AUGUST 11,2026 #028 (COMMUNICATIONS TO CONSTRUCTION) M.SIMPSON/J.CAVITT

REPLY/COMMENT 

In this episode of Talkin’ Grit, Joelle Cavitt, Director of Marketing, shares her journey in communications, how she found her way to Wright Brothers, and what she does in her role today. She talks about her career, experiences, and what led her to where she is now. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

From the job site to the office, from lessons learned to stories worth telling, this is Talk and Grit, brought to you by Wright Brothers. Here's your host, Jared Waldrich.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Hey, welcome back to Talk and Grit. We got a great conversation today set up with Joel Cabot. We're gonna be talking about marketing and probably a bunch of other stuff as well. It's gonna be a good one. So, Mitchell, let's get this one going. Go ahead and open this up. Let's talk to Joel.

SPEAKER_04 0:27

Yeah, thanks, Jared. So, Joelle is our director of marketing, and you all mainly see her with all of our social media posts. Okay, but the reality is Joel does way more than that. You know, when we hired Joelle, God bless her, it's kind of like when we hired Dean Briggs. It's one of my favorite days. You know, I fired myself from being chief estimator when we hired Dean. And I borderline fired myself from having to write all of these proposals that we do to get all these projects when Joel showed up. So Joel, you you rank on the list of some of my favorite people here at Riot Brothers. That's all because you you you help us get so many projects here. You make us look good, which takes a lot of work, you know.

SPEAKER_06 1:20

No, no, it doesn't.

SPEAKER_04 1:22

It takes some work.

SPEAKER_06 1:23

No.

SPEAKER_04 1:24

But you know, over the years, how many proposals have you and I worked on together to try to get some of these jobs? Oh crazy. It's crazy. Yeah, so I mean you're you're always taking what we've done and prettying it up, and you know, two of the cool recent jobs that we've gotten that you were intimately involved with, you, Ethan Brown, me very little was Wilcox Boulevard Bridge. Yes. You know, we're currently negotiating with T Dot on a really large project. Amazing, right? When you started here, did you think we'd ever get to something like that?

SPEAKER_06 2:05

No.

SPEAKER_04 2:06

And then James Robertson Parkway.

SPEAKER_06 2:08

Yeah, and that one's amazing.

SPEAKER_04 2:09

It's amazing, cool stuff. So let's talk about you before we get into all that.

SPEAKER_06 2:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 2:14

What's your background? You're you're a Cleveland girl, right?

SPEAKER_06 2:17

Yep. I'm a Cleveland girl. I graduated from Bradley High School. Then whenever I went to school, I started at the University of Tennessee and I hated that, so I came and went and finished at UTC.

SPEAKER_04 2:28

You hated Knoxville?

SPEAKER_06 2:30

I I had a roommate that con she was a pre-med major and she constantly experimented with things. And by that I mean she didn't clean up after herself. So we had some oatmeal that had a spoon that stood up on it, and and my suite mate said, Let's see how long that that stays there. And it was like four months until one of us were like, We're just, I don't care if it's Jennifer's bowl or not. I'm throwing it in the garbage.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

So it was more situational than the school.

unknown 2:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:56

Yeah. The school was fine. And I mean, you know, and I kind of was ready whenever I I left. I I liked it and I made lots of friends, but I just did not, yeah, I just didn't want to do it anymore. So then I came to UTC and graduated there with a degree in communications. So got my first internship. That was with synthetic industries. We did reinforced concrete.

SPEAKER_04 3:16

Synthetic industries. Now, is that a Dalton-based company?

SPEAKER_06 3:19

It is a Dalton-based company. My office was there off of Bonnie Oaks Drive. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 3:25

So I've heard of them before.

SPEAKER_06 3:27

So I had little cubes that had the reinforced fibers inside of them. That was like our handout. Oh, really? Yeah. So they would mix that in with the concrete, and it was supposed to stabilize it even more with than just rebar.

SPEAKER_04 3:41

So with a communications degree, did you immediately go into marketing?

SPEAKER_06 3:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 3:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 3:46

So I immediately I took that that job as an internship and then went immediately into marketing and got a job with an agency out of Chicago immediately. And my my scient my client was Sears. So that was fun. So I did a lot of traveling between here, Chicago, and Michigan.

SPEAKER_04 4:05

So let me ask you this, and we've asked this to multiple people. What drove you to want to get into marketing? Why marketing?

SPEAKER_06 4:14

I think they I I didn't really know what I wanted to do, but they they always ask you, what were you good at? Try to look for what you're good at. What are you good at? And I was good at writing. And so I thought, well, I can go into English and then what do I do? Teach it. I don't want to teach. So so then I was like, well, I mean, what else is there? I love advertising. I at that time I was like, I love advertisements and jingles and and fun. There was no social media then. That was not something that you did.

SPEAKER_04 4:42

I mean fell in your age. The same as me.

SPEAKER_06 4:45

Trying not to tell my age. But I mean, there was no social media. That was a that was a big creative outlet. Yeah, yeah. Cause you I mean, you know, I did catalogs and what they called point of sale materials, which is like those big signs that say go to buy it now, you know, whenever you walk by something.

SPEAKER_04 5:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:01

That stuff. And I enjoyed it. I thought it was fun.

SPEAKER_04 5:04

So how long were you with the agency then?

