Dallas Builders Club Ep. 7 - Building for different kinds of clients and work life balance

The least we can do is try really hard. 

IG: @dallas_builders_club  & @DFWCustomHomeBuilder 

TicToc: DFWCustomBuilder

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Let me get my posture correct.

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Okay, cool. So speaking of good stretches and relaxing and all those kinds of things, um, I am going for a little powwow on Thursday and Friday, and I specifically picked a location where the first item was limited to no cell phone service. That's good. Wi-Fi is spotty and intermittently goes out because it's hard to relax when the phone doesn't stop ringing.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

No, I know. I know. Especially for you. Yes. For me. I'll I'll throw it so I'll bury that motherfucker in the backyard if I have to.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

I've been feeling like Groundhog's Day, you know, so it's like the same thing. I don't mind it. I would so I'm gonna You had a good weekend this last weekend. Yeah. Two two part thing. I'm gonna touch on this because actually on the way into the office today, I was thinking to myself, man, how like how blessed am I to be able to wake up, go to the gym that's filled with awesome energy and people who are absolutely awesome. After the gym, you know, the run club thing that we got going on, that's that had like eight or nine people in it. We had a blast doing that, you know, come home and then get ready and and come do this, which is a business that we own, I own, and we don't work for anybody. We get to solve problems all day. Like, even though it's sometimes it's bitch, bitch, bitch, I am very, very grateful for my life. I'm grateful for the flexibility this job offers. I'm grateful for the income and you know, and what it provides for my family. So I just was that was one of the things I was thinking of. However, it has been feeling like Groundhog's Day lately. Like, especially me. I'm such a routine, disciplined person. I'm eating the same breakfast, the same lunch, the same day. I don't know how you do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

And I'm like, I'm like, I gotta get out of here. I don't like a six-pack that much. Yeah. I'm just gonna be like I'm eating ground beef and sweet potato everyone. I gotta go.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

So I'm going off the grid for a couple of days. Um, no emails, no phone, uh hiking.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Am I watching the dogs? Am I watching your dogs?

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Uh I gotta help you. Some of the days it's dog sales, some of the days it's you. Yeah. Just tell me. Um, but uh sunshine, mother nature, all that good stuff. Um, that's always a really, really good way to recharge. And then for me, like I come back and I'm I'm I'm ready to rip, you know.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

So how come you you went you went out Friday, Saturday, and had like a little staycation? How come you're not you're not recharged already? Because that was like a local thing. You know, so you gotta get further away. Well, no, less cell phone reception because I didn't bug you at all this weekend. I didn't come to your house this weekend.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Yeah, that's the cell phone reception thing, but but honestly, I do feel like I've been in Texas now for two years and I haven't seen anything. Yeah, I agree. So I get it. You know, I'm driving six hours away and basically camping, and there's clear water and mountains and place uh I mean the city is utopia. Yeah, but there's like that Frio River. So I guess I I'm no historian, but Frito labor. But I but I heard that the Frio River is like always 68 degrees. It looks like it's you could drink the water, it's so clear.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

I haven't seen clear water since I've moved down here.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Okay. Um you gotta take the drone camera with you. I know, I have it all charged. And then the the the uh the gimbal deal. Yeah, I have some I want some content to snap the whip. Like you might be on vacation, but I want you to film it so we can use it for work.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Yeah, there's some cool stuff. So I'm I'm looking forward to that. Um but the and kind of one of the things that leads into that I wanted to talk about is what's so important in this industry and in really any high stress industry, because we have some friends that are CEOs, CFOs, is just the ability to compartmentalize. Yeah. Um, which I think that I really learned from you. I didn't even know what that was until I moved down here and started working with you on a daily basis. You know what?

