Episode•March 16, 2026•37 min

EP262 (Replay): The Harsh Realities of stating a Construction Business

Starting a business usually begins with excitement and big dreams. You imagine the freedom, the success, and the satisfaction of building something that’s truly your own. It’s easy to feel unstoppable in the beginning, but every entrepreneur eventually hits a different phase of the journey. In this episode, Brad talks about: Realities of starting and owning a construction business. Overview of the five stages: uninformed optimism, informed pessimism, valley of despair, success, and fulfillment. Common misconception of views in business ownership Personal anecdotes illustrating the struggles faced by contractors. How financial stability can alleviate stress and improve business operations. Introduction of the Profit Accelerator program for affordable business coaching. Link to Resources: This episode is sponsored by iGUIDE — the smarter way to capture, measure, and market your projects. With accurate floor plans, immersive 3D tours, and detailed property data, iGUIDE helps contractors and real estate professionals showcase their work with confidence and precision. Learn more at https://hammerandgrind.com/iguide Grab Brad's tell-all book: The Contractor Profit Blueprint https://thecontractorprofitblueprint.com Help us get the word out to other contractors by leaving us a review or sharing our podcast! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Transcript

0:01

If I knew everything that I was going to go through before I started my construction business, I would not have started the business. Hey, it's Brad here. It's 2026 and you're still using a tape measure and grid paper to do your drawings. That's why I'm excited to tell you about today's sponsor, iGUIDE. With the iGUIDE Planix R1 camera and laser system, you can capture an entire home in about 45 minutes. all of your measurements, photos, and a detailed floor plan all at once. No hand sketches, no guessing, no more, was that wall 10 foot or was it nine foot? Or, oh man, I forgot to measure the window offset. You just hit start and walk away. That's it. You're starting the job with accurate as-builds. And you can export straight to DXF, DWG, or RVT files so you and your team can get to work immediately. Miss something? Well, you don't have to worry about that because it's all right there in virtual land waiting for you. This is how you avoid costly mistakes. This is how you reduce change orders. And this is how you run a tighter operation. And more importantly, it's how you protect your margins. If you're serious about operating like a pro in 2026, it's time to upgrade. Go to hammerandgrind. com forward slash iGUIDE. That's I-G-U-I-D-E. to order your iGUIDE Planix R1 camera today and start running your jobs the right way. Hey, welcome back to the podcast. This episode is going to be a gut punch, but it's going to be worth it, guys. I hope you stick with me to the end, but there's some really real stuff that we got to talk about on this episode. We're talking about the things that people don't tell you about starting and owning a construction business and things that you need to know about and then how to get past these, okay? These are things that nobody tells us about. There is a chart called the emotional cycle of change. And there's five stages that everyone goes through anytime there's a change in their life. So starting a business is a change, right? And so this is uniformly, this is, yeah, uniformly, is that right? This is, this applies to every situation, okay? So you have to understand that when you start a business, the very first thing that you're going to go through, the very first emotion is, called Uninformed Optimism. You are super excited about starting a business, but yet you don't know anything about the business. You don't know anything about running the business. You don't know anything about the hardships and all the stuff that's going to happen. And that's a good thing. It's honestly by design because to be honest with you, if I knew everything that I was going to go through and all of the stuff I had to learn and all of the growth and all of the pain, if I knew all of that before I started my construction business, I would not have started the business. So I believe that this is on purpose. It's, in other words, uninformed optimism, where you can call it being naive about it. And so we do those, we start a business without realizing it. Now, this is not to try and persuade you from starting a business if you're listening to this, but it is to get across a point that it's going to be much, much, much harder than what you probably think it is. There are a lot of people, a lot of contractors, some of you listening this to right now, that should not own a construction business. You are romanced. You romanticized about the idea of owning your business and you started it. But what you really, really wanted was to be a lead guy with full autonomy. That's what you really are seeking. You're seeking the ability. to be an employee. In other words, have the responsibility of being an employee, but then having all of the benefits of owning