May 28, 2025 • 59 mins
Meet George Lokko, owner of Y2 Design & Build located in Westerville, Ohio. George shares how he went from a career in engineering and finance to building one of Columbus’ most process-driven and design-forward remodeling firms. After losing his job during COVID, George took the leap into construction by learning from the ground up—literally starting with demolition—and eventually launching Y2 Design & Build. He discusses the power of great design, his 54-step process that minimizes change orders, and the importance of education, communication, and trust in delivering exceptional customer experiences. George also talks about building his team, investing in marketing and SEO, and the role technology plays in streamlining operations.
In this episode, you will learn:
- How a strong design process eliminates chaos
- Why you don’t need a construction background to succeed
- Building a marketing strategy that is intentional
- Using communication tools as a competitive advantage
- Investing in people and processes to scale
Listen to the episode to learn more.
Resources:
Learn more about Y2 Design Build here.
Own a construction company and want to share your story? Apply to be on an upcoming episode of Builder Stories at https://www.builderstories.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
[upbeat music] Welcome to the podcastwhere we take a deep dive into the stories
behind construction business leaders. Wewill share how they got started, how they
found success, and the lessons learnedalong the way. I'm your host, Eric
Fortenberry. Welcome to Builder Stories.[music ends] Welcome back,
everybody. Today, I am here with GeorgeLoko, who is the owner and president of Y2
(00:24):
Design Build. They're located inColumbus, Ohio. Really excited to have you
-on the show today, George. Welcome.-Thank you. Thank you for having me in,
-Eric.-Yeah. So why don't you just give us a
little background. Who are you? How'd youget into construction? What do you guys do
-at Y2 Design Build?-No, so yeah. Thanks for having us. Uh,
first of all, uh, it's been an honor tosee the growth of your company and our
(00:49):
company as well. Um, just, you know, usingyour software has super helped us, helped
us grow tremendously. Uh, so mybackground is, um, we don't... W- my
family, we're not builders. Let's startfrom there. All right. So I'm not a first,
second, or third generation builder. Um,I never grew up with any carpentry s-
(01:09):
skills. Um, matter of fact, I did go to...My whole family, um, is in finance and in
banking. But, um, I went to school forengineering, graduated here in Ohio.
Uh, started my corporate job, you know, atthat time. And, uh, right around COVID
time, you know, just like everyone else,we, we, um, w- I lost my job.
(01:34):
But most importantly, uh, it was notnecessarily about losing a job. It was
more of a pivotal moment for me to reallyget what I wanted to always get in life,
which was to become my own, um, entre- uh,you know, boss, but have my own
entrepreneurship journey started. So, uh,right around COVID time, um, it was the
(01:54):
great time for me to really sit back andlisten to what I wanted to really do for
my life. Um, and it was a good pivotalmoment, like I said, in, in, in doing what
I wanted to do. Um, I've always wanted tobe in construction, and I always still,
still was in construction, but, um, I justdidn't know how to go about it. So just
(02:15):
like everyone else or some people, we, youknow, you might have gone to college for
a degree, uh, graduated, did a job orstarted a job, and you have to pivot. So I
just did the same thing, which was, um, Ihad to learn from the grass root of
construction. Um, I started off bybecoming a demolition guy. So I started
(02:36):
doing demolition, um, with anothercontractor, who at that time was one of
the biggest one here in Ohio and still isto this day, and just learned from him.
You know, he taught me how to managepeople, how to manage jobs. Um, that skill
trade was, you know, tremendous, uh,alone for me to know how construction was.
(02:58):
Uh, the second part of learn- learningconstruction was really, you know, with
demolition, we were the first people inthere. We know what's behind the walls. We
know how to make sure things are notbroken. Uh, we try to keep things as it is
just to, you know, just go back intothis, like, white canvas mode. So in that
process, I got to learn aboutconstruction, um, materials and just how
(03:22):
things were built. Um, so we're doingeveryth- anything from like interior
demolition to a whole house demolition tojust everything you can think about what
demolition is about. So in that process, Igot to learn about construction in itself
and what makes up a home. And in thatprocess, I g- got curious about, you know,
(03:45):
how do I go about building a house, orhow do I go about renovating a house? So I
did some research, started learning onYouTube, um, then started going on site,
doing, uh, field visits with some of, uh,some of the friends. My friends now, back
then, they were not friends. They werejust people I, I admired. Right? Uh, so
going back on the job sites, just tryingto learn how the, the flow of work goes in
(04:09):
construction, even though being ademolition guy was just one part aspect of
construction. So eventually, I becamecon- cognizant about the flow of work, um,
learning about the construction world.But I just didn't know one thing. I didn't
know what design was. Um, grow- growingup, I was so intrigued about design, art,
(04:31):
crafts, stuff like that. And even doing myjob, when I graduated, I was doing design
work. I was a design engineer. So I wassuper critical about some des- you know,
stuff like dimensions and how things wereplaced. So you could say I was a little
OCD with, you know, how I built, um, how Ibuild stuff. So I took that skill set
(04:52):
into construction into becoming a designconsultant at first. So I was helping a
lot of folks just design their projects,generally speaking. They, they just reach
out to me and say, "Hey, can you throw outa 3D rendering for me? I'm trying to
renovate my house," or, "I'm trying tobuild this house." So I used a ton of
WhatsApp towards back then just buildingdesigns. And people were really impressed
(05:14):
about the kind of sort of, uh, ideas thatwas coming out, uh, uh... coming about
with. So it kinda sunk in me, and I hadthe idea of, "What if I just started a
architectural firm, but I'm not anarchitect?" So obviously, I couldn't do
that, but I, I had the desire to designstuff and have them designed properly. Um,
(05:35):
so in, in effect, I took that skill,honed it with construction, and started
-the company Y2 Design & Build.-Man, that's, that's awesome. So, you know,
again, y- you had a tough situation. Youknow, COVID came along, couldn't keep
doing the same job, had to go figuresomething else out.
-Mm-hmm.-You found an opportunity to, to really
(05:57):
start at the ground level, work your wayup, learn.... you know, from someone else
who'd been doing it for a while and, youknow, one thing led to another, you ended
up starting your own, you know, your owncompany and, and now you're, you know,
president and owner and, you know, run-running your own business which sounds
like was your entrepreneurial dream tobegin with.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. Um, it's beenthe dream for sure but, um, I didn't
think it would all come this far. Um,which even to speak on, I- I highly s-
(06:23):
recommend, you know, following people whoh- already know or where th- where they
already are you wish to be there. So my,my, my advice to folks is even if you were
to try and get into construction, youdon't have to start from the grass root of
where I started from. You may have somebackground information. I just didn't have
-that, so I--Sure
... had to start from the bottom. But youcan start from wherever you are now and
(06:46):
just take that skill and learn, um, get,get more curious about it pretty much.
Yeah. So what's, uh... Now, in- in whatyear exactly did you start?
So we started in 2019. Always when Iformed the business and, um, in 2020 I
started, uh, I went full all in when Ilost the job. Um, but before that I was
(07:08):
just doubling here and there, like I wassaying, doing demolition with some
contractors. Um, and so I, right afterCOVID when I lost my job, I could try and
grab every kind of job I could at thatpoint and try to help as much as I can.
And so what's the, what's the team looklike today? Is it, is it just you or you
-have some other people?-No. So we have, um, a team of five.
(07:30):
-Okay.-So it's myself, I have, uh, one project
manager, I have one logistics manager, Ihave a design, um, uh, draftsman
who helps design all of our projects, andthen I have an, an accountant who manages
-all the outputs.-Awesome.
And I'm, I'm on, more on the projectmanagement side a lot, so design and p-
(07:52):
-project management.-And I'm curious, so, uh, how, how, how
long in until you started bringing on, youknow, additional employees and kinda
what... Who, who was the first person andhow did you know that you needed help?
Yeah. G- great question. So honestly, um,I- I was just like most entrepreneurs. I
thought I could do it all. Um, I figuredthat my time would've been s- very useful
(08:17):
if I managed the jobs myself. Um, matterof fact, I was actually very, very
particular about who I brought on board.Uh, I h- we have hired people in the past
who joined us as a team and didn't workout. Uh, I quickly learned that, you know,
hiring someone doesn't not necessarilyhave to be with what they say on their
paper but more of mo- more so theircharacter. And you know, I learned it the
(08:41):
hard way actually, by having other peoplecome onboard and just, you know, come and
go. Um, and the reason is sometimes youlook at yourself as a business and you
think that you're the problem or you mayhave been, you may have been part of the
problem, but ultimately the character ofthe person really determines, um, the,
the, the success of your, your, your, um,business. Um, so we, when we started, I- I
(09:05):
just didn't know who to hire first.Matter of fact, I- I did, um, I'm, I'm
part of this group which I'm sure you knowof, um, we, we kinda learned about
business. So construction in itself is onepiece which is the construction and the
technical knowledge. Then constructionwith business is another aspect that a lot
(09:26):
of folks are not aware of. And thebusiness of construction is a whole
different ballgame that, um, if you're notaware of who to hire at the right time,
you can really go down the drain. So myvery first hire was an assistant. Um, and
that system was really just to help me getthings off the books, off my table, and
(09:47):
manage the day-to-day that doesn't reallymatter. So, um, when I looked at it from
that turn, um, if I had to go hire anassistant versus myself doing this job,
I'm actually losing money if I don't hirethe assistant. Um, so I wanted to do that
first, to hire the assistant to take onlittle tasks that I didn't want to really
(10:08):
take care of. And then from there, becauseI had the strong background in project
management, I decided to find someone justlike myself. And the reason I was doing
that was because, um, not only am I tryingto get out of the field and trying to be
directly, uh, working with clients on thedesign side, um, but project management is
(10:31):
a skill that is the hardest to find. Andso to find someone just like you is the
hardest thing to do. So, um, I, like Isaid, I went through a series of different
folks, uh, who came by, who came to workwith us at the company. It just didn't
work- work out right. So I did find, I hadto steal someone from another
construction company with the backgroundand making sure that they know what to do.
(10:55):
That's great. And so do you still... Like,
what do you spend your time on now? Areyou, are you more on the design, you know,
sales side now, or are you still doingsome project management as well?
Yeah. So I'm, I'm heavily concentratedright now on design, what I enjoy the
most. Um, I feel like that's where a lotof my creative juices come in. Um, on the
(11:16):
project management side of things, I'mstill a construction manager. So I still
do oversee and overlook the projects on aweekly basis. Uh, I'm not dealing with the
day-to-day decisions on whether we needto buy more wires or we need to go buy
more cables or whatnot. That's more sodone with the project management side and
(11:37):
logistics management. Um, but for my side,I am going back on site as a project
manager to oversee the progress of thework and making sure that the, the job is
being done, um, per, per s- uh, per spec.Right? Um, but I'm heavily loaded
on the front end. And the reason being is,so for a design build company, we're
(11:59):
spending anywhere between three to sixmonths just designing projects. So-I get
to spend a lot of time with the clientsupfront before we even going to build, and
that really gives them the confidenceknowing that we're gonna execute as
promised. And they do wanna see my facetoo on site, just to make sure things are
done properly. So yeah, I do a little bitof both.
(12:22):
Sure. And tell us a little bit aboutthe... kind of what- what's the target,
you know, your- your ideal project that-that you're looking to sell?
Yeah. So our ideal projects- projects are,um, additions and, uh,
remodeling. Right? And n- on theremodeling side, we do get some calls for
(12:42):
kitchens, bathrooms, and whatnot, but wespecialize in whole-house remodeling. And
the reason being is because, um, we'verea- we- we'd realized that with
whole-house remodeling, not only are wetaking entire scope of work, but we're
able to cons- condense the, um, the- the-the project into more full-on
(13:04):
service as a company. Because when we gowith the whole-house remodel, we're
assigning a design, um, a designer to theproject, and they- they're able to have a
full flow of the, you know, design to flowthroughout the house, versus just con-
um, concentrating in the kitchen or justin the bathrooms. And so we try to attack
(13:27):
multiple rooms, I'll say, um, when we dofull-house remodels. But we specialize in
additions, because that's where a lot offolks find a lot of their return on
investments in, uh, when you do theseadditions. And so we... That's the two
areas we specialize in. We do, uh, alittle bit of ADUs here. Um, in Columbus,
(13:48):
Ohio, we're not fully, um... Uh, we- wedon't have a fully fled-out program for
ADUs and we're... I'm part of the, um,board for a nonprofit that we're trying to
push for ADUs in the city to be approvedas part of a- the building zoning codes.