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Neat I I didn't know what it was either. Like the for the first, you know, my career really took off when I was about 27 years old. That's when I left Michigan. And and I mean, I just it I didn't have a compartmentalized thing, right? I mean, granted, when I was partying, I was blasted and I was not, you know, uh aware of what was going on at work the next day, but I was on running on three hours of sleep and it was clo. But I worked constantly. I was on the weekend working, I was doing the afternoon, it was always something for work. I feel like the compartmentalizing thing really for me did not kick in until I had kids. Okay. And then it was like, my kids are something I've always wanted. And they're like when they got here, I was just like, they are more important than anything, any amount of money, anybody's personal I don't care about any's feelings, I don't care about the business. I don't know, nothing takes precedence over my kids. Correct. And so it made compartmentalizing so much easier because it was just like when I get home, I'm I'm not putting my phone down for me, for my sanity, I'm putting my phone down because I'm trying to be present with my kids. Like they're only gonna be everything, it's so cliche, right? They're only gonna be this young so long, and you hear all the things, but it's like that really like strapped me into like, okay, if I go home with all the weight of the legality and bullshit that's going on on development deals and all the crazy shit that's going on, if I bring that home, it and it like infiltrates my personal life and ruins those days and those times. So it's like I just I just completely cut it off. Like, there's just it it is for your own sanity. Like I didn't have my kids this weekend and I was decorating their rooms for their birthday, and there's all kinds of stuff going on and litigation with this other deal. I had a conference call on Saturday, which I never do, but it was a big deal, and there was a lot of people that needed to be on the call, so and I was one of them. So I did the call. And other than that, I mean, there was multiple text messages going back and forth after the call all day long, 40, 50, 60 text messages, you know, all related to this deal. But again, nothing that was urgent that was an emergency that couldn't wait till Monday. Yeah, the guys were calling me, I need you to get on the phone, I need you to get on the phone. I'm like, hey, dude, is it an emergency? Because if it's not, I don't give a shit. We're not gonna accomplish anything over the weekend. This is my personal time. I'm busy doing my personal stuff, I'm having dinner. If it's not an emergency, if we're not gonna get on the phone and solve an issue, then there's no fucking point in talking. Like, yeah, let me enjoy my personal time because when I don't enjoy my personal time, nobody wants to see me on Monday because I'm a cranky bitch. Yeah. Right? Like I need to be able to reset, refocus, and all that stuff. And I and I get you do too.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

It's I I feel like it's super important. I again just touch on it. I didn't know what it was until I came down here and started working alongside you. So when I was in Michigan and I was in the insurance industry, you're kind of, I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a great and it's a great industry, but you're kind of on call 24-7, right? And someone's house catches on fire, they get into a bad accident. There's really no way to compartmentalize. So I was just used to, I mean, don't get me wrong, I had autonomy, so I still had the ability to control my schedule and do what I needed to do, but the phone could ring at any time. So you never really could like get into relaxed mode. It was almost like being on call. So I came down here, and I mean, you when you're building homes, you can't get everything done in a day. Like the emails never stop, and you are the one who actually has to put the physical hard stop on your day. Um, so you know, just working around you and you I felt guilty about doing that, and you constantly were like, dude, it's it's you know, it's five o'clock, it's six o'clock. Like, close the laptop, stop responding to the phone. Because what happens is you don't notice is you just get you just get overloaded.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Well, not only that, but and war up after three o'clock in the building industry, everything that you do to try to push a ball just falls on deaf ears because everybody is clocking out, wrapping up, you know what I'm saying? I again, I've been on job sites doing the work. Three o'clock rolls around, we're not leaving the job, but I'm starting to wrap up hoses, we're starting to close, you know what I mean? Mentally, we're checked out. We're not trying to start a new task, we're trying to wrap up our day. So, like when someone says at three o'clock, four o'clock, hey, I need you to can we do this? And then it's like, I go to send that to the trim guy or whatever, and he's like, Okay, yeah, he's wrapping up his day, totally forgets in the morning. So it's like those things that happen after 3 p.m., I really try to push them to the morning. Right. Because I want to be the first person in your email. I want to be the first person in the inbox and the you know what I mean? Maybe I'll schedule a bunch of emails or something like that, but I always want to be, I want to get you first thing in the morning so I get action based off of what I need. If you try to do this stuff in the building industry at three, four, five o'clock, I mean, it's just you, you, you, it's like anything. When you get home and you try to do something after a long day's work, you move at a snail's pace. You get done in three hours what you could have done in a half an hour full of juice in the morning. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, I don't want to be giving people things to do when they're half-ass in it and they're gonna charge me more, it's gonna take longer, whatever. Or something, right? You are so much more efficient in the morning when you're balls to the wall, you're you're you get strapped in that seat for the day, put the belt on, and you're you're going, right? Yeah, that is the primary time that you want to be getting in people's inboxes and in their in their way and trying to get your stuff done because otherwise it's just, you know, hey, Joe Blow, I need you to go back here and do this thing. And they're like tinkering around with something that should have been a half an hour and they're four hours later.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

You crack me up when you mentioned that 3 p.m. because I was talking to our framers the other day. I was asking them why they weren't working, and he's like, it's rain, man. And he's like, it's a Hispanics only weakness. And then I came back, or he said something to me, he's like, 3 p.m. is a white guy's weakness. Yeah. It's like you guys don't work after 3 p.m. We work, but I mean Yeah, we work.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

