EP37: Changing The Image Of Construction

We're talking about the shitty image.

Well, could we enhance it?

Of course, of course. But I just want to let people know, I mean, there is a good side of construction and contracting. And I think it's, I'm going to bring a little twist to the whole conversation about good being bad, but is it really being bad? But ultimately, there's a lot of jackasses out there that bring down the good guys, create a poor image. You know, contractors never get back to you on time. They're jackasses. They leave the place a mess. I mean, that's, I need some work.

I can see that for sure. I mean, it's definitely prevalent because a lot of contractors are just winging it. They quit their day job. They think they're a badass carpenter or whatever. They go out and they don't know anything about business and they start running things and then they figure out that it's a lot harder than it is. And they get overburdened. You know, the funny thing is, Brad, is like a lot of those craftsmen, they're really good carpenters. And it could be carpenter, electrician, pond builder, handyman, I don't care. But the craftsmen can be like so good at their craft, but they're so horrible at business. And I think one of the first pitfalls is they don't charge enough. So what happens is, they get a lot of work. Like their phone's ringing off the hook. They can't handle the call load. And then they just stop answering phone calls and then they get overloaded. And then that starts the downfall of their image.

Everybody needs me.

Well, the funny thing is when they have to pay taxes the first time and they go, whoa, wait a minute. I was supposed to reserve that money? I don't even have it.

Yeah.

That's horrible. It's even worse when it says 80,000. You're like, I don't have 80 grand in the bank. What the hell? Where's that money? What the hell? Don't say that. What the hell? Don't say that. What the hell?

It's a TikTok meme. Come on.

I mean, I wouldn't call that hard. I've just been playing around.

I mean, this particular episode of changing the image of construction industry, Yeah. You know, it's tricky because listen, that false sense of success, bro, listen, you know, these guys might be making a thousand or 1200 a week. Right. And then suddenly they sell, they go out on their own. They sell a 10,000, $15,000 job and they just feel like a baller. Right. And then they're trying to put the pieces together. And then suddenly they're driving a nice vehicle and they're, you know, taking their family on vacation and they're like. They're like making up for lost time. Like they didn't make enough money in the past and now they're making it. Here's the tricky part, Brad, is they put out this false image of success to their peers in not only their friends and family, but their construction peers as well. Like, oh my God, that guy's balling. That guy's kicking ass. But the real truth is he's not, you know, it's just like all that fake Instagram stuff. You know, it's like people only show their good side. So there's this weird dichotomy of like the contractor who really is doing freaking horrible looks like a total baller to some other people. So the image on one side is like, wow, I want to be a contractor. I could drive a Raptor. But on the other side, he's not getting back to his customers. He's not paying his taxes. His vendors are chasing him for money. You know, it's this weird dichotomy of good and evil.

Yeah, I mean, that's... Is that the image of the business? Well, that's the good side. He looks like a baller, but then really maybe inside he has some turmoil, right?

Well, I'll have to Google that, but I imagine all the construction. I mean, bro, we've already had the podcast of like mental health being a problem in the industry and suicide and all that stuff. So, I mean, it's a tough business. I mean, this is no surprise. That's one of the reasons why we're pushing so hard to help change the industry, help contractors make more money, help people get back to their families and like regain control of their lives, right? So that's part of the image. So let's get back to the image. I don't know what industry you're talking about if we need to dig into that.

I get it. I get it. But look, there's also the image. okay, the vendors are mad because they're not getting paid on time. You're, you know, they're not getting their phone calls on time. That's a problem. But, you know, their peers in the business think that they're doing well. But what about the wives? Like, hey, my husband hasn't been home. He's missing all the games and then she's telling her friends. So that's a different image even yet, right? Like that personal image of the, of their friends and stuff. Like he's never home. He cheated on me. Like whatever. Like, right. There's like three different images happening right here. It can be crazy.