Um, so we- we've made a really good strideso far, and we're just looking forward to
(14:12):
making this a fully pledged, um- um,initiative to make sure that, um, folks
can build ADUs at the back of their homes.
-That's great.-Yeah.
What- what have you done from a marketingstandpoint? Because you know, I'm... Uh,
you know, I've- I've been looking at yourwebsite. You got a great-looking website,
you know, probably even better than I-than I might have expected just being, you
(14:34):
know, as- as early on as- as you are. Butlike h- h- how did you figure out that
you needed to invest in marketing, and howhas that affected, you know, your- your
ability to- to- to get leads and- and- andnurture them and convert them?
Yeah. So, um, marketing has been a veryinteresting topic throughout the industry,
um, generally speaking. I think that alot of times, as contractors, we're
(14:58):
obviously focusing on projects and we doforget the marketing aspect. Um, I, for
myself, I know I'm not a marketing guruwho knows how to execute, but I know what
to look for. So what we do is we have athird-party, uh, service company that we
hire to manage our... the little stuff,right? The things like your SEOs and
(15:21):
making sure your- your listing isup-to-date. Those are the... one of the
minimum things to do when it comes to S-SEO. But on the- on the marketing side,
re- regards to like Google Ads and stuff,we- we haven't been using, doing Google
Ads for about almost eight months now. Andthe reason why is because, um, Google Ads
is great. We used it. Um, matter of fact,Facebook is another great source. Um, but
(15:44):
we found out that the longevity on yourROI on is in- investing in SEO is- is
much better than you spending on thetemporary, short-term investments on, you
know, Google Ads or Facebook a- FacebookAds. Even though those will help e-
eventually with your cashflow and howthings will help your company, um, because
(16:05):
we are such a niche, um, boutique firm,we're... you know, we do have overheads,
but we're not looking to get a ton ofjobs, you know, in a year. We probably do
about 10 to 12 a year. So when we look atthe calculations per project and we try to
invest in our marketing, we're takingwhat we know, which will be if we have 10
(16:27):
people reach out to us and we could evenget one person to say, uh, who wants to
work with us, then we're happy, becausewe're not trying to do every project. Um,
and so we spent a lot of our m- m-marketing dollars on the SEO part on- uh,
of our websites. Um, other things we founda secret to what I do a lot recently, and
(16:49):
most- most importantly now in- in our dayand age, is social media. Um, it's so
important to have a social media presence.I- I am a young guy, so I would stand lap
that some generations may not be familiarwith it, but social media is by far the
best RI for free. And the reason being isnot- not necessarily intentionally trying
(17:15):
to get a lead from that. Um, one, Googlehas a connection or track record of having
you ch- you know, post on social mediaand having that kind of like follow you
wherever you go. Um, and I've had clientswho follow us on social media all day,
every day, um, just watching our storiesand just inter- in- interacting with our
(17:38):
f- you know, our f- our- our- our, youknow, our feed and stuff like that. And
that ultimately helps them understand whowe are and how we do, how we do work. Um,
a lot of folks just have websites withpretty pictures and you- you name it,
right? We can always post pretty picturesany day, but we sh- our content is geared
(18:01):
towards education and trying to educatethe client and some con- and contractors,
of course, on how we work, how we go aboutdoing certain things.And as an owner, it
is my job to have that continuouseducation on construction and lear-
knowing what is the new stuff coming up,what is the best practices of doing
(18:22):
certain things. So one of my favorite, um,construction channels is, uh, Build Show.
I- I learn a ton from that channel.There's a lot of cool videos that they
show about different ways about how theybuild stuff. So my ultimate deci- goal is
that I continuously improve all myknowledge as I go and not just be
(18:44):
-stagnant.-Yeah. Well, I mean, again, I'm- I'm
extremely impressed. Like your- your- yourwebsite, your social media presence.
Like, again, I- I... If- if I didn't knowthat you only had, you know, five people
on your team, I- I, you know, I mightthink you're a 25 person team, you know,
doing millions of dollars in sales,because like it's just so on point. And
I'm just, I'm so impressed by how you'vebeen able to, you know, to- to deliver
(19:07):
that. A- and again, what- what I heard isthat you understood the importance of
marketing and investing in it, but youknew that you weren't the right person to
actually go build the website, do all ofthat. And so you found a- a- a marketing
partner who has- has, you know, been ableto- to basically kind of, you know, be an
agency for you so that you still got allof those things done and- and delivered
(19:29):
and are delivering on your marketing needswithout having to hire someone full time
or without you having to put that hat onas well. You know, and that is such a
-great move, George.-Appreciate it. Yes, it's- it's critical.
Um, every level of the business isdifferent, so obviously you take- you take
it as you- it comes. And do I see myselfhiring an in-house marketing guy at some
point? Of course. I mean, the dollarand... The- the ROI on that is always
(19:52):
there, 'cause if- when you look at howmuch you spend in a year on marketing,
that's almost the cost of you hiring afull time.
-Yeah.-Right? So it's almost that... It's almost
like we're at that point where doesn'tmake sense to have that in-house, of
course. But you do wanna h- hire slow. Um,in my case, I hire slow and fire faster,
only because I've hired faster and firedfaster and it always came back to bite me.
(20:17):
Yeah. So what have you found to be... I
mean, you know, again, kind of are- are-are you... Are you finding that these-
these natural, you know, organic, youknow, leads, you know, that- that are
coming in that are finding you from thewebsite? I mean, what- what other sources,
I mean, are- are- are you, you know,finding, you know, referrals and word of
mouth to be really effective? Is there anysort of networking or- or things like
(20:38):
that? What, like, what else is- is ginningup your leads for you?
Yeah. So just apart from SEO and marketingon the digital side, um, like I said,
social media's a big one, so we get ahuge, uh... We- we don't have a huge
following. Actually, we have a very mediumsize, and it's all organic. It's not paid
following. Um, and we get a ton ofreferrals. We have, um, uh, we have
(21:01):
partnerships with architects and designersthat we work with. So one of the best
inv- best investments we make on a dailybasis is- is- is investing in the
relationships with designers. And what wedo on our end is nothing genius. We're
just building genuine business with peopleand just genuine relationships that would
(21:23):
eventually play out, uh, at some point,right? Some investors... I mean, some-
some investments we made are, um, justtaking, like, some designers to- for
lunch, for example. It's- it's just aslittle as that. And also, you know, giving
them some of our projects, because thatultimately will help them, um, get more
(21:45):
business, and in return, th- their, thatrelationship grows and grows and helps us
get even much more, um... Get much morebetter with our work and even referrals.
Um, another way we go about doing it is,again, just social media, th- which is the
biggest one. Uh, we- we don't get a tonof people asking or requesting for
(22:05):
services through our social media, but thesocial media is like the roadmap that
leads them to our pages that theneventually they put in a
Sure. Yeah. That- that makes total sense.And- and where do
you... You know, so where do you findthese designers to- to go network with? Is
(22:28):
there, you know, particular, you know,events that you're going to, or are you
going to kind of local markets, or how-how are you... How are you finding them?
Yeah. So it's... I mean, it's twodifferent ways. So one is go to one... We
go to a local meetups. Um, there- thereare a ton of architects that we work with
on purpose for different levels ofprojects. So whenever they have meetings
(22:50):
or g- gatherings or meetups, um, we liketo attend and just show our face. Um,
we're also meeting a lot of designersthrough social media too, um, just by-
just by following them. Right? Um, but alot of our referrals on designers are
coming from ultimately meeting them inperson and building that relationship, and
(23:15):
then they go on to refer you to otherpeople, um, based on how you guys... How
that relationship was or how thatrelationship grew, um, built out.
-Yep.-And then, um, just these local, um, um,
NARI meetings, you know, stuff like that.Nothing fancy.
-Yeah.-Nothing fancy. Yeah.
No. Well, that- that's, uh, again, ma-making all the right moves. That's exactly
(23:36):
-how you do it.-Yep.
So, so tell us a little bit about yoursales process. So once you get a lead in,
you know, get- get- get connected withthem, are- are you... Are you going out on
site? Are you doing a first initial phoneconsultation? Kind of what's the full
sales process look like to get them allthe way into design and ultimately into
-construction?-Yeah. So our- our, uh, design is a 54-step
(23:59):
process to begin with. Uh, 54 might scarea lot of people, but it's because on Job
Tread, we've, we were able to build outour schedule and template that we follow
as we go, and it's- it's very detailed tothe point where when we do add our- our
designers on board, they're able to......track where they are with time in terms of
(24:19):
design. But in terms of sales, um, we,we... Our management... Our sales
management is, is streamlined. Uh, we usea little bit of AI and we use a little bit
of human interaction. And the reasonbeing is, when we've... When we get a lead
in for the first time, let's just sayit's through our website, right? When we
(24:41):
go to the website, put in the information,the website alone, your contact form is
the most important form on your website.The more information you can spit out for
a client to fill out for you, the betteryou get understanding of what they're
asking. Only because a typical contact usform will, would be your name, phone
number, email, and description. That's notenough. You wa- What we do is, on our
(25:07):
contact form, it is a pre-qualification,um, um, form you fill out that gives us an
idea whether we are a good fit or not. Sowhen... by the time we reach out to you,
we already have an idea from a budgetstandpoint, to timeline, to what are you
looking for, to if you're even a good fitto begin with. So when we do reach out to
(25:30):
our clients, we already have apre-qualified method before even going to
a much deeper conversation. And by thetime we pre-qualified them on the phone,
we're straight up just telling, askingfolks, or telling folks, "Hey, this is
where we are with pricing. If that fits,we're happy to move to the next stage. If
(25:51):
not, we can refer you to the next person."And that alone helps a lot of people just
have the courtesy of declining oraccepting our invitation next. And the
reason is because, um, if we're not a goodfit, it ultima- automatically helps us
not waste your time or vice versa. Um, butultimately, when you do fill out that
(26:15):
form, you're putting that request, wealready know that you are ready to kind of
go forward and we go from there. The nextstep from there, uh, after doing the
proof of qu- pre-qualification, is we do asite visit, which is for free. We don't
charge for site visits. Uh, on the sitevisits, there are two things we're really
trying to knock out. One o- to understandthe project, have an eye to the project,
(26:38):
of course. But two, most importantly,understand any body language. So I
study a lot on sales. Um, I've studied,um, you can name it, Jim Ron, you can say,
uh, Dan Kennedy. You name it, the greatsin sales. And body language is probably
the one of the best ways to learn aboutyour clients. And so with body language
(27:02):
is, we're learning about how our clientsare reacting to certain things when we
talk about... So sometimes it's just priceed and it's like, you can tell from the
body language this is not the right fitright away, so... And the reason why we do
that all, the reason why we study thatpart, is because before... right after we
do a site visit, we're going straight intowhat we do a presentation. So we don't do
(27:27):
like... We don't send quotes over thephone or texts or emails. We're actually,
um, doing a presentation to our clients.And the reason is because our ticket items
are pretty high, and so for tickets that,that high is for a certain caliber of,
um, people who value your time and, andvalue effort. And so we go the... We go
(27:51):
beyond that effort of presenting to them,and that helps at least put us in a
different br- bracket when they meet us,um, in person. And then, um, right after
s-... Uh, right after presenting those,um, design proposals, uh, we actually
create the proposal by doing rendering. SoI'm the guy who's doing the design
sometimes. Uh, I do have my, again, mydraftsman who does that as well. But we
(28:14):
team up and work together and kind ofbrainstorm what are some good ideas to
come about. And, um, when... Right afterwe do that, we present it to the client,
they do accept it, we go into a design,um, agreement. And like I said, the design
can take anywhere between three to sixmonths. Right after this design is
completed, we go hunting, finding, um,some, you know... We go find some bids and
(28:39):
hopefully those fit into our proposal.And then from there, we going to build.
Yeah. That's great, man. That's, uh...You, you've, you've really got it dialed
in. I mean, you know, with the 54 pointstep process for design, kind of getting
them, you know, through. It sounds likeyou really are making sure that, you know,
e- everything that, you know... E- e-every detail is, is... It's kind of
(29:01):
figured out and flushed out on the frontend. Sound- sounds like your goal is, uh,
h- hopefully to not have to use changeorders and things like that.
