EP6: Transitioning from Craftsman to Businessman

Let's see if we can get some tears out of Eric tonight.

Yeah, so this is an interesting topic, right? Why would someone... want to transition from being a craftsman to a businessman? You know, we've talked about off the mic about different reasons, but what do you think? I mean, why would somebody want to transition? Why not just stay a craftsman the rest of your career?

So once you decide that you can do better on your own. That's where you get that seed of wanting to become a businessman. Is that what you're saying?

That's an interesting way of looking at it. I mean, I think there's some people that come out of their mom's womb wanting to be entrepreneurs, you know what I mean? And then they just somehow figure out or fall into the trades and then ultimately plan on being a businessman.

Yeah. And that's pretty much what I did. I mean, I consider myself a businessman first and then a craftsman second. Even though I started out in the trades about 15 years ago, I was, you know, I started out in the trades. But I always consider whenever I started my business, when I made the decision, I'm going to start my own business. I always consider myself a businessman first and a craftsman second.

So it's interesting, though. I mean, even though I consider myself a businessman first, I still had to go through the craftsman phase. I basically had to start out as a craftsman and then make the transition to businessman. And we'll talk about that here in a little bit. But, you know, basically going from out in the field into the office. Right. I mean, that's kind of the easiest way to talk about the transition. But what you're saying is that some people are just born entrepreneurs and some people are born craftsmen. And then they decide one day I could do better than where I'm at. I'll just start my own business. Yeah. For sure. I get that right or did I mess that all up?

Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, you built your whole identity around it, right? The pond digger. I mean, you literally in your name are, you build ponds, you dig ponds. Like you can't even, even if you were to go into your office full time, your entire identity around the business is built around you working out in the field.

Yeah, I mean, I still enjoy, you know, going back out in the field on certain things. So, I mean, I do like that aspect of it. I mean, I do like to build things and work with my hands. I get tired sometimes of sitting in the office if I'm, you know, in here every day for several weeks in a row and I don't have to go out and do anything. Yeah, I mean, that's interesting. I always say, you know, when I say, what do you do? I don't say I'm a handyman. I say I own a handyman business. Or I own a contracting business, right? I'm an owner. I'm a businessman. Yeah. I'm not a craftsman.

I bet you like touching people's stuff, don't you?

So this is interesting. Because we didn't talk about this ahead of time as far as how we got to where we're at. So it's basically polar opposites, which, shocker here, I don't think Eric and I ever agree on anything.

We agree that you talk too much.

Yeah. And that's honestly, that's why I wanted to do this with you, because you are opposite of me. I mean, we do see things differently. And I think it presents a unique angle when you have two different people who have that core value. We have the same goals as far as helping other contractors. You know, so we kind of have the foundation and we kind of have the destination in lock, but everything in between, we may do it a little bit differently. And I think that's helpful to get opposing views on things sometimes so that some people are going to resonate with me, some people are going to resonate with you. And I think we can all learn that way. For

No, I for sure do that on purpose. I believe it.

Well, I mean, it's a journey to self-mastery. It's never ending. It's not a destination. It's a journey. So I don't think you'll ever fully transition.

Yeah, but listen, when I say you're constantly transitioning, you transition from the field to the office, right? And then you transition from hiring a salesman and now you're not doing sales anymore. And then you transition to a general manager who's running the business for you. So it's still, even though you transition from the field to the office, you're still constantly transitioning up the ladder until eventually either you're not doing anything in your business and it's running on its own without you. or you sell the business and move on. But it's still a constant transition. So even though, yeah, you're going from a craftsman to the office, you're still continually transitioning throughout the whole process. That's what I meant by it's a journey of never-ending transitions.

And then then I want to challenge you on that right now, because just because you're working in the office does not make you a businessman.

So you're still in transition. You're still in transition. You're not out in the field, but you're still transitioning to businessmen. So you're kind of in between.

Yeah, I was actually going to go there. Yeah, I was going to, well, I don't know about back and forth, but I was going to go there to where once your business is set up, then yeah, you can do whatever you want. I mean, you could work out in the field every day if you wanted to, or you could. go on a two-month vacation, or you can just hang out in the office and take sales calls. I mean, having that ultimate freedom of being able to do whatever you want in your business, I think, is everyone's goal for that matter. For most of us, we're still doing sales or doing marketing or working out in the field or paying payroll and all the other dumb stuff that comes along with the business itself. So I agree with that. I mean, that is the ultimate goal is to be able to... transition from craftsman to businessman. And then if you want, kind of almost transition back to craftsman and have the business still run itself. Yeah.