a business. And that's not how it works. I recently was mentoring and helping a young contractor who wanted to get into contracting. He had moved here from a different state for his wife was in school. And I met with him and he's like, I want to start my own business. And I said, look, I'll help you do this, you know, and I'll, you know, I'll have 24 hour,24 seven access to me and my knowledge and my programs and my training. The only thing I ask for is that I can film some of our sessions and, you know, use it as content in social media. So some of the videos that I posted have had him in there, maybe not on screen, but you've heard him in the background talking. And that was part of the deal. Now, at the end, after about a year or so, he decided, him and his wife decided to move back home. And so that business relationship that he had started here was terminated. But during that time, he realized how hard it is to own a business. And when it was all said and done, when he moved back home, he basically told me, I really just want to be a subcontractor. Like I just want to do the work and not have to talk to people and not have to go get my own leads and do my own marketing and deal with all that stuff. I really just want to be a craftsman and, you know, be able to take my time and work on the tools and do these things. And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be a craftsman, with wanting to work on the tools, but you can't kid yourself here. You can't be a craftsman. And then also want to be a business owner and have the benefits of both worlds, right? It doesn't work like that. Now, one of my clients in the Profit Club, we were just having this conversation yesterday of recording this. And he's thinking about changing his niche, what he wants to do. Now, he's a carpenter by trade, but he was doing some remodels and different things. He's like, I think I want to do more, you know, just be a finished carpenter, like just be a sub and just. practice doing, you know, do the finished carpentry. And at the end of the conversation, we find out that he used to work in the restaurant industry and he's a sommelier. Like he was, he's a trained sommelier, which, which is someone that knows about wine. You know, they can, you know, you go to a fancy restaurant, sommelier comes out and says, Hey, this is the kind of wine that's going to work with the food you're eating. And the, the niche that we talked about is wine sellers. Like he is a find, you know, trim carpenter who wants to do high quality type work. And we talked about wine cellars and we're like, everyone on the call was like, dude, what do you like? You have to do wine cellars. I mean, you understand wine and how it has to be stored and what the purpose is and all that better than anyone else on this call or any other craftsman for that matter, trim carpenter. And so it opened up this whole niche world where he can now be more of an artist and do these high, high-end wine cellars. And you maybe only have to do two or three a year. Like you get paid 50,100 grand for a wine cellar. You only got to do two or three or four a year and you can have an amazing life doing that. That's like a one percenter. That's not reality for most people. That's more of an artistic track than it is. like business owner of a construction company track. Okay. So I just throw it out there to let you know, like, if you think that's going to be you, that's the equivalent of you thinking you're going to play in professional sports because you can, you know, shoot three pointers. You just assume you're going to play in the NBA. Like that's not reality. Most people don't make it. Right. So we got to set some like realities here of who we're talking to. Because everyone always thinks they're the exception of the rule. Oh, I'm going to be that guy. I'm going to be the guy that specializes in wine cellars and does that and makes millions of dollars and becomes famous and travels the world doing it for celebrities and blah, blah, blah. There's probably one person that does that in the entire world. And it's probably not you. So we got to set some realities. Now, this isn't to like say you're not capable. It's just a reality of winning the lottery. Like there are so many things that have to go in place for that to happen. So when you start a business and you're in this uninformed optimism, you think it's going to be great. You're going to start your business. You're going to throw a magnet on your truck. The phone's just going to ring off the hook and you're just going to make a crap ton of money. And you're going to retire by a, you know, your brand new F-350, put four inch lift kit and your 33s or whatever, you know, tires on their rims and you're going to be a baller. That's what you think is going to happen. And that doesn't, that's not what happens. For most people, again, there's always exceptions, but there's always like these right circumstances that happen. I get so frustrated. This is a tangent. I get, I mean, just like you guys, I get bombarded in my social media feed with contractor business coaches that are going to, you know, try to sell you crap. I get frustrated