#151 Matt and Dillon Cruise the internet

#151 CCP - Matt & Dillon Cruise the internet

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the construction corner podcast. I'm Dylan, I'm your host joined now as always by my blue collar. Bad-ass Matt, how is how's vacation? It is fantastic Dylan down here in Southwest Florida. Perfectly clear skies, sunny. It gets to about 90 degrees. And as we're recording right now, I'm watching dolphin jump out in the Gulf about, I dunno, it's 50 yards from my doorstep, so things are pretty sweet, man.

How about yourself? Not sweet. It's cold as shit here in the mountains. But Hey, that's. Which is that time of year. And I know dude, I'm a big fan of dolphin. So years ago when I was in Maui, we had like rarely where we stay on the west side of the island. Do dolphins like swim in that portion.

We were coming back from just to walk down the beach and we could see him jumping out in the water. So I booked it to the room to go get my like fins and goggles. Cause they were not close to shore. It was probably, 500 yards out. Maybe like you could see them, but it was a swim to get there.

And luckily like I got enough, got my GoPro there and and swam with there was maybe like three or four versus and another time I've swam with a full pod where it's $200 a while. No kid, that's gotta be amazing. I've never done that. And we see them constantly out here, but I have not jumped in the mix.

Yeah it's really cool. Like they make it look so effortless and swimming to wear. And I'm like working my ass off, trying to, keep up with fins on and you're just like, ah, get that. You're not, it's not going to happen. Were they cool with you being around, being that close already trying to get the hell out of that?

No, they were fine. Like you could, they got like close enough. You thought you could touch them. But it was like still 10 feet away, but they were, yeah, they were fine. Like all I took some video. I'll send it to you. Yeah, I do that, man. I'd love to take a look and show the boys, but they're amazing spectacular creatures at the very least.

If you get into the actual science of it and the echolocation and the size of their damn brain, that's, it's pretty amazing. Yeah. If anybody has a chance to go and do that, so like swim with dolphins. And I Florida in Hawaii, there's some spots that they're like typically in, so you can be pretty you can get lucky if you will and see them, but it's for sure something to be excited.

Yeah. Yeah, man. We love it. Just seeing them jumping around and, we got here I've lost I'm on island times. I don't know what day it is anymore, but we got here a few days ago and there was really nasty red tide, like bad enough that I made it about half hour outside and I couldn't breathe anymore.

And that kind of shit, but the ocean man, it never fails to disappoint. Within two days that shit cleared up, it all pushed away somewhere. It's not. The water's perfectly clear at cooled down a little bit. And it's amazing. So cool places. Yeah. I think that's one of the lessons like you learn doing a 75 hard, is that if, like the weather, just wait a couple hours, especially like in the Midwest and or wait a day.

But in 75 hard, like you just gotta go out there and do it. And some days are better than not. Yeah, absolutely. I had hoped to do this add Millette sitting out on the patio with the ocean in the background, in the waves, but I couldn't figure out how to set it up so that you could see anything that the sunshine was messing with my my on-board cameras.

So you get my American flag background and said, Yeah, man. So guys today we're thinking one with MAPI and on a vacation to do things a little more lighthearted, and especially with everything going on in the world to provide a little bit of. Entertainment more so than some heavy topics. So today it's going to be, Matt and Dylan, cruise the internet and look for topics going on in construction and just what's going on in the world.

So in in cruising the internet, one of the things that I found and for Matt, all. Oh, share my screen here since we're, doing this from California to Florida, but with. With that. So a consigliere tests, robots for automated building layout system. So this is a construction company can Sigley they're based in Massachusetts and they're doing a test project on a 240,000 square foot life sciences building with rugged robotics of Houston.

So there's another company called dusty robotics. That's out of the bay area. Who's been around for a few years. Who I've met actually in person amazingly a couple of years ago in San Francisco for the society of construction solutions event that gets held in San Francisco talking about different technologies and companies that are coming up, but it does your robotics, rugged robotics appear to do the same thing.

They use an inkjet to do. Layouts. And then with that, instead of like your typical chalk layouts, chalk lines, one it's a there, and they're going to be using the like geolocation basically within the building. So you can set up all your way points to, to do. And you're dimensioning off of it. I'm blanking on what that says.

Do you remember what that system's called the total station? Yeah. They'll use a toll stations to do distance and everything. So you have an actual Waypoint for it that it'll ping back to trying to find a better picture of these damn things, but they've the other thing that they could do is cause it's ink and, flooring is going to go over it.

They're just going to spray it on the concrete. Is one of the things that dusty robotics that talked about doing is you can now put like room names and ink on the floor. So now you can put more information down than just like the wall outlines, and because it's a robot, they can actually do both sides of the wall.

So you can see where the wall is actually going to. They can offset that to where it's a six inch wall, four inch wall. Like they can do the full wall outline on the floor, plus room names and all this other stuff. And just one person gets at these things loose versus having a full like chock team.

I'll jump on that one. Cause I that's amazing to me. I have not seen that. Roboticized if that's a word I haven't seen layout done with robots yet that's incredible. Typically the way we lay out a building is still pretty old school in archaic with a chalk box and a tape measure.

And then some Aquanet hairspray and, it's painstakingly slow, especially on a detailed or any sort of larger building where you've got walls. Spacing that has to be held throughout everything for all the systems and all the infrastructure from plumbing to the HPAC layout, everything is all interrelated to each other to have that done with robots accurately.

Let me preface it that the ship's gotta be accurate and correct. But and like you mentioned, don't to strike or to paint, print, whatever, both sides of the stud or both sides of the slip track. That's huge because I've also been. Tons of jobs where inevitably, humans lay it out.

It's all fine. And good. If you spray hairspray on it to keep the chalk from going away. But somebody will inevitably put the track on the wrong side of the line. Now your stud walls off six inches or three and a half inches whatever the width may be. And it just, it leads to rework and problems.

So to have. Both lines there. So it almost makes it foolproof for them that the carpenters in the field actually just slap the track right. Where it fits in between. That's pretty slick. Yeah. Any idea what the cost is? Look, I know for some of this, what does, how dusty did this and some of the other robotics companies have been doing it is we're there, they're basically a sub to like the wall contractor so that the, it's not in the GC.

So they're working directly with the wall contractor to put this stuff down so that you're not, Basically leasing a robot or anything like that or doing whatever. It's really coming in as a subcontractor to do layout for these people, which is actually a very good model, so that they're responsible for layout.

And again, it's going to get 95, 8%. There's going to probably be some weird shit in a corner, somewhere that in a weird wall that it's just not going to be able to do so by having their team there to do that, you still get layout. And whether the robot does it or not is a different deal. But it's a good way to cashflow the business with, robotics and testing it and doing it on actual jobs and all that stuff.

Oh, absolutely. And if I'm reading that these things can paint down 5,000 lineal feet a day. That's pretty impressive. Granted, that's gotta be on a single floor. I'm sure. And there's probably different variables that, that actually slow them down, but either way you cut it that's way faster.

Then two dudes in a chalk box. Yeah. And then if you search and that's per robot, so then you deploy multiple robots. You can start to really do this. And then if you get, let's say you get 10 and it's a, multi-store building granted. If the floors report, now you can start to, do a whole bunch in a day.

Oh, I'm just thinking this we're in the middle right now of constructing a climate controlled storage facility. And, that's got partition density like crazy because of what its use is. But if you could deploy a handful of these robots in there to lay that thing out, that'd be a huge time saver.

'cause. I got to imagine the guys that are coming to install our our actual corrugated walls and doors. It's going to take them a week to strike all those lines and to get it all laid out. And yeah they have some efficiencies I'm sure. Cause it's all repetitive. So they probably just hit the end or whatever, but to let loose a fleet of robots to do, it seems like a really cool idea for something like that, for that sort of.

Yeah. And especially if you've already done your job in Revvit or CAD, whatever, and you have all these layouts, you've got total. So part of this too, is you need total stations like onsite which is doing those points. Terribly overwhelming, but it's one of those things that you need to have, some base point set on the site so that the robot can and figure from there.

So that's part of this is, but again, if you're using total stations already now, it's a pretty simple thing to. To do that, with the robot to set that base point, here's where you are and, go for us and mark lines. No, that's really cool. We don't typically see total stations inside any of our buildings.

We just, for whatever reason, we haven't adopted that. Our guys haven't really adopted that sort of tech yet, but we certainly see them outside, w we have a station set up for. Our field layout, everything civil related. So I don't know why we couldn't just bring the damn thing inside the building once, once it's dried in and looking at these videos and pictures, you've got plan that's, it's taken BIM and put it into the actual visual 3d world, where you're seeing cutouts for duct chases and all that stuff.

That's really. Yeah. And that's been the big thing for in particular And using total stations in, where you have big slab pours and stuff is when you're doing anything through slab. So any floor boxes, any chases in multi-story buildings, that's really the biggest piece of using those total stations is.

Now, where all the rebar is. Cause you've done all those scans continuously for pores, right? And at different points within the project. And now you can measure off of that total station where a floor box is going to go where a duct chase is going to go, where a pipe chase is going to go.

All those different things where the rebar actually is. So you don't have to come in and x-ray it to make those cuts. So that's been some of the other pieces and uses, especially in multi-story, concrete, slab buildings to where, it would cost you 800 bucks to bring in an x-ray and shoot the slab.

But if you've done it through the whole process where you've got scans of those slab pours of where all the rebar is now, you can pretty easily. Figuring out, can I cut here without having to bring in an x-ray to do that you can do, and then you do the outlines, with supplying this from either dusty or rugged and all these so Dusty's a complete west coast things since they're based out of the bay area.

So they're only going to do Washington, Oregon, and California. And then this rugged robotics out of Houston. So now they're doing some stuff out in Massachusetts. And again with a printhead head, right? So it's just a pink jet printer basically for this in particular, but it's really cool to see, a couple of these companies coming up and proving that it can actually work and to do it really across the country.

Yeah. And it's we've always talked about, it's not robots taking over human jobs. It's robots, keeping those human jobs incredibly way more efficient than they are now. It just that idea alone upset and lose a robot or two or 20, whatever the job is versus. Human manpower to do that sort of layout, that repetitive tasks that is very easily calculated, and I don't understand all the technology, I don't care to either, but it's all just math based, right?

It's distance and volume metric parameters that allow those things to go where they need to go along with, intertwined in the cat or rabbit. It seems like a no-brainer. Again, I haven't seen the numbers to see if I could integrate that into one of my jobs without too much heartburn. It's got to keep the carpentry or whatever layout trade is way more efficient because they're just not spending that, that dull time doing such a repetitive task.

Yeah. So when it comes down to, when you talk about things like this, there's a few things to consider. So one is just the straight up cost of it, right? What does it cost to do? Two is how much time are you saving? So if you can, now, like you were saying a week to lay it out and you do it in a day, so you save four days on layout, which, you gain back and putting it down.

And then if you also save time and not reworking a wall, cause somebody didn't place it in correctly. So let's just say. You are two weeks to the good, what does that do for your client? What can you now charge? To be two weeks faster than the next guy? And then the next thing to consider, especially for like dry wall contractors is, and all the guys do in layout is what.

What is the benefit of those guys not having to bend down for a week, doing chalk lines, right? Like how much more longevity, how many less injuries are you going to have on a job site? Because you're not stressing your guys, right? Those are the other things to consider. Same with the painting robot to do drywall finish and stuff like that is, what's the, you have one operator.

For a robot that can do a bunch of stuff. Granted, you still got to tape and whatnot, but there's now to do, paint finish. Like you're gonna do a lot better on it, right? There's and I'll bring that up. Canvas. It's the robotics company. So for stuff like this, what are the benefits of, now in reduction to your workforce, right?

Like in, in. Work comp injuries, all that kind of stuff to wear. And now you have one guy using it that can basically do a lot more work than anything else. So through a lot of these robotics, it's not just what's the upfront cost, even if it's the same to do it as layout versus, using this robot, even if the cost is equal, you're you make so many other benefits that.

Plus like we've talked about skilled labor shortages, like the amount of building demand, right? The amount of costs, the amount of stuff that goes into buildings, where now you can have one, two operators and do a lot more stuff. And in a controlled, safe environment to where now, a guy isn't breaking his back to do dry wall finishes, or to do layout or anything like that. So this is some of the things that. When you talk about robotics, when you talk about automation, when you talk about all these different things, there's a lot to consider, not just the upfront cost of it, which I think a lot of the times, and we're all guilty of this in some way, but we, shoot ourselves in the foot.

Cause we look at first costs, not at, total value. Yeah. Cause that's been the way. Raised, we've all been trained to protect that bottom line at all costs. And that's how we all make money. That's how we succeed. But you're right. If you protect that bottom line to the point where you're not protecting your human capital, what good are you then?

Because we do have a labor shortage. We've talked about that quite a bit. We don't have an influx of people like we need in this industry. It just makes a lot of sense if there's a technology available to go finish walls and it works and it's easily deployable, and it's not gimmicky anymore.

And that's going to keep my finisher working for maybe another, I dunno, how do you quantify it? It's protecting his back. It's protecting his shoulder. And you still get a quality product. You still have those people who need to be involved, because like you mentioned, with the layout robots, there's always going to be anomalies in any job where a robot just can't quickly figure it out.

They're not a hundred percent autonomous yet. So you still have to have your finisher around because there's going to be weird corners or curves or, bulkheads or something where the robot just can't do it. You can greatly reduce the workload and the physical task on your finisher by having this thing working alongside.

Yeah. And it, to even tie some of the things that we talked about last week with cash flows now, for manpower, for resource allocations, for job costing, right? Like you can have something like this and put it on a job site, earlier, to help with cashflows because now you can do more in a shorter period of time, meaning you're going to get paid more for it and all that type of stuff.

It's no different than, the analogy of a hammer to a nail gun. Like it's the same thing. It, you improve efficiencies. You it's more consistent, less work, right? It's the same thing. It's just in a different, bigger form. Yeah. And as owners, as leaders, we just have to be planning for that sort of thing.

It's a hammer to a nail gun. It's a shovel to a bottle. Is there's ways to increase efficiency really easily out there available. And as long as you're planning for it from the very beginning, and you're building those costs into your estimates, you're building that time or taking off that time, rather out of your schedules, it really seems quite easy to figure out how to deploy that sort of any, anything, as long as you plan it, it's all about planning.

And as long as you're planning early, You can work quite, almost anything into a project, speaking of big projects. And I'm trying to find things that are nice and fun here versus some of the other things that are in the news, but in Turkey they are getting close to. The world's longest suspension bridge.

So they've got kind of everything in place. And with that, it's going to be 2023 meters edging out Japan's Akashi Kyoko bridge, which has a 1,992 meter span. Which is fine. So for really big engineering projects the, and it's the hundredth year of the Turkish Republic, really nothing to do with the bridge other than this is just really cool.

So they're putting in the suspension bridge, we're looking at some pictures to where they've got the piers in the water. When the suspension bridge in, they've got some peers in and starting to set roof deck or set deck for the traffic. It looks like they've got, 2, 3, 4 piers in there. Pretty cool.

Really cool. It is very cool. And it's crazy to me to think about the machinery the equipment needed, like just to set those piers alone. That's stuff that in my world we don't see obviously, but to set those beers and then to somehow drape those cable or whatever the hell it actually is called.

That's still cable. It's gotta be just a phenomenally huge barge crane that what they use for this sort of thing, 5,000 ton floating crane. And. Where this is. So this is over one of the straits in Turkey. And it's been a project like in the works for 30 years, apparently. But in this, they apparently have severe weather, so they got a plan to set the decks when the wind is not too severe and probably they probably.

A couple of foot ocean waves through this. So three, four foot way. I have no idea, but like here's a two cranes with 300 ton lifting capacity to place the final quarter panel forming last tower and just 30 minutes had like plan and execute this thing to happen pretty quickly. That's astonishing.

I just look back at this summer that we've had in Michigan and, trying to plan around the weather with our measly little projects to coordinate something like these folks are doing or have done. That's something that.

Yeah. And the, in reading this article stuff comes from like Singapore and other places around the world to get this bridge put up, it's a two and a half million build operate transfer contract. It took five years that they put in 2016. So like it's, 25 financial institutions from 10 countries.

Oh my gosh. We'll do the two and a half billion, and then the, to build and set all these piers, five-year construction period, 12 year operational phase, like it's just a high winds, high seismic activity, high stack container ships, to get through here. Cause this is into where's the map and this is into, I'm pretty sure that's the black sea in Turkey.

It's just massive on a scale that most people don't get to see ever. Yeah. It's one of those things and we've talked about it a little bit before is like the amount of time saved. Yeah. So the it's not the black, see, what is this? This is the sea of Marmara. So on the Northern edge of.

Perky south end symbol. So it's probably like in this area to get, ships up and through into this side as symbol and then through and into your the black sea, which aligned, the Southern side of Ukraine and the Romania. And then in the. Georgia. And some, I think this is that Catholic Stan.

So in some of these other countries in the shipping lanes, so they've got to, ships have to go through there for goods and all that kind of stuff. But that's, I think this is where the bridges, like where hula and Lapinski is where that was sitting. Yeah. In here. So it's a big deal, but it's cool to see like just huge engineering projects, and places around the world that really have needed one for a long time.

I was at a conference at one point where they were talking about the travel in Turkey using like Foursquare or people are checking in for it. And and in stumble in particular. There's a ferry spot. So you can see all the travels, but to go across in this symbol people would work on each side and they, there was a lot of ferry traffic then went around.

So it was cool to see some of these different things because of, either lack of bridges or was just way quicker to take a ferry than it was to drive.

As something else, man, just the sheer scale of it. I got, I have a hard time even comprehending a project like that. I've built some bigger things in my day, but nothing like. It's the world's longest. So very few people I've worked on, it's 2000 meter suspension bridge. It's a long, over a mile long, like mile and a half to, to get across this and just the sheer feats to stack all these cables, put it up, guys that are.

Hundreds of feet above the water line, right? The CS, the high winds, like everything that they would need to do to put this together. What's really crazy if you get into it. And we talked a couple of weeks ago, I think about, we were talking about bridges for some reason and the Mackinaw bridge and the sunshine Skyway bridge down here.

When you look at footage and records of when those were built and the lack of. General safety features like that we have today. And that's when it really gets crazy. When you're talking about, dudes hanging by rope, hundreds of feet above, the Mackinaw straits. It's really incredible what those men and women were able to accomplish that.

Yeah. That's why the picture, for the empire state building is so iconic and the steelworkers sitting up there, no ropes, no nothing with their lunch boxes. And, it's just so iconic because. One, it was the, I'm pretty sure at the time it was the largest structure to be erected.

Two was made a steel three. They did it in, I think like 10 months they put it up. So it was built extremely fast, especially compared to today's standards. So things like that. And someone's going to correct me, but it was like 10 to 14 months. It was like, they put it up very quickly to erect that building.

A lot of things with we've come a long way, from, I dunno how many people died and putting up the empire state building to now, what we're able to put up with, minimal if any casualties. Yeah. It slows things down, but it's amazing that just, I can't even put words to it.

In your head, the monstrosity, those people are building and the conditions are building it in. And I don't, I haven't looked or read the articles, but I'm assuming not a whole heap of people have perished building that thing. That's outstanding.

Oh, this is talking about the allied forces, but yeah, there's not a thing. A single thing of death mentioned in this article about the bridge or casualties, yeah. That's mentioned in the article. I guess the next thing to, again, being on a beat type of note is construction technology, funding, skyrockets to new levels.

In construction, $2.1 billion has been invested thus far here. This article was published October six of this year, 2021 saying that we are 100% increase from a year ago which is pretty great. It's close to a hundred percent and late stage funding jumped more than 150% during the same span.

So a lot of people are investing in technology and some of this is going to be with COVID with remote workforce, all that kind of stuff. But also just companies that are spinning up and wanting to I guess let's dive into this a little more because I think, and I've had this kind of insight for a while is there's a lot of people that see piss poor productivity from construction firms.

They see, shitty margins, all this stuff and they come into our industry. We think these firms are going to fair, especially when you look at the massive failure that Tara had in, just lighting a billion dollars on fire.

We had a Gareth McGlynn on a couple months ago and we were talking with him about, estimating technology in particular He made the statement that, you know, if you're not already working on this and you're not already integrating it, you're already behind that. The big guys have been, have seen this coming, I think long before COVID COVID probably help spark a general interest and, maybe ramp up some efforts.

But if you're not getting the tech in now, you're already behind the.

Looking at these numbers that you're flashing out, that's, $230 million, $2.1 billion. That's significant, and it should be a wake up call to everybody in the industry that, we got to keep growing. Got to keep innovating. You gotta stay on top of these trends.

Cause that's no small dollar amount, this isn't just a passing phase. Yeah. And a lot of this is, like in visualization and then. Seeing things. And there's some of that my kind of wariness with a lot of this is for most of these firms out there, while visualization of data is cool, it can help make decisions for sure.

In a lot of ways, it's always, the question always becomes, are they going to use it? You might be able to sell it, but how. How easily implementable is this and how crucial can it be to your workflow? Autodesk has a lot of good things and bad things going for it, but they have done a really good job and becoming a crucial part of the workflow and.

There's, you could say bad things about this, but they've helped in a lot of ways to really bring technology, to bring them, to bring all this, their cloud technology, to the forefront of everything. That's. Really allowing this to happen. And I don't think Autodesk really gets enough credit cause everyone kinds of builds on their stuff.

But that's one, one piece in a lot of this is, how much is it actually going to get used and where's execution fall into this conversation? And that's just, it. When I think of construction tech, I go immediately to the cool robots and the, the sexy side of it. When somebody who's in construction, tech thinks of it.

There's way more technology available out there that may not have the, the sexy front to it. It's not a walking robot, but it's things like let's just throw you out there. Cowabunga studios. It's the incredible design. Software and technology that, that people like yourself have come up with that frankly, Autodesk should get on board with and talk about acquiring you.

But that's a different show, but it's technology that gets used that truly can push efficiency. It's almost, it's behind us. The firms that are using your software, for example, don't necessarily have to advertise they're using it, but it's boosting their efficiency.

And it does get used on a day-to-day basis by their people who are tasked with MEP design in this case. When you see these kind of dollars, it's real easy. I think the thing to immediately go to, okay it's the robots it's doing, the Boston dynamics guys putting on fun, little videos of dancing machines, but in reality, that's a part of it.

Sure. But I think a much bigger part of it is the behind the scenes tech that the average person probably never really even knows what it is. And doesn't maybe have a real.

Yeah. And it's, with any construction firm, I think that, this goes for a lot of companies too, but within construction, within, designing construction firms, we're so focused on the day to day, the fires that are being raised, right? The problems in construction, the different things that we have to deal with to where we're not.

We're not looking up in the horizon, where we're just rowing the boat, really steering the ship. And that's something that I think needs to happen more often is for people to look up, see what's out there, not just the next client, not just the next project. And I get it, within construction, we're fighting for every project we're fighting for every.

There's really no kind of safety security within recurring revenue. If you can find some way to provide, information, newsletters, things like that to clients, and have them pay for it. It doesn't have to be crazy, but to be able to have the ability to really. Put yourself in a position where cash is coming in.

No matter whether you perform project or not, can add a lot of safety and security to your firm where you can go and. Put your head up to go and look at other things that aren't just that next project that you're not just finding a clon tooth and nail to get the next thing and take every project that comes in the door.

Whether they're good or bad, you're going to take it cause you need the revenue. And that's just not a good place to, to be in. Yet that's where a lot of people live. So I think there's two sides of it in that. Yeah, if you, and also just the hiring and firing and increase in people, as you get more projects, and this is a big thing that I've been talking about here lately is that as you look to scale your firm, your overhead is going to raise with it. And then your margins are, you're never going to increase. Sure. The dollar value is going to increase, but if you're your three and a half percent margins, a hundred million, you're only making three and a half, right? Because your margins are so small and that's, retained earnings in the company, not dividends to owners, if on three and a half net margins percent net margin, which is a lot of firms. Like you just need to do a lot of work, take on a lot of risks to make what is effectively very little money.

And you look at the big firms, like Jacob's e-com, they're less than 1% net margins. Jacobs will do 18 billion in revenue and they'll make a hundred million bucks and it, which you can go look up on their 10 K which is readily available. So a lot of these firms are really not making a lot of money for how much revenue that they do.

And very few people recognize that even people in the industry don't recognize that, it is it's always feast or famine in construction. But there's ways to offset that downside of it. You're always, you always have to be looking for the next project, because like you said, we, the typical construction for many ways, even the big ones don't.

Multi-multi year recurring deals. It's not selling a license or a renewal based product, so you have to be looking for the next project, but Jocko talks about, and I'm paraphrasing. You have to also be able to elevate and to detach and elevate, and see the forest from the trees and be able to get up and get that 30,000 foot view.

To really chart a good course for your organization through the future. And if that means investing in software, investing in, design software or estimating software, or if that means investing in layout robots, these are all aspects that are going to help keep pushing us and keep us all in the game.

As we move through the.

Yeah. And as you look at it, it's a lot of these things is, if you let's just say that robot costs the same as a person, let's just say that it costs you 30 grand a year, which apparently is about the same as a, window worker at McDonald's these days. So if that robot costs you 30 grand a year, 16 bucks an hour for, full time person and can put out, 2 3, 4 times the results, right?

Ultimately the work that a person can do, is that worth it? And those are the types of right. And then you can scale pretty easily, right? If you do more projects than you get one more robot, you can do four times as much. It's extremely profitable. You ended up being able to scale without having to hire people.

You don't have to worry about Joe or Susie being. You don't have to worry about their personal problems at home, right? You don't have to worry about a lot of those things. And I'm not saying to not hire people, you do need people and you need people that are reliable and show up and, Talk to the clients and give you more work.

But at the same time, we also know how unreliable most people are in just their day-to-day lives. They got a lot of stuff going on, whether it's at home, whether it's watching the news, whether it's whatever, they got a drug and alcohol problem there's a lot of things going on to where having.

Tools and processes and systems and software and robotics in place allows you to now ride through those ups and downs of your people without too much disruption to the end client. And that's ultimately what it's about. Can you ride through the waves and do that pretty well? And software, and a lot of other things can help you do that.

Yeah. And it's, I'd agree with you. It's not getting rid of human capital, but it's tempering some of that reliance it's, offsetting risk and allowing you to redeploy assets in a different way and utilize your human capital in a different way to produce more efficient, better, bigger results.

Yeah. And it's one of those things too, as firms scale, right? You need people, but as we mentioned, if you're on a project basis and you win a bunch of projects this year and you don't next year, now you've got to fire a bunch of people because you can't hold onto them. And that's the trouble that a lot of firms go through is they hire and fire and they're known for cycling through people.

'cause they can't plan. Their marketing is not consistent. They don't win projects. And a lot of this granted in construction has to do with the economy, what other people are doing and you can't control how many projects are out there or not. You can only execute on what's going on in the marketplace.

Which also is why, if you can bring financing and other things to the table, you're going to be a more valued partner to make those projects happen. So something to consider and really all this is, putting in other pieces so that you can keep your court staff, you can scale, you can grow, you can make more money, take more home with less risk and, allow your team to, to really thrive without working 90 hour weeks.

So that you can pop down to Southwest Florida once in a while and stare up at the other kind of waves. Yeah. And it's, when we talk, work, life balance, all that stuff, it's being able to where you don't have to manage the fires, to manage the day in and day out and that your business is going to be fine, whether you're there or not.

And frankly, most. Design firms can't operate that way. Most construction firms can operate that way. Most businesses can operate that way, where you can tell a great deal of difference between if the owner is in town or not.

Yeah. And speaking from personal experience, that's a very difficult thing to get past and to, That's a big topic of what we've talked about here. It's building culture. It's building based on values and setting in place a system that is efficient and solid enough that you can step away for a little bit because you have to be able to do that.

Cause if you can't,

you ha you already said it. You can go work at McDonald's now and make $21 an hour. I saw this morning. You could do that. And you could, you can collect a paycheck and punch out and be done with it. If you want to succeed in this entrepreneurial life that we talk about so often, regardless of what industry it is, you gotta be able to build that team, to gain efficiency and to know, to get yourself to a point where you can bounce out.

A few days and the wall don't come crumbling down. There are other people with hoses that can put out fires in your absence. Doesn't always work. No, but it's something to strive for. I think. Absolutely. And so for our last article today, as we cruise the internet is Intel breaks ground on two Arizona chip plants worth 20 billion.

What are your thoughts on Arizona bringing or Intel bringing back chip manufacturing to the us? So here's the other couple of highlights is 3000 Intel. Employees will be there in these 3000 construction jobs. I'm guessing this is going to be like a two-year project 15,000 indirect jobs in the community that I believe.

And it's a semiconductor fabricator factories as fabs. So those are the big highlights for this in Arizona. Here's my parting thought on that one. We should've done that shit a long time ago. We never should've left. Let all of that manufacturing, all that fabrication, leave our shores and now we're paying the price.

So it's about damn time. Somebody steps up and brings it back because we need the jobs. We obviously need the damn chips to do most everything we're doing these days. It only makes sense that it should be here under domestic production. Good on Intel for doing it, but why didn't you do it five years ago?

Because the Senate just gave them the money to build it. Oh, that probably helps quite a bit. I see the $52 billion you just highlighted. Yeah. So the Senate passed the innovation and competition act. Yeah, last June. So this event under Trump, which would provide 52 billion towards domestic semiconductor research and production.

I don't know. I guess it took a year to figure out what, how to do the bill. But this project is 670,000 square feet. And it's going to bring six. So it's on an existing campus up to six fabs in this campus. So they're probably at least doubling production. Three times larger than the old facility.

So they're tripling expansion. And it's had that campus since 1980, but they haven't done anything in 26 years. And a lot of it is it's, I won in Taiwan, semiconductor. Announces building a 12 billion, 3.8 million square foot manufacturing complex in Phoenix. So Taiwan semiconductor, which is also one of the largest in the world is bringing their stuff to the U S as well

go faster. We were able to pump out three vaccines in record time. Maybe we can get this building built and start turning up the chips that we need. Yeah, I'm sure the building will be put up in six months. It's everything inside that's going to take forever. That's good to see anyways. It's good for, it's good for the economy and it's good to see jobs like that being created. Yeah, it'll be 30 billion between Intel and Taiwan, semiconductor and fabs put in Arizona, which, there's no better place than a water-intensive facility to put up in the desert.

Yeah. Yeah. There's planning for you.

Parting thoughts for today. I enjoyed this. I think we should rotate this into our mix a quick fire. You pick some articles and throw them at me and then we'll do vice versa the next time. And we'll see how it works. We'll see what people what people think about it.

Guys, if you like it, let us know, share it, give us some thoughts and help us keep growing this. Yeah guys. So this is a little bit of a new format for us, or as we cruise the internet and see what's going on we'll depending on what mood we're in, we'll either make this nice and upbeat or choose the big, hairy topics that are out there.

And and give you our thoughts on them. So we'll rotate what we would go through, what what's relevant, how light or not to keep the episode. But I'll real issues, right? All real things that we're dealing with in the industry that we're having to compete against or deal with in various shapes and forms from really cool engineering projects and Marvel.

To, building new fab plants that we desperately need to robotics and helping us automate and update our workforce and really keep all the people that we've had in the workforce for 30, 40 years to allow them to continue being productive members of our teams and keep them really in the industry, their knowledge within the industry.

Versus them rotten on the bind somewhere or dealing with other painful problems. And that they can't reach overhead or whatever it might be from the years in the industry putting up drywall or doing layouts, all that sort of thing. Always cool to see what's out there.

Always cool to see the new and innovative things that people are coming up with. And as always guys share the show if you like it, if you want different topics, feel free to reach out to Matt and myself, we'll be entertaining different topics. I won't say that we'll do it, but we'll we'll at least give it consideration.

So go ahead. Share the show and until next time.

#145 - Improving Mental Health in Construction with Dr. Alex Spinoso

#145 CCP with Alex Spinoso

Hello, and welcome to another episode of construction corner podcast. I'm Dillon, I'm your host and guys today we have a super special guests. I am super pleased to have Dr. Alex Spinoso on the show. This is going to be an important show. We're talking about mental health suicide aware. Month. And we actually record this on the actual day for suicide, mental health awareness.

So without further ado, please welcome Dr. Alex Spinoso. Yeah, absolutely.  so a little bit about myself.  Dr. Alex Spinoso I went to medical school. And then completed my residency here in Southern California in the United States.  since then I worked in a prison system for the government for about three years.

And then after about three years, I got tired of it, decided to move more to the private sector building my own business called Genesis lifestyle medicine Genesis lifestyle medicine, we've grown. We've been able to grow.  from just one clinic in Nevada to now the group is about 10 clinics, my business partner, and I own about 17 medical clinics across the country doing a bunch of different types of medicine insurance-based and anti-aging most of what I do is anti-aging hormone therapy weight loss.

Yeah. CoolSculpting aesthetic type medicine. So that's what we've been doing. We've been expanding and growing across the country that way. And every once in a while, building out some clinics, which as you know, has been a bear sourcing materials and getting workers and everything like that. So that's been an interesting new aspect to these, to these clinics and our expenses.

Yeah, the the material shortages and labor issues we're having a nationwide or are enough to make your head spin.  I'm seeing it on the construction side. I can't imagine how frustrating it must be on the, on the owner side. Yeah, it is. We have one that one clinic that's being built that has been being built for, I think, eight months now.

And how large are the clinics. Roughly clinics are pretty small, roughly 1100 to 1800, some, some pushing 2000 square feet. So, so your build out should be about three months. Give or take. Yeah. Yeah. Build out should have been three months. It should have also been like 150 K and I think they're, they're pretty close to a quarter million.

Okay. Yeah, but the good news on that end is there there's signs that it's getting better. So hopefully when you're building next year, you won't have the same issues. Absolutely. As I hope. So,

what what made you want to build out your own clinics, Alex?  I got really tired of working in corporate medicine.  I have very good friends who I had worked with for a long time, and I saw them in their corporate jobs. Having the same salary for 10 years, there's no opportunity for growth, no opportunities outside of what was just given to them in their jobs.

That was a huge aspect of why I wanted to build my own thing. And. Opportunities for people to move up and to scale up and to make more money. Those people that are actually working, being rewarded rather than everybody just sitting around on their butts and making the same paycheck as each other.  that was a huge problem that I had with the government.

It was a sweet job. I worked four days a week, 40 hours in real time work. That means like eight hours a week.  so honestly it just, it. After a while it was too boring for me, it was the same thing every single day. And I could have sat there and done it for 20 years and gotten the pension and everything.

But it just, after a while, it didn't make sense. I wasn't growing as a human being and if you're not growing, you're dying. So it was just too much for me to stay there and I, to grow, I want to change. I want to challenges and I wanted to be able to bring as many people along with me. That as possible.

So that's why we of decided to build our own thing in our own thing, as well as a lot of corporate medicine and mainstream medicine, as we've now seen even more over the past year and a half, two years has been, is very, very.  money-driven and instead of what's best for the patient and healing patients, it's more okay.

How can we keep people sick? How can we profit off them being ill and treat them too late. So treating people on the front side before they get sick and, you know, delaying all those issues. Immune system or a hormone issues or things like that. And making people feel and look better well into their older age group is definitely what I wanted to focus more on in medicine.

 that's a hugely commendable way to go about it, sir. Yeah, hats off to you. Cause, cause that's that's you hit the nail on the head. You know, the mainstream medical industry is, is upside down right now. And it probably has been for a while, but it certainly seems like there's, there's more interest in the dollar than in, in productive medicine.

Oh, absolutely. And it's been that way for a very, very long time. People are just starting to see it, but it's a huge, massive beast that you can't really change it. You could just work around it and try and work with the people who want to, you know, stay healthy and be healthy and work towards their own health.

You can't make everybody do it as we've seen. Yeah.

To transition a little bit, you know, in our, our main topic for today is really mental health. You know, today as we're recording, this is national, you know, suicide prevention and awareness day. Uh it's. It is usually important for. Everybody let alone construction.  so as some of our listeners might not realize that construction is number one or top three in industries of the most suicides.

So this I personally have not had to go through this or know somebody that's done this within construction known other people that have So again, it's, it's a real deal. It's, it's hugely important and really want to talk through like, look, if you're having problems, you know, call somebody, use the hotline go, go get help.

 but really I want to also talk about, as I haven't had to deal with this and Alex and your travels, you know, going globally as a doctor and seeing just people in all walks of life You know, are there, are there signs, are there ways to, to kind of address this with people or how do you again, as a big, big topic to address, how do you see approaching this in a, at all right?

How do you approach it? Yeah, just like instruction in the. Quote, unquote, professional world. Anyone that needs to go higher degree lawyers, doctors, et cetera, nurses.  I, this is very close to my heart because obviously doctors do have the highest suicide rate among though they, they quoted as professionals, whatever the F that means.

But yes, it's it's very, very prevalent in our field as well, as well as construction workers.  that's a lot of, I think on both ends a lot of individuals that need to work and do their things. So they end up being isolated. They ended up being on an island also just like the medical field where doctors are supposed to take care of themselves and doctors never get sick.

You know, construction workers are supposed to be. And not supposed to have any issues whatsoever, medically. And if you do quite frankly, or a pussy or something like that, you know, that's the stigma that you're left with. So it's very, very difficult in that situation as a construction worker. But I think everybody has to realize construction workers, physicians, et cetera, included that at one point in time, The statistics are very, very high.

At one point in time, there's about 85% of people that will go through some sort of depression in their life. Now that could be different levels of depression, whether that is, oh, you know, I'm down for a week or two all the way up to, you know, medically treatable. And issues with that. So you have to realize that and people have to realize that it's a very common thing.

This is not a taboo thing to speak about because, oh, well only 25% of the people or 10% of the people are being affected by it. No, it's it's in the upper eighties, 90% of people are affected by it in some way. At some time in their life, everybody's going to go through it, whether it's from the loss of a loved one, whether it's from a job issue, whether it's from the company that we have seen, you know, suicide rates skyrocket over the last year and a half, people are going to go through it.

Most likely going to go through it. One in five people may not. And that even less than one in five people. So four out of five people are definitely going to go through some shit at some point in time. As far as signs go, the, I will tell you from the textbooks, what the signs are, but usually people, as they say afterwards, never see it coming.

And that's the difficult part about depression. Usually people are withdrawn or they may act completely normal on the outside, but have issues on the inside that they have to deal with. And that being said your normal ways of, or what the textbook says is normal depression is going to be things like, you know, giving away prized, possessions not being interested in social things that they used to be in.

 not. To see family, friends, things like that, withdrawing yourself, letting yourself go physically or mentally or things, habits that you know, people are usually on top of that. They start to fail. From my point of view and from a lot of physicians, point of view, what I would say is once you see that start to fade it, isn't like, oh, he's going through a phase or she's going through a phase for a week or a month or anything.

Once you start to see somebody that is out, I let they are normally acting like for. 24 48 hours at most three days, I would be on top of them asking you, Hey, you okay, what's going on? What you know, is there something, I feel that your offer, I see that you're normally here on time, but you're starting to, you know, come a little later, leave a little bit early.

What's going on with that. So the earlier that you can ask people the better, don't be afraid to ask. Four and a half out of five of you are going to have some issues at some point in time. So it's not like they'll never go through it, the same shit that you're going to go through. So you need to realize that, Hey, yes, reaching out, asking people, seeing changes in patterns is the biggest kind of red flag and the earliest red flag that we see in the medical field, as well as when people start to think back.

Oh yeah. Okay. Now all those little things made sense. You know, pushed it out of my mind and you don't want to push those things out of your mind when, you know, somebody acts a certain way and does a certain thing and you see them do opposite or different from what you know is normal for them. That's abnormal and you should be asking right away, Hey, what's going on?

Yeah. You know, I think it, you hit the nail on the head and a lot of spots there. Specifically in the construction industry, you know, the whole macho tough guy thing is, is huge. You know, it's old school, but it's, it's so very prevalent every day. So, you know, I think there's a huge contingent. Of construction industry workers, whether your field guys or office guys for that matter, that, you know, just still don't feel comfortable talking about feelings, right.

It's still too woo. It makes them uncomfortable. So they shoved that stuff away. They bottle it up and it just goes, it goes unnoticed until the, the breaking point, really, you know, and if you go on, you know, the, the suicide prevention. Sites and whatnot, the signs they tell you to look for, some of them make sense.

Some of them are, are similar to what you just said, but a lot of them are almost comical in a way, you know, they're, they're, they're blatantly obvious, like the person who says, oh, I'd be better off dead. You know? And I think it's a, it's a more systemic problem than that. W we have to be able to see farther in the future, then that point, because in my mind, when somebody reaches that point, they're right on the edge.

Right. I mean, you gotta be able to see, like you said, you got to pick up on the small cues and pay attention to them and we can't be afraid to talk about it or ask absolutely.

One thing I noticed for me in particular, At the end of projects, like in building out new software, new products, new things that I, and probably a lot of you guys at the end of a project, right. You've reached this air of accomplishment and it's kind of that what next? Right? You might go into a low state for maybe a day a week and just kind of looking for that, that next thing.

You know, it might be in a form of depression, but I guess Alex, and some of those where, you know, somebody accomplishes something, it could be a marathon, it could be finishing a big project. It could be opening a clinic. What do you, you know, in those kind of low states to, to kind of help prevent it from getting to where it is.

There's no return from what are maybe some of the things that you would recommend to somebody? Because again, we go through, we were in project work, right? That's the nature of construction is hopping from one thing to the next. You have a, a high to a waiting period and a low, how do you, would you help somebody kind of through those transitionary phases?

I think there should be two things that you really focused on in those transitionary phases.  if your number one being, if you finish something, whether it's a, a marathon or whether it's building a new clinic or whether it's you just finished. And you're starting to have that law or that you, you feel those feelings coming on, you have to connect creation because that means that your mission or your vision isn't big enough for you.

So you need to have a mission or a vision to where it's so big that you don't have time to waste where you have two or three days to be like, oh, I'm done with that project. I'm feeling kind of rough. What's the next. So right now, my vision is to create a hundred. So after I build a clinic, I need to focus on next clinic to get to a hundred.

I don't want to do it in five years. It could be as simple as, Hey, you know, once I'm done with this construction project, I want to make it the most beautiful construction project that they've ever seen, or, you know, I want to make sure that everything that I do is part of this project. The most perfect.

It could possibly be. Then you finish with that. It's going to, okay. I want to make the next project as perfect as I can possibly make it. So no, I have to do whether that's more training or more learning or, you know, talking with my boss to say, Hey, what, what about that last job? Could I have done better on.

Getting prepared for the next job. So when that next job comes, you're doing an even better job at it. And that's going to help you fulfill, you know, one of your six human needs, which is not only that certainty that, Hey, I'm going to do the best I am every single time, but also growth aspect. To where, Hey, every single time I'm going to get better and better and better at this.

And you're heading towards a mission or vision that can almost never be fulfilled. And that may make some people think, oh, well, if I never fulfill it, then why don't I try, you know, one of the greatest stories that I've ever heard is the architect and artist. He did a lot of buildings, Barcelona, all those weird looking buildings.

Dr. Seuss like buildings, they called he built them all. And one of his greatest was obviously the giant chapel that's in Barcelona and he died. He never finished it, but his plans for that construction actually lent for 250 years. He had it all planned out and he knew he wasn't going to see the end of it.

Vector is not finished. I think it's supposed to be finished by, it was supposed to be 20, 26, but I'm guessing the construction now maybe a little bit later, but he knew it was going to take that long. And when people asked him, well, why are you building this thing when you know that you won't see the end of it?

And he said, well, the person that I'm building it for God has no sense of time. So it doesn't. Yeah. And that's kind of the same thing that you should realize is, Hey, if you build something legendary or if you're building something world changing, or even if you're build something, something that's family changing, legacy changing for your kids, your grandkids, there should be no concept of time because when you're gone, you can't take any of that shit with you.

Anyway. So making sure that you're building something for your family, making church, believing for your grandkids, making something that you're just building it for yourself as well. And putting your name on a building is something that I think a lot of people kind of can kind of help them through those lull times where it's like, Hey, I'm building something.

I want to be greater. Not only for myself, but I want to be greater for everyone else. No everybody thinks they can change the world by going out there and giving giant speeches and everything like that. You know, it only takes one person to change his family and that family can inspire others to change, which can inspire ne and in countries to change.

So working on yourself first and then showing that what your family can showing your family, what you can do and how you can change will inspire them. Changing your family will inspire them. And so that's kinda how I tell people to focus on that mission, focus on the vision. That's something that's bigger than that.

The second thing is more of a practical, which don't change your habits. So a lot of people will be like, well, I'm done. You know, I can relax now for a couple of days. Well, if you're not used to relaxing, if you're used to the go go, go, then stay on the Gogo. Now that is outside of vacation time or weekends or, or things where you are scheduled not to work and your habits are to do something else.

But if you have a lull, the more you sit there and do nothing so worse, that low is going to be because then your mind starts to wander and your mind is your greatest. So if you don't have time for your mind to wander, because you're consistently, Hey, in the morning I hit the gym or I read the Bible or you can go eat breakfast, or I take my kids to school, continue those habits.

Then there won't be that time to lull and think of yourself as, oh, well I'm done. And, and filling in the gaps. This is sort of to elaborate a little bit on construction pieces for, for our listeners. Yeah.  if you're in a leadership position, if you're in the role of leading a team in, you know, knowing that you have a gap coming up is to put in trainings is to put in other pieces to reaffirm what that mission is, where you're going.

Maybe it's doing other pieces of their marketing rapids. That project doing more things for it, so that you have something to kind of bridge the gap between when one project ends and another starts far too often. I see so many firms that, that don't work on their templates, their standards, their processes, or training or anything like that.

 you know, where a lot of, for professional engineers, like we've got our continuing ed, you know, same with physicians. Continuing ed to keep up with your licensure is treat everybody like that, where they need to go through different continuing education not to necessarily maintain their licensure, but from a improvement standpoint, from a, you know, ability to keep busy and keep doing things, keep their, their mind and somewhat body occupied and doing things.

Yeah. There's a lot that, that we try and do, you know, from my end. And that's what those are those times when we push. All right, guys, let's go re up your OSHA certification. Let's, let's get some sort of new safety process going. Let's set up toolbox talks for the next project. Let's let's get organized, but I think it's, I guess I've never really thought.

As a, as a lifestyle change or, or as a mental health fix. But I, I agree with you and I see the value in that, that, you know, you got to, first of all, as a leader, you have to lead by example. You know, we have, we have guys on our job sites everywhere from, from an executive all the way down to a day laborer.

And it's upon us as leaders in the industry to, to figure out how to break through to every single one of those guys or women, you know, to, to, to make it realistic to them and to, and to show each one of them that listen, you're just because you're making $10 an hour. Cleaning up the shit at the end of the day, your worth and your value here is still just as much as the suit walking around pointing out deficiencies, you know, and, and a lot of it it's difficult to do, but what we have to do it.

And I think we have to do it consistently and, and talk about it more and it, it just increases awareness and, you know, increasing awareness is, is part of the solution to this. Absolutely. And, you know, Alex, I love the piece that you brought up in really improving and casting that vision back, you know, for, for you, right.

It's building a hundred clinics and go into the next one and. Other owners, it could be chasing that dream client. It could be you know, looking to build the next stadium coming to your town, right? Like to be a part of, of that in some of these, you know, massive monster projects or to chase. You know, and, and envision what that new hospital, that new school, that new project could look like.

 one, it's a great piece of marketing collateral, but it's also a great way to keep your people engaged, busy, you know, thoughtful.  I've even seen architecture firms design.  little like shotgun houses to be, you know, thoughtful and creative and ways for, for housing. It's not a typical thing that they, they do.

That's, you know, they're traditionally a commercial firm, but it gave their, their people a way to be innovative and creative in a way also to showcase to the community, you know, Hey, we care about more than, than the schools or libraries that we're building in, in doing vision obviously, you know, being part of apex executives, And, you know, really working on yourself, what are some of the ways that people can if they don't have a practical way to work on vision, what's something that you've used to try to increase your vision, your mission, and really make that bigger than, than just yourself.

One of the greatest lessons that I was taught by a mentor.  Andy Frisella and you guys know him as well is if your vision or your mission doesn't encompass, or at least be able to allow everybody inside your company to achieve their mission and vision, then your mission and vision is too small. So if you feel like you have no idea what your vision is or what your mission is, ask your guys what they want to do.

You know, ask your girls, Hey, where do you want to be in life in 10 years? Where do you want to, when do you want to retire? What kind of car do you want to have? What kind of house do you want to have?  you know, and, and have them describe it to you in vivid detail. And then when you start to think in your mind, well, how can I give this person that?

Or how can I give them the means to possibly get those things or head towards that direction, then you'll start to have your own vision and your own values and your own mission.  kinda come out of that and be birthed from that where you can say, okay, I know that Susan wants to retire by the age of 52.

How can I get her to that point? Or, you know, this employee may simply want a new car because she's driving around in jalopy. Bumpers falling off. How can she make money to get a new car? And then to back it up, you can also give them opportunities. Hey, I know you wanted to get that new car. You know, I have an extra job for you where you can make a little bit more money, or if we hit this certain goal that may be a goal you've never hit or hit before in your life and your business.

If you hit this certain goal, you know, we can work towards getting you that car, or you're going to get a bonus, which is going to be the down payment on that. And you'll be surprised how much more you can get out of your employees and how much stronger they will fight and work for you when you're helping them fight and work for what they want out of life.

And then you'll start to realize, man, that feels really good. How can I do this more? And then you start to get that vision and that mission rolling. And you can do the same thing with your family. Same thing with your, with your kids. It's it's, it's kind of that top down.  being able to decentralize command where all these people that are going to be, you're going to give them a mission, a vision, a goal, and they're going to work amongst them, their own team to achieve that because you gave them something to strive for something better.

Some hope everybody will work and they'll kill it.

Yeah. W I like that, you know, because I think a lot of times what happens is, you know, I'm just going to keep harping back to the construction site example. Cause it's, it's topical and it's easy, but you know, a lot of the guys on our site, it, they, they haven't put that thought in. You know, it's just a, it's a job for a lot of them and it's, let's get to five o'clock or three o'clock, whatever the time is and, and get out of here and go hit the bar, come back the next day and do it again every day, till till Saturday, then we take a break.

So I think it could be really powerful and very important to, to stress this vision casting throughout the organization. But also like you just said, that kind of almost roadmap. The creation of a vision out for your people and for the people that you're around. So to help them help themselves in a way.

Absolutely. Yeah. It's, it's guiding them, but also it is on you as a manager of business owner, et cetera, to start to learn those things about sure.  you know, And obviously there'll be a point where if you have 50, a hundred, 250 guys and girls, you can't learn everybody's, but that's where you start to have managers and sub managers that start to learn and you teach them how to help people drive towards their goals.

 and that's how you can expand very, very quickly because everybody's going to be bought in from the manager down to the lowest person on the totem pole, where. You, the gifts may be maybe different at each level or the goals might be different at each level, but everybody has got a goal to set a and a goal to get to

in this environment, Alex, you know, from the companies or maybe from what you've seen. And I don't even know if there's stats or anything pulled on this, but from environments that are positive, that do have a great leadership and in terms of vision and mission casting, right. And creating this environment where everybody does want to succeed and how.

Much better, not just, you know, we can talk about company performance and all that stuff is, but the mental health of employees, the absolutely happiness, you see where I'm going with this? No, absolutely, absolutely. No. The suicide rates in those companies where the, where the employees are actually bought in there and happy is infant tests, similarly small compared to those other ones.

 that's why construction is such a huge It's such a huge part of suicide rates and same thing with, you know, physicians, it's such a hard part of suicide rates, cause it's a thankless job. You know, the person who gets a PR you know, the client, their house is the realtor. You know, nobody realizes that the builder actually built the fucking house.

The realtor just put you know, their names. Yeah, but you know, built, built by Keller Williams. No, it fucking wasn't. It was built by a bunch of dudes who worked for this construction company. So it's a thankless job. It, same thing with physicians, you know? Okay. You help somebody. That's what you're expected to do in construction.

You're expected to build houses. Don't make me thank you for bucking. Build them the house. So it's on us. As leaders in your own company to make sure you're thanking your people for what they do and making them feel important. And that's a big part is that growth and making people feel like they're part of something that's bigger than that.

So it is the it's making sure that, Hey, you know, we housed and you could even the word it like that. Well, we housed a hundred thousand families. That's better than saying, well, we built a hundred thousand houses. Well, nobody fucking cares about a hundred thousand houses, man. Nobody said thank you for building their house.

So you got to make it more personal for them and tell them, Hey look, you're changing people's lives, man. You are building these things that people are actually going to live in, have kids in grow up in, not want to sell when their kids are teenagers and leave because of all the memories that were inside of it.

You guys are memory creation. And that's the way leaders and, and your company has to start thinking in the construction world, because yes, it's a totally thankless job. And there are stats out there that show that those thankless jobs have a much higher suicide rate than people that are getting consistently thanked consistently patted on the back because it comes, everybody wants to feel.

Welcomed. Everybody wants to feel like they're a part of something that's bigger than them. So it is up to you as a leader in your construction company to give your employees that, because they're not going to get it from anybody outside of the company, family. Yes. But within their job, that's that nine to five where they're, I'm just going to go there and show up to work.

If they feel like there's, there's no thanking them, then why are they even there? You are so right, Alex, because it's, if you build it right, great. Whatever, if you fuck it up and you break something or you build it wrong, there's absolute hell to pay. And it's gotta be the same in the medical field. If you cure someone or you treat someone, whatever, what if somebody's somebody gets sick or dies, then it's everyone's up in arms and it's yeah, it's a constant.

Constant battle on, on job sites on across the nation. Exactly. Exactly. So that's something that you got to bring to the culture in that construction world where, Hey, you're thinking people and it doesn't mean you have to go around and freaking slap everybody on the ass every single freaking time, but make sure that you're like, The electrical team got this shit done in a day and they was supposed to take Creek in three days, you know, reward them for that.

And I know it's a lot of sub contractors and stuff like that, but those sub contractors will continue to work for you if you're giving them that recognition. Because they're not going to work for the guy. Who's consistently yelling at them to get shit done faster and that they fucked up versus the guy who's going to be like, Hey, you guys did an awesome job.

Here's a night out to dinner or, Hey, you know, I heard that your son liked Dallas Cowboys. Here's a Dallas cowboy hat for your son, et cetera. They're going to remember those things. And the sub contractors will start to charge you less for their time because they like working. And it's the psychology of production too.

I mean, there's a, there's a, win-win there. Right? And when you, when you treat people really great, they'll not just show up to your jobs. They will bust ass on your jobs and then everybody wins and everybody's better for it. Yup. And mentally there'll be in a much, much better place because you provided any, you could really.

It's why Genesis has grown so much because we have that no drama policy. We don't deal with any of that garbage. We treat our people, right? I mean, you can have a monopoly on a industry, construction, medical, et cetera. If you just treat your people right. Because they're so used to being treated like shit that even if you just treat them right, they will never leave.

And if they leave, it's usually for a better job that you couldn't give them and you should be happy for them because Hey, that's the whole point is to make people better. Absolutely. Yeah. I see that so much in construction that if somebody leaves or goes to another company, especially like in a lot of this.

You kind of reach a ceiling. And I did this early on in my career where I reached a ceiling. My boss either had to retire or get hit by a bus for me to move up in the company, you know, and I was young. I was, you know, 23, 25 and he was, you know, still had 15 years left in him or more if he decided to. And I think a lot of us hit those plateaus and then I get an opportunity to go somewhere else as a manager, that again was 15 years early in my career.

And, you know, there were some people that were for sure, happy for that opportunity and others that were, you know, bitter and not nice about it. So by the people that were nice. I remember, I also remember the people that were spiteful and mean for that. And, you know, we always, Carmen always gets everybody, but in having.

 kind of offensive environments where you're, you're doing things preemptively where you're not waiting for a problem to happen. And this goes for clients. This goes for end of jobs. This goes for warranties and checkups. I'm sure in the medical community too, where you don't want somebody calling you and telling you that something's wrong, it's that showing up before, before something bad happens or just seeing how they're doing things like that.

Especially after like surgeries and big procedures to where, Hey, did everything actually go fine for you? Or is this a problem? You know, what can we do to fix it? If something did happen? So not, not a great outcome and the same in construction, right before that hype breaks, before that air handler goes bad or whatever it might be that you're checking in.

And if you're not late, maybe you're early on a problem and they know they can call you to solve it before it becomes a, a lawsuit where nobody talks to each other. It's like a bad divorce where just nobody is happy with the situation. So. Alex before I kind of start to wrap things up a little bit. Where can they find you?

Where can they find Genesis?  what are just a few of the things that you guys do? I know you mentioned that they're at the beginning.  but working they can find me at, at, on Instagram, Alex, Alex, Spinoso underscore.  my website is just Genesis lifestyle, medicine.com. You won't see my name or anything on that because in our company we are a team and nobody's more important than anybody else.

So we don't have any names or about us or anything like that on there. So you can't read about me on there?  most of my stuff is, yeah. So gram, but when it comes to kind of what we do, we do a lot of aesthetics and stuff like that. But I think the most important thing to tell your listeners, especially in the construction world is, I mean, my dad was his contractor.

He's owned his own construction business for 30 years. And one of the biggest things that I've told him is when you get into your upper thirties and forties and fifties, before anybody ever tells you. Males or female that you're depressed or you're having, you know, anxiety or those issues are mental.

Make sure you get your hormones checked because one of the biggest reasons for. A primary care doctor putting a patient on anti-psychotics or, you know, antidepressants or anything like that is really that our hormones are off your hormones, control everything, your attitude, your feelings you know, that's why there's antidepressants that change your hormones and change your neurotransmitters in your brain to make you feel better.

That's why they work. So making sure that you're getting those checks. By a physician before throwing yourself on any type of medication or anything like that. Cause that can start to be the beginning of a slippery slope where a primary care doctor is usually just used to throwing meds at you, but making sure you're finding some sort of provider or physician that will say, okay, well let's look and see what the root cause of maybe this.

Let's look at it. This isn't sitting on the couch and saying, you know, when I was six, I had a bad time. It's it's okay. Well, what are your hormones? Making sure those are normal. And if those are normal and balanced, then focusing more on the other aspects that could be causing depression. You've got to make sure that chemically you are completely imbalanced before anything from the outside is going to help you whatsoever.

So that's the biggest thing that we do in our clinic. Would pertain specifically to that suicide and anti-depression and things like that is making sure that you're getting your hormones checked because I see more females and males in their forties that come to me and say, well, I, you know, I was depressed.

So my doctor put me on this. And when I ask they never had a real depression issue, it was a real mental issue. At that point, it was a hormonal issue. Manifested as a mental issue. Of course, if you have no hormones, no hormones, you're running on an engine that has zero gas in this tank. You're not going to go very far.

So when it comes to that mental awareness type thing, make sure that you're taking care of your body. No putting in good fuel, you know, drinking tons of water exercising, or at least getting out in the sun construction guys. You don't have to worry about that. Cause you guys are out in the fricking sun all day, but making sure you're drinking tons of water out there twice, as much as you normally would because you guys, guys, and girls are sweating and dying twice as fast as everybody else out there.

And you're going to get depressed at the end of the day because your body is just drained. Can't produce any neuro-transmitters that are gonna make you happy at the end of the day. So making sure that you're taking care of yourself and the inside. That will be reflected on the outside of the body as well.

Like it Alex, I just want to thank you for coming on, man. You, you, you've given us a lot of tactical steps and really kind of a holistic overview of how we can tackle some of these problems. And I think it was, was absolutely very helpful. So thank you. You're welcome. Yeah, Alex. Thank you so much, guys.

Go, go follow Alex. He is a Dr. Spinosa. He's a great follow on.  I'll also want to say congratulations on your upcoming.  well, it's not yours, but Stephanie's pregnant. Stephanie, she's pregnant. Not me. Everybody's like we're pregnant. I'm like, no, it doesn't work like that. But for your, your upcoming triplets and loosen up those white, new balances, you know, gonna be exciting phase for you here.

 It's going to be great. I'm busting out the old construction jorts for sure. Yeah. Congrats man. That's exciting. Thank you. Guys to wrap up the show. I mean, go follow Alex. He's been on top of everything for the last year and a half. Been very honest, transparent, and really a lot of the science. He's one of the most read guys and I read a lot.

So for me to say that that Alex is well-read well researched, you know, it's a big deal, especially in this environment. So Alex one, thank you for that.  thank you for coming on and guys, you know, play some often. Like help help your people with vision on what their goals are, making that real concrete in their minds congratulating the team, not just beating them up at every, every deadline, every milestone through the projects, you know, Work through if there are problems work through them, B be positive, or try to be more upbeat on every phase of a project from, you know, framings up to top outs, to design completions really everything, not just the grand opening of the building, you know, but every, every milestone, every phase for that project, because it is important.

 and then to know that all this comes from the inside out, right? Like Alex said that it's internal goals and. Being the one to change your family tree forever. I know Alex is working on that and in many ways, Matt and I are doing the same. And for you to find what that legacy play is for your company, your team, heck even your family in changing your outlook, your.

It could be, you know, your financial position, but even just the way that you perceive your place in the world, you know, we're all important. We all have our role to play and all of that is important. So know that you're not alone through any of this, know that there are people that, that care about you that wants you to succeed and want you to do well.

 obviously come and get it checked. If you have any issues are starting to get off your teens. I think that's super important to, to start to do, especially as you age and. Don't feel bad about it. You know, again, you're not alone. This is a majority of people and we want you to succeed, to do well, to be great, obviously in construction, but whatever you decide to do this is there's an opportunity for everybody, especially here in the us, that whatever you decide you can do and achieve with a little bit of work.

So again, Alex, thank you so much for coming on and guys until next time. Thank you. Thank you, man. That was great.

#146 Worth the Fight

#146 Worth the Fight

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the construction corner podcast. I'm Dylan, I'm your host and guys today on this episode joined as always by my blue collar. Bad-ass Matt and, uh, we do have a special guest, but before we get to, uh, today's special guests, Matt, how how's Michigan these days.

Michigan's not too bad, man. The weather has been a little dicey or getting storms like crazy lately, but you know, we're, we're still navigating the, uh, the crazy construction market we got hit this week now, uh, with an unexpected eight week lead time on some siding for two different projects that, you know, normally this stuff's supposed to take three days.

So it's always, uh, a little bit of fun. But it's good.

Yeah. I've seen that in many projects and, uh, people that I follow, you know, we're in the entrepreneur space and people building out new headquarters, new places, and they, uh, seem to not have the materials that they'd like to open on the timelines that they'd, they'd love to be opening.

I think things are getting better. Uh, I'd like to think that anyways, at least they're, they're pointing in the right direction, but it's a, it's a slow fix for sure.

Yeah, and guys, so today our special guest joins us all the way from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Brett Leante, and being that it's a suicide awareness prevention month, mental health, mental health awareness.

Uh, we figured we'd bring on Brent as. Uh, I hate to say expert, but I think it's fitting in this context that he's, he's a person to really help us navigate this. As you know, he had to navigate his way through the challenges of business, of getting divorced, learn how to be a single. Um, all while managing, you know, and recovering from depression, uh, and his journey through this, uh, he's published a book worth the fight, uh, which is part autobiography, part strategy guide to help take your life back when it feels out of control.

So without further ado, Brett, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me guys. I appreciate you bringing me on. It's definitely a heavy topic. So, uh, happy to talk about it, share a little bit of my story here, a little bit of yours and, uh, you know, give some people some tools that they can use.

Perfect, man.

That's what we're hoping for.

Absolutely in construction. So, uh, as our listeners, now I sit on the design side of the table, uh, for the time being and mats on the general contractor side. And. On both sides of the table. There's really different anxieties pressures that we all face. One of which being time, timelines, deadlines, and getting projects finished and built, uh, personally.

So I've talked about this here before, but for me, I ended up getting shingles as a reaction to the stress of just getting projects out the door, right. It was an new project, something I had never done before. It was 30 operating rooms. So you try not to mess those up in any way, uh, make sure they're designed properly.

And it was one of the things that you just get. I got thrown into the deep end. Everyone else had their own projects, had their own things to deal with and was kind of just. To myself, to my own devices to figure it out. And I mean, I did. We're getting through that, which is very stressful. A lot of late nights, um, drank probably too much through that process on the weekends to like just the stress out of it.

And I'm sure that's something that a lot of people can relate to. And then as the story goes, I sat on the beach for the next seven to 10 days on any virals. Uh, cause I got shingles like two days before going on a vacation and I was in Hawaii. So. Being on the beach, uh, with jingles, no drinks. No, my ties is not, uh, not necessarily the vacation that everybody imagines, but that's also why, like for my company, everything is beach themed.

Um, you know, ocean is to, to kind of, for me to remember why I do what I do to help people. You know, not have to worry about deadlines and that kind of stress, but for, I guess for you, how did some of those things, I guess, take us through your story and how it kind of manifested for you and what things kind of happened.

Uh, now

I guess for you. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I got to say, that's the worst time to get a sickness like shingles, a buddy of mine, cut it a few years back. And he was a wreck for weeks. So, uh, yeah, going to Hawaii was jingles. That sucks. But like you said, I mean, construction is a stressful job or you're constantly working on timelines.

You've got clients, you've got, uh, other contractors, subcontractors constantly that you have to negotiate. You got to navigate through all those different people. Uh, everybody has their own expectations, their own timelines and their own struggles that they're dealing with. It's a stressful line work. And that stress, uh, is definitely a contributing factor to a depressive states, depressive, moods, that kind of thing.

Uh, I should go back for a quick second and, uh, touch on one thing. So myself. I appreciate being described as an expert. I don't know if I'd consider myself one, but, uh, you know, it's, I'm a, I'm an, I guess I'm an expert from experience, you know, I'm not, I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a therapist.

Any of those things, what I am is a survivor. Uh, I went right to the brink of suicide. I was ready to take my own life. I had a plan, I had it all figured out and, uh, I was thorough enough. That's had, I just taken that one step. If I'd had just one bad day, one bad moment. Um, there's nothing anyone could have done to stop me.

Um, you know, unfortunately I didn't go that route. I took steps to. Take myself away from that. And you know, one of the things that you learn is, uh, you learn who is going to, who's really going to be there for you. You know? Uh it's if I had to say there was a couple of silver linings to my experience, one, I really know the people that I can count on because people that I didn't expect stood up and helped me out.

And people that I really thought would be there for me. Um, Kept me at arms distance, or even turn their back. And, uh, it was a hard lesson to learn, but, uh, you know, how go into a few of the details a little bit later on the other thing I wanted to touch base on or touch on, there was something that you said there, Dylan, um, when you were.

You know, going to that period of stress and you're doing a lot of drinking, you know, that's something that a lot of people do is, uh, drinking or turn into drugs. That kind of thing. It's a self-medicating procedure. Unfortunately, you know, those things don't really help. Uh it's it's kinda like putting a bandaid over a bullet wound, right?

The bullet's still in there. It's still causing problems. You can stick a bandaid over top of it. You might not see the blood coming through on your clothing. But it's still in there. You still got to extract that you still got to get to the root of the problem first. And, uh, yeah, I mean, depression is a big issue for people.

Um, like it's the third leading cause of disease burden. So the third biggest strain on our medical system worldwide is depression. And I think it's one in three people, uh, one in two people experiencing mental. Health concern at some point in their life and one in three, uh, go through some state of depression.

So this is a common problem, and I know it's a big issue in the construction industry as well. So as for my story, uh, I always had a little bit of a predisposition for, for depression. Um, you know, whether it was environments or genetics or whatever it was, I don't know. Uh, but I had my first. The first thing that I remember of like, wanting to hurt myself happened when I was about 12 years old, but I didn't recognize that that's what it was until 20 years later when I was actually diagnosed.

And I started thinking back and going, okay, that was kind of a messed up thing to think about. Right. And it's an insidious condition because a lot of people go through their whole life, uh, without realizing that, uh, They have a problem. And that's why it gets so severe. And so many people, because the longer it sits and festers, the longer you go without addressing it, the worse it becomes.

Right. And, uh, for me, the tipping point came when I sustained a head, a concussion, it wasn't really a head injury. I was in a car accidents. My wife at the time and I were driving and our newborn baby was in the backseat. She was only seven days old. And, uh, we got rear-ended by a truck. Um, I got, I was turning in my seat.

At the time that we got hit. And so I got snapped back in my chair and that twisting motion, uh, caused me to get a concussion that was never diagnosed and never treated. And one of the symptoms of concussion and post-concussion syndrome is new or worsening depression. So I was already depressed. I was already unhappy about a lot of things.

And, you know, like I had a lot of good stuff going on in my life too. It's not like everything sucks. It's just, I was so fixated on the things that weren't going, the way that I wanted them to. And so once I sustained this concussion and this post-concussion syndrome, my depression just absolutely nosedive.

And I went into a very dark place. Like I said, I was ready to take my own life. And I was convinced that, all right. Was doing people a favor. It there's, there's a stigma around depression and suicide that, uh, it's weakness. It's weakness to take your own life, but that's a very damaging stigma. It's very harmful.

For the whole, for anyone who is experiencing depression, anyone who is experiencing suicidal ideations, it's a very damaging stigma because when you're in that state, it doesn't seem like the easy way out. There's nothing easy about killing yourself. Nothing easy about it. Like, I mean, you imagine taking, you know, trying to go through with that.

That's it for most people, that's a terrifying prospect. And even for someone who is depressed and suicidal, it's still a terrifying prospect. It's a very hard thing to wrap your mind around. Uh, it just feels like your only option. So it doesn't feel like easy option. It feels like the only option. And when someone is depressed, they're very effective at convincing themselves that they're actually doing other people a favor.

I believe wholeheartedly. That my wife and my children would be better off if I was gone.

Yeah.

That's uh, that's pretty intense, man. I appreciate you. Uh, you sharing it, you know, I think, I mean, you covered a lot there. I think, to, to kind of talk. And under the construction industry specifically, you mentioned that the fixation on all the bad shit going on, and I think no in construction a lot of times, and we talked about this, uh, on our last episode, it's a very thankless job, you know, across the board.

And, and in that, you know, when you do things correctly, There's no big celebration and you should, right. You should do the shit correctly, but when you screw something up really bad or, or mess it up, um, there's huge repercussions. And so I think a lot of, uh, folks, a lot of people in the industry especially really do fixate only on the bad stuff.

You know, we don't celebrate the wins, we don't celebrate the small victories. Um, so I can totally see that. You know, railroading and adding up to a really big problem. And the other thing, you know, just by it's a, it's a bold stereotype, but I think it's generally true construction guys, construction people.

Aren't typically the demographic that tend to talk about feelings, right? They don't, they don't tend to go and find help, you know, or tell anyone anything instead they, and I'm going to say, we will go to a beer or a bottle of something and you self-medicate. You know, sleep through the night and you get up and do it all over again.

So it, it's not a healthy way to go about it, but it's very helpful to hear people talk about it.

Yeah, absolutely. There's a, there's a book by Lieutenant Colonel, Dave Grossman. It's called on Kili and, uh, it's about the psychology of soldiers going into combat to take the lives of other people. And he's studied the subject extensively.

One of the things that he brings up in that book is the saying, um, pain shared is pain. Julie's shared is joy multiplied. So whatever's going on and the more you talk about it, the better off you are. If you're going through something that's painful. If you're going through some rough experience, the more you can talk about that experience, the less pain that you Harbor for yourself, you share it with others so that the burden is easier to bear and over time becomes easier to heal.

Whereas, you know, joy shared is joy multiplied. The more, you know, if you have a good experience, something positive happens, the more you can tell other people about that, the more they get to experience that joy and live vicariously through you. And you get to have the experience of. Uh, being lifted up by others.

So it's a, just a positive experience all around. Why, why it's so important. Whatever's going on, have a circle of people that you talk to about it. And you know, it doesn't mean just, uh, you know, sit around over a couple of drinks and bitch about everything that's going on, because I know there's a lot of that that happens, right.

Uh, you know, there's a time to vent, but, uh, you know, there's a venting is only going to get you so far, you know, at some point you got to. And you got to start changing the subject because when you get caught in that cycle, that's just, that's it, it's a negative environment. It's a negative cycle. It's a toxic place to be.

And if you constantly around that, well, guess what all your attention is going to be all the time. It's always going to be on the negative. And so that's a very interesting point that you brought up Matt about, uh, how, you know, you, you do everything right. And there's, there's no parade at the iPad, right?

That's what you're supposed to do. That's how the job's supposed to go. Uh, whereas if you make a mistake, we'll discuss time, it costs money. It costs all kinds of, and there's, there's, that's a pain point. That's a rough thing for people to deal with. So, um, I mean, how, how do you, how do you address that?

Right. You've got to have. We got to have some way in which to, uh, give yourself the opportunity to actually appreciate the things that you do accomplish. Right. And, you know, maybe as, as an employee in the construction industry, uh, what you need to do is just at the end of the. Take a minute, take five minutes to look at the work that you've done.

Uh, you know, construction you're in a unique position because at the end of the day, you know, at the end of your Workday, you get to look back at what you did and stay I accomplish. I accomplished something right. There are a lot of environments, a lot of businesses. Industries end of the day, you look at what you've done.

There's nothing to show for it. It's just the same shit over and over. Whereas in construction, you know, if you're assigned to do a project, you invest your eight hours and putting that project together and you can look at it and go, I did that, that wouldn't be here if I hadn't done that. And if you spend even 30 seconds at the end of your day gone, you know what fucking did.