Well, I was just going to say, I'm thinking even bigger than that, like where you literally have a general manager running your business. So you're not even looking at the P &Ls except once a month. You're meeting with your general manager once a month or once a week or whatever. And it's like, hey, where are we at? Good. Okay, cool. I'll see you in a week. I'm going to go out and play in the dirt.

For sure. That's how I got started. I did a job for actually the guy I was working for myself and another guy that he knew he wasn't working for us, but he knew him as another contractor. He's like, Hey, I'm not going to do this job. It was tearing down this brick off of a house. A car ran into a house and damaged it. And we had to take all the brick off the front and haul it off. And you know, some brick mason or somebody gave him a ridiculously high quote. And the guys working for is like, hey, I don't want to do this. If you and Jeremy want to do this on the side, I'll just pay you guys a couple thousand dollars. You know, yeah. Cool. Yeah. Let's do it. So we went out there and did it. And, you know, we both made a thousand bucks or so each. And I put that in the bank. And that's what I use to start my own business with. I had a truck already. I had a few hand tools and I had a thousand dollars in the bank and I set out on my own. So, I mean, it's kind of like what you were talking about earlier in the sense of you kind of get fed up. I mean, the guy I was working for, I mean, we were only working like 20 hours a week because he wasn't a hustler. He was perfectly content with barely working enough to get by. And I'm like, I got to I got to freaking live here. I got to be able to pay bills and stuff. So, I mean, I figured it out that I could actually work, make more money by myself working 20 hours a week than I could working for him 20 hours a week. So that's what launched the whole thing.

Yeah. I mean, you got caught into the cog. You got stuck in the cog of the machine and you don't know how to get out. Now you have to work harder because you got to sell more jobs to keep six guys busy. And, you know, you're probably not pricing your jobs right because you don't know any better. No one taught you how to do your books the correct way and how to market and all that stuff. So you're trying to figure it out as you go. And then you're just it's just a never ending cycle of work harder, get more jobs, hire more people, make less money, work harder, hire more. You know what I mean? It's just it's just a cycle. Yeah. And I did that for like eight years. I mean, just.

Well, I think everybody knows I'm smarter than you, Eric. I don't think that's a question. No, seriously, though, I, if there was one thing I could have changed to go back, I would have said, hey, dummy, you need to hire a coach or you need to find a mentor. Because I was like, I can figure this out on my own. I don't need anybody to tell me how to do it. Also, I was. I had an ego. I was too proud to ask for help. You know, I would always made the excuse, I can't find a mentor. Nobody's going to mentor me. Well, I never even tried. I never even tried to find a mentor.

I mean, it could take six months. I mean, if you get lucky and you get into a niche.

You're right again. You could adopt too. So, I mean, I know I'm right. Damn, every time. No, listen, I know people who are one-man operations who do really well. And the one that comes to the top of my mind is Ron Polk. I don't know if you know who Ron Polk is. He's all over YouTube. He's created the Ron Polk Mobile Workbench. If you're a carpenter, you probably know exactly who I'm talking about. And I don't know a whole lot about his business, but I mean, he works in his business every day as a craftsman. Right. And he's been successful at it. So you can definitely be successful as a one man show, maybe a two man show type thing. But if you're a one man show, you're not a businessman. You all you've done is create a job for yourself. Correct. I mean, that's that's kind of the differences between. what it means to be a businessman versus a craftsman. And again, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being a craftsman and being a one-man show. I know several people that do really, really well financially as a one-man show, but this topic, we're talking about making that transition. So we're assuming that people who are listening to this want to make the transition to be a businessman, but they're stuck and they don't know how to do that.

I would say it's more common than you think, but I don't want to go down that road because that doesn't matter on this conversation. We're talking about people that want to make the transition, but they're stuck and they don't know how to. And you brought, you mentioned earlier the E-myth. And I want to talk about that for a second because anyone who's like, hey, I'm thinking about becoming a contractor. is there any advice you can give me or is there any resources, you know, whatever books read my number one thing I always tell every single person is you need to read the E-Myth by Michael Gerber. It's actually the E-Myth revisited is the version because that pretty much lays out the model of what it means to be a technician versus a business owner. Like you mentioned earlier, having the systems in place to be able to do that. And when I read that book, I didn't read it until several years into my business. It was like huge eye opener. And, you know, ever since that time I read that book, I was always trying to get closer to creating that in my business based on that book.