by them. It's no different than when we have another contractor that you know is a scam artist or that does crappy work and you know they're out there taking advantage of people. I see the same in the coaching space. I see it. It drives me nuts. I wish I could get rid of them. I see people out there talking about, here's how I built a $200 million business and we're going to teach you everything you need to know. And I do a little bit of research about them and you find out that they went into the solar panel business and they had some connections that allowed them to get big contracts. And then you do a little more digging and you find out that there's several lawsuits against them for defrauding people and lying and breaking the law. And it makes sense. From the outside looking in, you see somebody who looks super successful, but then you do the due diligence and you dig a little deep and you see that they made their money by ripping people off. Right. And so you see that glamour. You think it's going to be all, you know, rainbows and sunshine. And it's a lie. It's a straight up lie. This is the Reality Check podcast. Now, I'm not saying there aren't successful people who are doing good out there. There are. And I can name them for you. One of those on my podcast, Brian Gottlieb, great guest. You know, he exited his businesses for over $100 million exit. He's a phenomenal person. Like. very high integrity, super nice. I mean, he's just, he is a great person in general and has had a lot of success. And, you know, anything that he has to say, put out there, I would endorse it because he's a good person. But I see people every day lying. They use paid actors in their commercials. It's so obvious, you know, but anyways, I digress. I'm just telling you, I get frustrated with all the gurus and bull crap out there as well. So. What are we talking about here? What is the purpose of this podcast? I want to just give you some hard realities if you're new in business. Because maybe, just maybe, you need to close your business and go work for someone else. There's nothing wrong with that. There's absolutely nothing wrong with working for someone else. Some people aren't cut out to be a business owner. That's just a reality. If I can save you from 3,5,10 years of heartache, and, you know, just sheer pain only for you to figure out that where you should be is a lead guy, then maybe this is worth it. Okay. But even if you don't plan on ever quitting or selling or getting out of business, there's value in this podcast. So just make sure you stay with me. Don't exit just yet. Okay. So here's, here's a list of things that people aren't going to tell you that can happen in your business. No one's going to tell you that you're going to get rejected a lot. You're going to have a lot of people tell you no. And if you are always used to getting what you want, or if you don't like rejection, that could be tough for some people. But you're going to get rejected. You're going to have people cuss at you. That's going to happen at some point, right? You're going to have people tell you no. You're going to have people lie to you. You're going to have people take advantage of you. That's just... part of it. It's going to happen. You're going to have sleepless nights. You're going to be laying in bed, stressed out of your mind, trying to figure out how you're going to survive the next day. It's going to happen. You're going to feel overwhelmed. There's going to be times where you feel overwhelmed. I mean, completely overwhelmed to the point of almost shutting down. This is why there's a lot of addictions in construction. Lots of guys. They solve this through alcohol or drugs or smoking or pornography or gambling or hobbies, whatever. They solve this through those things. This is why you see a lot of people smoking. I mean, because they're trying to offset the stress. Okay. This is a reality, guys. This is true reality. Some of you listening are alcoholics. Some of you listening are doing drugs because you're trying to offset the stress. Not because you want to do those things, but because you're trying to offset the stress. Feeling of overwhelm. The dreaded 6 a. m. text from your lead guy that says, boss, I got a headache. I'm not going to be able to come in today. And you're like starting a new project. And the lead guy is supposed to be running this project. And you have three other sales calls that you're supposed to go do or estimates or whatever. And now your entire day just goes to shit, right? You're going to get those. It's going to happen. You're going to get the, you know, when you give someone a discount, you do a job and things don't go well. And you're like, you know what this, I don't want to charge them as much because the guys drag their feet or whatever the reason is like, I'm going to do a good thing for this person and just knock some off the, you know, off the bill. I'm going to knock a couple hundred dollars off the bill because I feel like we overcharged them. And then after you do that, the customer calls and says that you're a scam artist and you're ripping them off after you already gave them a discount. You know, they