I just you know, I just don't push balls and tackle new things. Like I'm I'm absorbing, I'm I'm I'm organizing, I'm preparing for the next one.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

It's just a different, it's a different thing. I was talking to someone this morning about emails, and it's like my favorite time actually to go through emails is either very, very early in the morning or later on in the evening because I'm not getting responses back. And for me, sometimes, you know, you get in the situation where you respond to one email and two new ones come through. Yeah, and it's like, I can't make any headway on this. So I don't mind, especially right now, you know, with my kids being up in Michigan, I don't mind like after dinner, firing the laptop open at seven o'clock, it's quiet in the house, I can think, like, and and I'm responding to emails, it's not action items, but it's like getting things off my letting you know, hey, I see this.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Yeah, exactly. Or scheduling the emails for next year.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

You know, on our, we talk about like our systems and processes. So when we go through selections on a house, um, and this is great because we can talk a little bit about this today, but um when I get an email confirming a selection from a client, it's not just like a okay, cool, thumbs up, I got it. Like we have a system and a process. We get it in a builder trend. Um, and then also not only do we get the selection in builder trend, but then I make a note uh documenting if it's under budget, over budget, if it's a change order we can draw from another line item, or we might have to build a client. Um, but not only that, then you have to start thinking about um, for instance, today I got a revised plumbing selection and they were adding handheld sprayers to um bathroom four and bathroom five on a on a project. Well, immediately when you get that, you have to have the wherewithal to be like, dude, the plumbers need to know this. You know, maybe those valves. Yeah, there's gonna be there's gonna be changes on this job. And our plumbers are very well documented. They have everything in their um in their laptops when they're doing these jobs. So it's like you need to push it to the vendor, you need to make sure the client sees it, you need to get it in our Dropbox. Like these are all the things so that I know it seems like a lot up front, but six weeks into the project, when you're on site trying to figure something out, you can be like, hang on a second, go and Dropbox, go and build a trend. Oh no, no, no. I sent this to you, Plumber. You knew we were getting handhelds in there. When I get those emails, those are that's a great time to do those in the evening because there's no distractions. Yeah, you don't because if there's distractions, you throw it in Dropbox and all of a sudden you get three more questions and then it never made it to the Yeah, no, no, that's not that's not an efficient way to do anything. Um I had a note in my phone here, I gotta go back here because we were talking about selections, but um with selections, it's it's always good, or I feel like we need to touch a little bit on like a client providing a material and us providing the material. And what I mean by that is is our our vendor providing the material. We get some questions about that from our clients. Well, I can get it cheaper online, correct. What are they getting when Yeah, so that's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

It's like what what you know, and it's not that we don't want to say, yeah, sure, you can find it cheaper online, feel free to buy it and have it at the house when we need it and we'll install it and yada yada. But the thing is is that over time, with experience in this business, you learn that you might have a fixture, let's, you know, a $260 faucet for your kitchen that was $350 through through our vendor, whatever. Um what a lot of times they'll see is like, oh, well, this is $260. I'm like, okay, well, that's that's the installed price that we're getting you. Number one. Number two is the plumber warranties it. So if that faucet were to break in six months or have some kind of issue, right? If it's through our plumber, if it's through our vendor, it's no hassle, no questions asked, they come out, they fix it. If it needs to be replaced, they replace it. If they need to get the vendor on the line, whatever happen, whatever happens, you're covered, right? Right. When you go buy that $260 fixture and then go to install it, and then something happens in six months or nine months or whatever, the plumber's gonna charge you to come out and fix it because all he did was install it. He didn't warranty it because he it didn't come through him, it didn't come through a certified vendor. And the vendor, you know, good luck getting Amazon fulfillment to come out and you know, replace something, or you know what I mean? It's just that when it comes to the warranty stuff, when it comes to being able to sleep at night, it's much better to deal with going, and our vendors have a uh they met they price match. Yeah, but sometimes the extra price that people are seeing is for the install or whatever the case may be. It's like and and it makes a world of difference when something goes wrong.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Yeah, 100%. I mean, I think about uh an icemaker that went bad on one of our jobs, and it's like, you know, they mistakenly didn't realize it was a warranty item and we got the $700 bill for the service call. Now, our vendor took care of it and the client didn't see that bill, but I saw that and I was like, man, I was like, that was 700 bucks. That basically is no charge to us, no charge to the client. The issue is resolved. If that were a part that was supplied by the client, they would have been eating that $700 bill all day long. So there's your difference right there because we're talking about a small appliance. I guarantee you probably maybe you could have found that ice maker for 400 bucks cheaper online or something like that through Amazon. I mean, come on, there's always gonna be. Yeah. You could buy a car and go to six different Toyota dealerships and your Camry is probably, you know, end up getting at $3,000. But what does that dealership provide? You know, are you getting free oil changes? Are you getting a free loaner when something goes on? Like there's value in these things, and it is difficult when you're building a custom home to always look at something from the from the aspect of, well, what is the like the cheapest price on paper? You really need to look at what are you getting?

