hey, thank you very much. Yes, sir. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:41

I appreciate it. Fun. Good time. Yeah. This is Lawrence Rano, and I went above and beyond.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:54

Don't be talking about we'll deal.