SPEAKER_06 5:06

A year. And then I went to Chattanooga Group. They made medical equipment, so it was a manufacturer. So we the plant was attached to us. And so I did cat and I was there for almost seven years. And I did catalogs and they launched a website. Again, telling my age. They launched a website and we worked on it. And as far as the content went, and that's really where I learned how to do page layout and stuff. We started, I'm really gonna tell my age. We we started with a a program called Quark. So now everybody works on a creative suite, but there was no like there was Adobe, but they didn't have any of the other shows.

SPEAKER_04 5:45

But I learned you you and I are close to the same age. I mean, it's kind of neat to see, Jared, you too, how everything has evolved because you know, when we were in school, there wasn't computers. Right. I g I'm I mean, what I do on a computer when I was in school, I got to play organ trail. Yep. Or I got to play Pong, right? That was about it. That was about it. And now everything in our daily lives, it's totally changed, right?

SPEAKER_05 6:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

It's all tech driven.

SPEAKER_04 6:16

Yeah, we're kind of the last generation that got to see how our grandparents lived and our greatparent grandparents lived. True. And now we're at this new frontier and how our kids and grandkids are gonna live.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

They don't know w uh the world without a touch screen. Isn't that wild? Yeah. It's very wild. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 6:36

Or what a rotary phone is.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Oh yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 6:39

I have no idea what that is. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

I took kids in my great-grandparents' house and well, their great grandparents, my grandparents, and there's a rotary phone on the wall, and they looked at it and they literally said, What is that? It's like that's a phone. They're like, There's no way. I had to show them how to use it. They had had no concept of a that you turn that little dial.

SPEAKER_06 6:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

That it would remember it's called the world has changed.

SPEAKER_06 7:01

The world has changed. And it's instant now. That's that's the biggest thing. Is that I think whenever we were in college and stuff, college stage, young, there was already the internet and there were there were websites that were beginning to be built and there were message boards, but nothing was instant like it is now.

SPEAKER_04 7:19

And you know, your career in marketing, you got to advance forward through all these crazy changes.

SPEAKER_06 7:26

Oh yeah. And and to think that and and I remember going to at that point, I'd worked at the Chamber of Commerce here in Bradley County. So I remember going to a governor's conference and they talked to us about how to utilize this new thing called Twitter. And I mean and how you could also how you could utilize Facebook. And I mean, I knew Facebook had just evolved over from a college thing over into like regular people. I thought nobody's really gonna use this.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Right.

SPEAKER_06 7:54

Nobody that's over the age of 25 is ever gonna look up visiting Cleveland, Tennessee on Facebook. That's ridiculous. But I mean, but I I learned and it did, it grew.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

And your job through your career has had a constant learning curve, then.

SPEAKER_06 8:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Just no matter what, there's something new to learn and to leverage.

SPEAKER_04 8:15

And that's pretty nice. Yeah, pretty so so the medical group, what was the name of them again?

SPEAKER_06 8:20

That they were Titanugu group and they were bought out by DJO, which is a Japanese company.

SPEAKER_04 8:25

So you did that for seven-ish years.

SPEAKER_06 8:28

Then I moved on to the Chamber of Commerce and I worked there and I did marketing, especially tourism marketing, so Tennessee tourism. And that also brought me into, as far as Wright Brothers goes, economic development and how that works, and how all of those things are kind of hold hands together. Bringing an industry in, how is it gonna affect? How does tourism affect that? How will it affect tourism?

SPEAKER_03 8:53

Will these matters? Yes.

SPEAKER_06 8:55

Will people want to come here as far as like executives enough for us to build up this plant? So then and then do we have the people like Wright Brothers that can do the site work? Are we gonna have to bring somebody in from wherever? Wherever? So they they they do all that. So I was really on the tail at the front end of that as far as learning about all those drivers.

SPEAKER_04 9:18

What time frame was that that you were at the chamber?

SPEAKER_06 9:20

About set 2007.

SPEAKER_04 9:22

So right pre-Vokker.

SPEAKER_06 9:23

Yeah, they were negotiating with Valker at that point. I didn't know that that's what it was. They were just taking random trips to Germany.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

But you knew.

SPEAKER_06 9:30

Yeah, they were bringing they said it was something big.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

So it was.

SPEAKER_06 9:34

Yeah, so yeah, yeah. They said it was big. And I think Volkswagen had just was also negotiating with the city of Chattanooga at that same point. So they were trying to ride that train. So that was interesting. That was a fun thing to run to go through.

SPEAKER_04 9:48

And so after the chamber, what happened then?

SPEAKER_06 9:51

Uh let's see. Then I had another job with an agency, didn't like it. It was in Chattanooga. Went to the Montessori school. Again, more Germans, lots of Germans at the Montessori school. Everybody who was building Bacher at this time, who I know there's a contingency of people here who came in at that point. But all of those Germans sent their kids to that Montessori school because it was an international school.

SPEAKER_04 10:14

I remember that. Yeah. Yep. I remember that.

SPEAKER_06 10:16

Yep. And our executive director was German. And so she had recruited, put the word out that you could get as good of an education for your children. Don't worry. You can get we're gonna speak German to them and they're gonna learn all the things that they're gonna learn in Germany and be ready for their whatever gymnasium, whatever they call that stuff, over there.

SPEAKER_04 10:35

So they so I got to work back there at Bacher.