Well, I mean, I don't know that what we're going to say tonight is going to fix anything, but I want to defend myself. And I want to defend other good contractors that do struggle at some points. I remember it's been about probably over 25 years ago. I was growing a service business and I remember like hitting a wall and I could literally go back in time over the past 25 years and see these different points of my career and my business. I like to think I'm a good guy. I don't have any drug problems. I'm not hanging out the bars, crashing cars, getting DUIs. I mean, that's not what's happening, right? But there are times when I hit this threshold where I can't handle anymore and I'll miss some phone calls. I'll miss an appointment. I'll call up and go, oh crap, I'm really sorry. You probably think I'm a terrible contractor and I don't want your business. I have to get into this phone call with the people and accusation audit or whatever you want to call it. There's these times in my business where I've hit walls and had to reestablish systems, hire people to fix things. But I remember what I was going to tell you 25 years ago. I remember I was younger and I was talking to a different service guy in a different industry. He did auto detailing, high-end auto detailing. And I was doing high-end aquariums for doctors and lawyers and all this stuff. And we ran into each other because we had the same clientele. And he told me very clearly, I remember this very well. He's like, listen, if you hit this wall and you can't get to your people in a certain amount of time, it will affect you. People are not going to call you anymore because if they're referring you to people and you can't get to people on time and service them correctly, then they're going to stop referring you and it will affect your business. So you have to be really careful in these particular points in your business. And I can really look back and like, This has happened to me five, six, seven times in my career where I hit a wall, I start missing calls, and I have to make an adjustment. So there are times in people's careers where they are good contractors. The image could go sideways if you don't make the correction quickly.

Well, that's kind of what I'm trying to say is because here's the thing. When it gets difficult and when it gets hard, you have to grind it out and make an adjustment and make the correction. But some contractors, maybe they're going smooth for a while. They get in that tough spot and they don't grind it out and they don't make the correction and then they just go downhill from there. And that's why so many contracting businesses fail, right? You have to be able to... persevere. You have to have grit. You have to get through that. But what I want to say is some contractors listening to this podcast are good guys, good girls. They're good contractors, but they're going to face this stuff. And if they're not prepared for it, maybe they've never even come across what we've talked about yet. Now, that'll never happen to me, but it will. At some point, it does. When your brand becomes so strong and so good and you're so desirable and you are making money. then the phone's going to ring and you will hit a threshold where you struggle and you have to be able to find the perseverance and the strength to get to that next level. That's just sometimes how it is. But there are terrible contractors that make the good ones look bad. So it's, again, trying to find the dichotomy.

And image doesn't mean which car you're driving, which truck, is it the Raptor, what color it is. I mean, it does, but some guys think that that's all that matters. They might have that good front.

Well, see, this is where it gets dicey, Brad. Because maybe that guy you're talking about gets all his phone calls done on time, does all his invoicing perfectly. He doesn't go to the bars and get DUIs and get caught and go arrested and get drugged. Maybe this guy is perfect. Maybe he has just enough business. If his truck was nicer, he would get more business and he would run into trouble and he wouldn't be able to get to everybody. That's that business, right? So there's that image. But the image I was talking about is, you know, he's got the Raptor, he's all perfect, you know, but then he doesn't call his people back on time and that becomes a poor image. So this is where that tug of war comes in.

No. I can't believe it. Okay, listen. I'm going to go somewhere you probably didn't think I would go, but I'm not going to go there yet.

I just want to go back to something you said earlier before I go where I'm going to take you. It'll probably just piss you off too anyways. But anyways, the thing you said is like a lot of contractors have a shitty image and they screw everything up, but they have no idea. It's like, you know, on American Idol and the person comes up and they're singing and it's just like you're holding your eardrums. And, you know, Simon's like, that was the worst performance ever. You should just... stop singing and never do this again. And they're like, what are you talking about?

Yeah. I mean, and they're serious. That's what's, that's what's. I know.

Yeah. There are contractors like that out there.

So when I first started my, my service business doing aquariums for people, I didn't have any money. I left a good paying job. I had a little tiny Nissan Sentra. It was a piece of shit. And I drove around to all these high-end doctor's offices and lawyer's offices and these fancy neighborhoods and my little beater shit Nissan Sentra. And I drove that until it almost died. And actually, I used to load these jugs of salt water into the trunk and I would pull up to someone's house and I'd pull these jugs out, have salt water. The bottom of my car literally was rusting out. Like the jugs almost fell through the trunk. And that's how I started my business from total bootstrap, nothing. But I was treating my people nice. I was, came in, I was clean. I was respectful. You know, I took, I did great work. And then I was able to buy something better. And I got a little beater truck and then I got a nicer truck and then a nicer truck. And so, you know, here I am today,25 years later, and I got a pretty nice truck. And I got seven other trucks that are not as nice as my truck, but it's like, that's what it took to get there. So when you talk about the guy coming up in the beater shithole truck, I'm like, that sounds like me 25,30 years ago.