Yeah. So that's what we, that's what we,uh, we pride on our... Those are our sell-
uh, our offers, where we, where we talkwith our clients is, we guarantee no
change orders and we guarantee that, uh,the, the price of all materials that we
(29:21):
buy is not... There are no markups on it.So no change orders, no markups on
materials. You get, you get the price ofwhat you pay for, uh, on those-
-Wow-... materials.
And that's, uh, [laughs] that's prettyawesome. I, uh, I, I want to hire you
alone for those, uh, those [laughs]guarantees right there. That's very rare,
George. I mean, how, how did you... Youknow, I, I mean, I, I gotta believe that's
(29:42):
like a really nice, like, you know,selling, you know, point, selling value
add there, like... I, I can't say I'veever heard another contractor, uh,
actually kind of guarantees no changeorders or markups on material.
Yeah. So the reason why we stand behindthose two things is because of the design.
Design is so critical that if we skipdesign process or the design phase, I can
(30:03):
almost guarantee a change order. Thereason being is, I... What I consider it
to be is, I have three months to figure itout, right? So if I'm given any project,
and like right now, we're doing a projectwith, you know, the state. And it's a,
it's a, um... You know, it's a, it's a,you know, private project, like we
don't... we can't discuss about it.And-When I l- when I approached them, I
(30:26):
had mentioned, "Hey, we need design," andthey said, "Why do we need a design?" I
said, "So I can guarantee your no-changeorder." And the reason I'm ch- I'm
guaranteeing that is because I am, I amtaking my time to really price things out
for you. And when I'm pricing things out,you know, you might have a 30 or 60-day
period to have those quotes or, you know,estimates to be valid. And so if I'm able
(30:50):
to get some pricing around for, forwhatever we are doing, I'm guaranteeing
that there's no changes, one. And thentwo, I'm doing my takeover ahead of time,
knowing that I know what the project isgonna be, and I know that once we're done
with the design, you would have a full,full-blown, um, drawing that is
(31:10):
up-to-date with accurate pricing. Um, andthat if you don't even feel comfortable,
you can let someone else bid the project,and hopefully you get to see why our
-process is a valuable process.-Yeah, so and, and then I assume that's...
You're, you're charging for the design,right? And for that-
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So our design... Ourdesign phase is a complete different phase
(31:31):
from our build phase. And the way we goabout it is, we, we build for that on a,
uh, with our designers. We workhand-in-hand with our designers, and then
we work, you know, with our team on thedraftsman drafting the, the floor, uh,
floor layouts. And then, uh, from there,if they're happy with what they see with
the price that we give them, they're ableto take that and, uh, going to build with
(31:55):
-us.-Yeah, that's great. Is that, uh... W-
Would you say kind of the conversion, youknow, rate from design to build is, is
-fairly high, I assume?-Yeah, it is. So we've had folks where...
And it's, it's so interesting to see thetwo side of the spectrum. You have folks
who are patient enough to understand that.We've had homeowners who have done
(32:17):
constru... Who have done remodeling in thepast, got burnt because, um, they hired
Jack, you know, Chuck in the Truck andregret- regretted it, but can't do
anything about it. And then every maybefive years is a new project that comes
about with the, with the same client. Andso we've had those clients who've had that
(32:38):
experience. And when we explain to themwhat our process is about and how we go
about it, they feel more confident.Because now not only are they just seeing
that they get to pick out all of theirstuff ahead of time, they get to see what
the prices are, knowing that hey, forexample, George, my... Let's just say my
(32:59):
target investment is around 300,000. Ican't go above that. Maybe I could do 320.
So what we, what we're doing is takingthat number and dialing in everything we
can to fit into that number. Now, ifthings go higher or lower, it's because
they chose to go with something that'smore expensive. But we do our best to try
(33:19):
and fit those budgets in, um, thoseprojects in to fit into that budg- uh,
investment range that they have. Um, soultimately, it helps us know that as a
guarantee. And then for them, they havethe guarantee, knowing that if I have to
spend this amount, amount of money to aproject, I don't have to worry about
spending more because I know what I'mgetting. I know the tile, I know the
(33:41):
floor, I know the paint, I know who I'mdealing with, and, you know, hence why it
-takes about three months to complete.-Yeah. Well, I mean, it, it sounds like a
great service, again, to, to have you gothrough every single detail. You know,
that, that's also gonna bring them theconfidence, you know, moving into the next
stage, you know, where, where, you know,you'll, you'll actually start the
(34:03):
construction. So, I mean, I think it's agreat, a great move. Now, I gotta ask.
Let's say... Or, or, or has there everbeen a situation where you got into a
project and, and something happened, someunforeseen, you know, issue, challenge
thing happened that like, okay, you know,the price is gonna change or there's gotta
be... You know, h- how do you deal withthat if, if that's ever happened?
(34:25):
-Oh, it happens all the time. [laughs]-[laughs]
It happens all the time, and I'm startingto understand that it is just the nature
-of the beast.-Yeah.
And only because... Now, we're humans andwe make mistakes, and you can't... You
control... What happens with constructionmanagement is that you can control the
flow of construction, but you can'tcontrol someone making a mistake because
(34:50):
it could happen at any given time. Forexample, I had a client that were
installing a project f- uh, uh, a screenfor, and we had all this... We had all the
materials put together and somethinghappened and it ripped off. It was not
intentional. It was, it was just a faultof one of the, uh, installers, and it
(35:11):
delayed the project because now we have towait to get this done, have it shipped by
the manufacturer, replace that, thencontinue with the work. And so ultimately,
from the client's standpoint, not superhappy about it, right? But at, at least
the, the... What we do in those times iscommunication. Communication is
(35:32):
probably... Not probably, the most tool,the best used tool to use- to be used in
construction, besides a hammer, becauseonce you have that communication skill,
you're able to communicate whether it'sbad, good, uh, good news or bad news. Or,
"Hey, I just wanna let you know there'sgonna be a two-week delay time." Yeah,
(35:53):
it's not good news, but you're at leasttelling them because they have the
expectation of knowing that, "Hey, I'mgoing to be done next week." But because
now we have a delay, we don't know what'sgoing on. So we owe it to ourselves that
at least the first thing we do when thereare issues on site is to communi-
communicate with the client. Um, butbesides that, from the company standpoint,
(36:17):
obviously, that affects our bottom linesand, you know, that ultimately eats into
our profit, but we do have a cushion thatwe put into each line to make
sure that those, um...... those issuesthat come around are taken care of, right?
Um, so we have a contingency, um, linethat we add to our budgets that we...
(36:42):
I took this from a commercial contractor,right? So when you're the commercial or
prod- uh, government work, you can put inthose contingency budgets as a line item.
But what it happens, what it is, is thatit is a... It is money that is part of the
project, but if it's not being used up,you re- we refund that back to the client.
(37:05):
So at high level number, if you have a$1,000 contingency on your budget, what we
do is we take that money up front becausewe don't know what was gonna happen. And
at the end of the project when we noticethat there is nothing to be scared of or
not, there's nothing to be worried aboutfor, you know, the project, we refund that
c- uh, m- money back to the client.Because that ultimately lets us know that
(37:29):
we can stand behind our word in knowingthat we are not gonna change order. And I
think for any client who knows that I'mgonna get a check back at the end of the
project, I mean, that's probably the mostexciting thing, right? So that's one of
the, um, grap- uh, satisfying things we dofor clients at the end of the day once
-they, uh, once the projects are complete.-That's awesome. I love that. You know, and
(37:51):
I, I couldn't agree more. I mean,communication, it is, it is so important.
I mean, that, that, that literally canmake or break the entire customer's
-experience...-True
... you know, going through a constructionproject 'cause, you know, it's, it's,
there, there's, there's any number ofthings that can happen. And when the worst
things happen, as long as youcommunicate, you're forthcoming, you're
transparent, you know, you're, you're,you're, you're, you're having these
(38:14):
interactions, you're sharing with them,"Hey, we know this is happening. Here's
our plan. Here's what's happening." Like,keeping them in the loop, I think it's
the, the best way that you can possibly,you know, mitigate their, their, their
anxiety and their feelings of concern thatwill naturally, you know, come up. So I,
I think that's great. I'm, I'm, I'mcurious, are you guys using like, you
know, the daily logs feature? Are yousharing updates, like the photos, progress
(38:36):
work? Like, how do you involve the, theclient, you know, on their, on their
-JobTread?-Oh, yeah, we are heavy on daily logs. Um,
we, we... So what I do, what I do for, youknow, the project management side,
um, we, we make sure that on site we havea checklist, right?
(38:58):
And we have a... We actually have a paperversion of a checklist. And we also have
the, uh, you know, the iPad version. ButI'm, I'm kinda old school too sometimes
when it, when it comes to certain things,but, um, the... I have a checklist that
every trade that comes on site, whetherit, it has to do with, you
(39:19):
know, doing certain, per- task for theday. Our PMs or even our logistic manager
has to report that on our daily logs. Andwe share that daily log with the clients
on their dashboard. And so, for example, Ihave one client who was out of time and
they were super happy that we had thosereports because then they get to see what
(39:42):
was done with some pictures and videos.And they get to see that we have, you
know, certain issues so we, we can discussthings like, like roll- uh, setbacks,
it's things like that on the report. So weare super heavy on that. Now, I know on
site is kinda hard to always do the dailylogs because you might be
(40:05):
super busy, super tired, or maybe out oftown somewhere or doing something else. So
what we try to tell our... what I tell myPM is that I wo- I do understand
sometimes you miss it and we do have a KPIfor that, by the way, that we track. And
if you don't keep up with that youliterally lose your bonus for the year. So
(40:26):
we try to make sure that they get, theyget it, their, th- uh, their incentivized
for it basically. Um, but on a minimum,we, we require a three log per project
-in a week.-Hmm.
If you can't do five, do a minimum ofthree because that means you d- you d- you
could do a Monday, Wednesday, or aFriday. And what that tells me is that you
(40:47):
were actually on site for each projectthat we are doing, um, whether you miss a
Tuesday or a Thursday, but at least threedays out of that week you were on site to
make sure the project was going. And Ithink that for me is a, it's effi- it's
sufficient and it's sufficient for me tosay that we know what's going on, um, and
-sharing that information with our client.-Yeah, that's great. And I'm, I'm sure
(41:10):
they, uh, that they, they must reallyappreciate, you know, I, I know I had a,
uh, had our pool built by a JobTreadcontractor and, uh, at first they weren't
sharing the daily logs. I was like, "Hey,would y'all share those?" And then, "Oh,
we didn't even realize we could." And sothen they started sharing it and it was
just, like, awesome. My wife and I, like,we felt like we're a part of this journey
and, like, we saw the updates. And even,like, when nothing was gonna happen, like,
(41:32):
sometimes they were still, you know,reporting back and saying, "Hey, you know,
we're still waiting on this," or, youknow, "Everything's, you know, on track,
we're just, you know, waiting till nextweek," or whatever it may be. Like, I
just, I think being able to, like, involvethe, the customer is such a great way to,
like, make them feel even more bought in.And, you know, it also kinda gets you,
(41:52):
you know, g- gets them off your back alittle bit. Like, if we weren't, you know,
"Hey, where are you? Where are you? Youknow, why are you guys not here?" You
know, it's like, oh, you know, we cancheck the schedule and we see. You know,
and, and, and just kinda having that,those, those clear expectations-
-Yeah-... I think was really beneficial.
And speaking on that, I think for us whatwe do, we set expectations with our
clients. We, so we have an expectation,um, um, covenant that we give to our
(42:14):
clients and one of them is to use the datalog. And so we tell our clients, "If you
had a quick question, you can text." That,so a question could be like, "Hey, what
time are you gonna be here?" "We're gonnabe here at 8:00," for example. But if it's
a question about the project, we referthem to go back to your dashboard. As a
(42:36):
matter of fact, I have a Loom video that Ishoot to s- I send over to my client
before we start projects to bookmark the,the daily log or the dashboard.... on your
-computer.-Nice.
And we do what I- I... Probably nine timesout of 10, if I get a text from a client,
I say, "I'm gonna give you the answer onthe dashboard."
(42:58):
-Mm-hmm.-So if you want the answer, you can look it
on the dashboard. So we try to preventtext messages and stuff like that.
-Yeah.-Um, it's kinda hard to find, c- get
clients to always use it. But at leastwhen... if we get our win rate to be at
least 80% of that conversation beingtracked on the dashboard, we are all...