SPEAKER_06 10:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:39

And there was a ton of people that were young, career-oriented Germans that came over here and they they brought their families.

SPEAKER_06 10:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:48

Yeah. So I mean, there was a bunch of kids there at that Montessori school, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_06 10:51

Yeah. Oh yeah, there was a ton of kids. And so that we had a waiting list. That was one of the things I was the proudest of is when I joined them as a I think my title was communications specialist, that we had a waiting list. I mean, as uh several deep for especially for the primary.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

So you got the word out.

SPEAKER_06 11:08

Yeah, yeah. We did everything that we could to bring people in and and let people know. And of course, having all that international crowd brought in people from here who wanted their children to be exposed to an international crowd.

SPEAKER_04 11:22

So it was pretty neat. It was very neat. So then after that, I think you told me you went to work with my neighbors, right?

SPEAKER_06 11:29

Yeah, the Robins. So they had kids at the Montessori school.

SPEAKER_04 11:32

Great folks.

SPEAKER_06 11:33

They opened up a dental practice. I joined, I went over there and did their PR and did health fairs and stuff for a couple of years. And then I went to 3H Group, which is a hotel management and development company. So that's where I started to get into construction because at first I was only doing the management side. So just social media for hotels. So with Marriott and Hilton and all of those. But as I was there, first my boss went on maternity leave. So I took over as director. Oh, wow. For yeah, for interim for a close to a year. And so I did her job too along with social media. And then I got pulled into. And this is where when I did my interview with Mitchell, his eyes lit up because I said I did proposals for those.

SPEAKER_04 12:22

Thank you, Lord.

SPEAKER_06 12:23

And he he literally did a double take. Do you do proposals? And I was like, Yes, this is in my interview. We were talking about that before this started, but we'll get to it. But but that is what I did was I did Yeah, you said that and you were hired.

unknown 12:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 12:38

But I did investment proposals, and we also did we worked a lot with Grace Construction, who we work with now.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Great people.

SPEAKER_06 12:45

Yes. And so they did, they developed a lot of our hotels. And so I mean, like I had Alex Grace's office or his former office. So I got all of his phone calls and they would say, you know, uh, hey, I got a drone. I know you're building a hotel down here in St. Petersburg. And I'd be like, I do not know what you're talking about. So, but I'd have to shout at him because he he shouted at everybody because he couldn't hear.

SPEAKER_04 13:08

So after that, you know, we were looking for somebody to take care of our social media needs.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 13:15

When you walked in here and you told me you did proposals, you just added to your responsibilities here, God bless you. Was not what we were originally looking for. But we figured out that, you know, the social media thing really started to explode about 10 years ago, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:33

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:34

And it just continues to grow.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 13:36

Um your online footprint and your online presence is something that I never dreamed of, but we got a couple of phone calls about, hey, we saw you on your website, or hey, we saw this, we saw that. You remember I meagerly tried to put out a few LinkedIn posts for Wright Brothers. It was pretty sad. You know, I tried to do it for a while. I was like, this is for the birds. And then we had a we had a third party too that we had hired to do it for a minute, right, Joey?

SPEAKER_06 14:05

Yeah, we had an agency when I came in.

SPEAKER_04 14:07

So I had to uh that was pretty terrible too.

SPEAKER_06 14:10

It was terrible, and they hadn't really set some things up wrong. I mean, they'd set it up wrong, so I had to go through and kind of fix those things. But yeah, and they and and some they've done okay on LinkedIn. I think we had, you know, maybe a few hundred followers on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

I think not many.

SPEAKER_06 14:26

Yeah, not many. We had 28 Instagram followers. And really, 28. Yeah, and we had like 900 Facebook followers.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 14:36

So now we have 20,000 LinkedIn followers. Yeah. We passed that threshold just like maybe two months ago. So we're we've got 20,000 that follow our follow us. And our Facebook isn't as impressive. We've got like 14,000, I think, but it's the amount of people we reach, me millions. There's millions. I think last year was 2.3 million people had put their eyeballs on our content. Isn't that crazy? Yes.

SPEAKER_04 15:04

Wild. Yes, it is crazy. And I mean, anytime I'm out and about somewhere, nine times out of ten, somebody will say, Hey, I saw your post about X, Y, and Z.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 15:14

Everybody everybody's looking now. Everybody's connected. Everybody's looking at that. I mean, that's cool. Yeah. That's just cool.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Well, and and nowadays it's the the place they judge you first. It is. You can go for the website, they're gonna pull up your Instagram, your Facebook, and the court of public opinion is on social media now.

SPEAKER_04 15:29

Yes, oh yeah, 100%. So how you're viewed on social media super important. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_06 15:34

Yeah. You go to a website to get a to get a job, to be hired, or to vet somebody before you hire them for a job. But yeah, as far as like where you're gonna learn about the company, you're gonna learn about them from their social. That's 100%.

SPEAKER_04 15:51

And that's the conversation you and I had. I mean, you've been here how long now?

SPEAKER_06 15:55

Seven years.

SPEAKER_04 15:56

So seven years ago when you and I were doing the interview.

SPEAKER_06 16:00

Which was crazy. That was that what we were talking about. That was the craziest interview I've ever had in my life.

SPEAKER_04 16:04

Yeah, tell me, tell everybody about the interview. I mean, we originally thought the interview was gonna be you and me, right? Yeah, I mean Mary, Mary was gonna come.