didn't know you were giving them a discount, but now they're calling you a scam artist. You're going to have that happen. Okay. When you have to replace two motors in the same year, when your vehicle motors blow up in two different vehicles and you have to replace those in the same year, that's going to happen. When your truck is completely paid off and you know, you've replaced one of the motors and you've replaced the transmission. It's fully wrapped and you're like, I'm going to keep this vehicle until the wheels fall off. Even if I go buy a new vehicle, I'm going to keep this one as a backup, you know, a parked runner or whatever. This is the vehicle. It's paid off. It's running good. And then you get T-boned in an intersection by someone who runs a red light and totals out your truck and you get one eighth of the value back. You have about, you know, $30,000 in this vehicle. And you get like $4,000 back, right? That stuff's going to happen to you. You're going to have a lead guy that quits in the middle of a job. And now that you thought you were off the tools, guess what? You got to go back on the tools until you find a new one, train them up. It's a three to six month process. It's going to happen, right? When you have employees that just like throw away perfectly good materials, you know, hundreds of dollars worth of materials because they really just didn't want to like, put it in the trailer or pack it back up or take it back to the store. So we'll just throw this stuff away because it's much easier. They didn't pay for it. You know, the customer paid for it. Who cares? When you get a call from the police that one of your employees was in a hit and run, you know, and they obviously saw your vehicle because it's wrapped and they call and say, hey, you know, he was in a hit and run. That stuff's going to happen. They don't tell you about that, but that stuff's going to happen. When you get calls, texts, and emails from clients at all hours of the day, I mean, all hours of the day, expecting you to be there on the drop of a dime and answering all of their concerns. When your family has to leave on vacation without you because you have to stay a couple more days to finish your project, and then you fly down two days later to catch up with them because, like I said, you've got to finish the project. They don't tell you about that. They don't tell you about all the sacrifice of that. They don't tell you about the dinners that you're going to eat that are cold because you got home late. They're not going to tell you about all the kids' activities you're going to miss because you had to go deal with something or go to an estimate. They don't tell you about when you have no money in the bank and you got bills to pay the next day, thousands of dollars worth of bills to pay. They don't tell you when you have no work lined up and you have employees who depend on you to provide for their family and the stress that goes with that. These are things that no one tells you that's going to happen to you when you start a business. Some of you, if I just read these off, like if you came to me and was like, Brad, I want to start a business. And I said, okay, cool. These are things that are going to happen to you. Is that what you want to do? And they're going to be like, nope, screw that. Maybe I don't want to start a business. And that's okay. Not everybody is cut out for owning a business. This is the part I'm trying to drive home. Owning a business is not all glitz and glam. It's not all Lambos and mansions. Yes, that stuff happens. Yes, it will come to you. But most of the time, people break before they get to that point. They break. They quit. They give up because they just can't continue to deal with that struggle. When it's every single day, you know, when these things happen, and that's just like in one year of business, all of these things happen to you, you know, or a couple years in business, that's a lot, guys. That is a lot of things to deal with. And if you don't have the mental fortitude, if you don't have a strong mind, it will break you. It will absolutely break you.

18:37

Hey, just a quick time out from the show. If you're a frustrated contractor who's dealing with low profit margins, stuck working on the tools every day or doing free estimates for people who are never going to hire you in the first place, I invite you to my private contractor community. the profit club where contractors just like you are adding two to three times more profit each year without producing any more jobs and finally getting completely off the tools to never do another free estimate again. So if you're ready to increase your profits, stop doing free estimates and get off the tools, then all you have to do is click the link in the show notes to learn more about the profit club. and see how it can easily two to three times the cash in your pocket, give you a proven sales process that will convert more jobs with ease and get you off the tools once and for all. And the best part is you can do all of this without having to produce more jobs than you currently are. Click the link to learn more. Now let's get back to the show.