Good. Maybe that's all. And as a, you know, as a contractor or someone who has employees, you know, taking that, uh, that extra minutes out of your day to go around and see what people have done. Uh, and just say, you know, like give people a pat on the back. Um, maybe that's something that needs to happen a little bit more in that industry.

Um, Honestly, I I've, I've only spent a few days out of my life doing construction, so I can't speak to what the experience is like, but I've heard stories. So

yeah, I mean, I think you nailed it, you know, it's celebrating the small victories, even if it's just a pat on the back or a thank you, you know, a nice job it's really important.

And it, it fosters a positive mindset across the whole job site and, you know, I dominate the conversation with the construction side. Cause that's what I do. But you know, Dylan on the design side, I, I got to imagine there's a lot of the same, the same lack of celebration. You know, the same if you screw up.

You're shit out of luck if you do it right then. Good.

Yeah. It's I mean, especially like in the engineering front, you know, like people admire the architecture side of it, but if you do a great job, like as a structural engineer, like, oh good. The building didn't fall down, you know, it's like you did your job, right.

There's only a few. Structures that really have that structural, like marble to them, right? Like big candle leavers or things coming out of the side of a building, which most people don't think of. Like the structural guy, they still think of it as cool architecture. So, and the engineering disciplines, especially with like mechanical plumbing, like I just saw a video of like sewage leaking at a Redskins game onto a bunch of people.

Like it's like catastrophic. That, you know, like somebody is not happy about, but when the plumbing works, you know, no one's like cheering, right? So there's, there's for sure that side of it. Right. And if something breaks, it's usually like catastrophic failures or failures to the point of like very bad things are happening.

Whether that's the AC going out and people are super uncomfortable, whether the lights go out or don't work or they flicker or whatever it might be happening, like it's usually a. Catastrophic failure in some regard it's bad enough that you've got to go deal with it. Um, so there's for sure that from the design side, but the other thing that I think we don't do enough in, in design, in the design community in general is.

Go to ribbon cuttings, um, to get people out of the office. And this is across the board, like how many of your admins have ever been out onto a ribbon cutting or a project opening, or even just like a sneak peek, right. For the design team and owner to like do a walkthrough and that's across the board, even in on the construction side, like your accountants, your admin people, right.

To get out and just see the project, whether it's at, you know, A punch list or a random Tuesday or a pre opening, whatever. And I don't think we do that enough. I've been to cross the, like, I don't know, 50 projects I've done. I've been to two, uh, like previews, you know, other than like final punch list, right?

Like. It just doesn't happen, you know, for the design team, they, we don't go out and really see the projects, um, appended back to plenty that had issues we had to work through. But for the actual like celebration piece of it, the actual. Victory piece of that opening. It's usually, you know, the PM the, uh, project executive, the principal in charge.

Like those are the, usually the people that go out for it, maybe the lead architects, whatever. And a lot of people get left in the office. So, and then they, they don't appreciate the project. It's just another thing that they add. They've seen renderings, but not never actually experienced, uh, the finished space.

So when we talk about. Being out on job sites. I think, uh, frankly the, the actual construction side has a lot better view of that and seeing it come to life and working through that, but even still like go into those ribbon cuttings, like how many guys down the chain, you know, like put on their good blue jeans, right.

And go to a, uh, ribbon cutting or, uh, opening ceremony or do something specific for, you know, the full construction team, you know, everybody up and down. Design owners, everybody to come out and do that for just the team versus, you know, all the other stakeholders and investors and community and all that other stuff.

So from a inclusion standpoint and, and seeing those victories to, to make everybody feel good about these projects, you know, um, I think things like that would be very well received. It's not done, uh, That often and to, to make the point of like, what we do is important, right? You're not for a lot of design.

It's not just looking at a screen. It's not just being in an office. Um, it's, you know, we do impact the community in a lot of ways. I don't think even architects, uh, really appreciate your, you know, engineers, like the whole design community. It's just another thing. And another project to get yelled at for something.

So

Brett, um, And we've kind of talked about where you got to the point you got to, um, and you can share as much or as little as you are comfortable with, but can you, can you give us some, some insight as to how you got from that? Kind of out of that bad space, you know, what, what brought you out of the darkness and into the light, because you've obviously come a long way from that.

I've heard you speak a couple of times, you, you own a business, you're now an author. So things are at least on the surface from my level you're, you're doing pretty damn well. So do you have any, you know, tactical advice as to what you did personally, to remove that from yourself?

Yeah, absolutely. And. Know, it was a process, right?

Everything, depression. It doesn't, it's not something that sets in overnight and it's not something that you can fix overnight. There's, there's a process to it. It takes time and it takes repetitive action. But understanding that you. Need help and then choosing to go out and get help is a big part of it.

Uh, you know, take advantage of all the tools that are available to you. Um, there are tools that you can do on your own and yeah, I'll, I'll get into some of those in just a second here. Uh, but they're also, you know, like going and talking to your doctor, uh, seeing a therapist, those are all beneficial things that anyone can do, but I understand that some of those things aren't necessarily.

Uh, economically viable for some people like going to going and seeing a therapist once a week for months at a time, is it costs lot of money, right? Uh, financially it's, uh, challenging for some people to do that. Uh, so that's why, you know, most, most of what I went through in, in my book and most of the strategies that I applied were, uh, just simple things that you can do with.

Uh, the biggest thing is changing how you focus your attention, right? And the way you can do that is by taking conscious action throughout your day. And at the end of your day, one of the first tools that I learned, and it's one of the ones that I talked about most is, uh, every day you're writing down three good things, three good things that happen in your day.

And I mean, it can be anything that you want. I can be. But some days you going to be able to come up with 15 good things and that's great. And other days you write down one and you're gonna really struggled to come up with number two or number three. Uh, but a good thing can be anything from, uh, the, the Starbucks barista and got my drink.

Great. The first time, uh, or, you know, I, you know, like anything my, my car started with. First time I turned it over. Right. Um, I found five bucks sitting on the ground for, you know, I.

Anything. Right. One of the, one of the examples that I said in the book is a, you know, I, I went pee and it didn't burn. Right. So for some, for some people, that's something they can write every day. Some people that might be something just, that's just occasional, but, uh, you know, it's, it's like anything can be considered a good thing if you're looking at it in the right.

So write down three good things, three good things that happened that day, whatever it was, you know, uh, I showed up to work on time, right. Or, you know, I was able to finish that project that's that I've been working on for the last eight days or, uh, you know, I met up with a buddy for a drink at the bar, whatever, uh, I, I got to the gym and did some exercise, anything.

Boosts your mood, write it down. And the reason that we do this, two things, one at the end of the day, it forces you to pay attention to the good things. It forces you to look at your day through the lens of finding the positive elements. And the more you do that, the more you're going to become consciously aware throughout your day that these positive things are happening.

So. Changing how we focus our attention by repetitively drawing attention, to the good things that happen. You become more aware throughout your day as good things happen. You become more aware of it. You start to be able to live in that moment a little bit more and appreciate those moments a little bit more as they happen.

The other thing is it creates a record. Of just good things. Like, we don't want to write anything negative when we're writing this, you know, I, I had a book and I just wrote point for him. Right. Nice and simple. You know, like, like we said, at the beginning, I'm single dad, you know? So when I get to do stuff with my kids, they spend most of the time with their mom.

I only get them part-time. But when I get to spend time with my kids, I write down the things that I did with them. Right. Uh, but then I've learned to become more invested in that moment while it's still. And then when you go back after you've been doing this for, you know, a week or two or couple of months, uh, you can go back and you can read about all the good things that happened to you.

And it's a reminder that in every day, no matter how shitty the day, there's always something good that happens. There's always some positive that you can take from it. Uh, so that's a reminder that, you know, I might be having a hard time right now. They might be having a rough day, but there's going to be something good to happen.

And tomorrow there's going to be something good that happens too. And the day after that, the day after that, the day after that, there's always going to be something good that happens. So that's one of the most powerful tools that I learned early on. Another one is a. Setting long-term goals for yourself.

It's kind of like a bucket list. You know, I, I tell people just have five items, five items on their list of things that they have to accomplish in their life. And it doesn't have to be like big momentous things. Uh, it can be something small, something simple, but it has to have really personal significance to you.

So, you know, again, for me, one of mine is, you know, my kids are pretty small. They're five and seven right now, but one day, if they choose to have kids of their own, I want to be there. I not just, I want to be there. I'm going to be there if they don't have. No big deal. That's their choice or their life circumstance.

But if they do God damn right, I'm going to be, they're going to be there to support them, going to be there, to help them out. That's a big thing for me. So having five items that you can go back to and be like, and when, when you have them written down, what you want to do is you want to take a few minutes to think about what it's going to feel.

When you get when you achieve that, whatever it is, when that moment, when that experience happens, whatever it is, you know, it could be traveling to a new destination. It could be starting your own company. If you haven't done that before, it can be landed, a big contract with a certain amount of money, whatever it is, whatever that goal is, whatever that target put yourself in that moment as though it's already happened and feel the feelings that you would have in that moment, the pride, the joy that whatever it is that you would experience once that is.

And, you know, it's a form of visualization, right? Put yourself in that moment and remember what that feeling is like. So that when that day finally comes, you know, you've been there before and it's going to give you that much more value. So those two things together, uh, are pretty big, right? One of the one practice that I took on, uh, once I started this process was I had my five.

Bucket list items. And I had my journal of three good things. Point form notes every day. And when I was having a really rough day, when I was really feeling low, I had to go back through the book. I'd flip through, I'd read all the things that I'd written down on a daily basis. And, you know, most of it just kind of blends in it doesn't really, it doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot, but then there are those moments that are a little bit different, a little bit more significant to you remember it, it reminds you that, that no, this really positive thing happened.

And after you've been reading through this for awhile and you get back to your list of five items and you can go, okay, I can do this. I can achieve this. All I have to do is get through today. I've made it through every day. So far, every day I'd been through. Some are bad. Some are good, some are terrible, but there's always been something good that's happened.

And no matter how many bad days I've had, I've made it through every one so far. And when I get to these things, these five goals, whatever they are, that's going to be grit. So that steady reminder, uh, that's always available to you that there are good things to look forward to.

I love it. I mean, the conscious action to change your focus and really just forcing yourself to see the positive, you know, that, that that's good stuff. I appreciate you sharing that.

Yeah. And, uh, the other thing is, um, I mean, we've got a whole list of. Uh, and for those who are watching the video, I think Tabasco page is just a list of things that people can do to kind of get themselves out of a state.

But, uh, you know, it's 18 chapters, 18 tools with some other stuff mixed in. Um, a big one that I'm a big proponent of is exercise. Uh, you know, I work in the fitness industry now and that's the business I opened into, uh, which has been very beneficial because I have, I feel like I have a purpose to strive for.

And, uh, you know, I have when, when my. Reach certain goals when you reach certain benchmarks, there's that sense of accomplishment? I feel proud of them and you know, that that's an awesome feeling, right? So having that purpose to work towards that's a big step as well, but exercise in and of itself is just tremendously important to both physical and mental health.

So in the construction industry, you know, if you want to avoid it, Uh, w if you're on the contractor side doing the actual work, put, you know, boots on the ground, the more you can exercise on a consistent basis, better shape, you're going to be in, and the less chance of getting injured on the job, the more money you're going to make, because you're going to be able to output more effort on the job site, get more work done.

And, uh, you know, it's going to open up new opportunities on the design side. Well, Uh, exercising on a regular basis, improves your mental focus. And you know, if your job is sitting behind the desk all day, well, that gets real tiring, especially if you're in front of a screen all the time. So getting out and doing that focused effort to make sure you get some exercise in and get the blood flowing, boosts your mental performance as well as your physical performance, but it also improves your, both your physical and mental health.

So, I mean, even, even half an hour, a day, even 15 minutes a day, Going out and doing something physically active, physically beneficial is going to have immediate, tangible benefits other than the soreness that happens when you first start working out. But once you get past that, uh, there are tangible benefits, uh, both mentally and physically.

Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, I see it in myself. Um, I'll go through stretches where I get lazy and I'm not really doing shit. And you know, along with my body, starting to slog down, I can feel my mind getting the same way. And as soon as I start working on, again, it kind of ramps me back up to that level of performance, that level of clarity, that where I want to be, you know, um, 75 heart is a great example of that.

I don't know if you've done it Brett, but I know Dylan has done it a couple of times or is doing it. Um, I've done it, you know, it's, uh, it, it really truly showed me personally. You know, that that continuous tie between physical exertion exercise and mental clarity, I'd never really noticed the correlation before, I guess, personally.

Yeah, definitely. And you know what? 7,500 is an awesome tool. I actually have an entire chapter dedicated 7,500 experience. Uh, you know, it was the first time that I consciously combine a whole bunch of these tools and it wasn't until I started looking back. Back at it afterwards that I was like, wow. Okay.

That's why it works because I was doing all of these things on a consistent basis and, uh, pushing myself to achieve. Um, so yeah, I've, I've gone through it a couple of times because, uh, you know, I just, I love the way that I feel when I'm on that program, as challenging as the program is. And, um, it's.

Unparalleled in terms of mental sharpness and personal transformation, um, you know, it's, is it, is it something that everyone has to do, uh, in order to recover from being in a mentally low place? No, no. I mean, there are tons of different ways out of it, but, uh, for me that was like the Keystone moment. That was, that

was

the turning point for me was when I started seventy-five hard for the first time.

Yeah, thanks for bringing

it up. I'm glad I did.

Yeah, I can't advocate for it. Strongly enough.

Yeah. And guys, in that point too, um, seventy-five heart. So I've gone through it multiple times. I've done phase one, a couple of times. Don a few iron mans run 62 miles on a few 50 milers. Like I've done hard things.

And the thing with a lot of these events, a lot of the. Experiences is it's not going to be the fix-all for everything. Like 75 heart is probably the best program for most people to get out of whatever rut that they're in, but there's going to be there's levels to like all this, right. So it's not going to be like the complete and total cure for everything.

Because if you still don't have something to look forward to, if you don't have that next thing that you're going after, if you don't have hope in any way, shape or form, it's still not going to be the cure for you. So even if you're on the program, it is, and I highly recommend it. I'm not saying don't do it, but I'm just saying that like, You've you've got to do.

If your mind is not in the right place from the start, it won't be the thing that's going to get you out of where you are. So to, you know, if this is the thing that keeps your focus off of like bad places and depression do that, right. It's going to be beneficial for you. But if you can't get your mind off of bad things, if you can't.

We have a new milestone, a new marker, a new goalpost to look forward to. Even being on 75 heart, isn't going to solve that. And frankly, that's from personal experience where like doing all the right things, student holler, gratitude lists being as like pot. And I just didn't have the next project. I didn't have the next thing to look forward to.

And I was still in a low state. So for, for everybody out there, like all these positive things that we're talking about, all the things to like look forward to, to have that mission, that vision, that purpose behind that's the thing that's going to help you. To really get to that happier place. Right? I don't, I'm not saying there's ever an end destination, but it's just a better, better state of being better state of living, a better place for you to be in.

You've got to have that next goal, that next milestone, that next, whatever for you to kind of move forward.

Yeah, that's a, that's a good point. And. I just got to unpack this for a sec. Um, the process of going through 75 hard it's, it's a tool, right? Just like every, like all these other things that we can do, there are tools that are at your disposal.

The intention that you put behind it is going to make a tremendous difference. But, uh, one important point is. Um, big trigger in my experience for, uh, dealing with depression and, you know, the low points in my life versus the high points is the trust that I built in myself. You have a relationship with yourself and just like any relationship there's trust involved.

So if you are constantly breaking promises to your. You're trusting yourself is going to drop. If you consistently maintain the promises that you made yourself, you're going to gain trust. You're going to build trust. You can strengthen that relationship that you have with you. And that is a huge component of feeling good about yourself is actually being able to trust that you're going to follow through with what you say you're going to do.

So. Last year, uh, after, you know, with the lockdowns and everything that was happening, like I'm in the fitness industry. My in, in where I am in Alberta, Canada, uh, the fitness industry was one of the hardest hit places. Like we were the first ones locked down and we were the last ones to open every time there was a new wave.

Right. And, uh, yeah, I mean, It was a, it's still a struggle. Like I'm still trying to recover. I'm still fighting to recover here. Uh, but I decided that, uh, like I, I got into a relationship that didn't work out. I got into a bad place mentally during this whole lockdown, I was losing lots of money and things were tough.

And I decided I was going to follow the 7,500 lifestyle for 365 days. I was going to do a full year. And I did that fall through, but I'm never going to do it again. I'm glad I did it. Never going to do it again. Uh, I'll do 75 heart program again. That's that's fine. But if go on for a full year again, uh, yeah, there were a lot of challenges that came up along the way.

And, uh, even in spite of doing that, like I finished on August 13th. That was the last. Uh, it was August 13, so about a month ago. And, uh, since then, even after going through all of that, even after 365 days of 100% consistency following a specific meal plan, that was custom tailored to give me the results I wanted working on twice a day, reading books, doing visualization, taking cold showers, every like I did 300 cold showers in a row.

And, and w we're talking, Colbert's like, hold cold showers. It was, it was brutal. But even after all that, I still have the ability to lose trust in myself. I still have the ability to make promises to myself and not follow through yesterday. I told myself I was going to get up before work and go to the gym and my alarm went off and I was like, yeah.

And went back to sleep. So. It's still possible to break those promises yourself. So the important thing is, whatever you say that you're going to do, go do it. There's a trick that you can do as well. Like, uh, if it's something that you're going to do anyway, tell yourself you're going to do it before you go do it.

So, you know, it's like it's time to eat dinner. Tell yourself, you're going to go wash your hands before you go wash your hands. You know, tell yourself that you're going to go have a shower before you have shower. So you're still, if you're gonna make dinner before you make the simple things, tell yourself you're going to go to the gas station to gas before you get guests.

And it creates this. Keeping the promises that you make to yourself and helps strengthen that relationship that you have because the more you do it, the more you can build that relationship with yourself, by keeping the promises to yourself, the more likely you are to continue. It becomes a habit to follow through on completing the things that you said you were going to do.

It doesn't become a challenge anymore. And that's, you know, that's the beautiful thing about the 7,500 program is it creates obstacles in your life that you have to overcome. And so you've learned to overcome obstacles by habit. It's no longer effort. It's just habitual to pivot, to adapt, to overcome whatever comes across your path.

All that being said, uh, you know, there's a caveat that comes with that program for anyone who is thinking about it. Uh, don't start unless you have the intention to finish follow through, because that is one of the biggest promises that you're gonna make. And if you break that promise, if you start, when you break that promise to yourself, then you got to start over again.

You got to finish it. You got, if you start, you must finish because if you break that promise to yourself, that's a doozy. That's a big one. So

a hundred percent agree with you, man. Uh, it is a tough program, excuse me, for sure. But it's, it's so worthwhile, but, but yeah, it was from someone who, who started it.

I'm not even gonna tell you how many times I started to finally then doing it, committing and doing it and finishing it. You got to go through it. You got to give yourself that reward and you got to build that mental toughness up and it's it's worth its weight for sure.

Absolutely. And good for you for getting through a man to be, even to have those setbacks where you, you know, you didn't get it the first time and you had to start over to follow through.

That's huge. So good on you.

Likewise. Thank you.

Yeah, Brett, I love the habit of key and the promises to yourself, even in these little things, uh, build that momentum. Um, so there was something I read recently that trends don't change themselves. People change trends, waiting, procrastinating, or delaying action on a problem or a negative situation.

Not almost always an error. It is always an error problems, not improve with age, nor do they go away on their own. And I think that's perfect for construction for basically life in general is like, look, you can't ignore these things. You've got to face them head on. You've got to deal with it. And, you know, by delaying it, as we know in construction, that always makes it work.

Yeah, absolutely. That's a very pertinent, uh, statement and, you know, with construction, with, uh, you know, whether it's personal finances, whether it's your mental health, the earlier that you can adjust the problem the earlier that you can start fixing it, the easier it's going to be, the less problems that you're going to face down the road, you know?

Yes. There's a stigma with mental health. Yes. There's a stigma with depression. Yeah. It sucks to admit they have depression. Uh, because you don't want to be attached to that. Say goodbye. You know, I avoided taking medication for awhile because I didn't want to be the guy taking antidepressants, but in the end I decided, you know what, it's a tool that's available to me to help me out.

And, uh, yeah, I was on them for awhile. And then I got myself to a place where I was mentally well enough that I was able to get myself off of them. Uh, you know, I followed all the processes, did everything under my doctor's direction, all that. But, uh, yeah, I mean, I didn't want to be the guy that takes antidepressants, who knows, who wants to be that guy.

Right. So before I got into fitness, I was actually a jail guard. I worked in a maximum security prison. I think there isn't a tough guy mentality thing. There isn't that attitude. I don't need help. I don't need anyone to do anything for me. I can handle this shit. Yeah. It's uh, so like I get that. If you're in construction, I get that there's that attitude, uh, I'm mad enough to handle this, but you know what asking for help is not a sign of weakness.

It takes strength. It takes strength to be able to admit that you need help. It takes strength to be able to go in and ask for help. And that is something that was very hard for me to learn, but it was one of the most important lessons.

I love that, man. Um, I know we're getting up on time here. This has been one of the longer episodes we've recorded in a while and frankly, I could keep going.

Um, but to that end, you know, I just. Kind of reinforced that for everybody listening, when you get to that point or B, hopefully before you get to that point, ask for help, you know, talk to somebody there's plenty of organizations, um, prevent construction, suicide.com is a great website with lots of resources.

Uh there's there's lifelines, there's there's text numbers. You can, you can text now, you know, reach out, talk to a doctor, talk to a friend, talk to. Uh, co-worker, you know, just, we got to get past that stigma that, you know, only the weak ask for help and this tough guy, macho bullshit that we all put on and I'm not immune to it.

Right. The prison guards aren't immune to it, but it's not helping you in the long run. Right. You gotta put yourself, put your, your own health, your mental health, your own well-being first. And, and this is how you do it. So, Brett, I really appreciate it.

Thanks for having me on Matt, Dylan. Appreciate it. You know, like you said, we could probably talk all day about this stuff, but you know, we gotta, gotta keep things in a, just, you know, easily digestible pieces

at that point, Brett.

Uh, if they're looking for more resources, you know, where they, where can they find you? Where can they find your book?

For sure. Uh, yeah, my book is called worth the fights. Uh, you know, got a video. That's what it looks like for those that have this, watching it on YouTube. I'm worth the fight and it's available on Amazon.

Uh, you can find me on Instagram, just at Brett Leon T so B R E T T L E O N T Y. And, uh, as far as resources, I mean, There are so many different resources available to reach out to, um, you know, you look up mental health, help on Google. You're going to get inundated with different options and yeah. Always ask for help.

You know, it's, it's always okay to ask for help. And I guarantee you no matter who you ask, they'd rather talk to you about what's going on than, uh, you know, have to put you six feet under.

So guys go, go grab Bret's book. Uh, especially if you're having any difficulties, any problems going through whatever it might be right now, it could be divorce. It could be just bad environment. Could be a lot of things. There's a lot of things in the world right now that are, uh, you know, bigger and out of our control, but control the things that you can control on a daily basis, whether that's 7,500.

Um, just the things you eat, drink, you know, get outside, get some exercise, control those controllables. And you know, if you do have anything that you're going through, I mean, talk to people in construction, uh, suicide rate is four and a half times that of the other industries. So this is, this is not a small problem.

Uh, and in that, you know, you never know what people are going through. You never know. What's going on behind closed doors. So reach out, ask, you know, your team, your fellow coworkers, you know, what's going on, how are things going? Um, you know, and if things seem a little off, try to address that as quickly as possible.

Uh, like we talked about last week with Alex and then to, to start going through these things that Brent mentioned today and what you can do, um, At the end of the day, you know, you got to take control of your own life and put things in the right direction. You know, those positive things, the gratitude, whether it's for the hot coffee that you, uh, made it to work your car, didn't run out of.

Whatever it might be. You know, those nice things. You didn't get a diarrhea from the water you're drinking. Um, unless you're in Flint,

you

guys at the end of the day, like there's a lot to be happy about, right. That, you know, we got clean water, we got not sewer water running on us and you know, the sunshine. And so, or you're getting rain, which we desperately need here in California. So there's a lot of things to be happy about. There's a lot of things to be excited about.

Focus on those and your life will be better for it. So go grab Bret's book and until next time.

#141 Problems on the Jobsite

#141 Problems on the Jobsite

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the construction corner podcast. The show where we try to bring you hot topics of the day for everything in and around our wonderful industry of construction. We talk about the things that most people won't talk about. We bring up problems, we bring up solutions and we hope you appreciate it and enjoy it.

Today's going to be a little bit different of an episode than the normal. Uh, obviously I've never done an intro of myself. And there's probably a good reason for that. However, uh, my co-host Dylan is not feeling so great today. So we decided that I would take on a solo episode and we're going to see how it goes.

This is something that we talked about, uh, way back when I first came on the show and, uh, we just never had a real opportunity or reason to do it. So we figured why the heck not give it a shot now? Stay tuned, bear with me. And we're going to have a little bit shorter of an episode today than normal, but it's a, it's a topic that I think is pretty important.

So before I get started, uh, as usual, we do not charge any fees. We do not do any advertising. We're not trying to sell you guys anything. All we ask is that if you get any shred of value from this podcast, from this or any of them, any little bit of that. Yeah. If you just share the show around for us, give us a, like, give us a share, tell a friend who you think might like it.

Uh, it really helps to grow our audience and it helps to keep us doing this and, and knowing that, that you guys are all still listening. So, um, give it a share and we'll see what happens next.

So guys recently I was a guest on another podcast. Uh, I'm not gonna. Drop the name quite yet because they haven't released the episode yet. And I don't want to, I don't want to jump their guns and steal anybody's thunder, but I did want to kind of bring up one of the questions that they asked me. One of the topics we talked about was a pretty interesting one, and I think it ties in with a lot of what Dylan and I talk about here, um, quite frequently.

And, you know, we, we get into culture and core values, a ton in this show, and there's a reason for it. Cause it's. Fricking important. Right? I harp about it all the time on the show. I talked about it in my own business. I talk about it with my family, with my kids. So it's really just something that's ingrained into me.

And I truly feel that it is, it is the one of the many secrets to running a successful business in, in this or in any other. So anyways, excuse me, the question came up. Um, it was somewhere along the lines of when a subcontractor is having a problem with one of my employees. So my superintendent let's say, or, or project manager, what should that sub do?

Should they contact me or this individual's direct, um, superior, you know, should they bring it to light? Should they ignore it? Should they try and handle things on their own? And it was brought to light. You know, the question was kind of framed in that there's a lot of subs out there who I guess are nervous that there'd be repercussions from something like that.

So it was directly asked to me, you know, if they came to me and they, they told me that they were having a big problem with one of my guys, uh, one of my people that I wouldn't believe the sub and would instantly just kind of cause problems. And, and basically, you know, what could have the propensity to make this person's life a living hell on any given project?

Admittedly, I was a little taken aback by the question. I mean, it wasn't directed. At me specifically, you know, from a, from a previous instance or anything like that, it was more just a, a theoretical question. But, but regardless to me, that whole idea is preposterous. The idea that a sub couldn't come to me or to my business partner and say, Hey, you know, superintendent X is on this project and he's doing.

Something that's making me uncomfortable or he's doing something that it isn't working and it's causing problems. And I wanted to bring it to your attention to think that there would be people out there, business owners out there who would disregard that sort of honesty, disregard that, that courage that it takes to, to have that conversation in the first place and then go a step further and, and try to.

Make the situation bad or worse for the person that actually came to you to think people will still do that sort of shit is kind of mind numbing to me. It, it shouldn't happen obviously. And it's just, it's a Bismal to, to think that that is a legitimate concern of people today. Um, you know, I've never witnessed that sort of thing, so maybe I'm just naive, but the way I look at it, And the way I answered the question when I was asked, is it all comes down to core values and culture, right?

I mean, if, if we preach, excuse me, if we practice our core values, as much as we preach about them, that in and of itself should not allow a bad apple to hang around rotting on the tree for, for very long, right? That's the whole point of, of what we do. That's the crux of. It's it's the way we guide ourselves and, and guide our business.

And it helps us make decisions and it helps us create this team that we're building. And it helps keep that team of the same mindset. So, you know, if a sub has a problem with one of my, my folks, I would always say, just rip the damn bandaid off and, and come and talk. Call me, meet me for lunch. You know, whatever it may be a beer or something and just get it out in the open.

And you know, I'm a pretty reasonable guy. I, I can see things from a lot of different sides of every story. I'm going to have the conversation with, with you the sub. And I'm going to hear you out, listen to your concerns, listen to your complaints. And you know, I'm not just going to immediately take your side.

Or take the subside and throw my one of my team members under the bus. That's that'll never happen either. However, I will absolutely take your concerns, uh, under advisement and I'll give it some serious thought. I want to hear what's going on. And after that I will absolutely go and have a similar conversation.

Whichever of my employees is the subject of this, this conversation, this topic. Um, you know, I, I put a lot of weight in my team, our immediate team here, but that doesn't mean that people don't do stupid shit. That doesn't mean that, you know, people might be acting one way when I'm around and acting a totally different way when I'm not around.

And. To be quite candid. Uh, we went through this, this exact same situation, um, earlier this year and I talked about it on the show. We, we did a, uh, almost a full episode just on this, this incident. So I won't hash up the past two months, but basically I, I had hired, uh, a superintendent that I thought was a great asset to the company that I thought was going to be really, uh, uh, fixture.

In our future as a construction company. And, um, the long story short, it turns out that I had overlooked or, or neglected to, to see some, some pretty striking, uh, um, differences in, in our value system. And our core values between us as, as Shaffer construction and, and between this individuals. And, you know, it reached a point where I started seeing it more than.

After a, roughly a year of, of kind of letting things slide and, and, you know, pushing things to the back burner because of a few different reasons. But the point in this, this long kind of rant and ramble here is that, you know, I did have a couple people come to me, especially towards the end. I had a couple of my subs come to me and sit me down and say, Hey, you know, we didn't talk this guy.

This individual is. You know, he's, he's causing stress and chaos on the job site. It's not working out well for anybody. He's, he's talking shit about you. He's talking about the company and all sorts of stuff that as an owner, as a, as an employer, you don't want to hear, you don't want to hear this about your team.

And especially me, you know, my ego doesn't want to hear that either. Cause I hired the guy and I had a couple options, a couple of opportunities where there were. I probably could have, and probably should have removed him from, from our team earlier than this, but I just didn't. So, you know, it's, it kind of comes down to the fact that my subs are very trusted partners to me, just like my employees and when I'm not there on a job site, which I can't be on every job site all day long every day, it would be.

Uh, counterproductive when I'm not there. I rely on both sides of that spectrum to be my eyes and ears in the field. I rely on my people, my direct reports to tell me, you know, honest assessments of what's going on out there. What's happening with the subs what's happening with the project. But likewise, I also expect and rely upon my subcontractor partners to do the same.

And if something's not going according to plan, if something's not right, if something looks fishy, I have built relationships with a lot of our subs to where they will come to me or where they at least they've. They absolutely should. Now on the flip side of that, I can say that after I did finally remove.

Particular individual from, uh, his position with us at the company. I had even more people come out of the woodwork, frankly, and, and tell me things like, oh man, you know, he was, he was this and that. And I'm so glad you made that decision and blah, blah, blah. And you know, things were just bad and stressful and chaotic when he was around.

And I kind of took a step back with a few of these guys through these individuals and said, listen, you know, that's bullshit for you to come and tell me that. I wasn't looking for a pat on the back or reassurance that I did the right thing. I knew I did the right thing because I, I knew that my partner and I, we don't make those decisions lightly.

And, and there was, there was a lot of evidence and a lot of facts and a lot of discussion and quantitative reasoning that went into it. But what pisses me off is that you now are coming to me and saying, well, yeah, it really was horrible. This guy made everybody's life worse and he made projects, this, that, and the earth.

That doesn't do anybody any good. So again, just rip, rip the damn bandaid off, because it's easy for me to put on blinders. And if I don't hear a specific thing, a specific complaint, I'm not going to go looking for a problem necessarily on something like that, especially on, on, you know, uh, almost an, a human resources related type thing.

But if I hear about it, I will absolutely take care of it. And maybe had more of my guys, more of our subs come to me sooner. Maybe I would have taken care of it sooner. Maybe I wouldn't have, who knows, but at least it would have kept that communication line open. So I did have this conversation with. Uh, numerous subs that we use quite frequently and just said, listen, just be honest with me, rip the bandaid off.

If there's something going on, don't, don't worry about repercussions because here's the biggest thing. If, if I ever found out that, you know, not let me back up, not every one of these offenses is, uh, worthy of terminating someone's employment. It's just not. So if I hear of somebody doing something on a job, That I don't personally agree with that.

I don't like that that's causing problems with, with our subs. I'll go talk to that employee and have the conversation and just say, here's, what's going on. Here's what I'm hearing. You know, we, we need to have a chat and then we need to change some things and I'll send them on their Merry way. Now, if I ever heard ever that that individual, that employee was then going out.

You know, almost, almost finding the whistleblower and trying to make their lives even more difficult because they brought up this topic to me, to their boss. Well, that would be, that would be grounds for immediate removal in my mind, that would break almost every single one of our core values here. And I wouldn't tolerate it.

So it's a long story, but it it's, it just goes back to what Dylan and I talk about so frequently. There's gotta be open and honest communication across all ranks in this industry. And in any given project at any given job site, you have to be able to have the tough conversations because without it, you just lose efficiency or, or worse.

So that would be my, my long answer. That would be my suggestion to, to my guys, to my team, to my subs, and to anyone else out there listening, just have the game, have the hard conversations. Don't be afraid. What might happen, frankly, you should be more afraid of what might happen if you don't say anything.

And that I could probably stop right there, but that's kind of the story of the day, you know, be more afraid not of what would happen if you open your mouth, be more afraid today, especially of what might happen if you. I don't want to get off on a tangent and change, change the format of the show while my buddy Dylan's, uh, not here, cause that wouldn't be too fair, but there's a lot in that statement.

I just made be afraid of what might happen if you don't open your mouth. So kind of jumping into a different topic, um, different, but related. I recently, uh, last early last week took a few days. Took my, my wife and boys up to the, what we call the thumb in Michigan. Um, over at the tip of the thumb on the shores of lake Huron, we took a few days and just, just got away as a family to, to spend some quality time, relax a bit decompress.

Um, you know, kids are starting school here. Uh, very soon. My, my eldest son, uh, starts high school somehow on Tuesday. And we just needed some time off and some time away from the, the kind of the monotony of, of everyday life. So that's all fine and good. And everybody should do that. What's unique about this instance for me is that I truly think this was the first time ever since I've been a business owner of some sort, um, that I took an actual pseudo vacation and I left my laptop at home.

I didn't even bring it. And every time we would get out of the truck, we spent a lot of time on the beaches and we spent a lot of time exploring, you know, lighthouses and things like that along the coast. Uh, but every time I get out of the truck, I would make sure my wife had her phone, you know, in case we needed something, but I would lock my phone up in the console in the truck.

And I can tell you, it was an absolutely liberating. It allowed me to truly engage with my family and I wasn't dicking around checking email or texting or, or dealing with, you know, any, any job-related issues that, that frankly I wouldn't normally have, have done. So it was great. We enjoyed the time immensely.

It was refreshing. My wife and kids all separately, noticed it and mentioned it to me, which kind of hit me in the gut that, wow, you were actually present on this one. Dad. That was pretty cool. So that speaks to a lot of different things psychologically, but, but one of the ones that I'm going to touch on now, and that kind of ties in with what we've talked about here earlier is this, this value of culture and core values.

This team that I'm building. And at our construction company, I trust him hands down. And this is the first time that I've ever actually sat back and realized that that, wow, I was able to leave. I was able to completely unplug. There was almost no way they could have gotten a hold of me and, you know, unless it was an absolute, absolute emergency.

I wasn't worried about. I wasn't sitting there all anxious, wondering what was happening without me there. And I realized that this team I'm building, they're the ones that drive this ship, but they can keep the boat moving in the right direction without me, at least for a while. And that's a truly fantastic feeling to have.

It's good for your soul. It's good for my soul. You know, you need to take time off, you know, Time away from, from work and spend it with family and friends, but to be able to actually do that and not be nervous was really eyeopening for me. It really made me think that, you know, while maybe, maybe some of the stuff that I'm always running my mouth about here on the podcast, maybe it's actually true and it's it's coming true.

You know, it works. It's not just fluff and there's no, maybe. It does work and I'm, I'm proof of it. And I'm, I'm living that life now. And it's really, really a great place to be. So, you know, you, you have to trust people, you have to trust that they'll make mistakes. Of course they will. Everybody does, but you got to give them the power to make those mistakes and then to make decisions on their own, to handle them and handle the issues that might come up, you know, emergencies have.

From time to time, but even with an emergency, I'm confident that my team would have been able to address it appropriately, at least to the, to the manner of they could, they could stop the bleeding, so to speak until I was back or until I was able to respond. Now in the past that never has been the case.

That's never happened. I went on vacation last year. Uh, we took a week off and went to Florida. And I sat on my phone or my laptop for at least a chunk of every single day we were there. And I could tell it made my family upset and it made me upset. You know, it, it, it just was a, a shit place to be. And I was getting called.

Multiple times a day with the same, the same issues coming up at a job site and, and, you know, yelling and screaming and all the, all the stress and chaos that shouldn't be involved in the project to begin with, let alone when you're on vacation. So, uh, I feel I'm rambling and I probably am, but just, uh, it's something to take under advisement.

You know, the stuff that we talked about here, this woo fluffy type stuff. It's not. It is, it is honest to God, the key to running a company, the key to building a team. And it's, it's the key to success. You get in, you get out of it, what you put into it. There's a lot of books written on these topics.

There's a lot of philosophy that goes into this by people, way smarter than I'll ever be, but that's really the gist of it. You get out what you put in and if you truly want. This sort of lifestyle, you truly embody your own core values and you truly care about the culture of your organization. You won't go wrong, you won't go wrong.

So I've got some other notes on here to touch on. Uh, but to be honest with you guys, we've gone about 20 minutes with nobody talking, but me and hopefully it hasn't completely sucked. Uh, let us know, drop some comments. Like I said, if it, if it's not terrible, give it a share, let people know about it. Uh, and maybe we'll do it again.

Maybe Dillon an IO. We'll each drop a solo episode here and there. Or maybe we can get on some guests, people to, to do the same. But anyways, thank you for listening. Thank you for tuning back in. Thank you for the support. You continue to give us here on the construction corner podcast. I hope you have a fantastic rest of your.

And we'll see you guys next week.

#144 When to Say No

#144 When to Say No

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the construction corner podcast. I'm Dylan, I'm your host. And today it's going to be a special episode. We're going to talk about when to say no when it's okay to walk away. And how you can improve your pipeline so that you don't always have to say yes and get hosed on every single project with that.

Matt, my friend. How's it going?

Things are good, man. This is a, an interesting topic for me. Cause I, I worked for a guy for a little bit of time, kind of a mentor figure for me. And one of the first lessons he ever taught me was. As the best projects you, the best products out there sometimes are the ones you won't get.

And that has held true so many times in my career. Um, you know, we were kind of shooting the shit before going live today. Uh, it's happening to me right now, right. With a client that I've been working with for a long time. And, you know, we, we can get into it as you want to, but sometimes the best ones are the ones you walk away from.

You gotta be able to pick and choose.

I think so often, uh, you know, in the design world, especially, um, I'm sure the SKUs for up and down the chain, but where we're so conditioned to say yes to jump on that thing, whatever it is, right. Some realistic, crazy, stupid, uh, deadline expectation, even. And jump on that. Uh, mainly out of fear, I think it's, it's truly, fear-based, we're afraid to lose a client.

We're afraid to say no, we're afraid to, uh, set other expectations than the kind of crazy ones that you know, uh, owner, uh, principal, uh, Contractor somebody, you know, somebody above us might set the expectation for when it's just realistically not possible.

Well, you know, so much of our industry, I think on all sides, design, construction, everything it's, it's always, so, so feast or famine, or at least that's the mentality.

And for a lot of people, that's the reality of it. I mean, I'm not, I'm not, uh, shortsighted enough to, to forget where I came from. You know, the, there was a long time when it was you better not say no because you don't necessarily have another, another job or another project of fit in that void. So, I mean, we would take on the shittiest of.

Knowing knowing full well, like this is not a good fit. This is not going to be fun. It's going to probably be painful, but it also filled a purpose and it kept people working. It kept, you know, at least some moderate amount of cashflow running. So it's, it's a really hard, you know, conundrum in, in, it's probably in every industry, but I think it's in an hours more so than most, um, Once you realize that you don't have to say yes to everything and you can actually pick and choose and you can use, you know, values-based decisions to, to target where you want to go.

After you can also realize that you can fill your pipeline without having to do all the stuff you don't want it.

Yeah. And in the beginning, you know, at the start of any company, any business, there's a lot of things that you're going to say yes to, because you kind of have to, to keep the lights on doors open, but as you mature and really reposition yourself into things that you want to be doing into the projects that you're more aligned with the clients that you're more aligned with, and really ultimately sticking to your guns, your value system, creating.

And aligning yourself with projects of that caliber again, around your values, then you're going to attract more and more of the clients that you want to work with. You can say no to the clients, you know, are just going to be a pain, suck you dry and really make you unprofitable really unhappy. And, um, which is going to be our topic for next week about dealing with.

You know, just the mental anguish that comes with a lot of these problem clients, frankly, uh, problem, uh, professionals that we work with and, you know, all walks through construction.

And there's also the flip side of it too. Right, man. I mean, there's plenty of jobs that I've also looked at that I had no business looking at right there that were.

Astronomically bigger than anything I should even be touching. And I'm the first one to dream big. I'm the first one to push that as a mindset, but there's also gotta be some reality and how you pick and choose how to run your business. And you know, when, when we were a sub million dollar construction company and I would get my hands on a $20 million hotel price.

Chances are we, shouldn't probably be looking at it. You know, even if, if we could sell ourselves down the river enough to, to, to land it, you know, that those could be the jobs that also would just end you as a, as a company that, you know, they would send you back to reset mode and start you from scratch.

Yeah. I mean, it would choke you out financially. You don't have the credit. Do you do anything like that? That's why like on the construction side, you know, and we've had multiple shows talking about financing and credit and, uh, cash flow for subs and GCs, especially like if you don't have the credit lines and relationships with your bankers, you cannot touch those projects.

It's just not going to happen.

Know, we're kind of dancing around topics, but that brings up an interesting point. That one that I I've never personally seen, uh, professionally, but there's, uh, a buddy of mine, um, owns company called mobilization funding. And I don't want to plug him too much, but he basically provides just that mobilization loans for primarily subcontractors so that they can take on bigger projects.

And not have to worry about the cashflow side of it. Um, it's a kind of a neat concept, you know, and again, I haven't seen it professionally. I've, I've talked with Scott, you know, numerous times. Um, I know a few of the subs that he, he works with and it, it just seems like a cool idea. So, you know, what are your thoughts on that?

Why don't we see that sort of thing more often in, in the industry on either side, it could be under the design side, too.

Yeah. So we had a build on, and I I'm blanking on his first name, but, uh, the company build which they do similar pieces where it's a, uh, I think 90 and year, 120 day, uh, like 2% financing option.

So it becomes a, you know, short term loan type of thing. Where you can mobilize that. And, and cashflow is half of it, right? So on the sub and GC side, like that's a big deal. The other part of it, uh, becomes in those bigger projects is, um, well, hold on, let's say on cashflow. So on the design side, like. You can handle it, if that is your only project.

So if you shove, let's say it's something that's five times bigger than anything you've ever done before. You have to clear your plate of everything else. Like that can be the only project that you're going to do, because that's the amount of people that you have for it. Um, so on the design side, you can do it.

You just cannot take on anything else. Um, and then from a cashflow standard, You've really got to do a bunch of upfront work to show. And then bill accordingly, um, one of the dire mistakes that I just see repeatedly from design firms is especially when you bill on a, um, monthly cycle is, and then net 30.

Make your deadlines before the end of the month. Like, you're going to kill yourself if you push, like so right. Like this weekend, right? Or last week you had. You know, you went from Friday the 27th to Friday the third. So pushing it a week might not be a normally bad thing, but now you just pushed out your billables, another 30, 60 days, really 60 days.

Cause you're going to build now, if it's due on the third, you're going to say that that phase of design is met in September, not in August. So you can't bill for it August and get paid. End of September. Now you're going to bill into September, get paid end of October. So you push. Things 60 days. So from a design side, which again, I think most project managers don't understand billing cycles.

They're not taught it. Um, and then the principals again, or. Frankly, like, it's just like lawyers, it's like any professional services firm. You were really great. The thing that you did, right? Whether you're an architect and engineer, and then you move up, you never learned like basic business principles like cashflow, uh, you've kind of learned contracts as you went.

You never really took a public speaking course or did that. You were just good at talking to people and quote natural at it. Um, more than likely. You know, having picked up a book on the writing or speaking or done Toastmasters. And, but again, you were just great at your craft. So you got elevated through the.

When you're just personable. So any quote sold because somebody puts you in front of a client or gave you that opportunity, but like actually developing business wasn't in your repertoire. You don't know how to make cold calls. You never had to, you don't actually follow up with clients. So you're always amazed when you get another project.

Uh, There's a whole slew of like business things, right? Like sales, marketing, cashflow, finances, operations that you just don't learn. Um, you know, the subs and those guys, I think get a little more of a hard knocks education and like actually how to run stuff because they do have to deal with the money.

Uh, more frequently we're designed firms it's out of, out of sight, out of mind. So when it comes to. Cashflow and dealing with bigger projects and taking those on you totally can. But for design firms in particular, like you need to be very conscious of your deadlines, your deliverable dates, and, uh, you know, when your milestones are, how far apart they are and then your workload on all around that project, again, if it's like five, 10 times bigger than anything you've managed to get.

Yeah. You know, we're, we're jumping all over tonight, but it it's, it's the same way on, on our side too, you know, learning that schedule a billing and, and learning that discipline too, to make sure it happens is so paramount to success in this industry, because, you know, with our, with all of our subcontracts, we have, uh, they have to have their invoices to me by the 25th of any given month.

And. It's a real bad day. When I have to tell someone. You're not getting paid on this cycle because you didn't have me your damn invoice, but we've built a system and a process where there, there is no option, zero option mentality. If you get it to me on the 26th, tough shit. I told you, I told you, I told you the 25th or nothing because we have the, on our side, we have to submit our invoices on the first to our clients.

And if we. Do all this, and I've talked about it before we push really hard for 15 day net terms on our billing. So we have to demand these dates. We have to demand the deadlines and you know, it sucks when, especially some of your you're close with, you know, they, they miss the billing by a day or two days or three days.

And then when payday comes around and you're like, sorry, dude, I don't have to tell. But it makes us all better and allows us as a GC to really control that timeframe better with our clients and make sure that we're getting paid quicker, which means that we can pay everyone else quicker and everybody wins.

But you have to, you have to control that discipline, uh, greatly. Otherwise it just gets too chaotic. And, and like you said, a two-day or three-day miss that's catastrophic too, in terms of cashflow and budget.

Yeah. And I mean, going back to the main topic like this is in when saying no. So taking on those bigger projects, taken on things that you know are going to be a pain are, are really detrimental.

When you do not have payment systems. When you don't have design operations systems in place, you should not grow. You're going to break a lot of things. You're gonna, things are gonna hurt and. It's going to hurt to where you're going to do one of two things. You're either going to fix it and it's going to be very painful to fix, or you're just going to go out of business.

You'll fold. Uh, it's one of the two, like you're either going to get through and it's going to be very painful because you didn't build them as you went when it was like fairly easy to fix little problems versus now having to revamp your entire system, your workflows, like everything. So. Understanding that as you grow, you need to build these systems, put processes in place, you know, from billing to operations, to standards, to, I mean, everything like how you do proposals, how you do presentations.

And it's much, much easier to do that when you're small going after it, a little projects on a faster cycle, uh, to really learn and iterate versus chasing the. Big projects, you know, 10, 20, 50, a hundred million dollar projects, billion dollar projects that take, you know, 2, 3, 5, 10 years to land to get all the right pieces to line up, to make that project happen.

So you're, weren't like. Uh, probably not ready again for your own in your own firm. You're not ready for those big, big projects yet. Uh, get your systems, right? Keep the cadence cycle high so you can increase your learning speeds to where when these big projects do come along, you're ready for them and can put your systems that have been time tested and, uh, you know, vetted in a place so that you're ready to exit.

Yeah. And there's always a bit of gambling involved. You know, I, we talked last, last show last week about, you know, I'm trying to build our own systems at, at our company trying to document everything so that as we continue to get bigger and grow, we don't have all those pains, but there's a very fine line between, do I want to, I want to pass on this big project so I can sit in my office and.

Procedures and systems, or do I want to say, you know what, I'll get back to those procedures and systems. Let's go a hundred to zero and take this thing on and I'd be lying if I told you I don't, I don't often just go after it. Um, cause I do, but, but there's also a hesitancy involved and, and I know that one of these days it'll catch up to us, you know, like you just said, one of these days that that project will be.

Too big, too complex. We'll have to grow too fast and if we're not ready for it, then it could all come crumbling down. So,

uh, I keep putting in my on Friday afternoons, uh, then I ended up scheduling something else for Fridays, but it's good weekend work at the least.

Yeah. And S in this, right, like saying no. So it's saying no, not only to big projects, but also comes in the form of, you know, what is realistic expectations, right?

Where do you fit within a given project? Like hierarchy kind of, uh, but also like, what is reasonable for you to get done? Right. Like piss poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine. You know, and far too often, we, people do not plan. They don't, uh, think through anything. They throw things, you know, last minute and guess what?

Or, you know, at the end of the day, it's not going to get done. Like, I'm not going to answer your call, just not going to happen. You know, if you want it, you know, we'll figure something else out. This happens, I think far too often where it's last minute changes or last minute, whatever. And we've been conditioned to just jump at it and say yes.

And, uh, that's. You know, after awhile, when it doesn't happen, how a lot of things break. Whereas if you said no sooner in the process, which again, like I get the industry norm is to say yes, but by saying no, or like, Hey, I've got other priorities, go talk to the other four project managers in line. Um, you know, that's a lot of the thing too.

Uh, and that far happens in design firms. It's like, okay. Oh, you didn't get this project. Okay, please tell me which one of the four other project managers you'd like to go have a conversation with and tell them that their project got moved to the back of the line. You know, who's whose priority here. And I've done that on multiple occasions.

No principal will ever tell me one is more important than the other. So therefore nothing is a priority and you're all going to get it when you deal with it.

Yeah, I I'm laughing because I can see that from both sides, because I've also been the, the PM, you know, barking at my design guys saying what the hell is going on. Mine is the most important, no matter what, but you know, learning to say no is, is a really hard thing to grasp. It's a hard skill to master, but.

Ultimately very important in business and in life, really, it can be uncomfortable, but if you can't say no, you end up just spinning wheels. You ended up spreading yourself too thin. You end up doing dumb shit that you shouldn't be doing. So, you know, you gotta be able to pick and choose. At times you gotta be able to pick and choose your clients, your projects, your subs, your employees, your designers, you know, all across the board.

And you gotta be able to say no, when.

And a lot of this just comes down to having, having systems in place, thinking through a lot of stuff. And you know, for you just listening to this episode, you're leagues ahead of everybody else, because nobody else is talking about this stuff. Like there's no one else talking about putting in actual design systems.

Find me the guy that's talking about design processes or like billable dates, you know, it's not happening. Like nobody's going to talk about this stuff. This is the crux. These are the foundational building blocks of any business, especially in construction, on cashflow, billable dates and service oriented companies.

So. I mean for, for all this, like nobody's talking about it. So by listening, you're again, you're leagues ahead and you should share the show out to help more people get educated. Don't just keep this to yourself because you need everyone on your team with you and implementing a lot of these cashflow pieces.

Uh, you know, you're not more than likely you're not going to do it on your own.

Yeah, absolutely. It takes a team. It takes a village man. So share this around. Guys, give us, give us a, like, drop some comments to us. You know, if you do get some value out of this, let us know. And if you want something different or better or worse or other, let us know.

We'll we'll at least pretend to read them all

you guys, uh, I know we harp on the, a lot of the same topics over and over again. But th that's how important, like billing is systems are cashflow that is oxygen to your business, to your organization. It's important to say no to the right projects and the right partners and the right.

Clients as well as saying yes to those right clients, those right projects, those people that align with your values. Those are also important to say yes to, uh, for teammates, for, for everyone up and down your chain, as well as, you know, side to side for delivery partners and channel partners, all that.

Extremely important to align yourself with the right people, um, in all facets and it'll make your life a whole lot easier. You'll go home a whole lot happier, uh, when you have that in place

without a doubt, man.

So guys, it's this little short episode of the construction corner podcast until next time.

#143 Win More Construction Business

#143 Win More Construction Business

Hello, and welcome to a nother episode of construction corner podcast. I'm Dylan, I'm your host today, Matt and I are going to be talking about technology. We're going to talk about the lack of stories and presentations and how most of your presentations just suck. Let's be real. Uh, and like all of our episodes, you're going to get some great shit out of this.

So share it. Tell a friend, we appreciate you guys, and we're just going to dive right into it. So before we went live here, we were talking about how. 22%. So like one in five guys are old timers. There's no better way to put it. They are 55 and older. They're going to retire in the next, you know, tomorrow to let's just say five years.

They're they're crotchy. They're done. And, uh, they really just don't want to deal with any more BS. So. The question, Matt, how do we handle it?

There is no easy answer. And, and we should have started handling this problem a decade ago, or maybe even maybe in longer ago. And we didn't as an industry, we didn't.

Brushing this shit under the rug. And, you know, it's, it's like the guy who won't go to the doctor cause he's afraid he might have cancer. So he doesn't go just hoping it goes away and cancer doesn't go away too often on its own. You know, we're, we're in a real, real pickle now, especially on the trade side, you know, and I've been having personally a lot of conversations, even just this week with some of my guys.

You know, who had the same thing? You know, I was with, uh, an HPAC tech yesterday afternoon in my office. He's 62 and he's like, screw it, man. I'm done. He's like, I'm on out. I'm going to go and enjoy the rest of the time with my wife. I'm going to do a garden and do some farming. And I said, well, shit, that's fine.

And good. Except you're the best HPAC. That your company has. So who's coming up the ranks behind you. And he kind of gave me this slide grant. He's like my problem, man, you know, and he's trying the companies try and they they've got some, you know, a succession plan, so to speak, but you're always going to lose that.

Right. I mean, that's, the beauty of construction is so much of it is, is all up here. People don't, don't tend to think that way. And when those people leave, that goes to.

I've been talking about this for years that you need to sit down with those little timers, have record the conversations, like put them on video or put a tape recorder or something in front of them that your phone, I don't give a shit what it is, but record those conversations, ask a bunch of questions.

Uh, this goes for like, basically all the like, uh, knowledge side of things where like, this is how we handle these situations. This is how. Do this or design, and maybe it's in front of a computer and your screen recording or whatever. And then for the field, get a camera, your phone, go out to the field and record that guy, doing whatever the hell he's doing and make your own YouTube video of how to blank and keep that in the archives of.

You know, this is how we, I don't, you know, set a toilet. This is how we, you know, Ben conduit. This is how we put sheet metal together. This is how we test and balance, whatever. Right. You start going through all these things and record all of it. Make an archive of all of your videos, so that, and then you, you know, you could do a database or one drive, or there's a lot of ways to do this, to where now somebody on their phone can go and search like, Hey, you know, how do I blank?

And it's there, right? It's simply named like how to set a toilet, how to bend conduit. Okay. Oh, this is how I do it, right. If no, one's there to help you. It's and then do training around that too, but simple ways that you can do with, again, any phone today, you go out, record this stuff and put it on a server somewhere.

I love that idea in principle, and it's something that we've actually been talking about it at my company, kind of building a. Uh, Shaffer construction, user manual almost, you know, we we've talked a lot in the last month through RTA about building systems and, and repeatability. And that's really where I've been mentally focused the last couple of weeks on how to build this, this book, right?

This, this start to finish book for the new people that come into my company, adding the video and, and the interviewing that, that takes it to a whole new level of, of worth and a greatness. I will tell you that I don't know how many of the salty, old dogs that are doing this in the field that have been doing this for, you know, 40, 50 years, whatever it might be.

I don't know how many of them are going to be cool right off the get, go with saying, all right, this young, Buck's going to record me all day. And you know, there there'll be some, some back and forth, I think for sure to get that to move. But if you could do that and start your own, your own company database, that'd be phenomenal.

Just, just even if you just get.

Well, and in that, right? So that, that salt, salty, old guy, he respects somebody that's probably 40, right? It's been an accompany for five, 10 years. Uh, you know, if he's 60, he probably has some respect for some guy that's, you know, 20 years his junior. Right. So you get that guy to do it, not the 19 year old with a camera, like you pick somebody that's that has some respect to, to do that, to partner with, to like walk through something together.

And then you also have somebody that's young there to say like, wait, well, how do you do that? Because somebody that's also experienced. You know, they're going to know how to do something. So you need a green, fresh set of eyes on it to help get those details out that, you know, people with experience, like, just know, but they don't consciously know.

Right. It's ingrained in them. So you need a fresh set of eyes, but to do like, it might be a team of three, right? You've got the really old guy, somebody he respects and then the new Greenfield. Right. So you got the master, the like senior, senior electrician or whatever. And then, you know, you're fresh apprentice off the street.

And by doing something like that, you can pull out, you know, the experienced guy knows the maybe higher level questions, ask where the, the green, fresh guys, you know, quote dumb as a box of rocks. He's, he's got some questions that you just haven't thought of in a long time to pull out those little gems that, oh, this that's why you, you know, turn the wrench this way or set a clean out here.

So it's not against the wall, right? Like,

well, because so much of it is, is intuition, right? It's not all just procedural and. I think you nailed it. If you get the young kid with, you know, the tattoos on his face and holes in his nose, talking to the crusty old guy who just knows how to do this shit, you got to have that back and forth so that some of that intuition will bleed out.

Cause it's, you know, user manual is one thing you could teach a monkey to set a toilet, let's say, but to have the forethought that. And I'm, I'm running in circles on this, but you know, to put the toilet this far off the wall, or to put it facing this direction or whatever, the various nuances are of setting a toilet to do it the best way that's going to come from inside.

Somebody's head not on a, on a user manual, and you need to kind of marry those two together, I think, to, to effectively coach and train the young guys so they can come up and actually make an impact. Once the older guys start leaving.

The other thing to remember, guys is the reason why like audio video work so well is people cannot.

Like the illiteracy rate is very high. So don't think that people can read or read well and understand. Um, and so like that's why video training. That's why audio podcasts, like what we're doing works so well is because most people have, you know, a seventh grade reading. Um, that's just what it is. So, you know, don't think that your people are above average.

Uh, cause I guarantee you probably haven't given them a literacy test, so you don't actually know and people just read it seventh grade level. Um, I mean the best sales letters, the best presentations are at seventh grade level. So don't get fancy with this. Um, you know, don't think that your people are above average, right?

There's there's one or two that I'm sure are a and the rest of them, you know, are below average. That's why it's an average. So doing video, doing audio, things like that are going to be more beneficial to your company. One, they can see like, again, construction is so much of a visual thing. Like this is how you.

This is, you know, the, the forces that you need to apply to this, to, you know, have the right torque, which becomes really important when you're putting a bolt on, you know, things like that actually matter on like how to use a torque wrench, right? Like, so a lot of those things you need visual. Uh, like assistance, if you will, uh, versus just the user manual with some pictures, you know, we've all used those from Ikea or whatever, and we know how that furniture gets put together.

Yeah, man, I mean, most people don't read a damn book after high school. It's, it's pretty sad really to, to think that that most Americans won't read a book after they graduate high school, but it's the truth.

So here's. Yeah, so like I'm probably gonna butcher the, the, the end result will be the right. So, uh, one in two families buy a book, one book a year, one and two by a book a year.

So half families don't even buy a book. People just don't buy books. So let alone all the people that don't read after college, they only buy one book one and to buy a book a year. So your neighbor doesn't read, let's just put it that way. And then on top of that, only like half of those people will finish the book.

Let alone, you know, and then there's the whole stats of like, most people don't even get past the first chapter. So you ended up going to like it's, if you finish one book a year, you're in the top 5% of all like people in the world. If you read one book a year, and then you add on top of that, like most books that are sold are fiction books.

So if you read a non-fiction book, you're automatically, I, I think I'd have to go back through all my stats, but it's like your top 5% by reading one nonfiction book a year. So any self development, any biography, any personal development, any business book you automatically, if you finish one book, read two pages a day, you are in the top 5% of all people.

So. You know, basically if you look around your community, right. One in 20 people read a book a year of non-fiction personal

development book. Yeah. 50, 50 shades of bullshit. It doesn't really help you. You got to dig into something that, that gets your mind moving in a better direction. And it it's a sad reality, but it's also by design.

You know, we, we could go down a long rabbit hole of why the powers that be don't want us to be literate and don't want us to read. But again, we try to stay out of that hole on this show because we might never come back from it.

So, I mean, this all goes to two guys. You know, use video, uh, people are Hertz higher and they're going out of the workforce.

You want to keep that knowledge in your company, knowledge transfer isn't happening, you know, organically on the job site. I mean, it is, but it's slow. So as you go through each project, right, there's certain key points that you want to have, right? Like you don't need to be out on the job site every day, watching somebody, Ben conduit or lay pipe or whatever.

Right. You can do. Hey, we're doing one. Uh, storm storm drain, right. And pipe system this week, we're going to come and video like these certain key elements of it. And you bring out somebody to do that. So it doesn't have to be like overwhelming, you know, have somebody that stays the hell out of the way. Um, and even it's the supervisor that's filming the thing, right.

It doesn't have to be a nuisance. They can use their phones. Don't make this more complicated than it needs to be. It's really simple. Have somebody talk through it on the video or do it later where you can voice over the whole thing. So again, don't make this more complicated or harder than it needs to be to keep the knowledge and information within your company.

Um, so that's really step one. Uh, or first thing that we went on to talk about, and then number two is with all these people retiring, you. And, you know, let's say you do all the knowledge transfer stuff. You're just going to have a lack of workforce, which we've been talking about for awhile, but it's, you're not take this lightly.

Like you're going to have a mass Exodus. If you look around your company, most people are probably over. You know, how long are they going to stick around? You know, did they do really well in their retirement accounts to where they hit 55 and just say, screw it. I'm moving to Florida. Um, you know, to be in heaven's waiting room, like, what are they going to do?

So with that, like, You never know when somebody has just had enough and quits, uh, and this is at any age, right? Like you have a lot of people that are just done. They're fed up. They've, they're tired of it. And they moving on. So figuring out ways like you're going to have a labor shortage, talent shortage, however you want to put it.

And this is across the board. This is a design. This is construction. This is subs. And even from some of the things I've seen recently, it might be permanent. So how are you going to get through with a quote skeleton crew? Like what, what are you going to have to do to improve is really the question that we're getting at.

Yeah, man, we we've had a labor shortage for a long time before this self-induced one that we're in now, you know, we've been talking about this whole blue collar bad-ass ID. You and I, for almost a year, I mean, I've been talking about it in, in less formal circumstances for, for a decade. And we have a tremendous shortage of people coming in, not just to the trades.

The trades are easy to talk about. You know, I have a affinity in my heart for that, but there's a lack of people coming into the industry at large, you know, and, and it's everything from design to, to ownership, to management, to everything on, down to the trades. You know, we preach about this so often on how many different jobs and roles there are in the construction industry.

You know, you have to really push that home. I think to people that you don't have to be the guy swinging the hammer. You don't have to be the guy digging the hole. You can run social media. For example, I was at an outing on, uh, last Monday for a local college local university. And when I was talking with them, Their career development person.

And I said, you know, we should really hook up and start talking. And, and she kinda gave me this squirrely look and it was like, well, you know, most of our students coming out of here, they're not going to want to go and dig a hole. And I said, that's exactly the problem. It's that mentality? I don't care. I mean, yeah, we need the trade.

We need the guys in the field, but I need somebody who's wants to come and work and run our social media. I need someone who wants to come and be a mathematician and put together multi multimillion dollar projects in their head on paper. And once I had that, we kind of talked through it for half hour or so.

Um, and she started kind of clicking and getting it and it was like, well, wow. You know? Yeah, that, that could be really powerful. You know, we, there was a guy, uh, a local business owner. He owns. I don't want to plug them too much cause I'd never met him, but he owns some sort of custom wheel shop for like bad-ass muscle cars, you know?

And he hired a girl, a woman out of this university pays her a good salary per year, you know, like a good entry level. And all this girl does is follow him around all day with a camera and a phone taking videos and taking. So it's tying back into your point number one, but it's just this, this broader discussion that needs to be had that construction industry is not just hammer swingers.

It's not just the guys with the bloody knuckles. We need them to, but we need everybody and, and it's gotta be this global discussion or, you know, you can't have one side without the other, I guess is my point. You know, it has to be at least somewhat balanced. So you've got the. Selling the jobs and build them in their head so that then the guys in the field can build them in reality.

And there's a whole, whole slew of team members that have to be around to make that.

Just think of like every well shit HGTV, right? Let's let's go there. So you've got this whole network dedicated to, you know, do it yourself, even though these guys are professionals, but like spawned this whole movement of do it yourself, whatever, like shit, my wife got 24 pallets. It's got one inch plywood on.

Uh, because they're meant to hold a thousand pounds of limestone bags, 50 pound limestone bags, so that, you know, there's thousand bounds that are meant to be held on these pallets and they couldn't reuse them cause they're kind of one and done deals. So anyway, we got these like 50 pound fricking pallets and we're making this.

You know, pallet couch. So it's, you know, free couch that costs, you know, thousand bucks, uh, is, you know, probably guys out there, I'm sure you know, of these honeydew projects, you get some free scrap, whatever, and then, you know, 18 trips to Lowe's and, uh, or home Depot and whatever else. But this is the whole point is that somebody followed a guy around with a camera.

And filmed all these homemade over these, do it, yourself, things, all this stuff, which now spawns the whole, you know, do yourself industry and really propels, you know, Lowe's home Depot stuff, uh, you know, Pinterest and everything that goes along with that. But why can't. The same thing happened in construction, right?

To fall around like a day on a construction site. And I get the, for so long, people have been worried about liability and all this stuff, but you're taking pictures of your job sites. Anyway, you're doing video B drones and all this. Anyway, like if you, if something does go wrong, like you want to catch it.

So why not have somebody to document the journey, but it also showcases. Everything that you do. And the more that you can showcase stuff have projects, like show that you're busy and working and all this stuff, it creates all this Goodwill with all your potential clients, your current clients, it promotes their new thing.

That's coming soon. And people can be a part of the process and it, it works like it's proven to work over and over again. And just like these HGTV or home hunters or house honors and all this other stuff. This is the same thing where we're doing, but just do it for your own projects and how much business can a $40,000 a year employee create for you.

The answer is a lot. That's exactly right. There's this, this cost benefit and an ROI you have to figure out. You know, people would, my business partner would, would shirk at the idea of me hiring a $40,000 employee to do nothing, but follow me around and do what we just talked about. But I can have the exact argument that we just talked about and show on paper, look at the possibilities of this.

If that $40,000 a year individual doing nothing but filming and asking questions and taking pictures and putting shit on social media, if they get. One job out of it. One job in even in two years, well, that $40,000 a year individual salary is it's not even a consideration anymore, you know? And that's the reality.

You have to do the math ahead of time because it's scary. It's scary to buy software. It's scary to buy equipment. It's scary to hire people, but you got to recognize that any of those three and there's other options too. It's not, you're not buying things. You're making. And that investment. If you do your homework and you use your damn head, it will pay off for you in the long run

and only your team talked you out of it, right?

So your team, your partners, right. Are going to talk you out of this, they'll slow walk it they'll drag their feet and it'll never get done. So you have to, you've got to move. You've got to make decisions. You've got to plow through it. And the other thing to think about, and this goes into my next point is.

Let's face it. You suck at telling stories. It's terrible. Like we're, we're just not trained to do any of that. Like, right. I'm an engineer. I thought English class was bullshit. Like let's just, let's call a spade, a spade. So in most of our English classes were to be honest, but now you go into a presentation and you need to tell a story to get that.

You're not telling stories, you're not creating anything. What if the first thing you did was throw a column sizzle reel. So like your highlight reel. The, you know, glamorous thing that you can now compile from all the jobs that you've done, all the team meetings, all the top out parties, right? Like all those things.

And you can stack all those in a three-minute video at the front of your presentation. Do you think you would have the attention of the people you're presenting? And at the end, you tell, you get a testimonial of how emotional these people are at their building opening, right? When their emotions are high and you got somebody filming the whole thing and you get their reactions to the new building that they're seeing, like, think of all those things that you can now filter in for every presentation you do moving forward a 32nd clip of somebody that you play in your next presentation.

Uh, emotional thing. Somebody having such a great experience or, you know, like for Matt, you opened a community center, like playing games, you know, the parents cheering, right? Like we built this, there's all these things that you can do to tell better stories, but frankly not been trained in story your filmography or, you know, cut scenes or how to do any of this stuff.

So. Yeah, I like that 20 year old granted they need some work, work ethic, so like, you know, choose wisely. But in this, you've got to have got, gotta have the content and they're, they're going to be able to tell those stories. They're going to love that they just put video together all day. Right? It's like they're working in up Hollywood studio, but they're working for your construction firm or you're designing.

And putting, you know, renderings and all this stuff that you guys create into a video with clients. You know, what more could you ask for out of. And again, to be emotional, like have those testimonial things, have those building grand openings have those, you know, uh, first shovel videos, right? Like all those are extremely important to showing what type of company you are, what you stand for, who your clients are.

Do they like working with you? All those types of things are going to be extremely powerful. And that, that goes to like technology. It goes to storytelling. It goes to. Recruiting and hiring people. It goes to clients like you can use this for everybody is very repurposable content. You just have to kind of think through this a little bit.

And the reality is we all do this shit already. Like we all do the stupid pictures with the brand new, hard hats and the silver coated shovels. We all do the ribbon cuttings. We all, we do all of it. I fly drones over my, or I don't, but I have. Eh, every couple of weeks, I'm constantly taking pictures. So are my guys, we, we have more storage now in pictures alone.

Then we probably have as a company in the last 15 years, and this has been in the last year. So what happens is we just get this giant closet full of data, full of marketing fodder. That's just sitting there waiting to be unleashed. So to get that person or persons who understand how to put that stuff together, 'cause I'll be honest.

I don't have time to learn how to do it and I'm not. I have tried and I'm not good at it, but I can take a mean picture and I can hand it off to someone who has that technical aptitude, who can whip it up into a, a compelling sizzle reel, or a compelling marketing video. And that's huge, you know, a shout out to, uh, to ed my lead, but he always says facts, tell stories, sell.

And that is. Goddamn truth, man, because you could tell numbers and facts all day long and bore people to tears. You could show PowerPoint slides of this and that, but if you get a story that resonates with someone that somehow touches their, their psyche, you know, or their soul or whatever, you know, the woo shit you want to use for the day, that's how the magic happens.

You know, there you go, audience. Five minutes. We literally just gave you the secret sauce of how to succeed in any business out there.

And it could be as simple as you, you take those drone videos that you're taking for your sites. Anyway, your walkthroughs, your whatever, put some music behind it. And voiceover, a little thing of what this building is with a, you know, out cut scene of your company or a little logo fly in thing that somebody created for you.

It could be 15 seconds, 30 seconds a minute. It doesn't really matter. Put some exciting music on it, maybe a voiceover, right. Of like, you know, Hey, this is a walkthrough of our newest project, blah blah. Yeah. That you know, is built by us and here's our subs and here's the owner. Right. Whatever, you know, Voiceover or literally just video music outro.

It can be that simple. Like it don't again, simple works. Consistency works. Like that's how this game is played.

Yeah, totally. But simple today. Doesn't hold a candle to what simple was 10 years ago. Right. And so 10 years ago we could get by with just post instill shots and, and, you know, putting ads in magazine video is the, is the name of the game right now.

And it's cheap and it's easy. So I'm going to leave this recording today and I'm going to go and put together a sizzle reel to the Rocky theme song. And I'm going to post it this weekend just to show you that even a, an old idiot like me can grab this shit and put it together and come up with something that means something to people.

Yeah. And just as a slight aside, uh, for music like that, you can totally post it on your own personal social. You use it as like ad creative or even I think in like IgE and stuff, they're going to flag it for commercial rights, um, cause you haven't licensed songs, so totally be like careful in that piece, but there's a ton of like literally go and like Google free music and there is a shit ton of, uh, Audio out there to use.

Um, so just as an aside, like, you know, YouTube, Facebook, all those will flag, like, you know, hit songs. Uh, so just as a little aside, the Amazon, uh, for all their shows, they can use top hits because of Amazon music that they've already licensed all the rights to. So an Amazon. Studio stuff they can use top hits where most movies have to create their own music for it, Amazon doesn't because they already own the rights to everything.

So a little like, uh, intellectual property, you know, note there.

I appreciate that from my lawyer friend, you're keeping me out of jail.

Well, it'll just get taken down. Like it's not gonna, you know, you're not going to pay fines or anything like that on it for the most part, it'll just get ripped off. So, um, you know, if you want stuff to like stay and, uh, do the test of time, you know, like you can do, I think it's 15 seconds is the.