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Yeah, not to mention the cluster that it is trying to deal with something like that. Like, right? So, like when all of our plumbing fixtures come in, the plumbing fixtures are coming from the vendor and they go to the plumber. Then the plumber brings them and installs them. When you have something that you need them to install, it's like, is it gonna be there on site when they need it? Are you gonna be on standby to bring it when they're on the site? Correct. Or are you gonna come and try to leave it because you were busy and then you leave it overnight and then it's disappears? And it's like, yeah, no, I don't, I don't want you to have the liability. I don't want you to have to leave it or schedule time to leave it at the site and then hope it's gonna be there. It's like the the vendor picks it up. If it's missing, the vendor's figuring that out. It's not it's not our responsibility, it's not our liability. It went from the vendor who sold it to the plumber, and it's supposed to come and get installed. If it's not there, guess what? Not my problem. Y'all figure it out. And they do, and they do. Yeah, we get CC'd in emails that's like, hey, there's supposed to be, you know, this handheld in basketball. And there's no hassle, no question. Flip side, you know, something's not there. Oh, I left it there last night. Well, it's not there today. You know what I mean? Like, oh, guess what? You have to buy a new one because I don't know what to tell you. We can check the cameras, we can check security, but at the end of the day, tracking that stuff and trying to make sure it's there when you need it, when it's like, oh, I got some lights from this company, I got some lights from this company, I got a couple lights from Amazon. It's like that becomes a clusterfuck. And then that's how mistakes happen, that's how delays happen. And again, this is a system, and it's not a perfect system with custom homes, right? It's not like we're a publicly traded company building the same house over and over and over and over and over again. Every one of these houses new, a new design. Every one of these houses is a different floor plan and different fixtures and different valves and different locations. I mean, every single thing about these homes is custom. And a lot of it you're figuring out as you go. Where do you want that niche? Well, I thought I wanted it here, but I actually want it here now that I see where, you know, okay, well, where do you want this? Where do you want? And all these valve positions change and all these things change based off plans of just a little bit, right? So on top of all of those changes, then trying to figure out who's got what part, where's this coming from? It just I'm trying to build these things fast and efficient, and which is what the homeowner wants, right? Because they're paying juice the whole time they're sitting there. A month delay is a six thousand dollar you know, interest payment. Yeah, you think about that. Like, okay, so I wanted to sit here and go back and forth on something which stalled out the job for a month. Well, that interest payment just cost me six grand. All because I was trying to save $1,500. You know what I'm saying? Like, think about it like that.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