SPEAKER_06 16:11

I think I I expected like two or three people. And so it was on a Friday afternoon at like four o'clock. So I worked in Chattanooga and I drove up here and I thought, you know, and I was like, man, this is great. I can work right in my backyard. I don't have to drive to Chattanooga every day. It's a nightmare. And so I I come in, tell them I'm here, and I'm like, okay. So they escort me into this conference room, and I mean, that was fine, but there were a million people in here, and I'd never had an interview that was like for, I mean, every seat was filled. And I thought, okay, that's pretty interesting. And so then it was like it was like the like an interrogation, or maybe like the inquisition.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Wasn't that bad.

SPEAKER_06 16:51

Wasn't that bad. You know, there was a question shot from this direction and one from this direction. What do you do about this and what about that? And you know, and I was telling them, you know, that Steve came in at the end and he said, somebody said, Well, Steve doesn't think we need social media. And he goes, I don't, but I mean, I guess you can prove me wrong. And then he walked out. And I was like, Okay.

SPEAKER_04 17:10

Typical.

SPEAKER_06 17:11

Yeah. I mean, yeah, it really was. But I mean, it was that was an interesting place. And I thought, wow, this is gonna be this is gonna be interesting.

SPEAKER_04 17:18

And you're still here.

SPEAKER_06 17:19

I'm still here. You're still here. I've I've not left.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

So, you know, when we started the conversation, you know, the thing that I was concerned about was hey, I want to recruit people, and B, I want to try to influence owners about what we do so we can get work.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:40

Okay, so we've successfully done that. Yes. You know, you check the box on that.

SPEAKER_06 17:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:46

Good job.

SPEAKER_06 17:47

Well, I mean, really, that in in my viewpoint as a storyteller, there's so many stories to tell here that that's easy. Um to me. So you've got great people who work here who do great things. Yeah, cool stuff. Cool stuff. And I always say whenever I do any presentation or ask, beg for pictures, begging for pictures right now. Um, that that you everybody who works for us is an influencer. We don't have to hire influencers like a e-commerce person does and say, you know, pitch our pitch our product. Our employees, our people are our influencers. They're the ones who do amazing things every day. Their jobs, everybody thinks your job is cool, by the way, whenever when you're listening to this, that when they look at these photos online, that's what they think. They're like, wow, they get to work in this cool big equipment, and they get to build these bridges and roads and you know, or drive out in this dirt and an articulated truck. That looks so cool. I wish I did that every day.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Yeah, you present it so well and sell the story, and the the pictures are always great. They're like, you know, just the the the colors and the way that they're shot and then you know the content with it. You've done an excellent job. Thanks.

SPEAKER_06 19:01

But I mean, really honestly, I get a lot. I mean, probably 85% of my pictures, I don't take. I get them from the field. And it's I mean, it's everybody that's working in the field that sends me their pictures that they capture on an iPhone, and they're fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 19:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 19:19

And I mean, you know.

SPEAKER_04 19:21

Well, and you you said it well. You're telling a story.

SPEAKER_06 19:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:24

And you can't tell the story if there ain't a story to tell.

SPEAKER_06 19:28

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 19:29

Everybody has got to give you content. And to that end, you and I talked about this at the manager's meeting at the beginning of the year. Hey, we need info. Hey, we want to do what was it? Picture of the week.

SPEAKER_06 19:45

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:46

Picture of the week.

SPEAKER_06 19:47

And a picture of the month. And I picture of the month. And I give away Amazon gift cards.

SPEAKER_04 19:52

Yeah. So there you go. So talk through that again just so everybody hears that, because content matters. Yes. To be able to tell the story. So what what's our program there, Joel?

SPEAKER_06 20:03

Well, so if you've got a picture and you've you're on the job site and you take an awesome picture, I even if it's not awesome, if you don't think it's awesome, I d my perspective may be totally different. You know, text it to me or email it to me. You know, if you don't remember my name, it's social at WBCCI.com.

SPEAKER_02 20:23

There you go.

SPEAKER_06 20:24

Or me it's pretty easy. Send it to me. And then all I need is like four bullet points. I just need you to tell me where you are, what job are you on. You can just throw the job number out. It doesn't really matter. I've got a job list. I can look it up if I don't remember it.

SPEAKER_02 20:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:40

You know, and kind of what you're doing, just in general. Yeah. Deck poor this job.

SPEAKER_04 20:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:49

You know, whatever.

SPEAKER_04 20:50

And then you're entered in. Yeah. The picture of the week.

SPEAKER_06 20:54

Absolutely. And I and I don't even and I don't even do that like randomly. Like that's based on on usership. So, like for instance, this week who won or won was Riley West, who's our an intern here. And she posted some pictures where she and her the team over at alternative delivery went out and she was standing on a bridge and looking at stuff, and 10,000 people looked at that picture.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Great job, Riley.

SPEAKER_06 21:20

Mm-hmm. Great job. So she gets she gets an Amazon gift card. I just contacted her. So I told her.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Send your pictures in. Guys, free stuff. Why not?

SPEAKER_04 21:28

So let's talk about social media accounts.

SPEAKER_06 21:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 21:31

Okay. Who is the owner of the social media accounts here at Wright Brothers?