Piece where you can do like, uh, clips. I think it's 15 seconds. Uh, so anything under that, like it's not going to get flagged, but if you do like the whole theme song, like you're not going to be, it will not stay on a platform. So just for yeah. Uh, legal ramifications, uh, you know, side note.

It's definitely good to know.

Definitely good.

The, the last thing that I really wanted to cover today, like, look, we've covered, you know, people are retiring, they're old, you need to figure out how you're going to keep all that knowledge in, um, the company, labor shortages, which again, we've talked about drastically, um, having content, having marketing out there.

Um, the other thing is like, for all of your positions is. There's probably some guy somewhere, you know, it could be your senior electricians. It could be your spreadsheet guy. Right? You're a tech guy that if he gets sick, goes on vacation. You know, it gets hit by a bus, whatever, uh, what are you going to do?

Right. If that one linchpin within your organization, uh, gets something bad happens, right. Or just says he's done. And, uh, he, or she, and just never comes back. What are you going to do? Right. You have these monsters spreadsheets that, you know, is like reading the matrix. Nobody can do it. So. What are you going to do in those cases?

I mean, the first thing is hire somebody to like, learn from that person on how to use a spreadsheet and then make that guy, tell them how to do this. Uh, just and explain it like, Hey, if you get hit by a bus, if you get sick, if you go on vacation, like we're kind of Sol and we need, like, we just need a backup plan and that's really what it amounts to.

But so to walk through that with, with some of these guys, again, it's all in knowledge transfer. Um, but don't have one position within your company. That's if that guy again gets hit by a bus or gets sick, or she goes on maternity leave or whatever, that you're just you're screwed. So don't let your organization get in that kind of pickle.

Um, really for no good reason.

What is it? A two is one and one is none. No, that's a scary thing. We can all hire a redundant positions, but it's also something to maybe push to, to cross train people you already do have, you know, so that if, if someone does get removed, let's say from that position, for whatever reason, it may be that the rest of the team can at least each chip in a little bit to fill up that, that hole that's not missing.

Yeah, again, it's like the basics, right. Of, you know, they don't need to know everything, but like, how do we get by, right. How do we limp through a week of you not being here or two weeks or whatever it might be? Um, And that that's really just a big thing. And some of this can be, you know, it's little cadences, it's little one-on-ones, it's, you know, an hour here, an hour there, uh, not to disrupt like the big workflow, but something that you do need to add in, on a fairly consistent basis, you know, two, three times a week to have somebody sit, learn, digest it, come back and repeat that process, you know, which goes to whole communication cadences, uh, which we've also beat to death here.

But again, it's, it's that important that we need to talk.

You gotta be careful how you approach it though. And I'm gonna share this from personal experience from, from me, screwing it up. And I tried to do this with one of my employees and say, listen, We need to do just what we talked about. We need to document everything you do on a daily basis.

And I came on like, I normally do, you know, kick the door in and gung-ho like, it has to be done in a week. I want it processed out. I want everything written down so that anyone can come in and do your job. What I wasn't thinking in my head, you know, in my, my just outrage barrage of attack on this person was is that this person's thinking shit, I'm getting fired.

They want to replace me. So they're trying to. Suck out what I do so they can have someone else to do it. And while that wasn't the case at all, that was the out that wasn't the outcome burdening it fired, but none of it got done because this person was like, well, hold on a minute. Now I'm holding the high card.

And if I don't do it, if I don't document it all, you can't get rid of it. We ended up having, once I realized like, oh shit, okay. I came on a little strong. I didn't mean that. I just, I tend to do that sometimes. You know, we had the conversation and now we're slowly starting to build it up in a more, probably appropriate manner, you know, slowly but surely building these systems and documenting what we all do.

Yeah, for sure. Like people are gonna get threatened and it's, it's also like, Hey, we're looking to grow, right. Hey, we're looking to, to grow the team and we need, we need, you're not going to be able to handle this. Right. Like, do you want to work 70 hour weeks? No. So to, to make it so that you're not being killed, like we're going to have somebody come in and help.

Do this right? So we need to train people. You need to spend some time on it, you know, we'll, you know, figure something out on how this all works, uh, and, you know, start moving forward that way. So yeah, like definitely not a bull in a China shop approach, but you know, like you can phrase it in a way that that works.

That includes them. That makes them feel. Um, and respected, you know, and what they do, that it's important on what they do, obviously. That's why we're trying to document all this stuff. Um, you know, and phrase it in a way of like, Hey, if you get hit by a bus, like we need to know this stuff. Um, you know, we want to grow, we want somebody else to come in.

We want you to lead this effort. Right. All those types of things to, to make them feel good.

Yeah. Couldn't have said it better.

All right guys, uh, We're going to wrap the show up here. Any final words, Matt, before I summarize today,

you know, I do, and we can cut this later if you want to, but I just want to shout real quick at the people who are still sitting around.

Not saying anything, the shit that's going on out there in our world right now is there's a lot of. Just wrong. And there are way too many people sitting on their hands, thinking that somebody is coming, arrest you on that, that all the people who are telling us what to do, have our best interest in mind.

And it is time for that shit to stop. We need to speak up, stand our ground and I don't care which side you're on. You don't have to agree with me politically. You don't have to agree with me on, on any of the issues. But you need to speak your own mind because no one is speaking it for us right now. And we have reached a point of, I think, no return.

So I just want to encourage everybody to, when you're done sharing this wonderful episode with all your friends and family, get out there and speak your mind. Don't be afraid to speak up and ask questions and say with what you believe in.

And guys with that, like Matt and I are aligned on a lot of this stuff is.

Okay, look, whatever you believe in is in America. You're right. This is the beauty of the country we live in. It's free speech. It's you know, you can, you have your opinion, you know, we have a show and we give you ours. So whatever yours is, that's fine. You don't have to agree with us and you don't have to agree with everything we say.

But you need to also like have opinion, stand your ground on whatever your opinion is, you know, whether you're for or against whatever. Again, that's the whole point and purpose is that you, you do have a say you do have a, a vote, like, so I live in Califor. And unlike most other states, California can kick out their own governors and all that, but it's, we, the people have that ability to do these types of things.

We can kick out, basically anybody we choose because of how California is set up as a state. So in that, like you have your, your say your opinion again, you don't have to agree with. Any of the candidates or anything like that. But like you have a say you have a vote on who you choose to do that. Same with your kids.

You have a vote and a say on where they go to school. Uh, there's a lot of resources out there you choose to homeschool or not. There's a lot of resources on, you know, going to school boards and all those meetings, your county commissioners, like again, whatever you have. Uh, opinion on don't be afraid to voice it and do that.

I mean, obviously it's important on social cause you could reach more people, but it's just as important to have those one-on-one conversations, you know? And again, you don't have to agree on the end result. You're like debates. You're not going to really change anybody's mind, but just say like, Hey, this is, this is where I stand.

This is what I believe. These are the things that I've seen and. You know, all the data information that I've read and share that with your friends, family, whatever. Um, again, like for most of us, like it's still loves my neighbor. Right. Um, you know, you got to live with these people. You gotta deal with them, even family.

Right? Like, I don't agree with everything on my, with my family on a lot of things, but you know, at the end of the day it was a level. But you don't have to agree with everything. You know, it's the heated conversations at the dinner table and then a, Hey, let's eat dessert, right? Like it's all those types of things to where have an opinion be confident in your opinion.

And then also like, to not be hypocritical in the things that you're standing for. Right. You can't say that you're for free speech and then, you know, slamming other people for having a. Um, you can't be, you know, not for mass and then wear one. When you go to a restaurant, that's not how this works. So, you know, try to point out them, little hypocritical things that you, you know, you probably do, um, in ways, you know, again, not, not non guilty here, but, uh, you try to weed those out over time and you just get better as you go.

Um, that's really all there is to it. It's open dialogue, it's conversations like we have here. Um, And that's doing your part amen to that brother. All right, guys. So today we talked about you retiring, um, talked about freedoms and liberties talked about documenting your knowledge, you know, again, having multiple generations working together to a common outcome goal, uh, and you can phrase a lot of this too.

Look, you, when you retire, where's your knowledge go? Where's all the things that you've learned, and it can be a legacy type of play too, that you use for these, uh, guys and gals that have been in the trades or industry, right. It could be. Design construction, you know, owners, whatever for 30 plus years, you want to get their knowledge, make it a legacy, play appeal to their emotions, uh, unless they just really don't care.

But somewhere deep outside that outer crust is somebody that does care about what the work that they do. And you're going to be able to help them pass on their knowledge. Uh, have them have a legacy in your company forever. It's going to be, you know, ingrained in video or whatever medium you decide.

That's going to be hugely important to them. Um, and then on labor and, uh, bringing people in the industry, uh, just like Matt talks about, you need to have conversations that you're with your local leaders, school boards, community leaders, uh, career services, offices at the high school community college college.

Um, just people in general, like have a conversation about like the wide variety of things that you can do in this industry. And then on top of that, you know, have those communication cadences document, document, document, and that's ultimately, you know, it's not going to just grow your firm, but bring people into the industry.

Keep the trades. You know, we need construction. We need people who build shit or at a, you know, 10 year high of building things. And, uh, we'd like that to continue. So with that guys share this episode, um, you know, we believe in the rights that we have here in the U S and everything that we're able to do for living here in America.

And for all of you outside of the U S. You know, uh, do your part too, in your countries and your communities to, to stand up and have your say as well. So again, we live in, we live in America, I'm born here, raised here, and, you know, we're, we're privileged and proud of the responsibilities, the rights that we have as Americans to, to do our part, to hold up the flag and constitution and, uh, you know, our liberties that have been granted to us for being born here.

So with that, that's this episode of the construction corner podcast. And until next time.

#140 Death of Mediocrity

#140 Death of Mediocrity

Hello, and welcome to another episode of construction corner podcast. I'm Dylan, I'm your host guys. We don't have a guest today, but before I get into it, so Matt and I come, come to every week. Talk about things that are relevant within the industry. Frankly, what needs to be talked about. And, you know, our mission here is to build a great America, whether we're building it or designing it on our own end or for you guys to do a better job, right.

I hate going down the street and seeing buildings that look like shit for no good reason, frankly. And I mean, I hope you all appreciate, you know, good architecture, good design, good building is you, you go through really anywhere in the world, but our mission here is to help you. Build better and build a great America.

And with that, you know, we don't always talk about nice things, easy things, things that people want to hear about. And, uh, we were, uh, kind of shooting the shit before the show and just finally decided to hit record on. Talking about, and we're going to just dive right into it. But if you'd like to show, do you want us to be the loud mouths to, uh, tell your friends, look, you've been saying all along, uh, please go ahead, share the show.

Uh, we appreciate it. And we, again, we don't do this for, for money. For notoriety, for fame, it's all to help you guys, uh, become better in the construction industry. Again, designers, owners, architects, engineers, contractors, subs, everybody. Uh, and with. I think they were talking about is throughout the industry.

There's people that do they go above and beyond, right? They do do a great job. They try to do the right thing. And more often than not, they get shit on for frankly. No good reason. Maybe not a reason somebody understands. And you know, Matt, you can jump in here at any point, but this is, you know, I think the big thing.

It ruins so many people within our industry. It beats them down and you just kind of become lethargic on the topic because you're just like, why does it even matter anymore? And that's a bad stance to be in that place. Um, but it happens, happens to the best of us.

It does because we allow for so much mediocrity all across the board, right.

From designers to. The specifiers to suppliers, to builders, to subcontractors, and to owners and clients. Also, we allow mediocrity at all levels and it takes the, the guy or the girl, the man, or the woman who's really stretching and really going above and beyond to produce a great product and to really produce the best for their client, whoever that client is.

Beats them down because you can fight as hard as you can all day long, all week long. And all it takes sometimes is that one asshole said to come back and, and flip the script on you. And, you know, people have a hard time coming back from that. And it's so easy to just sit in the corner, be a part of the gray, right.

And never riff, never ripple the water and never, never ruffle up the, the rug. Uh, and people will almost be forced into that. If, if you don't have that mentality of constant fight and constantly trying to improve and to grow into better every day, most people will slide off into that corner. Never to be seen again.

I mean, guys, think of it this way. So you've got your standard projects. Let's say you go above and beyond, right. You maybe do a little more for a given milestone deliverable, you bust ass and, uh, on the field and you, you get a re an extra room done that day, right. You really just kicked ass and got more shit done, but because of whatever reason, You get yelled at for going above and beyond, right.

For doing more than you were paid for, which is a, you know, golden rule, if you will. And, uh, to go on. Doing that extra work, but you get beat down. You get told like, Hey, we don't do this, this isn't, you know, we don't go above. We just do what we're here to do. Cause probably somebody gotten chewed before or came to bite him in the ass for whatever reason.

But now you're basically being told, and this is a cultural problem throughout the industry that, Hey, you doing more and better? It's not good here. We don't like it where we're not good with it. And because of that. So you never, maybe try again next time, right? You try to do your best, do a great job, go above and beyond, you know, fix stuff that needs to be fixed.

Find a better tool, uh, changed some processes, whatever, right? Fix the thing that you had problems with. Go above and beyond do it. And then again, you get chewed out for it for no good reason. The guy wasn't having a good day, but over and over and over again, this happens. And now. You never want to go above and beyond again, you never want to do a great job again, and you get beat into mediocrity.

You get beat into a submission basically of why should I care then? Why, why does this even matter? And that is a bad attitude straight up. But it's a cultural thing across the industry, frankly. There's a lot of it in our country right now where people are getting beat into just not caring and it's a bad place to be.

It's old school union mentality at its finest. And it's one of the reasons why the union started to fall apart and lost their grasp on, on frankly, lots of industries. Automotive industry is a great example. The teachers' union is a great example of one that mediocrity. It doesn't even begin. It, it pales in comparison to the fluff in the gray that our teachers are now teaching.

I can't get any farther on that topic cause I'll, I'll lose my shit here. But in construction, you know, the, the unions a lot, a lot of that stuff. They allowed that, that mediocre, they, they punished and frowned upon the guy doing more. So a lot of firms do unionize. They took the risk, they paid their money.

They got out. And not to say that we don't work with union shops. We do some of my favorite carpenters are still unionized. Our painter is still unionized. They're smaller shops and they, they found a way to. Keep culture high and to keep culture at the forefront of what they do. So their guys go out and bust ass and they produce, and they really know how to play the game.

But I would say 90% of our subcontractor partners that we we team with are non-union. And it's because of that, that mediocrity, that bread and infested the industry, you know, 20. Plus a years ago, whenever it was that it really can prevalent. And I don't know, man. I mean it, I see it coming back. I see it in different sections and in different trades, especially you see it all over the news right now.

Uh, if, if we, as an industry, allow ourselves to go and, and abolish say right to work laws, this industry is gonna it's in for. Dumping, like, I don't think many people realize it's going to bring that mediocre bullshit mentality flying back to the surface and we're all screwed for it.

I mean, just think of the projects that are hard enough to get done today as it is, right.

The, the jobs that, and this has been going on for a decade where you, you can't find work, you can't find people to. Produce the work. You can't find anybody to get it done. Your subs, your suppliers, everybody up and down. The entire supply chain is having problems in finding good people and getting it done.

And you add now on top of that, a culture and environment where it becomes difficult to even attract people into the industry, let alone good people, man. Like why would you come into a. You know what construction is a great industry. Why would you then come into a place where you're just going to get beat down, yelled at it?

And no one is ever trying harder to get better, to improve, to find, you know what I mean? Like productivity is. The lowest in construction it's ever been. There's no investment in anything which we've touched on in many episodes. You know, like most industries invest like four and a half percent in R and D constructions at like 1.2%.

And most firms don't even invest that in their company. I mean, Across the board engineers, architects, and architects are some of the worst, like the ones still using AutoCAD that haven't, you know, come out of the dark ages. I mean, it's, it's affecting their business. They're not able to grow. And, but again, it's just how it's always been and settling for mediocrity versus allowing.

You know, innovation to happen and just holding a higher standard. I've run into this on so many projects here lately where, uh, people, frankly, just don't care. Uh, and it trickles all the way through the project. Like if nobody really cares or holds the line for it, well, you know what, why should I, right.

If you get beat down on a project, okay. Like, again, not mine. Right. But that. It's tough when that happens on many projects, you just, it gets apathetic and nobody delivers. And then you wonder why the project turns out the way it does at the end of the day, when it could have been great. If you know, some standards in lines were held at the top, right at the owner level, at the, you know, from the beginning of the project before you got into the rest of it,

and it comes down to a topic we've frequented on this show and that's, you gotta be willing to have the difficult.

Uncomfortable conversations because nothing changes if you don't, if we just keep blindly letting things happen to us, we'll look at where we are right now. You know,

we, we allow so much to be taken for granted and we allow so many times to think that everyone else has our best interest in mind at all times. And. Politically speaking. I'm not, not even going there, but now more than ever, we're seeing, that's not the case. And it's not the case in construction. That's not the case in medicine.

It's not the case in politics. It's not the case in absolutely anything outside of maybe the parent and child relationship. You know, it just isn't, people all want what's best for them. We're all selfish by nature. So if you can't have the difficult conversations upfront and make sure that the people who are working for you or with you, or whatever are doing what they're supposed to be doing, and if you don't agree with it, you challenge it.

If you can't do that. We just allow ourselves to keep digging this perpetual hole. And I've got thousands of examples. I'm on a project right now that we have busted our ass for the last year to keep this project afloat. We broke ground in, I don't know, whenever the snow went away, may June, and, but for the last year, year and a half, we've we've struggled.

We've fought. We've been. Insane negotiations and deals with our suppliers and vendors to keep pricing that frankly, we, we offered up a year ago. That's unheard of, and without getting into too many of the details and giving away this project, there were things that took place on the design side, where the owner didn't ask the right questions.

He just assumed that this guy, this designer, he hired was absolutely working in his best interest. And. I can tell you that absolutely did not happen. The guy is, is overpaying immensely for the product he's trying to bring to market. And it all could have been solved by just asking those questions. And by having the uncomfortable conversation, pushing back when, when you need to push back and instead he didn't, he kind of rolled over when he was asked to roll it over and.

It's a bad scenario to be a part of it. It's sucks to watch and we'll build it. It'll be a great building. It'll be, it'll stand for, you know, 50, 60 years, whatever, what I know we could have done it better. Had we been involved in a different capacity? Cause I would have pushed back. I would have asked those questions to the people that were sketching and drawing this thing I would have.

I don't have any problem being the asshole. I don't, I don't like to hang my hat on that, but sometimes you have to do.

I mean, so my, uh, my in-laws were out here this last week. They're designing a house, building a house out here in California. And in that they hired an architect, right. Residential architect to do it, that was assigned by the, uh, kind of subdivision, right.

That they're in, that you had to use this architect to, to build it. And then, you know, they've had a falling out with the first builder, cause I never responded to an email. Uh, contractor just never, never got back to them or one of those like, oh yeah, I'm getting around to it type of things. Uh, I never did.

Uh, they, they finally found somebody that was good at it, but they were doing sidewalks. So, you know, slabs Ford framing's going up. And they had, you know, like sidelights, uh, around their fireplace and some other like transom stuff and they were wearing. With the architect and architect point out like, Hey, you know, they're missing this.

Like it's not framed properly, which that happens. Like, you know, anybody can miss anything. Uh, and you know, not, I mean, it's their fault, but it's not like a problem. Right. Cut early. It's still in framing. We can fix it. And the architect was like, oh no, I don't wanna, I don't want say anything. Uh it's uh, I don't want.

It's not. And then, you know, my in-laws brought it up to their builder. Like, Hey, you know, we noticed this where, you know, this wasn't framed properly and he's like, oh yeah, no, we'll take care of that. Like, it's, it's not a big deal. Right? Like they're like, oh yeah, no, that's right. Okay, cool. Um, but far too often, right.

That, that architect didn't bring it up. And that's a problem, but also in that relationship, they're not contractually obligated to do that either. And not that this should be a contract thing, but it's, it just goes to show that somebody who's been, been, been beaten down for long enough won't ever raise anything when it's an actual problem, you know, and knows that it's a problem, knows it wasn't done correctly.

And you know, that type of thing just perpetuates through everything else.

It stops people from just doing the right thing, because we all know that that's the easiest way to solve. All of our problems is just do the right thing all the time. But it stops people from doing that. Like this architect, you know, it doesn't do any good for the industry.

It doesn't do any good for us as a society as a whole. I don't know how far, how far down that rabbit hole to go, but it just, it permeates every.

Well, and it's one of those things of like, why'd I even hire an architect. Right? So from, from the design community, right in this side of it, it's you hear those stories are too often, right.

Of somebody who was hired to, you know, basically design, build a custom home, right. Or design a custom home for somebody and like, you know, For anybody building a home more than likely it's not a small investment to them. Right. It's very personal it's especially homes, right? It's a very personal thing.

It's your own tastes, all this stuff. And then for somebody to just not care right. At the same level that, that you do is just, it's so disheartening and. It's problematic on a lot of, on a lot of ways, but this gives the design community, such a bad name to where, especially in residential, where. You want people to care to the level that you are for the thing that is so much, you know, and it could vary in scale, right?

So someone's half a million dollar home or $200,000 home to someone's half a million to someone's $20 million house, right. There's equal amount of care in each of those, for, for the given person and for the design professional to not give a shit. Is it just shits on everybody through.

Yeah. And it's, it's not just the design guy.

I give them a hard time when we bought heads all the time, but I mean, that's the mentality that gives construction, the shit named that it sometimes has, right. It's permeates everything, the GC, the subs everybody's out to screw everyone else and, and make a fast buck. You know that those stereotypes were founded in truth, right?

Or at least in partial truth, I should say there's bad apples in every bunch. But I think a lot of it is, it just, it's a systemic problem as a society that we have allowed to fester and to grow unchecked for years and years and years.

And here's the thing right on the other side of that. If you care, if you actually do a good job, if you actually respond in a timely fashion, if you do a lot of the things that we talk about here on the show, you would have a great business, right?

It would grow, it would be profitable, just like my in-laws. They went from a builder who never answered an email to a guy who was on it and got them permits within, you know, 30 days, right? That's a completely different ball game for a guy that had a year and didn't do anything to somebody that was like handled it and handled it in a very timely fashion, you know?

And it makes all the difference, you know, that guy's business is growing. The other one is not it's real simple.

Yeah. And, and that first guy who, who shipped the bed is going to get weeded out and eventually. Eventually that guy will be out of, uh, out of a company, out of a project, out of a job, whatever it may be, we just need to, we need to start making these decisions and forcing, forcing the bad apples off the tree sooner.

Yeah. And I mean, so changing gears a little bit, you know, from this guy's like, look, it's not rocket science, but the, the gear change is. You were a lot of this, you know, there's a lot of construction firm owners that are, that are doing what they feel is the right thing. And taking on projects at super thin margins, less than the typical one to five, 10% they're typically taken on projects, but even slimmer margins are even at a loss to just keep everybody busy.

Right. And trying to do the right thing and keep their guys employed, keep cashflow moving. And while that's honorable. It's only gonna, it's a short term solution and it's again, not willing to have the conversations with your owners, with your developers on look, crisis are not the same. They were yesterday.

Let alone three weeks ago, let alone six months ago. So. You know, we need to have a different discussion here to remain profitable. So I can be here when you do have a warranty issue in 18 months, and I'm not out of business, like that's a real conversation that I don't think enough people are actually having, uh, in this type of market where prices are changing because they don't want to.

And instead of taking it off, they're taking it on the chin instead of, you know, redressing what it actually cost.

And that's a horrible way to do business, but that's a reality. I see it all the time. I see it every day. You know, you can't, it's, it's a scary conversation to go back to someone and say, Hey, by the way, that number I told you, six months ago, we're 75% higher than that now because of commodity pricing. You know, you and I will understand that we'd be like, oh shit, is that all well, okay.

That makes sense. It sucks, but let's, let's, let's move on to the next day, but people who aren't in it and don't see it, they don't understand that, that combined with these ridiculous lead times and, and lack of material availability, it's very difficult and it's becoming more and more difficult by the day to have to, to, to educate our consumers.

Our. For what is really going on out there. You know, I tell people all the time as a general contractor, I don't make prices. I don't, I don't price this building. All I do is tell you what the market has priced your building at. Now. I like to think that my team, we do it in a way that's much better than everyone else around, you know, and then we build it more efficiently and in a better way and all these great things, but realistically, The market tells us what the building costs.

So it's my job now to educate my prospect, my prospective clients on what the market's telling us. And then we all have to sit down and have that hard conversation to make an educated decision. Do we push on forward? At these numbers at this rate and this level of, or lack of level of availability, do we put it on hold and wait six months and come back and revisit or do we just scrap it, you know, and broom it off and be done.

And, you know, I'm having those conversations almost every day lately. It seems, but that's just a fact of life right now. And if you don't have them, I'll fight tooth and nail for my, my people, my team to keep them working. But it, you know, at a certain point, you, you reached that fault level where it's catastrophic, it's cannibalistic and you can't sustain it.

I'd much rather have the uncomfortable, shitty conversation now and preserve the good for later. If, if we can do that.

And it's having those conversations, you know, what are your options? And you've got to think through those, you know, on the design side, we have these all the time where, you know, Hey, you've got a few options here, take your pick. Right? We don't, I don't really care what you choose. I just need to know what we're going to do moving forward.

Right. We can do one, two or three ways, whatever it might be. And move forward and we just need to have more and more of those conversations. It's ultimately, it's the owner's responsibility for that project. You know, what do you want, how are we going to move forward? Is this something that you're going to do not do?

How do you want to do it? You know, we're, we're good on, you know, really whatever, uh, side and way that you want to move forward, but it's, you gotta have those conversations. Um, try to have a. In small chunks, right? You don't want to like go into this, not having had a lot of hard conversations before and have the really big one, even though sometimes that might be required, but to, to have some tougher, smaller conversations to where it's you realize it's not the end of the world, things aren't going to implode, you know, you can move on and, and live another day.

And I think we need. Again, spend some time thinking about this, not jumped from one fire to the next, not go off on an emotional rip, uh, for, even though we all get there sometimes on, on that next thing to do, but it's also. To know your numbers, to know your options, and then present those options to, you know, especially again, in the building world and the construction world that we live in.

That is the thing you've gotta be able to do is have hard conversations, but know the options to take, you know, left, right. Or we just go home.

That's it, man, I got nothing else. That's that's where we're at. You gotta, you gotta have the hard conversations. You gotta have the knowledge. You gotta be constantly pushing to get better every day, fighting off that, that gray cloud of mediocrity. That's, that's infecting so much. That's how we come out of this prosperous and, and we build our industry and our, and our damn country back to what it should be.

And through that guys, like if you are good, if you are confident in what you can deliver, if you know that you have a great product, a great team, a great everything about you, charge for it. You not be afraid to charge more for your services. This is the other thing in the death spiral that's been happening to construction for a long time is everyone's gotten beat down on prices, right?

You've been. Beat down on your services on design, it's been neglected, you know, when a good design can save a lot of money on the building, right? So if you are good, if you are great at what you do, do not be afraid to charge more people don't accept it. You can be okay with or learn to be okay with that.

Right. And being able to explain the value and why your services are necessary. And this goes for everybody right up and down the chain. If you're a. Deliver a project faster. Is this something, so that adds a lot of value to the project, right? If you can do that as a general contractor and save money and expedite and your scheduling and everything else, financing is better than everybody else, don't be afraid to charge more for it, you know, and this has become a commoditized industry and that hurts everybody.

Couldn't it be more, man?

All right, guys, this is a short episode. We, uh, It's just a lot of bullshit going on in the country, in the world right now. And, um, you know, we'll have more to say on it, but we wanted to talk about some of these things that we feel are important to talk about and not being afraid to charge for it, not being afraid to have hard conversations, to communicate effectively with your clients.

You know, at the end of the day, we want everybody to win one of what need to be great. Great buildings. Great projects. Great owners. Great everybody. And yes. Ben. So systemic through the industry on just getting beat down for doing more, um, you know, sometimes for not doing enough, but more often than not.

It's like we didn't, you know, you did more and that's, that's not good. Um, and that needs to. And again, it's just setting expectations, having hard conversations, trying to set some ground rules, if you will, for each project and then moving forward from there. Uh, so if you like this show, if you like what we're talking about, leave us a review, leave us some comments, guys.

We love to talk more about these things. We're willing to have hard conversations is probably doesn't mean no good, but I'm willing to do it. Cause I think it's the right thing.

And that's this episode of the construction corner podcast until next time.

139 Pre-Con Staffing w/ Gareth McGlynn

#139 Pre-Con Staffing w/ Gareth McGlynn

Hello, and welcome to a, another episode of the construction corner podcast. I'm Dylan, I'm your host and guys today, before we get into it, before we introduce our guests, um, you know, the church corner I've been doing this for year and a half, and the whole reason that I started and brought Matt on is to really help you guys throughout the.

You know, we, we tackle a lot of tough questions, a lot of things that, you know, all of us want to kind of know a little more, or we talk about behind closed doors and don't necessarily air it in public. And that's what we're here for. We're here to talk about the things that really everyone is talking about, but nobody wants to do it publicly.

We're willing to do that. Uh, so you can share the show, share our insights, you know, it can come from, from my mouth for all I care, uh, you know, and share with your friends. Some of these kind of hop on issues, hop on topics that we're going to talk about and have talked about for the last year and a half.

So that's really the mission here is to help everyone throughout the construction industry. It doesn't matter what side of the table you sit on, whether you're a architect and engineer, a designer, an owner, a GC, a subcontractor, we don't care really where you fit in this industry. We just want more people to really have the tools, the knowledge, the experience.

To move forward to help you to progress through the industry, to bring more people into construction. It's a great industry with a lot of space for everybody. And really our ultimate goal here is to, to build a great America, a great world and provide, you know, a lot of opportunity for people across construction.

So with that, Matt, my friend, how's that.

Things are good. Dylan. It's been, uh, I can't complain about the weather this week. Cause it's, it's been really nice. So projects are moving. It's been a very productive, uh, two weeks. So we're doing well.

Awesome. And guys, so today we're going to talk about pre-con.

We're going to talk about the state of staffing and hiring in construction in the market. Gareth McGlynn also hosts the pre-kinder. Podcasts. We're so happy to have you on ultimately, you know, you provide staffing, uh, solutions in the estimating side of construction, uh, which I'm sure is a hot button topic and, uh, and something that we want to get into.

But, um, my first question for you is how in the world did you end up in this like niche of.

Well, this could be the start man of it. If I start telling you about my journey, first of all, lightly, thank you for invite me on love what you're doing, because it's not being talked about enough. Um, all the topics that, that you guys to touch on are, are topics that should be talked about much more and it's something.

Within pre-construction definitely and construction as a whole that we're not doing enough of. We're not talking about the topics. We're not, we're not thrashing it out together collaboratively. Um, so thank you for that guys. How did I get here? Uh, well, first of all, I, when I was 16, probably best, best when I was 16, none of my family are in construction.

Uh, no matter family and, and recruitment, uh, none of them. Parents aren't entrepreneurs. My couple of my uncles and my grandparents were entrepreneurs, but when I was 16, I, all I wanted to do was play football. Or as you guys call it soccer. And, uh, my parents were like, right, you're in school now you're in high school as you would call it and they say, right, you're going to, you're going to go now and you're going to do your degree.

And I went. No, I'm at sure. Why do I need to do my degree? And I I'm going to be a professional soccer player and they earn millions and they were like, no, you're not. Um, well, it doesn't tell me that. They said, oh, okay, fair enough. Yeah, we won't stop eat. We'll just let you go. But one thing we're going to do before you, you, you, we allow you to, to feel as you got to go and get a degree.

Once you get a degree, you can do what you want. So that's what I did. And I picked engineering because. Um, so it was a electronic electrical engineering type degree. Uh, then a lot of it was kind of getting through just if I was playing professional football at the time first and soccer, uh, along with my degree, which was, I quite enjoy.

Um, today that, uh, got me degree after my degree play professional soccer for about 13 years up until I was about 29. Um, then a 2,900, they said, yep. I needed any look elsewhere. Soccer's not gonna not going to pay the bills and amend them at forties. And in the mid fifties, so did a bit of travel and road Asia and Australia and New Zealand, um, fell and the recruitment, um, I worked in a bit, a little bit of construction as well, the open Australia and the mains with an iron ore and oil and gas with Rio Tinto and BHP, uh, really liked that.

Really enjoyed that, but I never felt satisfied with the social aspect of being an engineer. Um, it wasn't fast paced enough. Uh, there wasn't enough human interaction really, really sought that. Um, somebody told me about recruitment, went straight into it, found in recruitment, stayed in Australia for two years, working in recruitment.

Um, through a family illness had to get come closer to home. So myself and my wife. Girlfriend at the time, which asked my wife to set it right. A table we'll do we'll move closer to home. So we were given the opportunity of New York, London, or Dublin. Obviously when you give a lady a chance to live in New York, there's only one winner in New York, uh, worked for a company for two years and then saw a massive, massive gap within only pre-construction in the re the, the, the construction recruitment staff and sector, um, and started up.

So, uh, just a real quick aside, my wife is a geologist, uh, limestone mine. So Rio Tinto is, uh, you know, for those of you don't know, reattune says one of the largest mining companies in the world, uh, they own some of the largest copper mines. They do a ton of stuff, uh, which is pretty cool and everything that they do.

And then my background is electrical engineering. Uh, a lot of,

a lot of synergies, a lot of common ground there like that,

on that side. But in that, like, what was the gap that you saw in, in that pre-construction. Side of things.

So I work with two of the largest recruitment firms in the world, um, and great companies, fantastic companies, really efficient what they do.

But what happens is you're sitting in a construction desk, a construction company calls you up and they go, I need a project manager, superintendent, project engineer, estimator, and pre-construction manager five things right away as a company, they go for the low-hanging fruit and they go for the easy money.

The easy money is not finding a pre-construction manager or not finding a senior estimator. The easy money is getting a project manager, superintendent or project engineer. They go and follow the three rules and then they move on to the next claim. It's just not serviced. Um, and that's why there's a huge lack of people.

And people saying, listen, there's, there's a gamut of reasons why there's not enough people in pre-construction. Um, but essentially it just wasn't being serviced from a, from a staffing point of view. So we found a, a niche that we call the company niche, SSP, and we went after it. Um, and thankfully we haven't looked back since we've been we're as busy as we've ever been.

Um, and, and we're loving it. Great people do.

I a hundred percent agree with that Gareth and previously to where I'm at now, I worked for a larger GC and I ran the pre-construction department and it was

an estimator, just, it was almost impossible.

Yeah, exactly. And another thing is, where am I at? What was wrong? Because it wasn't being staffed. You, you wouldn't believe that the, the, what a recruiter does on a day-to-day basis, how much influence they have on a young engineer who rings them up and ask them questions about the industry and where they should go career ways, what, how they should upskill themselves, what they want to do.

Long-term they asked all these questions and they just weren't. It just wasn't being talked about. There wasn't enough media out there. There wasn't enough content. There wasn't enough, obviously within the. The degrees, the masters, all these, even in high school, I mean, pre-construction estimating is maybe one or two modules of a degree.

It's literally a bark and exercise, get through it and get to the good stuff. Um, whereas, and we'll probably go into it later. It's, it's, it's much more than that. And it's just it's to me, the single most important decisions are made within pre-construction and.

That's the stage for a good project or, or the.

Yeah, exactly it can make or break you as a company. Um, if an estimator gold high, uh, goes low and gets it wrong, you're you're, you're in the pocket for two or 3 million on, on the concrete or whatever they messed up. Um, so it's, it's so, so, so vital and it's even more vital because of the way the construction industry looks at cost management, quantitative survey and estimate, and it's done completely differently in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, UK Ireland.

Um, the quantity surveyor as it's called over there as just got so much more control over the project and the costs. And you very rarely do you see these blowups leggy legacy in the U S

so, and that's, you were kind of touching on what I was going to ask next. You know, that's why I really was intrigued when I heard about your firm, when you know, I was on Gareth's podcast back in February, I think, um, You know, the pre-con manager or the estimate or whatever you want to call them, it's really a thankless position, right.

Because if you get it right, the project goes on and it's successful and the PM gets all the accolades. If you get it wrong, you're, it's your worst day ever. But there's never a period where, where the estimator gets put up on that platform and says, Hey, you know, congrats to the guy that built the project in his head first.

So, you know, how do you. Uh, obviously you're very successful what you do and you get a lot of people coming to you, but do you see, you know, is it a constant influx of people really, truly wanting to go into estimating or into the pre.

Yeah. The honest answer is no, no. Especially at that junior level, when I start talking to project engineers, APM, they ring me up and they go as a senior stuff on LinkedIn.

Tell me a little bit about, about, they always asked me for salary advice. A lot of people ringing me up. We do a salary survey, but it only looks at at pre-construction engineer, project manager, senior estimator pre-construction work. There's no APM project manager, but they always ring me up and say, they may ask me and they ask, constantly ask questions about pre pre-construction and estimate.

And, um, but it's, it's, there's a huge lack of people going in there, but everyone seems to be common to college and go straight into the field. And to be honest with the general contractors are responsible for that because that's what they want. They want people to go to as a project engineer in an APM.

And to be honest with you historically, that's probably been a good thing because you, you understand, and you get a visual of how your project goes together and you learn on, on the, on the, on the, on the field, know that we've got 2d, 3d 40, all this, this, these modules, all this similar. All the mistakes that have been learned.

You don't need to go on the site. You can actually look through previous projects. What you've been put together. What's the clash detection, correcting it, or read the notes and you can actually see that, see that, see the problems that have, that have occurred. And that's where we've got to tap into because a lot of people want to get involved in construction, but they don't want to go.

So there's got to be another option, obviously VDC and Burma and our option, but even those guys prefer to go onsite as well first. Um, so there's gotta be an option to, to attract them and especially the hay, the high-tech case, that the guys that you've got to start competing with Facebook, Amazon, apple for the real, highly technical guys.

Um, because pre-construction day. Manipulating this present them using all these, these pre-construction technologies that are common items, you need highly efficient, good tech people within your company. The future of construction is pre-construction. The future of pre-construction is talent and technology.

I like that a lot. And I think, you know, Dylan is, is very heavy into the tech side too. You know, I'm not so much, but, but I see it coming and. To have talent like that on a team is going to be a huge advantage. That's

right. And it's going to keep, it's going to keep everyone else around because all the guys that are doing the 12 hour shifts and doing all the mundane.

Jobs that can be done. It can be automated. Let's be honest, automated. There, there are certain degree of, I mean, technology is never going to take over. Um, let's be straight about that. It's always th th th th the, the, the towns and the brains, they're always going to be working side by side. They're never going to be never going to be, let, let, let run the show.

Um, but the, the capacity deficit that the hospitals or schools, the roads, or the, the, the, the brain. The homes that have to rebuild over the next two decades is, is humongous. And we're already stretched. You guys know that we're stretched. So, so, so far, um, it's only going to get worse. And I tell you that the pre-construction and estimating a word is only going to get worse.

I mean, I, because of obviously the lack of projects that went through 20, 20, 20, 21 people are, are we're betting four or five jobs a month. There are no bedding for jobs. There's no way. There's no way that the quality of those jobs are good and there's no way that the people bedding them and estimating them are enjoying their work.

Yeah. You're going to see burnout rates through the roof if you're not already.

Exactly. And we're just going to lose people. We're going to lose people from pre-construction to the field, or we're going to lose people from pre-construction and to all these tech companies or pre-construction technology companies, or just away from the industry.

Um, and then that's going to have a knock on effect and actually trying to try and trying to recruit people.

And I agree on so many of these points, the, the thing that I see that, especially in construction, this goes, I mean, both sides of the table is people typically aren't willing to pay for top talent because. Seeing that, you know, one guy can do it and we need this job done. And a guy's a guy as a guy. And what I think it's forgotten, or maybe just lost in looking at technology is that one guy who, or girl who is just extremely smart, talented, creative, and what they can produce is going to.

Way maybe 10 or a hundred people. Right. And what they can, they can do on the tech side, because if you start to automate it or have, you know, processes systems, they put in place, they design, they build for a given company that can now do a lot of work where it can bid those four jobs a week seamlessly, or it can win an extra job of a week, a month, whatever, you know, what's that worth to the company on the other side of it, you know, if they're able to.

Effectively and profitably bid jobs, you know, clearly defined scope across those projects and allow companies to win more. You know, how much is that person worth? Especially in a bigger company, you know, when you're bidding, you know, a given job could be 20, a hundred million dollars and you bid say one of those a month, right?

So you're bidding a billion dollars worth of projects. You know, if your company can handle that type of work, You know, what's that worth in profit. On the other side of it, 10%, it's a hundred million dollars. If you win them and you can deliver it, you know, and scale it accordingly for your company, right.

For $10 million firm, you know, that could be an extra a hundred K in net to the bottom line, right. Or a million dollars in net to the bottom line. And I think sometimes that gets forgotten. And, you know, if you can PR profitably do these things to win jobs, to, uh, move your company forward to where you can do this.

You're not getting anybody behind that person. Right. If they quit, you're screwed. Cause no one else knows how to run those.

Yeah, yeah. A hundred percent. And what you just touched on Dylan, to be honest with you, a lot of the big guys have already made the decision. Um, the, the Turners, the Scouts, cause these guys Mortenson, these guys are aware, has they have made the decision 7, 8, 9 years ago by technology.

They've got their own R and D it's the mid-level guys that haven't really got on that, that the technology can have bandwagon. Those guys are gonna get left behind and as the capacity devils, and as the projects keep coming in, they're just going to be better than. You're going to be been there.

Everything who's going to be completely lost. They're going to be bidding projects. They know very little about in different sectors that they normally wouldn't bet on. And there'll be wondering, well, I built skills way may not get many schools anymore because the other guys are just more efficient.

They're more tech savvy. They're presenting more better. The owners, the developers, the architects are using the similar technologies. Um, these are the guys that are going to get burned because there's no more schools. So they're going to go in the light industrial. They're going to try their hand at office buildings and they're going to get that wrong.

And it's just sure. One bad decision just snowballs in to multiple discussions. Then you lose, you lose a lot of people. I hear about it all. I get one call from a GC or a gala, GC saying this, this, this, and this is going to. It's just it's it's 18 months of constantly just people, drip feeding out of there and all the best people leave first.

Um, and it's sad because I mean, we've seen it happen before. I mean, we're, we're so far behind. Well, not we, but the, the, the middle LGC, some of them are so far behind. Oh, you're going to do is watch the big GC. You don't have to spend their money, but just gradually watch what they're doing, watch what they're doing well, and just not copy it, but just get on board with it and know the other, the other part of that.

And I want to kind of kind of preface this is there's a lot of shiny toys out there. A lot of shiny technology that is just. For certain people. And that's that, to me, that is, well, I mean, I'm trying to solve the, the, the, the town side of it. But to me, that is a platform that needs to be solved. There needs to be a user group of users within technology, not salespeople, not the techno, the pre-construction technology companies themselves.

I'm talking about user. So we can name, go through them all the six or seven that are out there. And because majority people rang, rang me and asked me, Gareth, what are you saying? This techno, I don't want it to start mentioning, I don't know if you can, but there's pre-construction technology. And I go, well, I don't know very much about it, but I know three guys that have just implemented and have been involved in it know for two or three years, pick them, bring in, find out what their, what, what, what, what challenges they had find out if it's good for you, the FEDSIM with your workflow, your size, a project, your industry, um, because there's loads of good stuff, but it just doesn't fit everyone.

And especially the workloads. And if you get that wrong, if you don't do your doodling, And I'm not saying about doing demos or asking the sales people within these companies. Like, that's not very good about it. Uh, I mean, from my point of view, I'm in a, I'm in a group of, uh, probably around 400 recruitment owners throughout Australia, New Zealand, UK, Europe, and the U S and I it's just a constant, constant, constant, better information, all the tank, any of my technology straight up in that group, guys, I'm thinking about doing this pros, cons, this is the size of company, and this is what I do.

This is how I spend yeah. What's the cost and as it beneficial, And that, that, that to me is Muslim. That, that that's a key part of, of, uh, and it's, it's, it's kind of like the pre-construction technology companies won't want to, uh, make this, right. They're not going to start a group to do this because it just looks, it just looks wrong.

It's opt to that. And again, it's up to the, the, the, the, the pre-construction technology enthusiasts within these companies willing to share their information, this idea that I'm not telling the guy next door, whatever. That's got to go. We will not move forward. And we will all be put on the show, much pressure by not doing that.

I'll tell you what the BIM VDC guys are actually without it. These guys, all talk to one lawyer, no matter if they're in a consultancy or their energy GC, and they all make each other's life better. And then they look better internally and everybody wants, we're able to build bigger, better, safer projects.

And the pre-construction word needs to get off there. And learn and, and the whole, the whole crew construction industry, uh, operations, whether it's robots on site words, 3d scanning, whatever it may be. We need to get off our high horse, start talking with Lenore and helping each other.

I couldn't agree more, man.

It's all about collaboration because at the end of the day, you know, everybody that I'm used to that I'm around, everyone's so secretive. No one wants to talk because they're afraid of somebody finding the secret sauce. Well, the reality is we're all been the same. Okay. We all have the same numbers. We might change a fee here and there, but it's, there's nothing spectacularly different about the way we approach the market other than our culture and intrinsic value.

So to boost that collaboration you're right. It will do nothing but benefit the industry as a whole. It just it's absolutely necessary. And it doesn't happen very often.

Yeah. And there is no secret sauce. The difference between each companies. Um, so it's up to the owners to create the culture and, and, and get innovation and the technology and get all these things right.

You will automatically attract the best people and the best people. I don't care who they are, who you think you are, the best people, talk to everyone and help everyone out. That is the best people internally, externally. It doesn't. Um, and that will be the differentiation between a good company and a great company.

And it was grand because everything was gone at a decent pace. The pace is going to start picking up and you're going to see in the best market, they will survive, but they're not gonna, they're not going to make the margins and the profitability and create the culture and the environment that, that they really should.

One thing to note too, in construction, right, is if you make a bad decision, you're not going to see it for 18 years. Right. It's not going to come home to roost for 18 months. And at the rate that you turn over, you know, estimator, if they're only there for two years, you know, they didn't learn enough and they, they're not there enough for internal data.

And if you're not really. Implementing or reapplying the data that you do have into your newer projects. You're not doing any, you're not learning anything, right? There's no previous historical knowledge that's being applied to the next project so that you can bid more effectively or staff it better or everything that goes into that project.

You're not taking everything that you've learned from past projects, the data, the information that you do have and spend some time. To do this. I get that. We run from fire to fire, fire project, to project, to project, to try to just keep up, keep pace, but far too often, you just, you never do anything with that data.

You just run to the next thing and this doesn't help you to move forward as a company. You need some people that are dedicated to. Thinking time to, you know, they might be a quote overhead position, but the amount of money that they're going to save you in the long-term, even if that's you, as the CEO, you need to be doing some thinking.

If you're an executive, you need to be like, not just in the weeds all the time, but, uh, to look forward and see what's next, right? Like everything Gareth is talking about, or you're been so many projects, there's a huge deficit, you know, there's going to be plenty of work for everybody else. To go after frankly, we don't have enough people to, to build the stuff that is in the pipe now.

So like, you know, projects aren't necessarily the problem. It's how are you going to effectively execute on them with the people that you do have, right. You're, you're fighting a war. It's not the word that you choose. It's, you know, the army that you're given. Right. And so you've got to learn to fight with the people that you do have into, you know, maybe you need to make some recruits, something outside of a typical construction.

Background so that you can, again, execute at a higher level and think differently than how we have been is the really, the whole point here in this show is the way you've done things has gotten you to this point to get you to the next thing to again, if you're bidding for projects a week, that's exponential growth in the number of projects out there.

I mean, you could just look at housing growth, the amount of commercial projects. So do that same to do the new level of build that we're going to be required as an industry. You can't do things that the way it used to right. To meet the new level of demand that this industry is dictating. The market is dictating right now.

So how are you going to do that? And I mean, you got to spend some time to think about it and then get the people to deliver on that new vision.

The only way to do this. Literally, as we're not going to be able to create, hopefully we'll be able to keep the flow of people coming into construction and that'll be great.

But if you look down right, 2020 was unprecedented, it give more construction owners, people in construction the most time within a year to be able to think pre-construction technology firms, the good ones never had better years. They all bought on. So they had time, they paused and they started. And they're gone, right?

Any invest knows attain. No that's grand. The best time to make a decision is today because the, see the basket, see the best companies that invested five or six years ago. Where do you see the growth that those companies have had? And I've seen it already this year. They are not going to out of the park.

It is incredible. They are. They've got they haven't they've they've, they've upscaled their, their pre-construction and estimating team very cleverly through 2020, but they've, they've. Can I locked onto the technology side and on both getting both right. It's like a rocket. It really is. And then you just got to find that the delivery guys in operations, but if you get it right, if you have the blueprint rate, the cost rate, the schedule, right.

Everything's right. Operations guys. Don't like me saying this, but it's a student job on site. It has a Steven job. I fight with them all the time. It is a steering job. If you get everything.

It is, you have to, you have to build the recipe before you can bake the cake. And the recipe formulating the recipe is the really difficult part in this.

And I get in the same arguments all the time as a pre-con guy. Uh, I'll tell my project managers that like, listen, it's easy when it gets to you. It's it's not simple. You know, you gotta, you gotta pay attention. You gotta be good at what you do. You gotta have your own nuances. The crazy hard work is all has to be done ahead of time or else you have no chance of success when you get there.

That's right. Yeah. And so, but with that, I want to kind of switch gears a little bit. You're in a unique position for guests on our show anyways, and that you're in the staffing industry. So you are, are probably clued into the pulse of the job market and the labor. Um, probably more than myself or Dylan, to be quite honest with you.

You know, we hear a lot, we talk about it a lot, but what do you see is the current climate of, of construction jobs in general? Are there, are there more applicants than there are positions or is it completely reversed as we hear all the time that there's there's empty jobs and no one thinks.

So, it's be honest with you, man.

My, my knowledge is purely pre-construction. I can't really talk for operations. Sure. But from what I'm seeing in pre-construction, there is so many jobs are there. I have never been busier. We've actually stopped taking clients on and jobs. And because we've just got too much, we're doing routine though.

So the clients have got to pay up front for us to, to buy our time, to fill up a position. I mean, these, these guys are Witten and ANC Delane touched on it earlier. The schedule Whitten, Nana.  Homogenize business and how many bad mistakes has been made. And there was nine months and the, and, and the, they won't pay.

They won't pay us a, a 25% fee for, for, for, uh, for those nine months. It is bananas. I just can't understand it. Um, and again, it's like the technology. If they're not willing to invest in technology, now they're going to be left behind. If they're not going to be able to invest in staff right now, you're going to be left way behind.

But it's, it's, it's crazy. I mean, we were busy. The smart companies were coming to us and they were saying, we need to hire higher strategic people. Now, obviously the demand and the quality that they were looking for last year was top-notch these guys weren't guys that were getting, let go that they were, they were really.

Getting changers. Um, and we got them in there last year, but this year 2021, it's like, I need, I need people on site. Um, cause they know how difficult it is. And as you say, the rest of the team are just getting burnt out. And the be honest with you, the more that the people that ring us up and say, I want to change jobs.

Why do you want to change jobs? Culture? It's just too much. I see my GC. They're just betting there, anything and everything. It's, it's spiraling out of control. We're not left with couple of estimators. We're not winning anything. I said, hoking up. We wanting anything. It's one of the best construction markets that's ever been.

I mean, the next 10 years, if you're not making money in the next 10 or 15 years as a construction owner, you may pack it. And no.

Why do you think they're trying to save a dollar to lose to.

Okay. Listen, it's, it's all different. It's all different. Eh, it's I mean, it's, uh, I work with the top five ours right down to the Walmart buyer and it's all, it's all subjective. You know, we've got internal bureaucracy, red tape trying to save someone.

And then you've got other guys that are just unbelievable to work with. Like the proper partners they condos. They asked us questions. We do more work for them. That we probably should do. I mean, it's not about just getting the right person it's about, they find out about salaries for their internal employees.

They find out about the market. They're constantly calling me up, going, listen, what's happening. I just had a guy he's got this much experience with just a way to make them an offer. Um, and I've gone too high. Am I going too low? Generally, they're going too low. Um, but I'm saying just, just pay him that extra 5,000.

I mean, he's, he's really going to come knock on for it. And six. Or 12 months or two years just pay him and then worry about it, but get them in, get them working, find a little bit more about them, then you'll be able to review it. And in 24, 24 months, whenever it comes to you and has changed your business or one year, 200 million worth of work, you know, um, But not the generally the people we work with are, are, are, are generally passive candidates.

So we do a lot of relocations. We relocate a lot of good, good people from, from, uh, from across the country that are, are moving for genuine reasons. It's all about the need for us. If somebody rings me up and says, I am on a hundred K and I'm looking for 120, and that's the only reason these were moving.

Don't do it go back and ask your boss for a pay raise. Um, it's not, it's not a good enough reason to, if he hasn't convinced his own boss to give him 120, then he's probably not worth it.

Yeah. I can see that two ways. Right? Like it's, uh, some owners are just stingy, uh, you know, and are willing to pay. And then, uh, because like you're saying like five grand, it's a lot to a person, right. The company on the other side of it, especially being in that estimating department is pennies. It's nothing.

And they're not willing to part with, you know, there again, they're trying to save a buck to lose.

Yeah, no. Then Delon, I listened w when you're in this state of may state of it, I mean, internally, I knew with my own staff, if I give the mole a 20 grand raise, then I been in better ballers. There is a happy medium there, but I think this is where long-term strategy and long-term decision making is so important.

You gotta be in it for 10, 15 years. Uh, I mean, I did a podcast with Wells center there that the VP of dining that rally of, of scan scan, he, they, they made the, the. It years ago about pre-construction data. They are so far ahead of it. Th they're actually there, technology's actually way ahead of the people that are coming in and two, they can't, there's no one else in the market doing what they want to do.

So like, they need to hire a pre-construction data engineer, but it doesn't exist. So they've got to train people up. So this is, this is how this is the evolution of pre-construction teams that I'm trying to prepare companies for. It's not just in your estimation. Pre-construction yeah. It's data engineers.

It's it's people constantly manipulating the data, updating the data, um, working with the data and making the pre-construction managers and the senior estimators do the stuff, the high touch stuff that they're really good at the value engineer and the client relationship architect. Um, the big changes that need to be made.

Absolutely Gareth. Where can they.

LinkedIn. Yeah, always on LinkedIn. Um, Gareth Midland, LinkedIn drop me a message. Drop me a call text. My numbers are all on there. Um, if you need anything, I always, I try and concentrate on the, the, the, the low end so that the, the, the guys that are in university or just at a university, especially for, for like advising them and just giving them a, uh, I kind of a black and white, uh, Rhonda and construction.

Um, but not anybody can get, get in touch with me. Drop me a message on LinkedIn.

Gareth, I'm going to throw one from complete left field here. Um, I'm glad you brought up your, your career in, uh, in soccer and football. Um, so this last weekend, my wife and I, and, and candidly, my three boys all watch green street hooligans again.

How accurate is that movie to the European football scene?

So in the, in the time that that was formed, probably probably 10 years previous to the time it was found, but don't know anything. Um, that's what was going to, uh, English football matches. Um, you didn't see any families, you didn't see any, it was meal 22 to 40, um, skinheads.

It was, it was, it was fun. It was fun. It was passionate. It was, uh, it was, it was proper cult stuff. Um, and listen, it's still there. It's great. But it's not as bad as that night. No. Okay.

Fair enough. Good.

I love it. Love it. Good show. Um, obviously dramatized a little bit, but of course you touched on a few things, but, um, yeah, the patients are unbelievable.

I mean, in England, that's why premierships is a bit, the best league in the world. It's a passion from the fans. I mean, we've saw it over the last 12, 14, 16 months with no fans. It's every sport with our fans is as useless that shouldn't exist.

Yeah. And the traditions, especially like both Trafford and some of those stadiums are, you know, amazing.

Um, unbelievable. And they, they did the right thing. They all upgraded their stadiums, what, during the, during the lockdown and they made good decisions, but, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm looking forward to getting back down feed.

Well, there's a, there's a couple of good, a football bars here in the Detroit area. So if you're making it this way, let me know.

We'll, we'll hook up and have a few pints and watch them.

Yeah, well, that, that, that was the whole idea of the pre-construction podcast was visiting all my clients and all the different cities. But obviously after about three episodes, it became a virtual, but I'll be back on the trail. So, uh, I'll definitely hit you up with her good

deal, Gareth.

I greatly appreciate the time and you coming on, man. It was good to talk to you again. Thank you.

Thanks, Martin. Him keep up the good work.

Yeah. Thank you, Gareth guys. I mean, we've covered a lot of stuff here today at Gareth. We'll probably have you back at some point to talk about staffing and, and really what is going on on the pre-construction world.

It's a huge part of it that I think, you know, as we talked about today is totally under realized under appreciated and frankly, undervalued and understaffed. So as we move forward through all this guys, it's again, it's talking to your. Compatriots to, you know, the different firms, the people in your seat, across companies, across the country.

And even, you know, in this day and age across the world, it's to learn what you can from, from others, not be afraid to share anything. Again, it's, there's no real secret sauce. Um, you know, your, your content is your content. We're all kind of doing the same thing. It's, you know, how you execute, what your systems and processes.

And as Gareth mentioned, it's culture, right? Can you work as a team? Is your team well, oil, well dialed in and can work effectively together. You know, you can have the best system and process in the world, but if nobody follows it, it really doesn't matter. So dial those things in, you know, share information, be willing to go out and find it.

Look for. Spend some time thinking, um, and really upping your game when it comes to all the tech side of everything is Gareth mentioned, uh, from data science to BDC, to BIM, you know, the whole gamut. You're going to need it moving forward. And especially with the volume of work, uh, that is really coming down the pike.

So with that guys, that's going to be this episode of the construction corner podcast until next time.

#138 – Owner’s Rep with David Carbajal

#138 – Owner’s Rep with David Carbajal

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the construction corner podcast. I'm Dylan, I'm your host. And we've got a great episode. Got a wonderful guest today. We're going to talk all about development before we intro our guests, Matt, my blue collar. Bad-ass how's it going?

It's going fantastic. Dylan, another busy week here in Southeastern Michigan.

And just because we talk about the damn weather, every show I'm going to do my quick update that, uh, right now, Michigan is absolutely not trying to disappoint. Uh, we've had two days in a row of nice sunshine. So just before we came live, I got the flash flood warning on my phone. So we are in for another, a downpour.

It seems like any minute,

if, uh, if we could ship your water to California, then I think we'd all be in or to the west in general, which is, you know, all on fire right now. I think we'd be doing really well,

but we should work on that

or even to Canada and put out all their fires, uh, Canada, Idaho, Oregon, California, and they're all burning right now.

All right guys, without further ado, I'd love to introduce our guest. David Carvalho. David is a developer been in construction for over a decade, just a ton of great and spirit experience and being an owner's rep and on the GC side and now kind of leading and doing his own, uh, development thing and getting into where he's, he's owning it and doing the projects themselves.

So I'd love to have David on and really from an owner's perspective on construction, what's going on in the industry, how we can improve. Uh, you know, now we've got all three, I think, sides of the table, uh, present in this conversation. So David, welcome to the show. Yeah.

I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me to the show.

Um, you know, Dylan and Matt and I have had several conversations, I think, you know, we always have to cut them short because we could go on and on about all the different topics. And we're all very passionate about each, you know, aspect of the industry that we deal with. Uh, I've been in and it's crazy, you know, I'm 34 years old, but I've been in construction in the industry for about 20 years.

Um, I started in high school. I elected to run with the technology of construction as my elective. I went to technology based high school. Um, so from there I went straight into college and got my degree in my bachelors in construction management and engineers. Um, from there, I worked and interned with a large national general contractor, um, total for about 10 to 12 years.

Um, you know, work my way from project engineer or from intern project engineer to project manager, to senior project manager. And then I went in kind of stepped up lateraled over to the owner side, uh, became a owner rep, um, for a. Nationwide developer that focused predominantly on hotels, uh, select service type hotels, uh, you know, going after that business traveler.

Um, although the past two, three years, uh, the focus had started to kind of evolve into the leisure travel market. We did some properties in Santa Monica, California. We've done some stuff, you know, heavily these past two years, like. And as of late, as Dylan mentioned, um, you know, I've taken, I've had a lot of experience and gone through a lot of different challenges, um, kind of adding up the total base of projects.

I've done it. It was coming up to about 800 million, um, you know, predominantly in new construction and I've got to learn so much, you know, getting into these big, very challenging. Uh, projects that I felt, you know, not only for travel, I have two young kids. Um, I have a son who's four years old and I just had a daughter.

She is now four months old and travel's tough, you know, and it's it's necessary in construction. Um, especially if you're working for a larger type corporate development company. Um, so I wanted to take things into my own hands and, and start to do my own projects. Um, I'm doing some residential. Uh, coming out here in Southern California, um, probably first quarter of next year, I'll be done with the first batch and I'm also doing some, some hotels up in the wine country.

You could call it. I know Dillon you're really in the wine country, but I'm out in Temecula, California. I'm working on some hotels out there. And, uh, yeah, so I've kind of taken the experience I've had and, and now I'm transitioning that into my own project. I'm also going to get, and I may be filling up my, my plate here too much, but I'll deal with it as it comes, but I am getting my GC license, um, within the next month.

And I'm going to, you know, paper GC or GC, some of these smaller homes, um, that I'm doing just to keep things in house and keep it tight. It helps a lot with the margins and control of product and, and whatnot. Yeah. I don't know if, uh, tried to go through it as quick as I could, um, there with my background and history, but, um, yeah, happy to be here.

Well, I'm going to jump right in. Cause that was a lot of, a lot of awesomeness to unpack there, David. Um, first of all, congrats on the new baby and, and that that's awesome. Um, I've got three kids in my own, so I, I know the feeling that same week, same with the travel man. I spent about seven, eight years traveling.

Upwards of five, six days a week. And it, it wears on you man, especially with a, with a young family. So I totally get where you're coming from on that side. Um, I will say too, you're kind of living the, the typical general contractor is dream, I think, right. You started off building for other people and now you're transitioning to, uh, to the owner side of the table, but now you're kind of getting back.

It sounds like to build and for yourself, Hell. Yeah. That's, that's what we're all shooting for in some capacity. So it, it sounds really great,

man. Yeah. And you know, it's interesting too, because like you said, I started as a general contractor and then I went to the owner side, hiring the general contractor, and now I need to go back to the general contractor roots and kind of re-remember what I learned or from.

Uh, to be both a good general contractor and a good owner, because there are definitely such things as, and I've learned this as a bad owner. Um, you know, when you're indecisive, when you keep changing your mind, I mean, it's just costing tons of time and tons of money on every project. So it's very important to me, um, just to realize that right out front and not to drive our consultants crazy as I'm sure Dylan.

You know, like changes that, you know, aren't easy for the owner to understand most of the time and are very frustrating when, you know, they think it can happen overnight.

Yeah.

Yeah. And in there, like it's, I think more, it comes down to education, right? Most owners haven't been through enough projects, you know, for the most part, right.

Owners are, they've done a few. Unless they've been in this for a game for a while. They haven't gone through enough processes to know what they don't know, right. To know those pitfalls, to know what, what needs to be done when decide design decisions need to be made. What is truly a change order? What's not, what's going to cost them, you know, time and money or what's not.

And I think it's, you know, I wish more owners were, uh, more educated in the process and I know they don't need to know everything. But having a, typically a better understanding of, uh, key design decisions will help the process. And I think that's for, for all owners, that's probably one of the biggest things that I just continued to see was, you know, they're, they're more tied up in the financing side of it and the money end of it.

And when's this thing going to open than like, oh, what do you, what do you mean? I need to decide on pink color or, you know, something. What could be seemingly innocuous to them, but holds up a lot of other pieces of the puzzle.

Yeah, no, exactly. And it's, uh, you know, it's one thing conceptually to say, but to actually implement it, like in the homes that I'm doing now, it's you have to reground yourself and actually do it.

Cause it, it, it makes so much sense. Like, oh no, these design decisions need to be made, you know, today as you're getting into, you know, the development of your. But to actually, Hey, wait a minute. Like, I know this thing, I gotta do it. You know, like I can't just talk what, um, you know, talk about it and do it.

And, uh, it's been fun. You know, another cool thing is that I've gotten my wife involved in the homes that we're doing, and it's something we've always talked about doing and having her she's always loved design and she's very creative. She went to USC film school and, um, you know, so she has like a very creative eye and it's been nice.

Get her to, you know, partake in the whole development of the plans. And, you know, I'm looking really looking forward to getting into these, but she helps me, you know, cause I'd preached to her. Like we need to get all this, you know, this the, I guess the layout all squared away and not make any changes late.

And then she's like, well, we better make sure we look at these, you know, conceptual plans, you know, with the fine tooth comb and get it. So I was like, oh, you're right. I got to walk the walk. Right. You know, not just talking conceptually understand it.

That's cool. You're bringing your wife and it's gotta be fun for both of you.

Um, and it's gotta be helpful to. To you, especially because construction as an industry is one of the highest stress industries out there. Right. And you're all of a sudden playing two sides of the table. So you've got like double the stress already. So, uh, having, uh, having somebody you're close with as your partner, like that has got to kind of help alleviate some of that.

At least at least you can vent back and forth to each other and, and know what each other's talking. Yeah. Not just like the angry GCU comes home and screams and yells for two hours about his day that no one else in the house even has a concept of what I'm talking about.

Yeah. The, or holding in all the stress, you know, and not trying to bring it home.

And for sure, eventually it ends up coming out in another way. So, yeah. And, uh, so far so good, I'm sure we'll, you know, increase our communication skills as the project progresses, but I'm excited and looking forward to it.

So in that, David, I mean, like you played, you know, two

real quick, you mentioned it. Oh, go ahead now. You're good.

Can you hear me? All right. Go for it, Matt. Great internet connection here today. So I wanted to touch on, on the GC license that, that you're working on. David. You know, we, we kind of talked before offline about this a bit, but in Michigan, there is no commercial level general contractors license period, which is bizarre to me.

Um, but, but kind of walk us through what the steps are. Cause I know in California, especially it's a, it's a pretty drawn out process, isn't it? Oh

yeah. I started the process four months ago, you know? Planning ahead and knowing that I was going to make this transition and it was imminently happening. Um, and I know exactly when it's happened.

Um, but I'm happy that I started in March. I believe, um, you know, getting the application submitted and, you know, it's just been a lot of back and forth and it's, it's, it's taken a long time. The application is, is pretty cumbersome itself. Um, asks for a lot of background. Um, kind of your history and experience and really what the board looks for is the guy that was swinging the hammer was a framer and apprentice.

And so it's a lot more challenging to get it, having the education, um, kind of background, you know, as project manager, um, hiring the guys that you know, are doing the physical labor. Um, so I had to walk through that. Uh, they had a couple of comments back and that takes another month. If they have a round of comments to get them back to you and then you resubmit them and then take some another two weeks to look at them.

So I had to, um, not massage as much. So to say it a little different word is be more descriptive as to what I've done. Um, you know, quality control over a lot of these trades. So I had to be specific on to, you know, An example, if they wanted more examples, um, some more references. So finally I got through that and then, uh, before I submitted the application, I went through a school and so they checked the actual name of the company and it needs to be aligned with the type of license you're getting.

Um, so for me, it's general building is what I'm going for. And so I, you know, the last portion of my name. Had development. And they said that that was fine. The school did. Then I got back word from the board and they're like, oh no, you need to be more specific. Um, you know, that's not going to fly. And in the front of my name, I had a steel rock was the name.

And that they're like all, you're not going to be a steel contractor. So, so I had to do a DBA, you know, resubmit. So it's been a very long drawn out process, I guess, is what I'm getting at. And now my test, it took another month after they finally approved it to give me a test. Uh, my test is in three weeks from now.

And a lot of it for me is just, you know, going through and refreshing kind of what I've learned. Um, you know, from the education side on, you know, all the codes, basic codes, you need to know a little bit of everything, um, which is good. Um, I'm actually happy that they don't just pass out licenses here. Um, You know, so it's been tough, but I have my test in three weeks and then, um, you have to pass with like 80% or higher, and then four to six weeks after that they'll issue your license.

So right now, for me, I'm like, I'm chasing the, the groundbreaking of these first three homes that I'm building, you know? So we'll see, we'll see where it ends up, but I'm pushing it.

So are you thinking. Shoved into a spot where you have to hire another GC at least temporarily, or, or is that an option?

Or I can do it as a, uh, owner builder.

Okay. So maybe my wife can get, you know, pull one permit as an owner builder. I could pull another one and I could find a buddy or my business partner. Who's actually doing this with me to do it. Um, but then you need to transfer it over. It would get a little more complicated. Um, but we'll make it work regardless.

We're building as quick as we can. That's the. There you go, non-stop, we're going to figure it out.

That's the only way to go in this industry. Just keep charging forward.

Yeah. You know, you, it's so true and you need to have, and this is something I've always learned and been taught and it's kind of ingrained in me is to have that sense of urgency.

Like you should have, you know, a week before you're done on day one at the beginning. And it's hard to do because it's easy to coast through the design phase and kind of think you, oh, you got plenty of time. It's like, no, You know, let's build up that urgency upfront. That way. It's a constant sense of urgency as opposed to going crazy, which it's going to be towards the end, no matter what, but it's just, you'll have a much more successful project.

If you can really let that urgency sink in and take action. Like it's date, you know, a week from opening, opening completion, CBO for house.

Okay.

Yeah. And that urgency too is going to serve you in that. You're probably going to make more concrete design decisions upfront that aren't going to hopefully buy you in the, like on the backside, right. Where a lot of things get slid or not looked at, not cared about upfront. And that usually bites everybody in change orders and delays and cost implications.

Schedule. And, you know, like you guys are saying for a lot of projects, it's, you know, you keep moving as much as you can. And a lot of it just needs to get now you're going to deal with a lot of paperwork backend to unwind the deals or structure them differently in your case for how you're building them, how you're moving forward, you know, and this is a big thing on the owner and developer side is how.

Paper to what are the structures, uh, that go into the deals that I think a lot of people just don't know, right. Aren't aware of that. There's, you know, a lot of entity structures or financing structures that have to get done or that they brought investors on how all that works on the, on putting a deal together, uh, versus, you know, just strictly than design side or strictly as a contract.

You know, where somebody's paying for something somewhere, how that all comes together. Uh, isn't always clear and that's know, we don't need to know, but it's always interesting to see how many different entities or paperwork goes in the under side.

Absolutely. Right. And I mean, you're the source, you're where the money's coming from now.

And I've had experience in that. Kind of different levels. Um, but I've always worked for somebody who sources the funds, you know? And so I have learned, you know, an enormous amount on the financing side and deal structure and, you know, kind of where that cashflow comes from, how we're going to get the construction loans.

Um, like you said, that's all, you know, the best way to learn is for me, has been to do it. Um, And then on the designer side, since I was doing like $50 million projects, we would always have the luxury of having, you know, the best architect, the best engineers, a level of people. And not to say that the guys I'm using aren't a people, but it's, it's, it's kind of taking a step down.

I don't, it sounds bad saying, taking a step down, but simplifying the design. You know, maybe using a track home that was already done and it has been approved and, you know, embellishing it a little bit and reusing it. Your plans are done. I mean, it's a lot different than, you know, a brand new 220 room hotel that starts from, you know, SDS the DDS and big long two year evolution of plan development, um, for a small single family home.

So I've had. It's hard unless not be as, uh, I guess lowered the bar. It sounds horrible saying that. Um, but it simplifying, I guess, is the better word on, on that whole design process.

And that makes sense. And I, I think it's just a different level of sophistication right. Of, of the partners you're teaming up with.

And it's probably w I know it is cause I've done it. It's the same with the, with the subs, with your trades too. It takes a. A different level of carpenter to go build a $50 million hotel than it does to build a 2000 square foot home. And it's, that's, that's part of the, the joy and the beauty and the headache of, of doing what we do.

Right. You gotta be able to make teams based on what your end goal is. And, and those teams are always going to be different depending on which way you're running.

Yeah. And that doesn't mean you can't. You know, uh, uh, let's call them a less sophisticated team and then bring them up to where you were expecting and bridge that gap to where now you have the best, you know, most aligned lean team to build your homes.

I mean, so it's going to be good. It'll be interesting. I just have to remind myself to, you know, let's, let's train people to bridge that gap from what I was used to, to, you know, what I need to, I guess, get used to.

Yeah. And once you've built that team and you, and you build your new guys up to your level, don't ever let them go, man.

Cause you guys will take over the world at that point. You're, you're unstoppable once you all are aligned

like that. No. And that's, you know, that's the plan and I think, uh, you know, Dylan, I think one thing you guys like to talk about all the time is, you know, how can we improve the industry? And that that's kind of something that, you know, I've gone through some bad job sites or bad job site.

Where it's one bad apple kind of poisons the whole bunch. Um, you know, I've, I've gone through experiences where we didn't pull the weed out and it, you know, kind of infested the entire garden and what I want to do. And I'm going to try to implement this on the hotel. It's a boutique hotel that I'm going to be managing, um, is that changed the culture of it, you know, on the job.

And figure out what motivates, you know, let's, I don't think we could get to the labor level. Um, but we may be able to get to like the supervisor level, find out what they're after, what motivates them, what gets them going, you know, and try to build a better communication on the job site, you know, just create a job site in an environment that.