No, it's that those are the angles, and that's the reason why we're talking about it. It's certainly not, we're never like an immovable force when it comes to building these custom homes. I will I will just say though, that we've done it enough times to where if you stick with our system, you stick with our vendors, that is going to give you the best quality and the quickest timeline on your house. There's that triangle, right? Like uh fast, cheap, and good, and you can only have two. Yep. Now that might not be sticking with our vendors and sticking it might not be the cheapest. Like you can always shop these things around, correct? Yep. But what's gonna happen is if you dive too far and you go too far into that rabbit hole, you're gonna run into delays on the project. Um and and we we wanna avoid that. So if you want the best quality and you want the job done as quick as possible, then you have to understand that some of the things are gonna come in more expensive than what you can see them online, but don't get too deterred because that price includes so many different things.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Um okay, so we touched on that now a little bit about selections. Um, so you in custom home building, you do get different types of clients. Um, and and there is no bad client, it's just everybody is in a different phase of their life or doing different things or have different has different distractions. And what I don't think a lot of people realize is that like your job as a client does not stop at the design phase. No, you are gonna be heavily involved in this project, basically all the way through like seconds inspection. Yep. There are so many selections and so many changes and so many meetings that you need to be present for. And you have the really, really highly prepared clients, and I think that comes from experience. Yep. And then you have the clients who haven't done this before, and they're not used to the amount of time investment that needs to be put into this.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Yeah, I don't even I don't even think if it's if if they've done it before or they haven't done it before, whatever the case may be. I really think it's like some people are full-blown CEOs and career people, and their career is extremely demanding and that sort of thing, and they don't have a ton of time. When a husband and wife both don't have a lot of time, obviously they're both career driven. That makes it difficult because you're trying to get these things done. Yeah. You don't want delays, you know what I mean? You in the back of my mind, I'm like, okay, well, you know, every week I split that that monthly interest payment into four weeks. I'm like, every week we waste, we're we're wasting 2,000, whatever, however many dollars, you know. But then you get clients where one of them is retired or both of them are retired, and it's like they're Johnny on the spot, right? They're they've got every little thing they've thought about, they've got the the books drawn out and the colors. And the thing is, a lot of these people feel like in the design, that they watch it on HGTV and it's like they work with a designer, and then there's a huge printout of every little material that's going in the house. That's not how it works in the real world. I mean, it's it shouldn't because you go to put in an actual countertop that you just selected, and you're not sure how it's gonna look with the paint that you selected and the tile that you I mean, it looked good on paper, but when you get these things in person, which is something that's important to do, right? Seeing what the floor is gonna look like in the light in the actual house, seeing what the paint color, these things need to be seen before you go full bore with them and waste a bunch of money on something that doesn't look right in person. So going through those steps, going through the electrical walkthroughs and the plumbing walkthroughs and and and just you know really getting your home dialed in, it's a chore. It's a task, right? And it's, you know, the builders work nine to five, eight to five, whatever the case may be, which is the same time a lot of these people work, right? So if you're a career person, it it is more difficult to try to make sure everybody's on the same page and you're you're being efficient because the last thing you want to do is delay a job because of small details, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Like, yeah, I I think as I gain experience in this industry, I actually have an appreciation for like the over overly prepared client because what it leads to me in the field is it translates to answers for everything. I go on the site a lot and I'm meeting with whatever trade is on the site, and they might have the most smallest intricate question about something you didn't even think of. And to be able to have a, you know, I got I won't name names, but it's like I have a client that has a PowerPoint presentation of all the niches in their showers. And that's it, you know, and that's something that they just did on their own. And there's no right or wrong way to do that. Typically, we'll do a walk on that and we'll determine it. But man, to be out there with the plumbers and the framers and be like, no, no, no, like she said, you know, 38 inches off the floor, you know, 15 inches wide, double stack, what have you. Um now I appreciate that. In the beginning, a client like that can be very intimidating because you're like, oh my gosh. But but really I do have an appreciation for how well prepared they are. And it does, and and getting back to our topic previously, man, does that speed the job along?

SPEAKER_00 21:16

That's what I'm saying. Like the more, the more prepared you are, the better, right? Like when it whether you know, and you don't, it doesn't always have to be like I have a PowerPoint presentation. But like uh, you know, you're just trying to stay ahead of the ball, yeah. Which is really the big thing in this business is like you got to stay ahead of the ball because otherwise you get jammed up and then it's like, hey, I need this decision, rush, rush. You feel like as a client, you feel like you're getting rushed. Correct. And it's not that, it's just like we've been kicking this can down the road now for three, four weeks, and it's like I don't want to ever be the builder who's like, hey, you make a decision now, we got it shit to do. You know what I mean? But it's like 'cause it comes off bad. Yeah, it comes off. Of course it's rude. And if I'm the client, I'm like, hey, dude, don't fucking rush me. You know what I mean? But at the same time, how do you give those subtle reminders where it's like, well, you know, we started working on this like two months ago, guys. We've Really got to figure out what the game plan is and be able to move forward, right? Because delays not just hurt the client in their, you know, financial situation, it hurts us in our financial situation as well. All these jobs need to continue to progress month after month after month for us to be able to submit draws to the bank. Yeah. So time is money for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

Time is money for the client, time is money for us. And a big part of this business is um keeping good relationships with your clients. And you have to find ways to be able to articulate these concerns you have about their project in in a manner that's not going to be offensive to them. And in today's day and age, man, I you know, I struggle with it so much because I'm such a cold, factual person. I don't have like a way to sugarcoat things. So I send a text message and it's just the facts, and someone's like, geez, why's Matt such a dick? Yeah. It's like, man, I'm not a dick. It's just the way I talk. Which is so funny because I'm definitely the dick. Because you know me personally. But I'm the sale, like I'm always Jamie knows me. It's like, Jamie. But it's like I'm not a mean person. It's just I don't have any emotional. You have a mean bone in your body. It's like two plus two is four. I don't have a way of saying it other than that.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Yeah. I'm sorry. Versus me, I'm like, oh guys, I just want to let you, you know, obviously when you have four, it's two plus two. So I just want to make sure that everybody's on the same page before we get started. Like one and one is two. And then when you dab, when you double that, it's four. And I'm like over-explaining and like warming them up for it. Nah, I don't have that.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