SPEAKER_06 21:36

Wright Brothers. And that means I run them, but Wright Brothers owns them.

SPEAKER_04 21:40

Okay. So how many social media accounts do we have? What are what all are we on?

SPEAKER_06 21:46

Well, let's see. We're on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and X and YouTube.

SPEAKER_04 21:54

So I know that everybody wants to tell their story. I know that everybody means well, but Look, we gotta have one official account, right? Official accounts gotta run through Joel, doesn't need to run through anybody else because you know managing our reputation and who we are matters, right? Yes, absolutely. And we gotta we gotta have that one account. So, guys, if you're trying to tell the story, look, send your stuff to Joelle. We would love for you to have that. She's happy to tag you on it. Yeah, absolutely. She's happy to tag you on it back to your personal accounts for whatever. But to craft the story for our organization as large as we are today, we gotta really have one conduit and one voice because otherwise it kind of gets muddied, right?

SPEAKER_06 22:44

Yeah, right. It's it's bad. And and you do and you know, and I can't can I can't control what you're saying, and you may say something that you don't mean to be one way. The public is really vicious and they'll jump on it.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

So they'll they're looking their chops, waiting for it.

SPEAKER_06 22:59

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:00

Well, and and it goes to your point that you've said a lot of times about we got to share our content responsibly.

SPEAKER_06 23:06

Right.

SPEAKER_04 23:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 23:07

Yeah. And and I always put if you have a photo and you send it to me, I'll put it a little camera at the bottom and say photo, you know, photo supplied by or photography by, and I'll at you if you want that, and definitely if it if however you want tagged on that, I'm gonna give you credit if you want it.

SPEAKER_04 23:23

Love to give you credit on it, right? Yeah, because some of y'all, some of these pictures that come in here, they're amazing. Yeah, right. It's amazing what an iPhone can do though. Yeah, could be framed and put in the hallway. Yeah, it really could be. I mean, there's a whole bunch of that. So, I mean, all y'all that send in some of these awesome pictures, kudos to y'all. Yes, they're beautiful. It's impressive stuff. It's impressive stuff.

SPEAKER_06 23:43

So And it's authentic. Whenever I get, you know, it's one thing if you send your your social media person out or or whatever, you have a photographer and they look beautiful and they're clean and everything. I agree with that. But really, people really appreciate authenticity. That's that's the big number one word authenticity. So there is nothing more authentic than you sharing your actual pictures that you make on your job site that you go to every day. So that's I mean, that's that's boots on the ground. They want to see that.

SPEAKER_04 24:16

Right. Yeah, great point.

SPEAKER_06 24:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:17

Yeah. So hey, uh reputation. One of the big things that has developed over time here, you know, back to our original conversation, Joelle. I thought we were gonna be recruiting people.

SPEAKER_06 24:30

Right.

SPEAKER_04 24:31

We were gonna be trying to get work.

SPEAKER_06 24:33

Yeah, we still do those things.

SPEAKER_04 24:34

We still do those things. But one of the things that I did not understand that I was just purely naive about was reputation. Yeah. You know, you gotta the w the the world of public opinion, like I said earlier, is you're judged on social media. Yep. I did not understand that. I was very naive today.

SPEAKER_06 24:57

I think it's gotten worse too. I mean, to to your credit, I don't think it had anything to do. Even in the seven years I've been here, uh the pandemic really did spur some stuff on way worse.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:08

People are way more negative and the and their iPhones are more powerful, and they uh they've realized they can weaponize that pretty easily. So that's that's kind of why you have to kind of be careful with everything you do because there's a lot of trolls out there just looking for a fight. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

And you know, just waiting to pounce on any sort of negative anything.

SPEAKER_04 25:27

Yeah. Yeah. I I I just feel like one of the biggest things about your job today is really defending the reputation of the organization.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:35

Because of the way social media has evolved over the past few years.

SPEAKER_05 25:39

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:39

So I mean, just speak to that if you don't care. I mean, what can all of us do to help you defend the reputation of the organization? What can we do?

SPEAKER_06 25:49

Well, first of all, if you drive a Wright Brothers truck, you are driving a billboard. So you are a moving target with Wright Brothers on the side. And when they see you, they do not see you. They see Wright Brothers as an organization. That's true. And so if you fly past them 85 miles an hour, you know, and you flip them off or yell something out your window at them, more than likely, if they don't record it, which maybe they didn't think to do that, they're still gonna contact the page and they're still gonna complain and they're still gonna get on their individual Facebook and they're gonna get on our Google account. See, those are there's another one, Google. And they're gonna say, This company says that they're Christians and they have Christian values, but I just got flipped off by a guy in truck number, you know, two five six. I don't know who two five six is, but I mean, you know.

SPEAKER_04 26:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But uh so over time, how has that increased?

SPEAKER_06 26:39

Oh gosh, exponentially.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Yeah, it happens often. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 26:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

People complaining.

SPEAKER_06 26:45

People complain, they complain more and more. Every year I think they complain more and more about an I I don't know if it's just an outlet or or if they want something. Sometimes they want things, they want us to, you know, they've busted a tire and it may not be our fault, but they ran through our pothole at our site, so they're they want something. And so there's that, you have that component, I guess. And then and then some people just want to stir things up. They just want they sit at home and they want to stir things up.