Companies want to get to, and they want to work on your projects and you're not trying to hunt and chase for scrap for bidders. You know, they're waiting in line to try to get on your job site. So it sounds a little pipe dream in a way sometimes because if you speak to older people in the industry, they're a bit scarred.

Um, and they're like, you're crazy. You know, this, this is the way you have to do things. This is the way it is. But I don't know. I guess I have this. Vision and hope that somehow we can change the culture in construction of it.

Well, congratulations, because you just summarized like the last seven months of this podcast in about two and a half minutes, there that's, there is a way to change this industry and to, to boost culture, to boost profits all at the same time.

And it's it's happening. Whether people want to admit it or not. It takes a lot of work, but what we can't preach enough about it on the show and outside of, outside of the podcast in our real lives too.

Yeah. I mean, why not? You know, everybody on the project team who's swinging the hammer. I mean, that's where the real work comes in.

All the guys that are busting their butt out there all day, you know, if we could figure out how to get them excited to get up and go work and to get to this job site where everyone respects each other. You know, and it's, it'll it'll have growing pains, but somebody we gotta try. Right. I mean, and, and I, I feel like I'll, I am in a position to where I can almost force some of that, you know, on the job site, being the owner developer and the GC, um, you know, making it a requirement.

Like if you have a bad attitude, get the heck off my job.

Yeah, and it, I mean, it starts with culture. It starts with giving a shit about people in general, and then, you know, it just bleeds into everything else. And if you care about the superintendents, the project managers, the foreman of, you know, all the subs, things go a lot better.

You know, those are been the best jobs that I've been on is when people had a mutual respect for everything. Everybody was doing right where I respected foreman and what, what they were doing and leading their teams. And, you know, they had respect for what I did and my role. And if we could come to the table there, you know, everything just moved so much better moving forward.

And I think, I mean, it starts with culture. And then to your earlier point too, it's, you know, like residential is not equal to commercial, right? There's a, there's a gap between those two things. And just, you know, the complexity, the build quality and a lot of them. And I think, you know, a lot of people have a hard time making the jump, you know, one way or the other, uh, between the two.

And I think that's going to be probably your biggest challenge is going between a commercial hotel build and a house build in the same week in like, oh wait, we this, you know, the things don't have to be, they're not the same. Right. It's a completely new. Build type. And, uh, that'll probably be one of your biggest challenges here moving forward is like going to the hotel build and like things need to be here in the house build, you know, things don't quite need to be

there.

No, it is. That's going to be the biggest adjustment and, you know, aligning my expectations with reality really is what it's going to be. Um, because it's just not going to require the same sophistication, but at the same time, you know, Go into it, thinking that, and then set yourself up for disaster, you know, and kind of underestimate what really needs to be done on that job.

Go ahead. And that, I was just gonna agree with you. I mean, you, you don't want to dumb it down and, and risk, you know, keeping your feet in the fire for too long. Cause. If you can find that, that secret sauce where you build the culture on your job site and you have that same culture permeate from your residential to your commercial and, and back again, I honestly think you can build an unstoppable force in this industry at that point.

Yeah. And ideally it's, you know, picking some of the, the team members from the commercial stuff to do the rest. And eventually that's my plan is I'll have, you know, a larger commercial project going and, you know, staggered, I'll have some residential stuff going on the side and I can use the same team members that have the same culture and they're aligned with, you know, what we're going after and trying to do, um, to almost work on the homes on this.

Yeah. And you know, the subs will appreciate it as long as you keep them busy and you've got work constantly stacked. They've got they, they won't have a reason to go anywhere

else. No, exactly. And, you know, in addition to just the, the sub-trades, it would be great. And it, I think it's a, uh, topic to bring up, uh, with Dylan here to get the consultants.

And on the same page, because I'll tell you guys, and I'm sure you've had experience with it, but in owner meetings, subcontractor meetings, it's always constantly somebody didn't do something because of somebody else, you know, most of the time it's because the GC and the architect, you know, keep pointing the finger back and forth.

It's just constant blame 24 7. And it's like, it's very difficult, you know, to. To bridge that the only way to do it. And I've found it very effective is to throw them in the same room, go RFI by RFI or whatever. However you want to do it. And just force the communication as an owner or an owner rep you know, trying to get them to talk it's as simple sometimes as just getting on the same line with them or forcing them to be on the same line, you can make the intro and say, Hey guys, go through the list and you just have to say.

You know, you know, you interject when they can't decide on something, but you have to sit there and force people to coordinate and communicate. And I think, you know, that's, that's what, everything though. I mean, it, it, it starts with architect and general contractor. And you could say the same thing between subs and trades.

I mean, you could say the same thing between, you know, once you're done with the project, the operating side and the general contract. You know, there's so much it's communication. That's the biggest thing on any job, any job site, um, a big thing that I've, um, you know, pretty stringent on is having weekly meetings.

Um, no matter what stage of the project, the project's in, um, even if it's saying hi, you know, getting it baked in at the beginning of a job, once you have your team set up to just touch on. Every single week, even if not much happened, I mean, you know, just make it a habit and instill that in your team. And, uh, it's very effective.

Yeah. And keep those meetings short and sweet, you know, if they need to be don't don't belabor points that don't need to be belabored. And I mean, you're right. Like having everybody on the same page at the beginning, having the architect, the GC. Uh, all aligned, but it's also, like you said earlier, if there's a bad apple on either side, like they've got to go, cause I've seen it both ways where, you know, some architect is egotistical and it's his way or the highway.

And then that stalls everything. I've seen it happen on the GC side and they throw everything over the fence to the way. Nothing ever moves, no one can make a decision. You know, they're just trying to shed liability and responsibility, really responsibility or doing anything like, so I've seen it on both sides of the table, you know, whether anyone will ever admit that that's a whole different story, but if we can come to the table upfront and.

You know, to shed those bad apples, like, Hey, I don't want this guy on my job. Like, you know, as, as you owner, you can do that, right? Like the rest of us don't have that, uh, maybe luxury. But I think that's where it all starts is, you know, mutual respect for what everybody has to do, what your role is. And then, you know, here's what I need to move forward.

And just have like a real conversation. I know this is like a hard thing for a lot of people to, to come to, but at the end of the day, that's what needs to happen is, you know, here's what need to move forward. Here's what you need to do. Yeah.

It's mutually beneficial to both parties. I mean, if somebody doesn't want to be there, they shouldn't be there.

Yeah. I mean, right. If they're bitter and say. Go find somewhere else to do that. Or, you know, you're not enjoying what you're doing, buddy. Get out of here and they're

stuck. I mean, it's golden handcuffs of some sort and there they're stuck

as sad as that is. I mean,

it's absolutely real. I mean, I know it is because you know, a lot of older superintendents are. Executive project map. I mean, like they own part of the company and they they're tied to that company or else they're going to lose their, you know, the, the equity they have in that company, if they leave.

And it's a real thing, like some would consider it smarter from a, you know, a business standpoint. Um, but on a personal level, They're stuck. And so that it, um, you know, it'd be interesting to see how that impacts performance and, you know, the, an image of a company throughout time. I don't know if there's there probably isn't a way to connect.

That seems like a very thorough investigative, uh, project, but

yeah, at least not for privately owned, but I mean, so moving kind of forward through, through time, you know, There's obviously a lot. We can improve communication being like a core, core thing for it, but what else are you seeing out there? You know, having been involved in, uh, now, now some small projects and some, uh, past, you know, really big developments that, that have really big timelines, but what are you seeing as the thing that really needs to be unlocked or push forward, uh, through the industry to really help us all, you know, not just culture and communication, but what else can help us?

Yeah, build better.

So what I've and I always have wild thoughts, but honestly, on a $50 million job, there's probably about 50% of the management involved in that project. That's unnecessary really when it comes down to it and it's just there to CYA cover everyone's ass and it's, uh, it's sad because. You know, everyone's following up with these emails, that email threatening via email, instead of picking up the phone or, you know, getting on a conference line and it's, it's so wasteful and these, you know, these upper level managers are, I mean, they're not cheap.

I mean, it's, there's so much waste and you know, that of course relates to time as well. I mean, all of that wasted. Effort and manpower, you know, relates to costs additional costs and additional time. So I don't know if there's a way, but if you can get, because the real, and I, let me, let me kind of back up here.

I always think that the best and one of my mentors who was awesome, I mean, amazing project manager taught me this and it's that the, the formula for a successful project is a good plan. Plus a competent team and both of that's multiplied by desire. And if you have that equation in any type of project, it's going to be successful.

Now, a good plan. You can hire a good superintendent or come up with a great plan, um, a competent team. You can also pay for it and hired a great team, but it's the desire aspect that I think is the most elusive and challenging to nail. So I was thinking that, so how do you create, or get max effort from all players or companies that are involved in a project and most people, uh, you know, get motivated by, you know, financial, you know, motivation.

So if there's a way to tie the, you know, the biggest contractors that are involved in the project or have the most. To the equity of a project and get them in, on both the additional expenses or the profit, you know, on completing sooner or, you know, finishing the project on time, under budget. Then that seems to me like it would, it would lean things up and your framework or your electrician and your MEP trades.

They're going to care if the guys aren't coordinating down there on the lower. Because at the end of the day, their ownership has an equity stake in the deal. And so now it's probably very complicated on how that would be structured. Um, but I think that that's something that eventually here I want to try out and it would be good to try it out, you know, maybe on a smaller build or ho you know, hotel, maybe $5 million project or something.

Um, but I think it would work.

I love the idea, you know, and, and candidly, we do a lot with shared savings clauses between us and the ownership group. Right. And it's the same idea. If we finish ahead of schedule or under budget, we take some of that savings and pass it on back to the owner, or sometimes all of it, but I've never really considered the idea of going their direction and they.

Not considering that it's pretty short-sighted of me. I don't know how it looks contractually. I think you're right. It gets probably a lot of paperwork involved, but once you figure out that, that calculation, that, that, uh, you know, that recipe for the cake, that could be really, really powerful.

Yeah. No, I mean, it's, I don't see how wouldn't work.

If you could figure you'd have to get, um, maybe a subcontractor who's younger kind of up and coming, coming. Maybe, I don't know. And just build that team and build, you know, get ahold of the owners of those companies and say, Hey guys, you know, this is the deal. This is how much equity we need, you know, to make the deal happen.

Are you guys in? And I mean, there's, there's ownership right there because nobody else, and I've seen it. They don't care about the product or the project like you do. And I don't want to say everybody, but, but most people who are out there. Out there just to, you know, get their time in and do their work and go home.

But at the end of the day, they, if the opening slips a month or two, I mean, they're still getting paid, what they pay for. Right.

You can almost

consultants and the consultants, you know, and again, I don't know what the percentages are. I don't know how, but get the architect and the engineers and everybody to buy into.

So that they're pushing and answering our fives. And this is going to delay us guys. Everyone's going to jump on it as opposed to, while I'll get to, you know, my list of other delays or other projects. I don't know. It sounds, uh, again, it'd be very complicated on the contractual side and how to structure it.

Um, but it'd be an interesting test and I think it would work.

Well, I think we've seen it work in the past in some of the really big ass construction and development firms, where they have all of that. They have the architecture and engineering. They have all those self-performed trades and management all under one roof.

But what you just crack the code too, I think, was, was taking that giant monster and figuring out a way to shrink it down to a, a scalable or a D scalable size. So it works for. What are normal projects to guys like me and Dylan and yourself, you know, that that's a wonderful idea. And if there's attorneys listening who have ideas on how to structure this thing, put it in the comments because I think David just stumbled upon something great.

And it'll work. I really believe that it will work. And, uh, T to the point where you have subcontractors waiting in line to get on your next.

Yeah, the thing, the only thing that I can think of too is you do it at the ownership level. That's one piece and they can push the teams to make everything go. But what I have seen at least from the design side is it doesn't matter like how good or bad we do on this project. None of it's coming to the design team.

Anyway, it might go to owners. But then it doesn't trickle down. So in that you've got to align with companies that have the culture of profit sharing and like all that other stuff. So that performing better on a project does go through everybody in the same with subs and everybody else. I like, yeah, I can bust my ass, but am I going to see a slice of this, you know, all the way down the chain.

I think that. Uh, you've got to partner with and, and do those deals with companies that share that same culture because while the ownership group might get it, it's, you know, are the, is the ownership group treating everybody down the rest of the team in a way that like the team wants to bust their ass?

The team wants to do a good job because they know that they're going to get something on the other side of it. And the culture is fun and enjoying and like, you know, a great place to be. Beating everybody on, you know, move faster, do better, uh, type of no,

you're absolutely right. Dylan and I actually ran into a similar instance on a project I did where, you know, we were incentivizing the general contractor.

If they complete the project a month earlier or whatever, they're going to get 50 grand of bonus. And. It was, we had to make sure that that bonus went to the project team. And if they weren't willing to guarantee that, then we said they don't get the bonus. We really did it. And it worked because you know, the people on the team, one guy was young.

He was going to get married. This other guy had his second child. Like they were motivated to get that bonus. And that's who you need motivated, but you're exactly right. That executive who checks in on the project once in a while and got the 50 gets the $50,000 bonus. And these guys see maybe, you know, if anything, five grand or if they have a company policy where they don't give bonuses, you know, you have to make sure it's a, that's a great point.

You have to make sure that it's the actual team who's on that project that, that sees, you know, the bonus and the profit.

So how'd you go about that in that example, you just said, was it a contractual thing or was it just a handshake and we're going to hold you to the fire if you

don't. No, we got it in writing.

We did almost like a letter of intent, you know, or an agreement. Um, and they did it and they were like, well, this isn't company policy, you know, other guys on other projects, it's like, well then nobody gets a bonus. You know, like it's our money? Like, what are you. They went with it and it worked, you know, they finished early.

I love

it.

Where do you see the industry heading? You know, what do you, what do you see next for construction? Yeah, obviously it's a big deal,

but yeah, this, this would change a lot of things. I think as far as the culture aspect of things or the desire, getting the desired ramped up on prep. But I'm very interested in, and I need to spend some more time learning more and more about it, but, you know, 3d printed homes.

Um, I mean, to me, there's like zero waste. I don't know about zero, but a lot less waste. Um, really environmentally friendly, um, time is ridiculously say. Um, of course it's going to have its new challenges and a lot of municipalities and jurisdictions are going to take forever to actually adapt it or adopt it just because they're very antiquated and, and the way that they do their codes and reviewed that takes forever.

Um, but there are some progressive, you know, cities out there, municipalities, or, you know, maybe if you go far out in the desert, Um, they'd allow it if it's on a, you know, unincorporated area of land. Um, but I think there's a lot of upside on that. Um, so that's, that's very interesting to me and I, uh, I know they're doing some projects out in the high desert, um, out here in California where they're doing 3d printed, modular home.

Um, they haven't got to the on-site stuff yet that I've seen, um, out here, I know they're doing kind of some hybrid projects, some stuff in New York. I saw some stuff in Tennessee, um, where they're doing like the superstructure of 3d printed, um, materials, and then they do stick frame above. Um, but yeah, I, I like that.

I think it's, uh, it's cool.

Yeah. From a structural standpoint. You know, like you can't get the whole lot better than, uh, you know, things that are glued together and done at a fairly molecular level. Like it's pretty, pretty amazing what, uh, 3d printed stuff can do where I see the biggest, uh, problem or challenge overcome in there is with the trades, you know, Uh, HPAC or electrical in the walls.

How do you, uh, do some of those pieces, I think is the biggest thing to overcome and it's probably just in the setup, uh, of it, right. To slip, conduit down a wall, and now you're punching out concrete for back boxes and, and things like that. Um, I think is some of the bigger challenges, but from a structural standpoint, even installation, I think, you know, it can, it can get there with concrete.

Um, and then. Is that the material that you want, that's never going to go away, survive a nuclear blast type of structure in the middle of the desert. That's a, you know, I've been impenetrable to fire and everything else, but now to, to demolish it, you think of a full life cycle. What's the other side of that look like, and, and that I, I have no.

So I, we got to keep this building to last and not to make it easy to tear down someday. Right.

David, where can they reach you?

Uh, you guys can, anybody can reach me on Instagram. Um, mostly, uh, David M Carbajal is, uh, my username is pretty simple and, uh, yeah, anybody has questions or Mustangs. Always happy to, I, I love conversations like this.

I'm not kidding guys. You know, Matt, Dylan, and I, we have to, I have to force myself to hang up the phone to get back to work. Um, because there's a lot, I mean, we all have passion behind what we're doing and, and it's fun. It's fun that way. And you have to have that passion in our industry because it's very stressful.

And if you let every hurdle or hiccup or anything kind of weigh you down and mess up your day, or you're not going to go very far, fortunately. Yeah, you got to go with it and deal with it. And so yeah, you guys can reach me there.

Awesome, David, I appreciate it, man. I appreciate you coming on and having a chat with us and it's fun as usual.

Yep. Likewise guys,

I guys, we, uh, we covered a lot of ground today, David. Thank you for coming on for given the insight from the owner's perspective. I think you're the first owner that we've had on the. So it's always great. Getting another, another perspective, another way to, to cut things up. And guys, if you, uh, if you implement this, uh, shared savings profits split and it works, uh, we'd love to see those contracts, you know, like if you've been a long time listener, I harp on contracts pretty much continuously because I think it is the one thing that holds a lot of us back in, you know, what's in our contracts or not knowing what's in our contracts or even just how they're struggling.

Uh, it's a big thing with any industry. And what David brought up today is a, is a huge deal, big thing for the industry. And then just know there's a lot of tech moving forward, right? Whether it's 3d printing them. Uh, some of the things that we've talked about in other episodes about, uh, just embedded devices and all this management stuff that we can use moving forward.

So again, construction is a big. The industry. There's a lot of room for everybody, you know, from, from residential and building houses to hotels, to, you know, big 50 and a hundred million dollar developments. So again, David, thank you so much for coming on. And, uh, guys that is this episode of the construction corner podcast until next time.

#137 – Data Management with Slater Latour of Newforma

#137 – Data Management with Slater Latour of Newforma

Hello, and welcome to a, another episode of the construction quarter podcast. I'm Dylan, I'm your host. And before we get into announcing our special guests for today, Matt it's, uh, it's been hot here in Michigan. We are in Michigan, Michigan, California. We've uh, we have some rain. It's just a bunch of other crazy like weather stuff, but for construction, how has, how have your job sites been there?

Uh, it's been miserable. We've had the first four day stretch in a row that we could work for. I think about a month now. Uh, it's actually been dry this week until the other night we got about a 20 minute storm, 20 minutes dropped two inches of rain. So it souped everything back up. But, uh, after this weekend it's saying it's dry again.

So construction moves on, you know, we, we wait for.

Yeah. If, if anything you get, uh, you get it done while you can and get under roof as soon as

possible. Yes, it cannot come fast enough.

All right guys, uh, with our little like weather update, I think it was what the first, uh, two minutes it turned into for us is, uh, like to introduce our, our special guests for today.

Uh, slitter Latour is the chief marketing and product officer at Newforma. Many of you guys probably know who new format is. Uh, there, you know, in project information management, basically all your documents, mills, uh, transfers, all that kind of stuff. Uh, for aid industry, you know, you can use ACO, but like before it has been around for a long time, they're like the OGN document.

Right? Um, and really to help just information management, communication, all that kind of stuff for all types of projects, many of you have probably used it. They've been around forever. Um, and just a great solution. And Slater's portion of this whole, uh, beast that is new forma is marketing product management and development teams, uh, there at new forma, which, you know, All business stuff and email management, integration of apps and productivity, basically it jack-of-all-trades when it comes to product.

And I think that's a big probably why definition of products, but Slater, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me

excited to be here.

So as we kind of like talked about a little bit here before the show, What and how did you get your start? I want to say construction, but

sure. Yeah. So, um, it was a, I started a year ago in June, so I've, I've been at Newforma for a little bit over a year.

Um, and it's funny how things happen. It's definitely the first job I've taken where, uh, it being COVID. Uh, entire interview process, um, into a very relatively senior role without ever having met anyone else on the team or anyone on the teams that I was going to be expected to manage, uh, which was in and of itself a major challenge.

Um, uh, and so, so now having been there for over a year, I mean, that's, this is my first foray into the, any time. You know, for exposure to construction the construction industry, especially at the scale that our, our core customer base is dealing with, you know, maybe had been exposed to some residential construction in the past if you're building a home, but it's a whole other beast when you're talking about some of our customers that build stadiums, that build airports.

And so the, you know, after a year, I think I know enough to be, to be dangerous and, and, and, you know, there's, there's parallels all over the place. Cause my background is largely. Was largely in, in wealth management technology and financial technology, but in that industry as well, very forms driven, very documents driven, and that, you know, that it's getting exposed to that.

And that whole belt, that whole transition from actual paper forms getting faxed or mailed to, oh, you know, You already have all this data somewhere. Why don't you just pre-populate it it's, you know, three times as fast, a lot of that transformation is, is relevant in, in the work that we're doing in terms of innovation.

So that's always been interesting when you come from one vertical to another and see that a lot of the same problems, uh, exist, uh, regardless of unrelated, those two things might seem, uh, from the outset, but yeah, it's, uh, it's been great. I've enjoyed a good deal.

But that's good to hear that we're not the only industry that's, that's screwed up and lacking.

I didn't say it like that.

We'll say it for you.

So I guess I'll jump in, um, being kind of new to the, the AEC world as you are. Uh, what are you enjoying about it? The most, obviously you're on, on the sales and marketing. Uh, but, but what are you seeing in the industry that's kind of sparked

your interest? Well, I guess, I mean, yeah, it's a, that's a multi-layered question.

I'd say like that. One of the coolest things is, is coming from a software background and having it largely be abstract versus. In terms of what the customers are doing to coming in and, and, you know, we start meetings and we'll, and we'll look at a project that one of our customers looked, um, and just seeing just, you know, the imagination, it took the scale, the number of years of commitment, the vast number of people that had to be involved in, in the variety of specialization to actually deliver an airport that can.

People all over the world, millions of people every year. Like that's cool to, to see that, you know, even, even though what we do is, is such a tiny part of that, such a tiny part of that. That's, that's a really cool and interesting thing to be a part of and something that, you know, we try to never lose sight of this.

Um, In terms of the, like the more granular, what do we enjoy about it? It's it's, you know, I think there's a lot of opportunity in this space to, to make the workflows more efficient, to make sure that you're not running into communications problems to making sure that everyone's working from the right versions of documents.

That everyone is on the same page in terms of changes to the project that were dictated by a change in design or by a change in the conditions on the ground. Um, I think there's a lot of opportunities to improve the synchronization. Um, and, and that's, you know, something where we really dive into

that's a good

answer.

Yeah. I mean, from, from my experience, And coming into construction, like, as I did, you know, I came from electrical safety, it was kind of my first job. So I got to go into all types of facilities from like steel to plants, to, you know, grain elevators, chemical plants, you know, like the whole. Like manufacturing base that is most all of the Midwest.

And even like Southern stuff, Pennsylvania, like there's a lot of manufacturing that's hidden in nooks and crannies that we just don't know about. And then going into construction where like the documents I delivered were like a 60 page, you know, eight and a half by 11 PDF. Right. And then you go into construction and it's, you know, a hundred, 200 sheets set thousand sheets set of a 30 by 42.

Right. So, uh, you know, Forex in scale drawing or six X and scale drawing, you know, thousands of pixels and then to compress all that data and send it in drawings alone, not to mention the like 2000 page spec book that no one ever reads, uh, along with all those drawings. Like, it's just a lot of stuff that, yeah.

Your arms around. And I think a lot of people always lose sight of like how much data we generate as an industry that gets, you know,

and, and, and, you know, it's conceived so mundane, right? To, to think about, you know, we're literally going to take an empty. Space and turn it into something highly functional and beautiful.

And, but, oh, how do we figure out, like, I can't email this it's too big and that's a major challenge in getting this, you know, massive thing deliberated where there's nothing now. It's kind of fun. It almost seems like that's like, how could that be a thing that pops up and gets in the way of this project getting done?

Like it should be, I don't know, like the, the ground giving out or the rain, it shouldn't be that the PDF was too big, but it is. And, and, you know, if people don't have the right versions of things to work from in the field, um, that, you know, think of the cost delay in, in, in, in that.

Oh, it could be catastrophic and it often is.

Yeah. Um, so yeah, it's um, it's, it's, it's been very interesting to see. You know, the other thing that I don't think people outside of the industry appreciate is just how structured when you're dealing. Like you think like, you know, if you've ever had someone to come work on your house and you just have, like, the contractor wants to ask you a question, they just text you and, and you don't realize that that's just not how it works.

If you're building something much larger than. Like every single interaction between the various specialized trades that will work on a project like that is governed by a specific contract document. And the, you know, the way that those contract documents get exchanged is highly regulated and highly structured.

So like, how do you manage all of that and do this incredibly difficult thing of creating a large and functional physical space? It's it's um, I don't, I, you know, it's not something that is coming from the outside industry. I thought was true or, or maybe I'm wrong, but I certainly didn't. I, I immediately realized I had a lot to learn.

Uh, I think you're right. It's just, and it doesn't matter if you're on smaller projects or larger ones, but the, just the sheer volume of paperwork that we produce just on a daily basis, is it a lot of people probably wouldn't recognize that there's a ton of it and a lot of waste because of it. So I think to.

Systematize that and, and, and how's it all in one location has more benefits, just an organization.

Yep. And it's, you know, it's crazy to think that the default probably is instilled in some cases and for the right reasons, but, um, probably was for many years, like the amount of overnight shipping that would have to happen to get those documents from, from point a to point B, um, was, was probably unimaginable.

Yeah. In the, so I've been in a lot. Well, first, any firm that I worked is the oldest in the actually. They're like lineage all the way, like act they, they were the ones that designed Churchill downs. So they're in Louisville, Kentucky looking at Farley is their name today, but they're the oldest standing firm like still stands, like they've changed their name, but they've never, it's not a merger type thing where they're they like went away.

Um, and in that, like they had. Uh, mailroom is what they called it or a print room. And historically they, and they, they still had a person in charge of that where they, they maintain all the plotters. They would handle shipping if we needed to. Cause like, in some jurisdictions until like a few years ago, Florida con like had to have WhatsApp.

So that meant for all the contract documents you had to stamp in wet site, or you had to, they had got, it was a those hand Clippers, uh, to, to seal them. Uh, so you had to hand cream, every single drawing with your seal and then what sign every single year. Uh, and you had to do five sets of those to send to the governing agencies in Florida, um, to get, you know, drawings done so that like, and then you had to overnight them, right?

So then you had all the drawings and they probably to go to separate people. So you had five different boxes and it took like our principal literally a day to sign all this stuff. And someone else like doing all the. And

then God, God forbid there's weather, uh, or, or, uh, you know, or the delivery driver misses the, the, the, one of those people.

Right. Cause then convinced for seed, uh, who knows.

Yeah. And I mean, that's just like for, and now Florida's all electronic, but. The thing in that, you know, even just a few years ago was now think back to when all drawings were done. That way on all drawings were done by hand, which for a lot of firms was still like 99, 2000.

Like it was still, you know, a blueprint set of drawings that you had to like send somewhere to get, you know, two, or if you're a separate mechanical or MEP firm or structural firm or civil affirm, the architect had to send you like physical. You know, my part prince to, for you to do your own stuff, like odd of this, like, you know, we think that, you know, technology has been here forever, but it's really only 30 years

old.

Yeah. You know, it takes time for adoption to, to replace that stuff. So. It. So even if the technology's there, the sometimes the harder problem is getting people to change how they work. Um, and, and to embrace it because if it works, you know, it works at the end of the day. It's not like it's the building, it's what the end result that actually matters.

So it's, you know, getting people to change if they've done doing something for 10, 15 years and, and the, the things have been getting created. You know, what, what can you say to convince people to change? Um, so sometimes it's just, it's just, uh, just takes time.

So your main client base then is obviously the architecture and engineering industry. Is that correct? That's very correct. 'cause I was going to say changing the way construction guys do things is a lot like pulling teeth sometimes. So I don't know. I don't know if the AME crowd is quite as bad, but

it probably varies.

You know, there's always the, your curve of, of people who are really excited about everything new. And then you've got your, you know, that w there's the adoption curve. I think it's true of every industry. It's just kind of, when that adoption curve starts.

How did you guys do, uh, during the last year and a half through COVID how did that change? Yeah,

so. I started the conversation by mentioning is like my first time interviewing and accepting a position without actually having met anyone in person. So, you know, a lot of that type of thing in, you know, for us internally is, is getting everyone comfortable.

With teams instead of, instead of actual in-person meetings and you lose some stuff with that in terms of being able to get into a room and whiteboard and really seem how it really like play things out strategically and having those conversations. So that, that part is pretty, that part's been pretty tough, but you know, you just have to adapt and be resilient.

And I think for the, you know, from the customer side, it's the same, it's a little bit of the same story. Like we, you know, you know, we we've. Yeah, you go from assuming that, um, that everyone's going to be sitting at their desktop and, you know, wired in, in an office, like in terms of how we deliver our product.

We've, we've realized that we need to be more flexible and have a, more of a assumption. It's going to be a mix going forward a little more of a hybrid mix. So we've, we've definitely learned a lot about how we work internally. And then I have have learned a lot in terms of how we want to approach, you know, the next set of the next, I dunno, roadmap, so to speak for, for our, for our pro.

So, are you still all a hundred percent remote or are you

we're? Uh, we're, we're gradually, we're now in a, in a, in a little bit of a hybrid. Uh, so we're, we've got a few days a week in the office and otherwise are remote and that's been great to actually get in and do the stuff that works so much better when you can be in the same room with someone.

Yeah. Really reassuring. I had a meeting this morning with a prospect, uh, to talk about a new office, which frankly I thought was dead. Um, but, but it's, it seems that the whole industry, the whole, uh, whole nation is trying to get to kind of what you just said to kind of a hybrid, you know, be here for three or four days and then a day or two at home or Starbucks or wherever you do things

or in the field.

I mean, for, for, you know, for an a and a, and especially like, yeah, it's. It's not like construction in that era. You literally have to be there to, to, to, to build a building. But you know, they, you know, they need to be out in the field a good amount too, and they need, and they're going to need access to all their data.

So, um, and it's probably been hybrid for longer than people really want to admit. But, but it will, but it's getting to the point where people will be willing and, and, and embracing of the fact that it's, that it is all we're all, all work models really are hybrid.

I guess in there. So for new format in particular, I know like it's been years since I've used the former vendor and affirm that they needed it. Um, so with that, like we always had to log into a server. So it's your kind of model moving forward to. Because we had our own, I think on-premise server to access everything.

And it was our own little silo to where now it's a kind of a cloud model where anyone anywhere can access any drawing, send anything, check it, some metal, all that

stuff. Yeah. We're definitely moving that direction. And in, in, in how we extend the product, I think there's still a need, like, especially when you're talking about the value of the intellectual property, that, that we're discussing people are going to want to control that and own the access to it.

So it's more about for us. It's do we want to have a fully cloud, uh, Product. Yes. But then we also need to have exp be able to provide experiences to those customers that aren't going to be comfortable with F you know, with a fully SAS space. Uh, cloud-based solution to give them an experience that provides the best of the cloud with the security and the control of, of what, what existed when they, you know, when everything was sitting on a server rack in your local office.

So we're trying to find the right, uh, ways to serve both of those use cases. Um, you know, both bought by like built building mobile apps that connect to on premise servers, building web apps that connect to our on premise servers. Uh, Collaboration tools there. And then, and then also thinking about what does a hundred percent cloud-based solution look like for, for a different, you know, for a different profile of customer?

Yeah. One of the things, you know, we kind of mentioned the difference between like a home builder home services industry, right? Whether plumber, electrician, builder of some sort in residential, and then on the commercial side where you. You know, infinitely more data to deal with, but also some of the clients that you serve in that commercial capacity, you know, when you're dealing with like federal clients

or go there,

or some, you know, uh, DOD type clients, like their security requirements are far more stringent, you know?

And, and like at SAS model is.

And then, you know, we're a global company. So they, you know, I, you know, thinking about like the German market, as an example, if you're doing government German government work, like you better not be able to access anything related to this project, unless you are sitting in the office behind multiple firewalls.

Uh, like if you even like whisper clouds, it's not gonna, it's just not going to, going to work out for you. So you, we need to, we need to have like different ways of offering. The experience that work for different profiles of customers and different geographies.

So, I mean, we've talked about data, um, and just how much of it there is, I think that, you know, still gets, it's hard to wrap your head around unless you're, you're kind of in it or dealing with all this paperwork and. With that, like, what are some of the, like maybe the, the trends that you're seeing with, you know, we've talked about a little bit of cloud or data storage, but some of the, you know, maybe even bigger trends pass the paperwork construction, but like, you know, as new foreman, you guys are kind of, you know, connected to a lot of different people globally, a lot of industry globally.

What are some of the trends that you guys are really seeing that, uh, you can share?

Yeah. Um, I think, I think BIM is, is a story that, um, you know, it gets a lot, it gets talked about a good deal, but I think there's a tremendous amount of runway there, um, to continue to improve technology. I mean, even when you're thinking about, uh, actual contract documents, contract documents are largely, uh, are, you know, are based on 2d drawings at this point.

And that's, you know, I think there's, there's good reasons for that, but, um, you know, can you start to incorporate the 3d views of that stuff? We're seeing more and more adoption of VR technology. I think that has implications for planning, for budgeting, for safety, um, for efficiency. So I think them as a long runway ahead of it, especially when combined with, with VR experiences, um, that, that will just, I think they'll improve project outcomes.

And like, I, I can't say like, oh yes, that will bring down costs and improve efficiency. But I think that like, you know, we'll end up with having. It would be happier outcomes and less rework. Um, so, so, so we'll see, we'll see where that, where that all goes. And then, and then, you know, in, and then there's the concept of like digital twins.

Which I think is really interesting and that is related. Um, you know, it's much easier to think about a project, like a maintenance project or a, um, I dunno, an improvement or an extension of a physical space. If you could actually see behind the wall to see what you're going to be breaking, if you tear that wall down.

Um, so I think that that's the kind of thing, um, that you'll see more and more of. And then if you start to combine them. Internet internet of things, concepts, where can you actually like monitor and, and, and isolate problems within buildings if they've been delivered with, um, you know, some kind of sensor technology that's looped into your digital twin, that's then connected back to con you know, to your contract documents and documentation for the whole project, from a tech purely, you know, software based, uh, Software plus a point of view.

That's where, that's where I think there's a lot of runway. And then like on the physical side, you know, manufacturer like more modular manufacturing, um, is what everyone talks about. And, but that's not, that's not a, that's not an area that I'm all that qualified to discuss, but it's makes it makes sense.

Uh, theoretically.

Yeah, I think he hit all the right points there. I mean, from the construction side, we're, we're certainly seeing a rise in the use of BIM. We don't where I'm at. We don't build projects of the scale of, you know, airports or things like that. But, but even on some of the smaller side stuff, we're, we're seeing at least versions of BIM or, or portions of it come in.

Um, so I I'd agree with you there. I think it's gonna just help to boost.

And a question I have for you on that is, is as it relates to BIM, like w w what, what, what is the, what are the, what are the obstacles, if any, to adopting like a BIM type solution? Cause if, I mean, if it was, if it was easy and cost efficient to, to work from a 3d model, For you, would you do it?

Is it, is, is it like, I'm just like, what are the barriers to entry for you as it relates to this?

Uh, well you hit three or two of them already, you know, is it easy to use and is it cost-effective then whether either of those are true. I think the S the, the industry mindset from, from my side of the table from the construction side is that no, it is not easy and it is very expensive.

So if we can get past that. You know, and, and the third is one that, you know, let's rewind 10 minutes in that our industry as a whole does not like changing the way we do stuff. Sure, sure. From, from Ryan man, I'm heavily based in pre-construction. So if, if we could find a BIM technology that we could afford, that the clients could afford, and it would boost efficiency, I would push it all day long.

Um, but again, a lot of the projects that I'm involved in. You know, I go back and forth, whether I think the, the economics would balance out frankly, to do that. But, uh, I think it's, you know, BIM technology as a whole, as it gains more popularity, it's also coming down in cost. It's reaching a different price points and, and I don't think you have to do full on a hundred percent modeling to enjoy some of the benefits of.

Yeah, I totally agree. And, and that's, that's there now. We're getting a little bit, uh, maybe out there, but it's something that I think about is if you look at what some of these, you know, multiplayer video games are able to do in terms of rendering environments and keeping them stable. And at the price point, they're able to do that at you start to wonder.

You know, how, how much longer until you can take some of that technology, I think it's already happening. Um, but can you start to adapt with that technology to create, you know, maybe it's not at the level of yeah, exactly. It's it's already happening.

Yeah. So unity years ago partnered with, uh, Autodesk and you can basically do exactly what you're talking.

Um, so this kind of dates, we, so back in 2014, when the Oculus rift DK two first came out, um, so when Oculus was not owned by Facebook, uh, the firm that I worked for, we got a pair of the DK two, and we had, you know, the most powerful, best desktop computer, you know, Monique goodbye and plugged it in. We took our rev models, our BIM model.

Do you know, a whole bunch of work. To, um, you know, like random through a bunch of processes to get them into, we used unity at the time. So, I mean, that's the rendering engine and then exported that from cause unity had the, like out to VR to where we could do it straight to the DK two headset. So then you could walk through literally you're building in virtual reality at, you know, a six foot height.

So if you get somebody that was short and you put them on, they were like, wow. I feel like. Um, you know, and in that right. To walk through a building, but you could literally do with an X-Box controller and that was seven years ago. And since then it's become so much better. Um, I haven't put on a new headset, but then like I got such bad migraines in doing it.

Cause the frame rate wasn't high enough to like give you a true experience of what you would feel like as. Human. Right? Like you need hundreds, if not thousands of frames like frames per second versus the like 50 are getting, um, it was pretty like sad. So, um, it's a little techie, but in that, like the, the VR portion can be here, but the whole question.

Is it worth

it? Yeah, that is, that is the, uh, that is the, I guess multi-billion dollar question, but I mean, if you going back to the video game analogy, if, you know, if you, if the average professional, you know, as time wears on is more and more of the average, you know, the, just the profile, the demographics shift and the average person like grew up playing video games.

And you make you put a video game, like experience on that, then maybe you cross that barrier of, uh, you know, it's, if it's super easy to use and it's intuitive based on like gamified, maybe, maybe you get more adoption in BIM there. I don't know. We're a.

W we may have just uncovered how to get people to start working again.

Yeah. Where we found that whole VR experience valuable was not, I mean, somewhat on the design side for sure. But it was more, uh, nobody knows what the hell they're looking at when they see a 2d set of plans. Like you cannot like picture that spatially. Like what is, what is 12 feet by 12 feet look like?

You know, what's how big is the room I'm

in? Right. I think some people can. Uh, which is crazy.

It's those few architects, right. That are really good at that. But most owners, that's not what they do. They'll think spatially about anything. And it's like, I have a hard time doing it. You know? Like I think most people like actually seeing space and like at the right dimensions, like mentally is a very hard thing.

How, how big is this basketball court? Like, how big is this stadium? You know, how big is this Concourse? Right. But by putting it into VR now, like owner conversations become like, oh, that's what it looks like. I like that. I hate that.

It's probably also reduces I'm like some mad. I bet you. Deal with this is, you know, the, you get told what to build, you build it.

Then they see it. And they're like, oh, I don't like it. Change out all the, I don't know, change that. And you're like, okay, now here's the cost. And then they're not happy. Like, if you could just overcome that hap you don't know when that's gonna happen, but I needed to overcome that happening of being able to actually like, visualize what that.

I don't know what that window looks like in a wall, uh, based on its placement. Maybe, maybe that's where you're going to get your ROI. Right.

It's a good point. Cause we get that quite often. The, the, oh, I had no idea it was going to look like that. Well, it's been drawn this way for six months.

You could do it with that.

We we have, uh, we acquired a company called, uh, BIM one that has a product called BIM track. Um, last, uh, earlier this year, I guess it was, and they have an interest. They have a cool integration with Inscape. Are you familiar with Inscape? And what have been track does and specializes in is the issue tracking within the context of a BIM model.

And through that, that partnership. Like you can be doing the VR walkthrough experience, seeing all the issues, creating new issues within that 3d world. And that's, you know, again, that's, it's, it's, I don't know how you, you know, it's probably, again, it depends on the scale of what you're doing, but that's where you can start to avoid things like, oh, that, you know, I really hate that, that product in this space, uh, That window, that whatever it is, and avoid some of those rework issues and, and make sure those get communicated and tracks, um, when they need to, you know, at the right point in the project, not after you've just ordered 2000 windows with white trim, but white trim the way clashes very badly with something else.

Yeah. And that's, that's one of the biggest things that I've seen in talking to a lot of contracts. Um, especially as subs that, you know, the, they throw out the design model and basically redo it with all their fabrication parts and that piece. So for, for BIM in that context becomes, you know, now you have two entities doing the same work twice, you know, so you just doubled your costs and it's really for.

Contractual problem, frankly, within the industry and design bid build where you're designing it, and then you'd sell forbid, then this contractor gets it and then they have to redo, you know, all that work or for whatever process they need to go through to run it through their shops and their processes that, you know, that.

Where BIM can be kind of combined if everybody's under one roof from the start,

but that's not how, yeah. It doesn't seem to happen that way, unfortunately, but maybe we'll go that direction.

There's definitely been a more designed build. I say contractors coming through, um, in that like, so talk about IOT a little bit in. In the IOT world is, um, you know, obviously sensors and like building like health and air quality and things like that. What else are you guys seeing from a standpoint of maybe that would integrate back to, you know, that, that BIM model, that central data warehouse, if you will, uh, moving.

Yeah. I mean, it's, I mean, I think you've covered it, right? It's it's it is. I mean, when I think of IOT, I think of. Connecting the physical world to do the digital one. So it really is sensors of some kind. Um, and then, I mean, it can create more problems than it solves too. Cause you can get a, you can get a false read on a sensor and then open a wall and it's like, oh, it was just, you know, it was just the sensor.

So like there's going to be some, you know, you're gonna need really durable load to, to actually like bring this into a factory at a need really durable, low cost. Low cost sensors to what to want to actually like put them all over the place. Um, in terms of, in terms of other areas, you know, I, I'm not sure maybe they comes, they come with certain product products that were where it makes sense so that you, you know, I mean, it's not a big deal.

If something's malfunctioning in a 2000 square foot house, you could probably just find that. But based on where the water's flowing. Falling through, but if you've got a structure that's many orders, orders of magnitude larger than that. Maybe that starts to make sense if you can isolate it, um, and, and figuring out the right ways to do that.

Um, but yeah, I think the, the durability, and then how to power that, and then to make sure that connection stays up to date that's, that's where the challenges are going to be. Cause it's going to be hard to change those types of things out.

Yeah. And quite candidly. Way over my head, but you know, we, we have seen some pretty cool, uh, sensor-based uh, data management with things like concrete, you know, where guys are implanting temperature sensors as they're pouring concrete.

So you can monitor, uh, cure times and temperatures and things of that nature. But, but those are largely kinda, you know, one and done use. Obviously they don't, they don't last too long, but to integrate that further into a living building would be. Yeah.

Yeah. It's yeah. Honestly, I can, I can maybe talk about it, but you know, actually how that all actually would work, uh, how you, how you would keep something like that running for 50 years.

That's where I think it all starts to break down a little bit. Sure, sure.

Well, and I think you just nailed it right. We've we've got some cool stuff, but nothing is built to like buildings, right. To withstand or be around for 50, a hundred, 500 years. Right. Like some of the buildings that we have in this day and age.

And so we've kind of talked about through like, kind of what's next, but maybe what do you see is one of the. And we've talked about some problems, but like, what do you see as one of the like big problems and, you know, how, how has new formula, or how do you think we should, as an industry go about making that, you know, better kinda improving?

Uh, yeah. I, I think, um, you know, honestly, like it's, it's, it's going to sound mundane. It's not as next level as, uh, as some of the other concepts that we've been we've tossed back and forth in this conversation, but, um, you know, A contract document is a, is a structured document. And, and it is, it is the data within it and the F and the document itself like that can be transmissible across multiple systems.

So like, you know, no one should be downloading. Uh, sending to someone else they do the same. And then having to re upload that to another system like the, like the, the industry. I think the ecosystem needs to embrace the fact that you can, you can send all that stuff electronically, track it, electronically manage version and do management manage versions like electronically, because I mean, think about we, we, we, we were saying before, this is buried in paperwork.

Well, like. All every, every time one of those things happens, you've lost minutes, especially if you have to go back and find something and it'll email. So like the way we get the bean, like just solve the things that are easy to solve first. And then, and then, and then get to the, uh, some of, you know, then figure out how to find a sensor or the battery of the last 50 years.

Um, And, and the way to do that is for the ecosystem to embrace, you know, open architecture and connectivity across silence across, you know, there, you know, partnerships and coopertition as opposed to outright competition.

Coopertition I like that. I haven't heard that before.

Probably a little too consulting the buzz word, but it, it does make sense.

Yeah. Um, I don't know. I'd be, I'd be interested to hear from, from you both on, on, on, on your thoughts.

I mean, as far as problems in the industry, I, I like your take on it. Um, you obviously have a very different mindset and background than I do. You know, if, if we could come up with an easy way to manage documents, that was cost-effective, uh, across all, all spectrums. I think that's huge, you know, in terms of what I see as biggest problem to, to our global industry.

It's. It's much more, uh, granular than that. And that we don't have people, you know, we have a severe lack of, of people coming into the trades, uh, whether it's a E or C frankly, and this was, this started long before all the COVID mess and unemployment stuff. So that's just exacerbated the problem. Um, how do we fix that?

That's what Dylan and I try to do here every week. But

do you think it needs a public policy response of some kinds? Um, no. It's just culture. Surely a culture shift. Uh,

I think public policy or, or removing some certain policies that are currently in place would help. Um, but I, but I think the, the overall arching theme is a culture shift, a mindset shift of.

Uh, of people wanting to work again and not, not necessarily physically working right now, but you know, people actually wanted to do something with their, their hands, create things or time to then create. I just think there's a, a global culture shift that really needs to happen and happen quickly.

Yep.

Sorry.

Uh, so one of the big things that like we hammer on is, uh, in the culture side of it is that like, you don't have to get your hands dirty to be in construction. Right? It's this thought that construction is a dirty, like if I'm wearing a suit, you know, I've never gotten my hands dirty in my life. And that is just the farthest thing from the truth, right?

Like I've designed millions of squares. Of commercial building space, but on plenty of job sites. And ultimately at the end of the day, I'm responsible for the designs that I put together. Like, my name is on them. I under law, like I'm the one that seals them. Like I am responsible. And I think most people don't understand that there's, there's a lot of place just like, you know, you come from a software background, you know, but you're in construction, right?

Like you're construction adjacent, but you're in the industry. And I think that a lot of people. You know, or if you're doing VR and design, like gaming, but for construction projects, like Gill, Bain has a division of like 10 people dedicated to that. Like, you know, there's, there's a lot of ways that people can fit in like construction that I think, you know, you don't have to go out and be on a hot roof when it's 110, you know, like you don't have to be digging a ditch when it's zero.

Right. Like, those are what we think of, but the industry is so much bigger than that. And I, you know, there's a spot for everybody, whether you're a project manager, programmer, engineer, architect, you know, like construction guy or somebody that like actually liked building things and seeing it like a building come to life out of the ground.

So for, uh, that's the culture that we talk about. Is that, you know, construction is not the guy digging a ditch that you see on the side of the road or the pavement guys blocking traffic. Like, you know, that's a poor portion of it, but that is not like the industry in its entirety.

Yep. Totally agree. And you could start in one area and, and the, you know, you're going to grow and, and, and you could end up somewhere totally different.

I, you know, in my own career, I certainly have, so, um, Yeah, that's, uh, it is gonna be holders. I mean, like it's, you know, it's interesting. Cause like two of my closest friends from college are in construction and you know, like didn't study that, but went into it and they love it. Um, so, and we, and we, we, we talk uh, all the time, but you know, it, you know, it is, it is interesting.

It's not like an obvious career path for someone that goes to like a four-year university, but it could be, it should be. Um, so I think that's kind of the point you were making, um,

yeah, a hundred percent there. There's so many hats we can wear and so many ways to get here. I mean, We don't need to get into my background too much, but I did not take a traditional path to own a construction company by any means.

I mean, I there's, there's a million different paths to get to the end and, you know, we just need to get back to accepting that as a, as a viable option.

Yeah. Yeah. It's um, I think, you know, I think on some level I have a little bit of faith that the market, like the demand will over time, the demand for people.

And with that, that have the natural aptitude that can like develop that skill set. Well, the economics will, we'll just adjust and you'll see, and the cultural will follow a little bit, but yeah, that, that can be slow. Um,

yeah, I mean, like for me, like it's what I do now is develop software to like automate, you know, electrical design, because that was problem that Matt talked about is we couldn't find people, you know, when you're designing.

Big like a big school, 300,000 square feet, you know, that's, that's an eight month project with two guys on just electrical dedicated to it. You know, like not to mention the other eight projects that you have, right? Like, it's, it, it's a lot of big work for a lot of firms. And the more tedious stuff that you can get rid of to your point.

I mean, that's what we automate is, you know, that mundane stuff to. Let you get to the things that matter most, right? Like actual engineering, actual design, just like, you know, contracts and document management is super important, but you shouldn't need to have somebody like dedicated to doing just that for there, or, you know, the legions of people that in, you know, history that firms have had just to deal with drawings and document

management.

Yeah. It's um, it's, it's, uh, It's I was just thinking about to two things. One is, I don't think another thing that only people appreciate is just how specialized, like getting a 300,000 square foot building is like, you know, two people just working like full design for eight months. Like it's really hard.

Um, And then this totally unrelated. And I don't know why I thought it was the same time, but, um, what I was going in to, to Walgreens to get my vaccine, like I had to fill out a form online with my name, contact information insurance, blah, blah, blah, that had to go in. Then they gave me a form. I had to fill that out again.

And then I had to answer questions for them to type into their form a third time. And I'm like, this was all done. None of this. Like I've been here for 15 minutes now. And like, and all I've accomplished is give you the same information three separate times. And, and then they spelled my name wrong on the card.

I think that the medical industry is. Yeah. I'm the worst at that for a long time.

So, yeah. I mean, it's, it's solving some of these simple things will make the experience better for, for everyone, but, you know, I don't know. It's like, doesn't get the attention. It deserves. Yeah.

Slater. Where can they find.

Yep.

Uh, so, uh, www.newforma.com if you're interested in, in, in our approach. Um, and, uh, yeah, that's pretty much it pretty simple.

Awesome Slater. I appreciate you coming on today, man. It was a, it was an interesting conversation and it's always good. Viewpoints that are around the industry, but sometimes not right.

Not in that same space that we

operate in. I appreciate it. I appreciate you having me out. Hopefully I didn't embarrass myself too much. I was fun.

Yeah. Slater. Thank you guys. I mean, we've hit, we hit all the high points, right? We. Uh, document management, like just big this industry is, you know, from, and then going from like, you know, thinking of housing and, and texting somebody for answers to the, uh, process.

So we all know as RFS and, uh, you know, all despise in our own, uh, way, but then going through, you know, BIM VR, IOT, modular construction, like there's a lot to this industry and you know, like Matt and I hammer on every week is communicate, communicate. And again, we want people to know construction is a great industry.

There's a spot for everybody in, you know, no matter kind of what your aptitude is or what you like. There's probably a spot for you somewhere. Uh, if you like building things, if you like seeing things coming out of the ground, if you like just being a part of, you know, the amazing thing that we call, like a transportation system and like infrastructure across the U S or office space or schools, whatever it is, you know, there's, there's a spot.

So I think that's our big message. Any last closing words later?

Um, no, I mean, I think, I think that you said that very nicely. Um, I think you said that very nicely, so I, uh, I can't that's you, you made it too hard for me to fall out. Good at doing that.

All right, guys. Well, that's this episode of the construction corner podcast until next time.

#130 CCP

#130 - How to See the Bottlenecks in Your Construction and AE Firm

Hello, and welcome to a, another episode of the construction quarter podcast. I'm Dylan, I'm your host joined by my blue collar. Bad-ass Matt. How's it going, man? Things are good. Things are very good. We're, uh, you know, in the midst of very busy construction season, but, uh, so far, uh, it's been a great year and weather is, uh, not really cooperating this week, but, but things are still getting done.

[00:00:26] So it's all fun. It's uh, since I've not been looking at houses anymore, we decided to hit pause on moving this year. Uh, my wife and I were having a conversation yesterday that it feels like just cause I'm not in the middle of the whole housing craziness that it like settled down and she's like, no, still, still bad.

[00:00:54] Like she still gets all the updates on. Houses in our area and it's still like crazy houses sell within like a week or two. It's just still totally insane. Which for us, right in the construction industry is, you know, it's great economic indicator that things are, are still going really well for people to be, you know, buying and selling houses so quickly.

[00:01:19] Yeah. I like it for that reason. Um, houses around here are selling before they're even listed. I mean it it's it's insanity. And, uh, my sister and brother-in-law are looking for a house currently and they were saying they, they put in like 10, 15 offers and, and they're limiting time. Now to 15 minutes, you get to go view a house.

[00:01:40] And if you don't make an offer in another 15 minutes, forget it. I won't even talk to you. But these they're getting, you know, 15, 20, 30 offers in a day. It. Uh, so it reminds me of like the countdown timers for like any website too, like in marketing or, or like the show storage wars or something like that, where they've got an auction and it's just an auction now.

[00:02:05] Like you make an offer, it's not your Sol come again. That's exactly what it is. I, uh, I may have spent some time in my, in a previous life doing the storage auction things. And you want to talk about crazy times, man. When they open up that door, the clock starts ticking. You better either get it or leave.

[00:02:28] And yeah, I mean, so it's from a like marketing and psychology perspective. It's great seeing that the real estate market finally has like a fear of missing out component associated with it in, uh, in doing this. And I think it was partially by necessity, right? In, uh COVID and limiting, you know, viewing times and all that kind of stuff for agents where you can only have one showing versus like a mass.

[00:02:54] Hysteria thing of everybody showing up at the same time to view a place. Now it's like, you got a slot best offered, hope you win. It is not for the, uh, the weak of stomach that's for sure. Or checkbook. Yeah. Right, right. Uh, which kind of goes into, you know, the big topic that. Uh, we wanted to bring up and go through today and for construction companies, this is going to be in really engineering a whole industry.

[00:03:27] This is going to be a very different way of looking at your business is going to be a new way to think about it. Uh, in marketing it's, it's thought about very frequently and how really people flow through because you have a lot of data analytics, things like that to track as people move through your. A funnel or distribution sales channel and in construction, we just don't have that.

[00:03:50] Right. You've got five, 10 clients at the most for, for a lot of it, which is, again, the thing that we also have to remember in construction is there's a lot of marketing things that don't apply. And there's some things that we need to apply very selectively in how we. Implement them into our businesses for engineering, for construction.

[00:04:15] Because again, we don't have a lot of clients or our marketing looks a lot different. It's a very high touch, uh, type of marketing efforts for the most part. There's a lot of, you know, social and other things that are kind of light touch just to keep in front of people. Um, but the thing that I wanted to bring up was it's really looking at it as bottlenecks.

[00:04:35] And if you've ever read, uh, The book, the goal by gold rack. It's about bottlenecks in that book in terms of boy Scouts. And it's uh, have you ever read the goal by? I haven't. So it's, uh, like industrial engineering kind of one-on-one, it's a plant, it's a story of a plant manager and then he's got like a boy scout group that he leads is kind of the.

[00:05:03] You know, uh, correlation to the story plan has a bunch of problems, but he looks at it in terms of bottlenecks. And one of the ways that you could see a bottleneck is you needed the fastest thing to, or the soulless thing to kind of be upfront. So in terms of boy Scouts, and again, this book was written a while ago, but you put the fat boy scout upfront, uh, so that, you know, he was the slowest one, but then everybody stays together.

[00:05:27] Versus if he's in the back, you gotta, everybody goes and you wait and then you go, and then we go in the week. But when we look at bottlenecks across the organization, it's, uh, segmenting, you know, pieces. And the thing that I want to like first address is, is sales. And we've already kind of touched on this and Matt, I know I want you to, to jump in on, on some of this for kind of some of the things that we had talked about, uh, last week in just high touch, right?

[00:05:56] Being yourself, all those types of things in sales and. Where in construction, I feel that we, one, having a presence online is like still not a thing that most people do. So to have that content put out projects, highlight your people, I think are very key things that we need to be doing as an industry, again, to bring more people into the industry, but also to show clients, right.

[00:06:20] It serves two purposes, uh, for it. And then, so is one. And then if you want to touch on some events and things that. You've done on in-person that really ended up making a big difference in how we sell really the start of everything that we do in kind of casting a vision and all that type of stuff. So I think you, you touched on a good point, right at the, off the get go here and that, you know, we don't as an industry market very well or very often, because most of us, myself, especially.

[00:06:58] We build what a handful of projects a year, and that keeps us quite busy. You know, whether that handful is five, 10 or 20, it doesn't really matter. It's different if you're selling widgets. Right. And you're just trying to, to boost sales by volume. So. Any marketing that we do has to be very, very targeted or it's a giant waste of time.

[00:07:21] And time is, is one thing in our industry, especially that no one has enough of, especially in the springtime, uh, when things are running like crazy. So, you know, you really gotta target what you do and you really have to target who you're talking to. Um, you know, the social thing you mentioned, we, I have started doing that in the last year.

[00:07:43] More frequently. And it's really just, just to keep our name out there. Right. We have a core group of people that are now following along all the silly crap that I put out there, you know, but it's a way to follow up on projects and showcase things. But, uh, you know, for the most part, the, the marketing we do is like what you said, it's in person.

[00:08:06] Um, you know, you mentioned events, we don't do a whole lot in terms of. Of career type events. We're, we're, we're, you know, we're getting youth and, and doing that route, but, but we certainly do a lot of sponsorships and, and this time of year, especially, um, in, in our market and the Southeast Michigan market golf outings are huge, you know, and anytime you can get out with people and start doing actual real face-to-face old school networking, shaking hands, you know, drink a beer or two.

[00:08:39] Handout those old fashioned business cards that that's really how, how deals are done still in at least here. And that's, that is by far the single best way to get your name out, to, to stay on top of or in front of people stay on top of mind and to really grow kind of organically the old school organic way.

[00:09:06] And that it's one of the things that, and I've worked in. A lot of firms I've run my own now for a few years. And in, in any world, I must feel we didn't do enough of those types of events. Right. We, we had our five, 10 design clients that we went to, whether those that was higher ed or healthcare or schools are a little harder, like the K-12 markets, a little harder to do outings and stuff with.

[00:09:33] Just now that you can't get anything more than like 25 bucks or something worth of stuff. The outings become a little more, uh, difficult to be a part of, but there's other ways that are free touches that you can do without taking people to lunch and things like that in other markets, uh, like healthcare and, uh, higher ed, those were no problems.

[00:09:55] And then obviously with private clients kind of do what you want, but, um, In like the public sectors become a little more difficult if you're doing government or anything like that. Um, it becomes, uh, kind of harder but easier in a way. You just got to be a little more creative in how you play it. But far too often, like we didn't there weren't those touches there, weren't those like email campaigns to like best design practices.

[00:10:20] What do you do for, you know, all these various things that you might have occur within your. Within your building. How do you do preventative maintenance on this or that, like, how helpful would that be to an owner to have those types of follow-ups? And I think far too often, we as an industry because we couldn't, so this is another thing historically.

[00:10:44] So architects and engineers, uh, but I think architecture historically could not advertise. So in the seventies, And sooner, I think 75, it got repealed or sometime in that timeframe, the internet can correct me here. Uh, but sometime in that, like before 1975, let's just say it was unethical to market. Same with lawyers and a lot of professional, uh, degrees.

[00:11:12] It was against your licensure to market. So you weren't able to actually mark it had to be face-to-face hand to hand. And that was it. So now in this new age of kind of I'll call it the wild west, but like you can kind of do whatever you want. Uh, there's still a lot of old mentality in it and it works. I mean, it's worked for a long, long time.

[00:11:38] But there's other things in the design community, especially in the crackdown and like, or I'm going to say crack down, but in the public sectors where you like, you can't take people to lunch, you can't gift anything. It's, you know, $25 limit and you still gotta write out paperwork for it. Right. So in that type of environment, it becomes very hard to do anything outside of meetings, scheduled things.

[00:12:04] So you gotta be a little more creative for those sectors. Where you can still take, you know, hospital clients launch, like that's, it's not a big deal or higher ed or especially private clients. Right? You can do those outings, you can go to those things and it's totally fine. So it's knowing your market, but also being a little more creative and just consistent in your messaging.

[00:12:25] You'd be surprised. And the, the other thing too, is that I think a lot of people don't understand or given enough time, is that in construction? Right. Our timelines are years. So just like you talked about on a previous episode where it took you six years for what's going to be your biggest project, how, you know, how long are people putting in the time of marketing right.

[00:12:52] Of consistent social effort to then see a return. Cause again, like, look at your fees on any one of these projects, right? Guaranteed. It's at least on a grant, if not a million, if not five or 10 million, depending on what you're doing for a given client. So is the free social media networks and the time and effort you spend put a post out worth a million dollars in a year.

[00:13:24] It certainly can be, you know, it all depends on how you, how you play it. And. Know, real quick before we get away from it, you brought up the whole, you know, taking people to lunch thing. One of my, one of my favorite electricians, I was at a meeting in his office. I don't know, about a month ago. And cool guy, you know, kind of quirky does his own thing.

[00:13:49] We're starting off the meeting and we're talking about a project and he goes, oh, oh, hold on a second. He runs in the backroom and he, I can see him and he's messing around in a freezer and he comes out. With a chicken, frozen chicken, whole chicken, it's huge, biggest chicken I've ever seen sets it on the table.

[00:14:07] And then he sets a couple packages of, uh, of pork chops, some hot dogs and something else. And I'm like, what the hell is this? He goes, hear me out, hear me out. He goes back in the day, because the only way we could get on your bid list was to take you out to lunch or you'd forget about us as well. Yeah.

[00:14:25] Maybe I get that. And he goes, but how long do you remember that lunch? So I, I don't know until I get back to the office, maybe he goes, exactly. He goes, I give people food that comes off of my farm. It was, how long are you going to remember the fact that I gave you a frigging in chicken? You got me. I will probably be telling this story for the end of time, so complete sidebar, but I thought it was a pretty, pretty neat and unique though.

[00:14:55] Right? I've told this story now to, I can't tell you how many people and usually it, it has his name wrapped up in it. So, you know, there's, there's always creative ways to get your name out there and to stay ahead of the game. And as far as marketing goes, that's just it. Tell, tell good stories, be unique, be the person that remembered and figure out ways to do that in.

[00:15:22] You know that chicken, frankly. I mean, it's going to be more expensive than, uh, anything store-bought, but at the end of the day, right, it's worth like, think of how many bid options or, you know, bid lists. He's going to be on moving forward because of that damn chicken. Yeah. I was impressed, you know, and.

[00:15:45] And going back to what you were saying with the, especially with municipal clients, we, we don't serve a ton of municipal clients, but we do have some, and it's always kind of a tricky thing. Even if it's, you know, get the, the, the reasons they put the crack down in place are, are real, are they were so get those out of the pictures though, but just something as innocuous as, Hey, let's go grab lunch.

[00:16:10] You know, now you have to always be thinking about that in the back of your head, you know, who's. Who's going to have a problem with you going to lunch now, which, which, you know, reporter or which, you know, negative Nancy is going to see you having lunch with the mayor or, you know, uh, a trustee or something and, and, and throw a shit fit over it.

[00:16:30] And it's, it's absurd really that we have to worry about that, but it is definitely a reality. Yeah. And it's unfortunate, but there's. Again, like email is progress, pictures over delivering on those projects, you know, good word of mouth. Because again, those people have probably a pretty good network. So it's, you know, over-delivering on your projects being, you know, above and beyond on what you do.

[00:16:57] And then it's just, it becomes a word of mouth client, but also following up electronically and in a free, you know, free to them type of thing where like there's no monetary value associated with reports or. Um, like just talking well about their buildings or the city or whatever that they're a part of, you know, that's free and Goodwill type of advertising.

[00:17:21] Yeah. And we, you know, that community center project that I'm always talking about where we market for them quite frequently, you know, and, and it's. It it's a, win-win obviously if they do better and they, they talk about us and then that goes on the line, but for us, you know, it it's, for me personally, it's, it's a really cool feeling to drive by that place and see it full of people and, or to walk in and see, you know, a bunch of people playing basketball and using it.

[00:17:48] So there's a lot of, of community benefit that can come with kind of being strategic in that sense. Yeah. And again, like it's. You got to give something to get anything right. And sometimes, and again, we're talking, we're talking a million dollar fees here. We're talking, uh, 1895 widget, right? We're not, we're not talking about selling a bottle water.

[00:18:12] You know, that's not what we're getting at here. This is construction. This is big money. And you know, if you're going to win, you need to be able to willing to put in the time, the effort and do it for a long period of time, right. To. To get that project. Cause at the end of the day, that's what we're looking at and payoffs it's, you know, if you show up for say a year, two years, I mean, I just tallied up all my views for showing up consistently for the last two years, three years on LinkedIn, I'm at half a million views across LinkedIn.

[00:18:47] So in that, right. But it's, you got to show up for a long period of time to hit like that type of content and those types of metrics. That again, you got to track them, you got to follow up and then, you know, at the end of the day, you might not know exactly working from, but you can't discount any of the efforts that you've put in along the way.

[00:19:09] And, you know, I gotta say you're way better at this than I am. And maybe it's difference in industry. Maybe it's difference in personality or, or both. I don't know, but I mean, I've been doing it. Yeah. Semi-regularly for about a year. And I still get excited by the number of thumbs up and likes I get. And that's, that's the only metric I really give a shit about because the rest of it, again, it.

[00:19:32] For me for what I do. It's not going to sell me a building. You know, it's not going to necessarily produce the next client, but it keeps my name out there and it, and it hopefully keeps us relevant. Um, now in, in your case, I think it could be the total opposite, right? I mean, you, you could have that, that purchase made because of a video you did or something you posted.

[00:19:56] So, you know, I think it just, it just depends on. Uh, knowing your target market and knowing how to reach them the best. And they're very different ways of doing that depending on who you're serving. And if we look at this as a funnel, right, you look at the marketing funnel and a funnels have been around for awhile.

[00:20:16] Russell Brunson is probably he's the king of funnels and click funnels. But when you talk about a funnel, right, you talk about leads. You know, the people that are coming in that are. Cold. I don't know who you are that don't know anything about you. They need to be educated and what you do, who you are, what you can offer them.

[00:20:34] And then they become interested. So now they become like qualified in what you do and what you offer. They know who you are, they know your product, but they're not clients yet. They're not people that have bought. So again, it's still an education process, a training process of what you can do, what you can offer them and building that trust.

[00:20:54] And this. I mean again for a bottle of water, there's a lot of people put in the time and effort to like, you know, get you to trust that this thing is going to, you know, not kill you. So depending on where you are in your market, you got to still educate people that you can do what they're looking to do and construction and engineering.

[00:21:14] It's if you're moving from let's just so good examples from K-12 to higher ed, right? You've been doing K-12 projects forever, and then you want to get into higher end market. Well, you're going to start in the higher ed market or would that client with some really, probably crappy projects, you're going to do bathroom renovations.

[00:21:30] You're going to do simple little whatever, but it's to understand that it's proving that you can work in their environment, meet their standards, and that you're a good person to work with. They might, and it might even take a while to get those, you know, $5,000 fee. Projects to again, earn the trust to then do the stadium project that earned you, uh, you know, $1.5 million fee.

[00:21:53] So understanding like where that, you know, the value ladder is that Russell Bronson explains, um, or describes, but it's, you know, escalating a client up. And typically that just means doing bigger and bigger projects for them over, over a period of time. And that's so that's like the simple piece of the funnel, right?

[00:22:13] You get. Cold leads and you educate them. They become clients, maybe small clients at first, and then, you know, leading into bigger projects with them doing bigger work for them, and then using that to leverage into other clients. And they, you know, again know like, and trust you. And then they just continue to do business with you.

[00:22:36] That's it. We could end the show right there. It's the know like, and trust, right? The little jobs we call them, resume builders around here. Um, sometimes you have to do that, but, but the whole goal in doing that is to build that trust because in construction, especially for whatever reason, we still have this connotation globally that the contractor is trying to screw the owner.

[00:23:01] But. Architect is trying to screw the owner and everybody's out to get everyone else. Usually I think this is pretty unfounded. Um, but it's still there. So to build trust is the absolute key in, in anything we do. I think it's probably the same with, with the design side, with the construction side. Even with the owner side.

[00:23:24] Cause frankly on that, to that end to the kind of the inverse there, I won't work for someone that I don't trust if I meet with someone. And I think, you know, they're kind of a slime ball and, and it doesn't do me any good to have a bad project under my belt. That's a headache that doesn't go away for a long time.

[00:23:42] Um, and I, I worked a long time ago for a guy who would always tell me that the best projects are the ones you walk away from. And they should have it tattooed on my arm because it's, it's absolutely true in the times when I didn't trust my gut. And I knew I didn't trust somebody, but I still got engaged with them.

[00:24:04] It never ends up. Well, it's never fun. It's you know, those are the stressful projects that, that make you not want to do construction anymore. So. But so all across the board, you know, we all need to, to focus on building that trust, whether it's from the provider or the vendor or the receiver, frankly,

[00:24:27] and trust is built in a lot of ways, right? One of the big things is finances and I in construction, like money is not talked about enough. And how things are structured. And I know I bring it up a lot because I don't think it's heard enough in how things are structured, the transparency, the payment terms, the margins on all these projects.

[00:24:51] I mean, let's just get this straight, everybody in constructions, margins suck. They're not good there. And this is like, so I saw posts on here on LinkedIn where one of the guys, uh, that I followed that. And bill knew from, he came out and said it that a lot of his, so he's principal owner of an engineering firm.

[00:25:15] And a lot of his, or some of these people said it, like they had 50% margins and it's like not even close to true, right? Like it's most of these firms are operating. Like if you go and look at AECOM Jacobs, any of the publicly traded firms, WSP, Stantec, like they're all publicly traded. All their financials are.

[00:25:35] Out there. They're not line item, but you get the gist they're operating on. Well, like I think eight comms, like a 1% or half a percent margin. Granted they do billions, but you know, on a half a percent margin, like that's pretty thin, right? Like in any project it's near me not make money. So when you look at like a lot of these firms in the financials, like the margins are one to 5%, maybe 10% on some projects.

[00:26:02] Yeah. You might do better, but. You need to do a lot of work for the dollar volume to be there. So the margin percentage, you know, frankly, is fairly small. You just have to do a lot of work to make that dollar volume actually matter in terms of, and that's profit. So we're talking straight up profit on the like retained earnings in the company, not like, and that's, so that one to 5% is after.

[00:26:29] Payroll taxes, insurance, lawsuits, like everything else that comes with construction on all sides of the table. So it's understanding that like margins are thin and finances, and I think that's one transparency that I will continue to hammer on in that, you know, understanding that building this trust goes a lot of ways and understanding where everybody stands like financially, I think is very misconstrued just because there's a lot of money in it.

[00:26:59] Doesn't mean that there's a lot of profit.

[00:27:04] If you show me a construction company making 50% margins, I wouldn't believe you, you were, you were doing black magic or something, you know, to get even close to that. I forget it. You know,

[00:27:24] there's, there's so much in this industry that. Is based on old school, ways of thinking. Um, and that's one of them that the contractor, whether it's a GC or a sub, uh, or a vendor supplier that they're making these obscene numbers and that they're, they're, you know, skimming money off of everywhere, they can, it's all bullshit.

[00:27:45] And it, it doesn't have to be such a hard thing to understand, you know, to your point. That's that's one of the ways that we win business is we just open up everything and say, here it is, this is exactly what I'm going to make on your project. This is exactly what you're going to pay me. This is what I have to pay my people.

[00:28:05] And at the end of the day, I'm going to make this little nibble of cheese here at the bottom. So take it or leave it right. It's going to be this today. It's going to be this tomorrow. It'll be this in seven months, eight months whenever. And. Maybe more people shouldn't do that because it would make it harder for me.

[00:28:22] But, you know, just from a, from overall building trust in the industry, we got to get away from that shit away from the guys that, you know, will come in at a obscenely low fee on paper. And then either just quite literally try and kill their subs or, or beat everyone to death with change orders, just to make it back up to that level of, of acceptable margin, acceptable profit.

[00:28:48] We're all out here working, you know, everybody deserves to make a reasonable amount of money doing what they're doing. We all do way more than we're paid for. And that's, that's part of being good at what you do. But, you know, they're just, it gets me infuriated because I know where this stuff comes from.

[00:29:09] And I see it. I see it all over the place, but. It's just, it's such an easy thing to change or it would be, I think it was easy for me to implement it. It's just honesty and it's, it's just not being, not being shady. Right. It's not difficult. Yeah. I mean, this was like on a design side and even on design margins, like it's, they're not that high, you know, like your people are, I mean, it's fixed everything right on, uh, for.

[00:29:42] Engineering firms yeah. Of your people are fixed. Your overhead is fixed. You need to pull in that many projects to pay for everybody to not fire anybody. I mean, and you have typically a very big, you know, nut to crack on a monthly basis to just do payroll, let alone, you know, equipment, software, and everything else to do that.