I mean, we have so many conversations, you and I, where I'm like, maybe it'd be better if you told the client this.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

And honestly, I read some of your emails sometime like, you should have you should like hey, how was your guys' weekend? Like throw in a little sugar.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

I'll put an exclamation point or something. I'll start using some uh information. No, you don't want an exclamation point. But yeah, I um so it's just good. Uh different clients, uh different stages in their life, and and they're busy and we understand that. Um, but really it's just we want to make our money quick. We want you to get your project done quick. You touched on the interest payment. Yeah, like the quicker we move, the less your project costs you.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Um or your you know, the your rental property. I mean, yeah, there's all a lot of people move out of wherever they're living, sell their house, live in a rental, or you know what I mean? There's there's a lot of expenses around building a house that have nothing to do with actual building the house. It's the interest payment, it's the rental payment if you have one. It's you know, there's just so many different factors. And so we're trying to, you know, I'm just not a person who leisurely does anything. Like I'm not a leisurely like stroll. Like I'm gonna go run. Like I'm I'm I I wanna be push, push, push, push, push. Let's make progress. You know what I mean? I just don't like, you know, I don't like anything to be too slow. I think I don't even cook my own food because it takes too long. It's too much of a pain in the eye.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

I think that the uh I think that's an aspect that we would touch on with anybody in the coaching program because not only on client builds, but also on your spec builds or your investment properties, what have you, we have to instill in these people that you know, time is money. Oh, yeah. The quicker that you can get this done, and and there's an art to that. There's a way to be proactive. Uh, that's one of the materials that you get in our schedule. It's like, hey man, like, you know, you need to make sure your your windows are ordered. We were talking about this the other day. It's like, man, if your windows aren't ordered and you're like pouring slab, like you're behind the ball. If you're pouring slab and your cabinets aren't done, you're behind the ball. Hey, man, do you talk to your front door vendor? Is your front door ordered? Because that's gonna take, you know, what have you. Um, and that's one of those, that's another aspect to building homes that it just comes with experience and and it comes with our schedule because we actually have that documented. Like if you're at this stage, you need to be thinking about 10 weeks out. Exactly. And when you're not, it catches you quick. Yeah. I mean, uh, you windows, windows and doors could be eight to 10 week production time.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

If you have oversized doors, it also helps you with, yeah, of course, yeah. But it also helps you with just holding yourself and all your subs accountable too. It's like, well, windows are ordered, dude. We have to move. I know we gotta move. We cannot, because they start charging you if they're sitting in their warehouse for two months. You know what I mean? It's like everybody, like the plumber's in there doing top out, right? Then you got the next guy ready to be on top of him. And so the plumber knows, oh, well, this guy's scheduled for Tuesday. I gotta finish him, get the hell out of here. It's like you hold everybody accountable by being proactive.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

I mean, which is my big thing. Like, I want you to know I got someone right up your ass. The second you're finished, I got somebody scheduled the next day. So don't take too long, even though in my mind, I'm like, I got them too, I gave him a day of pad. It only comes with experience.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

We're about to start decking that project out in Flower Mound. It's like you you better send your roofer a text. Hey man, just to let you know next week we're we we need to we need to dry this in. You don't want to be, you don't want to have your framer send you a text message and say, decking's done. You're like, wait, and there's rain in the forecast two days later and you're you're trying to keep everything dry. Like these are all things that you don't know unless you have the experience and and and you've done it before. Imagine getting the house all framed up and you know, you're gonna ready to get the trades in there and realizing like you didn't order windows.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

And then you got like Pella going in there, and they're like, your windows are eight weeks out.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Yeah. That thing is sitting on the flip side, too, is like something that'll drive the trades nuts and get them all disgruntled and pissy is putting them on top of each other. Yeah. So like you got to be strategic about that. Like you want to be proactive, but you don't want to be putting electricians in there the same time as A V guys and the same time as HVAC guys doing all their roughing because they're gonna be running into each other and it's gonna be a clusterfuck, and oh, he did he was in this space, so I took another route and went this way with the, you know what I mean? It's like you got to know how to stack those guys and when to when to say, okay, this guy's next or this guy's next. Because I again I've I've had projects, especially closer to the finish line, right? After Paint, where we got HVAC guys in there doing grills, we got electrical guys in there doing lighting, we got a plumbing guy in there doing fixtures. All hands, it's everybody's, you know what I mean? And there's it's a complete mess. Yeah. And whose boxes are what? And this box is though, he thought this was an electrical box, and this is actually for the plumber, and it becomes troublesome, right? And I've seen that become just an actual organized mess. And it pisses off the vendors because the vendors are like, let me know when they're done. Because he keeps moving my ladder and this guy ran it, you know what I mean? This guy scratched my, you know, it's a whole thing, especially after paint. I don't want guys stacked on top of each other, I want them to be one at a time because I don't want them squeezing by each other, scratching my cap. Correct. And then the accountability, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:55