And so I believe 100 percent that when you start a business, your end game should be to sell the business, regardless if you ever plan on selling it.

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, when you're 25,21,30, when you start your business, nobody knows what the future holds. Right. Nobody knows if you're going to sell. I mean, you could be like, I'll never sell my business ever. They'll have to kill me.

don't. Yeah, you don't know that 20 years later, you'll be like, Oh, I need to sell my business. This is kind of wearing on me. So if you set up your business, and this is a totally different podcast. But when you name your business, that's why it's important about what you name your business is because when you do go to sell it, it will matter at that time. Sure. But if you set it up to where that you can sell the business, it forces you. to have to have systems in place, it forces you to build a business that can run without you, which is the main thing you have to do in order to be able to transition out of the field and into the office and then ultimately into that position of being able to do whatever you want. Like it has to run without you. You have to have systems and operating procedures and all these things in place because you can't just wake up, have all that information in your head. And be like, okay, today you're going to do this and this, this, this, and this, and just become a task machine where you're just basically every day tasking everybody with things that need to be done and they're never thinking for themselves. Yeah, sure.

Well, yeah. I mean, when you're a one man show and you fall off a ladder and break a leg and you can't work for three months, who's going to take care of the business? Yeah. You know what I mean? You're going to lose all your customers.

Absolutely. And you said something that's funny because I go to Lowe's or Home Depot to get some materials or whatever, and I roll up and I see a new contractor truck that I've never seen before, you know, a new business that I've never, never heard of, never seen. And, you know, they may have a magnet on the side or they may have vinyl stickers on the side real small. And they're driving a brand new, you know,2021 Denali pickup truck. Denali. Nice. An 80, you know, an $80,000 pickup truck. And it's like Mike's handyman service or something stupid. And I'm like, what are you guys doing?

I hope he is listening. No, that wasn't the name, but I'm just saying, I mean, that's what you're talking about. They do a big job and they make a little bit of some cheese and they're like, oh, I got to go get me a brand new truck. That's not the way to do that. But that's a whole other topic as well.

I had some struggles last year in my business. Currently, I have three full-time guys out in the field, and I have an office manager. We last year, I only had two guys out in the field. I had kind of my lead guy and I had a helper and I was still working out in the field a little bit, like two days a week, kind of making that transition mainly because of just, I've always struggled hiring people. That's always been my Achilles heel is just finding good labor or good help, I should say. But what happened to me is, you know, COVID hit, which wasn't a big deal, except that my lead guys in the National Guard. And so as soon as COVID hit, he got activated. And I took a big hit on a job because as well as the two guys working for me, I had a subcontractor. He was basically a full-time firefighter, but he would help me on his days off. And so he had a, he's had his own license and I would just sub him out. So on his days off, he came and worked for me and had this huge bathroom remodel that I was doing. And when I bit the job, I planned on having four people. you know, myself, my two guys and my subcontractor. And literally right whenever COVID hit, my lead guy got activated and my subcontractor said, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm just going to go work for a mason company because he used to be a brick mason. And so I lost half of my workforce like the week before we started this big job. And it killed me because I couldn't hire. people at the time. One, because COVID was going on. It was kind of a weird situation. People didn't want to leave and it was just a weird situation. So it took twice as long to do this job than what I had planned on because I lost my workforce. And so trying to make that transition from being in the field full-time to being in the office full-time, last year killed me. And then even in the end of last year, my lead guy came back. He was gone for like six weeks. He came back, worked all the rest of the summer. And then in November, he got notified again that he was getting activated. So he left from November till February. And so it hit me again. And so, you know, that's stuff you got to deal with when you're making that transition. It's the three steps forward, two steps back, you know, one step forward. That's the hardest point in your business to make that transition from going from craftsman to the businessman in the office rather. Is that right there, that critical point of making that transition?