[00:30:05] And I think again, financial literacy in general. Not just construction is pretty poor, but then you add in like construction specifics and what our actual margins, like what's how much money do we need to like generate in revenue to pay for payroll? Like, let's start there. What's the break. Even, especially in like a design firm when you're you're staffing a ton of people to do work that may or may not be there.

[00:30:34] Right. And like, and the same with subs, right? Like. I mean, and you guys have your own staff too, but like a lot of subs. I mean, that's the somewhat of the benefit of the union, but like still a lot of them they're, they're employing a big payroll. A lot of people, they've got a big shop space, big overhead that they, I mean, they need to do work just for cashflow purposes to stay in the game and this, uh, so which we're kind of all right, so the big thing today was bottlenecks.

[00:31:03] Um, but this is one of those things to educate your people on. Is financials, financial literacy in your company, and which goes to all your numbers and really in bottlenecks, finances are such a big one that I cannot emphasize enough truly in so many ways. Because again, like, do you know what you pay for a lead?

[00:31:25] Do you know what you pay to be in front of somebody? Do you know, what you pay to acquire that customer? Did it cost you a thousand? Do you even know, are you, you know, was it a hundred grand and your fee was five, you know, like what are your numbers to like get in front of that person? And what's the lifetime value of a customer worth to you?

[00:31:45] And this is the other thing, like when you start talking to municipalities far too often, people do the project and they leave. They never talk about it ever again, they don't show up to anything and then they wonder why they never get the next project for that municipal customer. But if you treated everybody like lifetime value, so what's this municipal district, what's this K-12 school district.

[00:32:06] What's this higher education client going to do over the next. Let's just say, 20 years, you know, what does that number look like? And. Rough terms, right. You're not going to be spot on, but are they going to build 10 million, a hundred million billion dollars worth of construction in 20 years? What's your fee on that?

[00:32:26] I mean, you can do the math pretty quickly on what that looks like, right? Like it's, this is not that hard, but you need to think of it in. Very like con what is this customer worth to us? If we are to stay in front of them. And again, you can do the initial marketing is going to cost you something up is going to cost you something every year to go to events, to do golf outings, do all that other stuff.

[00:32:48] There's a lot of free things and marketing or CATIA 10 bucks a month to be in front of them, or just send an email or give them a call, right. That doesn't cost a whole lot. It's a lot of time for sure. But if you're able to then evaluate, you know, okay, this. This customer 20 years is going to be a a hundred million dollars to us, right.

[00:33:08] That they're going to do billion dollar, you know, $50 million. Cause they're doing a billion in construction and we have a 5% fee right there. Very straight up easy math is to get 50 million, which no one ever does this math. They don't know their numbers, but to get 50 million, is it worth making a phone call every month to this guy?

[00:33:32] Probably shouldn't be. But how often do you not right. Or this people just don't make the call, but you got to think of it in those terms. What's the value of this customer? Is it worth 50 million to make it call a month? You know, so you're talking 20 years, 240 calls.

[00:33:55] It's because of this general illiteracy of finances and that you mentioned, you know, and, and. The cashflow cashflow is like a beast, a beast that lives down in the basement and the bigger you get the hungrier that beast gets. And you have to feed that beast every single day. And people don't recognize what that, what that looks like.

[00:34:18] I mean, you started touching on some of it between the insurance and the shop or the office and all the overhead, all the salaries, all of the cell phones and laptops. And that beast is hungry, man. And it is a. Unbelievable amount of food that it eats every single day. And if you don't recognize that and understand it and have a very intrinsic knowledge of what that number is, if you don't look at any other number at all, and we've talked about numbers a lot, but if you look at now nothing else, at least know what your cash flow looks like, what your, your, what your beast has to eat in a daily, weekly, monthly, annual basis, or.

[00:34:59] You won't be listening to this anymore. Cause you'll be out of the industry. It's it's as critical as that. And so very few people get into it. Um, you know, I would suggest we try and, and, and kind of push it on our employees. Also like here, you need to know what this, what this costs to do. This thing we're doing at least have a, a cursory understanding of it.

[00:35:25] Right. It's, I can't even stress how critical it is and how scary it is the first time you see those numbers. It's like, w wait, what, what, what happens if we stop producing? Well, you stop producing and the beast gets really pissed off and bad things happen. Yeah. I mean the first thing to get cut salary.

[00:35:49] Right? So if you don't produce well, I mean, you touch on it. Most employees, again, this, this. I saw posts. Some employees thought that their comp their engineering for maybe 50% margins, it's just like, that's laughable. And I comment, and I was like this financial stuff. It needs to be hammered on far more often.

[00:36:10] People need to know. Cause like I remember working for a firm and somebody. Got all upset that the owners got new cars and they weren't, they didn't get a raise or something. The end of the year. I'm like, they've owned that firm for 20 years. They probably, yeah. Their bonus might've been 50 grand or whatever to pay for the car.

[00:36:33] Yeah. You probably didn't get a bonus. And this person in particular, I was like, Uh, I know you didn't do anything above what your job was to, you know, deserve a bonus, let alone like improve the financial bottom line or bring in more work to earn a bonus. Because again, you just did your job. And this is the other thing too, that drives me insane.

[00:36:56] And my younger self was super guilty of this too. But my first job out, my boss actually outlined, Hey, you become competent in these five things. You'll get a, a race. It was a salary race. And then like, I did have to remind him after like six months, like, Hey, I think I've, I've qualified here, but it was actually outlined in far too often.

[00:37:20] People don't, they don't do more. They don't bring in revenue and they don't understand that. Like you need to generate revenue in order to get more money. And these are the, I mean, basic things that like the owners deserve fricking like, uh, again, if it's a new car, like you don't know what they do, they finance the whole thing.

[00:37:43] Did they pay cash for it? It's a $80,000 BMW and their bonus was 50 on a hundred and whatever person engineering firm, I'm sure had 10 million in revenues. Like. You know, like this is somewhat simple math to understand, like as an owner of a firm, you're going to get paid more. You took the risk, you own the overhead.

[00:38:06] And again, if it's 50 grand, like, okay, you make two thirds of the payment on a car, you know, like in your you're making whatever 70 grand in the Midwest, which is still like fairly decent. But again, that guy took a lot more risk or the owners took a lot more risks. Then you did, and they're responsible for every, you know, again, a hundred percent, like just simple things that I think again, but the owners never conveyed that either.

[00:38:35] Right. And people just got mad or a lot of things that should be more transparent in like, but again, it's a privately held firm. They totally don't have to talk about it. They don't want to it's. Totally their rights. And I think a lot of people just get lost in these very basic things of there's a hundred people here, like live around at salaries.

[00:38:58] I'm pretty sure, you know, they're probably making 10 million a year to just cover salary, you know, or revenues 10 million, you know, margins of 5%. So simple math.

[00:39:18] I saw the poster referring to, and I, I didn't comment on purpose because I would have been the asshole. Like I don't, you're, you're a lot better at being, uh, eloquent with that sort of thing where I tend to just rip the bandaid off, you know, and maybe that's the construction guy in me or whatnot, but I don't.

[00:39:41] Mess around on, on a lot of those topics. It pisses me off to no end. When, when people who don't know what the hell they're talking about, start running their mouth. I'll just leave it at that. I try not to do it when I do it. I mean, it happens when I do it and start talking about things. If I don't stop myself, somebody else should.

[00:40:01] And I'll, I'll respect them even more. Yeah. Yeah. So. Again, this whole thing was on, on bottlenecks, but this creates a lot of problems within the organization. Right? If you, so in bottlenecks, right? Sales is one of them. Do you have enough to feed the beast? Right? Feed the cashflow machine. Can you bring in enough projects?

[00:40:23] How do you do marketing? How has that top of funnel look like then? You know, as you go down, right. What do operations look like? Do you have enough people to fulfill on your projects? Do you have enough money to keep things going and understanding what your finances are? I know we got on a big finance tangent, but this.

[00:40:42] To me is a huge, well, a big, big deal that not enough people understand, and it could help to, again, bring back top of funnel clients in order to retain the clients that you have. So they can, again, feed, feed the machine, feed the internal workings of your, your organization, your firm in whatever capacity.

[00:41:03] Again, you want clients for this construction, they're going to build stuff. Right. And typically if a client builds one thing, they're going to build a bunch of things over a period of time. So understand like, this is we're in the career relationship game. We're not in the, we'll sell you a widget today or, you know, sell me this pen.

[00:41:24] That's not, not the game we're in. So, all right. Top of funnel finances, operations is, uh, I think the thing that we'll have the amount of time to cover it today, but is. Getting into operations and making sure that you have enough people for the job that you're doing, you have the right systems in place.

[00:41:46] Um, and systems are a big thing that we can probably do an episode in and of systems themselves. But when we talk about operations, it's, you know, can you fulfill the project that you've agreed to and I'll speak on the design firms side of this is we commit or we. Go and present and, uh, try to when as much work as possible, we win more than the people.

[00:42:15] Well, we have hire warm bodies because you don't care. You didn't plan for it. You haven't built your culture for it. And it creates all sorts of problems on that side of it, or on the reverse. You lost a bunch because you didn't know your win rate, win rate on proposals and presentations that you went after.

[00:42:35] Bad clients, you didn't, you know, uh, go through a approval process for which projects you're going to go after you just went after everything. And then you lost a whole bunch because you didn't spend the time on the ones that you should have won. So then you're stuck with not enough projects scrambling and you ended up firing a bunch of people and then trying it all over again, next proposal cycle.

[00:42:59] Um, so those typically how the, the two ways of design firms go is. Poor, uh, selection process for clients. And then it either way, it goes bad. Uh, rarely is it a nice equilibrium? Construction's not that far off, man. You know, and I see this, I've seen it in firms. I've worked for where typically what happens is, is not that they hire a whole shit ton of people and then have to get rid of them.

[00:43:30] It's they just never hire anyone. And they try and stretch and stretch and stretch and stretch and say, all right, we're going to do 30 million this year with 20 people. And we're going to do 60 million next year with 20 people. And we're going to push a hundred the next year with 22 people, you know, scaling and, and, and operational growth.

[00:43:52] It, it's a hard one to understand because of the beast in the basement. I get it. I mean, we we're at a different scale than some of that, but it's a. It's a scary thing too, to bring new people on because we want to do it the right way. We want to bring people that fit our culture, bring them kind of up in, in our systems and our processes.

[00:44:12] Um, make sure they represent our core values and then kind of let them loose on the construction world. Well, there's this big catch 22 because you know, the, you bring another person on the beast gets a lot hungrier. So, if you're not grabbing more work, you can't sustain to feed them anymore. And, and you know, like we've talked about before, the worst thing in the world is having to get rid of somebody or lay someone off or, you know, any of that sort of stuff.

[00:44:37] So, you know, really understanding how, how your funnel works and, and knowing your numbers, you know, taking the time to sit down and really map out what kind of manpower do you need to, to, to hit the targets you're setting in place? Is it. If you don't do that. I mean, it's real easy to say, I want to do X million of dollars this year, but if you don't take those next few steps and say, okay, and I'm going to do it with five people or 10 people or whatever the number is, you're, you're bound for destruction.

[00:45:11] You know, you're, you're, you're kind of running with a blindfold on, and eventually you're going to hit something. You hit on a couple of good points there that I want to touch on more is. One bringing people into your organization that fit culture, core values, right. That's super unique, right? Nobody does that.

[00:45:34] Um, and then two is having training, right? Uh, bringing people within, know your systems and understanding that that takes time. And the thing in this that I really want to hammer on is that it's an investment. To, to not see your people as an investment is a big problem. And I think far too many firms see their people as an expense.

[00:46:02] Right. They see it as a line item as a thing we can't before. And for sure, there's going to be times where that is absolutely true, but there's also times where, you know, having been bringing people on, they should be able to make you money. Right. At the end of the day, those, especially your senior people, your staff that is client facing.

[00:46:25] If they're not bringing more work in, or if you're not putting him in positions to bring more work in, I mean, that's ultimately on you as a firm owner and an executive to put your people in front of owners to bring in work, to trust them. But also to explain like the backend, the finances to be somewhat transparent with them.

[00:46:46] So that they can go in an educated manner to understand the situation, instead of like, I'm just doing my job. Right. But have nice idea that like, oh, we need more work and ask about that or have the financial incentives like, oh, you brought something in cool. You know, here's our structure financially to reward you for, for doing so.

[00:47:09] And again, it's. You need to have those systems as a business owner, as an executive in your firm and your company, it's going to keep people, it's going to keep them happy. They're going to be part of the process, which again, as we've talked about in culture and core values and all that stuff, like people have to be a part of the process.

[00:47:26] If they're not, they just don't fit in the company. Cause they don't, they don't know where they fit. They don't know what, where on the totem pole or puzzle piece or however you want to make that metaphor. They don't know where they fit. And that's a big, big problem in a lot of firms and knowing and telling people, Hey, you fit here.

[00:47:45] This is what you need to do. These are your key metrics. It's a slut, you know, we're going to measure and judge you by, but most don't have those and they have to know where they could go to. Right. They have to have some sort of roadmap and it's different at every firm, you know, on a bigger firm. Maybe it's, you know, they move up from PE to a project manager, to a senior product manager, to some, some down the line on a smaller firm.

[00:48:12] Maybe it's you do really good and you can become a partner, you know, but, but they have to, you, you, as the owner have to display that and have to, to show them very explicitly. This is what our expectations are. And if you perform, like, we really want you to, here's where you can go. And it's just, you know, it's communication.

[00:48:36] We've, we've beaten that to death and other and other episodes, but it's just being open and honest and communicating. It's really simple math, as you say, but it doesn't get it. Doesn't doesn't get done a lot. People don't understand it.

[00:48:55] It's. Yeah. So again, working through like the operational piece of your funnel and fulfilling work, right? Whether that's on the design or the construction side, because that's really what it's operations and you know, in far too many design firms, they're not treating it as operations. It's it's design, right.

[00:49:15] It's art and fanciful, especially in architecture side of the house. Like they don't treat it as production and. The more that you can treat these as systematized. Granted, we have milestones, right? Schematic, design documents, construction arguments. But the more that you can, like, this is how we do it. This is how we go through.

[00:49:34] This is how we set up everything. This is the detailed level that we go on each phase of this project. Right? And the more that you can systematize that to where as Jocko would say, discipline equals freedom that now once these constraints are in place, You now have a lot more freedom to do other things, because you don't have to think about the basics, right?

[00:49:57] I mean, it's like the beauty of our software is you don't, the basics are done now. It's client facing now it's everything else that goes into the project and all the little stuff gets taken care of. And I think a lot of things can be systematized in, okay, this is how we set up projects. This is how you know, in the design world, this is how sheets get set up.

[00:50:19] In the construction world, Hey, this is how we phase everything and plan it out. This is how we do scheduling. This is how we estimate projects and more things like that. There needs to be a system in place for, and again, you're going to have to think which is going to be the hard part. You're going to have to spend some time to go through this very methodically, figure out what works and adjust over time to come up with systems that work for your firm.

[00:50:52] Just got to spend the time.

[00:50:56] If it was easy, everybody would do it.

[00:51:01] There was a good quote that I read this morning that thinking, uh, I don't know if I can find it here. Um, but in, in thinking it's one of the things that you become smarter, uh, Oh, those who know that unless we are willing to think we shall have to work in the less, we think the more we show have to work and the less we shall get for our work.

[00:51:32] There you go. That's a pretty good way to close it.

[00:51:40] You also wanted to bring up the podcast, the other, uh, podcasts giveaway. Yeah. So if everybody could just take a minute after you're done liking and sharing our podcasts with all your friends and associates hop on over to construction junkie.com. Uh, I don't think Shane has opened up the voting yet, but he will be very soon for the, uh, best construction podcast of the year awards.

[00:52:05] We would greatly appreciate the nod. If you guys are enjoying any of this that we do, um, If you're not enjoying what we do, then let us know that too. Uh, you can reach us by all of our channels are pretty easy to find. So, you know, like it share it, let us know what you guys want to hear, what you don't and we'll keep doing it.

[00:52:27] All right, guys, to summarize everything today, and I know we'll cover more of this and other episodes first, definitely go and rate us. Number one, number one, and number one. Uh, next is so again, then funnels, right? You got to go and bottlenecks is figuring out where what's the pinch point in your organization.

[00:52:46] What's slowing you up. What's keeping you from becoming better, right? Whether that's you don't have enough leads, you don't have enough sales. You don't have any budget coming in the top of your funnel. The next is going through, down to operations, creating systems, processes to Olin, Billy, deliver a project and then continuing to work with your clients.

[00:53:07] And. Giving them value. Right? We do as a big value add to our badges, our clients, but our communities, the world around us, we, we design and build stuff, right? So everything that you see ultimately is engineered it's constructed and it's operated. So we need to do our best to continue to provide value to our, our owners, our municipality, to their governments or school systems, everything that we do and serve.

[00:53:33] Uh, in our communities. So again, uh, figure out where that pinch point is for you and your growth. And what's holding you back from becoming the best organization that you can. And again, uh, construction junkie.com go and rate us number one and guys until next time .

#132

#132 CCP

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the construction corner podcast. I'm Dillon, I'm your host joined by my blue collar battens, Matt, how's it going? My friend

things are fantastic deal. And I feel like we've taken a trip back in the stone age because we're not doing this live and we're not doing it on video. It may be the first time that since I've been with you, that this has happened. Yeah. It's for those of you who don't know, Matt lost power, so we're doing this still recorded, but just over the phone effectively.

And in the past, I've had to pull out my generator because here in California, our power is not always most reliable, but usually I can get the internet back up and running. So it's an interesting.

Yeah. And our power went out about noon my time today and immediately I ran next door, got the generator fired up. Cause I, I knew we were recording this afternoon and the internet was working just fine for a couple hours. And then I dunno, conveniently about an hour before we were about to go live.

The internet went out also. So now there's nothing over there. So phone it is for today, but we'll make it. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm just getting back into the let's call it the swing of things as I, for the last week have been on a vacation, did the anniversary slash honeymoon trip, since we never got like a real honeymoon since the world was effectively on hiatus for the last year to go and do anything.

So I've been off the grid for the last week.

How was the trip, man? Honestly, I mean like the weather. So we went to lake Tahoe, traveled around lake Tahoe, a few different places, whether there's beautiful, so Tahoe and really most of the west, like it gets fairly warm. And I actually got it into the upper eighties, which is very warm for.

And then at night, it'll drop to where it's 60 degrees. So you need a sweatshirt at night or in the morning. And then, you're in shorts and a t-shirt during the day. So you gotta pack all sorts of clothes to be there. But the weather's perfect. Got my pan slash sunburn going on from the weeks and And learned after our first day at the beach that we needed an umbrella to be in the shade.

Can't quite do the full day at the beach with the no umbrella, no shade. So from then on, it got a little better, but we were for sure sunburned and suntan by by Tuesday.

That's good. You got an extra load of a vitamin D milk. It'll help carry you through now, although you're in California. So I don't feel too bad for you. You still see the sun a lot more than we do here, but glad you had a good time and the weather didn't do anything horrible for you. No, it was a great trip and really, so one of the things that you know before we get into that you had a golf outing this last weekend, and I guess, tell us a little bit about that.

There's some kind of special things about it that we should share with our listeners. Yeah, so the quick backstory is about three and a half, four years ago. We were building an addition onto a local fire station here, say for construction. My wife brought my three boys up some late afternoon evening for just to come see what dad was doing.

And my middle son, his name is Lucas. At the time he was nine. He got a tour of the station from one of the lieutenants and they were taking them through firetrucks and, doing all that whole thing. They pulled out this device it's called ironically the Lucas device. And it's a really cool.

Piece of technology. It's a hands-free CPR machine. I can't do it. Justice explaining it over the phone like this. So if you don't know what it is, check it out. It's called the Lucas device, L U C a. But basically it does a hundred percent perfect hands-free chest compressions for CPR, and it allows firefighters to be way safer.

They can attend to other patients. There. There's a whole huge list of benefits that they're too numerous to list on a quick phone call like this. So anyways we went home that night and my son disappeared. He came upstairs and the basement a little while later. And he had scribbled with marker on a piece of construction paper and a business plan.

And he came up and he said, data, I want to raise, I want to buy these for some fire departments. And my wife and I looked at each other and smiled and thought it was a cute idea and let it simmer well, he kept pushing on it and pushing on it. So we agreed to back him. We said, okay, we'll help you raise money.

No, if you can buy one. Fantastic. The kicker is these things are like 16 grand a piece. So we figured our nine-year-old might raise, a few bucks here and there. He might hit up grandma and grandpa and, get 5,000 bucks out of it. Something like that. Long story short, he ended up putting together this plan and he and my wife went and started pounding pavement, doing old school fundraising, talking to local businesses.

Setting up events. So fast forward now to this last Saturday, and we now have a 5 0 1 C3 non-profit it's called the better family organization. And Lucas for Lucas is the specific charity that this one is working on. So we had our third golf outing raising money to buy these things. These Lucas devices for local fire depart.

They bought prior to the outing, he's bought seven of them to date not to spill the beans too much, but I'm pretty confident they're gonna get another one out of the outing. So anyways, that's the short, long story of it. Golf outing was Saturday. The weather in our case was just a Bismal.

We had more golfers than we've had to date, which was awesome. It started absolute down pouring at about 10 o'clock in the morning. And it went till probably close to two o'clock like there were periods of just blinding rain and it was cold. Luckily, no lightning. So the course pro let us keep going.

And amazingly at the end of the day, when we were, that we do a big raffle. All sorts of prizes and food and that sort of thing. We were only down three teams that started so only three teams left because of the weather. And one of them left early and we knew they had to leave earlier.

That was regardless of weather. So it was a cool event. The weather was horrific, but it's a good cause. Raised a lot of money and left for a good recovery Sunday.

So awesome. And guys, I had never heard of this device until Lucas actually showed me when I was out. And it's pretty amazing, it's hands-free so somebody is in an ambulance, like they can do that without having to stop the ambulance on the way to the hospital, things like that. It's perfect.

You're not going to get tired. It's a robot mechanical to do. Chest compressions to, like recovery rate, look up all the stats on this thing. It's phenomenal. And really a great thing. Great cause great charity.

Yeah. It's the stats on this thing are absolutely amazing. So if you're interested, he's got a Facebook paid at Lucas for Lucas. But the survival rate is 60 plus percent better when they put this thing on page. Versus doing compressions manually. And there's all kinds of moderately creepy stories that I've, I could tell you from a lot of my friends who are first responders, but I'll save those stories when we're in person again, because somethings can get a little weird, but it's a neat device.

So I certainly recommend checking it out if you haven't heard of it.

Awesome. And one of the things that we're going to pivot here a little bit, but. Going to events, right? I had my vacation retreat. You had an event and you end up talking to a lot of people at events and far too often, and at least on the architect engineer side of the table, I find that we rarely go to different events, we're typically chained to the desk. Nobody gets out of the house. For, rarely anything it seems like, but these events, these things that you can go out to, whether it's local charity events, whether it's industry events, all these types of things really create some inspiration and stimulation on what's out there what's possible and new things that are, either being developed or have been around for awhile that we just haven't heard about.

One of the big things that I encourage is for all of you to find events, find things, to go out and seek some inspiration crown that you might not have otherwise really known about or thought possible.

Yeah. And it ties into, I think we were talking last week about just getting out there and yeah. Networking and being part of community again, we all dealt with all the nonsense of 2020, just to be able to get face to face and shake hands. In my case with the outing, it's a lot of work for my family and I, and it's I don't even get to golf in it, but I couldn't even count how many hands I shook that day.

And how many face to face conversations I had with all kinds of people. And just to be able to do that again. It is worth it, certainly we're standing in the rain for a while, but it's worth a lot more than that.

Yeah. And on, on top of that you've got events, you've got meeting people who shake hands. It goes a long way and showing up is a big chunk of this, put it in the time, having the conversation. Doing things that and showing up that people, most people aren't really willing to do. It totally goes a long way.

And one of the other kind of side pieces to this is having retreats, having things that you, as a company, internally do to clarify your goals, your mission, and where you're heading. And I think far too often knees also get created. Just a break, not something that most people go into with a like pure mission and like outcomes that they want to create out of these retreats.

I would agree with you a hundred percent and it's something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. Since the last time we recorded, we did in fact, hire another employee. So we're super excited. Our team is growing. This is so far looking like a fantastic year and next year shaping up to be the same.

So there's a big part of me. That's wanting to now put a little more focus now that I have I will have a little bit more time to work on the business versus in it, this sort of event or retreat or immersion or whatever you want to call it. It has been something that's kicking around in my head trying to find ideas.

And I think what you mean doing is not just your typical, certainly not a golf outing and not even just like the annual Christmas party where, everybody gets a little too tipsy. What I think you're getting at and correct me if I'm wrong, though is an event or a an outing, if you will, where you and your team are strictly there to focus on the vision on.

You as a leader or me as a leader, casting the vision, hearing what our new teammates or old teammates have to say and have to think and getting input across the board and, really reinforcing what it is that we're doing and why we're doing it because so often in, in construction, especially, but probably in most, any industry, there's a lot of folks out there, a lot of companies anyways, They may not have that, that deep of a vision.

They're doing what they're doing to make money. And there's nothing wrong with making money. I love it as much as the next guy, but I like to think that what we're doing at Schaefer and what you're doing it at Cowabunga, there's a bit of a deeper vision there, a bit of a deeper, intrinsic goal that we're looking for.

And I think something like this could be a good opportunity to get your people and really reinforce that they're all on board.

Absolutely. And it's a, spot on, it's getting together, it's having a dedicated day or two that you spend with the company and if you're in a larger company and maybe it's just your leadership team to where you hammer on what'd, you guys want right on the hammer, on the vision hammer on the things that you're looking forward to doing.

Types of projects that you want to pursue, the types that you don't want to pursue, which that's just as important is what you say no to what you're not going to do is, and in some cases, probably more important than the things that you want to pursue and getting clarity on that vision across the whole team.

It could be your entire company. It could be just your leadership. The best in the biggest companies do this, right? They have leadership retreats where, they do spend a day or two either with all their people or as a leadership team. And in some cases for some of the big fortune 500 companies, it's a few thousand people across their leadership team who get together and, they have keynotes, the CEO talks about where they're going as a company, what the vision is, and then other key leaders.

About where they're heading, where they're going to get everybody on the same page. And this is so important that I think most, especially in construction, we don't do this often enough because it's, we're just chasing that next project, that next building the next thing, and not really focusing on what do we actually want to build?

What do we not want to pursue? What's detracting our focus, what is not profitable for us? And when you're able to get clear on that, a lot of things become very simple for your team to say yes or no to

definitely. And you mentioned it a minute ago, we've talked about it in previous episodes, but truly, I stand behind this, that some of the absolute best projects are the ones that you walk away. And getting together with your group, whoever that may be and really structuring out your vision, structuring out your core focus, your target market, your best client, all of that sort of thing.

It allows you to operate in a way that you hopefully don't make as many of those mistakes because. I'm guessing that you've done it on the design side. I can guarantee I've done it on the construction side, but getting involved in a bad relationship, a bad project, it haunts you for way longer than just the duration of the project itself.

And, life's too short. This industry is too fraught with stress and chaos to be getting into that sort of thing. W I've done it. I've talked about it in the show before when I chase work that I really know I shouldn't, and it's really just my ego getting involved or otherwise, but, having these sort of retreats, having these sort of these in-depth meetings of the minds of the people that you want to lead your company, it can help you clarify that vision and get some traction and know which which direction you need to be headed.

It just helps you make decisions.

And as important as those meetings are, one of the things that will be just as important as all the work that you put in to show up that meeting, right? Knowing your financials, your numbers, where you want to be, what you want to say to your people. We want your people to come out with what are the three things that you want them to know by the end of the week?

Right? Parts of often we, I think we go to conferences or. We don't have a outcome in mind going into it. And then there's nothing that we can really repeat or regurgitate coming out of the event. So effectively, like nothing really stuck. And you want to really hammer and repeat into your people, whatever the one to three outcomes that you want out of them, the things that you want them to remember, you're going to need to repeat them.

It's going to sound like you're repeating yourself, but again, most people. Actually retain that information. So it's something you will need to repeat multiple times it to stick. And the one to three talking points, basically that you're going to hammer on. So it's not just the event itself, but it's all the effort that, as a leadership team, you're going to put in to that event so that you can have the outcomes that you want after it.

And that's going to last, until the next one, whenever that might be, if it's six months, a year, whatever it might be for you and your team. You need to put effort in on the front end to have a successful outcome for those events? Yes, because I have personally been involved in companies where they talked a good talk, in interviews and in front of certain people about how dedicated they were to their vision and everything else.

And I promised I wouldn't get into core values today, so I'm not going to do it. But that's. But I've been in, I've been in companies where we had these events and, two things can happen really fast in a, especially in construction. A lot of people drink a lot and these events can turn into a drunk Fest very quickly.

And there's a time and place for that. Believe me, I'm not knocking it, but not a whole lot gets done. The other thing that can happen. Yeah. If there's not the preparation that you just touched on, that the absolute true focus on what you want me to convey to your people. It turns into a really boring shit show of here's our financials.

Here's how much money we made. We signed this project. We signed that project. We're going big places, guys, Lulu, Raul rod. That's fine and good, but it's really just fluff. It doesn't do any good for long-term planning for planting the seed of your own vision in the minds of all the people that work for you or with you.

And that's where the power of a good well-planned out. Thought outing or retreat I think really comes from, is being able to plant that seed and watching it.

And the more clarity you have on your numbers, the projects you want to go after, the things that you need moving forward, the better off you're going to be. It becomes really simple. Once you do all the analysis and that chart might not look all that impressive, but all the work that goes into producing that chart, that decision.

Next step is huge and it will create so much clarity, so much benefit your organization, that the countless hours you're going to go and put into it, to, create and do a present a five, 10 minute speech on that one slide is going to be. Just enormously beneficial to your company. So don't underestimate the power of those slides, those deficient, while it might look simple, the amount of energy that goes into it is absolutely not.

Yeah. And I can attest just from the golf outing, we've talked about this last weekend and it wasn't a corporate outing by any means, but the work that goes into just playing. An event like that is, is almost unfathomable. And I will not take any of the credit. My wife does the lion's share of it.

But to see what goes into planning it and putting everything together is it's amazing because it's very much like a corporate outing or a corporate retreat. You have to plan these things. You have to really prepare because can't have it be a flop because then. If the golf outings a flop, we won't raise enough money to make it worthwhile or worse.

We'll lose money. If the corporate outing or retreat is a flop, you won't get the benefit of casting that vision and organizing, where your future of the company goes. So it's nothing that you can put off you can't procrastinate and plan it, on the night before you, you go to this event.

Cause you're bound for. And in bigger companies that might be easier, if you have a dedicated person or, an assistant or a marketing person, or whoever that, that is good at this sort of thing, event planning in a smaller company like mine, it would be, it would probably end up being me doing the bulk of it.

And I can tell you that I am no event planner by any means. So I would be scrapping all the resources and help I could find. Point being and just to echo what you said, you really got to take some time and plan these things out and make sure that it has the propensity to at least be a success before you leave.

Absolutely. In the, where this all heads a little bit is, you need to know where you're going, what people you need to bring into your organization. And one of the things. In constructing. So I'll speak a little bit to the construction side of things is for a long time, we've relied on the union to train and bring up people and to know what they, their craft is right to, to train people.

And then you've got, the springing up of other training institutions, but historically the union was the place where people learned and gained a skill, a trade On the architecture and engineering side, that's been, colleges and institutions, which, you do have a dedicated architecture school engineering is not as much dedicated to like building or construction focus, especially for, I would say the MEP trades somewhat instructional and somewhat in civil, but the ability to.

Train and bring your people up and knowing who you need to put into which seats, again, this all goes into planning the, where you're going to go, what people you need to bring into your organization, how you need to train them, all the training courses. And again, this, I mean like any business, there's a lot of moving parts, a lot of things that you need to learn or have somebody in charge of so that you can move the whole organization forward.

And yeah. Far too often. I think that's training piece. That's knowing which people to put in the right seats, as we talked about last week is hugely important. And again, far too often, like the need to bring people, the willingness to put those programs in place is effectively non-existent. And one of the reasons I want to bring this up is last week, as I'm driving around, and again, this is for sure not a cheap place to live. I very much understand that, but in the need for help, they had, we're driving around, there's a lot of hotels and whatnot. And one of the signs in front of which is call it, I think it was like a little better than a motel six, but not much.

They were four ounce cheaper. They were advertising a starting wage of $16 an hour, which to me is just crazy deeper how it's keeping that, that was like the starting wage. But the other one that really blew me away while there. The other one was a locksmith advertising for 18 to 20 bucks an hour.

And we'll train like no experience needed to show up and we'll pay you 20 bucks an hour, which again, for no skills, no, nothing is also insane. But the other one that totally floored me was the Tahoe area transit system or whatever. Heart is it's. So I guess it's co area regional transit. They were advertising for bus drivers with no experience needed.

Now isn't that a scary thought public transportation with no experience, but they're so desperate for people that will hire you. And it just floored me going around the lake. That is crazy to me.

I don't like taking public transportation normally. And maybe I'm just a little I got too much anxiety for that but to think that my bus driver who's driving, a bus with, I don't know, 50 people potentially, maybe more has never done this before. That's scary, but that's not like brain surgeon.

Who's never done it before. Scary, but it's a close second. No. And training is it's huge in any industry, you have to develop good training programs because especially in construction, we always have to work on what I call our farm team know, and that we can go out and hire people.

And it's really hard right now. We've talked about that. It's very difficult to find. People with a good skillset that you want that have a bunch of experience in the kind of building in my case that we do. But they're out there and, quite frankly, we've gotten really lucky and we've found a couple in the last month that it's really going to help us.

But now my mission is I need to start building up this farm club because, when you, one of the downsides of hiring people that have a good chunk of experience, It is that they're probably not going to work for you for 20 years or 40 years, or, forever, let's say, so you have to find young talent or young optimism.

We'll put it that way. That wants to be talented. And you have to attract these people somehow and being willing to train them and train them. I think can be a really big attractant in today's market. Politically going on and everything, with unemployment and with people just not wanting to, or not having to work, you have to find a way to stand out and be different and be better than the option.

A and I think training is one of those ways to do that

training is for sure huge. People want to grow within their position. If you're not giving them growth opportunities, they'll go somewhere else. That's really simple. And on average, somebody is going to stay with you between three and five years in this type of market, unless you give them opportunities to grow, to take on new roles, new projects, new growth opportunities within your firm.

They'll go somewhere. Because they've maxed out their position and there's no place for them to go. They've hit the ceiling in your organization. And if you don't provide new opportunities, if you don't expand as a company, then they'll go somewhere else. And then you just have to fill that flat. Okay. So totally true.

And being able to find good people to bring up under, because again, you're, you can't expect somebody to work for you forever. You're going to try, but it's ultimately not your decision. Right? Life circumstances, change people, move tons of things happen to where not everyone's going to stay with you forever and that's completely okay.

Don't take it for sure.

Yeah, absolutely. People there's a lot of reasons people leave, like you just mentioned a couple. Sometimes people get the entrepreneurial bug and decided they don't want to work for someone else anymore. Case in point, I think you're talking to two of those guys are listening to two of those guys.

But you gotta make, you gotta make it the best for the people you have and keep them interested in, benefits come in a lot. Ways and means it's not always just, health insurance and paid time off, but, to make it worthwhile and really provide meaningful work. I think that's a big one that gets overlooked a lot.

And that is one of those kind of woo topics these days. But I think it holds a lot of truth and that, if people are building. In our case, building things that matter, or that make a difference. And that somehow have some intrinsic value that you can add to the person that's working on it.

That goes a long way. And the pay is one thing, you have to provide competitive pay, especially in markets like this, you, and you mentioned a couple of examples. One that I found absolutely amazing. A week or two ago, I was driving around by, out by a new project we had, and I ran through a Wendy's drive through and Dave got signs everywhere.

First of all, they're still not open because they don't have enough people to actually open enough to have indoor dining or indoor sales. So it's strictly drive to, but they've got signs all over the place around this drive through and along with offering, I think they were at $15 an hour for a winter.

They were offering to pay for college classes. Now, I don't know about you. But when I started working and I'm going to date myself, but I started working as a stock boy at a what used to be Arbor drugs. And I think I made $6 an hour maybe $4. I don't even remember, but to think that you could go into it.

Extremely entry-level job, like a Wendy's or like a stock boy. And this company's got to find a way now to cover your costs of college, just to attract enough labor enough workforce to open, keep their doors open. That is incredible to me.

So there's. There's so many layers to this, right? If you're flipping hamburgers, it's, you really don't need that much skill. And there's a lot of things that you're seeing can be automated. So like I went into a McDonald's this last week for some breakfast sandwiches, and I don't know if you could have ordered from a person, if you wanted to, you did the little touchscreen deal.

There were six of them and. And I probably got my food faster than I ever had before, because now there's no, no front counter people and it's just everybody cooking or flipping a burger, dropping a tray or whatever. However, the heck McDonald's does their food. But that's what you're going to see is more mechanization for everything, for restaurants, for software, again, if you can't attract talent, you're going to have to find a way or you have to pay a lot for a talent. You're going to have to find a way to reduce costs in operations so that you're able to produce the same volume with effectively less people. And we're seeing that in so many industries, organizations that, as costs rise, you need to find more effective ways to do, whatever it is you're doing.

Whether yeah. Putting drywall up or flipping burgers, right? Design and buildings. It's you gotta be more efficient with less people. Yeah. Because as much as we would all love to just raise prices, I don't think that's the reality in most cases, unless you're a supplier right now, we've talked about the crazy commodities markets and what's going on and in the construction world, especially right now, But if the trades and the GCs and the designers started all raising pricing accordingly to what the material suppliers are doing, no one could afford it anymore.

No one could afford to build anything. And it's the same in every industry. No one can afford to make hamburgers. If for a sustained period of time, they have to be paying $15 an hour and paying for college classes just to get warm bodies in the. And, there's, we could argue and discuss the merits of minimum wage and levels of that, but that's probably a better for a different show, but, there's certain jobs that are frankly not meant to be permanent occupations.

They're meant to be stepping stones. And when you have jobs like that, that are paying the way a wage, a fully functioning wage that 2, 3, 4 years ago, No, a laborer on a construction crew is making it makes it really hard to compete, but it puts us in this never-ending cycle. Where do we stop?

When does it actually end? When do we come to a point where, you know, enough's enough and we can't keep going up because either these companies start going out of business or they do try and raise pricing and they end up going out of business because you just can't sustain that sort of thing.

Yeah. It comes in multiple ways. So either you're going to start paying 10 bucks for a hamburger at McDonald's, which historically was a dollar or 55 cents or a nickel or whatever it was when Ray crock really took over McDonald's like you're going to just be outrageous pricing.

And you're going to, it's going to be hard now think about that. If it's, let's just say it's six bucks. Egg McMuffin or whatever, five bucks for an egg McMuffin. So you now have to work at a $15 an hour deal. You got to work 20 minutes to afford breakfast. Like how crazy is that? So you got to work a full hour to afford a meal for the day.

Like

it's just, it becomes insane. So you've got to. Prices have to go up because the cost of inputs go up, and again, just taking a simple example, like McDonald's right. The cost of eggs went up because the pots, they had to pay their people to feed the chickens. Went up to whatever the chicken costs to acquired.

So the cost of gas, which was like six bucks or yeah, five, five bucks around Tahoe for gas. We're like three. I am in California. Like you think about like just gas prices to get the brigand egg from where it was laid to be on my sandwich. Like in everything and this goes for all of it and we know through construction, there's a lot of stuff that we have to get.

So just transportation costs in and of itself is outrageous. And then add into that all day. Which costs of people add into a training. So you're now paying a premium wage for somebody that doesn't know how to do anything, which means their productivity is lower. So you're not only paying a higher wage for that person, but you're also paying for less output.

So the, and this is why, again I saw this kind of coming years ago and this was the whole crux of the founding of the cabin. The studios was. You just saw all these old farmers through the industry. No one really came in. No one really stayed. I didn't see another way to do things other than automation.

And you're seeing it across the industry from drywall, with robots to mechanization of a lot of things. Granted, there's a lot of safety pieces that go into that where you're, somebody is now can extend the longevity of their career because their back doesn't hurt. They're able to get up and. Kind of other safety benefits to that, with no one in my ladder, things like that, that, that helped that, but it also drives productivity.

Now one person can do the job of three with the help of mechanization. And again, nobody wants to come into it. They're having to compete with Wendy's, the same wage and college, which, you know, again for construction crews, you're not always able to, or probably not even close to being able to.

That type of wage rate.

Yeah. It's making the exceedingly tough and you just said it. To attract people into the skilled trades people that haven't been doing it already, to attract new blood, new talent into the skilled trades when they can. They won't make much for longer, but they can make much sometimes to start with flipping burgers and they'll get college that's insane.

Now the flip side of that is you get people in the skilled trades and very quickly they will, out-earn most competitive competing jobs. But you gotta get them there. You gotta get them to stay and you gotta keep a motive. And figure out how to do that. You'll probably do pretty well out there right now.

And this is probably one of the things that I'd like to, as we get close to wrapping up here is to end on, for me, I was sitting on a beach, granted I love the time with my wife and, somewhat decompress, but for the most part, like I can't not do something. I can't not like work.

I dunno, probably thousand pages over the course of the week. I just, I read a lot. I still did little things here and there. And for me, like sitting on the beach, it's not the perfect Corona commercial that we're used to seeing. It's not that golden age of retirement where it's not my deal, man.

It's not my problem anymore. That's what everybody's trying to reach and really. Run towards is this golden age of retirement or not doing anything or sitting, in the beach for the Corona. And for a lot of us, it's, you're just drifting, right? You're not putting towards a purpose or meaningful work towards meaningful life.

Oh, for all of us in construction, you can provide purpose, meaningful work, meaningful life, as long as you can change it, invade, ask that vision, that purpose, those core values boards, everyone in your sphere of influence. And if you're able to do that, if you're able to show people why this matters, why this building, why this house, all these projects really matter in the meaning and purpose behind it.

You're going to create not only a great organization, but you're going to be fulfilled. Yeah, I've found sitting on the beach, like by Wednesday of this week, I was done and both my wife and I came to the same conclusion for Goodwill, like four day excursions and things that are planned out and going places.

It doesn't mean we don't provide some time for, going to breweries or distilleries and having fun and, hang over periods where you're recovering, but you in there. You're going to the next place. You're seeing the next thing. It provides some purpose and meaning some structure. And through that, you have really, I've had much better time, more structured, more eventful planned out vacations than I did for the week sitting on the.

Yeah. And I think, it's to each his own a little bit, but I think you and I are cut from a similar cloth on that end, that, that entrepreneurial fire. I do the same thing. I go stir crazy when I quote unquote sit for too long and it's not because I don't enjoy hanging out with my wife and my boys or my dogs or all of my, I love it.

I get to a point where I, something productive has to be happening in my head or else I, I just, I go a little nutty. So even when we go on vacation and we don't often, we typically go on one nice trip a year. But I'll still bring my work and I limit it drastically. And I'm getting better at limiting it even more.

But, I like to have a pulse to, on, on how my business is doing and what's going on when I'm not. But I also like to be productive and whether that's reading, like you said and still, learning and just constantly building things in my head or whether it's physically working on a project or even just touching base with my superintendents or a project manager or whatever, I like to have that pulse, but we're not all going to be like you and I've learned that the hard way it's taken a while.

I think this all kind of revolves around everything we've been talking about today, and that you have to cast a vision. You have to take time to, to sit down with your people and really make sure that they know why you're doing what you do, why I'm doing what I do. You have to provide opportunity, whether that's through training or just meaningful work, or God forbid, you got to give them college classes to come work.

Sandwich shop. It's all about attracting good talent and keeping them engaged and keeping them motivated. And that's how you move through these phases. I think

perfectly said, it's all the above and you do that. Your firm's gonna grow. It's gonna provide, a great purpose, a great benefit. Again, we're in construction guys. We build everything that you see around us. We're essential. People need us and and we need them, we need more people to come into our industry.

Do you really see how great of a industry construction is? How beneficial it can be for most people and really just the community around us, which then includes everybody. As a last reminder here, before we do final words, share the show, guys pair this out to somebody that needs to hear it to somebody that needs to hear about, going on retreats on filling some of the gaps in employment, on training, on everything that we've talked about today, or any of our other shows on, pricing or.

Core values, which we cover quite a bit or on the commodities market. Go ahead and share that if you go out again, we don't run ads, we don't ask for anything other than for you to share the show, if you liked and enjoyed it. And don't forget to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you listen with that.

Matt, any other closing and final words for this? I would echo what you just said, Dylan. And I'd also ask people to get in touch with us, and we're easy to find. We're both bombed by our names, Matt Vetter, or Dylan Mitchell on any of the major channels. Reach out, give us ideas of what you want to hear about.

If you want to come on the show, reach out, let's have a chat and see if you might be a good fit. We were doing this for the global good for the good of the construction community. And we'd like it. If people got more involved and we'll keep doing.

100%. And with that guys, that's this episode of the constructing corner podcast until next time.

#131 Construction Corner

#131 CCP

Hello, and welcome to another episode of instruction on our podcast. I'm Dillon, I'm your host. And guys, the reason that we're here, the reason this podcast exists is because we want to help the industry, whether you're in construction, whether you want to be in construction, whether somebody in construction, it's our job to really help break down, deconstruct the industry and help you to become better, a better professional, a better contractor.

Better in general, we talk mindset. We talk tactics, we talk strategies. We're going to talk to hiring and firing and training today. But through this podcast, we're again serving the construction industry from being the design side to contractor side, to the trades, to basically anybody that's involved with the construction industry.

So that's what this show is about. And if you like. The show that can track important podcasts. Go ahead and share it with a friend, share with a colleague again, we're here to help make you better. And if you have any questions, any topics you want over, something that you've been working to, maybe tell your boss or a colleague, and you don't want to do it, but you want us to cover it.

We're more than happy. You can find all of our contact info below. And with that guys just share the pill. It's that simple. They'll further do what is going on my blue collar. Bad-ass it's another beautiful day. Or we're just in the thick of it here. I say that every time we record now, but this spring man, spring of 2020 is going to go down in the history books for being quite possibly the busiest on record in the construction industry.

It is non-stop. I pulled up construction or housing starts yesterday. Again. And it's as of April seasonally adjusted. So that 1.7 million starts craziness a year ago. It was 900,000. So it's basically double, almost double in, in years of record, high pricing and record low product and material available.

So something's working. So let's just hope it keeps working. And it's crazy. I was talking to a friend in St. Louis and what he was saying is he's putting his house on the market and. That it's slightly cooled off, but only because of time of year, people are, it's Memorial day that kids are doing all this stuff.

So they're not really looking cause like you they've got baseball and everything else going on that ultimately I think people look at houses, so it's a like weird little time of year, but he's prices are still great. They're just not as much competition because again, people are dealing with end of year school.

And, to be honest with you as a seller antibiotic, it's probably a little less stressful right now. If you're gonna, if you're gonna jump on that ship and try and get it done. So maybe instead of 20 offers in a day, they'll only be 15. Okay. Do you still grate on at least, yeah. If you're selling it's great on the selling side it's gotta be stressful if you're trying to find someone.

As long as you're able to move quickly and make decisions quickly and you should be fine, which in life. Yeah. Making quick decisions is a great skill. Absolutely. Absolutely. You touched on it though. And that with my three boys and this crazy sports schedule we have there, there's nothing left in the tank to move quickly on a real estate deal right now, maybe in a month.

And I'm just going to make a hard right out of this. Cause I don't see any way else today. We're going to be talking about right. People, seats, hiring training, essentially firing, but in getting the right people in the right seats on the books. Out there that you can read, but we'll give you a cliff notes version here, which is what we do is distill it down into its essence, into the top tips, best secrets that you need to be successful in this industry.

We love to call construction. So Matt, how do we put the right people in the right. This is a very topical conversation for me personally. As of the day we're recording this, I have an interview scheduled late this afternoon. We're looking to hire a new project manager to bring on board. It was a good time to reflect on everything.

I try and tell people then about best practices for hiring and finding people and remind myself what kind of our own feedback channels and what we're looking for. So what we really base a lot of our business operations. Now on what's called the EOS model stands for the entrepreneurial operating system.

It's a phrase coined by a guy named Gino Wickman originally in the book traction, if you haven't read it it's worth a read. It's a, it's an easy read. I think there's there's probably four or five joining books now but traction is the main. And they talked about a a lot of things, really from core values to vision and planning for your business to hiring the firing to the whole gambit.

So it's a, a couple hundred page roadmap for how to run a business as the way we look at it. One of the main points in this is this right person, right seat phrase. And basically what it means is. Do y'all know who the right people are. That's pretty easy to gauge, right? Once you have a team in place or whether you have a team or not, when you meet someone, you can tell if they're the right person for your team, for your business, for your project, whatever it may be.

And that's really based on it's based on intrinsic knowledge that you have it's based on, do they mesh with your core values, all that sort of stuff. The other thing that. The other component of that is right seat. And this is the one where I think a lot of especially construction firms have a real hard time with, because we rely a lot on job descriptions and most job descriptions are a page, two pages, three pages of utter bullshit it's task-based and it's not results-based so it's a listing of.

This person will write subcontracts. They will manage a schedule. They will manage a budget, blah, blah. And it's fine. It's a part of what it is that we do or what this position does, but it's not what we're looking for. You could probably make a robot to do a lot of those tasks and there are probably people out there making them right now.

That'll be a different episode but what we really need are our results. Goal oriented people. And so we try to push the results of the position versus the task. So it gets a little woo at times, it's a little tricky to define it, but it's supposed to be. And when you focus on results, At the end of the day, I don't care what you do to get there.

Within reason if your tasks change fine, but if you can be a results producing member of our team, then you're going to be a good fit. So many good things in there. And one of the things that I want to pull out is one results driven. And even going back a little bit is the here job disruption.

And much love that we put in there. And one of the things I was thinking about as you said, that, in finding the right people, finding the right seats is how often our job descriptions really deter probably some really good people from applying to your position. Think of all the job descriptions that are out there.

And the one that really strikes me is how long you've been doing something right. Frankly, it doesn't necessarily qualify you for the job. So there's been many times in my career where I just, I went for it and it worked out and, or, applied or got headhunted or whatever, but it was, you needed five years of experience.

I'm like I don't have this, but I match a bunch of the stuff they want me to do. Is the year thing and it disqualify you. And I think a lot of firms put that in there for, I have no idea why, where somebody can actually execute all the pass the results that they want this year thing, whether it's five years, 10 years, 20 years veteran, which you're never going to find, like you got to pay a lot of money for somebody that's been in this industry for 20 years.

That's one thing that I want to like re hammer on is in that job description, because you're probably gonna deter a lot of people that could be working in your organization. If you become results oriented, not some arbitrary year. Okay. A hundred percent agree with you with a caveat though. For your main point there, I'm in complete agreement, right?

You don't necessarily judge the quality of a person by the number of years, the number of months or days or hours they've done something. There's countless examples. I think of newbies to the industry, to any industry who can come in and make a really positive difference right off from Davis.

We just recently hired a 20 year vet to the industry. So I can also concur about the other point you made, but it was also well worth it, and there's strategic reasons for that, because there, there are things that come with years of experience that are desirable to say the very least, but my caveat to what you just said is.

And this is something I've personally experienced quite a few times in the last couple of years, we have tried the online job posting thing because it's easy and it's relatively inexpensive indeed in particular. They have some pretty decent metrics and, data driven reporting that I didn't know existed until our last round.

And through this, I actually got a call out of the blue from one of their tech guys. And he said, your job posting is getting. I'm making up numbers like a million hits, but you're not talking to anyone why? And I said I'm going to keep this politically correct for our show, but we would get, 200 resumes in a day easily.

And out of those 200 resumes, maybe one was worth even thinking about. And we would. We would just get flooded with resumes typically completely unrelated to the position. And so there, there's lots of reasons that go into that and that's a cultural and values based discussion for another venue.

But what the guy told me was here's what you can do in the actual title of the posting. So we just had, construction project manager done. He suggested put construction project manager, period. And then we said, three to five years, minimum verifiable experience. And he says, what happens is if you put that there these trolls, for lack of better word who do nothing, but just scan for a job, they'll go right past it because, cause you're throwing it out there.

And we did that and instantly the number of resumes we got. By 90%, but the ones we were getting were actually quality, potential candidates. Now the three to five years. And in that case, it didn't mean shit to me. We, we could say that all we want, but like we already talked about, if someone comes in and really, whiles my socks off, I don't care if they have two days of experience.

But to that in any ways, simply as a weeding. Criteria. It was actually pretty useful, but it meant nothing to our business operations. That's super interesting, like tactically, that, that dropped the number of applicants and I can totally see that. And I think it's also, for you, you're carrying that mentality through, this was just a pure weeding piece versus oh, you don't have three years. I'm not going to look at your resume. Type of weeding. Cool. And I think that's one of the, that's a great caveat cause that's not something that like I've experienced in doing that. So fantastic. It's super tactical and practical.

I was thrilled. I didn't, I thought the guy was full of garbage and I said, I was getting ornery with them on the phone. We're paying. Whatever it is. It's not much, but it's not zero. I said, I'm paying this every click I get, I'm paying you. And the clicks are garbage.

And when he showed me that, and literally within a day, within 24 hours, it worked, it changed things around. I was amazed and I gladly paid for more of our clicks. And this is the other thing too, is when you get advice from the platforms and I'm not going to say that every piece of advice is good, but in like their trainings, So again, to get pretty tactical is so if you run ads, which I know, like this is not typical, but if you need to for anything, for a project, for a bond referendums, for other things to, to run ads on traffic across those platforms, like whatever Google says, they have all the data, same with Facebook.

Like they have all the data and they want you to be successful. So you spend money on their platform. Same with indeed. If this guy give you complete garbage information and it didn't work at all, you'd never use them again. And it's in their best interest to give you actionable correct information to do things.

And the same with we can go down the list, pro for. Companies like that. They're, they want you to succeed. They want you to use their platform. They want its work and to move forward. And in companies that don't have a full monopoly on how to do things. And that was just it.

And like I said, I got kinda pissy with the guy originally. Cause I, I just had this inherent distrust of him because I thought he doesn't really care. He just wants me to keep paying per click fee and. I'm not going to go out on a limb and say he really cares about me, but no he cared enough about the situation that he took a couple of minutes out of his time and he gave me a pretty good, actionable tip that created the results right away.

And while I'm still not convinced, and I never will be that online job postings are a great place to find candidates for any role. If, and when we do a posting again, I'll probably go back to them because. Yeah, it's just another avenue. And again, you're the whole point of all of this, is to find people that fit your core values.

And one of the things that you can do is lift your core values within your job descriptions. You can, if you are using indeed, you could have answered questions, so they actually have to type some stuff out, which then it's pretty easy to limit candidates. They don't answer questions. You're not in, like how much do you want.

And I love that you brought that up because we started doing that also at the same time. And that was one of the easiest ways to weed people out. We would post our core values right there in our job description. And frankly, I pulled up an old job description that I keep looking at and it's making me cringe because it's written like it was probably written in 1980 or whenever it was that the first person I copied this from did it.

And it's hot. Our new one, it basically says, we're looking for a candidate. We're going to call them whatever said position is you better fit these five core values because this is really what we care about. But then on indeed, I went further and I, I have a list of make you really uncomfortable type interview questions that I ask everybody I interview ever, whether it's online, zoom in person.

So I started just typing those out and made them. Questions on the indeed application. And it's amazing. Two things were amazing to me, one, the number of people that just wouldn't answer them, period, they'd send a resume and that was it. And it was just real fine. Click done, gone, never. And I won't spend a second looking at you, but the other thing that was amazing and th their core value driven questions, I don't, we don't need to get into all of them, but there's some that people have heard, the, what do you do when you're walking out?

You're late to your friend's wedding. You're walking out to your car from the store to get a card or whatever. And there's a shopping cart in the way, we, you and I have heard that one a million times, but some of the people that would answer it, most of them that did answer it.

They at least psychologically I think, fit what I was looking for or they knew what I was getting at. And they'd have, answers like, ah, my friend wanted to understand if I was a little bit later, I'd put the carts away, blah, blah, blah. Good answer. But you'd get some who.

Man F those guys, there's people getting paid to pick up that shit and they can come and pick them up themselves and put them away. It's not my job. And I was blown away at the first one. By the time I got to like the 15th one that said things like that, I thought, this is it's stunning to me, that people think that way, first of all, that people are willing to project that, but it was also reaffirming in the sense of how important our core values are to us.

If I brought someone like that onto my team that had that mentality about some stupid question about shopping cart, what are they going to do? When one of my clients comes and starts asking them questions about why the building looks the way it does or whatever the question is, it was mind blowing to even see someone respond like that.

And for years, and still. Vast majority of companies never asked even the remotest question like this, it's what do you know about the thing that you're required to do? Not? Are you a good person? Not do you get pissed off at the stupidest of things? Like those are never the questions or anything to elicit and really put a shopping cart bag.

Shouldn't elicit a remote emotional response, but if it does. Yeah. In our, in construction, you're going to get somebody yelling at you. At some point, you're going to get, your feelings hurt at some point. And if you react to a shopping, an inanimate object that way, man, I can't even imagine what, how you'd react to a real life situation to somebody in your face.

Screaming. That's, those are the kind of people that you're worried about pulling a gun on you. Really that's, it's not right necessarily, but it is the reality of, especially in the industry like construction, we have, we get emotional, we're out in the field or that people are working very hard, physically, mentally, all the above tempers get heated, right?

Because time is money. And any time anyone questions, anything you have to stop producing costs. You time, it costs you money. And, we've talked about stress levels and all that. And other episodes, it shouldn't probably happen but it does not necessarily frequently, but there will be a time in any career in the construction industry, I would strive to say that you're going to get yelled at.

You're going to get somebody pissed off at you for whatever and tempers are going to get pretty heated pretty quickly. And if you can't control yourself, Don't get me wrong. I've done my share of screaming and yelling. It happens once in a while. I typically sound like a drunken pirate. It's not my best moments that it typically doesn't produce anything great.

But if you can't contain it to at least that level and you try, you have to escalate to the next level or getting physical or anything, you don't fit anywhere, but certainly not on my team. No. That's just it, it becomes an ego problem, right? Like ultimately that somebody insulted your work or what you were doing, anything like that.

And it's, again, the biggest point here is ask some tough questions, whether that's in person, whether that's an honestly, I would do it through an online form. So you can weed out the people that don't matter. And it just saved you a whole bunch of time too. And again, think of questions around your core values and put them in, hypothetical situations and see how people respond.

And you can, and again, the whole thing is that if they don't match one core value, if there's an answer that's out of line within your set, if you've got seven core values, you've got seven questions, maybe. If there's one question that just doesn't fit, they're not going to fit on your team. So it's an easy kick for, Hey, you just don't match core values.

Yeah. That was a very hard thing for me to learn because by nature, contrary to popular belief, I guess I'm a pretty emotionally based emotionally driven guys. So I have this tendency to want to force a candidate to work. I want to force them to. Answer the damn question correctly, to fit with our core values, to convince myself that they are, they are the right fit.

And so I've made that mistake. I've brought people on board that didn't match one of our values. I brought people on board that probably didn't match any of them. And it always ends the same way. And it's not a good situation. It never lasts, it's just not, it's not worth it to me. It's not worth it.

Cause that's the other part of this equation. And then we've talked about it before, too. So I won't belabor it too bad, but it's not necessarily that if somebody doesn't fit these five core values on my wall here, that they're a bad person, but they just don't fit with our culture. So they need to go and find somewhere where they fit with.

And those it's not, good versus evil. It's just, it's good. But it's a quantitative approach now and that I can very confidently through my goofy questions and what I talk to people about in an interview, I can say, okay. Check. Yes. Check. No, if they get it. I'll shake their hand or I'll fist bump them and they go on their way and they don't talk to us again.

It's not a righteous thing. It's just, I know what works for our company. I know what makes us up. And this is what we have to have. It's not negotiable

becomes really simple right at that point. And that's no way. So right people, right seats, that's a whole topic here. So this is the whole finding the right people. The other side of it is actually looking at your business at what you need and determining what the right seats are and who you actually need in your organization.

And you might have some people currently, because if you've done this exercise is, does this person truly fit? Is this person supposed to be a site superintendent or would they be a better estimator or project manager or project engineer? What is their actual seat, is this person meant to be a designer or an architect or should they just be out, shaking hands and kissing babies, right?

Like what is there? They fit everything in the core values. They're just not perfect for that one. Whatever that might be, you need very detailed oriented people for some roles and you need dreamers and charismatic people and others. So it's a look at your organization and you might have to shake up quite a bit.

It might be that you've figured it out. And by maybe have the accident, you have a lot of people in the right, right seats, but, and some of this might affect all the way up to your C-suite. And who's running what, and. Are they the right person for that? Or should they be doing something else?

And in those cases, you're going to have, it's going to be a big ego problem to get those people to potentially move aside or take different roles if that's really the case, but it's sit down, think as leaders in your organization as executives to figure out where people actually fit.

And this is the. By no means easy. It will take some pot, take some time to figure out your org chart and who you actually need from top to bottom. And you're going to suffer some bumps and bruises going through this process. And I can't stress enough this whole EOS concept. And I'm not I'm not getting paid to say this.

We are still small enough that it doesn't make sense for us to hire what they call an integrator. They have their coaches like everybody does financially and just based on our numbers, it doesn't make sense yet if we were bigger or when we get to that point, I will absolutely bring one of these people in, because even just the book alone, it's got so much tactical value that you can put into place.

So there's the right people, right? Seat concept. Another one and you were just touching it is called GWC or get it, want it capacity to do it. And it's another quick and easy kind of informal quantitative way to, to survey someone, whether they're a candidate for a new position or whether they're an existing spot on your.

So get it is pretty easy. Do they get it? Do they understand what the purpose of their role in your company is or what it will be want it, do they truly want it, and this one plays really heavily. When you have people asking or looking into promotions or the moving up or more, like you mentioned moving into a different role, maybe you have a superintendent who decides, I think I want to try out the project management side.

Do they really want it though? Do they really know what that means? And that takes some time to really get deep into the psyche of that person, but you have to do it. And then the final one is his capacity to, can they physically do whatever this is either with their current workload.

Mindset with their current knowledge base, do they have the tools in their toolbox to produce what you're asking them to produce? And if you can't answer yes. To all three of those, again, it's just, it's it takes this frilly kind of vibration based psychological mindset and it shrinks it down to something purely quantitative.

It's a yes. And it helps you make quick, but informed decisions on people which are quite possibly the most difficult thing in any business, the most difficult thing to understand and manage and you need them. Yeah. I This is the hardest thing, and this is what we deal with the most in our industry, and I don't care what side of the table you're on. And any of this right design contractor, sub owner, you're dealing with a lot of people you're dealing with a lot of egos and opinions on best practices and these to do things, let alone, the rest of it is. So when it comes to being able to make decisions for who you have on your internal team but this could also go for external team as well.

And one of the guests that we had on Kevin tomorrow, he talks about having where you just said no to work from, as an electrical subcontractor said no to some general contractors one, they probably couldn't take it on at the time. They were so busy, but again, that was his, one of his core values was to always deliver.

And if you can't deliver well, don't take the work. Actually, I ended up getting him more work because he was honest with people on what he could actually handle. And then just other contractors, they didn't jive. And as a sub, one of the things I've heard him preach fairly regularly is, Hey we're in their house.

The general owns the site. It's, we're in their house. So keep it clean, keep it organized, we're on there. If you can't get along with basically the person you're working for in that type of relationship as a subcontractor, then it's not going to ultimately work. So when you find and pick partners, teammates, other companies to work with and team together on projects, this is just as important as your internal stuff, do these people align with our core values?

Does leadership match. And, we work together. So it's not just internal when we talk about people and then again, like you can even apply, get it on. It asked you to do it to some of your great partners, are they at least at the leadership level? Do they understand how to do things?

Have they done this? Do they actually can you tell that they're hungry enough and they're working, they're putting in effort that nobody's paying them for. It's usually the best indicator is they're doing things above and beyond what typically expected. And then can they, do they have the actual capacity, do they have the people, the manpower, the technology, whatever, to execute on the project, you're looking to partner with them on.

Absolutely. And that's the beauty. Of what it is we do sometimes. And that from project to project, typically speaking, it's not always the same team, right? So you're in my role anyways you're almost constantly building teams, a different team for a different project, different team for different task, for a different client.

And they truly are partners. If you don't, if you don't think of your subs as partners, You and I won't get along very well. There's two different there's different mindsets out there still, but this is why Shaffer construction purely candidly here, we don't have a very high win rate on publicly bid work because I have a very hard time just picking the lowest number and saying, all right, you're the guy.

I, frankly, I can't do it. I try and bring in my design build let's partner with our subs, build the team mentality into low bid work. And, usually we don't win it just being open here. And usually we probably don't want it either. And it's my own ego or my own unwillingness to let work slip by.

That puts me there in the first place. It's, there's so much of what we do that is based on people. And we value that immensely. It's the team, and we build it, we build the teams. We want to keep the teams together as, as much as we can. And that's not to say we don't want.

New and different subs because we do that all the time too, but we have a pretty strict vetting process and it's very similar to the process we use to hiring employees. Now, I won't tell you that every single one of our trusted subs fits every single one of our core values, but they don't have. They aren't working in my office on a daily basis, but they damn well better match our overall mindset and our overall approach to the market and approach to, to serving clients.

And if you take all of our core values and boil them down in a pot and pour them back out into a mold that's really what you're getting at the end of the day. Are you a good person? Are you seeking to do this for good reasons? And if you get that out of it, if you. Cake out of your mold.

You're going to be a good fit. We work with new guys all the time, but there is still a process that we go after. And that goes to setting expectations at the beginning of each project, especially if you're, building teams all over again. And for. Any given project, if you're external facing in any way, shape or form, you're going to have different, from a design side, is a MEP. You probably have different architects that you work with. You're going to eventually get to where you work with similar ones or the same guys over and over again. But the people rotate, right? People leave jobs every few years typically. So you're always going to have somebody new.

You're definitely going to work with different. Contractors from, the general contractors to all of the subs and the trade partners that you need to work with to different owners and owners roles. Even if you have the same client, again, people rotate jobs, they move up, they do different things.

And it's important to, to understand that Hey, at some point, hopefully at the beginning is the outline expectations. Find a way to do that, and most of the meetings I've been in for those expectations meetings, there's no talk of like core values or even traditionally what's actually expected.

What are, how long do we have to get back to you? Is it 24, 48 hours a week? What is an expected, like expediency for, communication. A lot of the basic stuff never gets talked about, frankly, in a lot of those expectations meetings and a lot of things would get out hopefully upfront.

You're going to have to repeat yourself, so don't feel afraid or scared to ever repeat yourself and what you're looking to do. Cause that's just part of it. People don't remember, it takes awhile to engrain. A lot of this stuff, even core values. It just does. You gotta repeat it often until people truly get it.

Yeah. And we talk about core values so much on this show that we haven't had anyone tell us not to yet. So that's a good thing, but it truly is so important. So valuable in, in doing what we do. If you don't have, stepping stones and a roadmap to get where you're trying to go, then you're just going to end up wandering around lost.

And that's what our core values provide for us. It's a step, it's a roadmap. It's a system of analyzing it's analyzing people, projects, clients, ourselves, we, we use them in everything and. We use them in our quarterly employee reviews, which again is another thing out of the book. As we affectionately call it the book traction we do this on a, we say quarterly and then we get busy and they ended up being, twice a year sometimes.

But regardless, that's a big chunk of our employee review process. Are you still fitting these values? And if not and again, just like when we are doing the hiring initial hiring process, if we get to a point where in a review, you've got a no next to one of our boxes, we're going to figure out why, what happened, what changed, how here's, how you Dillon are not meeting this value anymore.

What's going on? Did something happen at home? It's something happened at work. You talk through it like humans. And we give people another shot. Now, if we come up on that next review and that same value now is questionable. It's a real easy decision and what it has to happen, it's not fun or comfortable, but that's it.

And it's really hard. Like I said, in the very beginning, it's really hard to get to that point where you can use your core values as the blanket, the stretched out blanket beneath the window of the burning building. But once you recognize that once you jumped, you're going to land on the blanket and not splatter all over the ground.

It makes it a lot easier or a lot simpler. It still isn't easy, but it is a little bit simpler at least to use that as a guiding light to how you operate. It makes everything not personal. It is really like a simple way to look at it that you're not. You're not mad at that person.

You're not like upset at who they are or what they hate. You don't match these things that we say that we stand for. We correct behavior all towards core values. Hey, you've matched these at one point, you were aligned with us at one point, and now that alignment's just not there, what's going on, but it's now it's, you've got to be personal to them and pay what's going on with you. Why aren't, what happened to make me not align with these values? Not like now what's wrong with you or like in a bad way, right? You're not yelling. What's wrong with you. It's a, Hey man, what's going on like compassionate type of empathy, conversation with that person to say, Hey, at one point you aligned with this, that's why you've been here for hours. Something happened. Yeah. What can we do to help? And they may or may not want to talk about it and that's totally fine, but ultimately it comes back to, we need players, teammates that are aligned with this, and if you're not that's okay. It just won't work out.

Yeah. And I feel like we talked about this point too, at one point sometime in the past, but sometimes it's a failure on our end on as a, as an owner, as a leader, because you're sure it doesn't matter how many interviews you do with someone, until you are in the trenches with that person you can ask them all my goofy questions and ask them, how many basketballs fit in the room, which I ask every single person I've ever had.

And if you tell me you have no idea, you don't get hired there's a little hint. But no matter how many questions you ask them, you never really know that person until you've spent some time with them. And so it could be as simple as well. I checked the box that they fit this. We have a value.

We call it have a hundred, a 100 to zero mindset, and it's basically the, an aggressive mindset towards everything that we do. And. Business, anything we get involved in, we want to absolutely dominate. We want to win a hundred to zero, no holds barred. If we're going to commit that we're going after this.

We're all going after it a hundred percent. And within the last few years, we had a situation where we brought a guy on board as a superintendent. I interviewed him, my business partner interviewed him. We thought at the time that he fit all of our values. Nice guy, there was nothing wrong with him, but after over the course of a few projects, we realized there's just something missing and it was in this hundred to zero mentality.

You don't, you can't really grow that. It's either in you or it's not. And long story short, we ended up letting the guy go, but it was a very amicable thing. We brought him in, we, we explained what was going on and he was Yeah. I, once I've actually seen that in motion it really isn't me.

And we left on great. He left on great terms. We've given him recommendations, then references for new positions at other companies. And I still talk to this guy a couple times a month and it's been a year and a half, two years since he's been gone. And you know that's when the system. It's worth to me it, and it shows how valuable it really is.

We've had the other, the opposite experience too, where you guessed wrong in the initial interviews and, they show their true colors and don't want anything to do with you. Once you say, all right you're not meeting this and this. And it turns into a screaming match and, we're all flawed.

That's for sure. That's why we're humbly confident, but it's just, I can't stress it enough. You have to have something to be quantitative. You have to have a roadmap. You have to be strong in your convictions and your belief as to what you actually stand for. If you stand for nothing you fall for anything is the old saying and this concept of the EOS system, this book.

Everything you and I have talked about today. It's all wrapped up in that and being strong and confident in what you believe in and believing that once you reach that point, you will make the right decisions and you will be moving in the right direction just by virtue of the work you did to get there.

I can't summarize the show any better. So honestly, guys, this is hugely important. It becomes almost impersonal, but in a way that you can make corrections in a personal manner, right? It's a, this is what we stand for. These are the standards that we're looking to achieve. We might fall short, but this is what we're aiming for.

These are the standards that we hold ourselves to. You can't fall short too often, but you need to go this line, right? This is where we start from and go from there. So ultimately go and pick up the book, check traction by Gino. Wickman is a fantastic book. He's written some others that are also just incredible books.

I know many business owners that have read it, implemented it and had tremendous success in their organizations. They've turned everything around. Yeah. It's like their business Bible, if you will. It is the book to live by and we can't ultimately stress it enough to again, implement four values and implement the EOS, have your rocks, all those things to push you down the line.

I know we didn't get into rocks and goal setting or any of that stuff, but instill to implement, everything. Step-by-step keep coming back to it. Keep rereading it, keep going through, have your check-ins with your people, make sure that everyone's still upholding your values there.

They're still the right person for the right seat. We all grow. We might not grow our seats. We might, have things that happen in our lives. Like kids are on the other side of divorce, right? Just make us not the right people anymore, or we need a different seat in the organization, our time values shift, and that's okay.

But it's understand that with your people continually evaluate your people again, we're in the people game, as much as, you need somebody to move steel or operate a crane, yeah. They need to have those specific skillsets, but there's also a mentality that goes along with it within your organization.

Okay. Any other pieces you want to add before we close it out here, Matt, I would just re-ask everybody again, give us a rating, give us a share. Spread the show around. And while the construction junky website is not currently working, it doesn't seem, keep checking it because there is a little contest that he produces every year for construction-related podcasts.

If you get any value from what we're talking. I'll let you know again, once it's live and once the voting starts, but hop on over there and take two minutes out of your day and give us a vote. We'd appreciate it. Absolutely. Guys, we appreciate you listening. We appreciate you being a part of the show.

And again, anything that we can do to help or any topics to address, we'd love to help you out. So until next time.