SPEAKER_04 27:13

Yeah. Yes. I mean, billboard driving up and down the road, something else that we've seen over time is look, we love having the brand out there if you think you're gonna be participating in something questionable during your personal time. Take off your hat. Take off your hat, please.

SPEAKER_06 27:31

Yeah. Yeah. If you get in a fight every weekend at your kids', you know, softball game, don't wear Rot Brothers cubes.

SPEAKER_04 27:39

Yeah, you're on your personal time, you know. Yeah. Take the brand off, right? Right. I mean I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and try to chastise people and tell them what to do in their personal time because I don't want that.

SPEAKER_06 27:49

No, I don't yeah, I don't care what you do.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

But we could still protect the W a little bit. You know what I mean? Just being heads up on Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 27:56

No, don't and yeah, be careful that you know that you're wearing your Right Brothers hat and you're out there and and especially if people know you work for them. Like if you've been open about it and they know, oh, you work for Wright Brothers, well then they're that's they're gonna trace it back no matter. So, you know, I know when I wear my stuff, I'm really careful about it. And uh, you know, I I'm overly care careful, overly cautious about how I drive and I don't know what I say at publics to people or that I'm not rude. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

You know, everyday situations, they see that and they judge it.

SPEAKER_06 28:31

Yeah, yeah. And everybody has a bad day. That's the other thing. That's I mean, you have a bad day and you you get mad and you're curt with the girl behind the counter at the quick time or whatever. But you know, just kind of be mindful. Yeah. Okay, well, today I'm riding for the brand.

SPEAKER_04 28:47

Well, so and you know, you pointed out look, we we unashamedly espouse that we're a Christian organization. Yes, yes. Part of that is you gotta understand that to say that you're a Christian, you're admitting that you're a sinner and you're a failure. Exactly. Right. We we are not perfect, right? No, we are not perfect. Sinners saved by grace. Yes, and that's look, I'm not asking everybody to be perfect because nobody's perfect. No, okay, right, nobody perfect, but you know, like you said, Jared, let's try to protect the W. Right.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

And you know, I think if each and every one of us could just make a commitment to be just a little bit more aware. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's just situational awareness, you know, where I'm at who I'm representing, you know, take that to just a a notch above.

SPEAKER_06 29:39

And and even that, I mean, it's small slides are were one thing, but you kind of I mean, you know, in the back of your head when you've overstepped.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

Yeah, you know when you're being a punk.

SPEAKER_06 29:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:48

You know, when you're getting mad and you think, well, I mean And I'll tell you, you know, we're out there in the public so much with what we do for a living. The worst location ever, it seems like, when we always get ridiculous videos, is like when there's a traffic shift. Or we're doing something out in the middle of traffic. Yeah. You know, everybody's ramped up at that point in time because when you're next to traffic, just being there, you're kind of on heightened awareness. Nobody likes working next to a bunch of crazy people driving up and down the road. You're trying to get something set up, you're trying to do what you gotta do, you're trying to get out of there. And then for the traveling public, nobody likes being disturbed. Right. So it's like the perfect storm.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Yeah, and you become the target because, well, you're the ones doing construction and slowing everything down. That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_06 30:40

Now they're late and it's all your fault. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't their lack of planning.

SPEAKER_04 30:44

Well, yeah, that's exactly right. And it just seems like that in that mixing bowl scenario, we always get at least one really good post a year out of that for something that's happened, right, Joel.

SPEAKER_06 30:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:59

I mean, it just seems like that happens. But you know, look, I would just ask everybody to try to be cognizant of that.

SPEAKER_06 31:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:05

Not easy. Not easy. And I'm not faulting anybody because it's a tough scenario, and I appreciate what everybody's doing, but unfortunately, the world's looking.

SPEAKER_06 31:16

They are looking. And and it's not, I mean, and it is sometimes it's just because we are everywhere. I mean with success brings makes you a larger target. Right. So, I mean, I know one of my pat answers that may be too tongue-in-cheek, I don't know, but sometimes people will complain on our like a Google review or whatever, or they'll put something on our Facebook and they'll say, You're taking so long, or your workers are so bad at this job, it's not our job. And so I always say, as flattering as it is that you think that Wright Brothers does every bit of work and the Southeast, that is not our job. So, I mean, we appreciate that you think that we're the only construction company in the state of Tennessee or North Carolina or Georgia or wherever or Alabama. But I mean, we're, you know, that's sorry, not our job.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

Yeah. That's gotta take a little bit of control on your part too, to not fire back when people get pretty snippy with comments and stuff like that. Having to just be like, okay, how how how can I go about this in the most professional and be nice and and everything. People can be mean online.

SPEAKER_06 32:25

And sometimes the best tactic is just to ignore them and let them speak into the echo chamber.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

Just let it go away.

SPEAKER_06 32:32

Yeah. So I mean, oh, and that's one another thing. When you're online and you see Wright brothers getting insulted or anything like that, just ignore it. Just ignore it because you don't want to feed that fire by saying, you know, that's not true. Uh I work there and it's not like that. So then you all you've done is call all those trolls right on onto you. It's like a sick, sick em dog kind of a thing, they'll jump right on you.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

Which actually boosts the algorithm, right?

SPEAKER_06 32:58

Yeah, and it pushes that post up. So yeah, more people, more people's eyes will be on it because then the algorithm loves whenever there's conflict.

SPEAKER_04 33:06

Crazy.