-We, we know what's going on.-Yeah. So and, and I see you got the, the
(43:19):
client portal, the, the login link. So doyou show them like how to save the app on
their, on their phone? 'Cause sometimesthat can also... You know, it's like I'm
in the moment, I wanna send something.It's like, all right, we'll just pull up
-JobTread and send.-Yeah. Right. You know, actually, I haven't
done that and I think I'm gonna do that,thinking about it, 'cause I know-
-Mm-... on my phone I have the JobTread app,
-but--Yeah
... I know I can also do it on thecomputer. So that's a good way to actually
(43:39):
have them get quick access to it versususing the computer. So I'm gonna-
-Yep-... do that next. Yeah.
Yeah. No, it's, uh... Again, my, my wifeand I, it's how we kept, kept along, and,
you know, super helpful to have it there.Um, I'm, I'm curious. So, so, you know,
once you get the project kinda wrapped up,like tell me about sort of what, what's
the, what's the process of kind of closingout with, with the homeowner. You know,
(44:02):
are, are you asking for, for thosereviews, for the referrals? You know, do
you ever record any testimonials? Likehow, how do you kind of, you know, really
take that last step to, to make sure thatall this effort and this, this great
project you delivered, that you can sortof parlay that into additional marketing,
you know, content and hopefully get, youknow, more referrals and leads from it?
Yeah. So our punch, punch-out list ispretty intense. Um, you know, I'm sure
(44:27):
everyone understands the punch-out couldtake a very long time. So what we do for
the most part with a punch-out is, isobviously over-communicating towards those
times. It's bec- you know, 'cause that'swhen most of the times we have delays as
well, is the punch-out. So we c-over-communicate first. Um, number two,
we, we have a punch-out list that wecreate that, um... One, we started off
(44:52):
using it with job site codes where we, wehave these, um, you know, QR codes and we
go in there, create this list, put all theQR code, "Hey, this is the punch-out list
code." So our contractors go on site,scan that, know what is on, is on, on it,
on there. Luckily and thankfully, JobTreadnow can create these, um, QR codes for
(45:13):
us, so we're now going to adopt that intoour system. Um, so we created j- we do
create QR codes for our punch-out. Um, wealso have a, uh, a third-party, um,
company we work with. Um, it's twoactually. So one is with JobTread, which
is NiceJob. And NiceJob is very good fortracking reviews, and
(45:37):
they do have a service for sendingsome... you know, sending out some
-brownies, to get some brownie points.-[laughs]
Which is really good. Um, I recently cameacross another company that actually does
much more. Um, I can't remember theirname. I think it's DoneZil, I think is the
name. And what they do is they, they,they, they take your lead and then they,
(45:59):
they create this radius map and try toshoot out newsletters. Not newsletters,
but, uh, mail, mail, uh, mail newslettersto your clients and nearby, to let them
know that you are actually working thejob, um, area. So we're just about to sign
up with them. We haven't done that yet,but I think it's a pretty cool, cool thing
(46:20):
to do. So we're gonna in- innovate thatinto our punch-out time, to that, so then
at that time we, we get some folks aroundthat neighborhood to know that we're
working in that neighborhood. Um, oh, andalso, depending on the scope of work and
how grand a the project is, sometimes wedo some parties with the clients. Right?
(46:40):
So we, we just maybe throw a party toinvite some folks in there to come watch
what we did. Uh, only if they agree, ofcourse. Uh, we, we might do like a, uh,
you know, some... get some food, somedrinks, and talk about the projects if we
have to. Um, but we, we mostly m- uh,100... nine times out of 10, I've already
(47:03):
had one client who's agreed to do that.Nine times out of 10 they're like, "No,
thank you. We're, we're great. We'regreat. ... where we are. Um, and so that's
another thing we do towards thepunch-out. The other thing we do, um,
during punch-out is, um, photography, um,without- with, uh... And we do some type
of, uh, content behind that. Um, I... WhatI try to do is, is to stay away from
(47:29):
trying to show off, um, projects. And thereason is because, um, again, your
homeowner or your client, or your nextclient who you're w- li- wishing to work
with, yes, they will... they do wanna seethat you're... you have some good work,
and they do wanna see that you have...you, you say who you say you are. Uh, but
nine times out of 10 they already have anidea of what they want, right? Because
(47:52):
they go on Pinterest, they go on Houzz,save all those photos, and he's like,
"Hey, here you go. Uh, this is what Iwant." Uh, but we try to, um, really use
our social media to educate rather thanshow off. And so, um, we still do photos.
We st- we still do take photos, um, at theend of the project. Um, we don't post so
(48:14):
much of that on our social media. Maybe wethrow here and there. Um, but other than
that, we... we just mostly try to knockout as much as we can on the list.
And then what we do is also, which isreally important, is when we're completely
knocked out with the punch list, we giveour client a... sort of like blank page
(48:37):
with... You know, it has a heading- a, aheader on top, you know, the company logo
and stuff like that. And what we tell 'emis to go through the entire home within a
week.... after we're, after we were doneand when they leave. And if they find
anything that we missed during thepunch-out, we'll come back within that
(48:59):
-week to complete it.-Hmm.
So it's a very important step because yes,we have a punch list that we've created.
We know what we need to do to be done, butsometimes you may have, you may have like
a paint, you know, ripped off on the wallsomewhere, or you may have someone who
broke a tile somewhere outside, you know.So we, we tend to give the, the homeowner
(49:23):
a chance to go through themselves. Um, andthis is only if we are working in those
areas. Now, I've, I've seen it where theytake advantage and tell you, like, "Hey,
the, someone broke the tile upstairs whenwe never went in there," right? But we try
our best to l- give the homeowner thechance to look in the areas that we worked
in and, um, create their own punch listthat they feel like wasn't done or wasn't
(49:48):
done right. And we try to knock those outafter as well.
Yeah, that's great. Man, sounds likeyou've really got this, this whole process
very dialed in. You know, you'reproviding great customer experience. You
know, I, I have no doubt that your clientsare really happy, and, uh, see all the
five-star reviews. Uh, it, it goes to showfor that.
-Appreciate it.-I'm curious what... You know, what, what
would you say has been, you know, some ofthe biggest challenges for you building
(50:11):
-this, this business from the ground up?-One of the biggest challenges we, uh, I
faced earlier and maybe still is just thetalent. Um, the
talent is there. I believe that there arepeople out there who are super talented
and very passionate about what... Um, youknow, in this industry, um, it's very...
(50:35):
And I think that one, the one thing wefound to be super helpful, uh, w- with
talent is not just, "Hey, come out here.You know, come t- come work with us and do
the job." We, we, we, we, we prideourselves on, more on continuous
education, um, only because we're...You're only as good as where you are
(50:57):
currently. And so we like to invest in...I like, I... At least I like to invest
into the people that work with us. Um, andthis is specifically with project
management or even d- and design. And, youknow, we would go to, like, trade shows
or, you know, like ideas, for example,just so we could go network. Um, but then
(51:17):
we also like to do, like, online coursesfor project management. So I am getting
ready to sign my, my logistics manager fora project management course online,
to just learn about project management.'Cause we wanted to... We... What we want
to do is create that track record for themto grow within the company. Um, so one of
(51:39):
the few challenges we face will, will...Is, um, finding the right talent for the
right reason. Obviously everyone comes into make money, but sometimes the, you
know, the, the passion is not there, andyou can see it sometimes. And it's,
it's... This industry is very hard, so ittakes a lot from you, and if you can't
-give back, it's kinda hard to grow.-Sure.
(52:00):
Um, and then the last thing, honestly, is,um, trying to, um... You
know, I think one of the few things we,we, we, we've done our best in this area
is educating the client. And that has todo with everything with making an under-
client understand that not all contractorsare the same, right? I understand that
(52:25):
we've, we've all had experiences. As amatter of fact, I had an experience before
I even started construction where I, Igot duped by a contractor, and that was my
first w- eye-opener. Like, this is acrazy, uh, industry you're in, right? And
so even though it is a... It has anegative connotation to it, hence
con'd, it makes it hard for the rightpeople sometimes to
(52:50):
express and make them understand that, youknow, this is why we are different.
Though we do our very best and we gobeyond our measure and limits of
explaining some things of how we go aboutour process, I think our process is the
thing that clients appreciate and not, notso much about the finished product alone.
(53:13):
Yep.
'Cause the finished product will always bethere, but the process to get there is
really what our clients appreciate. But itis hard to see that until you get to that
-finish line.-[laughs]
-Right?-Yeah.
So that's one of the few things that I seethat, um, a lot of the clients in the
beginning don't see necessarily thebenefit of going through a 54-step
(53:36):
process. But then at the end, I always askthem, like, "Do you think this was
-beneficial?" They're like, "Absolutely."-Yeah.
Because it's almost, like, so intimatethat they're able to make decisions right
there and then, versus, "Oh, well, I neverpicked that tile," or, "I never picked
(53:57):
that door," for example. And thatbecomes... That creates that resentment
for contractors that obviously we are not.
Yeah, no, that, that makes total sense.And you know, I think you do a really
great job, you know, back on your, on yourwebsite of educating your clients about
the process and, and, and what it's gonnabe like to go through it and showing them
(54:19):
how, you know, this, this is gonna, youknow, take them from, from the very start
all the way through to the end. And, youknow, it's super helpful. I mean, I just,
I, I, I love, you know, the attention todetail that you have put into really
focusing on the education. I mean, e- eventhe pricing guide that you have up there,
like, giving them those, those ranges andhelping them understand, like, what is a
typical, you know, kitchen gonna cost?What's an addition gonna cost? Like, you
(54:42):
know, and having kind of the different,the different options there. I mean, like,
that, that just... It helps them, youknow, understand so much more than if
they're totally cold and they don't haveany idea what they're about to get into.
You know, I think that really, like, setsyou apart from anyone else that they may
be talking to, you know. And, and, and youmight not have even talked to them yet,
but you're already so far ahead in, inhelping them, you know, understand the,
(55:05):
the, the process and what it's gonna belike to work with you. So, uh-
-Yeah.-Gr- great job, man.
-Appreciate it. No.Appreciate it.-So, but, you know, kinda lastly, I'm- I'm-
I'm just curious as- as- as we wrap upis, you know, is there anything that you
wish you would've known, you know, backwhen you were starting the business that-
that you now know, or- or just kinda any-any general advice that you would give
for- for others who, you know, maybeearlier on in their journey, they're still
(55:30):
got, you know, one- one foot in thetools, one foot in the business, trying to
figure out how to- how to start makingsome moves and- and- and want to set
themselves up to- to be able to reach thesame level of success that you've had?
Yeah. So what I would advise anyone, be itin business or construction, is invest in
yourself, number one. Um, again, i- it ishard to find the right person to work
(55:53):
with or even learn from. And so, you know,I would say take the time to learn who is
doing it better than you. Um, if it's aconsultant or if it's, uh, another builder
or another remodeler who you can partnerup with is, you know, number one,
investing your time and into yourself andlearning the craft of the business. Um,
(56:15):
not just about the crafts and the tools,but in the business because that is what
is gonna ultimately give you thatprojection of your growth. Um, number two
is, um, no, construction is almost wherethere are folks where they- they love what
they do because they love building. Butyou can, just like anything you- you have
(56:39):
love for, you can be out of love with aswell. So what I say is- is, um,
try to get out of the tool for a littlebit and be in the business of construction
to see how to manage. Um, becauseconstruction management is really pe-
people management, if you look at it. Itis not about whether you know how to drive
(57:02):
a nail through or how you- how you screwthis into the wood like that. The
technical stuff are great to know and havea back- background in, so then if anyone
is messing up, you can catch that. But thebusiness of it is people management. And
people management is not just trades onside, it's not just your company or your
employees, it's actually even clientmanagement. Because client management is,
(57:26):
in what I see is, is not just aboutkissing, you know, trying to do everything
that the client wants you to- to do, butmore so creating the experience for them,
which eventually a- helps your companycreate the experience for your employees.
And so I'll say two things, which is, one,invest in yourself, invest in the time,
(57:49):
and invest in some type of, I don't wannacall it a mentorship, but someone who
-knows what they're doing and you just--Sure
... learn from them. And then, uh, threeis invest into your people, right?