#129 Data Driven Decisions in Engineering with Kameron Beeks

#129 Data Driven Decisions in Engineering with Kameron Beeks

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the construction corner podcast. I'm Dillon, I'm your host and joined now as always by my blue collar. Bad-ass Matt. How's it going, man? Things are good, Dillon. It's uh, it's been a great week here. A little crazy. We are we're in that period of, of the year that my wife and I affectionately call hell month.

[00:00:24] Between construction, just being busy in general in the spring. And we have three boys playing four or five different sports right now. It's there there's hardly time to breathe, but it's a lot of fun. Yeah. My parents were super happy when I got my license and can drive myself and my sister, but I'm pretty sure every parent you know, it looks forward to that day, for sure, for sure.

[00:00:48] Actually real quick before we get started, So we don't typically go after public work at Shaffer construction. We're more of a design build firm. Sometimes, especially when it's in our backyard, we will, we'll do the plants background. And we, we did that recently. we want a project on Tuesday and I just wanted to throw a quick shout out to a guy.

[00:01:08] it came down to my, my firm and another firm. And this is so atypical in our industry. And we might touch on this today in conversation anyways, but after we were awarded the project on late Wednesday night, I got a message, direct message from the leader of the other firm, just congratulating me and, and that sort of thing.

[00:01:27] So Jeff, I know you listen once in a while wanted to say thank you. I thought that was pretty cool. And I wish more people in our industry would act that way. That is super cool. And yeah. As we get into it, it's going to be a, a big point that we're going to touch on today because I've worked at a bunch of engineering firms and there's a few that left a real bad taste in my mouth on the way out and things like that in congratulating people on a win, right?

[00:02:01] Because especially in things that are in your community, in your backyard, You're going to be a part of, so you want, you want that project to Vieques success? You're probably going to go to that building, especially if it's a public type project. So, you know, grace on both sides winning not being awarded a project.

[00:02:21] Hugely important, treating people with respect across the board. you know, whether they're competitors or not, you're more than likely going to work with those people in some way, shape or form, especially in our industry. and even if they don't work in your local jurisdiction, you're going to run into them at a conference at some event somewhere.

[00:02:45] Our industry is not that big guys. Uh, having a little grace is. Just that having a little grace, it goes a long way. Absolutely. So, no, thank you for sharing that without further ado, I'd love to introduce our guests this week. Cameron beaks cam you're uh, your people gave me a wonderful bio and I'm gonna go off script here.

[00:03:11] So as getting to know you a little bit and. Really going through your bio. I was I'm super impressed, man. As a, you know, you graduated from Oregon state in 2013 with honors as a mechanical engineer, you worked through school through your last two years. And to still graduate with honors is super impressive.

[00:03:31] And then to really ascend the corporate ladder very quickly, you know, getting your license, becoming an associate 2015 VP in 2017, a sector. Lead for education at Glumac in 2019. I mean, this is kind of an unheard Ascension in our, our industry, but totally, totally possible. And then, you know, you've written software for engineering programs, you brought automation and really forward thinking too.

[00:04:00] An industry that needs it in a lot of ways. And then, you know, from some of the personal things that you've gone through with just stress and health issues to battle through that and still be on top of your game and, and lead a team lead, you know, a group of engineers, is just truly impressive. So welcome to the show.

[00:04:21] What a, what a humbling introduction. I, I really appreciate it to be on the show. Dillon, excited to have the conversation today. And I guess with that, how how'd you get your start at Glumac as you know, the probably summer of your sophomore year you know, be where you are today. Yeah. Well, it's funny because there's people that actually know the real answer to this.

[00:04:48] So if I ever were to change the story, wouldn't only be lying. so I give a lot of credit to, you know, of course my folks, but I give a lot of credit in particular to my maternal grandmother. all throughout middle school and my early youth, she was talking about just the importance of energy and how energy is a tremendous opportunity.

[00:05:09] Not only to make an impact on the world, but also a career decision, because we will always need energy. We will always need water and being aware of those things and seeing if there's a way you can get involved, with the development and creation for how people interact with those types of.

[00:05:24] Necessities, is a huge career opportunity. So a lot of props to, you know, my Nana for introducing me to the industry. And what's funny is that when I was in high school, I grew up in Sherwood, Oregon. And when you go to high school there, they give you this sign up for these courses and put down your goal of what you want to do.

[00:05:44] And the goal I wrote and I was in eighth grade at the time I wrote that I wanted to design lead buildings. and so that's what I wrote down as a goal in eighth grade. And. Went through high school and eventually went to Oregon state. I was a part of their honors college because the class sizes there were about 20 or so students.

[00:06:01] so it was a tremendous opportunity for me to get one-on-one time with a lot of professors that cared about student success. And then I just happened to be at a career fair my freshman year. And I started out in college as a civil engineer. Because like many college students, I knew I wanted to get involved in something but being arrogant.

[00:06:20] And I know it all as a senior in high school, I chose the wrong major. And so I was quickly corrected. It was fall quarter at Oregon state of the career fair that I met Judy of Meyer, who is an Oregon state alum. And she was a senior electrical engineer and project manager at Glumac. And she said, well, you're saying all the right things, you care about the built environment.

[00:06:40] You care about energy, but why are you a civil engineer? Because they do a lot of lateral infrastructure work and we're in the vertical infrastructure environment. And we think that you should change your degree, nothing against civils when it comes to water, resiliency and water is a basic human need.

[00:06:57] Phenomenal phenomenal career path, but I was a little bit more attracted to the energy aspects of it. And in particular commercial HBS and net zero or net positive energy. And so I switched my major after my conversation with her or Mitch DEC, who was a senior associate at Glumac at the time. And then Remley Wilson, who was a principal he's since retired also Glumac and switched my degree to mechanical.

[00:07:23] Finish up my freshman year, then went into my sophomore year, met with Glumac again at a career fair. And I that's when things started to become real and I gave them my resume, say I switched my major. I'm in the honors college, I'm taking a bunch of the U S GBC courses. And to all the students that may be listening to this, you can go above and beyond and demonstrate your interest in the industry by finding alternative learning.

[00:07:46] Techniques or learning programs that are out there online that you can register for. And you can go up above and beyond to make your resume really stand out in comparison to everybody else's. So I wanted to differentiate myself. So I signed up for some of these U S GBC courses learned a little bit about lead came into the room, not really knowing anything, but knowing at least a little bit compared to my competition, you know, you need to run faster than the person next to you when you're running from a bear.

[00:08:12] and so. I got my dream job. My sophomore summer, I was working at active watersports down in Clackamas, Oregon. Cause I grew up playing water sports my entire life and I just thought, oh, what a cool gig. I'm going to be able to go water skiing and wakeboarding all summer long. And then I get this phone call from Glumac and it's like, We want to hire you.

[00:08:33] So whatever you're doing right now, you need to be here on this date and stuff. The rest is history. You know, they brought me on after my sophomore year, I had the absolute privilege of working with Mr. Steve Strauss, who was the president at the time I was his intern for three months, and then they were more than gracious to offer me a 32 hour employment show.

[00:08:51] When I went back to school and the engineering buildings were actually across the street from Glumac and next to Glumac was a Jimmy John's. And a coffee shop. So I could go to school, I could get my lunch, get coffee, go to work. And then I'd be able to go home at the end of the day and work on whatever projects.

[00:09:06] And of course don't get any sleep because you know, I'm working way to my form in school trying to make, make it through it. So that's how I got into this industry, man. It's been a hold on and I try and keep up the rest of the way, right? Uh, yeah. So I went to high school. I born in Virginia, but I. Moved to Oregon for high school and lived on the Oregon coast.

[00:09:30] So I lived in Brookings and ye so it's, it's like San Francisco, you know, the coldest winter he ever had was a summer in San Francisco. That's basically the same thing, fog all all the time rains, 120 inches a year. It's, you know, temporary rainforest wood that my, my neighbor was a electrical engineer, retired and he worked for.

[00:09:55] Decades at Lawrence Livermore national lab, he worked on a lot of laser programs and star wars and energy. Was there kind of next frontier and trying to do a vision, which I think they've been able to sustain some reactions, at least talked about it publicly. So, growing up off the grid, all that stuff energy is kind of near and dear to what I'm I'm about as well.

[00:10:19] Yeah. That is impressive to say the least the workload that it takes to do what you did. I did it for a while. I worked in construction and ran companies while I was putting myself through college. Certainly not. I don't think to the degree that you did so hats off for that. Cause that that is no small feat to keep up with all of that.

[00:10:42] It's about like doing four full-time jobs. There's a lot of really tremendous people that I had to work with. And then, I say it because it's true. I all the time, the only reason why I graduated college is because of the group of people that I studied with that would bring me up to speed way faster.

[00:10:58] And it just really goes to the importance of surrounding yourself with good people, absolutely farming, forming a mastermind of people that can help bring you up as the C. It doesn't matter what industry you're in. Yep, exactly. Yeah.

[00:11:15] one of the, I guess, the next things in that. So you've designed all types of systems over the years and. In mechanical, especially there's, there's been for sure some advancements and how we designed buildings, but a lot of the traditional systems that we designed, like VVS have been around for 50 years, you know, chilled beams, for sure.

[00:11:39] A newer thing that we're seeing put in more projects. Uh, definitely the technology isn't super old, or it kind of is, but I guess elaborate on. In talking about net zero and some of those things that we're really seeing, especially in California for building design, which we all know this eventually gives to the rest of the country.

[00:12:03] Uh, when we talk about energy, but how from a mechanical engineering standpoint, are you looking at systems, system designs for a lot of your projects these days? Ye really good question. So I actually try and get involved with net zero buildings, even before we start considering systems. I, if we can focus on the massing and if we can get all of our glazing waste facing to the north and we limit the amount of Southwest glazing, and if we, you know, look it overhangs on the Southern facade and optimize what angle that, that, that.

[00:12:37] Shaving needs to be, or how far out it needs to extend from the building. if we focus on putting our back of house spaces on the south or west side of the building so that we don't need those openings, you know, causing the solar heat gain. And of course that's driven by a solar type building, of course, talking about Los Angeles specifically in colder climates.

[00:12:54] You know, that sign up in Michigan is more than welcome. but again, it's, it's taking a look at the Massey and taking a look at how the building's actually opening up to the environment. And optimizing the massing first. I think that a lot of technologies and systems have allowed us to become lazy in design and we are relying on systems and technology to actually bail us out.

[00:13:16] So I take a philosophy of reduce, reuse, renewable, and then reinforce. Those are kind of the four steps that I take with regards to the industrial energy. So first and foremost, you reduce as much energy as you possibly can. On the project when you're just talking about the massing first, and then you start talking about systems and figuring out, okay, how can I look at systems?

[00:13:35] Whether that's just a highly efficient air handling unit with the AB system, because they can, if designed correctly, be highly efficient. With active children's. I want to save that for another point that I want to make, but again, another highly efficient system pushing water around highly more efficient than pushing air around.

[00:13:50] So of course, radiant systems are a great technology out there as well. Uh, and then you start talking about reuse. So you want to reuse as much waste heat or. Energy as you possibly can. You want to research, relate that back into the building? So now we're talking about things like variable refrigerant flow with heat recovery.

[00:14:06] You're talking about heat, recovery, chillers, but not making every single chiller module, heat recovery. Just the ones that you think you'll need to handle your B's heating load and nothing more than that. You do supplemental heating systems that are a lot more cost-effective to handle those peak heating days.

[00:14:21] And then once you get through that reuse cycle, of course you can do crazy things like recovering heat off of sewer lines. And you know, other things like that, the power pipe that you can go buy at home Depot is extremely cost-effective. And I always recommend it for, you know, when you bring back gray water to a centralized location in your building, because gray water is roughly ambient temperature, which is usually warmer than the groundwater.

[00:14:43] So you get some free heating or preheating of your domestic hot water system, just because you have toilet water coming down the drain. Well, the water sits in the toilet bowl. That's exposed to ambient conditions. It's ambient temperature, which is warmer than that domestic water coming into a building, simple things like that, where we're reusing waste is a great next step.

[00:15:00] The last thing, and the reason why we do reduce and reuse first is because we don't want to waste a bunch of money on renewables. We don't want to solve all of our problems by throwing money at things. So going through a data-driven approach on reducing energy, reusing energy, and then maximizing your cost effectiveness at your renewable solution, whether that's wind turbines, solar, ground source, heat pumps, et cetera, that's really going to make it practical for projects.

[00:15:26] And that's the hardest thing in our industry is actually communicating in a way to an owner, to feel confident in the decision that they're making. Or to a contractor so that they feel comfortable, that the path you've set up for them to follow is not only constructable, but actually cost effective. And you know what you're doing, you know what you're actually drawing on paper because those lines matter.

[00:15:45] And the last step, and this is in my opinion, the most important we're doing this with CSU long beach right now on their net zero housing building. That's going up on other 10. and we're working on coming up with a plan for them to actually work with the students, to reinforce what this building's about.

[00:16:01] You can design a building to be net zero, but if the users and operators don't commit to using that building appropriately within the guidelines and parameters that we designed around. You can give someone a Prius all day long, but it can have the fuel mileage of a Ferrari if you drive it like a Ferrari.

[00:16:16] So it's, it's really important that the users buy in to what we're putting in front of them.

[00:16:24] Well, I'm going to jump in because quite candidly, when, when Dillon told me we were bringing another MEP engineer on board, I thought, oh boy, this is going to go one of two ways. And I can tell you that it is incredibly. Refreshing and reassuring to hear what you just said, you know, because from, from the builder side, from the contractor side, and also from a developer side, so much of what we see is, is cost driven, right?

[00:16:53] And you know, there's a, there's a contingent of the builder side that doesn't give a shit and they just want to build it. And if it, if it kills nature, but you know, burns trees and kicks kittens, nobody cares, but there's, there's a lot of us who. Who want to find that balance, but there there's so many systems out there available that, depending on if you're in Southeastern Michigan or in, in Los Angeles, they just don't make sense financially for, for both cases.

[00:17:20] so to hear you say that, you know, you start off focusing on. Uh, on the intrinsic value, but then also the economic factors on how to balance that. And not, not just installing a VRF or a heat recovery, just for the sake of installing it, but, but truly putting the thought and the time into to figuring out how it's going to benefit the end user.

[00:17:39] That's that's huge for me. So thank you. All right. So just to give you a little bit of background, Matt, So I I'd say about 70% of the work that I do, and I run a rivalry and sector nationally for Glumac and about 70% of what I'm personally in charge of as a principal in charge down here in the Southern California area, 70% of that is designed building education work for the public market sector.

[00:18:03] And so we are very familiar operating with the cost estimator and with a contractor. During, during that period con effort, we have design managers we work with so that we do cost value design. And that's highly, highly important. And if we weren't good at doing that, then I don't think the contractors would want to bring us on board to carry our egos around.

[00:18:22] Well, you're, you're speaking my language now, so we're going to have a good chat. Yeah. Well, I think that's highly important is, you know, for. A good chunk of the country and still a lot of the work that gets done. It's, you know, planning, spec it's design bid build with no true communication between the design team and the construction team, you know an engineer by and large has no idea what anything costs.

[00:18:51] Same with a lot of architects. They, they truly don't know. They, you know, like even talking about massing models and doing an energy model up front, like. A lot of architects will shake their head and just say, what's that right? Or, you know, there's a time and a place to use a lot of the tools that we have at our disposal to do things like an energy model that now you get, you can run through iterations, you can do, you know, what is this orientation look like?

[00:19:18] What does doing a sun study? Like how often does that actually happen in a project? You know, I know you guys are doing them, but like in, in general public, I think. Heck, I'm sure. Half the architects I've worked with don't even know what one is or let alone how to do one. Ye I w and what's ironic about that is that by doing those simple studies, which I, when you, when you asked that rhetorical question, I kind of laughed on the inside because I'd ask it in reverse, you know, what engineers are out there, architects that are out there that aren't doing it because they really should be.

[00:19:53] the reason why I think it should be is because that's, when you find your zero cost energy savings. or your, your low cost energy savings on projects. Uh, if you're not doing those types of things, as far as I'm going to just set this building on this block and I'm going to do whatever I want to it with little to no care.

[00:20:10] think about trying to do that type of design back when we're talking about the Roman age, right. When there was no HVDC, when there was no artificial lighting, when there was no XYZ. And again, back to my original point, technology and systems fail us out for very lackadaisical design and it doesn't take that much extra effort.

[00:20:31] And once you go through a couple of projects where you make this a part of the normal workflow, It becomes a no cost or low cost design effort. And it becomes a part of just your framework and your kind of the thread that you're cut from as a company. So, I would implore everybody listening to this to, you know, just reach out and we're all trying to make the industry a better place and reach out to people like Dillon and like Matt and myself, because, you know, there's some simple techniques that we try and employ on every single project, just because of it makes it just a little bit better.

[00:21:03] Yeah. 100%. Go ahead, Matt. So I was going to save this question to later, but we're kind of already touching on it. you know, your, your focus now sounds like on, on pretty large projects and the education sector, how do you take the technology and, and some of the net zero or close to net, zero technology and options, and scale it down to a smaller project, you know, to a 12,000 square foot building, let's say in a, in a rural area and.

[00:21:34] Leave me to decide how to sell it to the owner because that's, that's a different story, but how physically can you scale that down so that they can see some of the same same cost benefits, same environmental benefits, but obviously it's not in the same, the same scheme that you would see in a, in a college per se.

[00:21:51] Ye it, well, it starts at the massing, right? So I have a roughly it's I think 16,000, 18,000 square foot building in construction right now, it'll be done in a month or two and that's net zero. and in, in all reality, smaller buildings are much, much easier to deliver net zero. Uh, if you look at all the living buildings that are out there, and I think the total number of living buildings that exist is still in the twenties.

[00:22:16] But if you look at the square footage for those buildings, many of which are in very rural areas, and this was the only way that they could actually get the project done is by making it a net zero energy project. And that's your water project? because there were no utilities around. So if you look at the scale, the optimal scale of course is an far of around two, no more than two, because once the area of your site starts to get small in relation to the amount of area that you have your PV.

[00:22:43] Opportunity to square footage of building use becomes smaller. And so when you're talking about the scale that you're mentioning that far should be around a one or a two, and then you want to make sure the building of course is oriented east west, where you have your longer facade exposures are facing out to the north.

[00:22:59] You take care of the solar load by doing a little bit overhangs on the Southern facade and less your climate. Except that solar heat gain. You're looking at really tight envelopes in cold climates. You're looking at breathable envelopes in temperate climates. And then with regards to how you do the mechanical conditioning, you, you try and see if you can find in my opinion, I do think that VRF from an installer standpoint has become more of the norm.

[00:23:23] People are more familiar with it. They are finding cost-effectiveness with it. Is it a pair to a package unit? No it, and there's a, there's a cost premium there, but perhaps there's some cost savings on the new system sizing by again, putting your back of house spaces on those west facades on those Southwest corners.

[00:23:39] And you're moving the Backhouse spaces in the areas where you try and block off as much windows as you can, because it makes the overall system capacities smaller for your mechanical solutions that you're providing. So it's trying to shed first and foremost. And then from there, it's what, what opportunities for reuse do you have.

[00:23:55] So that scale, probably looking at variable refrigerant flow. So we're not looking at a complicated hydronic system. It's not the scale of a hydronic system. In my opinion, you're looking at a good, solid massing. You're looking at really good installation. And then you're looking at probably a photovoltaic solution.

[00:24:10] Hmm.

[00:24:14] Hey, and I respect your opinion now. So I appreciate that. Well, and I think, you know, this is probably a good segue into it. You know, we talk about a lot of data on projects and there's quite a bit of rule of thumbs, you know, like you just listed off for a lot of systems, orientations kind of good design rules of thumb, but how, how do you really think and process data in making decisions?

[00:24:43] And I know that's kind of a big question, but you know you can tackle that kinda anyway, like, and we'll, we'll go from there. Sounds good. Well, I am just absolutely fortunate to work with a world-class energy team. I, our energy team is run by our building sciences group Chris low and out of our Portland office.

[00:25:00] And then he has two energy leads. Uh, one does Northern region, Brian gold Crump, and then Brian stern, who does the Southern region. And I, the, the process and workflow that they've developed is second to none. It's pretty phenomenal. And it, it has a huge emphasis on the importance of digital 20. And what a digital twin is essentially a, another existence of the design, just in a completely separate model that you can control the parameters of it.

[00:25:25] A lot of engineering firms and do a lot of energy analytics based on the architect's model. And there's a lot of pitfalls that come with using the architect's model, because it could be highly unstable or, or information could be represented in a way that isn't conducive for doing proper energy modeling.

[00:25:43] So we do the digital twinning and then once we build a rabbit geometry or an ISPE model and its own independent model, we can manipulate that as much as we like. So we can apply different systems. We can apply different efficiencies. We can, you know, one thing I forgot to mention on the reduced side is.

[00:25:59] Led technology of course is more readily available. It's a lot more, cost-effective, it's a very easy solution when you're talking about low costs, lighting energy savings. but you can run through several parametrics of different system types, as well as I different lighting types, as well as apple configurations.

[00:26:16] by having a digital twin, we're not reliant on the architect's model windows, we can stipulate the winter to wall ratio. However we want, we can play around with the window performance. And so he came ratio that you value. As well as different types of envelope, installation techniques. So by having this digital twin and being able to literally iterate as many times as we want, we've found, because we've done this so many times that in certain climates, we iterate certain, very specific things.

[00:26:45] So we've already gone through the learning curve of wasting time, focusing on making the installation a lot thicker down here in Los Angeles, because when you do that, you're actually penalizing the building because your worst case cooling day is usually solar driven where outside it's actually cooler.

[00:27:01] And so you want to be able to lose heat from your space to the outdoors, but you're just really impacted by that sun coming through the class, which is counterintuitive. A lot of people think that, Hey, I want to save energy. Let's go ahead and insulate the heck out of these walls. When in reality in LA, in particular, over in Slade can actually be a detriment.

[00:27:19] So by doing this digital twinning and you know, and we're up and down the west coast for down in Texas rock and hike, we we've got Watts of climates that we've looked at and California is extremely diverse from a climate standpoint. So we know what to look at. We use digital twinning, we use high quality, energy modeling softwares, and then you just do it over and over.

[00:27:40] So you start to up, there is one thing in particular that is special. A lot of energy modeling softwares out there are limited with regards to how you set up the controls for your systems. A lot of energy savings happens on the control side of when you turn equipment on how you balance static pressure, reset how you balance supplier temperature reset.

[00:27:59] And we actually do our own custom on the site programming to supplement where energy modeling programs are insufficient. Still they're getting there, but we do take it upon ourselves to bring them up to the level that we need in order to be truly accurate. Best part of all. We do all the measurement and verification after our projects.

[00:28:18] And we make sure that they actually do perform where energy modeling team had it modeled. I, and the importance of that is because maybe an assumption we made was wrong and we need to learn from that and evolve as an engineering firm. And conversely, we can advise the owner, Hey, you're not operating the building the way we intended or, Hey, there's this control valve is stuck open and it's not turning off during the, during the weekends.

[00:28:37] And you're just wasting a bunch of energy might as well as that turn that off. So, that, that closed loop. From a design standpoint is extremely important, so we can continue to improve ourselves. So digital twinning, getting that feedback, knowing what iterations to run in the digital twin and using a reputable energy modeling software.

[00:28:57] That's how we go through our system selections and advise clients using actual data. So that's an interesting, interesting concept you brought up in it. I don't think it should be, but the follow-up factor that you just mentioned, do you, from your experience, do you find that that's pretty rare in the industry for, for the design side, the consultants to actually then go back after the fact after it's built and occupied?

[00:29:24] Is it, is that a rare thing? Cause I've never, I've never known anyone to do that. And it makes a lot of sense that you just explained it, but. But again, I've never seen it. I've never heard of anyone actually checking it's it's more just design it and then get it out. It's, it's one of those things where we're just lucky to have some of the best clients, that clients that care about that.

[00:29:42] And so we've had the opportunity where clients actually hire us to come back out and make sure that the buildings are performing the way that we've designed. So is it a rarity? I'd say it's not a rarity for the consultants, because I think all the consultants out there want to want to know that data and want to have that data.

[00:29:56] But it's, it's quite a bit of work. And so to have the privilege of working with owners that care about how their systems operate and working with institutional type clients, like the GSA or the state or education clients or healthcare providers or data center providers, or microelectronics, you know, manufacturers, they care about how their buildings operate.

[00:30:17] And so they want us to make sure that it's tuned correctly. And, you know, we do have a commissioning branch as well. And so our commissioning team does go out and audit a lot, or a lot of our projects where they're brought on is commission issue too. Hmm. Yeah. So I'll answer that from the other side, every firm that I've worked for.

[00:30:37] Most everybody was. So I've worked in both AEG and MEP teams and they, and ease. We rarely did it. Typically what happens is frankly, architects are scared to go and talk back to them clients. Cause they're worried about problems. They're worried about getting sued. I mean, that's reality of it is, they're just, they're, they're scared to go back and have a conversation about a problem and catch it before it becomes big because.

[00:31:06] From what I've seen most clients and just like anybody, right. They just want it fixed. Most people aren't looking to necessarily assign blame. I mean that that's going to come regardless. It's going to be, can you fix it? And if you fixed it well enough, right? It's just like, if a doctor screwed up a surgery, if he can fix it, most people and has a good bedside manner.

[00:31:28] Most people aren't going to Sue them. Right. It's the guy that is hard and callous and still screws up. But like that, that ends up getting sued. So that's from what I've seen a lot. And the, so in 2013, I went to New York for the one and only case conference. So if you remember case from back in the day, they.

[00:31:53] Did a ton of really cool things in the built environment on measurement verification, in how you go about building stuff. Case had a whole suite of apps. We work ended up buying them. They actually bought them during that conference. Or the buyout was at that conference in New York in 2013. And the cool thing about WeWork was.

[00:32:13] Exactly what you're talking about. The measurement verification piece that they installed, they did a lot of other dumb things like I talked about, but this measurement verification piece and figuring out how spaces operated, what was good, what was bad was really the core. Technology I'm going to call it that they had in that data that most building owners, you know, now CVRE is starting to incorporate some of that stuff in their spaces.

[00:32:36] And, you know, they have maintain a lot of, a lot of commercial buildings, but with that, like that was the core piece that we work really had from the tech side. I don't think it granted the, or warranted devaluation that got put on them, but that was the really cool piece of what, what they did. So, I mean, for what you guys are doing.

[00:32:56] 100% in behind it. I just, I think too many people are scared of being sued where if they just had those conversations and got ahead of problems, they would avoid a lot of it. Ye absolutely. And again, it's just really owner driven. I mean, you mentioned we work there. They're one of our global clients as well, or if they were one of our global clients, Yeah.

[00:33:20] We were had a lot of other things going on for them, but with that, so, all right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pivot here. We love construction, right? And this is why we do this. We're not making any money from this other than to kind of indoctrinate people in solve problems. Bring about big topics that people need to hear about whether it's pricing or labor culture.

[00:33:49] So. You know, you do a lot of adjunct teaching as well, and really trying to help bridge that gap between a school of any soul, right? Whether that's high school, you know, teaching at the college level to bring them into the workforce, kind of walk us through maybe the gap that you see there from, from university to, you know, being a consulting engineer and really just construction as a whole.

[00:34:17] Yeah. Wow. That's a big question. I, ye I have to answer the initial start. So where are we headed with this? Yes, I've been very fortunate to have opportunities at a couple of universities here in California, to, to work with some of the students on bridging that gap from their university career into some type of consulting career, whether that's an architect or if that's a MEP consultant.

[00:34:43] During those conversations. And I think that it's, I think that the title of the lectures it's called shit that matters that nobody, and I, what we talk about is we talk about who you are as a person first. and we talk about life and life is extremely important. when we, when we define who we are, when we meet somebody at a conference, or when we meet somebody at a bar or whatever, you know, you start talking about what you do for profession, but your profession is not what should identify you.

[00:35:12] So I actually do two introductions during those lectures. I identify myself as, Hey, let's give myself some credit because I've been in the industry for, you know, 10, 11 years. And, I, I hope to know what I'm talking about. And so I hope that you listen to me, but then I do a second introduction that talks about the fact that, I'm married.

[00:35:29] I have two dogs. I'd love to experience culture. I love the outdoors and nature. so when I say culture, that really means that I love to check out different cuisines. I love to travel. I love photography and I love to be creative. So I play around with some videography and stuff, but. That's where it starts.

[00:35:45] It starts with who we are as people first, because you could lose your job one day. You could, you know, your, your company could go out of business. You could, whatever it is, your career could stop suddenly for some unexpected reason. For me, I May 28th, 2019. I was diagnosed with stage four, colon cancer, and my world was flipped upside down and, That's I think the point in my life that I realized that as much as I absolutely love the construction industry and as much as I love the consulting industry, I need to remember that I'm very human.

[00:36:20] Everybody I work with is human. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody has success, and everybody has mortality. Hubris is something that we need to avoid as, as young individuals, young, successful individuals, thinking that you know it all and you can survive anything and you can do anything. so that's one of the big messages that I share with students is make sure that you really understand who you are first.

[00:36:44] And that can be a really hard thing to figure out. so go explore, go, go adventure, go for a hike in Spain, you know, go for something, right. So I had to figure out if this truly is something that you are going to be passionate about because to survive in this industry, you do need to be passionate about it.

[00:37:01] We then shift into talking about how to, how to do interviews and what we focus on is phrasing. That's the biggest thing. When a senior engineer, and I learned this the hard way, when a senior engineer walks you through a set of drawings or a senior architect walked you through a set of drawings, a lot of us have that, that automatic response is saying, okay, I know, I know.

[00:37:19] I know. And you don't mean that you already know what they're telling you, what you mean is that you're following. And so maybe just say, oh, I see. Or, Hey, I'm following. All right. I see where you're going with that. Instead of automatically just shutting them off. I know. it's just a, it doesn't leave yourself open to learning.

[00:37:40] And I know that a lot of young professionals try and exude this sense of confidence, but the thing that I talk about is humble confidence. You can achieve humble confidence by using specifics as to things that you've done. And quite frankly, when you talk about those experiences, it's probably not going to be nearly as holistic as what the senior engineer or the senior person who's been in the industry for 25 years or 35 years in their boots are older than you coming out of school.

[00:38:05] just be specific and talk exactly about what it is that you have experience with and wherever you leave off in that explanation, always leave Rome. For growth, always leave room for feedback. And that's the humble side of it is you can find an opportunity to present your knowledge in a way that actually seeks feedback from someone who you can learn from.

[00:38:28] Uh, and then of course, we talked about some other things that are extremely important. So we talked about money and how the financials work and, you know, working for a consulting engineering firm and how your billing rate translates to a clients into your paycheck. And. Project success and how that's important.

[00:38:42] You don't, you don't want to be a Carson once you want to be an Aaron Rogers. So you never want to be overpaid. I no offense to you. Eagles fans actually full offense to you. Eagles fans out there, go pack, go. and then we about success. And my favorite book is the first 90 days by Michael Watkins. I, the first 90 days is phenomenal for his methodical approach to creating success.

[00:39:07] No matter what profession you seek or no matter what task you seek. And it talks a lot about coming in and being a learner first, is that publishing where your expertise can actually align, how you can start to automate and you can start to find these small wins. And then once you found the small wins, those wins start to create momentum and you'll start to get more trust because people identify you as well.

[00:39:32] It was a small thing, but you're still a winner. And you can keep building that winning momentum and do bigger and bigger things with that momentum. And then when you do fail, you already have that momentum built up. And so there'll be a lot more forgiveness for that failure. And you want to focus on the little things, you know, someone might ask you to go wash their car as an intern.

[00:39:52] What have you go wash the car, get it detailed, return it back with no scratches and do a good job, right. And make sure that you find a way to very, very humbly. Make sure that you did it correctly because that'll force recognition from whoever your supervisor is by asking if, Hey, did I do this the way that you wanted me to, that forces them to say you actually did.

[00:40:16] and so you get that small win and then you keep building on that momentum. And then you start talking about things that are bigger than that. So finding other people that align with the same strategy that you like to do, and then building teams and then finding team success. so that book's phenomenal.

[00:40:31] So. The steps. Life is critical. You have to remember, we're all human. And, we're here temporarily in this industry. the industry doesn't define who you are. And then we talk about that humble confidence and the importance of humble competence as a young, wanting to be successful, professional, talk about money.

[00:40:51] And then we talk about how to actually build success as a consultant. There is so much great stuff to unpack in that. First of all, I don't think you can see it because of our logo, but my core values of my company are right behind us. And the first one is, is humbly confident. So you, yes, you, you sparked my interest immediately on that, so it's awesome to hear it, but it's so true.

[00:41:16] and. And the momentum portion you mentioned, you know, the small wins in, in my house. We, we say it kind of jokingly we're stacking chips. You know, whenever my boys start succeeding or, you know, my oldest is I think four races, deep taking first place in his cross country team. And, you know, we just have these conversations, like you just said, and he's only 14, but you know, you, you collect the small wins, you build momentum and, and that holds true.

[00:41:44] And a 14 year olds world, as much as it does in a 41 year olds world and everywhere in between. So that was really awesome points you made there one of the best lines. I think I've heard when, because, and I don't know where it comes from. It's a cultural thing to say. I know. Right. And it's not, I know, I know it's that.

[00:42:10] What you really mean and what you should say, but I think it becomes a brevity thing that isn't necessary is it's okay to say a few extra words, right? We we've talked about this and like intros and what you do like to state the problem that you solve. And then what the solution is that you do, right.

[00:42:27] You're not a, you're not an engineer that. Builds buildings. It's, there's a lot of, you know, educational facilities that need net zero energy while we do that, right? Like it's a different way to introduce yourself that takes longer, but it's better. And instead of saying, I know one of the best quotes I've heard is I think I have an understanding, but I'd like, but tell me more.

[00:42:49] Right. I think I understand, but I'd love to learn more and it's a, it's a long, longer statement. Right. But it it's accurate. And I think. Far too often. And a lot of our speech patterns, we don't say accurate things. We just, we cut for brevity. And if we took a little more time and expanded upon them for accurate statements versus brief, we'd all be a lot better than speaking in sound bites.

[00:43:20] So, Dillon question for you when you were, when you were in engineering school, did they teach you how to delegate. No. So imagine every entry level engineer being delegated to by someone who has no formal training in delegation and to your point, cause you've just hit on something. Tell me more. I'm trying to understand.

[00:43:42] Tell me more. Could you keep explaining what you mean by that tremendous value in that? we, we try and use or trying to, encourage people to use repeating. So I'm going to repeat back to you. What I heard you say to make sure that I understand this correctly. And we recommend that to our staff because it's also a great diffusing technique.

[00:44:01] If something does hit the fan on a project, right? Oh, this is really bad. I understand that you're mad. You're just rattling off a bunch of things that you think are wrong, but I'm only hearing, there's actually two things that are wrong. So just repeating back. Okay. I understand that there's a lot of stuff resulting because of these two things here and just refocusing them all.

[00:44:18] I still only hearing that there's two things here, so let's focus on what we can actually do to fix it. but that's also very true when you're, when you're getting delegated to, and, and delegating is a skill not everybody's good at it. quite frankly, a lot of people are really bad at it. Me, especially because I'll ask somebody for something and they'll give it back to me exactly.

[00:44:37] As I asked for it. And it's not what I wanted. I'm like, this is a hundred percent exactly what I asked for, but boy, did I not ask it the right way? So, your point very, very important.

[00:44:53] And one of the things, so a phrase to start out in that is, this is what I heard and then say that, or if I'm understanding correctly, and then that leads in. Pretty well to the, whatever you're going to say next. Cause it's, it's just you repeating back to your point, but those are like the, the entry words, if you will, to, to then have that conversation.

[00:45:17] Yep. We are getting up on time and before we get into the final couple of questions here, cam, where can everybody find you? I am on LinkedIn. I, and people can find me, on, on glue max website as well on the leadership page. I it's www dot Glumac that's G L U M a c.com. Uh, Glumac was founded by Mr.

[00:45:45] Dick Glumac back in 1971. I in San Francisco, California, and he has quite a tremendous story. That is, is I would not give it the justice. It deserves or respect. It deserves if I tried to cram it into the last couple of seconds here, but www.glumac.com. Awesome. And so one of the big things that we, we like to talk about here is.

[00:46:11] Well, so we'll start with, where do you think the industry is heading? What do you think the next five, 10 years holds for, for the construction industry? Ye that's a really good question. I'm going to answer it two ways. Uh, first of which I think that I'm gonna answer it three ways. We're going to start with where I think the net zero is going.

[00:46:30] I think that net zero is going to become a norm. I do think that there's going to be more electrified solutions and our dependence on natural gas type suit solutions or fossil fuel burning type solutions. we'll, we'll eventually. Find an opportunity to become more cost-effective and easily employed on projects.

[00:46:47] I think that we're, we're getting closer to that. so there's that one with regards to net zero energy and electrification. So the challenge is embodied carbon and water water is where I think that a lot of value is going to be placed on engineers to find a net zero or net positive water solution. So I see from an MVP standpoint that becoming the next hot topic is embodied carbon net zero or net positive water.

[00:47:13] From there, we start talking about new construction versus renovations and existing buildings. I think that new construction is going to continue to move towards automated design, whether that's from Autodesk or whatever plugins are out there. and I do find that there is a place not only for MEP consultants to use automation, but also architects.

[00:47:31] And then you start talking about modularization and you start talking about turnkey solution for contractors, engineers, and architects, work together to build modular style design types, where owners can pick options within those modules. So you have very tight cost control. It can be both off site construction sequencing can speed up.

[00:47:48] and then the automation process becomes a lot simpler. So I see new design becoming a lot simpler. And then the value, again, placed on MEP engineers who are familiar working with existing infrastructure, existing buildings going in and doing your existing building audits, focusing on how you do large scale infrastructure replacements, whether that's generators for emergency power on a large scale hospital system where you're talking about like safety needed to be supported.

[00:48:12] so I see that that being a very critical point for, For where I think the future's going. So, automated design and modularization, a focus on I water and embodied carbon. And then the last one to focus on existing buildings for where design professionals can really create value for themselves.

[00:48:34] Moving forward. Once that autumn, autumn automization becomes implemented them.

[00:48:42] So I'll, I agree with. A lot of things, you said automation for sure. Modularization for sure. Is, is coming. I think net zero is a big topic. embodied carbon, I believe is going to be more prevalent just with engineered wood and stuff like that, which then you get into. The other side of that is in your insurance and liability now having a full wood, wood structure, and how to mitigate fire risk for those buildings.

[00:49:14] And then the only thing that I would slightly contend with is I think water in California and in the west is a very big deal. And then on the other side of it looking like a Mississippi Delta that floods every year and most of the east coast water. Not really a problem. There's plenty of it. The water table's fine, but California, just historically water laws and water distribution through California.

[00:49:41] And most of the west is there's a lot of problems with it. So I'm, I'm fully on the water thing. I think it's just, it's a regional. Not necessarily at a national stage, I would, I would implore upon you, with regards to the Mississippi Delta and Louisiana and that whole area, right. You start talking about how the Delta floods, right.

[00:50:02] And causes damage to all of the water treatment facilities and pollutes so much of our rivers because of that flooding. And if you did localize water control at the building level, instead of having to go back to an, you know, a utility level water treatment plant, where that become the water pollution risk, it can help solve that problem too.

[00:50:21] So it's a natural thing and it goes beyond just water conservation. It's also making sure we're not polluting our bodies of water that's around us. Yeah. That, that I can. And I'm thinking up in Iowa too. And, and for that piece in what gets thrown back out. So like in, you say, for example, that goes down the drain, once the sewers are full and those in stormwater is full, it just empties into the Hudson.

[00:50:48] So you literally have sewer water going into the Hudson. So I'm fully on board with it. Uh, It being a problem. When you, when you phrase it that way of how water gets treated in that, that process of water? I, it was more the conservation piece. There's certain, certain areas. I don't think you know, conservation is quite what it is in California.

[00:51:12] Yep. Yeah. When I, when I presented at Greenbuild last year with, a couple of people, I, Monica alphabet Tonto from CSU long beach Stacey Olsen from Gensler. Uh, we had Eric, how he was at NSU at the time, which was a wastewater servicing provider that does membrane bioreactors and the like, and the way that the conversation went was also how much the earth has actually sank in on itself, because we've been depleting our aquifers so much.

[00:51:38] So it's how much we're depleting our aquifers. It's how much pollution actually exists when the, when the rivers and deltas flood and go into our wastewater treatment plants. And that spillage comes over and does a lot more damage than good. Uh, and then also from an intrinsic standpoint, here in California, the fact that we have what, 10 million people that just live in LA city alone, LA is a desert and we all choose to live here.

[00:52:00] So, there is that importance of the comp conservation site, too. Yeah. Yeah. And being in the mountains of California and just the million miles of open air aqueduct and evaporation pass, like it's you know, it, I think. Learning about water, especially if you live in California, is is a hugely big deal that more people need to spend some time about where their water comes from.

[00:52:29] Uh, cause most of it is from the mountains or, like for LA comes some of it from up here and then some of it from like the, the Hoover in Vegas, it gets pumped, you know, hundreds of miles.

[00:52:46] And one of the last questions that I have, now that we've, again, go, go research water. There's a lot of things that we, I think we can all do on that one. Uh, but is if there was, if you had a magic wand, if you could. Solve one of the problems within construction within our industry. What would, what would be your, if you had one wish, what would what would that be for work for the construction industry?

[00:53:15] Ye it's a it's teamwork and communication. it's that simple, women were talking about custom selection. There's more to it than just dollars. it's also understanding what the owner cares about. do they care about the greenhouse gas emissions? Do they care about their water use too? They care about their EOI.

[00:53:34] Do they care about their operational energy costs every year? what is it that, that they actually care about? You know, is it acoustics? Is it, you know, indoor, environmental quality, that dialogue and ability to communicate with an owner to really extract what they care about. So you can provide them with a solution that actually serves what they want is highly important.

[00:53:53] Likewise between engineers and architects, having each other's backs, working as a team, working towards the same goal, communicating to make sure that each other don't fall into pitfalls. Right? Don't put your electrical room right behind a stair. And next to an elevator is just not going to be, you're not going to get the conduits out.

[00:54:11] because you're gonna have that big duct that flies by that also blocks the path. simple things like that. And you have to remember that there's junior people on the architects team, the junior people on the MVPs team, the junior people on the construction team. So now we've talked about making sure that the junior architects, that junior engineers don't fall into common pitfalls for through communication teamwork.

[00:54:31] Now let's take care of our contractors because without them, everything we put down on paper is not possible. Skilled tradesmen, skilled laborers are so critical for our industry. And I think that it is so, so important that we as engineers, designers and architects communicate more clearly better to them to understand the intent of our design.

[00:54:53] And work together to find cost-effective solutions that ultimately serve the owner. So, and then you have, you know, you start talking about owners that want to do large-scale philanthropy type things with low budgets, and, you know, we can start supporting those types of things by that teamwork and communication.

[00:55:08] So that's what I would fix in the industry. I think you nailed it, Cameron. And we've talked about that topic a lot on this show since I came on board, but you know, as an industry, construction has a lot of really big tables. And if we would all just pull up a chair and have that open communication across the different division and across the different specialties, there's no telling how much that would help.

[00:55:31] It would be immense. It's just absolutely immense. So thank you for coming on camera. It's been a fun conversation.

[00:55:43] guys today, we learned about mechanical systems selections about reducing your footprint. First reuse, reinforce renewables, digital twins, momentum building, taking a little time to do that little bit extra. You know, really having the, the end in mind and communicating across all the trades, all the disciplines and, you know, really helping people bridge, bridge the gap from wherever they are, to where they want to be, whether that's from school, to the profession, from, you know, a entry-level person to you know, VP within the decade.

[00:56:23] So whatever it is that you're looking to do, there's, there's somebody within this industry that is more than willing to help. you know, whether they're in your firm in through a podcast, through other outlets here on LinkedIn, there's plenty of them. guys, if you have any questions, if you've got any building needs for, you know, net zero especially in educational facilities, cam a cam is your guy.

[00:56:51] And with that, any, any last remarks cam? No, just thanks so much for having me. I really, really appreciate it. Appreciate working with you guys. Thank you for coming on and sharing so much through for, you know, how we can get better as an industry, how we can help the next generation and for everybody out there until next time.

#128 - State of Construction

#128 Construction Corner - State of Construction

Dillon Mitchell: Hello, and welcome to another episode of instruction corner podcast. I'm Dillon, I'm your host and joined by my blue collar. Badass Matt, how's it going, man?

[00:00:11] Matt Vetter: Fantastic. Dillon. I hate talking about the weather in the intro, but I have to bring it up because it is finally like 75 degrees and sunny in Michigan and it feels like spring today.

[00:00:23] It's next week looks pretty nice. So I'm hoping, I'm hoping that we're over that hump.

[00:00:29] Dillon Mitchell: All right. So I told you we were going to talk about this afterwards, but it has been so nice here lately. And I don't know why, but, uh, after my trip to Florida where it was just like the perfect day, right. I got up at four in the morning for no good reason, like five hours of sleep.

[00:00:48] Uh, you know, red did all my like morning routine started work at six work til like one got probably 15 hours a day in that six hours. You know how it is lines make you like, just super productive on the boat. It was on the water for the rest of the day. And this week I have granted, I don't, I have water around me, but not like, you know, all my front door type type of water.

[00:01:15] Not yet anyway, not my own dock, but. I've you know, got up to my, all my own stuff. Basically stay true to 75 hard. Get on my water, read two workouts, outdoor done all my powerless stuff except for this. So this is the break in, in 75. Heart is, uh, we just put up some lights on our deck this weekend, you know, those nice, like I saw those.

[00:01:40] Uh, Edison bulb ones and made it a conduit conduit, and a C clamps to on the deck, most expensive, uh, you know, stand these days, still cheaper than wood, but put those up and we've been sitting out there and I've just, I've had glass of wine at like five, six o'clock. But the difference is like, when I. Drink if, unless it's like out in social, I sit there and I'm reading books, man.

[00:02:10] I'm reading books, I'm taking notes. I've got, you know, like my, uh, my big old pad of paper here and just, that's what I do. So it's been like perfect days, perfect weather, especially with the lights. So you can stay out there and, you know, again, I have a glass or three wine and take notes and read and it's, uh, I've strung those perfect days together, man.

[00:02:32] So it's. It's been fun.

[00:02:35] Matt Vetter: That sounds awesome. We are, uh, we are right smack in the midst of a hell month around here. It's uh, it's, it's mostly fun, but part of it sucks and that we have three boys they're playing four different sports right now. So we have something every single day of the week, except for Fridays.

[00:02:52] So Fridays are, are chill afternoons and, uh, but it's, it's good, man. It's good to see the sunshine again, and it's good to get some vitamin D and. I think it makes everybody happier,

[00:03:05] Dillon Mitchell: man. I love just drive down the street and I see people playing baseball, right. Everybody out on the baseball fields and crowds and all that stuff.

[00:03:14] I just, I love seeing it. It's so awesome. So I'm sure like going out to practices and all that stuff are just as fun to games

[00:03:22] Matt Vetter: and whatnot. Yeah. It's it. It's what America is. Right. I never played baseball. I'm the worst baseball dad ever. Cause I don't know half the rules, but I can go to your, my kids on.

[00:03:33] And you know, I know the, the gist of it. You hit the ball and you run fast and we're good there

[00:03:41] Dillon Mitchell: for sure, man. And so, um, I'll take a hard right here. Um, we'll maybe not. So we're talking really about recovery, right? People going out doing do normal shit again and in construction. Like last year, really? And March, April, even into may was a weird limbo time.

[00:04:02] Right? We all, we all know this. It was weird limbo. And are we gonna, can we, can we be on a construction sites? We can't let stuff sit too long. Is design going to happen? All this stuff on hold. So March April was kind of like a weird time for everybody. May start, you know, New York and all the big cities kind of started letting people go and do construction, which was awesome, especially in those places.

[00:04:25] And it probably worked out really great because they had no traffic to contend with, like in New York city to shut down anything in Manhattan is always as always a nightmare. Um, but with that, you had a, there was a comment on one of your posts and cause we were. Talking about pricing, right? And we're all in this together in the terms of pricing, we're all in the pricing battle and delivery dates, everything that we talked about last week, uh, you know, getting material, material, pricing, talking to everybody about those pieces.

[00:04:57] But as far as recovery goes, I don't know what world this person was living in. But if you look at all like economic indicators, Four. And I'm going to talk primarily in construction because I think that's one of the strongest indicators of how the economy is actually doing, not the stock market, not doji coin, not like any of those things that don't reflect what's happening on the ground.

[00:05:24] Right. And if you look at the U S economy as a whole it's $23 trillion, commercial construction is like 800 billion, you know, a year. Uh, so in that like, and then we take housing on top of that, that adds another, like 1.2 trillion, and then everything else with housing, it's like another, you know, 500 billion in financing and all that stuff.

[00:05:46] So you take construction as a whole. It's like a $3 trillion industry in the U S alone annually out of let's just say 21. So that's a seventh, you know, you start to, uh, have a really big, you know, it's 14% of the economy. Right. Or 10% on any given year. So it's probably like 12 to 15% on any given year is what construction, financing related activities for instruction too.

[00:06:14] So in you look at all the things, right? So I pulled up the census data and there's a lot of things. Our government doesn't do really well, but data and like housing starts cause they're the ones that have all the data. They do this really, really well. Right. When you look at housing, housing starts so new residential construction and seasonally adjusted.

[00:06:35] This is from the, uh, census and like the Fred Fred two database, which is by the fed. Um, so you can pull all this up very it's public information and through this. So, uh, permits as of March 21. So it's like the most recent data you're going to be able to find. There were 1800. Uh, housing units in the thousands.

[00:07:00] So that's 1.8 million housing unit permits. Uh, and about the same amount of starts in, um, March with completions at like 1.6, I don't have like exact figures in this graph, but 1.6 million, uh, new houses completed. And then we compare that to March of 20, where starts where 900,000. Uh, completions were about 1.2 million.

[00:07:30] So we're up, you know? Yeah, here. And then if you look back two years ago, we're still up 30% from 1.5 million to 1.8 million. So you're still up, you know, 30% in housing starts 25, 30% and a two year gap. I mean, we're at the highest you look at the, from 2016 is as far back as this chart goes to 21.

[00:07:57] Seasonally adjusted March year over year. Like it's not even close, like blows them all out of the water. And we thought 17 was a great year, right

[00:08:09] Matt Vetter: direction. We haven't been recovering we've we've been growing is what's happening. Um, you know, recovery is going to come at some point or we're going to need to, uh, if we keep heading the way we're going with everything we talked about last week with commodities and, and material structures, but.

[00:08:26] You know, construction as a whole has been growing quite favorably for quite a while now. And you know, you, you go around to any major city, even the little cities, there's stuff coming out of the ground, all over the place. And it's not just flowers. You know, buildings, buildings are being built. Designs are still pushing through we're, you know, we're just as busy as we ever have been.

[00:08:48] We're seeing a lot come across our desks and. You know, part of construction is you got to ride the wave. You know, you, you, you, I'm looking at your background, but you got, you know, surf the wave and until it crashes and that's, that's what we're doing.

[00:09:03] Dillon Mitchell: And even there, right. Another one's coming. I mean, we, you know, I didn't personally live through it.

[00:09:09] Uh, but well, I mean, I did, but I wasn't affected by it, but you know, nine to 12, right. With the big collapse, like. You know, it, it rose up all the way there. And then, you know, nine to 12, it went down in some sectors, right. In some sectors. And then from there primarily housing and from 13 on, it's just been a boom, you know, with a slight dip last year, which was really just now it's pent up demand.

[00:09:38] And on top of that, for housing in particular stock housing, everyone wants to leave their condo in the city. And move out to the country or at least some the suburbs where they have some land and a good internet connection and they can work. And most people are totally fine with that. Most jobs, you know, you don't need to totally be in the office.

[00:10:01] Is it beneficial? Absolutely. You know, you get a lot more collaboration done, all that stuff, but frankly, if you just have work to crank out, being at home is probably better for most people.

[00:10:14] Matt Vetter: Yeah. Um, I'm a huge proponent of that. And I've always said, and we've talked about before, since I started doing this, there's, there's very little of my job that I can't do anywhere in the world and it gets less and less by the day as technology, you know, we can do a podcast together and we're on essentially different coasts of this country.

[00:10:33] Um, I can have face-to-face meetings with any client, any, any subcontract or any vendor, any employee that anyone I want to, and you lose a little bit, right? I mean, you, you lose that human side of, of communication sometimes, but to get by and to, to thrive in this sort of environment, it's really not that difficult.

[00:10:54] I mean, I. Like I said, I think, I think I told you guys, but I built an office next to my house in November, December. Um, cause I couldn't take work in at the kitchen table anymore. I can't leave now. You know, my, we have a nice office in downtown Brighton and my office is sitting there essentially vacant.

[00:11:14] Uh, but it's, it's just so convenient. My commute now is like, Between 35 and 45 seconds. I take my boys to school every day and drop them off. And I'm still back here before, you know, anything really is happening. And why would I want to leave this? And, you know, we're still productive. I think we've proven that

[00:11:40] Dillon Mitchell: I was talking to a friend the other day whose, uh, architect, uh, Sean was actually on one of the early episodes and.

[00:11:49] We were discussing another firm, um, that we worked at and kind of knew about. And one of the things that came up in a recent meeting was, Hey, all right, this is all over. We're all coming back to the office and then kind of like ended the meeting. And everyone's like, uh, uh, Nope, like why we, we proved. And this is the thing that I think a lot of people are going to get.

[00:12:17] Push back against is, you know, Hey, we're fine to come back maybe sometimes or a split schedule, but we proved that we can still do the work remotely. Right. We proved that we can do this. And now it's, I think on a lot of companies on a lot of structures on a lot of commercial real estate on figuring out, Hey, what are you going to turn all this stuff into?

[00:12:44] What are you going to do now? How are you going to utilize these spaces that people don't need to be here, right. Is your, you know, Cummins did this years ago and it failed miserably where they did all the flex office stuff. Right. It was just find a spot lands and it, it, it failed. Um, because it, again, it wasn't like a forced thing.

[00:13:06] It was, people are just so used to coming in the office, but now that we've been forced out, people are so used to being at home or. And I'm not saying that there's not a place in time for all those. And I think we're still going to need to have these conversations, but it's going to be on a lot of companies, a lot of commercial real estate people to do some education around, Hey, this is what a modern, you know, 20, 21 and an ongoing office looks like.

[00:13:33] Right. Um, versus some of the like old static offices that we've had. So I think in construction, a lot of the things that we're doing are going to, um, Change. They're just, it's going to be an evolution, but I think it's going to be a split work day. I think commercial office space is going to cut in half, or it's going to be a lot of conference rooms and, you know, pods, there's not going to be as much, much is she's not going to be the need for it.

[00:14:02] Right. It's going to be built out super unique spaces. Um, you know, all built around like teleconferencing and zoom rooms and all

[00:14:11] Matt Vetter: that kind of stuff. And here's the thing, though. It couldn't come at a better time and I'm no economist. Right. But when steel and lumber start going through the roof and we don't need to belabor that, like I did last week, but when, when material prices get so high, that it's almost prohibitive to build renovations become really hot commodities.

[00:14:30] Right. They become huge in the, in the construction market because you don't need as much raw material necessarily as you, as you would with the ground up. So yeah. We've got the zoom world and the 20, 20 real reality that we all can work separately. Plus this issue with materials, it leads itself to, to opening up a whole new, a whole new realm of, of the industry, you know, and, and that's in the renovation market,

[00:14:58] Dillon Mitchell: and this is such a good point.

[00:14:59] I think so often we. Overlook right as come from the MEP side of the world, uh, you know, for general contractor, like how much, uh, FFNE and finishes matter, right. Just to go in, rip up carpet, repaint a space, it looks brand new and it's so cheap to do. It's so easy. And if we, if you did just that for your spaces, How much of a refresh would it give to, you know, something that you've maybe been in for 10 years or whatever, it makes a huge difference.

[00:15:37] And I think we a lot of time forget that because we focus on like full new building, full new, you know, systems or changing out some lights or, but I mean, furniture fixtures there's finishes.

[00:15:52] Matt Vetter: You can re yeah, you can restore that new car smell. Quite literally overnight in, in a mid-size office. And that does a lot for everybody's mentality, you know, and for their mindset, it it's fresh.

[00:16:04] It's new. It's exciting. Uh, you know, there's a lot to be said for that.

[00:16:11] Dillon Mitchell: Yeah. I mean, so again, we've recovery, I think we've we've recovered. Right? I don't think there was ever, there were, there was down, but we weren't out. Right. It wasn't like you couldn't. Can do anything in construction design still went on and we still move forward through last year.

[00:16:28] I think as much as people might not have talked about it, it still happened. We still move or we're. I mean, shit, a lot of stuff was still built last year. Uh, maybe not opened, but it was built. It was completed. And now a lot of that's moving forward from the design from all that side of things too. We're open.

[00:16:49] We're operating. Let's go. Um, I mean, Florida is fully open, you know, they've got no problems, Arizona, you know, a lot of states are just South Dakota, never shut down. Right. There's a lot of, a lot of states still operating now where we are, where I am in the mountains was fine. A lot of the valley was fine.

[00:17:07] You know, San Francisco is its own thing in LA and those areas are their own deal. But for the most part, like I think most of the countries still still move forward. Designs still happened. We're still planning things. And again, for like a hospital, it's a four year timeframe. Right. You gotta start design now if you want it operational by 24.

[00:17:30] Um, so I, I think a lot of these things move forward. Recovery, I think is just. And it just irked me so much because we're not, you know, you might be emotionally recovering, but that has no effect to the economy.

[00:17:45] Matt Vetter: Well, I can say this as somebody who absolutely did work through oh eight oh nine, 2010, 2011.

[00:17:52] That was some miserable shit. And recovering from that was something to be happy about was something to post about something to shout from the rooftops. We haven't seen that yet. And I, I hope we don't, you know, but it, I mean, we're, we're, we're kind of routing riding that roller coaster up to the peak where we were back then.

[00:18:13] Um, I'm hopeful that the powers that be get things figured out and we, we kind of squashed this inflation bug that that's flying around, infecting everything before it gets too bad, but we haven't had anything to recover for in a long time. So.

[00:18:29] Dillon Mitchell: And this is one of the other things that we touched on last week was supply of materials.

[00:18:33] And I think so around some of this. So for like lumber, putting in more lumber mills is going to be tough. People just don't like logging. So that's, that's a hard piece. It's going to be hard to go and cut more trees out of the forest. Again, logging permits is a, I mean, it literally has to take an act of Congress to make that happen.

[00:18:54] Which so it's, it's not going to, they, they tried it after big fires out here to, to make that happen after 2013 in the rim fire in Yellowstone or not in yellows and Yosemite. Um, but it just, it, they can't push it through, but it literally has to go through Congress because it's in federal forest, national forest land to up those permits.

[00:19:16] Cause that's again where most of the trees are in us. They're not privately owned, like. There are big lumber companies that own a lot of tree land forest land, but they're, you know, they only do so much. Um, so that, so lumber, I think, is going to be a hard one to increase any production without congressional action, not going to happen, uh, steel, we can do more on steel, but again, it's going to be two years to build a new steel now.

[00:19:49] So as much, you know, they can ramp up production, maybe, I don't know, 20% behind figuring out a way to do stuff. Maybe 50, if they just had something that wasn't, it was just sitting there and not running, but, uh, you know, to look at doubling steel production, I think you just, we've got to build more plants and for that to happen, it's, you know, it's a two year process and in two years, what's the demand for steel going to look like.

[00:20:18] Matt Vetter: Which pretty much means they're not going to build them because that's, there's just too much risk, you know, it's too much economic risk, so we're just going to have to deal with it. And if you know, 10 month lead times are, are the new normal, um, it's gonna sting. It's gonna suck for a little bit, but we'll figure it out.

[00:20:36] We'll get used to it. We'll get used to phasing and stacking, and then that's just what we do. Um, I gotta tell you, I'm gonna take a little bit of a tangent because I'm thoroughly pissed off. Um, so it's not just construction material. It's, it's starting to become everything right. And, and, you know, it was toilet paper last year when all the idiots ran out and bought every store in town, out of toilet paper, gasoline this week went insane because the hacking thing over wherever that was.

[00:21:07] And it had literally no effect on our gas supply here, but on Tuesday or Wednesday, when I went to fill up my, my stupid big truck with gas, it was $3 and 10 cents a gallon. And they cut me off at $75 and wouldn't sell me any more gasoline driving back to my office. Then I'm passing other gas stations and these people are lined up for miles to get gas.

[00:21:35] Well today. I had a couple of great meetings. I was in a fantastic mood. I've told you before we have a pool here at the house. It's almost time to open it up. Well, when you have a pool, you need pool chemicals or else it turns to shit. It gets really gross and no one wants to go in it. So we've got this store locally.

[00:21:53] I'm going to call them out. I don't know if you have them. It's called rural king. It's it's basically like a, like a redneck Walmart tractor supply. It's like tractor supply on steroids. Right? It's it's huge. It's a great store. You can buy everything from camouflage couches to pool chemicals, to handguns and food.

[00:22:13] It's just one of those weird enigmas. We have one around here and historically they've had pool chlorine for really cheap. Well, apparently because of all of the COVID shit going on. Pool chlorine is now also in very short supply and very high demand. So they're limiting your, your purchase to two cases of chlorine per person.

[00:22:37] Now, I went there today and I happened to run into my beautiful wife in the store who was doing the same thing. I was, we were going to get our two cases and stock them away, or we're talking with each other and being the gentleman that I am. I picked up two cases. I throw them in my cart for her. This lady comes out of nowhere and gets all up in my face and says, don't you see the sign?

[00:22:57] It says only two cases per customer. And I said, well, these are hers. I'm just going to carry them up to the front and she'll pay for them separately. She goes, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's two cases per household per day. I'm usually a pretty mellow guy. But this really pissed me off. So I said, well, where does it say that it says limit to cases?

[00:23:17] It doesn't ask me where my, where I live, where my spouse lives. And she goes, they're going to ID you at the front desk. I said, lady, you're the problem with America right now? This is absurd. We still bought our four cases. But regardless that my rants over it didn't have a whole point except for. We're artificially making problems for ourselves all across the board and we're still doing it.

[00:23:42] We've been doing it since last year. We have to fix this before we can even touch fixing the other markets.

[00:23:52] Dillon Mitchell: I mean, there's so much like psychology to unpack in there cause that's really what it is. Um, I've gotten like really deep down on the like marketing rabbit hole lately and really into psychology and how people act. And it helps in so many ways, as much as we want to say, like construction is very cut and dry man.

[00:24:15] There's so many emotions to deal with across the board of, you know, how to like, think about this. How do you talk to an owner? Right. How you talk to an owner and the money man in the day is very different than the guy, you know, hanging pipe or drywall. Right. They have very different concerns and you, you just, there, they're going to care about different things and not that one is better or worse than the other.

[00:24:42] It's just, they're very different guys. They could still both drink Miller light at the end of the day, but they just have very different like concerns and where their head's at. And when you look at psychology, like in fear is one of the biggest driving factors in a lot of this it's right. It's fear of missing out, right?

[00:25:03] Fear of not having gas, fear of not having pool chlorine, which on a side note, I've I know two people who build pools in the last year, like, and I've never, never heard of anybody building their own pool. And I got two people go or three, three people build pools in the last year. Um, And then on top of that, so you got all this fear of missing out, like, and that, that inflates all like the housing costs, because now you're going after houses.

[00:25:30] Talk to another guy this morning. Who he's like I've, I've made offers on three houses. Got none of them. And it's, you know, like do, cause he's like, we want to sell at the top and I'm like, well, you're, you're going to buy into the top two. It just doesn't help you. Um, so it's like, well, okay, sell rent, you know, go forward.

[00:25:50] But it's, it's a lot of fear pieces and just hearing that. So, uh, I listened to Russell Brunson cause his marketing, uh, genius is just off the charts. And in that he, uh, started listening, reading a book, uh, outwitting, the devil, I think is it it's, so's an unpolished book by Napoleon hill. And I know I'm going to get on a little tangent here, but I'll bring it back.

[00:26:16] Is outwitting the devil by Napoleon hill. So it was like an unpublished thing. He wrote it after thinking grow rich, but it's, and I'm like halfway through it is the difference between fear, right? The devil is like fear, all your fear, motives, right? Fear of death, of poverty of. Uh, you know, poor health, there's six and all those like fear motives.

[00:26:37] And then there's like the faith side of it, which is thinking and positive reinforcement. Like it's all gonna be okay. And just there's two oppositions and fear is just so innate in all of us. Like they talk about like the devil is the fear side of it and he controls 98% of all people because they're.

[00:26:58] Easily motivated or determined by fear versus a 2% in, in faith, in, uh, positivity. Let's just call it that. So you've got these two oppositions, but if you can, this is why like, for all this stuff, if you can step out right, take 1545 an hour. A day a day and actually think, and be like, take notes. That's why, like, again, I don't listen to music.

[00:27:27] I'm my pastime. Like I told you at the beginning of the show is drinking wine and taking notes and reading books like non-fiction books. This is what I do like, so in a lot of this, but have you been actually think you can actually find like the positive ways of doing things in that, Hey, this will actually work out there's.

[00:27:46] It resets a lot of things that, again, that we deal with all the time in construction, we deal with problems on a, on a daily basis. But if you can always look to, to see solutions or options, right. Cause it's about, we have these days, I can't necessarily solve the pricing problem, but I can give you, you know, here's your choices and we can move from there.

[00:28:12] Right. And. A lot of that is it ends up being psychology. And for a lot of us that might not be, uh, you know, the, the manly thing or whatever to say in doing this, but you've got to deal with people and, you know, for, with your background in psychology, like it, it probably comes in more handy and more useful than not in this industry, in dealing with the wide range of people.

[00:28:37] Because again, you're dealing with most, most people it's in their fear. Right, except for your owner who, I mean, he's probably got a little bit of fear, but for the most part, they're, they're pretty positive or they wouldn't make that big of an investment in whatever it is that they're building. Right.

[00:28:52] Whether it's a house for some people, that's a huge investment at three, 400 grand for other owners, right? For a million dollar facility, five, 10, a hundred million dollar facility, right there. They're pretty optimistic or at least fairly certain that it's all gonna work out.

[00:29:14] Matt Vetter: That's an all you can do. And you know, the fear mindset, it, it screws with so much of our existence. It messes with your, everything. You do, you know, the way you interact with people, the way you perform at your job, the way you perform at home, the way you sleep, uh, your metabolism, and until you get your head, right.

[00:29:35] Nothing else will ever be right. You know, and the psychology thing, you know, I'll, I'll, self-deprecate myself on getting a psychology degree and then going into construction, but you're right. I mean, it, it comes in handy, you know, being able to, to deal and to communicate with everyone. It's it comes in quite handy to say the least because, um, along with fears and mindsets, I mean, everyone communicates differently, right?

[00:30:04] They're the guys who are first on the job or first day of the job. And they're in the bottom of the trench for the shovel communicate very differently than the guy who is paying the invoice and writing a sizable check to pay for his building. And you gotta be able to kind of effectively talk with everybody and understand where they're coming from.

[00:30:24] And I think that's. That's what a lot of people lack, not the psychology degree. Cause you could get that on through books and, and, you know, movies and YouTube a lot cheaper than I got mine. But, um, it's, it's that, that commonality of thinking that, that commonality of communication and being able to say what the hell is on your mind without pissing people off without sounding like an asshole.

[00:30:47] Um, but, but also being able to listen and in reverse right here. Different people's points of view and be able to process it and, and take whatever jarbled mess. It may be and turn it into something good. And that's understandable for everybody. If we all would start doing that a little bit more, um, I wouldn't be almost ready to scream at the poor girl at rural king because she's limiting my chlorine.

[00:31:14] Dillon Mitchell: Uh, one of the best things I've ever learned, and this was, it was from a marketing guy. Was. And heated discussions or something where you're trying to get your point across. One of the best things that you can say is what I heard you say is, and then basically repeat back to them. If you can do that, or what I'm understanding you to say is blank.

[00:31:41] And then you clear up so many discrepancies right upfront. It's like, Hey, this is how I understood this. Maybe in your own words, maybe in some of theirs, right. And repeat it back to them. It clears up so much for then you move forward that you now have a common base plate, but a lot of the times, you know, my, my dumb 21 year old self made a lot of the mistakes of.

[00:32:06] This is just what I understood it to be. And I'm going to run with that and never cleared it up and it caused more problems than it would have solved. Right? Like you, you just run in a completely opposite direction when your understandings were aligned.

[00:32:22] Matt Vetter: Yeah, it's, it's kind of also like, like having an effective meeting one-on-one right.

[00:32:27] At the end of the meeting, somebody needs to step up and say, okay, so I'm going to do this, this and this. You're going to do this, this and this. And we're going to meet on this day to review all the outputs that we talked about. It it's the same idea. Right? You can't do that. If you don't know what somebody said.

[00:32:48] You know, a lot of, a lot of it's listening. I think we have a listening problem as a culture because we get so busy, we get some, you know, so much instant gratification, so many, you know, notifications and things dinging all day long that we forget to, to listen and really hear anything that's being said, you know?

[00:33:08] And I I'm guilty of it at times when I'm not focused, I could sit and have a conversation with someone and have quite literally no idea what the hell they just told me. Um, it's not a trait I'm proud of, but you know, I try to, I try to work my hardest not to do that. And you know, that, I think that's the, what we need to focus on a little bit more.

[00:33:27] Dillon Mitchell: And I think so I'm going to backtrack a little bit to the, the whole gas thing is a lot of this is headline reading, right? Or some inference and not looking at the data. So again, like I did a quick Google search, pulled up census data for buildings, right. For building instruction and you can see it.

[00:33:49] Right. It's, it's very open. Um, and for like gasoline. So I had a conversation with the guy who was talking about it earlier this week and I'm like, dude, I don't know. Like I live in California. That's not like, so one thing that we don't have a problem with is gas. Cause again, like, this is the other thing is.

[00:34:09] You gotta, you gotta understand where all the refineries are. Right. So where that gas goes. So there's like 10 locations or refineries throughout the U S there's a couple in Bakersfield, some in San Francisco, some in LA, and a lot of it has to do with ports, right. Where the ports are. So they're going to come into San Francisco LA and then they're going to.

[00:34:32] Pipe the, you know, oil or crude or whatever, they're getting to a refinery and then they're gonna go from there. So like Bakersfield has a lot of them, um, and they pump a lot of crude out of the ground and big around that area. Um, San Francisco actually has a lot of them are in Oakland. Uh, Seattle's got a couple and then you look at the Eastern seaboard it's, um, And the golf.

[00:34:52] Right? You've got a few in Alabama. You've got like a couple in Louisiana. You've got a couple in Florida. Like there is a lot of refineries on the east coast. Uh, you know, they talk about one pipeline that did a hundred million gallons a day or whatever. And I'm like, they're not going to pump that much stuff.

[00:35:08] Like most of that's in the east, like upper east coast out of Baltimore is where those refineries are. Like, they're all in port cities while yes. That. Pipeline might actually flow, but it's probably crew not like refined gasoline. You're not going to pipe that you're going to truck a lot of it. Um, so there's a lot of things that like, when we actually look at infrastructure, right, and most of this is publicly available data.

[00:35:33] Like you can go. And again, they're like for the most publicly traded now Koch industries does a lot of, and they own a lot of pipelines and they're a private company, but that's like the only one in the oil business. Private. I mean, there's, there's others, but most of this data, like go look at shell, go look at BP.

[00:35:51] All those companies are public, publicly traded. They issue statements on a lot of this. Their pipelines are known because they have easements through everything. So it's all public D you can find most of this stuff. So as again, like there's the headline, which over the last year, we've found a lot of it to be completely false.

[00:36:11] And then there's, what's. Actually true, you know, did it have a cyber attack? Probably did it really affect anything who knows? You know, where's my real-time, you know, flow rate data on this pipeline to see, you know, nobody has that data, you know, 10 people have access to that data. Right.

[00:36:32] Matt Vetter: But you touched on, on a huge point, man.

[00:36:35] And I, I purposely try and toe the line on my, my political viewpoints in this show, because it's just not where we want to go. But yeah. As a society, we all stopped looking at data in about March of 2020. We just stopped completely. So I agree with you a hundred percent. It's all there. Err, almost all of the data on almost all of the questions and the things going on.

[00:37:00] It's all out there for us to consume for us to look at. And data is great, right? Because it's either yes or no, either it's black or white, it happened. It didn't. You know, there, there's not a whole lot of gray area when you're looking objectively for an answer, but when you either don't find your day or don't, don't look for the data or you take the data you find and put this massively subjective, spin on it, then you can make it say whatever you want to say.

[00:37:31] But again, I'll, I'll just stop with that. And I won't go too far down that rabbit hole cause we may never make it out.

[00:37:40] Dillon Mitchell: Well, so one thing that I do want to hammer on in this is, so let's, let's look at construction. Let's look at actual construction and actual data, right. And far too often, I mean, this is, this is across the board.

[00:37:55] Design construction, everybody. So design, how do you know that your thinking actually worked, right? There's no feedback mechanism, right? That your, the conference room you build or the HVC system, this was the beautiful thing about we work and they screwed a lot of that up for other things. But, uh, like they had data feedback mechanisms to figure out like conference room, right?