Yeah. So I want to throw down a couple things that helped me make this transition because I know some people are probably asking like, well, what can I do? Like, how can I make this transition? And I just want to throw down a couple of things here that I believe you have to do. And it's what I've done in my business. And I'm still constantly doing this today. But like I mentioned earlier, is you have to create systems. And it doesn't have to be complex by any means. It can literally just be a piece of paper that you write down like your steps of how you do that job. Because in order to be able to hand that off to another person on your team, they have to kind of know what to do. Right. Like you can't just say, OK, Eric, now do this. Go do this. Step one, go do this. And then when you get done, let me know. And I'll give you step two. And when you get done with that, I'll let you know. Like that's not the way you do that. Right. So if you create some type of system that's easily transferable to a new person that comes on board, you can say, look, this is how we do things. Just follow this system here. And it kind of lays out what to do. Sure. Right. So you have to be able to replicate that. The next thing you got to be able to do is you have to hire a players. You can't hire C players and expect to be able to replace yourself in the field. Yeah. It's just not going to happen. You have to hire A players. And in order to do that, you're going to have to pay more money. You're not going to get an A player and pay him $10 an hour.

Well, that's true. But here's another problem. People don't want to hire A players because they're threatened by them. They think if I hire an A player, basically an equivalent of myself, then he's going to come along and say, well, I can do this and he's going to go start his own business.

Right. So, but that's not true. That's mind poop. Like, well, not everybody wants to do, not everybody wants to be a businessman. There are a players out there that do not want to own their own business. They don't want the uncertainty. So they're out there. So when you say like, Oh, I don't want to hire an a player because then he's going to learn. I'm going to teach him everything I know. Then he's going to go start his own business. Well, that may happen, but it also may not happen. Well, you know what I'm saying? So you can't use that as an excuse. But here's what happens, Eric. You got me fired up now. I'm about to throw down the hammer. Oh, shit. When you hire an A player who's scared of someone else, and really it's not even an A player. Usually it's a B player. But if you hire a B-level player, he's not going to hire. Let's just say you have managers in your team or whatever. They're not going to want an A player to come on because they're not going to want to hire someone that's better than them. Right. They're not going to want to work with someone that's better than them. If you have a B player on your team and you hire an A player and he comes in and starts showing up your B player, your B player is going to start sabotaging him. Sure. He's going to start doing things because he feels threatened by him. Right. So you can't do that. You have to hire A players. Now, if you have a laborer, don't get me wrong. If you just have a general laborer who literally doesn't do anything but sweep the floor or pick up, you know, that's not a critical position. But in order for you to transition out of the field and you're going to hire like a foreman or a lead guy or, you know, someone in that capacity, they need to be A players. It's that simple. Wait a minute. Did you just say you agree with me?

And then the last thing I want to say is you have to learn. And this is I struggle with this. And literally, like in the last week, I've been making transitions myself. But you have to learn how to delegate. But more importantly, you have to learn how to delegate outcomes. And so a lot of people think that they delegate stuff. You may say, hey, Chris, I want you to go build this pond. Or, hey, John, I want you to go build this bathroom, right? And when you get there, you're going to do this, this, this, and this. Well, that's not delegation. That's just task setting. So when you delegate outcomes, you're saying, this is what I want the outcome to be. I want it to look like this. This is our standard. This is how I want it to be when it's done. How you get there is up to you. But this is how I want it to look like when it's done. And that's how you learn to delegate outcomes. Now, you're going to have to, again, if you have systems in place, your systems are going to help you to achieve the outcome that you want. Obviously, you can't just throw somebody out there and say, oh, here's a picture of what I want to look like. Make it look like that because they may take. three times as long to get it done, right? And then you don't make any money. So there's some checks and balances in there. But this is kind of a 30,000 foot view of what you got to do in order to make that transition.

Yeah. And that's your job as a business owner is to set up the system and then hire people to run the system.

There you go. See? You just created a system. Yeah, it's beautiful.

Yeah, you might want to be a little bit more detailed than that, but that's the basic premise. Right.

Yeah, and full disclosure here, just because I do these things doesn't mean it works perfect. I mean, literally just this morning, I go out to a job site, two different job sites to check on them. And literally I found things at both job sites that weren't acceptable. Right. So it's like, okay, I got to crack the hammer. I got to bang the hammer a little bit. Like, okay, this isn't acceptable. We need to fix this. So, you know, you're still going to have that, but it's not like every 10 minutes. Okay, boss, what do you want me to do next? Okay, boss, what should I do next? You know what I mean? It's like, this is what the outcome. make it happen. And then I'm going to check you along the way. Okay. We, we got off that. We derailed a little bit right here. Let's come back this direction and do this next time, blah, blah, blah. So that's what you have to do is replace yourself as you move up.