19:31

Stage one is uninformed optimism. Stage two is informed pessimism. It means you've been doing it long enough that these things are starting to happen to you. But you're not making money and you start to see this light of, holy crap, this is hard work. I don't know if I'm ever going to make money. It's just all doom and gloom all the time. That's informed pessimism. And then you get to the valley of despair. It's a stage three. Valley of despair is where people jump off the train. They quit because it's literally despair. You know, it's like being lost in the desert and you look around everywhere for hundreds of miles. It's just desert. And you don't know which direction to go to get to the closest civilization. You just give up. You're like, what's the point? No matter which direction I go, I'm going to die. That's the valley of despair. That's the point when people give up on their business. What's interesting about this is that most entrepreneurs have had six to seven failed businesses before they actually find one that works. And whenever you start a new business or a new venture, guess where you start at? You start at uninformed optimism. I'm going through this right now. I am in uninformed optimism because I'm looking at starting a new business for my son who wants to learn about business. And so we are looking at getting into the vending machine business, just having a few machines. We're not going to get rich off of it. It's not the purpose of this business is not to grow it and have this huge business. It's for my son. to learn how business works, for him to go work and fill the machines and get that experience, to understand markup and all that stuff. This is a business to teach business, if that makes sense. But right now, I am in uninformed optimism because I don't know anything about the vending machine business. By the way, if any of you have that, if you have experience, please let me know. Please reach out to me and tell me your horror stories and what I should be expecting. Now, I'm not going into this blind. I've done some research, but no amount of research is going to actually prepare you for what's about to happen. I am in uninformed optimism. Even though I may be more informed about business and problems, I'm still uninformed about the whole scope of problems. I'm living in uninformed optimism right now. Now, we haven't 100% decided to do this, but we're getting very close to making that decision, right? And I'm sure I'll have some information and share some of those things if we do that. For my son, by the way, my son's eight. So he's eight years old. He wants to learn about business. I'm going to do everything I can to help him learn about that because I didn't have anyone speaking into me about business when I was a little kid. And I wish someone did. I really wish someone did. I actually started a lawn care business when I was 16 and still in high school. And, you know, I have my own routes, cut the grass. I made okay money for that age, but no one spoke to me to keep doing it. I wish someone had said, Brad, keep doing this because it's going to pay off for you. Nobody did. And I ended up quitting after a couple of years of doing it because I didn't think it was going to go anywhere. Right. So that's why I'm trying to set this up for my son. And I'm trying to also be realistic about this. Like, I want him to have failures. I want him to have sacrifices. I want him to realize like we had this conversation yesterday. I think I was like, son, if we do this, you realize that like after school. We have to go fill the machines before you get to go play with your friends. Like you don't just get to do whatever you want. And then whenever you want to do this, you can like there's responsibilities. And so like that's, again, teaching these moments for him. So this stuff happens. All the stuff I mentioned, which, by the way, everything I mentioned before that can happen to you actually happened to me. Every single one of those things happened to me. I went through all of them. And that's not everything. That's just a random selection of things that happened to me. You're going to have struggles. If your why is not strong enough and you don't want to do this, you're going to have struggles. Now, here's the part of the episode where it starts to help you and why I want you to hang out. You have to make money. You have to have a profitable business in order to keep these things that I listed from breaking you. Because I promise you, if you're like, I got to pay a bunch of bills in the morning. I haven't had work for two weeks, right? I've been paying my guys to sweep the shop for two weeks because the jobs aren't coming in. We're not making sales. But I have $50,000 or $100,000 in my emergency fund for my business. That is a different feeling than I have $1,000 in the bank and I have to do this. Those are two different worlds. When you're profitable. You can solve these problems without the added stress that goes with it. Now, not everything. If your lead guy texts you that he's not coming in and you don't have anybody that can step in, yeah, you're going to have to fill in that day. But when your motor blows up and you can go write a check, it doesn't matter, right? And you have the money, it doesn't matter. Is it fun? No. But you can show up to these problems with money and not be stressed about what has to happen. When you have money, you can solve a lot of these problems and prevent them from happening. When you have money, you don't have to miss kids' activities because you can