I mean, if you have three different trades on a job site and someone chips a countertop, forget it, dude. Exactly. Unless you were sitting there working in the house and you saw the guy physically do it, and nobody's ever gonna do it. No, exactly. You're so well. Yep, you're done. And you know, I think that all of this that we're talking about and some of the feedback that I'm getting through some of our coaching clients or even just our prospects, is that even though we're offering this roadmap and we'll hold your hand and make sure they do some some guys wanna be even more passive than that. And we have a couple of people who have moved from wanting an actual coaching program to just wanting us to actually just GC a house for them, which or partner with them in some way, or partner with them. But it's like, okay, like we will do that. If you want us to GC or partner or build the house, you know, for you, it just means I mean our cut is gonna be substantially larger. Like if I'm if I'm gonna build the house, it goes from you know or co-sign, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Have may help you get your loan or use us as either that's now it's our sign, our insurance, you know, all those things and the dedication. I would do it both ways, though. Like I wouldn't, it wouldn't have to be our sign insurance. Look, if you wanted to start the business, get your sign, and just have us as a general contractor, like consultant or whatever, yeah, that's fine. If it's equity in a deal, that's fine, but it's gonna be more than the coaching fee. Well, yeah, because I've got to wait for that money, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Obviously. It's yeah, it's gonna be it is so you basically you do get that protection of having us actually in there and and doing the house itself. Yeah, you know, because these some of these guys have no building experience whatsoever, which is okay. Yeah, of course. And some of them, like we talked about, we had a uh call with a gentleman who who wanted like passive, passive. So it's like we can we can do it with you.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's a lot of ways to skin the cat, right? We're just I just don't want anyone to try to help our goal with this whole coaching thing is we're trying to help other people make money doing what we do every single day. Whether it's building a small house, big house, a condo, a duplex, or whatever, we have the tools to help you, whether that be you join the coaching, whether it be we partner up or do whatever, like sure, you want to make some money in real estate? That's what my entire career has been, right? The investing stuff came way before the home building stuff. And so every deal that I look at, I'm looking at cap rates. I'm looking at a little bit different than most guys that are building houses, right? So if a deal makes money and it makes sense, then you know I'm I'm happy to be a part of it or help you or whatever the case may be. You know, just want to see deals happen.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Yeah, the door's not closed on us. And if there's any way that we can help you or get this done, um, and we're all there to uh to make money. So if you, you know, want to take a lot down and and have us design and build a house with you, then cool. I mean, we've done that before. That's that's no different than how we got our start. I know. We just figured the coaching program was like if you want to get your feet wet and start doing this on your own, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Because I mean we can show you the way who wants to I don't know. I've had great paying jobs, and it's like at the end of the day, I'm like, I I hate having somebody to check in with. You know what I mean? Like I love I could literally build one house a year. This is the honest of God's truth. I could build one house a year and work 10 hours a week and build one house and make a half a million dollars in one year by myself. That sounds like the perfect life. I honestly there and there's guys that are builders in town that are like that. Yeah, two or three houses a year. That's what I'm trying to get. You know what I'm saying? Like it that's it. I I don't care. I could make a half a million dollars, I work 10 hours a week. And honestly, if I had a PM, I probably don't even need to work 10 hours a week. I'm I'm going to my meeting, checking in, tell me what's going on, pushing, pushing, pushing, make sure we get our draws. I'm going on vacation, right? I'm going to I'm going to play travel hockey with my kids. Like whatever the case may be, like it does not take once you know how to do it, it does not take a there's po there's points in the project where it does take a lot, right? When you're going through engineering and permitting and pricing and those kind of things, it is a bit of a grind. Yeah. But then when the home is going on, if you have a PM or if you have somebody that can oversee it and send you photos and you trust your vendors, then it's it's really a pretty passive deal if you're just doing one house a year. And I think anybody could do it as they're working their full-time job. Yeah. Honestly. Well, especially with help like from us. Well, yeah, of course. Yeah. But I mean, even without, it's like, yeah, you could definitely build a house. You know, if you have the capital, you could build a house. I guarantee you make more than your salary in most cases. Yeah. And do it completely on the side and not, and it wouldn't interfere with your projects or your your work life at all.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Yeah. You just have to know where to build, what to build, all the all basically all of the underwriting.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Yeah, of course, of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