SPEAKER_06 33:07

Yeah. So the more conflict there is, so if if if you know you say, wait a minute, you're wrong about this, and then they all jump on you, well, then the algorithm's gonna say, Oh, this post is uh really heated and a great traction. So let's knock that up. And so that just kind of makes it worse. Whereas if you just let that guy go off about whatever nonsense he's spewing, nobody looks at it a day later.

SPEAKER_04 33:31

That's good advice. That is good advice. So, hey, let's flip the page. We've talked about social media a lot. Let's talk about the proposals. Proposals, you know, you put a lot of proposals together all the time, one or two a month, right? Yeah, yeah. Um what do you need from everybody on that? What do you need?

SPEAKER_06 33:51

Sometimes they're really fast turnover. And so if I email or text you and say, hey, I I don't have your resume at all, or your resume's old and we're going after this project, and I just need, you know, you to help me update it, then I'll tell you what I need. But if you can jump on that, then that really helps me because I'm not going to ride you about something that I don't need. That's like I I don't have time to just sit around and just do resumes all day long because I'm bored. That's right. So I'm not gonna, you know, be like, hey, Mitchell, I don't have anything to do, so I'm gonna update your resume today. So that's that's never going to happen. If I ask for that information, it's because we're actively pursuing a job and you have been chosen to fill a role in that job. And I need that pro I need that stuff to put on the resume or a bio so that we can, you know, get the job.

SPEAKER_04 34:44

So let's just think about our current active work. What are some projects that we had to do proposals for? We talked about Wilcox, James Robertson Parkway, yeah, 7524 had to do a proposal for that. Yeah, all downtown Asheville Connector. Yes, major proposals.

SPEAKER_06 35:02

Yes, uh, all the work at Chimney Rock for and Gurton on that corridor as far as the PDB and uh design build.

SPEAKER_04 35:10

All of our design build bridges.

SPEAKER_06 35:12

Yeah, everything that's designed built has to go through that project. So that the shell mount bridges that are gonna be going up on I-24.

SPEAKER_04 35:19

And Project Bison, you had to put something together for it to talk about who we were.

SPEAKER_06 35:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 35:24

Project so private work, the negotiated public work.

SPEAKER_06 35:29

Yeah. So usually, you know, the private work. Well, it depends. Oh, oh, Mercedes Benz, we did that too.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

Yep, Mercedes Benz that one was out there.

SPEAKER_06 35:37

Yeah, that was a big one. Um, so they'll have multi-page, you know, and when I say multi-page, I mean like up to 50 pages of you know, stuff that they want that they ask for.

SPEAKER_04 35:47

Yeah, so I mean just maybe more consider. I mean, think about what we just reeled off right there. We're talking about millions of dollars worth of work that you gotta put your best foot forward on. We gotta put these proposals together on. It matters.

SPEAKER_06 36:02

Yeah, they have specific questions. If you've never looked at one, they're they have very specific questions about what the work is and uh and why they think that your past work points to uh a successful project in their case.

SPEAKER_02 36:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 36:15

So that's really what they want you to say, and and they want you to answer these very specific questions that they've laid out.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

It's not really time consuming.

SPEAKER_06 36:23

Yeah, it is, it is time consuming. And they want it to look nice. And uh sometimes they'll have a whole list of requirements. Can't be more than 10 pages, can't be more than 15 pages, can't be more than 25. We want we want 75 pages worth of information, but we want it in 20 pages or fewer.

SPEAKER_04 36:39

But you know, the reality of it is there's a large percentage of our work that we got to pretty d up, we've got to put a nice proposal together to make the sales pitch. Sure. That's that's where we're at. So yeah, you know, look, if Joelle reaches out to you folks, yeah, it's critical because we got to keep the business moving. It really matters. Yeah, it really matters.

SPEAKER_06 36:57

And project sheets too. So if you've if if you finish up a project and I know you've got a lot of time on your time on your hands, but if you've got some bullet points that you can send to me, we just finished XYZ project and we moved this many cubic yards of material, it had this much rock, we did this, you know, we completed it uh 10 days ahead of schedule, a month ahead, whatever. Send that to me because I can make a project sheet out of that. And a lot of times those are extremely useful in attaining new business because you've got pictures that go with it and you tell the whole story and then it tells all the pertinence.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

Yes, it's more evidence.

SPEAKER_06 37:34

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:35

And it's fabulous to do it right when the job is finishing.

SPEAKER_06 37:38

Yes. So you remember it.

SPEAKER_04 37:40

So you remember it nice and fresh.

SPEAKER_06 37:41

And I don't have to call you and say, now, do you remember?

SPEAKER_04 37:44

And that's hard. Yes. It's just hard.

SPEAKER_06 37:46

And then you have to go back and look, and and you know, that might take you a little while because you have other things to do. But I mean, if you've and if you could just jot it down, I mean, like I don't need you to write it for me. If you are technical that way and you love to do that, well, you can. That's great. But if you can just put give me just the pertinent information, just the things that the hit the high notes.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:06

It's great. I mean, and if you've got a cool picture that goes with it, your two or three, even better. Super. And you know, and then and include with that, like who is your contact? Who if it's a private client, who is the, you know, did you work with the engineering firm? Did you work with the general contractor? Did you I mean, who are those people? And if it's with the DOT, then who who is your person? Yep. So all of those things, you know, and just because I don't know. I I don't have your memory or your ability to say, well, it's gonna be this person because I'm on I'm here and that's who is over that. Well, I don't know that. And sometimes those roles change out so quickly that I really bub with them. They really yeah. So so it would be great if you just jot that down that person name or share the contact with me with an iPhone. I mean, if you just send it to me and say, This is the guy we work with.