schedule estimates and on-site consults during working hours because you're not on the tools, because you're making enough money to hire good people to pay them well to deal with those problems that you don't have to. You know, I remember distinctly one time we were moving stuff in the shop and one of my guys, Just, you know, haphazardly grabbed something that was next to a bag of tile stuff. And I had a, I had a, I think it was a 25 pound bag of power grout, brand new bag for a job coming up. He grabs it, rips it. Actually, I take it back. It was a return. It was extra. It was going to go back to the store. He grabs it, rips the bag, $50 down the drain. Like, cause you can't return it. Those bags cost 50 bucks or at least they did. Like, and I remember like getting upset because like, dude, you just, you just wasted $50 right there. Now, nobody likes, again, nobody likes eating money. But if you have money in the bank, it's like, oh, well, stuff happens. You know, let's make sure it doesn't happen again. If you don't have money and every dollar that's spent, it hurts. I mean, it hurts. And when you lose 50 bucks or $200 or you buy a brand new tool, and they break it or lose it on the second day you have it, that stuff stings. It hurts. Financially, it hurts you. It's like basically stealing from your family when you don't have money. When you have a profitable business, you can keep a lot of these things from happening. And if they do happen, it doesn't bother you because you have money. You have to have a profitable business. It's a non-negotiable, guys. I know some of you think that, oh, I do it because I love it. And, you know, I'm not trying to rip people off, Brad. I just rather have a charity and do things for people at a discount than actually make money because I don't need much money. You know, I live in a conversion van and, you know, I have a 1982 Ford that I drive. I don't need much money. So I go do work for people and only charge them 15 bucks an hour. If that's you, you do you. That is not a business. I mean, you literally are running a charity, right? But think about this for a second. Let's say that you, you want to live in a van down by the river and you want to drive a 1982 Ford pickup and you only need like $500 a month to live off of. Great. What could you do if you charged appropriately and your business was making say $10,000 a month in profit, right? Now, most people would take that money and use it. But you, because you only need $500 a month to live off of, you have your businesses making an extra 10 grand a month, $120,000 a year. How much good could you do with that money? How many charities could you help out? How many projects could you do for your community? You could do a lot. You could do a lot with that money. But whenever you're only charging someone $15 an hour and you're barely making any money, those people are keeping the money. Right. Those clients are keeping that ten thousand dollars a month that you could get. What do you think they're doing with that ten thousand dollars? You think they're donating it to charity? You think they're doing good with it? No, they're buying more crap off Amazon. They're buying more expensive vehicles. They're not doing good with that money. They're using it for their own lifestyle. Selfishly, you could be the person that takes that money and does even better. But for whatever reason, you want to live broke because you think that's like being a martyr for humanity. Guys, business is about making money. I've never met someone who is philanthropic. Is that how you say that? My brain's not working today, guys. You got to give me some slack. Philanthropic, people that donate money. I've never met someone who does that, who is not rich. I got newsflash for you. You're $40 a month. that you donate to your charity is not really doing anything for them. I mean, it's really not. Most charities are supported through large donations of millionaires and billionaires or, you know, corporations that donate money. That's why you see your local ball fields. It doesn't say Brad's construction, you know, paid for this $10,000 scoreboard. It doesn't say, you know, Brad's construction paid for this scoreboard. It says local hospital pay for the scoreboard. Local biggest, you know, insert biggest warehouse or manufacturing company pay for the scoreboard because they're trying to offset their assets, you know, their profits. So they don't get hit with big tax bills. They give back to the community. Rich people, rich organizations donate to the nonprofits, not you and your $40 a month. Okay. I'm just, I'm being honest with you. Use money to elevate your life. And then once you elevate your life, reach down and help others do the same. That is how this works. You can't do this in business without making money. You can't deal with all of the stress, all of the problems, everything that happens with owning a business if you're not profitable. I lived through this stuff for many years in business, struggling, you know, barely paying myself money because Quote, I'm trying to build my business and I put all my money back into the business to grow it, which is code for, I really didn't know what the hell I was doing and I'm not making enough money. And so I'm lying to myself every day, looking in the mirror that I'm growing the business so that at some point in the future, hopefully I will make more money. That's what's actually happening here. You're hoping that in the future it pays off. And those of you that live in the Valley of Despair long enough, It doesn't