Which, if you do have employees, invest inthem as well, because they ultimately
would help you grow the company from whereyou are to where you go. And of course,
(58:13):
hire the right people. So those would bemy, those would be my four advice.
Awesome, George. Uh, this has beenextremely insightful. I really appreciate
you coming on, you know, sharing yourexperience, your story, how you've built
your business. You know, it's- it's- it'sbeen an inspiration for us to be able to
watch you over the years continue to buildthis. You know, Stephanie is, uh, you
(58:34):
know, constantly telling me how awesomeand- and how much she loves to work with
you, thinks that, you know, again, you-you- you-
-I always bother her. [laughs]-No, she- she- she's been, and- and- and
all of us have been very impressed. And,you know, again, you're- you're making all
the right moves, doing all the rightthings. I'm really excited to see what the
future holds for you. I have no doubtthat you will build a very, very
successful and profitable business herebecause of all of the blocking, the
(58:57):
tackling, the foundation, the systems, theprocesses. Like, you- you get it, you put
it in place, you're living it, and you'redoing it, and you're doing a great job at
it. So thank you for letting us just bea- be a partner, the little- little fly on
the wall, getting to see- see you and allthe success. But, you know, it's-
You've reached the success with us, andyou guys
-Thank you.-... have made a huge success, so I
-appreciate it.-Absolutely. Well, thank you again for
-coming on.-All right. Take it easy. Thank you.
(59:18):
All right. See you. Thanks for joining usfor this episode of Builder Stories. We
hope you enjoyed the conversation andgained valuable insights that can help you
in your journey along the way. Don'tforget to subscribe to the show and leave
us a review. And as always, if you orsomeone you know has a story to share,
please contact us at builderstories.com.We'd love to hear from you. I'm Eric
(59:42):
Fortenberry, and remember, every builderhas a unique story. Keep building yours.
[rock music]
[upbeat music] Welcome to the podcastwhere we take a deep dive into the stories
behind construction business leaders. Wewill share how they got started, how they
found success, and the lessons learnedalong the way. I'm your host, Eric
Fortenberry. Welcome to Builder Stories.[music ends] Welcome back,
everybody. Today, I am here with GeorgeLoko, who is the owner and president of Y2
(00:24):
Design Build. They're located inColumbus, Ohio. Really excited to have you
-on the show today, George. Welcome.-Thank you. Thank you for having me in,
-Eric.-Yeah. So why don't you just give us a
little background. Who are you? How'd youget into construction? What do you guys do
-at Y2 Design Build?-No, so yeah. Thanks for having us. Uh,
first of all, uh, it's been an honor tosee the growth of your company and our
(00:49):
company as well. Um, just, you know, usingyour software has super helped us, helped
us grow tremendously. Uh, so mybackground is, um, we don't... W- my
family, we're not builders. Let's startfrom there. All right. So I'm not a first,
second, or third generation builder. Um,I never grew up with any carpentry s-
(01:09):
skills. Um, matter of fact, I did go to...My whole family, um, is in finance and in
banking. But, um, I went to school forengineering, graduated here in Ohio.
Uh, started my corporate job, you know, atthat time. And, uh, right around COVID
time, you know, just like everyone else,we, we, um, w- I lost my job.
(01:34):
But most importantly, uh, it was notnecessarily about losing a job. It was
more of a pivotal moment for me to reallyget what I wanted to always get in life,
which was to become my own, um, entre- uh,you know, boss, but have my own
entrepreneurship journey started. So, uh,right around COVID time, um, it was the
(01:54):
great time for me to really sit back andlisten to what I wanted to really do for
my life. Um, and it was a good pivotalmoment, like I said, in, in, in doing what
I wanted to do. Um, I've always wanted tobe in construction, and I always still,
still was in construction, but, um, I justdidn't know how to go about it. So just
(02:15):
like everyone else or some people, we, youknow, you might have gone to college for
a degree, uh, graduated, did a job orstarted a job, and you have to pivot. So I
just did the same thing, which was, um, Ihad to learn from the grass root of
construction. Um, I started off bybecoming a demolition guy. So I started
(02:36):
doing demolition, um, with anothercontractor, who at that time was one of
the biggest one here in Ohio and still isto this day, and just learned from him.
You know, he taught me how to managepeople, how to manage jobs. Um, that skill
trade was, you know, tremendous, uh,alone for me to know how construction was.
(02:58):
Uh, the second part of learn- learningconstruction was really, you know, with
demolition, we were the first people inthere. We know what's behind the walls. We
know how to make sure things are notbroken. Uh, we try to keep things as it is
just to, you know, just go back intothis, like, white canvas mode. So in that
process, I got to learn aboutconstruction, um, materials and just how
(03:22):
things were built. Um, so we're doingeveryth- anything from like interior
demolition to a whole house demolition tojust everything you can think about what
demolition is about. So in that process, Igot to learn about construction in itself
and what makes up a home. And in thatprocess, I g- got curious about, you know,
(03:45):
how do I go about building a house, orhow do I go about renovating a house? So I
did some research, started learning onYouTube, um, then started going on site,
doing, uh, field visits with some of, uh,some of the friends. My friends now, back
then, they were not friends. They werejust people I, I admired. Right? Uh, so
going back on the job sites, just tryingto learn how the, the flow of work goes in
(04:09):
construction, even though being ademolition guy was just one part aspect of
construction. So eventually, I becamecon- cognizant about the flow of work, um,
learning about the construction world.But I just didn't know one thing. I didn't
know what design was. Um, grow- growingup, I was so intrigued about design, art,
(04:31):
crafts, stuff like that. And even doing myjob, when I graduated, I was doing design
work. I was a design engineer. So I wassuper critical about some des- you know,
stuff like dimensions and how things wereplaced. So you could say I was a little
OCD with, you know, how I built, um, how Ibuild stuff. So I took that skill set
(04:52):
into construction into becoming a designconsultant at first. So I was helping a
lot of folks just design their projects,generally speaking. They, they just reach
out to me and say, "Hey, can you throw outa 3D rendering for me? I'm trying to
renovate my house," or, "I'm trying tobuild this house." So I used a ton of
WhatsApp towards back then just buildingdesigns. And people were really impressed
(05:14):
about the kind of sort of, uh, ideas thatwas coming out, uh, uh... coming about
with. So it kinda sunk in me, and I hadthe idea of, "What if I just started a
architectural firm, but I'm not anarchitect?" So obviously, I couldn't do
that, but I, I had the desire to designstuff and have them designed properly. Um,
(05:35):
so in, in effect, I took that skill,honed it with construction, and started
-the company Y2 Design & Build.-Man, that's, that's awesome. So, you know,
again, y- you had a tough situation. Youknow, COVID came along, couldn't keep
doing the same job, had to go figuresomething else out.
-Mm-hmm.-You found an opportunity to, to really
(05:57):
start at the ground level, work your wayup, learn.... you know, from someone else
who'd been doing it for a while and, youknow, one thing led to another, you ended
up starting your own, you know, your owncompany and, and now you're, you know,
president and owner and, you know, run-running your own business which sounds
like was your entrepreneurial dream tobegin with.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. Um, it's beenthe dream for sure but, um, I didn't
think it would all come this far. Um,which even to speak on, I- I highly s-
(06:23):
recommend, you know, following people whoh- already know or where th- where they
already are you wish to be there. So my,my, my advice to folks is even if you were
to try and get into construction, youdon't have to start from the grass root of
where I started from. You may have somebackground information. I just didn't have
-that, so I--Sure
... had to start from the bottom. But youcan start from wherever you are now and
(06:46):
just take that skill and learn, um, get,get more curious about it pretty much.
Yeah. So what's, uh... Now, in- in whatyear exactly did you start?
So we started in 2019. Always when Iformed the business and, um, in 2020 I
started, uh, I went full all in when Ilost the job. Um, but before that I was
(07:08):
just doubling here and there, like I wassaying, doing demolition with some
contractors. Um, and so I, right afterCOVID when I lost my job, I could try and
grab every kind of job I could at thatpoint and try to help as much as I can.
And so what's the, what's the team looklike today? Is it, is it just you or you
-have some other people?-No. So we have, um, a team of five.
(07:30):
-Okay.-So it's myself, I have, uh, one project
manager, I have one logistics manager, Ihave a design, um, uh, draftsman
who helps design all of our projects, andthen I have an, an accountant who manages
-all the outputs.-Awesome.
And I'm, I'm on, more on the projectmanagement side a lot, so design and p-
(07:52):
-project management.-And I'm curious, so, uh, how, how, how
long in until you started bringing on, youknow, additional employees and kinda
what... Who, who was the first person andhow did you know that you needed help?
Yeah. G- great question. So honestly, um,I- I was just like most entrepreneurs. I
thought I could do it all. Um, I figuredthat my time would've been s- very useful
(08:17):
if I managed the jobs myself. Um, matterof fact, I was actually very, very
particular about who I brought on board.Uh, I h- we have hired people in the past
who joined us as a team and didn't workout. Uh, I quickly learned that, you know,
hiring someone doesn't not necessarilyhave to be with what they say on their
paper but more of mo- more so theircharacter. And you know, I learned it the
(08:41):
hard way actually, by having other peoplecome onboard and just, you know, come and
go. Um, and the reason is sometimes youlook at yourself as a business and you
think that you're the problem or you mayhave been, you may have been part of the
problem, but ultimately the character ofthe person really determines, um, the,
the, the success of your, your, your, um,business. Um, so we, when we started, I- I
(09:05):
just didn't know who to hire first.Matter of fact, I- I did, um, I'm, I'm
part of this group which I'm sure you knowof, um, we, we kinda learned about
business. So construction in itself is onepiece which is the construction and the
technical knowledge. Then constructionwith business is another aspect that a lot
(09:26):
of folks are not aware of. And thebusiness of construction is a whole
different ballgame that, um, if you're notaware of who to hire at the right time,
you can really go down the drain. So myvery first hire was an assistant. Um, and
that system was really just to help me getthings off the books, off my table, and
(09:47):
manage the day-to-day that doesn't reallymatter. So, um, when I looked at it from
that turn, um, if I had to go hire anassistant versus myself doing this job,
I'm actually losing money if I don't hirethe assistant. Um, so I wanted to do that
first, to hire the assistant to take onlittle tasks that I didn't want to really
(10:08):
take care of. And then from there, becauseI had the strong background in project
management, I decided to find someone justlike myself. And the reason I was doing
that was because, um, not only am I tryingto get out of the field and trying to be
directly, uh, working with clients on thedesign side, um, but project management is
(10:31):
a skill that is the hardest to find. Andso to find someone just like you is the
hardest thing to do. So, um, I, like Isaid, I went through a series of different
folks, uh, who came by, who came to workwith us at the company. It just didn't
work- work out right. So I did find, I hadto steal someone from another
construction company with the backgroundand making sure that they know what to do.
(10:55):
That's great. And so do you still... Like,
what do you spend your time on now? Areyou, are you more on the design, you know,
sales side now, or are you still doingsome project management as well?
Yeah. So I'm, I'm heavily concentratedright now on design, what I enjoy the
most. Um, I feel like that's where a lotof my creative juices come in. Um, on the
(11:16):
project management side of things, I'mstill a construction manager. So I still
do oversee and overlook the projects on aweekly basis. Uh, I'm not dealing with the
day-to-day decisions on whether we needto buy more wires or we need to go buy
more cables or whatnot. That's more sodone with the project management side and
(11:37):
logistics management. Um, but for my side,I am going back on site as a project
manager to oversee the progress of thework and making sure that the, the job is
being done, um, per, per s- uh, per spec.Right? Um, but I'm heavily loaded
on the front end. And the reason being is,so for a design build company, we're
(11:59):
spending anywhere between three to sixmonths just designing projects. So-I get
to spend a lot of time with the clientsupfront before we even going to build, and
that really gives them the confidenceknowing that we're gonna execute as
promised. And they do wanna see my facetoo on site, just to make sure things are
done properly. So yeah, I do a little bitof both.
(12:22):
Sure. And tell us a little bit aboutthe... kind of what- what's the target,
you know, your- your ideal project that-that you're looking to sell?