SPEAKER_04 38:52

Yeah. Super easy. So last thing talk about, you've got a pretty big initiative you're doing right now. You're doing a website update. So, you know, when you showed up here, our website was aged at best.

SPEAKER_06 39:07

Our website was antiquated when I showed up here. I got here in 2019, and I think it had been put up in like 2012 or 13. I mean, it was in and the back end was broken.

SPEAKER_04 39:17

So we we cleaned it up then. Time to clean it up again.

SPEAKER_06 39:22

Yeah, it's reaching again antiquated state uh now. So I am Glandon Shirk is my intern. He's been he's been helping me. We've been, I mean, it's a lot, it's a lot of work, and it anytime you work with anything large and technical too, you know, you they present it to you and give you the keys to it, as they say, so you can load content into it. And then, you know, you're like, wait, this doesn't work. Take time.

SPEAKER_04 39:48

So what what are you thinking? That that's gonna roll out end of the year.

SPEAKER_06 39:51

Yeah, about end of the year, I think.

SPEAKER_04 39:53

End of the year, beginning next year.

SPEAKER_06 39:54

Yeah, sometime because we keep running into technical things.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

And it just takes time to sift through what you got on there already. Is this still accurate information? Yes. What all the buckets for each section in each page, it's like, okay, does this need to be rewritten? You know, what needs it's a lot.

SPEAKER_06 40:12

Yeah, it is it's a lot, it's a big endeavor. So yeah, but hopefully it's necessary. Yeah, it is necessary. A lot of people, you know, anything, any ad that you look at sends you to our website. I mean, anything that anytime we promote things on Facebook, or if there's an ad, it'll say, Hey, you know, you need a career with Right Brothers, well, here it is. Careers page, open positions. So, or you know, want to learn more about us, here it is. So, as now, the website looks okay and it's still running, but that's not gonna last for long. So, we've got to get it updated and get it ready to go.

SPEAKER_04 40:46

Yeah. So, if anybody's got any cool pictures along with social media, also consider if you have some older pictures that are cool that you want on the website for some of the cool stuff we've done in the past, send them to Joel, send them to social at wbccci.com because we're trying to fill out, fill in content for all that right now. Yep. And I know some of you guys who've got stuff from ages past that's amazingly cool that needs to be on there. Here's your opportunity to put your stamp on what we're doing moving forward.

SPEAKER_06 41:20

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 41:21

Please, please, please, please consider that.

SPEAKER_06 41:23

Yes, yeah. Because I mean, you know, and people love, and yeah, if you've got hit, even if you have like personal pictures where you're all standing together like at a picnic or something, not even or on the job site or whatever, Landon's been building a timeline that shows how we, you know, how we've evolved. So I mean, we'd love to stick that picture, you know, in 1997. Here we are, you know, and that's it's interesting. Here we're building this, and it's these guys. So that's a great way to like pictures tell a great story. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 41:55

So challenge everybody on that. Think about it, look around, see if you can find a picture or two. Yeah. And flip it to uh social at WBCCI.com. Please. So Joelle, thank you for the conversation. Great conversation. Any any final thoughts you want to convey to everybody before we sign off here?

SPEAKER_06 42:10

Nope. Just send me pictures and that's about it. So and uh and also, you know, if you've you know, you've got something that you want to share, like a just a story that you want to share, please just let me know. I I'm always interested. I I love to tell stories about things. So yeah, and people love to hear them. So and I appreciate and everybody here, I appreciate. I I think what you guys out there do is amazing, and I think the general public thinks it's amazing. And I think that I want to celebrate it and I want to share it with them, and and because they really do think your jobs are so cool and the things that you do are so cool and so amazing, and so do I. They because they are, and so that's why this exists for to share, to show. And I really think because people don't realize the things they drive on and the everything that they do that this is how they're built, and they want to know and they realize oh, I drive on that road every day.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

Yep, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 43:09

So it's really a neat story to tell.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

It is. And Joel, thanks so much. Everybody out there hate marketing, it's more than you think. There's a lot going on, and what is cool is Joel's giving you out there an invitation to get involved in the story. And it's the story uh that's continually evolving of Wright Brothers and what we're all doing together and uh the way that we're building communities, we're building lives. So send your stuff in, tell that story, let's put it out there, let's get it heard because you know, the people out there really do look at what we do and they're fascinated by it. Why? Because not everybody does what what you do each and every day at Wright Brothers. You got a lot of little kids that you know grow up playing with Tonka trucks and you know, in the sand and all that kind of stuff. You got people out there that are doing it for real, and there's other people out there that love that. They they love seeing it. So send it in, connect with Joel, and let's continue to tell the story. Until then, hey, keep tuning in. This has been it for Talk and Grit.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

That's gonna do it for this episode of Talking Grit. Thanks for listening, and thanks to everyone out there putting in the work day in and day out. If you liked what you heard, be sure to follow the show and share it with someone who knows the value of hard work. We'll catch you next time right here on Talking Grit.