So you have to be careful about being judgmental about that guy that's in the beater truck.

You're in your small town town of Indiana and you see the same guy and like 10 years later, he's in the same beater truck and he's not coming up and he's got beer cans rolling around in the back seat and, you know, all the papers and McDonald's wrappers, you know, it's the same guy. But I mean, it hits me in the heart when you're like, yeah, you can't come up and be like, that's how I came up.

Well, you know, I mean, if it's the same mantra, you know, the same dirty guy with a shitty shirt on and, you know, looking for the weekend and his clients are still pissed off, but he makes just enough money to get by. And so, I mean, we'll look at what can we do to change this? This is our goal is to change the image of the construction industry. What can we do? What kind of actionable steps can we tell people to do? Quit being a jackass. What do we do?

So I have another twist to the plot here, Brad. So I'd like to think that I have my shit together. I call people back on time. I try and do my best, all this stuff, right? And so I do end up with high-end clients. clients that have beautiful homes, amazing cars, families, everything you want on vacations. At the end of the job, they're breaking out a $200 bottle of whiskey to have a glass, a cocktail with you and say thank you. Really high-end stuff, right? But these same people in the same communities hire people with beater shit trucks because they can save money. Exactly. But they will hire that. You'll get some high-end person driving amazing vehicles, hire that shitty truck because they know that they can get a good deal. And it just depends on the service that they want.

Well, that's what I'm saying. So that's...

Dude, the same contractor is like, oh, I got high-end clients, bro. They drive all these fancy cars and they're in this upper echelon area. Some of these contractors don't even know what echelon means, but it's like they think they're like... I got the best clients because I'm so badass and I'm making money. Exactly.

Some of my favorite jeans have holes in them. Don't talk shit about jeans with holes. I got some badass pants with holes in them.

So basically you're just saying if contractors start charging more, that'll fix their image.

It's red shirt Friday. Bring on the troops.

Almost everything that you've mentioned here, you know, and just to prime the audience, you know, like we come up with topics, we talk about it a little bit. We like have a couple of bullet points, but then, you know, Brad and I argue about certain things and we have different perspectives and point of views, but like everything that you've mentioned to me so far can be corrected if they charge the right amount of money. Are you thinking that through? If they knew their numbers?

Yeah. Every time I hit a wall in my business career, like moving up the ladder, like if I wasn't charging enough money and I couldn't hire staff to help me with taxes or help. answering phones or help with billing or whatever, it would have hindered me in my ability to not only perform well at my craft, but to get back to customers on time. So it kind of comes back to being able to charge enough to be able to scale your business and hire correctly. So listen, I'm going to try and make this story as short as possible, but I think it's really relevant here. You talked about people fronting and everything, and I think that's been part of our podcast today. For over two decades, I've been... involved with peers in the pond industry and been hitting conventions like year after year after year. So anyways, one of the guys that I've been knowing for 20 years in all these conventions, when you see him, you're like, man, this guy's got his shit together. Man, he's doing these big projects. Man, he's really, he must be killing it. And he gives that persona, I'm killing it, I'm doing all this stuff. And some of my pond peers that might listen to this podcast know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm not going to mention any names, but... He got cancer a couple of years ago and he passed away just recently. Okay. It was terrible. And when the dust settled, he was such a, he was such a cool person that everyone loved him and everyone was involved. Like what happened? What do we do? What about his wife? How can we help? He had a pond project, like opened up still and needed to be finished. And so everyone in the community was like, well, let's go finish this pond for him and his wife. This man that we all loved and thought was doing amazing. He was fucking destitute, bro. His wife didn't have anything. No life insurance. She had to sell the house to be able to get enough money to get a small place. I mean, he had nothing. No money in the bank. He couldn't finish the project. The community had to go out and finish the pond for him and bail his wife out of it. I literally could cry right now because he was a good dude. And unfortunately... He was fronting this shit for 20 years. Like who wants to live like that? You know what I mean? So what I'm trying to say is like, quit your fronting. If you're out there and you don't have retirement set up, you're fronting. If you don't have life insurance for your family, you're fronting. And if that insurance doesn't cover your expenses and your machines and all the assets that you're trying to buy from the bank, if you can't cover that shit, if something goes wrong with you, then you're fronting, you know, and you're screwing up the whole image for the industry. You're screwing up the image for your family and your friends and your community and your peers. So quit fronting. Get your shit together.