Yeah. So our ideal projects- projects are,um, additions and, uh,
remodeling. Right? And n- on theremodeling side, we do get some calls for
(12:42):
kitchens, bathrooms, and whatnot, but wespecialize in whole-house remodeling. And
the reason being is because, um, we'verea- we- we'd realized that with
whole-house remodeling, not only are wetaking entire scope of work, but we're
able to cons- condense the, um, the- the-the project into more full-on
(13:04):
service as a company. Because when we gowith the whole-house remodel, we're
assigning a design, um, a designer to theproject, and they- they're able to have a
full flow of the, you know, design to flowthroughout the house, versus just con-
um, concentrating in the kitchen or justin the bathrooms. And so we try to attack
(13:27):
multiple rooms, I'll say, um, when we dofull-house remodels. But we specialize in
additions, because that's where a lot offolks find a lot of their return on
investments in, uh, when you do theseadditions. And so we... That's the two
areas we specialize in. We do, uh, alittle bit of ADUs here. Um, in Columbus,
(13:48):
Ohio, we're not fully, um... Uh, we- wedon't have a fully fled-out program for
ADUs and we're... I'm part of the, um,board for a nonprofit that we're trying to
push for ADUs in the city to be approvedas part of a- the building zoning codes.
Um, so we- we've made a really good strideso far, and we're just looking forward to
(14:12):
making this a fully pledged, um- um,initiative to make sure that, um, folks
can build ADUs at the back of their homes.
-That's great.-Yeah.
What- what have you done from a marketingstandpoint? Because you know, I'm... Uh,
you know, I've- I've been looking at yourwebsite. You got a great-looking website,
you know, probably even better than I-than I might have expected just being, you
(14:34):
know, as- as early on as- as you are. Butlike h- h- how did you figure out that
you needed to invest in marketing, and howhas that affected, you know, your- your
ability to- to- to get leads and- and- andnurture them and convert them?
Yeah. So, um, marketing has been a veryinteresting topic throughout the industry,
um, generally speaking. I think that alot of times, as contractors, we're
(14:58):
obviously focusing on projects and we doforget the marketing aspect. Um, I, for
myself, I know I'm not a marketing guruwho knows how to execute, but I know what
to look for. So what we do is we have athird-party, uh, service company that we
hire to manage our... the little stuff,right? The things like your SEOs and
(15:21):
making sure your- your listing isup-to-date. Those are the... one of the
minimum things to do when it comes to S-SEO. But on the- on the marketing side,
re- regards to like Google Ads and stuff,we- we haven't been using, doing Google
Ads for about almost eight months now. Andthe reason why is because, um, Google Ads
is great. We used it. Um, matter of fact,Facebook is another great source. Um, but
(15:44):
we found out that the longevity on yourROI on is in- investing in SEO is- is
much better than you spending on thetemporary, short-term investments on, you
know, Google Ads or Facebook a- FacebookAds. Even though those will help e-
eventually with your cashflow and howthings will help your company, um, because
(16:05):
we are such a niche, um, boutique firm,we're... you know, we do have overheads,
but we're not looking to get a ton ofjobs, you know, in a year. We probably do
about 10 to 12 a year. So when we look atthe calculations per project and we try to
invest in our marketing, we're takingwhat we know, which will be if we have 10
(16:27):
people reach out to us and we could evenget one person to say, uh, who wants to
work with us, then we're happy, becausewe're not trying to do every project. Um,
and so we spent a lot of our m- m-marketing dollars on the SEO part on- uh,
of our websites. Um, other things we founda secret to what I do a lot recently, and
(16:49):
most- most importantly now in- in our dayand age, is social media. Um, it's so
important to have a social media presence.I- I am a young guy, so I would stand lap
that some generations may not be familiarwith it, but social media is by far the
best RI for free. And the reason being isnot- not necessarily intentionally trying
(17:15):
to get a lead from that. Um, one, Googlehas a connection or track record of having
you ch- you know, post on social mediaand having that kind of like follow you
wherever you go. Um, and I've had clientswho follow us on social media all day,
every day, um, just watching our storiesand just inter- in- interacting with our
(17:38):
f- you know, our f- our- our- our, youknow, our feed and stuff like that. And
that ultimately helps them understand whowe are and how we do, how we do work. Um,
a lot of folks just have websites withpretty pictures and you- you name it,
right? We can always post pretty picturesany day, but we sh- our content is geared
(18:01):
towards education and trying to educatethe client and some con- and contractors,
of course, on how we work, how we go aboutdoing certain things.And as an owner, it
is my job to have that continuouseducation on construction and lear-
knowing what is the new stuff coming up,what is the best practices of doing
(18:22):
certain things. So one of my favorite, um,construction channels is, uh, Build Show.
I- I learn a ton from that channel.There's a lot of cool videos that they
show about different ways about how theybuild stuff. So my ultimate deci- goal is
that I continuously improve all myknowledge as I go and not just be
(18:44):
-stagnant.-Yeah. Well, I mean, again, I'm- I'm
extremely impressed. Like your- your- yourwebsite, your social media presence.
Like, again, I- I... If- if I didn't knowthat you only had, you know, five people
on your team, I- I, you know, I mightthink you're a 25 person team, you know,
doing millions of dollars in sales,because like it's just so on point. And
I'm just, I'm so impressed by how you'vebeen able to, you know, to- to deliver
(19:07):
that. A- and again, what- what I heard isthat you understood the importance of
marketing and investing in it, but youknew that you weren't the right person to
actually go build the website, do all ofthat. And so you found a- a- a marketing
partner who has- has, you know, been ableto- to basically kind of, you know, be an
agency for you so that you still got allof those things done and- and delivered
(19:29):
and are delivering on your marketing needswithout having to hire someone full time
or without you having to put that hat onas well. You know, and that is such a
-great move, George.-Appreciate it. Yes, it's- it's critical.
Um, every level of the business isdifferent, so obviously you take- you take
it as you- it comes. And do I see myselfhiring an in-house marketing guy at some
point? Of course. I mean, the dollarand... The- the ROI on that is always
(19:52):
there, 'cause if- when you look at howmuch you spend in a year on marketing,
that's almost the cost of you hiring afull time.
-Yeah.-Right? So it's almost that... It's almost
like we're at that point where doesn'tmake sense to have that in-house, of
course. But you do wanna h- hire slow. Um,in my case, I hire slow and fire faster,
only because I've hired faster and firedfaster and it always came back to bite me.
(20:17):
Yeah. So what have you found to be... I
mean, you know, again, kind of are- are-are you... Are you finding that these-
these natural, you know, organic, youknow, leads, you know, that- that are
coming in that are finding you from thewebsite? I mean, what- what other sources,
I mean, are- are- are you, you know,finding, you know, referrals and word of
mouth to be really effective? Is there anysort of networking or- or things like
(20:38):
that? What, like, what else is- is ginningup your leads for you?
Yeah. So just apart from SEO and marketingon the digital side, um, like I said,
social media's a big one, so we get ahuge, uh... We- we don't have a huge
following. Actually, we have a very mediumsize, and it's all organic. It's not paid
following. Um, and we get a ton ofreferrals. We have, um, uh, we have
(21:01):
partnerships with architects and designersthat we work with. So one of the best
inv- best investments we make on a dailybasis is- is- is investing in the
relationships with designers. And what wedo on our end is nothing genius. We're
just building genuine business with peopleand just genuine relationships that would
(21:23):
eventually play out, uh, at some point,right? Some investors... I mean, some-
some investments we made are, um, justtaking, like, some designers to- for
lunch, for example. It's- it's just aslittle as that. And also, you know, giving
them some of our projects, because thatultimately will help them, um, get more
(21:45):
business, and in return, th- their, thatrelationship grows and grows and helps us
get even much more, um... Get much morebetter with our work and even referrals.
Um, another way we go about doing it is,again, just social media, th- which is the
biggest one. Uh, we- we don't get a tonof people asking or requesting for
(22:05):
services through our social media, but thesocial media is like the roadmap that
leads them to our pages that theneventually they put in a
Sure. Yeah. That- that makes total sense.And- and where do
you... You know, so where do you findthese designers to- to go network with? Is
(22:28):
there, you know, particular, you know,events that you're going to, or are you
going to kind of local markets, or how-how are you... How are you finding them?
Yeah. So it's... I mean, it's twodifferent ways. So one is go to one... We
go to a local meetups. Um, there- thereare a ton of architects that we work with
on purpose for different levels ofprojects. So whenever they have meetings
(22:50):
or g- gatherings or meetups, um, we liketo attend and just show our face. Um,
we're also meeting a lot of designersthrough social media too, um, just by-
just by following them. Right? Um, but alot of our referrals on designers are
coming from ultimately meeting them inperson and building that relationship, and
(23:15):
then they go on to refer you to otherpeople, um, based on how you guys... How
that relationship was or how thatrelationship grew, um, built out.
-Yep.-And then, um, just these local, um, um,
NARI meetings, you know, stuff like that.Nothing fancy.
-Yeah.-Nothing fancy. Yeah.
No. Well, that- that's, uh, again, ma-making all the right moves. That's exactly
(23:36):
-how you do it.-Yep.
So, so tell us a little bit about yoursales process. So once you get a lead in,
you know, get- get- get connected withthem, are- are you... Are you going out on
site? Are you doing a first initial phoneconsultation? Kind of what's the full
sales process look like to get them allthe way into design and ultimately into
-construction?-Yeah. So our- our, uh, design is a 54-step
(23:59):
process to begin with. Uh, 54 might scarea lot of people, but it's because on Job
Tread, we've, we were able to build outour schedule and template that we follow
as we go, and it's- it's very detailed tothe point where when we do add our- our
designers on board, they're able to......track where they are with time in terms of
(24:19):
design. But in terms of sales, um, we,we... Our management... Our sales
management is, is streamlined. Uh, we usea little bit of AI and we use a little bit
of human interaction. And the reasonbeing is, when we've... When we get a lead
in for the first time, let's just sayit's through our website, right? When we
(24:41):
go to the website, put in the information,the website alone, your contact form is
the most important form on your website.The more information you can spit out for
a client to fill out for you, the betteryou get understanding of what they're
asking. Only because a typical contact usform will, would be your name, phone
number, email, and description. That's notenough. You wa- What we do is, on our
(25:07):
contact form, it is a pre-qualification,um, um, form you fill out that gives us an
idea whether we are a good fit or not. Sowhen... by the time we reach out to you,
we already have an idea from a budgetstandpoint, to timeline, to what are you
looking for, to if you're even a good fitto begin with. So when we do reach out to
(25:30):
our clients, we already have apre-qualified method before even going to
a much deeper conversation. And by thetime we pre-qualified them on the phone,
we're straight up just telling, askingfolks, or telling folks, "Hey, this is
where we are with pricing. If that fits,we're happy to move to the next stage. If
(25:51):
not, we can refer you to the next person."And that alone helps a lot of people just
have the courtesy of declining oraccepting our invitation next. And the
reason is because, um, if we're not a goodfit, it ultima- automatically helps us
not waste your time or vice versa. Um, butultimately, when you do fill out that
(26:15):
form, you're putting that request, wealready know that you are ready to kind of
go forward and we go from there. The nextstep from there, uh, after doing the
proof of qu- pre-qualification, is we do asite visit, which is for free. We don't
charge for site visits. Uh, on the sitevisits, there are two things we're really
trying to knock out. One o- to understandthe project, have an eye to the project,
(26:38):
of course. But two, most importantly,understand any body language. So I
study a lot on sales. Um, I've studied,um, you can name it, Jim Ron, you can say,
uh, Dan Kennedy. You name it, the greatsin sales. And body language is probably
the one of the best ways to learn aboutyour clients. And so with body language
(27:02):
is, we're learning about how our clientsare reacting to certain things when we
talk about... So sometimes it's just priceed and it's like, you can tell from the
body language this is not the right fitright away, so... And the reason why we do
that all, the reason why we study thatpart, is because before... right after we
do a site visit, we're going straight intowhat we do a presentation. So we don't do
(27:27):
like... We don't send quotes over thephone or texts or emails. We're actually,
um, doing a presentation to our clients.And the reason is because our ticket items
are pretty high, and so for tickets that,that high is for a certain caliber of,
um, people who value your time and, andvalue effort. And so we go the... We go
(27:51):
beyond that effort of presenting to them,and that helps at least put us in a
different br- bracket when they meet us,um, in person. And then, um, right after
s-... Uh, right after presenting those,um, design proposals, uh, we actually
create the proposal by doing rendering. SoI'm the guy who's doing the design
sometimes. Uh, I do have my, again, mydraftsman who does that as well. But we
(28:14):
team up and work together and kind ofbrainstorm what are some good ideas to
come about. And, um, when... Right afterwe do that, we present it to the client,
they do accept it, we go into a design,um, agreement. And like I said, the design
can take anywhere between three to sixmonths. Right after this design is
completed, we go hunting, finding, um,some, you know... We go find some bids and
(28:39):
hopefully those fit into our proposal.And then from there, we going to build.