[00:38:15] Layouts, what works, they got feedback. You know, how many do we need? Did we over-schedule, you know, for all their flex space, that was the beautiful thing about we worked. They did a lot of other dumb stuff that they should not have been in at all, but that, you know, core base that they started with was fantastic.

[00:38:35] Will you take that? So that's designed, like we have no feedback on any building and no architect ever wants to call on a client and see how it's going, because there might be a problem, which is, you know, we've addressed plenty on this show. You should do that. But, um, the other thing is same in construction, right?

[00:38:52] Like this is how we, I think we did it last time. Right? Six months ago when we put another one of these up right. There's no feedback. There's no tracking of like, did it actually cost this? Right? What were the change orders? You had changed orders through the job, but did you feed that data back into your estimating tool to see, you know, Hey, are we pricing this accurately?

[00:39:17] And granted it's probably a year lag, but that's you, that's the only data you have and you're not using it effectively on your projects. So it's a. And yeah, it's a pain in the ass, but would you rather still have a company or, you know, go through a little bit of work? I know we're not like it's construction.

[00:39:36] We work. Like we're not opposed to the work and yeah. It's different type of work, but if you can track all this stuff and then feed it back into the mechanism to then, you know, okay, Hey, we priced this thing in a dollar, right. It should have been three. Adjust right. Update the spreadsheet and then let that flow through until the next time.

[00:39:58] Right? What did we do wrong? And so often nobody feeds any data back and just like the stat of, you know, it's up 25, a foot to design for electrical. Right. Nobody knows that number.

[00:40:14] Matt Vetter: So a few weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago, I don't know when it was, we talked about software and estimating software in particular. Um, I haven't bought it yet. And frankly, to the, to the vendor who keeps calling me, I will end up buying it from you, your constant calling me. You won't make it any faster, but that's one of the beauties of that product is I can, once I get it up and running, I can take that data and dump it on the front side.

[00:40:40] And it makes everything we do so much more efficient. And then the next time you do it again and you do it again. And once you build those, those processes into your normal workflow, it becomes less burdensome because it just becomes, that's what we do, you know, instead of finishing a project and running into the next one, now you, you just quickly collect this data and data that you've been tracking now all the way through the project, because you know, it's important.

[00:41:06] You dump it into the software at the front end and you're next estimate is even better. And it's just this, this container. And he was loop until finally you're really, really working at a highly efficient level and you're not wasting time and energy on the little stuff that shouldn't have been missed.

[00:41:24] You know, your, your, your folk, you have time to focus on the bigger issues at hand.

[00:41:30] Dillon Mitchell: And I mean for estimates in general, right? And this is again across the board because design is just as bad at estimating their time as construction is. And the more that you can feed back into that beast, into that mechanism, the more accurately you're going to do it, you know, can you accept a 5% fee on this building?

[00:41:54] You know, can you actually do it for that? You don't know, you just sure. It will do it. Right. But you have, you had no idea. And so this is, and then it, it gives you real data, but again, far too often, even as engineers, we're not making objective decisions. It's just like, well, this is what we do. We just take it and move on.

[00:42:18] You don't have to, but you have to know your numbers in order to make an actual determination of, can you do it for this?

[00:42:25] Matt Vetter: Yeah. And I think today in our conversation, we've kind of brought out the highlights of our last four, maybe five shows, you know, it all kind of culminates into, you gotta be able to communicate.

[00:42:37] You gotta be able to listen. You gotta know your numbers. Can't be afraid of software because all of these things are going to combine together and help you grow, help us be more efficient. And that's what everybody needs right now. Especially riding this, this rollercoaster that, you know, if inflation keeps going.

[00:42:55] We're going to be where we were in oh eight oh nine, pretty soon here, you know, within the next, I'm not an economist again, but within the next year. Right. That's my prediction. If it keeps going, if we don't fix things. And one of the ways to buffer that, that systematic breakdown of our industry is to get more efficient.

[00:43:14] Now, when it matters, now that we have. You know, we have projects going everybody's busy. No one can find them employees because everyone's so busy. There's so much work out there. Use the time now to get better so that when, when shit falls apart and gets really hard again, you're going to be already at, you know, an rung or two up on that ladder from the guy who's just blindly running and doing the way he's always done.

[00:43:40] Dillon Mitchell: It's one of the hardest things to do is to take that hour a day and think. Right. And that's, that's really what it is. Take a half hour, hour a day, and think sit in a room uninterrupted and actually think through what, what works, what doesn't and the firms that do that, the companies that do that, that put in structural pieces and again, half hour a day, like little tasks, the smallest thing that you can do to move forward on a daily basis compound over time.

[00:44:14] And far too often, we all get. Busy. We all have a bunch of stuff going on and we don't do any of those things. We don't do any of the improvement pieces. We don't think strategically any. And this is at the highest levels. Like, I mean the highest levels in big companies, right? This is why Warren buffet is as rich as he is because he spends a lot of time thinking.

[00:44:38] And when they pull the trigger on something, it's. They have complete confidence in their decision. So for a lot of you, you know, you're running it, you're doing operations, you're doing finances, you're doing personnel decisions, you know, you're, you're running everything, but if you can take it half hour and think through are the, any of the assumptions that we're making.

[00:45:02] And it's the hardest thing to find the assumptions that you're making, but you know, what do we need to. Fix or what do we need help with? What can we get better at? What should we implement? What's out there. And again, the more people you can recruit within your organization to do that and to help you.

[00:45:17] And if you're just you to take that time, to think through a lot of stuff. And a lot of it might not pan out for years, but by taking that compound and effort by continually thinking and working through these problems, because that's what a lot of it is, right? Like you look at Amazon, you look at. Space actually look at Tesla.

[00:45:38] It's an idea that has, they've spent a lot of time on, they've worked out a lot of problems with it. And then they found the people in the money to execute. And far too often in construction, we just run from fire to fire from problem to problem. And don't ever come back to things strategically. And then you wonder why your business is broken or your business, or, you know, the really bad things that happen because you never took the time to think.

[00:46:07] Matt Vetter: A hundred percent. I I've got nothing better to add to that man that that's where we're at. It's about thinking, you know, and I think we're kind of coming up on time pretty soon here. Um, I did want to touch on some of the comments that have rolled in, um, I'll read his question and, and, and you can feel the first answer to it and maybe we'll go from there.

[00:46:29] But, uh, Siraj asked. So in your opinion is the future. What I think he means to say is the future remote working for companies that can do it.

[00:46:42] Dillon Mitchell: Um, again, like it's going to be a mixed bag and I've said this from the start. I think it's going to be a three to a work week, you know, or one in four, some something to that effect.

[00:46:52] And it depends on who you are. Right. Um, executives, frankly, don't need to be depending on what you're running. Um, probably don't need to be in the office as much. Um, you know, you need, uh, for anybody that's working on like group stuff and not to say that you can't do it, but there's going to be for sure.

[00:47:12] Like, I mean, board meetings are going to be in person. Um, maybe, maybe not like a lot of these things are going to be in person that you just need that energy, right. Or you're not going to, you don't feel secure doing it over a phone or whatever. Um, so there's going to be a lot of those things that are going to still be in person.

[00:47:31] And that's just the way it is, um, to get, can use time like off-sites, or are always in person, right? Like those types of things are always going to be in person. I think, um, now you can do a lot of design meetings, uh, like this and that. That's fine. It's probably for time's sake, it's works for everybody.

[00:47:48] And to do, I think there's going to be a split for like designer U meetings moving forward. I think it's going to be. And I've always been an advocate for this and no one ever took me up on it and I never had the power to do it, but is to do like either weekly, biweekly check-ins with the owners on projects to, Hey, this is where we're at.

[00:48:09] You know, we need review decisions on like a room we need, and then you just, you can iterate faster and have a 30 minute meeting with owners to get their buy-in on like a room and move through that. And you can do a lot of those virtually, um, and then have your big, you know, 100% D CD, uh, meetings or SD, right?

[00:48:32] You can still have your three big meetings in person with the whole design team and all the stakeholders or whatever. Um, but to do those kind of intermediate airy pieces, more often via zoom, especially now that everybody's used to it, like it's not, not hard to do a zoom meeting and I've been a big advocate of, um, basically a scrum mentality from, for a long time.

[00:48:52] Uh, just nobody ever wanted to do it, but it'll help you move faster. So I've always, you, you can't replace human interaction. This is pretty close. Uh, but you still, you need a three and two in your, and some of your workforce might want a five day work week, right? Like there's just going to be those people that want to be in the office that want to commute that do better in the office than they do at home.

[00:49:18] So you're going to have split and, but it's again on you as a leader. To understand your people, how they work, what they want. Some people are five day work week at home is going to be just fine for them. They're going to get more work more done. They're going to be more productive, more profitable for you as a firm owner.

[00:49:34] And then realistically, it's, you know, Hey, we do need you in the office for this and not like, you know, this afternoon, but you know, in a week or whatever, Hey, we need you to like, come here for this meeting.

[00:49:50] Matt Vetter: I would echo pretty much everything you said, man. Um, you know, at my company, uh, I'm not very good at it, but I do make an effort to get physically in our, our main Brighton office at least once a week for our weekly staff meeting.

[00:50:06] And I say that as I've missed the last three because of other things going on, but it makes a difference, you know, and, and part of it's just being able to sit there at the table and. You have more candid conversations because you know, big, brother's not recording you. And you know, you, there's a level of creativity that comes out.

[00:50:25] I think when a lot of people, when you're together in person versus doing this, um, but as far as what I do on a regular basis with the amount of meetings that I'm in, I'll be honest with you not having to drive half hour an hour each way to get somewhere for. A meeting or for, you know, a quick meeting it's you can't buy time.

[00:50:52] And I feel like over the last year, we've all gained a lot more time. And, you know, part of that's the stuff we've been through. Part of that, some of the personal things that I've, I've done on my side, but, you know, figuring out how to better utilize your time is worth its weight in gold or. Bitcoin or whatever the thing of the day is.

[00:51:12] Right. It's, it's fantastic. And you know, I can't tell you how many meetings I go to that it's, it's only an hour, but you tack an hour or 45 minutes on either side. And now that's, that's three hours a day gone. And I saw a post the other day from. Uh, a guy in the RTI group on Facebook that you're good friends with and I'm not going to name him, but he, he basically challenged people to shut all the notifications off on your phone, shut them off and see how much more productive you actually get.

[00:51:47] And I can tell you having done it myself this week. It's incredible. And that's, that's, that's just a small thing that the time I feel I gained this week by not having my phone buzzing and dinging for all the dumb shit that I can look at, I can look at it when I want to, or I could never look at it and everyone's still breathing.

[00:52:08] Um, it's incredible how much time I feel like I gained. And so to do that on a bigger scale, by not jumping in my truck and driving across town for a meeting that I'm tripling the time constraint or the time consumed now. To be able to sit here or wherever and do that and still be productive. I think it's worth its weight in gold.

[00:52:28] I don't think offices go away at all. I think it's going to be some sort of version of what, what you mentioned, you know, some days on some days off and there are certain people who just can't do it, you know, the people who decide that it's a good idea to when they're working at home, stay in their pajamas all day and sit on the couch, watching TV.

[00:52:47] Well, that's bullshit. You know, and if they need that structure of going to a brick and mortar facility, then I think it needs to be there for them. Um, but people like you and I, I operate pretty damn well by my lonesome here. And when I need to go places, I go places, you know, I still have I'm in construction, so I'm still, I have human interaction all the time.

[00:53:09] I'm on job sites. Um, I'm, I'm mingling with subs and clients. So I, you know, I don't miss that part of it, but. Uh, that's my long answer. I don't think offices go away, but I think they are changing for sure.

[00:53:23] Dillon Mitchell: It's just knowing your people, right. That's really what it comes down to. Do you know who works well in the office who doesn't or who can operate fine, but to not, it's no blanket statement.

[00:53:34] You just can't say everybody, you know, do this, or everybody do that. And not in today's world. You know, two years ago, everyone came to the office. It was just expected. There are different expectations now, and you've got to adapt really to that. You're not going back. People are too used to it. They're like, you know, why drive?

[00:53:53] You know, it saved me whatever, 20 bucks a week in gas, you know, like now you're going to cost me another a hundred bucks a month, you know, to come to the office. Like, no, not only time. And then, so here's the last, uh, hack that I'm going to give. I. I haven't done this in awhile, but, uh, if you flip your screen to gray scale on your phone, you will also, uh, it'll cut your attention.

[00:54:20] Like Instagram isn't as pretty anymore. Um, with Facebook, if you cut it, if you turn it to grayscale, then you're not as tempted to sit there and scroll either. Um, so that's the other big hack for, for color? Um, before we wrap up guys, uh, again, Man I come on every week. Now we've been doing this live for the last few months.

[00:54:44] So if you you'd like it, I appreciate all the comments, uh, you know, mark and Saraj coming in here on LinkedIn. We do this every week, uh, time changes. So you can be, uh, be aware of it on LinkedIn and Facebook and YouTube. Go ahead and share, you know, we'd love the interaction again, we're here to help, uh, the construction industry as a whole, you know, obviously from being on the design side and, and having designed software, Matt being on the.

[00:55:08] GC side, you know, and then for us having the subs and everybody else kind of in between, uh, come on onto the show, we love doing this. We love sharing. Um, but also, you know, guys, we want this word, just read about how great construction is, what we can all do to get better. Um, so share with your, your trade partners, your vendors, everybody across the industry.

[00:55:30] Uh, cause I think there is a lot to be learned here in for construction, um, and that will continue to move forward. So any. Any last words here, Matt.

[00:55:41] Matt Vetter: Um, I'm just going to echo that, you know, give us a rating, give us a review if you like it, let us know if you hate it, let us know. Uh, and we'll, we'll keep doing what we're doing.

[00:55:51] Dillon Mitchell: All right. I'm going to answer this question. So before, uh, we could out Serayah, uh, had a question on office designed to focus on data center. Uh, to support remote, I think so the two things in that one, there's going to be a lot of infrastructure projects to come through and fiber, um, and just communications in general.

[00:56:10] So if you're in it, um, there's going to be a lot of trenches opened up and put in to get fiber into buildings. So that's, you know, really the it infrastructure you need to get, uh, bulked up. That means probably for a lot of office buildings for cabling to be completely replaced from all like cat four, cat five.

[00:56:30] Uh co-ax. It's in a lot of buildings for all that, to get ripped out, which, you know, can we, uh, a lot of things have been where it is, um, to, to redo that, that infrastructure. Um, and then as far as data centers, there's a lot of data centers being built. Um, and they never stopped getting put up. So everybody's putting a lot of stuff in the cloud from everybody working, just, uh, so take construction, BIM 360 and Autodesk push.

[00:56:58] I mean, there. They're doing 200, 300 million right now and on their cloud side for Autodesk construction cloud. And, you know, they're looking for that to be a billion dollar piece of their pie in the next, you know, three to five years. So, and that's everybody going and getting them through 60 licenses, which we've seen a huge explosion of in the last year.

[00:57:20] Um, so, so a lot of this you're going to see a huge. Pushed for, you know, not only remote work and a lot, that's been the trend for a while, right. To have virtual desktops and a lot of that to where you don't have even a desktop in the office. So all that compute got pushed to a data center and then you just need a strong internet connection.

[00:57:39] So it's going to be different types of construction projects. Yeah. Mark. Exactly. There's going to be, you know, you're not going to know. So we have officer innovations or one of the other things that I said last year was. You're going to see those condo towers and office towers downtown being converted into, to housing, to, to bars and nightlife, um, to like, you know, where it's it's you got a bar on the third floor, you know, you got a pool hall, you got entertainment, right.

[00:58:06] A bowling alley put up there or something like there's going to be more entertainment pieces, put in more housing, put in downtown or converted from that office space. Cause you just don't need it. And. The guy that owns a building needs to click rent from somebody. So they don't care where it comes from, but you're going to see those types of projects I think come through.

[00:58:25] So it's, if you, if you work with, uh, building owners for like downtown office buildings for, uh, these types of commercial developments yeah. And mixed use in a very different capacity. Right. Which use an entertainment, not just restaurants and like housing, but entertainment and not on the, just on the ground floor.

[00:58:44] You know, think of it as, you know, it's four or five, right. Or three or whatever. Um, there's be creative in that if you're working with developers, um, I'd love, you know, think of how cool that would be, right? Like you're going to see all that stuff. I mean, people love going and doing things and like Axe throwing, right?

[00:59:03] Like that's a big thing now. So if you can add those types of things into a project, into a, what used to be an office is now an ax throwing center. Okay. People are still going to show up, right? You still have eight foot ceilings. It's totally fine. So I think there's just going to be a lot more creativity when it comes to a lot of these downtown, uh, locations.

[00:59:25] Matt Vetter: And I'm just gonna. And that with, uh, if I ever started another company, I'm going to mandate that all important meetings are held at an excellent facility.

[00:59:40] Dillon Mitchell: All right guys. Uh, cheers, Joe. And, uh, we'll see you next week. So,

[00:59:43] Matt Vetter: yep.

Kowabunga Story

The Kowabunga Story

Dillon Mitchell, PE

IEEE Member

Author Note

[Self-Funded, boot strapped22523 Twain Harte Drive, Twain Harte, CA 95383]

Abstract

Engineers devote time and energy to designing and coordinating complex building systems while ensuring reliability of the design. However, many hours are wasted doing things that could be delegated or done within Surboard (a new plug-in for Revit). We must ask ourselves, are engineers supposed to be drafting receptacle locations? Does an engineer have to trade precious hours of his life or is there a better way? A solution has been created – Surfboard, a software add-in to Revit that continues to innovate improvement for project management. Surfboard solutions save time, increase cash flow, and productivity giving your team a better life and your company a better bottom line.

Keywords:  Surfboard, Revit, Electrical Engineering, Electrical Design, Lighting Design, Commercial construction, Power design, MEP

The Kowabunga Story

Engineers devote a great deal of time and energy to designing and coordinating complex building systems while ensuring the life-safety, effectiveness, and reliability of the design. As a Professional Engineer myself and having designed millions of square feet of commercial buildings from K-12, higher education, hospitals, primary care, clinics, office buildings, apartments, mixed-use, and industrial, I know the struggles engineers go through daily. An engineer holds responsibility for everything from an initial idea, integrating components, to the final design in place. Furthermore, an engineers’ expertise does not stop there. A project's more tedious tasks might include setting up sheets, placing devices, annotations, coordination, meetings, and other conversations not directly contributing to creating construction documents. Then there is the actual engineering and calculations to size and place equipment. Significant resources are consumed in this process, and sometimes they are wasted.

Research shows that engineers often work with tight, unrealistic deadlines, hopping from one project to the next and never giving projects the time merited. The four top problems identified in engineering firms are not enough time, over budget, not enough people, and setting standards (Dillon, 2021). While not ideal, it is the situation encountered on most projects usually due to one of the problems listed above. As an engineer, I set out to do something about it and created an add-in Surfboard for Revit.

Surfboard automatically places your families in the Revit model according to the parameters the engineer provides. The add-in gives the engineer design documents in minutes, a process that used to take hours or months. Surfboard allows the engineer/design team say good-bye to late nights and weekends in the office and hello to increased productivity, more profit in less time, and happier clients.

The firm also experiences the benefit of higher employee retention because they are not stressed and bombarded with tedious tasks. The firm is then able to bask in the ability to take on twice as many projects with the same electrical design team.

Deadline Management

Surfboard can help to resolve issues concerning deadline management for an engineer/designer.  Using Surfboard allows the engineers to factor in less time, coming in on budget, utilizing the people allocated to the project, and maintains the standards expected.

Time

In a firm, each project has budgeted hours that are in line with the costs of the actual project. The engineers are expected to come in below those hours “under budget.” As we know from experience these budgets are rarely correct and do not take to account the average hours from historical projects or the “unique” circumstances that seem to crop up on every project. Add in the fact that there is always another project, another deadline looming, and another stress point. The engineers/designers are not qualified for being thrown from one project to another but instead for computation of what to do during the process. Engineers are responsible for knowing and utilizing their soft skills i.e., team-work, problem solving, time management, critical thinking, decision-making, and communication on the job in order to increase productivity and if that does not occur, then, stress levels and knowing that you are responsible for signing off on the project at the end of the day create an inflexible working environment.

Engineers bouncing from one project to the next often means that small details are forgotten, especially when attention is diverted from one urgent email to the next, one fire after another being extinguished while taking time away from the other projects at hand. Engineers are found responding to urgent, not important emails; however, they have been conditioned to respond immediately taking attention from the essential things and putting them on the next distraction.

Not only are these budgeted hours low or not to scale for each project, but they also don’t account for the hours of wasted meetings the engineers end up attending. For example, engineers get caught up attending other meetings inside the firm that has nothing to do with our portion of the project, or just a small piece at the very end. We find that these types of meetings take the engineer away from the bigger picture of completing the overall project.

·       How do we prioritize these projects?

·       Is it by which deadline is first?

·       Which project manager yells louder

·       What is the order in which we tackle the mounting pile of work on our desk?

Surfboard may not be able to stop the meetings or emails, but the add-in can give back some of that precious time to the engineer and reduce the time controlled the engineer is experiencing.

Budgets

Project budgets are often exceeded due to unforeseen circumstances encountered during the planning and building processes of a project. However, time can be a controlled factor in the professional services company of the firm. Most often we see this occur an “absorption of overhead costs by billable time of technical personnel” at the corporate level but I wanted a better way to improve the risk/reward of consulting managing my time and productivity on each project ("Cost control in consulting engineering firms,” 2005).

Not having enough people per project forces the engineers to find ways to complete projects while not having the manpower needed to adequately perform the way needed to complete multiple projects for the firm. Engineers often find themselves understaffed and under deadline which often means that the individuals they are working with are not satisfied with the project or the engineer. These same engineers also experience increased stress because there is not any help coming or light at the end of the tunnel. Problem solving is essential for Engineers/Designers and necessitates a group of diverse persons working to finish projects under stress. Because of the delays or other significant problems that confront the engineers, they often employ their softskills to get projects complete in a more professional manner while presenting a professional face of the corporation (Short, 2017).

People

A top engineer in a firm earns $125-150,000 which is comparable to other engineering fields, if not a little less. However, the liability is much higher as they stamp / seal construction documents, putting their name that the design meets code and won’t fail.  Risk-reward ratios seem a little off, don't they? Being an engineer, not licensed in automotive, and designing something going into millions of cars often pays more. Let us say something fails; no one person is held responsible. Yet, in construction, the engineer signing their name is the responsible party.

Granted, the engineers are backed by a company; an individual is still signing off on the drawings, saying the design is up to code. Therefore, to improve the risk-reward balance, the engineer of each project must learn to communicate needs and wants to improve productivity at the jobsite and office as needed. At the end of the day, we are responsible for the design and safety of those in the building.

This is where Surfboard shines by helping to cut 25% out of your electrical projects. The software allows the engineer to get through Design Documents in minutes, rather than weeks or months. Because of this the engineer has no more stress, worry, or fear about not hitting a deadline.

Our solution, Surfboard allows your electrical team to get to Design Documents in minutes. Placing lighting, lighting controls, power distribution and fire alarm devices in your Revit model in minutes.

Healthcare Construction

Project after project rolling in and jumping from deadline to deadline causes engineers to become stressed out, overworked, and feel underappreciated. Life in construction is made up of these behaviors and emotions, I get it more than most. I had taken a new job as a senior engineer, and this office was heavy in healthcare construction, this field was something I had not worked on previously. I was thrust into the healthcare world and not just any type of healthcare project, but one of the more complex hospital needs—operating rooms.

The project was a renovation of 30 operating rooms across two hospitals. The phasing alone was complex and complicated and hard to manage as the project manager leading the MEP team. The biggest challenge asked of my company was keeping the majority of rooms open so the hospital could still operate. Did I mention I was also the one managing this project? I was in charge of managing and designing the electrical systems. This was a new client, a new position for me, and new systems to learn how to design. I was over my head with this one. Meaning I was soon to be the owner of many long nights studying codes, learning the systems and design the electrical systems in this OR renovation.

Work-Life Balance

The project went out in mid-January. At the time, I was living in Indianapolis, IN. It is cold, snowy, and a place you would like to get out of and be on a beach somewhere this time of year, which is precisely what I had planned—going on vacation for ten days to Hawaii. Sipping Mai Tai's on the beach is what I was planning on—getting this Operating Room project out the door and enjoying a well-earned vacation and relaxation. Except, it did not quite happen that way.

Two days before I was to get on the plane, I broke out in shingles on my chest and back. Here I was 27 years old, a Senior Engineer, had run a department and now managing MEP (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing) teams for healthcare projects, and I now had shingles. My viral infection was likely triggered by stress, since I had not been around anyone with chickenpox. I never had an outbreak of chickenpox personally since I had been given the vaccine as a kid.

If you have not had shingles, let me give a short explanation. Shingles are hemispherical. Meaning it will appear on half of your body. Some people get it on their face, and it can either be front and back or side to side. I had it on the left side of my body, front and back. Shingles are itchy, burning, and overall painful. With a constant burn and itch and the occasional flare of pain, shingles are annoying. Here I am, though, on the beach taking anti-viral medications and Tylenol to deal with the pain.

During this trip, I had time to reflect. To ask myself questions about why I am working so hard in my engineering job that does not have work-life balance and lower pay than other fields of engineering. Why stay in construction? What can I do not let this happen to anyone else? Why do we do it? Why do I stay?

Considering these questions, it is still beautiful to see the impact made on a community. Whether for a healthcare network, school, or manufacturing facility, it is a positive impact and something that will stand for decades to come. This is the beauty of construction. It lasts, withstanding time and nature—more than anything else humans create, buildings and infrastructure last. My goal is to make an impact across the industry that’s as helpful as the buildings we create.

Lingard, Brown, and Bradley explained, “Long and inflexible work hours are the most consistent predictor of work-life conflict among construction employees, particularly those working on-site or in a project office (2007).” The researchers also found that there is sufficient evidence to support alternative work schedules that include high-performance work systems that would provide the availability of work-life balance.

On the beach, this is what I was determined to do. Help the thousands of engineers across the industry not go through what I did. My mission became to give them a better life. Give them the ability to focus on the beauty of construction. Allow engineers to do what they do best, engineer. Calculations and problem-solving. Not the tedious tasks required for each project.

Why should an engineer be drafting? Placing receptacles, especially when there are clear rules to place these devices. The same goes for numerous other devices and project setup

Engineers with billable rates of $150 per hour doing these types of tasks do not make sense. Nevertheless, it happens all the time across the industry. Now, your rates might vary, but you get the point—a valuable employee doing low-value type work.

This is where I saw the highest ability to impact and help engineers. My goal is to reduce the number of hours engineers work and get them back down to a typical workweek of 40 hours per week. Across the industry, most engineers are salaried. Meaning no matter how many hours worked, the engineers are not paid any more or less.

If something could reduce the number of hours, increase productivity, and lower the stress felt in getting projects out, wouldn't this be worth it? My thoughts exactly. Now, how do you go about it? How can this happen?

Years earlier, in 2014, the Occulus Rift, DK2 (Development Kit 2), came out. I was working at an Architecture Engineering firm, and we had applied to receive one. We were one of the few selected and thus began our research and development into visualization.

Honestly, in the beginning, things were clunky. We had a machine specially built with high-end processing, tons of memory to run this virtual reality headset. Still tethered to the machine, we could go into another world. Walk around the buildings we were designing and see them from a first-person perspective rather than the floor and ceiling plans we were used to. As one of the Architects I worked with described them, the GOD view—the zoomed-out view of the building from above—the view no one sees, except God or a drone.

Here we were walking through these buildings, years before they were built. It was AWESOME! During all this R&D, I discovered there was a whole world open to us through software.

This started my journey of personal research, growth, and development of an idea. Years of hiring developers (I am just an electrical engineer after all) to help bring my vision to reality. Years to iterate, refine and develop a useful solution to my own problems designing buildings.

A Planned Solution

In December of 2019, we finally released a solution to help get through the initial design phases. We were automating the layout of lights, receptacles, and light switches. This seemingly primary tool would lay out the back of the house and general lighting throughout a building in one shot. We were taking care of the general-purpose outlets and your switches by the door.

What does this mean to an engineer, to you? Let's take a school or office building. Typical troffers throughout, the outlet on each wall in the offices and a switch by the door. Think of all the hours it would take to do lighting calculations for each room. To layout a receptacle in the center of every wall in every room. Then place a switch by the door. A total of 3-4 receptacles in each room.

Let’s say this initial layout is 25% of a project. 100,000 square foot school/office is budgeted for 437.5 hours for SD/DD. Instead of a narrative, you can now produce a preliminary set of drawings. Through DD = 35% of a project. Taking off 10% to clean up and still produce a set means a savings of 393 hours on this project alone.

These are budgeted hours, and we all know how well this holds up over the long haul. Most projects are over budget on hours. This will save you close to 400 hours. In dollars, say at $100/hr. = $40,000 on this one project alone.

If the design changes, which we all know never happens (insert smiley face here). You can rerun our solution… Surfboard and re-lay out all your lights, receptacles, and switches in a project within minutes.

Surfboard is the name of our solution that is an add-in to Revit. At Kowabunga Studios our solutions save time, increase cash flow, and productivity giving your team a better life and your company a better bottom line.

The name comes from a couple of places; riding the wave of innovation is one. How technology is changing our world, and it is a wave you want to be on. The other is from my being in Maui and seeing the surfers who made it look so easy, so graceful. They let the wave take them for a ride, and the smiles on their faces were fantastic!

The feeling of grace, beauty, and ease is what I wanted to give to other engineers. To have them see and feel the power and ease with which projects can come together. Not the struggle, pain, and anxiety engineers have had on projects. I want it to be easy for all engineers, now and in the future. To allow you, the engineer, to use your brain for actual engineering and problem solving, not these tedious tasks of placing devices in a project.

Surfboard is meant to take you on a wonderful ride. Take you places you want to go and let you enjoy life a little more. Ride the waves you want to ride and spend time with whom you want to spend time with, not chained to your desk away from your friends and family.

I want you to have the beers and enjoy life. Not be too stressed or have too much work not to be able to enjoy life. As engineers, we make a good living but can never enjoy it. Life is meant to be lived and enjoyed. Surfboard is our way of helping make it all possible.

Because it is our mission at Kowabunga Studios to help you grow, develop, and save more time so you can live that better life, we are continuing to improve our Surfboard technology. Since our initial release, we have added the ability to place ceiling-mounted occupancy sensors, fire alarm devices (horn/strobes and smoke detectors) as well as your initial panel placement.

You might be wondering how this all works. How we make this so effortless. Well, it’s because we were in your shoes. We’ve designed millions of square feet of commercial buildings. Lighting is designed and populated using the lumen method to calculate an even illumination across the work surface with just a few technical parameters. Receptacles, ceiling mounted occupancy sensors are placed based on spacing information provided. Fire alarm devices placed per code distances. Switches and panels placed based on how many you choose. Making device placement easy, simple, and straightforward for anyone who has designed commercial buildings before.

Surfboard is a single installation for 2017 through the current year of Revit. We knew the struggles of having to download a specific download for each year of Revit which creates a plug-in for data converting and juggling between the versions and making sure you had software for the newest version year (Zotkin, Ignatova, Zotkina, 2016).  We have one installer for Surfboard, covering all your bases.

Kowabunga Studios keeps increasing our offerings to help you through your projects. In 2020, we made a significant development effort to help everyone save time. Adding Skimboard, a low-voltage solution handling speaker, wireless access points, data, security, and floor boxes.

We will not stop improving and delivering solutions to help you save time. We are not developing window dressing solutions or fancy visualization tools. We are helping you with the nuts and bolts engineering and design few want to tackle. We are doing this because we know your pain. Kowabunga Studios was born out of the stress, anxiety, and tight deadlines you live in daily.

Let us help relieve your tensions through our software solutions.

Evolution of Design

20 years ago, firms were still drafting by hand. Using pen plotters and mylar. Enter the 2000’s and you saw the majority adoption of Architectural desktop and AutoCAD. Enabling faster transmission of base plans and updates. In the 2010’s we’ve seen the vast adoption of Revit and the ushering in of real-time collaboration. Same model, same time, instant updates. No more file updates once a week and missing changes. No more physically redrawing base plans.

Today we are in the age of real-time updates and speed. Owners want a coordinated model and set of drawings delivered faster than ever before. Yet how is your firming going to make good on these promises? Rather than continually breaking them with pushed deadlines, upsetting everyone in the process?

Hire more people? We all know how that is working out with the tight labor pool and low entry into the industry. What other alternatives are there, if you’re going to outperform your competition and not break the promise of the deadlines you’ve made?

There’s only one real alternative and it’s to use automation. To speed up processes of getting information and content in your models. Allowing your team to have better conversations with the owner and other disciplines sooner in the project. Allowing your team to be great at what they do, rather than toiling away at all these tedious tasks.

            Automation and augmenting your team is the only sure way to success in such a short period of time. You’re being paid for a complete product, especially in a fixed fee world. Not the time you put into it. Why not be paid more for less work? It’s possible and Kowabunga Studios has the solution.

References

Best soft skills to list on a resume. (n.d.). The Balance Careers. https://www.thebalancecareers.com/list-of-soft-skills-2063770

Cost control in consulting engineering firms | Journal of management in engineering | Vol 21, no 4. (n.d.). ASCE Library | Civil Engineering and its Practical Applications. https://ascelibrary.org/doi/pdf/10.1061/%28ASCE%290742-597X%282005%2921%3A4%28189%29

Lingard, H., Brown, K., Bradley, L., Bailey, C., & Townsend, K. (2007). Improving employees’ work-life balance in the construction industry: Project alliance case study. Journal of construction engineering and management, 133(10), 807-815.

Pearce, A. R., & Bulbul, T. The Influence of Internship Participation on Construction Industry Hiring Professionals When Selecting New Hires and Determining Starting Salaries for Construction Engineering Graduates. age, 24, 1.

Zotkin, S. P., Ignatova, E. V., & Zotkina, I. A. (2016). The organization of autodesk revit software interaction with applications for structural analysis. Procedia Engineering, 153, 915-919.

9 Story Mixed Use Building Walkthrough

9 Story Building Walkthrough

In this walkthrough, we've got a nine story building. We've just created all the rooms in it. So there's really, it just says room for where every room name, without or throughout the model. So what this means is when we launch surfboard here, again, our flagship solution, that's going to save you 25% or more on your electrical design needs.

[00:00:22] This is going to go ahead and populate. Throughout the model, we're going to do our, receptacles lighting controls, and it really just helped you get through this project faster. So now that surfboard is up, we're going to populate receptacle. So we'll go ahead and just do our default menu here. We're going to choose just our standard duplex.

[00:00:50] We're just going to put two in each, every room or an input, a switch by each and every door. And again, this is just a brand new, simple model that's set up, that we're going to place devices throughout. So we'll just run these two solutions real quick in this nine story building, placing receptacles and light switches throughout the model.

[00:01:14] Right. We just says rooms. I haven't gone through and named anything. So if the models in that type of condition, right where room names haven't been established yet. this again, allows you to still quickly, easily go through with only just the room bounding, effectively being placed within the model. So like quick, easy way to get up and running with surf board.

[00:01:38] Again, to save you 25% or more on your electrical design needs and revenue. This is going to lay out all these outlets on every wall. In the room, it's going to put switches throughout and really allow you just to move so much faster through your rabbit projects. Simple, easy, right? It's a couple clicks.

[00:01:59] This was nothing, very hard or difficult to do again and have a Revvit family select, you know, how many want, for each room, device. Very, very simple, easy again, for a nine story building we're going to be done here. Um, probably an under a minute. To place these hundreds of devices, which will give you a count here in just a few minutes, right?

[00:02:24] So here in California studios, we feel your pain. We feel the low margins, the poor productivity, the crazy amounts of stress, big turnover within your electrical team, and just the challenge of finding qualified talent to bring into your organization. So that's why we developed our solutions here, ultimately to save you 25% or more on your electrical technology.

[00:02:48] Design needs will with sheets made simple to set up your sheets, your projects in really just a few seconds with surf board and skim board to do your electrical and technology design documents in minutes, and then our riser auto riser to create riser diagrams, towards the end of your projects, also in just a few seconds.

[00:03:12] So combining all of those into our productivity pack is really going to help you and your team. Move faster, design better and, really just blow the competition away. So again, it's chugging through here in this moment. So finding all the walls, all the doors, really everything that you need in your project to place devices.

[00:03:35] So we're going to still chug away here. Okay. Again, this is it's still four minutes in right. To be four minutes into a full design. Um, and then when this finish populating, we're going to have just a ton of devices throughout the building for you to, relocate. And really just to say that you have designed documents to put content within the model, which is a big portion of getting through design documents quickly.

[00:04:05] So again, save you 25% or more. That is our goal. That is our mission. And that is what we do. And we do it well here at Cal long studios. So again, we're walking through this and we're going to get you through design documents here in just a few minutes. Again, this is all real time. We're kind of, I'm not speeding anything up, just letting this run and letting it go, go.

[00:04:30] And I'm showing you exactly what is going on with surfboard, with our solutions in a brand new revenue model.

[00:04:44] throughout this entire process. You know, again, here we are, right? Three, four minutes, simple, simple solution, to get you populate it. And it's going through place in all these devices, nothing is faster. Nothing's going to get you through design documents. Nothing's going to place more content in your model faster than what we're doing here at Calhoun studios.

[00:05:08] throughout an entire model, getting you zero to 60 in just a few minutes. So as this, regenerates here again, you can see the model loading

[00:05:30] through this. Again. We want you to have a great experience. With our solutions with surfboard and you ultimately have to use them. So place, almost 1700 receptacles, 33 or 335 lights. Let's just do some quick math here. So, 1694 devices, plus three 35, 2000 devices in like five minutes. If we're going to move that fast, if you don't have surfboard.

[00:05:58] So, all right. Throughout our. Model, we have quite a few devices, right. And there might be some locations like here that you can just purely, filter it, say, Hey, all these fixtures we don't want. Right. Like it then becomes just a, a simple little editing process on what you do. You don't want, throughout your project.

[00:06:28] So again, you can like, will fixtures delete these. Throughout, if we don't want any in the stairs, they actually got named properly. Um, but again, going through and to actually say, you know, Hey, we, we do don't want these. That is easy way to go through your project quickly, easily, right? Like we've got all this content generated and now we can go through and edit where we want stuff where we don't.

[00:07:00] Very simple, easy to use solution throughout your rabbit model.

[00:07:09] Here we are. And let's apply our view templates. Let's say an architectural plan and then all this stuff is in. Okay. And view ranges. From the associate level, this is in metric apparently to the next level. So let's just apply it all. These two are

[00:07:51] there. We are.

[00:07:57] now we can see throughout all the content that has been generated in every single room, every instance throughout the project. So there you have it. Quick little walkthrough of surfboard, placing receptacles and lighting controls. Thank you for watching. And again, you can hit the link below to apply. to use surf board or go directly to the Cowabunga CEO site and invest in yourself, invest in your team and, start saving 25% or more.

#127 Construction Corner Podcast - Pricing, Financing and Commodities Markets

#127 Matt and Dillon Talk Commodities Pricing

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the construction corner podcast. I'm Dylan, I'm your host and joined now as always by my blue collar. Bad-ass Matt. What's going on? My friend, lots of stuff, buddy. I'm a, I'm fired up over the topics we're going to get to today on things are going well here, but this is a, it's going to be a fun show.

[00:00:24] It's  it's funny how it works. I was.  talking to Luke, one of our past guests last night and this morning on finances, he put out a story on finances and it's like, Hey, how about that? This is what we're going to talk about today on the show is it's just finances. There's, there's a lot of things and I won't get into his thing, but that he put out.

[00:00:49] Um, but you can go check it out, um, on his stories on Instagram and Facebook on just. Charging full price, not letting your customers use you as a bank, which is all the stuff that we're going to get into today. Um, but I just, I always find it interesting and I try to really see those and point them out when things like that happen.

[00:01:10] When the things that you're thinking about actually like manifest into reality. It's pretty cool when that happens. And I didn't see Luke's posts yesterday, but he's. I've talked with him before about it. He's got a lot of good points, especially from the subcontractor side. That's a, that's a whole different world than I'm used to personally.

[00:01:29] I mean, we deal with subs all the time, obviously, but on a, on a different relationship. And I gotta tell you those guys in a normal construction project, they faced a huge burden as far as cashflow and, and they kind of become a bank just the way that our current system is set up. And it's really sad to see that, you know, people can't pay their bills on time.

[00:01:54] At the end of the day is what it comes down to, or they're hesitant or they're purposely not paying. And that's a whole other problem.

[00:02:07] Yeah, that's you know, we, as a, as a company, we, we make it a point to pay our subs. As soon as humanly possible. We negotiate very hard with our clients for a 15 day net terms, which is not the standard, at least around here, it's usually 30 or 45 even. Um, But even so, you know, we still have to rely on our clients, paying us on time and, you know, knock on wood.

[00:02:35] Most of our clients are great about it. Um, we very rarely have any issues, but once in a while we will, you know, things will get caught up and tied up in some, you know, low level, bureaucratic nonsense that, you know, they can't just write a check and leave it out the door that day. Um, but again, those are few and far between, and we make a definite effort to pay subs because you know, those guys are out basically 90 days.

[00:03:01] You know, the typical subcontractor in, in trade work is out 90 days. So, so they buy their material and then they, they have, you know, 30 days to, until they have it all onsite, they've got 30 days roughly of, of work put in place. And then they invoice me. And then they have another 30 days around then before they actually get paid.

[00:03:24] So, you know, the need for, for capital and for credit lines and all that stuff is hugely important for our trades.

[00:03:36] Yeah. And we did, I did an episode with, um, I'd have to go back and look on financing and that's exactly what they did was to help subs, at least pay for materials and material costs. So they didn't have to carry that. And then it's like a couple of percent is how they're making it. But at the, you know, it allowed subs to then be able to scale because this is where a lot of them, you know, run into trouble is just financing the, you know, cost of materials.

[00:04:06] Yeah. You have to have it upfront. And it's an unfortunate reality, but if you don't have it already, either in, in capital or you can't get it financed through either a, you know, a mobilization loans or credit lines, you can't play. And it's, it's a shitty, shitty reality that we have to deal with. You know, it shouldn't be that way, but that's, that's what it is because no one it's different in the residential world, residential construction, it's not abnormal at all.

[00:04:36] And in fact, it's probably the norm to ask for a deposit upfront, to get some amount of money from a client before you build them a house in the commercial world, I'd get laughed out of every office. I walked in if I said, Hey, and by the way, We need X number of dollars upfront to buy materials or to get our guys started.

[00:04:55] They'd say, no, get the hell out of here. We'll talk to someone else. And you know, on the GC side, that, that helps to foster a lot of, um, animosity, you know, between general contractors and subs, because I'm not a bank either. Right. And we don't have the credit lines, frankly, that our subs do because of this relationship.

[00:05:17] So we can't necessarily just front our guys as much as we would want to. But then on the flip side, they kind of have the argument, well, why should we have to do it? And you know, you can get in this never ending, ending spiral of, of argument and finger pointing. But until. Things much more globally change.

[00:05:36] That's just kind of the way it is. And I hate, I hate using that as a, an end all answer. That's just the way it is and always has been. But, um, in this case, it, it kinda just is, yeah. And one of the things that, I mean, for you guys that are in Schaefer that are doing really well is 15 day net terms. And like, you don't see that.

[00:05:55] And that as little as that sounds, it makes a huge difference. For everybody down the line and shaven 15 days off of it, or, um, 30, if you're going 45 and in government is 90 days. Right? So that's the other problem with government projects is it's 90 day net terms. So things are going to be more expensive.

[00:06:17] So now you're carrying basically for six months, 120 days on a, on a project or more, 150.  Cause you're on net 90. So you're going to just charge more to do those projects because of the financing terms on the backend. And then people wonder why, you know, government projects are so expensive as well.

[00:06:36] They don't pay. Um, but that, that's a big part of it. And I mean, there's a lot of things in scheduling in scope and all that stuff that never gets settled, but pay is one of the big ones. And I don't blame anybody who charges more on projects like that. I don't want to pay and take out of my pocket to pay financing costs, to sit around and wait for someone to pay me.

[00:07:00] You know, I can't blame anyone who would raise their prices in that circumstance. And this is, this is one of the things that Luke brought up was don't ever give discounts in construction, especially because, or. The other thing that I've gotten burned on is that we're going to have, we're going to have more work later, right?

[00:07:22] You're going to be on more projects down the line. I can't cash that check. Right. As a check, I cannot cash. So as much as we'd love to believe people it's, Hey, this is what it is. This is what we signed, you know, like, why should I cut you a deal for whatever? Like you want to put that in writing and sign it.

[00:07:44] Sure. Now we can have a deal, but until then, Your word means nothing, frankly to me. And that happens far too often in construction. Hey, you cut us a deal on this one. We'll be good on the next one. Well, when the next one comes around, Hey, you gave us such a great deal. Can you do that again? And it's like, at some point you're losing money and you probably lost money on that last part project because there's most, yeah.

[00:08:09] The biggest thing in construction is margins are tight, right? It's a three, five. Most 10% margin on anything. And you had labor and overhead and rework or whatever. I mean, your margins are small and you can look at any publicly traded construction company. Their margins are like 1% it's and the best analogy I've ever heard is it's like picking up pennies on the freeway, right?

[00:08:37] So it's like walking across the four Oh five picking up pennies, same raise, same reward. And. So again, don't give anything away for free in anything you do. And don't take people's word on. There's a next one, unless they're willing to sign something, you know, stating that. Yeah. Um, I mean, there's, let's be real there.

[00:09:00] There's there's always going to be a certain amount of, of horse trading. That's going to happen on a construction job because stuff happens, you know, stuff. Doesn't always go according to plan things, come up, but. You know, kinda to echo what you're saying. I've seen the extreme of this, where things get promised and you know, you're really just robbing Peter to pay Paul, right.

[00:09:21] And eventually that note's going to come due and when you can't pay it, it's a really bad day for everybody involved. I've seen, I've seen very extreme cases of this that we won't talk about here, but even just on a relationship level, you know, if you keep kicking that can down the road, And beaten on guys and beaten on guys over and over pretty soon, those guys aren't going to be there.

[00:09:46] They're going to say, you know, screw you, I'm, I'll go work for somebody else. And, you know, that's, that's, that's an unfortunate day when that happens. So you're better off just to everybody be up front everybody's, you know, nobody's going to retire off of one construction project. That's that's the reality.

[00:10:04] And a lot of people try to, but you just have to recognize that. Everett is here to make a decent, honest living. We have to make profit. Otherwise there's no way to continue doing what we're doing, but everybody does from the GC to the, every single subcontractor, to every supplier, to every vendor and the same with the owner.

[00:10:26] If everyone could just kind of come to that table and, you know, shake hands and agree on it, it might make things really easy, but I don't see that happening very soon. And this was one of the things that. Like irked me on the design side. Right? Like you get pricing back and we're supposed to review pricing the design team.

[00:10:49] It's like, well, I have, how do I know what anything costs? Right. Like, but that's what we're supposed to do. And it's like, I don't, you know, I sure maybe like, Sounds good. I, you know, it's, it's a, really the odd thing to ask the design team to do pricing or to review pricing. And I mean, we had to for change orders and stuff, and it's like, well, like, okay, this seems reasonable, but I don't have, like, I'm not an estimator.

[00:11:19] Right. I don't do this every day. And then for us to do that as the check. Yeah, sure. You know, or try to find something that's like, Out of it or catch somebody it's like, I mean, they've got to like, you need to make money. This is a waste of my time. And like, I just, I never felt good about it, you know, and being put in that situation to, you know, review pricing and change orders, just like, okay.

[00:11:46] Yeah, they that's what they said they did. And like, I didn't watch it. You know, this is your, why is this my responsibility to review, you know, this stuff? You're preaching to the choir, man. That's why I thumped my design build drum so loudly because of that exact thing you just said, design consultants are supposed to design they engineer and they design the construction companies are supposed to price and install.

[00:12:16] It's a symbiotic relationship and there's, there's give and take and there should be collaboration, but it should never be the old school. Okay. Well, the design is going to charge. A lot. And because of that, now they're going to feel obligated to put pricing to a project or to a certain aspect of it. It doesn't make sense.

[00:12:36] You know, that the design guys aren't in the trenches every day, dealing with commodity pricing, dealing with labor fluctuations and market changes. You just aren't, you're not supposed to be, we all have our lane. And if. If we would all get in the same damn car and we'd all get there a lot faster than this zigzag competition that we have.

[00:12:56] And you know, that the design build option, I think solves that if you do it right. Yeah. Well, and that's so two things on that one. Yeah. We need to all come to the table and say, Hey. I'm a designer, I'm an engineer. This is, this is what we do. And I'll tell you if it'll work or not. That is my job. Will this work?

[00:13:21] Yes or no. Does this meet code? Yes or no? That is my job at the end of the day, what it costs, I don't know. Right. Like now if I worked for an electrical contractor and did that stuff in a signed build capacity and had access to all the pricing and all that data and. Sure now. Okay. But at the end of the day, I'm not responsible for price.

[00:13:45] And then if you did it right, and this is so much to your point, because most when I hear design build it's, it's some zombie monster of like design build. It's not fully integrated. It's not people like truly collaborating and dealing with price and, you know, can this work, will this work. What does it cost and doing that back and forth on a very regular basis.

[00:14:13] It's typically, you know, you go hire a traditional design team, they throw it back over the fence and then you get some pricing and they say, no, and you okay. Like, no, what? Right. That's typically how that conversation goes. But for, for like what you guys are doing and actually integrating it makes. Whole lot of sense.

[00:14:33] Um, I've been on board with design build for a long time. It just makes way more sense to do that. If you do it correctly and structure it, you know, to where Amy is. In-house yeah. Cause most of it's bullshit. Let's be honest. It's a, it's a term that's been around for a long time. And folks started using it as a marketing technique.

[00:14:55] No, we, we stopped using it. We, we use true design build now on all of our marketing information and our, our media, because it, it is it's true design build. We will, we'll pick our team from architects and engineers to our MEP team. Sometimes our carpenters and we'll have what we call a D and D meeting a design engineering meeting where all of us will, at least we used to sit in the same room.

[00:15:20] Now it's zoom sometimes or whatever, but yeah. You get all of those different minds together. And like you said, we wouldn't ask you to, to frame walls. Just like knowing what asked me to design a riser diagram. It's not what I knew. I don't know how to do that, but we get all of us in the same room and, and form this really it's, it's like forming a mastermind.

[00:15:43] Right. And you all work towards that same goal. You, you come up with a budget first and you figure out how to fit everything inside it, under that umbrella. And it's, it's a beautiful thing when it works totally. And kind of, it gets us to probably the big meat and potatoes of today's podcast is. Pricing, right?

[00:16:07] Like just in commodities prices, fluctuation of markets, what labor's doing, what, what pricing is doing, how, how long can we hold things? Um, really everything that's going on in the market. Right? There's the, the funny teams of flexing, you know, in 2020, one of the means that I saw was guys, you know, got this whole pile of toilet paper.

[00:16:29] Right. That's the 20, 20 flex and 2021. It's a pickup truck of plywood and some dojo coin right here, the, through the flexes here in 21 so far. Um, but let's dig into commodities and pricing and, you know apply what in particular, right? Like half, half better plywood. And really let's talk about some of the markets how pricing gets set and maybe some of the things that everyone's seeing the price increases, but they don't know why.

[00:17:04] And I really want to dig into the why and how, why this is happening, especially in commodities pieces, like steel, wood, um, all that. So with that, I'll let you dig into this crazy world that we live in right now. So this is a topic that I deal with quite literally every single day. And it's, it's consuming most of my days now for the most part, because, um, to say things are running out of control would be an understatement.

[00:17:36] Um, so 2020 happened and I won't get into my own political beliefs about what happened, but we all shut down for a period of time, right. Wrong or indifferent. There's a huge contingent of industry out there that while yes, they shut down for a month or two months, whatever the hell it was. It seems as though they they're using that as a, as a habitual crutch now to continue to under supply a market that has demand that is frankly, through the roof, right?

[00:18:11] Everything happened exactly opposite of what the industry, as a whole thought was going to have in the construction industry. Everybody. I think at least myself included in everyone I've spoken, spoken with thought things were just going to kind of die. In 2020, things were going to stall construction.

[00:18:28] Wasn't going to happen building wasn't going to happen. Well, the exact opposite happened. We all sat at home and all of a sudden people are building decks and garages and finishing basements and putting additions on their house and putting in pools and. But, I mean, that's on the residential side. On the, on the commercial side, everything kept going.

[00:18:46] All the planning kept going while we may not have been physically building for a little bit there. All of that planning, all the pre-con, all of the design was, was still churning along at a furious pace. So now fast forward and everything is everything's still not opened up. Let's be real, but everything is closer.

[00:19:05] Now the market has not recovered. So you look at. Let's take lumber on the, on the residential and commercial lumber, um, lumber pricing in the last 12 months has tripled tripled. I'm gonna say it one more time. Tripled that is almost crippling to a construction project. When one facet of it increases in costs that much.

[00:19:33] Now there's all kinds of reasons. There's all kinds of speculations. You know, the, the mills. Shut down. They reduced production to demand. Like I mentioned though, never reduced it increased. So why didn't the mills pick up capacity or ramp up production as soon as they could, because they're still not running at full speed.

[00:19:53] They're still not engaging in, in looking into new efficiencies and technologies to, to bump that production back up. Well, was it a fear of more shutdowns maybe, or. And this is just my opinion. I'm only half of this podcast, but was it an ability to capitalize on a really shitty situation? You know, there's something to be said for the underdog who finally gets his day in the sunshine and wants nothing more than to stay there.

[00:20:24] And when you look at the differences between lumber and steel, steel has always been a more expensive product, right? Just is. We were talking earlier, Dylan and I just recently priced out a building for a prospect. It was a small little building and it was designed to be framed out of, out of wood. So just for shits and giggles, we priced it out of light gauge steel.

[00:20:52] Also my numbers that I got back were literally within pennies of each other, between wooden steel, that I've been doing this for. 30 plus years now. I've never seen such a thing. I've never seen it even come close. Um, there there's something going on out there that is allowing this to happen and it's not just lumber.

[00:21:16] It's, it's everything.  steel is another huge one, you know, and as a commercial guy, we deal more with steel than we do with, with wood. Um, Pricing is going up. Pricing always fluctuates rapidly with steel. And a lot of people don't recognize that, but steel pricing, the commodity markets and steel fluctuate constantly.

[00:21:38] So it's not unheard of to go through six months of pricing increases. What's unheard of. However, is to go through. Like two years of pricing increases and to have the big guys up at the top, up at the, the actual suppliers of suppliers saying they're forecasting another three to five years of this shit.

[00:21:59] So no one can afford to build anything at some point. And those that can't afford now, there's no supply. We're getting quotes for structural steel that we won't take delivery for 40 weeks, 40 weeks is damn near a year in my book. To plan a construction project with a, a 10 month lead time on a single item.

[00:22:22] And that just happens to be the single most important item of the project. How do you do it?

[00:22:32] It's a, it's a huge, huge issue. Um, I mean, I've got stats, I've got all sorts of shit we can talk about, but it, it really boils down to. The these issues at hand why is it happening? And who's really, who's really winning here. Cause it's not, it's not my suppliers, my vendors, my subcontractors. It's not me.

[00:22:55] It sure as hell isn't my clients. You know, you can kind of follow that food chain and figure out who's actually making money during this time. And, and who's getting hurt by it.

[00:23:09] Which brings up one of the, I mean, there's so much in there.  but one of the things that I want to really point out is one, most of this is all public information, right? For like, And of course steel is publicly traded. They have earnings calls and you can read through the transcripts or listen to them.

[00:23:27] So any public company, every quarter for earnings, they, you know, their CEO, their CFO, all their people get on the phone and analysts and investors like ask questions. Right. That's what happens for anybody that doesn't know that it's all publicly available. Um, the other thing is their financial statements, right?

[00:23:46] They have to disclose  their like , um, their quarterly financials. So they disclose all that. And then they have an annual report that goes out every year. Um, and the CEOs of those companies, right.  you know, forward to it, they're analysts and all those guys write a ton of stuff about market outlook and all that stuff.

[00:24:08] Again, very public information, very available it's it's out there for anybody to go and read. So with that, um, a lot of these things in the

[00:24:24] So I'll jump in and, um, new car in particular and not to point too many fingers at them, but first quarter 2021 had their highest profits recognized to date. Let that sink in for a second. Coming off of a year, that was pretty rough for a whole lot of people. First quarter 21, highest profits ever. Us steel right now is 68% higher than the global market.

[00:24:56] What it's doing to us as an industry is, is cutting us off at the knees. And everyone has always wanted to buy American buy American steel. Keep it in house, keep it domestic. Well, here's some food for thought. Even with all the tariffs, all the other shit on foreign steel, it's rapidly becoming cheaper now to import foreign steel than it is to buy it domestically.

[00:25:22] There's something wrong with that equation, right? It's

[00:25:30] Hey, this is a real podcast. Got a high ground ups guy came. Um, that's what it is.  so 100% and. The thing that we have to understand. So commodities are traded on a global level. And so commodities pricing for wood, for steel, for pork, for beef chicken, like you name it in the commodity of Margaret's, I'll trade it on the Chicago mercantile exchange.

[00:25:56] Comax so all that stuff is traded.  at and that's at a global price, right. That's where it gets set. So this is why when you travel around the world, food is relatively the same, unless you get it, like at a, at a thing, like building costs are relatively the same. There's some things that are a little more expensive, like labor's cheaper, right?

[00:26:20] So you get things in different countries, labor, labor rates, fluctuate, and that's really the big thing that you're seeing. But for as far as commodities, You end up being equal across the board, across the world, because that's what we're dealing in. But when we go to talk about like steel and wood and all these things being so far inflated, we don't necessarily, so supply is we don't necessarily have a supply issue.

[00:26:44] You can, we can talk about, you know, our mills ramping up or not. Are they putting in the required things to do it? Is there fear around it? That's a big, broad question and. Supply, but you, you can realistically, for the most part, like you can still get wood. You're just going to pay through the nose for it now.

[00:27:05]  shaped steel and structural steel, like you were saying, now you have a supply issue, right. 40 week lead time. That is a supply problem before. And, but you also have to look at the demand side of these things and see like how, you know, Who is buying and obviously in wood and stuff, we've had a big increase in demand with every single residential person doing a deck project, a home project, because they got nothing else.

[00:27:30] Like where are you going to go? So let's build this stuff at home. So you have a big increase on the. On the demand side. And like you were saying, when you, when you look down the chain, so every if price said at the mercantile right. At the market level, so those guys are trading, you know, by the minute, by the second on what prices, futures, markets, all that type of stuff, because that's what it is.

[00:27:54] It's a futures market. So everybody's trading there and then that price just. Filters down. Right? So a lumberyard produces a train car of wood for 30 grand, let's say which is close to what it actually costs. So they produce that for 30. They used to sell it for 39. Now it sells for 150 grand for a rail car, or more, depending on the hour that you're, you're looking to buy a rail car and take delivery.

[00:28:23] But in this, so you have, you have a fixed. Yeah, let's call it fixed costs to produce. And then, but you can sell it for five times, four times what it went for a year ago. You're going to keep doing that. So, but again, you have as the supplier use, which is a funny thing that you have no control over sale price, right.

[00:28:46] It's dictated at the commodities level. So. Which is a big thing that no one thinks about. So you have, it's dictated just like oil or anything else, right? Your, your shell station is in dictating the price of gas. I mean, within a couple of pennies, but they're not, you know, why would they drop the price or raise the price right there.

[00:29:08] They're playing in the market. So. And this is a thing that I think it's lost for the most part is that price is set at the commodity level. So it's all those people that are trading that are in the futures markets and taking delivery on a given thing. So price is set there and then everything filters down, you know, with suppliers and markups and taxes and all that other stuff that goes into a given product.

[00:29:33] So for. For everything that I think that's one key piece to look at and then also to go back and look at the data and I totally agree on, on tariffs and all that stuff. Seal's been a big thing for a long time on, you know, whether it's Brazilian steel or, I mean, America built the steel industry first, even though the technology was actually invented in, in Europe.

[00:29:55]  but we, you know, Carnegie just killed everybody in, in doing that. So like steel has its own unique history. Yeah. And it's, like I said, it's always fluctuating. Um, but what we're seeing now is just crazy. And so, you know, we, we have a supply issue, but the supply issue I think, is, is brought on by two things.

[00:30:20] It's, it's one by the COVID stuff of last year. Um, I'm going to refrain from calling it bullshit on our show. Oops. Um, but yeah. You also have some enormous steel consumption going on right now, there are some, and it's easy to point the finger at one company, um, that everybody shops at. Cause they're building a lot, right?

[00:30:43] That company is the last I heard they were online for 31 buildings across the United States this year for 21. The average size of those buildings is about 4 million square feet. Let that settle in for a second and think of how much steel that takes out of, out of the marketplace for guys like me for midsize guys, even for some of the bigger guys, you know, a lot of the bigger guys around here, um, the Michigan area, they won't touch those buildings.

[00:31:12] Those buildings are built by a few select companies and. Good for them. They that's what they specialize in. They're cut out for it. They have the capital and the backing to do it.  but it, what it does is it, it sucks all the available steel out of the way for the, what I like to call the normal projects.

[00:31:28] And that's why we're seeing 40 plus week lead times. But. So this, this one company who everybody knows is building a ton of square footage and sucking up all the steel. What they're also doing though, is they're spring competition because all of the other retailers, the targets and the Kroger's and everybody, the realizing that people don't like leaving their houses anymore, we all kind of got used to having everything delivered to our doorstep, whether or not now, I mean, it's groceries.

[00:31:58] I haven't gone grocery shopping in a year and a half. I can't say I miss it, but. Everything is delivered to my doorstep. So all of these companies are now chasing this other company around the country and building their own facilities, their own warehousing and distribution, their own logistics because they have to, to compete or else they will just simply go by the wayside.

[00:32:17] So we've got this, this never ending spiral right now of. Of sucking up the limited amount of steel that's available. And I'm not suggesting that competition is bad. I'm the first guy to jump on the capitalistic train, believe me. But I think there's, there's other issues at play here that we got to figure out something.

[00:32:37] I'm not sure what the answer is. If I knew the answer I'd I wouldn't be probably podcasting. I'd be sitting in a, in a high rise office, you know, counting my millions, but there's. There's something that has to be done here and we need at least need to start talking about it out in the open, because it's, it's a festering wound right now.

[00:32:53] And it's talked about behind closed doors. It's talked about in war rooms and it's talked about on phone calls and emails with suppliers, but. You don't hear a lot of people just ripping that bandaid off and getting pissed off about it. And that's, I think what it's going to take is us to get pissed off about it, to start talking, to start solving this problem, or we're all going to be really pissed off when the whole market collapses again, and nobody's building anything.

[00:33:20] Yes. So if you look at the new cores annual report, they did seven point let's just call it 2 million tons to outside customers in the first quarter of 21. And then you look at a, let's just call it 120 million square feet of building. Let's call it, you know, half a ton. I don't, you know, I don't know what that math works out to be for square foot, but just call it.

[00:33:47] You know a quarter of that. So then you got 40 minutes, you know, there that's a, that's a full year's worth of Nucor steel as effectively. So you're taking one steel producer, one of the big ones and taking everything that they can produce. So, I mean, that's, that's a really simple math equation and it, you know, you, can't the other thing.

[00:34:12] So this, so my wife's a geologists and the thing. On the other side of this, right? You need to pull or out of the ground to produce steel. And in the U S mining regulations are insane and in California and STAM near impossible to start a mine. So this is, and that's why like Elan is going and creating lithium and nickel mines in Nevada where mining is accepted and the deposits are there.

[00:34:39] But, um, Is to, to own that full supply chain because you know, you're not going to the other big place for lithium is in China. So, and well, there's some other Africa and other places throughout the world, but relying on that and at the rate you're going to produce, you'd need to own your own pipeline and be dedicated for you.

[00:35:00] This is actually why back, you know, a hundred years ago, Carnegie Koch cook fields, cook mines. I mean, they owned it all. And they fed their own plants for this and most of the steel companies do not own their own like mining operations. So this is, they just like new core just as steel and just in their mini mills.

[00:35:22] Um, so this is the other thing to think about in the supplies you can't, and you can't ramp up like mine operations. You got to go and dig that stuff out of the ground to then, you know, run and put it through a steel mill. I mean, that takes years a lot of dirt to move. And it's frankly, more the permit process.

[00:35:42] It's going to take you three to five years to get through, to do this. So this is the other thing to think about is, and a lot of this was the Amar, like the environmental act in 69. A lot of this stuff got put in there. So the other thing, and when we look at supply for wood, so with all the fires, everybody was talking about it.

[00:36:05] Especially in California in the West about logging and, you know, can you do it all this stuff? And I spent the time and trace back how this came about, like why, why don't we log what's? What really happened? It was the environmental protection act in 69 that really started it. And then they dropped permits off for logging in national forest land.

[00:36:27] Which is why a lot of the forest burn, cause now you've had, um, so 1990 they dropped from 10 billion board feet basically logged a year to 1 billion board feet. So you dropped 90% of supply, I mean, overnight out of the forest. And then from there. So now you had 30 years of tree growth, which in most places that's a pretty good sized tree, you know, a 60 foot tree.

[00:36:55] So now it's perfect. Ken Lang for any, any fire to rip through. So that's the other side of this is when you start to look at like, true, true. So like, where are you getting this stuff, right? You've gotta, you gotta log a tree. If you want a house, you got a mind, some ore and pull some stuff out of the ground.

[00:37:13] If you want steel you gotta, you know, not everything's dirt and clay, but a lot of that rock to go into cement is pulled out a rivers. You know, we're not, we don't care about the fish if we're going to do that. So it's, what do you want and understanding where, where do you get all your stuff? Like where's your water come from?

[00:37:32] Where's the, all the material come from to build all this stuff. And I think oftentimes just like when we talked about the markets, oftentimes people lose sight of where all these materials come from and what goes into, you know, building effectively a building, right. I like these trees to come down so I can have a house, take your pick right now, not living in a tent even then, like, where's that mind?

[00:38:00] Well, and you bring up a really good point and one that frankly I hadn't even touched on or hadn't really thought about, but I hope everybody heard that to get a permit, to increase your mining operation or to start your mining. You're looking at a huge timeline, right? Two to three years. Lots of money to average and a ton of money.

[00:38:19] Let's just look at, let's look at the time. So let's say it's three years to get a permit just to mine. It, you still then got to set up operations. So that's probably another, I'm not a minor six months a year before you're really fully up and operational. Yeah. It depends on what you're doing. So, um, and where the light shafts are.

[00:38:39] So if you're doing, let's just call it open pit mining. Which is a little easier to do than like an underground like coal, um, cause you're just looking at the specific vein. So in precious metals, you can do a little bit of both. Um, it just depends on what you're going after. So a lot of copper mines are, cause you're looking straight for the vein.

[00:38:59] Um, and not just the rock. So typically they'll do underground because then they can go right to the vein and they just follow it all the way down. Um, so in a lot of that, it can take. Take a long time to set it up to do power.  so like Justin tid was on here. He works, um, for Becker global and they do a lot of the power systems that go into, um, you know, coal mining or another mining operations.

[00:39:24] So, and then it depends on what your plant is above on how you're going to process it. But yeah, let's just say, let's say three years to get permits. You gotta go through legal and you know, everybody fighting to. Even start the mine or whatever.  it depends on where you are, right? Like you don't, this is an America we're talking about America.

[00:39:43] This is not like, you know, middle of nowhere Africa or, I mean, most of the mines are middle of nowhere like Nevada, right? Nobody lives there. No, one's even close to live in their middle of nowhere. Like they're not people for days in the places that we were talking about and, you know, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, um, which is where a lot of the mining is even in.

[00:40:06] So you've got that, but in, in the U S years to do that legal permits, arbitrary, you know, whatever you got to go through to do that. And then let's just call it another year to, once you finally get it to set up the plant. Cause then you're, you're talking about all your processing equipment to, to go through that.

[00:40:24] And then probably another year to two, it's going to take a decade to get a mine online and hope you don't go out of business and you have enough money to get you through. That's just, it that's my point. Right? So you're talking a decade. Think of the shit that just happened in the last 10 years to try and say, we're going to, we're going to ramp production by, by starting a new mind.

[00:40:46] You know, why aren't these guys mining more? Why aren't the mills? Because it takes time. It takes too much time. We, you can't, you can't solve the problem. Once, once the dam breaks, you can't start trying to put your finger in all the little holes you gotta to it way, way ahead of time. And. 10 years. That's amazing to even think about it.

[00:41:06] It's almost incomprehensible. How do you, how do you plan and forecast economics 10 years out in advance? Because again, I don't know anything about mining, but I also know it's not cheap, not by a long shot. So if I'm going to sink my money and start you know, the veteran mind somewhere, how the hell do you plan for that?

[00:41:26] How do you even project it? Talk about taking risk and talk about investment opportunities and, and. It's just it's mind boggling to me. Yeah. Like.  so I've discovered this, the visa app and going through it, there was, there was a mind for sale in, again, middle of nowhere in Nevada, it was a gold mine, and it was like 45 million for 20 acres, I think.

[00:41:52]  and it was supposed to be a goldmine. And I told my wife about it. She's like, nah, that's end of life. Like, if it's that cheap, it's not, not worth it. Um, and I was like, Wow. Like, think about that 45 million end of life. And you probably, or there's no like true deposit there. She's like, that's cheap for, for my, I almost like $45 million for a piece of dirt and 20 acres.

[00:42:23] Like we're talking 20 acres, it's got the mining permits on it, but like 45 million and then you'd probably have to sink another a hundred into it to get it running. Like. I mean, yeah. Jesus. And that's why they say in mining, it's the third mine operator that actually makes money. The first one, first one gets the permit, builds it and they go bankrupt.

[00:42:48] The second one, can't figure out how to operate it. And then the third one comes in and actually makes money. So let's  adage in in mining, but yeah, I mean, this is, again, you got to think of where all this stuff comes from, right. To affect price, to build things. And far too often, Most people don't know where, where it comes from, you know, like, and then they're against, against mining.

[00:43:13] They're against you know, logging they're against whatever pulling rock out of the stream because it hurts the salmon. It's like, take your pick, man, what do you want? Do you want a house? Cool. This is what we got to do. Do you not fine? Go live in a tent. Most of those environmentalist's live in pretty nice houses.

[00:43:34] Take a pic. Yeah, I just, it, a couple of salmon have to be moved, relocated, pushed out of their homes to, to build houses. That's kind of the food chain. That's, that's the nature of, of economics in human existence. Yeah. And again, it's, it's just going back to the root cause. Right? A lot of this is not difficult.

[00:44:02] It's not hard. Just trace it back. Where's it coming from? You know, the pricing, like there's a lot of theories and, you know, we've gone into some of them on you know, supply demand, all those issues. But at the end of the day, price is said at the commodities level, right. It's set at a market rate that's globally manipulated and it's manipulation, right?

[00:44:25] Like it is the price is manipulated on a daily, on a second by second basis. So. And it's not, it's not your guy at ACE hardware, right? Your local guy, your local ACE hardware, lumber yard is not like they're riding the wave with you too. And you know, it's not, not on them. So don't at the end of the day.

[00:44:48] Like, you know, if you want to get mad at somebody it's the market, but this is where price gets set for futures. So it's the world that we live in. Honestly, unless you're going to start playing the market with a lot of money and I'm talking billions you know, there's really no nothing that you can do about it.

[00:45:07] Other than we can all collectively talk about it and understand why this is happening, but to blame your suppliers, to blame anybody in the construction industry to blame a distributor on price, they're riding it just like you are. So other than, you know, having some understanding and some empathy. Or a lot of money.

[00:45:29] You're not going to be able to, to affect it a whole lot. Yeah. And that's just, it, it's gotta be open communication. You gotta, you gotta be friendly with people. I mean, I I'm no scholarly researcher. I get a lot of my information on the steel markets from a very select few people that I talk with on a regular basis that I, that I trust and that I value their opinions.

[00:45:51] If we all just are open about it and keep talking about the issue. That's that's step one. It's, you know, it's, it's like AA for construction. You got to admit there's a problem. You got to start talking about it. Yeah. And so this is, this is a big thing in price, man is, um, be open. Charge your full weight, you know, put your markups on it, put your timelines on it.

[00:46:18] This, the other thing that we're seeing, right. Holding pricing for 24 hours, I don't blame them. Right. And they're honest about it. Everybody's upfront about it and I love it. Right? Like I love the honesty. I don't love the price increases, but I love the honesty. So if we can all get on that same train of.

[00:46:40] You know, this is, I, I can't tell you any different. I got 24 hour holds on stuff. If you want it today. Great. If not, you know, check back tomorrow. It is a as a tough row to hoe though, my friend, I can tell you, and I'm not a salesman, but I sell a lot of stuff. 24 hours is not much time to do it. It just isn't.

[00:47:04] It's tough. And it's tough on everybody though. You know, you're going to start seeing pricing, escalation, clauses all over the place in contracts and they have to be there because we all have to protect ourselves from the top to the bottom side to side. None of us do any good if we go away. No, and, and that's a great point.

[00:47:25] So everybody needs to be reviewing their contracts. Everybody needs to be putting that stuff in there. Um, You need to be charging your full weight, you know, no discounts it's, you need to make, you need to make a profit, right. And you need to hold that line on, on making money and throughout this entire thing and pricing, it's a, it's a good exercise that everybody's going through.