pay off and you quit. But you went through five years of misery to finally quit. Why? Who wants to do that? Every day I talk to contractors like, man, I'm struggling in my business. I'm like, cool, man, come get coaching. Let's turn this ship around and make it worth it. Oh, well, you know, someday, someday I will. Okay. You know what I instantly think? You're going to go out of business. I follow up in six months, a year later, guess what? They close the shops. Why? I don't know. They think it's just going to magically happen someday. Newsflash, there is no someday. There's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. There is no someday on the calendar. You guys are lying to yourself. I mean, you really are lying to yourself. If you think this stuff's going to happen on its own organically, it's not. You have to have very intentional, very purposeful direction and goals and insight and knowledge. And you can turn this machine, your business, into a very profitable endeavor for you and your family and your employees. And then once you do that, then you spread the wealth to other people and help them out as well. This is the reality of it, guys. If you just want to be a craftsman and work on the tools, then do that. Don't own a business. You're not going to be able to quote. I laugh because I thought this stuff too. You're not going to be able to, you know, manage your own schedule. That's the biggest crock of crap you'll ever meet. Entrepreneurs are the only people that I know that will work 80 hours a week just to avoid working 40 hours a week for someone else. And they lie that, well, at least I get to manage my own schedule. Yeah, your own schedule of being a prisoner in your own business. It's like being in a prison, but you could get to tell the guards when you want to eat lunch and take a break and when you want to work. You're still in a prison, right? The prison, whoever, the warden's like, yeah, sure, no problem. You want to eat at 2 p. m. when everything's cold? That's cool. We'll set your food aside and you can eat it cold. You're like, oh, I'm in charge of my own time in prison. That's what entrepreneurship is like when you don't have a clue what you're doing. Guys, this is why I wrote the book. This is why I wrote my book and why it's... titled the Contractor Profit Blueprint. It's not titled how to own a glitz and glamorous business. It's not titled how to build a business that allows you to buy Lambos and mansions. It's not titled that. It's titled the Profit Blueprint because you need profit in your business. And then what you do with that profit is totally up to you. If you want to use it for good, use it for good. If you want to use it for evil, it's going to come back and bite you eventually. That's on you. It's not me to tell you how to use your money. But I promise you, your life and your business is 100 times easier when you have money than when you don't have money. Guys, that's all I got for today. I hope this was helpful. There's positivity on the other side. Once you get through the valley of despair, then you step into informed optimism. You can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have many clients use that phrase with me. I can start to see the light. Just yesterday, one of my clients was like, I'm so grateful for this. You know, I start to see the light for the first time in my life. I can see the light. I can see how this is going to work. And then the last stage is success and fulfillment. That's where you have the success. It's fulfilling. And then you get to, you know, spread that to others. That's the goal. Don't give up in the valley of despair. Ask for help. Right. This is what I hope you guys do. Also. For those of you that are looking for help, but you are on a tight budget, that's why I just launched the Profit Accelerator. It's my brand new coaching program. That's only $97 a month. You get four calls, group coaching calls, a month every week. There's a marketing call. We're going to help you with marketing. There's two Q &As. We're going to help you with things that are happening in your business. And then there's a sales training call. We're actually going to teach you how to be good at sales so that you can charge more for your services. There's also a ton of other free givvies in there. I'm gonna give you lots of content and training. And it includes a free profit audit from me where I look at your estimate. You send me your estimates, you send me your P &L. I look at it, I record a loom and I tell you exactly what you need to do. How to structure your estimates so that you can sell jobs at a higher profit margin and look at your profit and loss and make sure you're not all jacked up with your expenses and things that are going on. That's also included for $97 a month. Once we get to 100 people, the price will double. You have no more. You have excuses of, I can't afford it. I can't afford to get coaching. It's $97 a month, guys. It is way too cheap for the value that you get. So don't wait on that because once again, when it gets to 100, it's going to double in price. If you want more advanced help in your business, that's where the profit club comes in. That's where we're really going to dive in and just... basically strap rockets to your business and launch you to profits. Reach out if you need help. Don't sit in the corner by yourself and think it's going to go away. It's not. Thanks for hanging out, guys. You know where to find me on the socials, Hammer and Grind Podcast. And remember until next time, profits is not a dirty word.