Yeah. That's great, man. That's, uh...You, you've, you've really got it dialed
in. I mean, you know, with the 54 pointstep process for design, kind of getting
them, you know, through. It sounds likeyou really are making sure that, you know,
e- everything that, you know... E- e-every detail is, is... It's kind of
(29:01):
figured out and flushed out on the frontend. Sound- sounds like your goal is, uh,
h- hopefully to not have to use changeorders and things like that.
Yeah. So that's what we, that's what we,uh, we pride on our... Those are our sell-
uh, our offers, where we, where we talkwith our clients is, we guarantee no
change orders and we guarantee that, uh,the, the price of all materials that we
(29:21):
buy is not... There are no markups on it.So no change orders, no markups on
materials. You get, you get the price ofwhat you pay for, uh, on those-
-Wow-... materials.
And that's, uh, [laughs] that's prettyawesome. I, uh, I, I want to hire you
alone for those, uh, those [laughs]guarantees right there. That's very rare,
George. I mean, how, how did you... Youknow, I, I mean, I, I gotta believe that's
(29:42):
like a really nice, like, you know,selling, you know, point, selling value
add there, like... I, I can't say I'veever heard another contractor, uh,
actually kind of guarantees no changeorders or markups on material.
Yeah. So the reason why we stand behindthose two things is because of the design.
Design is so critical that if we skipdesign process or the design phase, I can
(30:03):
almost guarantee a change order. Thereason being is, I... What I consider it
to be is, I have three months to figure itout, right? So if I'm given any project,
and like right now, we're doing a projectwith, you know, the state. And it's a,
it's a, um... You know, it's a, it's a,you know, private project, like we
don't... we can't discuss about it.And-When I l- when I approached them, I
(30:26):
had mentioned, "Hey, we need design," andthey said, "Why do we need a design?" I
said, "So I can guarantee your no-changeorder." And the reason I'm ch- I'm
guaranteeing that is because I am, I amtaking my time to really price things out
for you. And when I'm pricing things out,you know, you might have a 30 or 60-day
period to have those quotes or, you know,estimates to be valid. And so if I'm able
(30:50):
to get some pricing around for, forwhatever we are doing, I'm guaranteeing
that there's no changes, one. And thentwo, I'm doing my takeover ahead of time,
knowing that I know what the project isgonna be, and I know that once we're done
with the design, you would have a full,full-blown, um, drawing that is
(31:10):
up-to-date with accurate pricing. Um, andthat if you don't even feel comfortable,
you can let someone else bid the project,and hopefully you get to see why our
-process is a valuable process.-Yeah, so and, and then I assume that's...
You're, you're charging for the design,right? And for that-
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So our design... Ourdesign phase is a complete different phase
(31:31):
from our build phase. And the way we goabout it is, we, we build for that on a,
uh, with our designers. We workhand-in-hand with our designers, and then
we work, you know, with our team on thedraftsman drafting the, the floor, uh,
floor layouts. And then, uh, from there,if they're happy with what they see with
the price that we give them, they're ableto take that and, uh, going to build with
(31:55):
-us.-Yeah, that's great. Is that, uh... W-
Would you say kind of the conversion, youknow, rate from design to build is, is
-fairly high, I assume?-Yeah, it is. So we've had folks where...
And it's, it's so interesting to see thetwo side of the spectrum. You have folks
who are patient enough to understand that.We've had homeowners who have done
(32:17):
constru... Who have done remodeling in thepast, got burnt because, um, they hired
Jack, you know, Chuck in the Truck andregret- regretted it, but can't do
anything about it. And then every maybefive years is a new project that comes
about with the, with the same client. Andso we've had those clients who've had that
(32:38):
experience. And when we explain to themwhat our process is about and how we go
about it, they feel more confident.Because now not only are they just seeing
that they get to pick out all of theirstuff ahead of time, they get to see what
the prices are, knowing that hey, forexample, George, my... Let's just say my
(32:59):
target investment is around 300,000. Ican't go above that. Maybe I could do 320.
So what we, what we're doing is takingthat number and dialing in everything we
can to fit into that number. Now, ifthings go higher or lower, it's because
they chose to go with something that'smore expensive. But we do our best to try
(33:19):
and fit those budgets in, um, thoseprojects in to fit into that budg- uh,
investment range that they have. Um, soultimately, it helps us know that as a
guarantee. And then for them, they havethe guarantee, knowing that if I have to
spend this amount, amount of money to aproject, I don't have to worry about
spending more because I know what I'mgetting. I know the tile, I know the
(33:41):
floor, I know the paint, I know who I'mdealing with, and, you know, hence why it
-takes about three months to complete.-Yeah. Well, I mean, it, it sounds like a
great service, again, to, to have you gothrough every single detail. You know,
that, that's also gonna bring them theconfidence, you know, moving into the next
stage, you know, where, where, you know,you'll, you'll actually start the
(34:03):
construction. So, I mean, I think it's agreat, a great move. Now, I gotta ask.
Let's say... Or, or, or has there everbeen a situation where you got into a
project and, and something happened, someunforeseen, you know, issue, challenge
thing happened that like, okay, you know,the price is gonna change or there's gotta
be... You know, h- how do you deal withthat if, if that's ever happened?
(34:25):
-Oh, it happens all the time. [laughs]-[laughs]
It happens all the time, and I'm startingto understand that it is just the nature
-of the beast.-Yeah.
And only because... Now, we're humans andwe make mistakes, and you can't... You
control... What happens with constructionmanagement is that you can control the
flow of construction, but you can'tcontrol someone making a mistake because
(34:50):
it could happen at any given time. Forexample, I had a client that were
installing a project f- uh, uh, a screenfor, and we had all this... We had all the
materials put together and somethinghappened and it ripped off. It was not
intentional. It was, it was just a faultof one of the, uh, installers, and it
(35:11):
delayed the project because now we have towait to get this done, have it shipped by
the manufacturer, replace that, thencontinue with the work. And so ultimately,
from the client's standpoint, not superhappy about it, right? But at, at least
the, the... What we do in those times iscommunication. Communication is
(35:32):
probably... Not probably, the most tool,the best used tool to use- to be used in
construction, besides a hammer, becauseonce you have that communication skill,
you're able to communicate whether it'sbad, good, uh, good news or bad news. Or,
"Hey, I just wanna let you know there'sgonna be a two-week delay time." Yeah,
(35:53):
it's not good news, but you're at leasttelling them because they have the
expectation of knowing that, "Hey, I'mgoing to be done next week." But because
now we have a delay, we don't know what'sgoing on. So we owe it to ourselves that
at least the first thing we do when thereare issues on site is to communi-
communicate with the client. Um, butbesides that, from the company standpoint,
(36:17):
obviously, that affects our bottom linesand, you know, that ultimately eats into
our profit, but we do have a cushion thatwe put into each line to make
sure that those, um...... those issuesthat come around are taken care of, right?
Um, so we have a contingency, um, linethat we add to our budgets that we...
(36:42):
I took this from a commercial contractor,right? So when you're the commercial or
prod- uh, government work, you can put inthose contingency budgets as a line item.
But what it happens, what it is, is thatit is a... It is money that is part of the
project, but if it's not being used up,you re- we refund that back to the client.
(37:05):
So at high level number, if you have a$1,000 contingency on your budget, what we
do is we take that money up front becausewe don't know what was gonna happen. And
at the end of the project when we noticethat there is nothing to be scared of or
not, there's nothing to be worried aboutfor, you know, the project, we refund that
c- uh, m- money back to the client.Because that ultimately lets us know that
(37:29):
we can stand behind our word in knowingthat we are not gonna change order. And I
think for any client who knows that I'mgonna get a check back at the end of the
project, I mean, that's probably the mostexciting thing, right? So that's one of
the, um, grap- uh, satisfying things we dofor clients at the end of the day once
-they, uh, once the projects are complete.-That's awesome. I love that. You know, and
(37:51):
I, I couldn't agree more. I mean,communication, it is, it is so important.
I mean, that, that, that literally canmake or break the entire customer's
-experience...-True
... you know, going through a constructionproject 'cause, you know, it's, it's,
there, there's, there's any number ofthings that can happen. And when the worst
things happen, as long as youcommunicate, you're forthcoming, you're
transparent, you know, you're, you're,you're, you're, you're having these
(38:14):
interactions, you're sharing with them,"Hey, we know this is happening. Here's
our plan. Here's what's happening." Like,keeping them in the loop, I think it's
the, the best way that you can possibly,you know, mitigate their, their, their
anxiety and their feelings of concern thatwill naturally, you know, come up. So I,
I think that's great. I'm, I'm, I'mcurious, are you guys using like, you
know, the daily logs feature? Are yousharing updates, like the photos, progress
(38:36):
work? Like, how do you involve the, theclient, you know, on their, on their
-JobTread?-Oh, yeah, we are heavy on daily logs. Um,
we, we... So what I do, what I do for, youknow, the project management side,
um, we, we make sure that on site we havea checklist, right?
(38:58):
And we have a... We actually have a paperversion of a checklist. And we also have
the, uh, you know, the iPad version. ButI'm, I'm kinda old school too sometimes
when it, when it comes to certain things,but, um, the... I have a checklist that
every trade that comes on site, whetherit, it has to do with, you
(39:19):
know, doing certain, per- task for theday. Our PMs or even our logistic manager
has to report that on our daily logs. Andwe share that daily log with the clients
on their dashboard. And so, for example, Ihave one client who was out of time and
they were super happy that we had thosereports because then they get to see what
(39:42):
was done with some pictures and videos.And they get to see that we have, you
know, certain issues so we, we can discussthings like, like roll- uh, setbacks,
it's things like that on the report. So weare super heavy on that. Now, I know on
site is kinda hard to always do the dailylogs because you might be
(40:05):
super busy, super tired, or maybe out oftown somewhere or doing something else. So
what we try to tell our... what I tell myPM is that I wo- I do understand
sometimes you miss it and we do have a KPIfor that, by the way, that we track. And
if you don't keep up with that youliterally lose your bonus for the year. So
(40:26):
we try to make sure that they get, theyget it, their, th- uh, their incentivized
for it basically. Um, but on a minimum,we, we require a three log per project
-in a week.-Hmm.
If you can't do five, do a minimum ofthree because that means you d- you d- you
could do a Monday, Wednesday, or aFriday. And what that tells me is that you
(40:47):
were actually on site for each projectthat we are doing, um, whether you miss a
Tuesday or a Thursday, but at least threedays out of that week you were on site to
make sure the project was going. And Ithink that for me is a, it's effi- it's
sufficient and it's sufficient for me tosay that we know what's going on, um, and
-sharing that information with our client.-Yeah, that's great. And I'm, I'm sure
(41:10):
they, uh, that they, they must reallyappreciate, you know, I, I know I had a,
uh, had our pool built by a JobTreadcontractor and, uh, at first they weren't
sharing the daily logs. I was like, "Hey,would y'all share those?" And then, "Oh,
we didn't even realize we could." And sothen they started sharing it and it was
just, like, awesome. My wife and I, like,we felt like we're a part of this journey
and, like, we saw the updates. And even,like, when nothing was gonna happen, like,
(41:32):
sometimes they were still, you know,reporting back and saying, "Hey, you know,
we're still waiting on this," or, youknow, "Everything's, you know, on track,
we're just, you know, waiting till nextweek," or whatever it may be. Like, I
just, I think being able to, like, involvethe, the customer is such a great way to,
like, make them feel even more bought in.And, you know, it also kinda gets you,
(41:52):
you know, g- gets them off your back alittle bit. Like, if we weren't, you know,
"Hey, where are you? Where are you? Youknow, why are you guys not here?" You
know, it's like, oh, you know, we cancheck the schedule and we see. You know,
and, and, and just kinda having that,those, those clear expectations-
-Yeah-... I think was really beneficial.