[00:47:51] Everyone understands the market, or at least that it's insane. Um, I would say that we, we fully understand it, but at least that we, we can. I'll be in it together on riding through this. And then again, having that open, honest communication and Hey, this is what I'm doing. This is what I'm seeing. And these are my markups.

[00:48:13] This is, I need to make money to to, you know, live and go to the next one. This is not, not for free, um, and not be afraid to share that. Like, Hey yeah, I'm making money on this. Good, right? Like, hope you're going to make money on your subdivision or your shopping center or your office building, like you're in this to make money too, buddy.

[00:48:35] So let's be upfront here. Yeah. It's, it's kinda related to like a NASCAR driver, right? When somebody crashes in front of you, you're trained as a driver to drive straight into the black smoke. And as long as we all drive straight into the black smoke, most of us are going to come out the other side it's it's when companies start looking at the wall and spinning out and crashing that, you know, stuff starts going South real fast for all of us.

[00:49:03] So hold the line, aim for the smoke. Yeah. You've got to have the conversation. You got to talk about the money and you got to do it sooner and that's just that you can't avoid this one, right? You can't avoid that conversation if you do. You're going to crash. Um, I think we all see that. I hope, well, Dylan, my friend, we're coming up on time here.

[00:49:29] I got to go because I've got pricing. That's expiring in about an hour. So with that, um, I'm going to ask at this time, if everybody listening can, can like the show, share it around, you know, spread it on your social media channels. Help us out here. Comment in the comment section and let us know how you think we're doing.

[00:49:50] If you want to hear anything different or have anyone else on the show, or if you want to be on the show, get in contact with me or with Dylan, we're both fairly easy to find and we'll keep this thing going. Awesome guys, have the conversations, share the show, give us a, like, rate us on iTunes, all that good stuff.

[00:50:10] And  we'll see you back here next week for another live show and  we'll see what the dogs do so well next time.

#126 Old vs New Construction

#126 Old vs Young in Construction

Hello, and welcome to a, another episode of the construction corner podcast. I'm Dylan, I'm your host. Before I introduce my blue collar bad-ass guys share the show. If you're getting any value out of today, any good conversation, topics that spark around the office around the coffee, pot, water cooler these days, you know, go ahead and give us a share if you, I mean, for us, You know, we don't, we don't run ads.

[00:00:28] We're not monetizing this. It's all to bring awareness to this great industry that we love called construction it's to help bring people in, keep people here, you know, make you better in how you do things on a daily basis. We do this live every week. So if you're listening on, any of the podcast platforms, we're basically everywhere.

[00:00:51] You can also catch us live. We'll throw up a post on when we're going live. You can. Common live, all that kind of good stuff, but guys share the show, you know, spread the word. We want to bring more and more people in construction. So if you want to share this with a colleague, somebody that wants to get in the industry doesn't know what construction's all about.

[00:01:08] Again, we just try to spread the word on how great of an industry this is. So without further ado, Matt, how's it going? My friend I'm doing well today, Dylan. And that was, a great intro. It's a topic we've been kicking around a little bit, but, but really guys, I mean, we're. W we're out here kind of shooting the shit once a week.

[00:01:27] I know there's people listening, but we, we gotta, we want to make sure we're talking about things that are worthwhile to anyone who is listening. And this is how you can kind of give back how you can play a part in the show and, and help kind of almost direct where we're going in the future with it.

[00:01:44] So like Dylan said, give us, give us a share, give us a like, and, and, we'll keep doing this. Yeah, and it's everywhere. Right? So on a it's on Facebook, if you want to watch their YouTube, it's under live broadcasts. This is hosted on my LinkedIn. Again, we're on Apple, Google, Stitcher, Spotify, you name it.

[00:02:08] We're we're there pretty, pretty easy to find. So what are we going to talk today about? I think today we kind of delve into, A topic that we, we brought up way back when I first started back in January. And I think it's kind of the, the, the turning point of what everything else we've been talking about up until now is, and, and some of the issues we're seeing, but it's the differences between what I'll call quote unquote old versus new construction.

[00:02:42] And when I say old versus new construction, I don't mean like ground up versus renovation. It's, it's old, like the old way of doing things and new. The new way of doing things. And, there's a little happy medium ground that I think you and I both kind of play in and can see both sides pretty well. Yeah.

[00:03:01] And that's one of the big things guys is understanding both sides of that equation. You know, Matt and I probably play a little bit in the middle of both of this, you know, I'm, I'm younger, but, and lean more towards the technology side of things, but again, fully understand and appreciate. Why contracts are set up the way they are, why a lot of things are done the way they've been done for a very long period of time.

[00:03:27] It works. It's proven and people put policies in the place so they don't get burned again. Right. Somebody got burned somewhere along the way. And this is that. 1% that one guy clause that gets put into projects or a workflow that gets adopted because of that one guy. So it's the exception and not the rule on why we do a lot of things.

[00:03:57] Yeah. And I think, I think we're here to bust the bust, the notion that the way we've always done it, or we're doing it just cause this is how we've always done it. That's not necessarily the way it's correct. That's not the best way to do things. And yeah. We all as an industry are growing and changing, whether we like it or not.

[00:04:14] w we're lobby a lot better off if we can see both sides of it and, and take the good from the old, with the good, from the new and, and make this into the new industry of the future. At the end of the day, we want a conversation around this topic. It's not cut and dry. Every firm's going to have their own opinion on how they want to move forward, which is what makes construction great.

[00:04:37] Is that, you know, there, there's not only one way to do something. There's plenty of ways to accomplish the same goal. Put up the same building. The end of the day, there is probably a best way, but at the end of the day, we can still, you know, get to the same point. You know, a lot of people do things very efficiently waste a ton of time and other firms do it a lot better.

[00:05:01] again, there's. I'm not going to say a right and a wrong way, but I'm going to say that there's, there's definitely more effective and efficient ways to get to the same end result. Definitely. There's, there's lots of paths that lead to your, your end goal. but why don't we start off and kind of touch on that one topic that we bring up?

[00:05:24] it seems without fail every episode and, and the culture of construction, Why don't we start there and see, see where this goes. Okay. Yeah. The, for me, the, the big culture within construction is loss aversion, right? And it really comes down to risk mitigation, I think is like the core thing that a lot of us struggle with that are in the industry, right.

[00:05:50] That are trying to put buildings together that are trying to bring things out of the ground in. With a lot of money, a lot of manpower, a lot of resources, you know, there, there is not as much risk in a project today as there once was right. In terms of casualties and safety factors, but there's still a big and as it should be a big focus on, on risk aversion, risk mitigation, and that comes in all ways, shapes and forms from financial to safety to timelines, to.

[00:06:25] w waste, right? You're trying to risk mitigate tons and tons of factors that go into construction. So I think that's kind of a big place to start is understanding that mindset and why it's been that way, obviously on the construction side, which I'll let you talk to Matt is safety, right? That's the number one thing, you know, you look back to like the Hoover dam and the, I think hundreds of people that were killed, you know, in that.

[00:06:53] Construction project to the empire state building to basically any big construction to now like a much bigger facility in like the Sophie stadi right. A multiple million square foot facility. One guy died and it was after it opened and he fell off. he wasn't tied in and he fell off some scaffolding right at the, like in the center of the facility, which you're not the last thing you're going to hit the field.

[00:07:20] So. You know, from, from the Hoover dam. So we're talking 90 years ago, right? When it was built in 1928 32, from that, from the thirties to today. So 90 years we have made drastic improvements in the safety of construction, but that's, I think the biggest one that typically comes to mind. Well, and it's.

[00:07:46] It's by far the most important one, right? Because you can't put a value on, on life and, and livelihood. And, you know, as a, as a country attraction owner, having three on a job site today is just about the worst thing you can imagine and, and knock on wood, you know, luckily it doesn't happen often. but.

[00:08:13] You know, there there've been a lot of changes made over the last hundred years or the last 10 years. Right. And, and rules and regulations. And some of them I'll agree with a lot of them. I don't, I think we tend to, you know, try to bubble, wrap ourselves through organizations like OSHA a little bit too much sometimes, but there's also a lot of good that that is being done and, and that's keeping people safe and.

[00:08:38] And even down to silly things like certifications for operating sky or a scissor lifts rather, you know, 10 years ago, that may have been a thing, but I would almost guarantee that most guys up on a scissor lift never had any sort of safety certification. If they had a harness at all, it was most likely just dangling by their knees.

[00:09:01] Whereas now at least on the job sites I'm on, on my own sites and, and neighboring sites that I poke into. You see a better sense of, of safety, a better sense of guys, you know, making that conscious effort to, to do something as simple as click into your rail. It, obviously it can literally mean the difference between life and death.

[00:09:23] It takes, I don't know, three seconds to do it. It, it, it's a little bit uncomfortable. It's a little bit less efficient, but the benefits far outweigh that.

[00:09:36] My, my first professional job was in electrical safety. So all I did was arc flash. So I'd go into facilities like these. These were my summers in college were going into from green elevators to steel plants to, like metal tube facilities, where they extruded stuff, plastics facilities, like you name a manufacturing plant.

[00:09:59] I've. Then in and around it and for electrical safety for, I mean, I've even been in chemical plants. Now. Those places are a lot scarier than, manufacturing facilities with each of these. Cause like, so in chemical plants, the reason that they're a little scarier is, you shutting down certain pieces of equipment actually cause more harm than good.

[00:10:27] You know, like turning power off. So turning power off is a bad thing in those cases because it, it prevents them from their safety measures. So like in, in Louisville, for example, Well, it's, I'm going to call it a chemical facility, but they made rubber. So it was a facility for BF Goodrich to make basically all the rubber that goes into tires.

[00:10:46] And it's like a clear yellow is what it actually looks like. But in those they had big chemical spheres. I mean, the stuff that gives into rubber is like insane, but they, they made 75 pound bales of rubber. Was there like an product that then went to be, made into tires. But in these facilities, there's a lot of stuff that could not be shut off at all, or effectively, like a couple of megaton bomb would go off and destroy, like the whole West end of Louisville.

[00:11:17] So like in those facilities, there's a lot of stuff that was like very scary because of the chemicals that they dealt with. But in most places to like on the far other side of that you had like a grain elevator. They're like, yeah, we, we just shut everything off. We like, we can not run, you know, an auger for 10 minutes or an hour.

[00:11:37] It's not gonna hurt anything. And we're fine, right? They are just like, well, we'll shut it off. We don't, we understand, you know, grain and feed and we're farmers, but we don't like, we don't mess with electricity. And so those are like the two extremes of things that I dealt with, but it was all around safety in that.

[00:11:56] And it wasn't until like 2002 that this became a kind of a known thing with arc flash. So when an arc flash is, is if you're in a fault in the majority of faults, like. 92% of all faults are face to face. So that means somebody took a screwdriver and went across two phases. And then the worst case is a bolted three phase fall, which means you took a piece of rod iron and pushed it right against all three phases on a conductor.

[00:12:22] And it hit simultaneously. And I mean, that's a big explosion, but we calculate all the energy levels at a piece of equipment to see how big that blast was going to be and things as simple as. Like you were saying, clicking onto a scissor lift now electricians. And a lot of facilities went as far as they just dress all their people in fr gear.

[00:12:46] So what would happen in a electrical accident is you'd have an explosion and because you're wearing cotton or polyester in a worst case, right? So the tracksuit, like you're an eighties, you, you then shrink wrap all that stuff would, would shrink. And you now, like you can't get that stuff off now you're in a burn ward and they're scraping polyester out of your skin for months and nobody ever wants that.

[00:13:14] So that's on one end and now most facilities for in the industrial setting, they put all their people in fr gear it's cheap, or relatively inexpensive to do that. basically any of the garment. People will come in know properly laundry room. Cause you can't have any chemicals. Right? You don't want to put tide on, on your fr gear to now catch on fire, but simple things like that for safety, where you're you got a long sleeve fr shirt fr pants.

[00:13:44] And then if you need to, if you're working on big gear, you can put on like the bumps squad suit basically to go work on like main switch gear and all this other stuff. And those simple little things. It's where for the most part guys were getting. You know, secondary burns at worst. It, you know, it's a bad, bad sunburn, third and fourth degree, or where it's like below the skin layer.

[00:14:05] Now you need to start going to a burn ward. And it, I mean, a lot of these it's, it happens in the blink of an eye it's super fast and you're never going to be like catching a fireball or an electrical thing. So a lot of these safety measures that have been put in place in the last 10, 15 years are pretty simple, just like clicking in up.

[00:14:27] You know, to a scissor lift, right? It takes no time, but now it's an automatic reflex. Just like going to work. Now you put on your safety glasses, your fr gear and everything just works. And I think that gets left out because now it's an automatic thing. That change period was pretty difficult. Or like, guys are like, why do I have to wear this?

[00:14:48] What is, why do I have to clip in? I'm not reaching over the rail and now it's, you know, they. Because nothing bad has happened. There's also that sense of safety or security and low of, you know, nothing bad ever happens. So that's the other side of the equation too. And we kind of touched on that, last week on our episode that that published today in, in the, the force of habit and, and the change of habit and how difficult that is.

[00:15:19] but I think you're right, you know, it's. It's a, it's a function of that habit of, of being forced to do these new safety measures for say the last 10 years, what does blanket call it? You know, now it's, it's become habit for a lot of people. And there are a lot of guys who get lulled into a false, safe sense of safety, you know, with that, that blanket that, okay, we don't really need this nothing's ever happened, but you still, you know, and construction, but in a lot of, a lot of trades in general, there's, there's always that blink of the eye.

[00:15:52] Shit, that can just happen. And, and that's when you, you very quickly remember why safety measures are in place for, a real short time in my, my history a couple of years, I was a firefighter on a local fire department and we had a structure fire one night and I wasn't actually there. So I'm telling this third hand, but, but one of our guys, was dawning as you know, all of his, his turnout gear with a full SCBA, you know, that the metal air pack.

[00:16:21] Well, someone had pulled the meter out of the DTE housing already, the main electric feed. And he either didn't know it or didn't see it or whatever. He, he went to squeeze by it and he kind of turned as he did. So, and his pack has air pack actually hit the meter and it welded his pack to the meter and they were, the guys were telling me that it was just this giant blue aura around him.

[00:16:49] Now, luckily, you know, thank God. One of our lieutenants was close enough and saw it. And he literally ran at him. He bull rushed him and tackled him off of the, the meter can. the dude spent a couple of days in the hospital being monitored and, and he was perfectly fine, but it just kind of goes back to that point, that the simplest things, you know, just, just walking down the side of a house, if you're not paying attention all the time, They could be disastrous.

[00:17:18] And that's kind of the point of construction safety, I think in general is that it's, it's that one out of a million chance. Right? And if, if you can prevent that by wearing your bomb suit, you know, or wearing the fr gear or clicking in on your, your scissor lift, it's pretty, pretty low cost, investments in your future.

[00:17:44] Yeah, and this is what it comes down to. Right? So the initial costs for any of these programs, like to change out your guys from a regular long sleeve shirt. And again, you're going through like Aramark or whoever to get your gear. And, you know, the initial like change is. You know, it's a little bit of an investment, whatever five, 10 grand could be more depending on how many people you have, but it is, you know, the facility has to put those costs in, but on the other side of it, you know, if a event were to happen, right, and you didn't have that gear now, like just your insurance premiums are going to be way more than that one a minute.

[00:18:29] Yeah. I mean like, well, and whatever you're going to have to pay in OSHA fines and everything else to deal with whatever the event is because you didn't have this. So by putting it in place by, you know, and now your people don't have to change, it becomes, an easy thing. Right? So by putting like your electricians, especially in FRV are now, it's a very simple thing to move forward with because.

[00:18:54] You're risk mitigated everything in the F like most things in the future. And you're, you're lower in your premiums. You're not going to have to deal with OSHA fines and just a complete risk mitigation. And that's, there's so many things, right. That we're dealing with. Negative consequences. We don't.

[00:19:14] Always, and this is it's bad that we have to like negatively reinforce these things through OSHA fines, through the fear of, of those things and not the, Hey you're going to go home at the end of the day. Right? Like that all these negative consequences are what forced people to do things versus like, don't you want your people to be, you know, happy, healthy, secure, safe at the end of the day.

[00:19:37] but far too often, you know, it's OSHA fines or, or things like that that ultimately make us. Do the right thing. And it's, it's unfortunate, but that's just human nature, right? Because the reality is economically, it, it, you take a hit to Institute these programs, whether it's small, big, or somewhere in between.

[00:19:59] And, but I can tell you through firsthand experience to have somebody fall off a building and become a quadriplegic on one of your projects, because they weren't. Being safe. They did, they weren't harnessed. They weren't tied off. That's a horrible thing to, to witness. It's a horrible thing to, to get past.

[00:20:19] it makes you real in the blink of an eye think, okay. We could have spent however many dollars to Institute this safety program to outfit all of everybody with harnesses and, and tie-down points. And maybe that wouldn't happen that cost now that economic cost becomes really, really minuscule in, in the mind of.

[00:20:41] I would think most people it certainly did with me. Yeah. I mean, that's a horrible tragedy and I mean, this is why a lot of things get instituted is on the back of something terrible. And ultimately what we're trying to do is, you know, training across the board should always have an ROI. Right. You might not see an ROI from training immediately, but by training and creating habits from your people, right?

[00:21:16] Whether that's clipping in wearing fr gear, putting on safety glasses, wearing hearing protection, right. And now how many places do you go to where. A hard hat, safety glasses, you know, hearing protection in some cases are like, it's not even questioned. People are just, it's a normal thing. No, one's, you know, worried about it questioning, and it's just, it's what you do.

[00:21:37] And if you're not wearing a hardhat, now you look like, you know, it's, it's a simple thing that is going to help actually protect you. It's proven statistically, like this is gonna make you better. And that's, that's the thing that we need to look at, you know, going forward is, you know, they're, they're really simple things that are proven, you know, safety glasses, hard hats here in protection for again, longterm health.

[00:22:03] Yes. It's a little bit of investment. And then the same with training, right. That, Hey, not only do you have RNs, but like actually clipping, we do trainings. We make that a habit. Same thing with like wearing a. Both the dreaded gloves, whether keepers, all that stuff for electrical work, live electrical work, and, you know, making sure that it's dead before we actually work on it is doing those things, you know, by making that a habit by training, by practicing on actual dead and like equipment.

[00:22:33] Now, when you go into the field, things are a little easier. It's a little second nature. You don't have to think about it. And over the long run training will always pay for itself. Again, it might not be like that afternoon, then it's going to pay for itself because you have to ingrain these as habits, but by perpetual training, you know, lockout-tagout training, OSHA, 30 training, getting your renewals for all that stuff.

[00:22:55] You know, it's, it's things that. You might not encounter it every day on a job site, but by going back and getting retrained every year for a lot of these things, you're going to be better prepared when it does come up in the field. Yeah. And obviously safety, I think, is the biggest risk mitigation and the biggest, or the easiest topic to, to pin from the days of the old to the days of now.

[00:23:21] But I think there's other forms of risk that are less. Less dire consequences to human life, but, but humongously powerful consequences in terms of running a business, you know, financial risk is huge and you kind of touched on the ROI, the return on your investment, which, which leads to a nice segue to a, another section I wanted to get to.

[00:23:45] And one that, that Dylan, I know you're very passionate about. So, I'm going to kind of tee it off for you, but so any as a business owner, it it's. It's not hard, but it's always a moderately difficult decision to spend money on something like software, for example. my personal example recently, I've been working with a group, a great group of guys.

[00:24:10] They've got an estimating, product that I'm very interested in. I think eventually I will end up purchasing it. Obviously that estimating software is not free. There's a lot of time and effort that went into creating it. And so it comes with a, annual price tag. And, you know, I had the conversation with my business partner at our, our weekly meeting, last week.

[00:24:33] Just kind of throw it out there as, you know, first pass. And, you know, after the, his jaw picked up off the table, now we had a good conversation about it and, and it was basically left with, well, you're the one that uses it. So if you think you need it, That kind of thing, but, you know, return on investment on something like that is hard to prove in the, in the beginning.

[00:24:55] So I'm going to let you kind of take over, but as a, as a technology guy, as a, a heavy, heavy software guy, how do you get over that hurdle? Because there is an old school thought that in my case, we can do this with highlighters and yellow pads and a box of big pens. Or we could go all the way to their side and do this with, I'm not looking at BIM, but I mean, there's a step before that where we can use it and it's all automated and there's historical record tracking that, that I don't have to do myself.

[00:25:27] And there's all these great features. How do you cross that hurdle? It is a great, great question. When it comes to software, I've kind of seen it all right in. People not willing to willing to do they, what steps do they take to make an cross? Really that decision chasm. So price is always what there's the first objection.

[00:25:55] They don't, there's a belief that software shouldn't be that expensive and we've gotten. Lulled into a free everything's free. We don't have to pay for anything type of world through Google, where you do pay for it. You just pay for it in your privacy. Right. So it's, it's really do you want, you know, convenience and give up everything on the backend.

[00:26:18] and that's what Facebook, Google, everything is run on. So in the, in the free world, you're giving that up somewhere else. The second thing is so. With price, you would more than happily pay. Let's just take a, so in like an estimator, right, 75 to potentially a hundred grand, depending on where you are to hire in an estimator, right?

[00:26:45] You happily pay 75 grand to bring in an estimator into your organization versus a, you know, a couple thousand dollars a month or a year. license, right? So like for my case, for surfboards. So like our, our top end product design documents in minute, you stack a couple of other things to do low-voltage and sheets.

[00:27:09] I can literally create a deliverable for you in 20 minutes from start to finish for 13,000 a year. And it's like 13, five, but you would rather go and hire. BIM technician at the lowest level for 30 grand plus the headaches plus all your time that's given into it, which you don't factor at all, plus benefits plus everything else that goes then the equipment machines licensing, whatever.

[00:27:37] And so it's not even a financial decision at that point. You're just balking at the price of what it is, but you don't actually think it's an emotional decision. It's not an actual dollars and cents decision because when you actually. Pound down halls, all the numbers, right. For whether it's an estimating platform, most, any piece of software, once you're trained on it, once you ingrain kind of the thing, again, there's going to be an ROI or a time period in there for most, any software to pay it back.

[00:28:11] Right. Whether that's Revvit. From AutoCAD to rev it, you know, going into BIM, whether that's using estimating software from crayons to a software, whether that's, you know, going from using rabbit to, you know, our solutions at California studios, it's it really becomes any of those things that I've listed off is far more beneficial.

[00:28:36] When do you start to actually know your numbers? You know, when you start to actually know what an hour's worth, what rework is worth, how much rework do you do? And the problem with a lot of from owners is they don't track. They don't have, they have no idea what that number is. No idea, right. They know what their top-line fee is.

[00:28:54] So in the design world, I'm just going to use 5% depending on what you are, where you are, what you do could be more, but 5% for is a design fee. So that goes to the entire construction team. Or the design team, Sam gets 5% for based on design value. So if you have a $10 million building, right, you're going to get 500 grand for the full design team to design that building.

[00:29:20] So that's architect, engineers, everybody, and then it gets broken out from there. What people don't know like, so you start going through all of that, right? Could they rattle off? What, what do you get paid per square foot to design a given building at that. Fi, no, nobody knows that number, right? It's a buck 25, a foot for electrical design.

[00:29:44] Like, I mean, that's, nobody knows that number. So nobody like most engineering firm owners. I mean, even in construction, like I've never run any across anybody. They'll give you what it costs to build. Right. It's 250 bucks a foot commercially to build this building. It's 300 and hospitals, you know, it's. One 50 to do a house it's, you know, a hundred to do it.

[00:30:05] Multi-family whatever, like they know those square foot numbers and what it costs to build, but like, what do you get paid to do the thing on the other side, nobody knows it. So this as far as like, so when it becomes an emotional decision right off the bat, it's an emotional decision because when you run the numbers, software will always beat out whoever you're not hired to do it, it'll do it more effectively, more efficiently.

[00:30:31] Every time, right. Again, so long as the software is built correctly. So there's a piece in there where you have to trust what you're doing, but at the same time, you prove that out. You use it, which is the other thing back there. Actually I have to run it, but then time becomes not a factor and people don't know where their time's going.

[00:30:52] They don't value their time enough. And they don't value their sanity enough to invest in something that's going to save much time, be more efficient. Like you go down all the benefits, you know, again, whether it's going from AutoCAD to rev it, right. There's a lot of things that just get taken care of, same thing in like an estimating solution.

[00:31:11] Again, like. You gotta make sure that it works once that's proven it. Why not? Right. And then the other thing, when you look at software, is it so there's price is usually the first objection, but there's the deeper ones are. And the things that aren't looked at are how many more projects could you now do right in your world?

[00:31:35] Estimating is the holdup to do more projects. You don't have enough estimators can't look at enough. Can't price enough, right? You know, and estimating will make or break or a construction firm, anybody in the, from a sub to a GC, if you can't price anything and price it accurately granted you don't, you don't know for 18 months, but you're, you're done real fast in that case, you mean?

[00:32:01] Yeah. So. But look at how many more jobs you do, right? Nobody looks at the other benefits side of it. How many more jobs can you price? Because now estimating takes you a 10th of the time to do it, or it automates it, right? Time is just a no factor. You do it on your couch watching Netflix at night. Like I that's, a lot of this is time because it doesn't become a factor, but that's really hard for people to wrap their heads around in that.

[00:32:27] Like, cause they've thought about it this way for so long. That like my case design documents should take months to do where I can do them in a half an hour. Plus some cleanup, call it three days, call it a week. If you want, I still save you 10 weeks on the project, but that comprehension isn't there.

[00:32:49] Right? Because that is so forward and so distant from where they are today, that getting there is. It's there's a big cognitive dissonance between the two, right? It's so an objection to their worldview. And this is, one of the things to kind of look at. I know I've probably gone on a big tangent, but this is, this is like one of the biggest things in software is that like time becomes a non-factor, but in.

[00:33:18] Even in construction, construction's a little easier to get it in because everybody understands dollar values and in time values of, of their people. But even like you were saying for on your side, right from the old guard, it's why should we have to pay for this? You know, w if it's not a person, why does it cost this much?

[00:33:38] And that's a needs to be a shift, but it's really, I mean, it's pennies on the dollar for anything you're going to do. You nailed it. And there's a lot to unpack there. I think the first one is cost. Right. And, and you touched on this right in the very beginning was most people, most firms don't really know the cost per hour of themselves.

[00:34:03] I'll be honest with you. I don't know. I could figure it out, but I couldn't tell you. Off the, you know, off the jump here, what it costs me an hour to build an estimate. I just don't know. And so for me, or for my business partner, more frankly, to look at this, this software platform that can take my time and let's say it.

[00:34:27] Cuts it in half. That's probably probably bigger than it really is, but let's just say it does. That's that's a huge, huge chunk of my time, which is now we have to put that value on it and in, and they're going to do this or this software is going to do it for pretty slim cost. When it, when you look at it, So I think the first thing is definitely that that's, that's a great way to sell it.

[00:34:50] I frankly think that I'll use that to sell it to my business partner. Once I figured out what my number is, the next thing is you got to use it. And that's a, that's a big problem that I've seen personally in, in the construction firm. I used to work at, we invested very, very heavily in. Some really neat software.

[00:35:14] And it was all for the pre-con side. It was very expensive. We put myself in it at 1.2 of my guys through training, we went on on trips to meet the developers, to learn more, to immerse ourselves. We did all the right stuff right out of the Gates, but then real life took over and. Fast forward a year or two years.

[00:35:41] And that software was more or less sitting in a shoe box in the proverbial basement. We had paid all this money. We were still paying money, right? We had, we had signed a multi-year license agreement and it literally never got touched, no one ever used it. And there's lots of reasons, you know, it's real easy to point and say, well, we are, we're just too busy or too busy to do this.

[00:36:04] There's too steep of a learning curve. People are reluctant to change. in reality, there, there were ways that we should have done things much differently, but I think that's a pretty common thing, especially with, with programs that are designed to take, say, a task you do now, or that you've been doing for 15 years or 20 years, one way, and kind of spinning around and, and.

[00:36:32] Change the way you do it, but, but also reduce the output. It takes to come to the same, deliverable the same conclusion, but people get really nervous about that because it's, it's speaking to an intrinsic level in the human that we don't like to work hard. Right. We've touched on this last week too.

[00:36:50] Our, our brains are wired such that we want to find habitual patterns that we don't have to think. I think a lot and I'm not suggesting you don't have to think to do an estimate. I would fire anyone on the spot. If they told me they didn't have to think about it, but there are there portions of it that just kind of become routine, right.

[00:37:10] There's you know, doing a takeoff, you could quite literally teach a monkey to do a takeoff. You know, whether you're doing it with highlighters on a desk or with plan Swift or one of the hundred other options on a computer. It's pretty simplistic, right? It's tracing lines. It's clicking buttons, but if you could take that process and shrink it down, so now it takes you a third of the amount of time.

[00:37:36] And while you're doing it, you have this new program that's grabbing the takeoff data from your highlighter, and it's spitting it into an estimate template with your unit rates and your data already loaded. And it's bouncing it back and forth and checking it against historical data. And it's throwing up red flags when things don't make sense.

[00:37:54] It's. It's cutting time down immensely, and it's increasing accuracy. You know, you, you, you have to be able to trust it. And, and I think that's kind of the culmination of it is people don't just don't trust change. And especially when that changes in the form of a, of a robot, right. Or, or a software, a computer, whatever it is that there's a general reluctance, especially in our industry.

[00:38:20] Our industry is not one for jumping on the cusp of. all things new in the technology world, right? We, we lag way behind. So I kind of rambled a bit on that, but I think there's, there's a lot to it. there there's a general realization that has to occur that the software, just like the robot or the spot dog walking around, it's not designed to replace a human, to get rid of a job it's designed to make.

[00:38:53] That human more efficient and more effective, among a million other different reasons. Okay. When we talk about commitment. So one of the most fascinating things that I've witnessed in my journey through software is it's just as hard to give away free software, give away free trials to get people, to actually use it as it is for people to pay for it.

[00:39:23] So it's, it becomes really, when you start to look at that, it's not a price issue at all freeze, very little difference to pay it's it's a commitment problem. Right? And you have a lack of commitment from leadership, just like you mentioned that you're from right. They, they committed to a lot of resources, but they themselves were not invested in the project.

[00:39:49] They didn't go, they didn't do the training. And this is the other thing, like for any training that anybody ever does, the more successful it will be is if leadership shows up to that meeting, like, have you ever been to a OSHA training and your boss is there, you're going to pay attention. Right. That's just the way it is.

[00:40:10] And in a lot of this stuff, leadership for whatever reason. And I still have yet to wrap my head around it. Cause I don't, I don't get it. I don't think this way. I just, I truly don't understand it, but once, and you can look at almost any firm for the most part, by and large, once people hit a VP level, they check out on how anything ever gets done.

[00:40:39] Right. They, they're not, they're not in the day to day. They don't care. They forgot completely how anything ever got done. And. Again, there's exceptions to this across the board, but by and large, once people hit that level for whatever reason, they're, they're done, they're done in production. They're done in the day to day.

[00:41:02] They're done caring how anything gets done other than you do it. Right. And that's a hard piece to, to change. And if. But if they did right. The firms that have, and I've seen a lot of architecture and design firms that their, their principals, their lead people, you know, invest in technology. There's plenty of architectural examples of this.

[00:41:29] like Frank Gehry who invested heavily, heavily, heavily in technology som back in the day. I mean, it made them. Huge. Right. Like everybody knows who Frank areas. And that's because he invested in technology and like cared about how things got done. You know, Gensler's the same way. So if you're, if you're you want your firm to grow, if you want your firm to be better leadership, I mean, this is all from leaders.

[00:41:54] Have to care, have to invest in how the sausage gets made. Right? You, you have to be involved in that process. And like, I, I give the example of sausage, cause it's the thing, right? Like nobody cares how it's done. It's just give me a, you know, I want some patties, right? Like outside of that, nobody cares. And if you care as a firm leader, and this is who I'm talking to for firm leaders, right.

[00:42:20] For the people that have the checkbook that are signing, the checks that are making this happen, you have to be continually invested in using that. And the longer that you are, the more you're going to see your firm grow and prosper, because once you get disconnected from the production, from that process, you're not going to find these little, little increments, right?

[00:42:40] These five, 10% things that compound over time to be extremely productive. And that's, I think the biggest thing when it comes to it is they might commit dollars. Cause that's easy, right? It's easy to stroke a check. It is hard or. It's outside of their norm to continually be involved in that process once the check is signed.

[00:43:07] Yeah. And I, I, I agree with you for the most part. I think, I think a big portion of that, especially once you get to the, you know, the higher levels is, is your, your mindset shifts, right? And you, you, you have to kind of shift away from the nitty gritty and more towards the big picture. but I think there's a way to keep the pulse of both to still focus on your leadership role on the, on the big picture, but still have enough of a pulse in the nitty gritty that you know, what's going on.

[00:43:38] You know, what your, your men and women are, are physically doing every day for you. And I think it, it it's a difference in mindset too. if you're an individual who's come up from the bottom. And, and kind of grown through the ranks, whether at one company or, or bouncing around, you know, if you've actually physically done all of these tasks, I think you, you keep, a closer reality of, to what everyone's doing every day.

[00:44:05] Then if you, you know, if you bounced around and you were, I dunno, a VP at an oil company, and then now you took a job as a VP at a construction company, and you might know how to sell, right? You could be the world's greatest salesman, but you don't know what the hell, everyone behind you. Out on the, in the bullpen are actually doing and you got to keep that pulse.

[00:44:26] that's one of the benefits of staying small, frankly, is that, you know, in my case I don't have the option. I, I know how to run every, every aspect of our company from top to bottom, because I just don't have the option. If, if somebody calls in sick or if we lose an employee or two, or God knows, whatever else happens.

[00:44:50] I need to know that at least myself, I can do everything. If I have to, for a limited time, there's this, isn't a discussion on burnout and, and, you know, trying to be Superman, but, but it's, it's all about keeping the keeping tabs on and keeping that reality in your head of, you know, what, what goes on every day?

[00:45:08] What are, what keystrokes are being made to produce this thing that I now go and sell. And then these guys go and build, you know, you have to know, you have to know how the sausage gets made. That's that's a great analogy. Yeah, it's a much more nuanced, piece, you know, you gotta be, you gotta be in it.

[00:45:26] You gotta be aware versus completely checked out. And that's, that's really the point here. I think that we can agree on is far too often. It's a complete checkout, right? You hit that level and all you're looking at is forward. Big picture, which I'm all for that, that, that is my forte is big picture where we're going.

[00:45:49] But to be disconnected from day to day, from what people do from how things get done, you know, that's problematic. Yeah. And you can't, you can't be that disconnected and, and run an effective company. It doesn't matter if you're building buildings or you're building widgets or you're making sausage, you can't just lose track of what your people are doing for you.

[00:46:16] Yeah. And the, the thing to, to, to remember in this for again, at leadership at the higher levels is a lot of these decisions. It's one decision that changes a lot of things, right. To, Hey, we're going to use Revvit and BIM, Hey, we're going to go through all of our process to make sure like all of our content is correct to move forward.

[00:46:41] Right. Hey, we're going to go through this estimating thing. We're going to. Do it once. Yes. This is going to be a big investment to do it. Take a couple of days or whatever to fully go through everything. But once that's done, once this pillar is set and in place, Everything else kind of works right. Then it's tweaks and improvements along the way then it's so it's big intensive for when the thing gets implemented.

[00:47:07] And then it's like monthly check-ins right. This is not taking all your time. You can still spend most of your time in strategy and sales and business development and all the big picture stuff. But it's, you need to, when you're implementing that thing to spend the time to learn it to. Immerse yourself and make sure that foundation, that initial pillar is strong without that.

[00:47:32] I mean the whole, thing's just going to come up. It's just like building in general, right? You start with the foundation and if you don't have that, you got nothing. And then the rest becomes, I won't say easy, but it's less time consuming. It's little check-ins, it's a monthly meeting to, you know, keep tabs on everything.

[00:47:55] Yep. Absolutely. So somehow we're, we're coming up on time already. I feel like we just started chatting today. but you got any, any last thoughts or last, last avenues you want to go down while we're still here?

[00:48:12] One of the things I think too, that's pretty structural in these conversations. You know, we talked about risk and. As a young person, getting into the industry or young in any really endeavor, typically you're more inclined to take risks. You're more inclined to, because you don't know what you don't know.

[00:48:34] There's a lot of things that you're gonna do that are maybe perceived to be not risky, but when. You've been slapped in the face a couple of times, or, you know, whatever, right. There's negative consequences to whatever the thing is that you did, whether that's emotional, like actually physical, financial, whatever, then you're going to ingrain those.

[00:48:58] And a lot of the things that we have in construction and from the old timers, the guys that have been in this industry a long time, right. I'm talking 30, 40, 50 years. Is, they have a lot of ingrained things that they've been hit by, right. Life has, has struck them. The industry has struck them. And there's a lot of things that, that they won't do now.

[00:49:22] So in a lot of the things that we, we need to move forward with, it's, it's reframing a lot of these kind of positive things that, that come up. So when you talk about technology, right, because they've been hit so hard, Loss is going to be front of mind. But if you continue to frame things and this is what we can do with it, this is how much time it's going to save us.

[00:49:44] These are the benefits. This is how much money it's going to return us. Right? If you can say like it's a hundred percent ROI, right? So for my top package, 13, five, you're going to return a hundred percent of that 13 five, like you're guaranteed to not lose money in a year. I mean for, for anything like that.

[00:50:05] So you're guaranteed to not lose money, but you're also, if you, again, use it, apply it, move forward. You do more projects, save more time, like all the other things that come with it. But it's, it's understanding that as a young person, you're more likely to, to take risks, to invest in new things, to go and try that new whatever.

[00:50:28] And as somebody that's. Had some negative consequences or those might be, over a period of time, you're less likely to invest in new things because it's the tried and true. And you're, you don't want to change. It's kind of the theory of, of blissful ignorance versus not being able to unlearn things.

[00:50:50] Right. And it's, it's a topic that you and I touched on way back when, when you had me on the show as a guest and that, that beautiful. Combination where you can put a younger guy, you know, the guy that, that, that has no blinders on yet. Right. And it doesn't have to be foolish, but, but the guy that doesn't have limitations in his mind, put him with the guy who's been doing this for a long time, that he knows how to get the job done, but he's got, he's got that blinder on those blinders that he knows, okay.

[00:51:23] If I go this way, I'm going to get smacked. You know, when I touch this thing, it burned me and, you know, on a simplistic level, You put those two minds together and you can create some really amazingly powerful things because you get the best of both worlds. You get the, you know, the blissful ignorance and the, you know, the sky's the limit mentality of the younger guy and you get the rational side, like, all right, hold on a second while yes, we could do this, this and this.

[00:51:48] We don't want to do this because. The results can be catastrophic. Let's find this, this middle ground and, and hold hands there. And, and that's how we really create as an industry. Perfect, man. I mean, it's that exact combination. It's an openness on both sides. It's an understanding of where people come from and then having that conversation.

[00:52:10] If you don't have that conversation, you don't know. But, you know, again, I think it goes to being open to change leadership and taking responsibility for your actions is core values, right? Like, you know, taking responsibility, doing the right thing, being a lifetime student, you know, willing to learn. That really goes a long way through everything that we're talking about.

[00:52:35] Okay.

[00:52:41] Like us sheriffs around, help us out guys. And with that guys, that's going to be this episode of the construction corner podcast. And one last note, if you have any topics, you'd like us to cover anything of interest, feel free to message Matt Nye. You can find us. All of our links are below in the show notes.

[00:53:01] And until next time,

#125 The 411 on Communication

#125 The 411 on Communication

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the construction corner podcast. I'm Dylan, I'm your host joined by my blue collar. Badass Matt. How's it going? My friend. You know what, man, normally I would give you some canned response. I know things are good. Things are great, or I'd make some, some dumb comment about the weather.

[00:00:20] the weather sucks here by the way. It's freezing. But things have been pretty darn stressful last couple of weeks. So we're in a, a maintaining mode these days. How about yourself? So that brings up a really interesting point. Uh I've I've trained myself or tried to at least address it. For everything moving forward is when people ask you how it's going, right.

[00:00:47] It's always, you know, living in paradise or, living the dream, man. Yeah. It's good to get an whatever, right. Some can thing. And I've really tried to just say what's going on. So I have, I do a lot of calls. Outside walking with my dogs, I just do. And that's what I tell people. They're like, how's it going?

[00:01:07] I'm like, well, it's a little crisp this morning. As I'm out here with my dogs, like going for a walk, like, and they just, it's an expectation set upfront in the call. Like I'm outside, it's a little Chris, you might hear some road noise or cars, or my dogs barking at a squirrel, but it's a very like honest thing, right?

[00:01:24] This is what I'm doing. Same with like a lot of other stuff. It's how's it going? Well, So there hasn't been the best or it's busy. I've got a lot of meetings going on, but Hey, I'm here, let's do this. And it's to be very, just intentional on that, like instead of a canned response on whatever, just to be.

[00:01:44] Frank in a way, but also to just set the stage a little better than, sometimes we're used to. Absolutely. I love it because there's people who will get annoyed by that, that honesty. Right. And they get, they get scared by it, like, wow, that guy's being kind of a jerk, you know what, but the reality is it is honest and okay.

[00:02:09] Every day is not. Peaches and ice cream and rainbows and unicorns. It's just not some days suck. Some days are great, but just be honest with it, rip the bandaid off and now let's get to business. Yeah. It's like, I'm here, you know, how's it going? Right. Well, it's, wasn't great. It's getting better. We're doing what we can moving forward.

[00:02:31] Right? Like it's what it is equally worse though, is the guy that always says the Holy negative response. Like. Oh, I'm living or, you know, just making do it's like, well, w what's going on buddy? Tell me you got five minutes here of, of rapport building chitchat. Let's let's get it out in the open. Yeah.

[00:02:57] And that's, I mean, it's just one of those things that once you. It's an awareness, right? Once you do recognize and realize that that's what you're doing, and you have some canned thing that you've been taught your entire life, and it's just a, it's a two sentence or two word answer. No, you're grunting and response.

[00:03:17] When you actually like develop that into like two sentences now it's like, Oh, that's cool. Like that's interesting. Or tell me, like, why is that, you know, a bad day?

[00:03:33] Yeah. I mean, w we are all interesting. Interesting. We have different stories to tell, you know, why not tell him once in a while? And again, it's like a, it's a five minute thing, right? It's not, or three minute deal, but for you to say, like, whatever it is, right. Hey, I'm out walking with my dogs, right? It's a little Christus and going out, walk in, or, Hey, it's a beautiful day.

[00:03:56] It's sunny and 75. Couldn't ask for a better day, right? Again, it's a, that's a ten second clip, but it opens up a little bit of a dialogue, right? Like, Oh, that's cool. Right? They're curious. Yeah. Hey, what kind of dogs do you have? I have dogs. What are your dogs like? Blah, blah, blah. And it just, it just keeps us all connected a little bit better.

[00:04:18] I have a, a supplier, who I really like. I've worked with this guy for. How, I don't know, 10 years, 15 years, every single time I ask him how he's doing. And I, you know, let me backtrack. That's the kind of the flip side of it too. I'll say that a lot of times saying know, Hey, how you doing? And really in my head, like, I'm already past that.

[00:04:39] I'm past the answer onto the business at hand, but that's, that's the other side, but ask those guys how he's doing every single time for 10 years, he says, Oh, I'm living the dream. Just living the dream man. Except for now since March of 2020, he's added to it. It's, I'm living the COVID dream. So it's, it's actually quite comical now and I'll pin them down and I'll be like, so John explained to me the COVID dream, what does that really mean?

[00:05:05] And it gets real quiet and then we just get to business.

[00:05:11] Okay. Yeah. I mean, again, those canned responses, like, cause if, cause you're going to get that one guy that asks you, right. So you better have a like real answer for it. Definitely better have a real answer. Otherwise everyone looks foolish and then it's just awkward in silence. And

[00:05:32] it's all good though. There was another one. Yeah. I mean, in that it kind of leads into, you know, again, we've been talking about core values and I do want to talk about you on this, you know, and want to touch on this right off the bat, you know, off of our conversation with Todd last week. And just again, guys, you can't emphasize this enough.

[00:05:54] You need the repetition, you need to know what your core values are and. You hire your fire, you do everything based around core values and you exude and try to live to your core values as much as possible. and again, we want to just touch on this again. you know, Matt, you've had some experiences in the last week around, core values and, maybe you want to expand upon, your, your experiences with core values, you know, both good and bad.

[00:06:27] Yeah, absolutely. And it's, you know, it all goes back to company culture and personal culture, and it's not always beautiful. You know, there there's some, some gritty and realistic aspects of running a business that, you know, you come across from time to time and if you can't stay true to your values, to your culture, then you stay true to, to nothing.

[00:06:53] Right. So, you know, we, we, we focus very much on our core values. We preach about them. We've got them on our, our walls and all of our offices. We put them on our proposals. Now talk about them constantly. and we hire and fire based upon those. So we historically are very slow to hire. mainly because I don't like making mistakes.

[00:07:18] I want to make sure that I'm bringing someone into the inner circle, that they're going to be a good fit. But on the flip side, we were very quick to fire and I mean that respectfully so that you could screw up seemingly anything in the company, and we'll fail fast together and we'll learn from it and we'll move on.

[00:07:41] But there's five core tenants, core values of our business. That if you, if you mess with those, it's a really easy quantitative yes. Or no decision for my business partner. And I. And the problem, what I've found is, is the interviewing process, right? So we're both in RNA. We focus a lot on talks on, on hiring and, and questions to ask and, and trying to focus on core values.

[00:08:11] It's really, really hard in this, in the course of an interview, you know, an hour or two hours, whatever it may be to, to effectively judge who a person is and what they really stand for. Even if you have a couple of interviews or a few interviews, you know, you don't, you don't know someone until you know them.

[00:08:30] And we ask all the right questions, you know, we've, we've custom tailor. A lot of the questions we ask during interviews to, to kinda kind of grab that. You know, what does this person's what, what are their values? How do they respond to these questions? And we make assumptions, right? Problem with assumptions is sometimes you're just a wrong and you might not really get to know someone until a month in or two months in or 12 months in.

[00:08:57] And it's, it's part of life. It's it's part of business, but that was kind of what happened to us last week. So we, we had a employee who. For all intents and purposes has done a great job with us. they had a really bright future with us and some choices were made, some things were said, and the long story short, that employee is no longer with us.

[00:09:25] And it's, it's a real bummer. So to put it lightly, I mean, it's devastating, frankly, to the company, to, to, to me personally, this is a guy that I hired directly. But at the end of the day, you know, decisions were made last week, which is part of the reason that we didn't record last week, but decisions were made that, that, you know, it was that yes or no question.

[00:09:52] And, and it becomes real easy. If you can look at your values, are we have five of them that we, we preach. If you can look at five of these values and say, okay, no, no, no, wait a minute. There's something wrong here. All of a sudden you cut it loose and. That's what we did. It was, it was a little uglier than, than normal.

[00:10:12] but we, we cut an employee loose and we got rid of a, a disease. I think that was festering, you know, behind the covers that we, we just had been too, either we're too busy or too stressed or, or a combination of everything to, to really see it. You know, we, we focus so much on the end result, especially in, in construction, you know, we're always running, we got to get the damn building built.

[00:10:35] Turn over the keys and then you take a week or so, and you breathe and you turn around and start the whole process all over again. And it doesn't leave a whole lot of time as, as leaders to really look inside your organization at what's going on. And I think that's kinda what happened to us.

[00:10:56] There's so much to unpack within that. the first things that I think I want to touch on is. really assumptions. So within any conversation within any interaction you're bringing in your own unconscious bias on whatever, right. And how you see the world, the how your past experiences, right? You could have had a ton of great interactions with a lot of people, but one person.

[00:11:24] Did one thing that soured all future interactions when it comes to a given deal, right? It could be a contractor, a vendor, anything you name it, right?   spouse relationships, people, you know, have to have some jaded or very Rose colored glasses in, in any given situation. So, and. Assumptions are some of the hardest things to see for yourself.

[00:11:52] Somebody has to point out what your underlying assumptions are or what your, what lens you're looking at the world through. And it becomes a very, it's hard to see your own assumptions because you've even grain them so much into who you are that, uncover those is it's very difficult on your own. You need somebody that has a good, that knows you, but also can like see through that and what your assumptions are going into situations.

[00:12:22] I know that's like a very broad, big statement, but at the same time, like it in some reading, a new book right now. And one of the things that, they talk about is just how little we think. So how, how little we think about anything. We do, right? You might have a lot of thoughts going on in your mind, or like you're bringing in this conversation, but to actually sit in like silence and think through a given problem, doesn't happen, you know, like with a pen and paper asking and answering questions, right?

[00:12:59] That's the process of thinking is asking and answering questions and nobody actually does that. So. More that you can do that in your business and everything we'll see and help you to, without anybody else. Right. If you don't have anybody or don't trust anybody which reanalyze that assumption or basis, but, to go through and ask and answer questions so that you can uncover what some of your base assumptions might be in a given situations.

[00:13:30] So that's, that's probably number one is talking about assumptions. Yeah. And it's, I agree with you, you need to find somebody, you can talk to that that knows you well enough to call you on your bullshit, right. That when you're, when you're living on assumptions and they're wrong, and other people can see them, they gotta be willing to, to, to rip that bandaid off and tell you.

[00:13:55] And that's a hard thing for some people to do, but it's very necessary. I mean, I. We've talked about it. I think on the show before I've got a psychology degree, right? Not your typical construction guy. I tend to think because of partly that degree, that I'm, I'm usually a very good judge of character and I can allow that to kind of cloud my, my normal judgment and make some, you know, some poor decisions because of it.

[00:14:26] And that's just it. Right? You have to have one, you have to be willing to see it to you then have to be willing to change. Right. You have to be willing to deal with that, whatever it is, right. That comes out of somebody telling you that, Hey, this is the assumption you're making right or wrong. and then to be able to change, which also goes into, as you go through this, people will and like the, yeah.

[00:14:53] Experience that you had is people will tell you who they are. Right. They're going to tell you and people, because, and I talked about this on bridging the gap, like it is physically painful for you to rewire your brain. Right. It is physically painful for you to, to change because like so many ingrained neurons and neural pathways are there, that it, you actually rewire your brain when you do things differently.

[00:15:21] So to make that change is just, it's physically hard. So, but, so again, people will tell you who they are. You just have to be willing to listen, willing, to like see that for what it is and not come into it with Rose colored glasses. Yeah. You have to be able to see it. And that's, that's a big thing because they may not tell you who they are with, with words or with a direct answer that, Hey, I'm, I'm this, this and this.

[00:15:51] But if you spend enough time with the individual, they will absolutely tell you who they are through their actions, through their mannerisms. Through their body language, you know, through their, their emotions, that all of the, the woo woo stuff that people don't like to talk about, but it's, it's really important stuff to be looking at and to focus on.

[00:16:11] And you're, you're totally right about the pain of change. And I think that goes on a neurological level that, you know, like you started off earlier saying, we, we don't. As humans as, as our brains, don't like to think a whole lot, right? We, we live life just based on this repeating loop. And unless we get really negative feedback on that loop, we're going to seek and do the things that we know how to do and the ways that we know how to act.

[00:16:39] And I mean, there's, there's books and books and books written on this and, and lots of people who know far more about it and can speak more eloquently about it than I can, but it's really. Interesting stuff to start learning and looking at interesting topics, but it's also incredibly powerful. Once you take the time to start kind of picking those pieces apart, but there's a lot going on and that we never know about and that we don't pay attention to it just cause it's easier not to.

[00:17:10] Yeah. So one of the examples is, so your brain is constantly scanning for things to like, be aware of, right. For change in the environment for things to right. fight or flight. That's what your conscious mind is constantly scanning for. So in that you have like 40 to 60 neurons that fire every second in your conscious mind.

[00:17:33] But there's a lot, a lot of things that are automatic. Right. And how you think, how you feel, how you move about the world that are like ingrained in you from a young age and your unconscious mind is doing most of the heavy lifting, right? So when you have 40 to 50 neurons that fire in your conscious mind, it's 40 to 50 million.

[00:17:54] Times are 40 to 50 million neurons per second, firing in your unconscious mind. So again, like the, the amount of things that are ingrained innate that are hardwired into you, that you have like no control over is all done unconsciously, right? How you think, how you move through your mannerisms, everything pretty much about you is a unconscious thing.

[00:18:18] So it becomes very hard to change. You can, but it does take conscious directed effort. To make those changes in who you are, which all goes back to core values, that if people do not exude your core values, it's a very hard thing to change and they're, they're not going to fit within your organization. So you need to move them out.

[00:18:37] They'll find a place that they fit, that they're good. You know, their intent is aligned with whatever or a company that just doesn't care about core values and they're going to be fine and have a career there. They don't care. Yeah. And, and that's. You know about our now ex employee, you know, we, I personally hope it really works out for him because he's a good guy.

[00:19:01] and it's not like he did something like, like murdered, another employee or anything, you know, horrid. but he just. He just didn't fit with those values. And it would have been a disservice to him as much as it would be to us too, to keep him on board in that capacity. So sometimes it hurts, but you just need to make that clean cut and, and let the wound heal and move on.

[00:19:25] And everybody's better for it. Yeah. And again, an organization, a company is. It needs to be a symbiotic organism, right? Everybody needs to work and mesh and move in the same direction together. And if you can't do that, then it crumbles. So you need to know, or you need to have that core value alignment, and that allows everything else to move in the same direction.

[00:19:55] Positive momentum forward. Cause otherwise it just creates a clash in a cancer throughout the organization. Yeah. And not to belabor it, but we're, we're a small company, right. We're really small now. but there are no dark corners for someone to hide it, you know, and some of the larger construction companies or larger any companies, you could probably squeak by with just doing what you do, staying under the radar.

[00:20:23] but. Not in our organization, everybody's on a spotlight a hundred percent of the time, all day, every day. And that's, that's the reality of what we're dealing with here. If you don't, you don't mess, you don't mesh and it'll get called out sooner or later. Yeah. And I mean, it's goes into building a team.

[00:20:44] This is company culture, core values. I mean, that's all basically wrapped up in the same thing and then. hiring and firing right on bat or shooting clients. Right. That's all core values related. and even, you know, one of the other things that we can go into is, conflicts, right? When you have conflicts on site or vendors, anything like that, you can still rely heavily on, on core values and coming back to, you know, Hey, Understood.

[00:21:17] So one, you need to understand how you communicate to people and really to express that more. So, Hey, this is why we're doing this. These are all the reasons behind why we need this thing delivered today or tomorrow or whatever. so we can move forward and having those conversations to, again, not just say I need to hear or good.

[00:21:42] It's. This is why we need this. These are, you know, the big reasons behind it because often in construction, there's a, you need, it's a need to know basis where, you know, as the engineer, right, I've become a part of a lot of conversations with the owner and why they need stuff that always, that doesn't always get relayed to, to site.

[00:22:08] For whatever reason. So in that, if I'm talking to like the electrical foreman superintendent, it's like, Hey, you know, these are the reasons why we're doing the things we need to for future stubs it's, or these are the connections that we need to make for this phasing to get this thing up and running because.

[00:22:29] Like in a hospital setting, we need that or running ASAP so they can start billing for it. Right. They can start having patients and they can start making money on the project. It becomes a Oh, okay. Right. It's a light bulb moment if you will, but they didn't have all the backstory of, Hey, this is why we're doing this.

[00:22:48] This is what needs to happen. And we needed this executed by when.

[00:22:56] And I think it goes. Even deeper on that a little bit too, because there's a lot of instances like that where decisions need to be made and, and deliverables need to be delivered finished ASAP, right. With a very definitive date for lots of reasons, whether it's financial or otherwise, but there's also a lot in construction.

[00:23:18] That is, is very much so based on the long game, right. There's a lot. a lot of seed planting to grow forest, so to speak and having the perseverance and the follow-through to stick with things sometimes is also pretty difficult, for an organization or for an individual. we're working right now on, on a project.

[00:23:45] It will be probably the largest project. we've, we've built. Today, really when it comes around, it's a project that I've been working in. The pre-con in this thing for I've lost track. It's, it's literally in the seven to 10 year, year Mark, seven years. So if you take me, I'm an anomaly and I'm still working on it, but we've, we've gone through two or three different bleed engineers now on the civil side.

[00:24:16] Well, now we have a guy who. Kind of got stuck with it for lack of better terms. he doesn't know all the backstory, he doesn't know all the assumptions and all the, all the, everything that, that came into the last six and a half to seven years to build this thing. And so he's kind of, he's kind of dropping the ball in my eyes cause he just doesn't have that same motivation and to be able to express and create the same motivation you have in someone else.

[00:24:48] Is incredibly hard to do, but it's incredibly powerful if you can figure it out because it, it, you know, everything we're talking about is all kind of culture related. But if you can, if you can express motivation, if you can express values, if you can find a way to, to quantify and, and convey difficult topics or, complicated aspects of a project.

[00:25:14] It starts becoming more second nature, but you know, that, that long game side of it, it's a tough one for some people to grasp onto

[00:25:25] through, through most of this it's and we always lose track of what the end result we want. Ends up being right. We lose the sight of, Hey, at the end of the day, whatever it is, right. Whether it's a project and this thing is going to change how the community operates. This is going to give housing to 500 people.

[00:25:48] This is going to be, you know, the school for all of our kids for the next 50 years. Whatever that thing is, we don't always. And I know we, I mean, we just don't, we don't iterate that enough. Hey, this is again, what we're here for today is say, talk about, we're going to talk about a lot of detailed stuff, but at the end of the day, this is a project to provide healthcare for.

[00:26:13] However many people for the next 10 years to we made this thing again, right. Or you know that we're here to talk about a school or community center. That's going to provide, you know, place for our kids to play basketball. Mine included for the next, you know, however many years and that starting a conversation like that.

[00:26:32] And Hey, this is again, why we're here. See if this fits to see if this is going to help you and save you. Time in my case for Cowabunga, but like a lot of this comes back to again, why are we here? And then we can talk through all the details, but at the end of the day, this is the thing you want, right?

[00:26:49] Whether it's a saving time, whether it's a building or it's do more operations, right. Whatever it is, if we can come back to why then. It becomes a lot easier right now that civil engineer has a little more motivation to be like, Oh yeah, no, okay. This is, this is what we're doing it for. And it's just, we've been in it so long that we remember why, but it's again to, to everybody.

[00:27:17] And even in your company, right? Hey guys, we build buildings. We give new spaces to people, and this is everybody in the industry, right? This is at the end of the day, we're providing for this project. It. You know, just so happens to be community centers, school, or a hospital or an office or an apartment, but at the end of the day, it's, Hey, we build great things that stand for decades.

[00:27:41] It, yeah, it's, it's just fitting in answering the why's and filling in the why's and then conveying them to people. And, and you, you nailed it. this guy doesn't have the same motivation. He doesn't have the backstory and to me, I just run so fast sometimes that I'm like, well, of course he knows what it is.

[00:27:58] I, I know what it is. I've known it is for seven years, but realistically he was kind of thrown into it and he shouldn't probably have, he absolutely shouldn't have the same backstory on it that I do. So keeping that communication open is huge. And I think keeping that, building that communication and that, that transfer of ideas will also help.

[00:28:21] Lower the collective stress levels in a project or, or in any, any sort of endeavor? Yeah. I mean, like I'm working on one right now. It's a hotel project and I'm probably the fourth guy to be a part of it, you know? And it's, we're taking a old, old building that hasn't been probably had anything done with it, like 12 story hotel, and there was like an apartment building.

[00:28:47] Now it's going to be a hotel. And, but somebody took the time to explain to me, like one, you're not the first guy on this too. You know, you need to just look through everything that's in here because who knows. And then three, like, Hey, this is the project. This is where it is. This is, you know, we took 15 minutes to explain it.

[00:29:07] Some of it's like, okay, I, you know, I get it. Sure. But it's having that context that maybe in the moment seems a little boring, a little out of it. But you never know where it's going to come back to play. That is like, Oh yeah, that I, I understand this thing that they're trying to do for that. So I need to like, so we got to move a vault right in the sidewalk.

[00:29:31] Cause it's right on. It's in Louisville, Kentucky, and it's, we gotta move a big utility ball and it's like, okay, how does this play in for it so that we can have wheelchair access to the building? And so that the sidewalk is smooth. And can we just fill this in? It's like, okay. Yes, you need to do that, but there's gotta be a little phasing here to get through.

[00:29:52] But again, because somebody took the time that 10 minutes to explain this piece, then in a meeting, I could say, Hey, you know, we need to coordinate this with utility. Note this on the drawings to incorporate phasing here, to end up capping, you know, manhole. Yeah, part of it's an you have to learn the art of storytelling, right?

[00:30:18] You have to be able to convey these things to people in a manner that they can understand it. And not everyone can understand the, the same, the same way. Right? So with an engineering background like yourself, you learn and you listen and you hear things probably very different than, than I do. but. To be on the same team.

[00:30:39] We gotta be able to, to tell that story so that everyone globally can get it and can hear it. And the team can keep moving forward 100%. And the, so here's the hack for storytelling it's it's problem, you know, what's the problem here? What are you trying to do? Right. So like for your community center, Hey, we want a place for kids to play basketball.

[00:31:08] Okay. Right. We don't have any place indoors to do that, you know, for season facility. Okay, problem. Right story. Well, we went through this, this, and this right to overcome whatever to create this. Fantastic facility. And there's, you know, there's more fluff in there, but ultimately it's problem story solution, right?

[00:31:29] At the end of the day, we're going to create a facility so that we can play basketball and sports or whatever volleyball year round in this facility. Same as the school. Right? Hey, our. Our facilities are old and outdated. And, you know, we probably got led in the walls. So we went through and raised a bunch of money.

[00:31:48] We feel that now is the right time to provide a 21st century education to our students and update all of our infrastructure and internet and all the things that we have to do in this day and age. So we went and raised a bunch of money. And now, you know, in 18 months we're going to have a brand new school.

[00:32:03] Right. But it's problem story solution because you. Pull people in with a problem, tell them a story. And then you resolve it with whatever the ending is. It's how every single movie is written. but it's problem story solution. And those are the three big elements, in storytelling. And you could even do problem, cause story solution.

[00:32:25] But those are, those are like the big elements that for anything that you do, if you start with that and you start with like the why the problem, you know, why we're here, which is typically a problem. Then you move into how this happened and then what you're going to do about it. Those are the simplest elements to any given story that anybody can tell and do it in a very condensed manner.

[00:32:51] I like that. And I think it goes back to your earlier point about sometimes you just need to take the time and be silent and think things through, you know, sit down with a pen and a pad and, and write down the lies and, and. Create or, or, or come up with what the story is and that's so right. again, thinking is asking and answering questions.

[00:33:14] So what is your story? Right? What is the condensed story that you want to tell when somebody says, well, what do you do? Right? You start with a problem, tell a story and give a solution. It's becomes a very, it's a very simple formula, but it takes, it does take some time to go through that, to go through that exercise.

[00:33:43] But it's important regardless of the time it takes, you know, it's, it's crucially important to, to be able to capture vision and convey your message. Absolutely. And this is it's so one of the examples I'm going to give a non-construction example, but, It's so, let's say you have an at-home chef, right.

[00:34:06] Or somebody that, that does has their business as a at-home chef that's, comes into your place and as a chef. So if you're at a dinner party and you ask somebody, Hey, what do you do? Well, I'm a, I'm an at home.

[00:34:23] Cool. You know? Right. It's the whole, it goes back to good, right? It goes one word answer, right? I'm a at-home chef. If you switch that and say, have you ever wanted a professionally done meal in the comfort of your home? Well, I'm an at home chef. We come in and provide delicious meals for you in the convenience and comfort of your own home.

[00:34:51] Right. You start with the problem. It's a two sentence thing. It's, it's a 22nd spiel instead of a. Two second grunt and then it, but then it opens it up to a bigger conference. It's an elevator pitch. Exactly. So in construction, that could be, you know, I'm a general contractor. Somebody could have no idea what that is, right?

[00:35:20] Yeah. I mean, how many things have you gone to and said that? And I mean, I've say like I'm an electrical engineer. Well, what does that mean? Right. Nobody, nobody knows. Nobody knows. Especially when you specialize in things, you know? Cause it's just as easy. I'll say, you know, I'm a builder. So the first thing people think is, Oh, this guy is building houses or decks and garages.

[00:35:46] If I don't elaborate, if I don't convey my message and give them my 22nd elevator pitch and tell them, you know, they, they have no reason to know. And you sit there and, you know, crickets of awkward silence for a minute and then, you know, order your food or whatever is the next thing. Yeah. So the reverse, and I've been on a ton of these, right?

[00:36:06] Where you intro yourself and it's, it becomes weird because you're going to be the only person that do this. Right? So everyone's in a two second thing and you're going to take a little longer, which is, you know, can be perceived as annoying, but at the end of the day, people are more clear. They have clarity on what you say.

[00:36:21] So if you. And this is for everybody out there. Right? Figure out what your niche is. But if you flip it to be like, we build commercial facilities for, you know, apartments or whatever, whatever your specialty is. And this is the other thing. Most commercial construction engineering firms are a Jack of all trades, but it's, or, you know, you do 18.

[00:36:44] Well, you got one, we'll take it. We, you know, we don't we'll do it, whatever shit you give us some work we'll. We'll engineer it or buildings, right? Yeah. Sure. but if you can specialize, right. So, one of the firms that I worked for specialized in, primarily K-12, but, educational facilities. Right?

[00:37:10] So. We are a premier provider of educational facilities throughout the Midwest. If you are looking to build a school anywhere, you know, in the Midwest where your people, right. Or have you been looking to upgrade your educational facilities? You know, Blank company. We're a premier provider of educational facilities in the Midwest, right.

[00:37:37] Or locationally in Michigan, in California, in Texas, whatever that is. But then it's a clear, concise pitch to say, Hey, this is what we do. So it's like, you know, for Schafer could be, Hey we're or have you been looking to build recreational facilities in your County shaver construction? We provide.

[00:38:01] Premiere services for recreational facilities in Michigan, right? That's a pitch for Cowabunga studios for us. It's, you know, architecture and engineering firms have struggled with being productive, profitable, and with their cashflow at Cowabunga studios, we automate electrical design to improve your financial bottom line.

[00:38:31] It's all communication, man. I mean, th this, this episode kinda has gone to a lot of different ends of the spectrum on topics, but, you know, communication is huge and how you represent yourself, how you present yourself. It all boils down. I think, to, to what your background is and what your values are right.

[00:38:52] To, to keep going back to that and trying to, to succeed as a group. To, to reduce levels of stress and the, get your message across so that you can all, so you can sell your software product or so you can build the next building or you can, whatever you want to do, whatever you need to do to succeed as a team or as a unit.

[00:39:13] You know, these things, all tie together in this, this kind of swirling pool, if you will, that it's, it's tough to figure out sometimes for sure. And we make stupid mistakes. A lot of times in, you know, stress comes in real big and. If you, especially, if you don't understand what's going on, you know, maybe, maybe the message wasn't conveyed to you clear enough, you didn't, you didn't know who you were hired.

[00:39:36] You didn't know what, what company you were going to work for. You didn't know what project you were taking on or, or, you know, all of those kind of meat and potatoes of, of our existence. It can really lead to some mental, mental turmoil,

[00:39:53] 100% man. And. And construction, I mean, hacking auto industries, but especially construction. I've seen it time and time again is you just, you run from one deadline from one project to the next you're, you're worried about a lot of things that are more than likely out of your control, you know, on getting information and making timely decisions that you just don't have the right information.

[00:40:17] And I mean, you just can't let it go. You're you're worried about something that you have no control over. And if we can let some of those things go, which again, I it's easier said than done, but in that you can get a lot of comfort, but also to take 10 minutes, five minutes. And I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but to take five, 10 minutes in your car, even before you go into the office and to be quiet, right.

[00:40:47] Just, to sit there, close your eyes and just. B and it's some of the hardest things you could do, but in that you will feel much better. Just remove yourself from the situation for a minute and try and see it differently. And I can tell you, a story about me personally, this happened yesterday. So obviously the last week, week and a half has been incredibly stressful where we're, there's a lot going on now because of some things that happened that we've already talked about.

[00:41:20] I personally, don't always tend to just take that step back. I'm running constantly. I'm trying to steer the ship. I'm trying to do everything. So yesterday was about the apex of it. I was literally like head spinning, stressed out. I was accomplishing nothing, nothing was getting done. The stuff I was doing was wrong, or it just, it wasn't effective.

[00:41:44] And. I went as far as to get in my truck, I left my office. I had a walkthrough for a new prospect, got in my truck, drove an hour on a day that I'm literally scheduled. So tightly. I there's no room to breathe. It feels like. So I drive an hour all the way across town. I get to the location, pull in and it's a couple of trucks in the parking lot.

[00:42:08] I'm thinking, huh? This is interesting. you know, I, I tend to get places early. I like I'd rather be early than late every time. So I figure I'll just hang out for a minute. People will show up. Well, no, one's showing up. So I get out of my truck and I walk into the building. It's an addition and renovation project.

[00:42:24] And as I'm walking in, I pull out my paperwork and I look at it on again. And the damn walkthrough is for Thursday, tomorrow. So. I literally took anyone it's all said and done about two and a half hours out of my already crazy stupid day and just threw it out the window and spent two hours in my truck.

[00:42:46] Just pissed off at the world now, but had I just stopped and just taking that minute to just shut everything off, back up a minute and breathe and, and really see what's what's going on. I probably would have saved a lot of gas, a lot of headache and, and, and a lot of extra stress that I didn't need. So, you can talk about it all day long.

[00:43:12] And we do, we talk about all these great ways, but, but even as someone who talks about it and who preaches all these coping mechanisms and ways to still succeed, it still happens to me. I still spent, you know, two and a half hours yesterday for no good reason other than the fact that. I was so stressed out that I didn't actually pay attention to the smallest of details or the biggest of details and that, that occasion and that's, and I mean, dude, thank you for sharing.

[00:43:42] Like those things are, they're not uncommon, right? They're not uncommon across the industry. And so many people dealing with. Yeah. I mean, heck I got shingles, right? Like from stress, like this is, it is a common occurrence across the industry to be so burnout that, you know, often it manifests and health conditions and bad things.

[00:44:08] Right. But it can be these little things too, right. Just time wasted for not, not looking at it or to possibly obsess over something that you have no control over, right. On a, on a deadline, even on a thing that you're not getting the right information to make a decision. Well, until that comes, like, there's nothing you can do, right.

[00:44:32] It's obsessing about what ifs. And, you know, I used to be that guy, like I had obsessed like, Oh, if this happened, well, we need to do this. Isn't this that happens. We need to do this, this and this. If, if this thing with no probability of happening ever occurs, well, we need to do this, this and this. You just, you freak out about like, well, I, you know, at the end of the day, like make a decision when it happens, you know, and.

[00:45:03] Do you need to put some plans, some thought before that happens, but most of the time you can make, you can get the information, take a step back and then make an informed decision later. You're not making a call in the room. Rarely does that happen? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there there's, there's a time and place for quick, quick decisions, you know, but.

[00:45:30] For the most part, especially when it's, when it's project related or workflow related, you've got time, you know, you always have more time than you think you have. That's that's for definite actually, the first time I went deer hunting, that was the, the piece of advice. The guy that took me, gave me.

[00:45:48] And he said, you just, just remember, no matter what you think is going on, you'll always have a little bit more time than you think you do. And it holds true in a lot of, a lot of facets of life. I think.

[00:46:04] For sure, man. you know, we've, we've covered a big gamut today. We've talked, you know, culture, core values, and really like, you know, comes into your clients and building a team and conflicts, even somewhat in old versus kinda young construction and, some cultural differences. we're kind of coming up on a, I think a good point for, for this episode, but any, any closing words or any thoughts you want to add to this, you know, big topic of, of communication.

[00:46:36] yeah, and it's, it's, it's related to kind of the stories that I told today, but it's a, it's a quote from Abraham Lincoln. I read recently in a book, and the quote is that most people are about as happy as they make their minds up to be. And to me, that kind of hits the nail right on the head. By dealing with stress about culture, about community, about everything we've talked about today.

[00:46:59] So that one kinda struck a chord when I read it the other day.

[00:47:07] Yeah. I mean, which goes, so, Henry Ford Atawan that says, if you think you're right or you think you're wrong you're right, right. Or if you think you can, or if you think you can't you're right. Yup. Which I mean, it all goes, it all goes back to, and that's, this is going to be my wrap up is guys, you need to spend some time thinking through things, right?

[00:47:35] Asking and answering questions, being silent, trying to remove the stresses, the trigger points and what you're doing and trying to think through. Can you actually make a decision, right? Do you have enough information to make a decision on whatever it is? Right. Design construction. Workflows, whatever. Can you make a decision on it?

[00:47:56] And if you can't ask for the information and then wait, right. There's nothing you can do and just be okay with that. Be okay with not moving because probably not moving is going to be a better decision than doing something and having to rework it right. Going back to making assumptions, guessing all those types of things that it doesn't help anybody.

[00:48:20] Do anything. So take the step back, take some time, get out a pen and a piece of paper and write your thoughts down in silence. Put the phone away and ask and answer good questions. And that'll get you further than just about anything else we've talked about. Great advice, Dylan. Great advice, man. I will, we'll see you next week.

[00:48:45] All right guys. That's this episode of the construction corner podcast until next time. Yeah.