So that way it's a home run.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Yeah. It's it's not like Legos. I mean, it takes some know how for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

The front end of the deal. I mean, once you get the house designed and all that stuff, it's a different story. But yeah, the front end, the underwriting, basically what you're talking to clients about with the banks and the construction loans, and watch out for this with the bank and make sure you're doing this in this market. And oh, by the way, our realtor says you need a pool, it's going to get you an extra, yeah, you know, or nobody's going to buy that house in that market if it doesn't have a pool. All of those things are things that we would discuss and show you.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

But um if you follow the roadmap, that's it, dude. It ain't rocket science. I mean, we're not reinventing the wheel, we're just doing what we do every single day. And this area is such a good area for it. It's the honeypot. I tell everybody that, you know, they're like, well, what do you what do you think about? I mean, it's like, this is the honeypot. You name another major metroplex where there's this many people moving here and buying homes and this many large corporations moving C C-suite executives to this area to purchase million plus dollar homes. I mean, this is this is the mecca of that in the entire United States.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

And that's not even just getting into the people who are just aging, like the boomers and stuff like that, that are looking to downsize, but to them, downsize still means $3 million.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

Yeah.

unknown 33:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

We're downsizing, but we want $4,000 square feet. Upcoming South Flake development will be downsizing people that are moving into 3,000. And there's a massive market for them. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

Like their kids have moved on, they don't need their $8 million estate anymore. Yeah. They want to move into something that's no maintenance, still high-end.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

And there's very few options for that crowd in South Flake, right? Because there's no high-end old folk senior living kind of thing, right? It's just like, oh, well, we want to stay in South Lake next to our doctors, next to our friends, next to our favorite shopping places. But what are our options? Yeah. You know, a three or four million dollar apartment? Like, I don't really, that's not really for everyone.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

So there's opportunity there, and then there's just the surrounding communities that that like the South Lake are they kind of pouring into. You know, you have people from South Lake that are then looking at uh Flower Mound or Argyle, you know, because they want a little bit of piece of property. Um, so these people are staying in the area and just looking for different opportunities. Meanwhile, their real estate is appreciating, they're making money. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

It's good times, it's good, good place to be. It's a good place to be. I mean, I if it wasn't for our our you know company and everything that's here, I wouldn't live here. I mean, the topography, it's just good for business, it's good for grow raising family, it's good for schools, all those things. I'd much rather have mountains and lakes and rivers and all those sorts of things. But I'm with you on that. But you know, at the same time, it's like, well, this is the gold rush. This is the gold rush. Yeah, for for real estate. For real estate and home buyers, this is it, dude. I mean, this is it's a big, big thing here. So get it while you can, strike while the iron's hot, right?

SPEAKER_01 34:50

I I tell people from back home, I'm like, listen, uh, I'm I came down here because you you you're blind if you don't see the opportunity. Get down here and see the houses, see what people are doing, you know, see kind of how uh you're in areas where comps don't even matter. People just make their own rules, like nothing, nothing makes sense, but it it it's booming.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Yeah. Uh I remember when you first came down here, just like the first couple weeks, you're just like, this is insane. Like it is numbers that people are just like insane.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

No, the the well, the house next door sold for $450. Yeah, well, we're building that $600 and it's already pre-sold.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Yeah. Yeah. And they paid cash. Yeah. Like this. Yeah, it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

And they're from a different state, and this is their third house. They just wanted to be down here because their kid likes football and uh they got a good program over there. It is. Yeah, so cool. You got anything else? No, that was it. That's on the docket for today. I'm I'm 36 hours from the street.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

You've got to stop wearing shirts that match the wall, you know. That's the second week in a row you've worn a green shirt, which I know is a great color, but uh that's why I painted the wall that color. So I'll work on that. When I'm shopping, I gotta think what's the what's the wall color? Yeah. I just thought with the hazel eyes, the no, honestly, it's a great look. But you kind of blend into the wall. All I see is a talking head floating around. So, you know, that's great. I'll work on my wardrobe. All right, that's today's episode, guys. We'll see you next week. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok, DFW Custom Home Builder, DFW Home Builder, I think on TikTok. I always the TikTok thing is just such a gen, whatever the gen after us thing. We're trying, but we're Instagram, guys. So DFW Custom Home Builder and Dallas Builders Club on Instagram. Uh, we'll also post it on YouTube and all the different platforms. You can check it out. So uh give us a like, give us a share, tell a friend about it, help us help us blow this thing up so we can make more money. Cool.