One of my peers in the industry, his father, Started the business, you know, like 30 something years ago, maybe 35 years ago. They got to a point and they have a great name and all this stuff. They've been, they're amazing business. Actually, I look up to them quite a bit. There was at some point when the son, who's more of my personal friend than the dad, but there was a certain point where they got to a certain level where they seeked some mentorship and coaching and they were basically like, you need to double your prices. And the dad was like, we can't do that. Oh my gosh, blah, blah, blah. And so they talked the dad into it. They doubled the prices. They didn't lose any customers. Okay. And then they went six more months and the mentor told them, double your prices again. You didn't lose a single customer. Your prices are still too cheap. They doubled their prices again, six months later, and they lost a few customers, but they kept everyone else. And then they like leveled out and it completely like morphed. their company because they finally hit the threshold of where now they found the sweet spot where their good customers were still helping. They were still servicing them. The other customers flipped off and they went and got the guy with the beater truck with a shitty car and the saltwater tanks are coming through the guy's trunk, you know, and then it just leveled out. And it just, again, it morphed their business.

Well, they never morphed. They never looked for help. They never, they didn't read a book. They didn't listen to podcasts. You know, they didn't, you know, look up to inspirational things. You know, like, you know, if you just, if you run through life with blinders on, you're going to get to the end of the tunnel. And your wife's going to be destitute without you. And you're going to have nothing. Okay? So take the blinders off and wake up and think about what you're doing. Raise your prices. Get focused. Put some perseverance on and show up on the days that you don't want to show up and get the shit done. Grind it out.

I do think that's a little rough. That's a tough one, Brad, because if you ask your friends, it's going to be kind of biased. So that is a tough one. But if you're very aware and you have some self-awareness, you can kind of get that from people.

Okay. Well, how about this? How do we find the Simon Cowell of contracting to audit someone's business? You know what I mean? Because if you were a singer and you went to, you know, Simon Cowell would just tell you, you're amazing or you suck. And so like, how do you find that? It's just, I'm saying it's a little tough. Well, I mean, they should call you, right? You're the Simon Cowell of construction.

That's good advice, Brad, is coming to a group where, you know, you can get some other feedback and you can get some people who don't know you that well. But I kind of got it like, hey, ask your friends and like that. So, I mean, I think being-No,

There's proof I wasn't listening to you. Like I normally don't. No,

Listen, so the next thing is that you need to audit your job costing. Like, are you making enough money? Like, you need to do that. A lot of people don't want to do that. It's hard. It's a pain in the ass. It sucks, you know, but people, you need to do that. You need to audit in job costs and figure out if you're making enough money.

Yeah. And I mean, just to give you some numbers there, this is actionable stuff. I mean... If you're not making at least a minimum, bare minimum,35%, you might as well just quit and go work for someone else. If you're making 35% up, then now we can have a conversation.

Gross profit, yeah. If you're making somewhere 35% to 45%,50%, then you have a business that can be sustainable. Anything below that, you really need to audit and self-evaluate hardcore.

Yeah. I mean, Brad tells me I suck all the time. I don't always listen to him. I listen to him a lot, but not always.

Let's talk about this. Let's audit your time. Like, are you going home and are you partying all weekend with your buddies? Or are you like doing a little bit of work on your business? Are you thinking about, are you doing any reading on stuff? Are you looking at job costing? Are you looking at profit first books and things like that? Are you doing, are you driving to the job site and just... screaming lamb of God as you're driving down the street. Sometimes I do that.

Or are you like, someone told me about that the other day. They're like, you're not watching Squid Games. I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Are you kidding me? Or, I mean, or, but I mean, are you listening to audio books while you're on the road? Are you listening to podcasts? I'd like to think that our audience that's listening is like in that upper deck people.

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