I'm guilty of this, too. I'm guilty of this because. again, recovering perfectionists, right? So I always want things to be right. And just like what you were saying, I train them to come to me when they have a problem. And so I realized like, okay, this doesn't work because not only do they come to me when they have the problem, they actually come to me every time they have the same problem, even though they know how to fix it. Yeah. Right. So. empowering them and teaching them. And here's the thing, all of us as human beings, when we come across a problem, we instantly think of a solution. Like all of us, you know, very rarely do you come across a problem and you're like, I have no clue whatsoever what to do here. They, most people have an idea. And so that's where, like what you said, what do you think we should do? What would you do if this was your business? Oh, I would do this, this, this, and this. All right. That sounds good. Let's do that. Let's get it done. You know what I mean? And then training them kind of. And it's going to take a while to do that. But I came up with a worksheet or whatever you want to call it. And this is what it says. It's Team Handy, our business. We want autonomy and autonomy and decisions wanted. I have this printed out on a piece of paper, real big bullet. It's hanging on the wall everywhere. Autonomy and decisions wanted. I want them to be able to make their own decisions out in the field. I don't want them to have to rely on me. Mistakes are welcomed. Mistakes are welcomed. It's okay to make a mistake. But the next one, lessons learned, encouraged. If you make a mistake, that's okay, but you need to learn a lesson from it, right? And that's encouraged to learn lessons. And then finally, ownership and outcomes required. So I want you to make your own decision. If you make a mistake, that's okay, as long as you learn a lesson and you better own up to that shit when you do it.

I said the bad word.

You got me fired up on this.

Yeah, and listen, when you're creating your systems, you start with the easiest thing. You don't sit down and literally write out your standard operating procedure in one day. That's not how you do it. You come across an issue and it's like, why are we always having this issue? Why do my guys always forget to lock the trailer at the end of the day when they come back? They just leave the trailer unlocked. Why has that happened? Well, I'm going to write a procedure for that. When you get back, unhook the trailer. Step one, unhook the trailer. Step two, put the tongue lock on. Step three, lock the trailer doors. Whatever it is, you literally just write that out and then put it in a book. And then you share it with your team. You talk about it at your next meeting. You're like, listen, guys, this is what we're going to do from now on. And maybe you post it on a wall for a week so they get used to seeing it. And you just keep doing that. And you just build micro systems until six months, a year, two years later, you have an entire SOP written.

You would be shocked to know that I do not have an SOP written. I really don't. I'm telling you, I did this wrong for eight years. I'm 11 years in, so I'm still playing catch up.

And I want to leave with one final thought, and then I think we should shut this down unless you've got some more to talk about. My wife, she's a very smart woman, and I would come home complaining over the years. I'd be like, man, I don't know why so-and-so did this. It's like common sense. You don't do this, you know what I mean? Or you should know better to do this or whatever it is. And my wife would say, yeah, but did you tell them? And I'm like, well, no, I didn't tell them. It's common sense. Everybody knows you're supposed to do this. And she's like. But did you tell them, though? I'm like, no, I never told them. OK, well, don't you think maybe you need to tell them first so they know how to do it the next time? And, you know, to me, it's common sense. But the thing is, it's not common sense. It's common to me because that's how I've been doing it for so long. That's how my brain works. But the way your brain works and the way your employees brain works is totally different. So if you don't tell them this is how we do this, this is what I expect. They don't know. So all you do is end up getting frustrated over and over and over again. And I mean, I literally have wrote out like, this is what the end of a day looks like. Like the day is not over until you do X, Y, and Z because they would come back, they would drop the van off and split. And I'd come in, the van would be trashed and receipts are still on the dashboard. It needed to be put in. They didn't put pictures up on the software that we use to get picked. And none of that stuff's done. And I come in the next morning. I'm like, hey, guys, why didn't you do this stuff? Oh, we just, you know, we got back late, just took off. Well, I never I never defined to them what finishing the day is like what's required to finish out the day. Sure. And it's as simple as that seems. People don't think about that stuff. So you have to define everything that you want. You have to define the outcome that you want.

I think that's a great ending, Eric. Well, I do want to say one thing, you guys, if you're listening to this, we encourage you to go on our social media platforms and Eric's going to tell you here in a second, but we want to hear from you. Like, what did you take away from this podcast? What was it that you thought Brad's completely full of crap? He doesn't know what he's talking about, or that's a great idea. I'm going to implement that in my business. So we want to hear some feedback. So if you go on our, any of our social medias and leave us that feedback and hashtag in there. you know, what it is that you're wanting to do, because we want to interact with you on that. So Eric, on that note, why don't you take us out of here?