And speaking on that, I think for us whatwe do, we set expectations with our
clients. We, so we have an expectation,um, um, covenant that we give to our
(42:14):
clients and one of them is to use the datalog. And so we tell our clients, "If you
had a quick question, you can text." That,so a question could be like, "Hey, what
time are you gonna be here?" "We're gonnabe here at 8:00," for example. But if it's
a question about the project, we referthem to go back to your dashboard. As a
(42:36):
matter of fact, I have a Loom video that Ishoot to s- I send over to my client
before we start projects to bookmark the,the daily log or the dashboard.... on your
-computer.-Nice.
And we do what I- I... Probably nine timesout of 10, if I get a text from a client,
I say, "I'm gonna give you the answer onthe dashboard."
(42:58):
-Mm-hmm.-So if you want the answer, you can look it
on the dashboard. So we try to preventtext messages and stuff like that.
-Yeah.-Um, it's kinda hard to find, c- get
clients to always use it. But at leastwhen... if we get our win rate to be at
least 80% of that conversation beingtracked on the dashboard, we are all...
-We, we know what's going on.-Yeah. So and, and I see you got the, the
(43:19):
client portal, the, the login link. So doyou show them like how to save the app on
their, on their phone? 'Cause sometimesthat can also... You know, it's like I'm
in the moment, I wanna send something.It's like, all right, we'll just pull up
-JobTread and send.-Yeah. Right. You know, actually, I haven't
done that and I think I'm gonna do that,thinking about it, 'cause I know-
-Mm-... on my phone I have the JobTread app,
-but--Yeah
... I know I can also do it on thecomputer. So that's a good way to actually
(43:39):
have them get quick access to it versususing the computer. So I'm gonna-
-Yep-... do that next. Yeah.
Yeah. No, it's, uh... Again, my, my wifeand I, it's how we kept, kept along, and,
you know, super helpful to have it there.Um, I'm, I'm curious. So, so, you know,
once you get the project kinda wrapped up,like tell me about sort of what, what's
the, what's the process of kind of closingout with, with the homeowner. You know,
(44:02):
are, are you asking for, for thosereviews, for the referrals? You know, do
you ever record any testimonials? Likehow, how do you kind of, you know, really
take that last step to, to make sure thatall this effort and this, this great
project you delivered, that you can sortof parlay that into additional marketing,
you know, content and hopefully get, youknow, more referrals and leads from it?
Yeah. So our punch, punch-out list ispretty intense. Um, you know, I'm sure
(44:27):
everyone understands the punch-out couldtake a very long time. So what we do for
the most part with a punch-out is, isobviously over-communicating towards those
times. It's bec- you know, 'cause that'swhen most of the times we have delays as
well, is the punch-out. So we c-over-communicate first. Um, number two,
we, we have a punch-out list that wecreate that, um... One, we started off
(44:52):
using it with job site codes where we, wehave these, um, you know, QR codes and we
go in there, create this list, put all theQR code, "Hey, this is the punch-out list
code." So our contractors go on site,scan that, know what is on, is on, on it,
on there. Luckily and thankfully, JobTreadnow can create these, um, QR codes for
(45:13):
us, so we're now going to adopt that intoour system. Um, so we created j- we do
create QR codes for our punch-out. Um, wealso have a, uh, a third-party, um,
company we work with. Um, it's twoactually. So one is with JobTread, which
is NiceJob. And NiceJob is very good fortracking reviews, and
(45:37):
they do have a service for sendingsome... you know, sending out some
-brownies, to get some brownie points.-[laughs]
Which is really good. Um, I recently cameacross another company that actually does
much more. Um, I can't remember theirname. I think it's DoneZil, I think is the
name. And what they do is they, they,they, they take your lead and then they,
(45:59):
they create this radius map and try toshoot out newsletters. Not newsletters,
but, uh, mail, mail, uh, mail newslettersto your clients and nearby, to let them
know that you are actually working thejob, um, area. So we're just about to sign
up with them. We haven't done that yet,but I think it's a pretty cool, cool thing
(46:20):
to do. So we're gonna in- innovate thatinto our punch-out time, to that, so then
at that time we, we get some folks aroundthat neighborhood to know that we're
working in that neighborhood. Um, oh, andalso, depending on the scope of work and
how grand a the project is, sometimes wedo some parties with the clients. Right?
(46:40):
So we, we just maybe throw a party toinvite some folks in there to come watch
what we did. Uh, only if they agree, ofcourse. Uh, we, we might do like a, uh,
you know, some... get some food, somedrinks, and talk about the projects if we
have to. Um, but we, we mostly m- uh,100... nine times out of 10, I've already
(47:03):
had one client who's agreed to do that.Nine times out of 10 they're like, "No,
thank you. We're, we're great. We'regreat. ... where we are. Um, and so that's
another thing we do towards thepunch-out. The other thing we do, um,
during punch-out is, um, photography, um,without- with, uh... And we do some type
of, uh, content behind that. Um, I... WhatI try to do is, is to stay away from
(47:29):
trying to show off, um, projects. And thereason is because, um, again, your
homeowner or your client, or your nextclient who you're w- li- wishing to work
with, yes, they will... they do wanna seethat you're... you have some good work,
and they do wanna see that you have...you, you say who you say you are. Uh, but
nine times out of 10 they already have anidea of what they want, right? Because
(47:52):
they go on Pinterest, they go on Houzz,save all those photos, and he's like,
"Hey, here you go. Uh, this is what Iwant." Uh, but we try to, um, really use
our social media to educate rather thanshow off. And so, um, we still do photos.
We st- we still do take photos, um, at theend of the project. Um, we don't post so
(48:14):
much of that on our social media. Maybe wethrow here and there. Um, but other than
that, we... we just mostly try to knockout as much as we can on the list.
And then what we do is also, which isreally important, is when we're completely
knocked out with the punch list, we giveour client a... sort of like blank page
(48:37):
with... You know, it has a heading- a, aheader on top, you know, the company logo
and stuff like that. And what we tell 'emis to go through the entire home within a
week.... after we're, after we were doneand when they leave. And if they find
anything that we missed during thepunch-out, we'll come back within that
(48:59):
-week to complete it.-Hmm.
So it's a very important step because yes,we have a punch list that we've created.
We know what we need to do to be done, butsometimes you may have, you may have like
a paint, you know, ripped off on the wallsomewhere, or you may have someone who
broke a tile somewhere outside, you know.So we, we tend to give the, the homeowner
(49:23):
a chance to go through themselves. Um, andthis is only if we are working in those
areas. Now, I've, I've seen it where theytake advantage and tell you, like, "Hey,
the, someone broke the tile upstairs whenwe never went in there," right? But we try
our best to l- give the homeowner thechance to look in the areas that we worked
in and, um, create their own punch listthat they feel like wasn't done or wasn't
(49:48):
done right. And we try to knock those outafter as well.
Yeah, that's great. Man, sounds likeyou've really got this, this whole process
very dialed in. You know, you'reproviding great customer experience. You
know, I, I have no doubt that your clientsare really happy, and, uh, see all the
five-star reviews. Uh, it, it goes to showfor that.
-Appreciate it.-I'm curious what... You know, what, what
would you say has been, you know, some ofthe biggest challenges for you building
(50:11):
-this, this business from the ground up?-One of the biggest challenges we, uh, I
faced earlier and maybe still is just thetalent. Um, the
talent is there. I believe that there arepeople out there who are super talented
and very passionate about what... Um, youknow, in this industry, um, it's very...
(50:35):
And I think that one, the one thing wefound to be super helpful, uh, w- with
talent is not just, "Hey, come out here.You know, come t- come work with us and do
the job." We, we, we, we, we prideourselves on, more on continuous
education, um, only because we're...You're only as good as where you are
(50:57):
currently. And so we like to invest in...I like, I... At least I like to invest
into the people that work with us. Um, andthis is specifically with project
management or even d- and design. And, youknow, we would go to, like, trade shows
or, you know, like ideas, for example,just so we could go network. Um, but then
(51:17):
we also like to do, like, online coursesfor project management. So I am getting
ready to sign my, my logistics manager fora project management course online,
to just learn about project management.'Cause we wanted to... We... What we want
to do is create that track record for themto grow within the company. Um, so one of
(51:39):
the few challenges we face will, will...Is, um, finding the right talent for the
right reason. Obviously everyone comes into make money, but sometimes the, you
know, the, the passion is not there, andyou can see it sometimes. And it's,
it's... This industry is very hard, so ittakes a lot from you, and if you can't
-give back, it's kinda hard to grow.-Sure.
(52:00):
Um, and then the last thing, honestly, is,um, trying to, um... You
know, I think one of the few things we,we, we, we've done our best in this area
is educating the client. And that has todo with everything with making an under-
client understand that not all contractorsare the same, right? I understand that
(52:25):
we've, we've all had experiences. As amatter of fact, I had an experience before
I even started construction where I, Igot duped by a contractor, and that was my
first w- eye-opener. Like, this is acrazy, uh, industry you're in, right? And
so even though it is a... It has anegative connotation to it, hence
con'd, it makes it hard for the rightpeople sometimes to
(52:50):
express and make them understand that, youknow, this is why we are different.
Though we do our very best and we gobeyond our measure and limits of
explaining some things of how we go aboutour process, I think our process is the
thing that clients appreciate and not, notso much about the finished product alone.
(53:13):
Yep.
'Cause the finished product will always bethere, but the process to get there is
really what our clients appreciate. But itis hard to see that until you get to that
-finish line.-[laughs]
-Right?-Yeah.
So that's one of the few things that I seethat, um, a lot of the clients in the
beginning don't see necessarily thebenefit of going through a 54-step
(53:36):
process. But then at the end, I always askthem, like, "Do you think this was
-beneficial?" They're like, "Absolutely."-Yeah.
Because it's almost, like, so intimatethat they're able to make decisions right
there and then, versus, "Oh, well, I neverpicked that tile," or, "I never picked
(53:57):
that door," for example. And thatbecomes... That creates that resentment
for contractors that obviously we are not.
Yeah, no, that, that makes total sense.And you know, I think you do a really
great job, you know, back on your, on yourwebsite of educating your clients about
the process and, and, and what it's gonnabe like to go through it and showing them
(54:19):
how, you know, this, this is gonna, youknow, take them from, from the very start
all the way through to the end. And, youknow, it's super helpful. I mean, I just,
I, I, I love, you know, the attention todetail that you have put into really
focusing on the education. I mean, e- eventhe pricing guide that you have up there,
like, giving them those, those ranges andhelping them understand, like, what is a
typical, you know, kitchen gonna cost?What's an addition gonna cost? Like, you
(54:42):
know, and having kind of the different,the different options there. I mean, like,
that, that just... It helps them, youknow, understand so much more than if
they're totally cold and they don't haveany idea what they're about to get into.
You know, I think that really, like, setsyou apart from anyone else that they may
be talking to, you know. And, and, and youmight not have even talked to them yet,
but you're already so far ahead in, inhelping them, you know, understand the,
(55:05):
the, the process and what it's gonna belike to work with you. So, uh-
-Yeah.-Gr- great job, man.
-Appreciate it. No.Appreciate it.-So, but, you know, kinda lastly, I'm- I'm-
I'm just curious as- as- as we wrap upis, you know, is there anything that you
wish you would've known, you know, backwhen you were starting the business that-
that you now know, or- or just kinda any-any general advice that you would give
for- for others who, you know, maybeearlier on in their journey, they're still
(55:30):
got, you know, one- one foot in thetools, one foot in the business, trying to
figure out how to- how to start makingsome moves and- and- and want to set
themselves up to- to be able to reach thesame level of success that you've had?
Yeah. So what I would advise anyone, be itin business or construction, is invest in
yourself, number one. Um, again, i- it ishard to find the right person to work
(55:53):
with or even learn from. And so, you know,I would say take the time to learn who is
doing it better than you. Um, if it's aconsultant or if it's, uh, another builder
or another remodeler who you can partnerup with is, you know, number one,
investing your time and into yourself andlearning the craft of the business. Um,
(56:15):
not just about the crafts and the tools,but in the business because that is what
is gonna ultimately give you thatprojection of your growth. Um, number two
is, um, no, construction is almost wherethere are folks where they- they love what
they do because they love building. Butyou can, just like anything you- you have
(56:39):
love for, you can be out of love with aswell. So what I say is- is, um,
try to get out of the tool for a littlebit and be in the business of construction
to see how to manage. Um, becauseconstruction management is really pe-
people management, if you look at it. Itis not about whether you know how to drive
(57:02):
a nail through or how you- how you screwthis into the wood like that. The
technical stuff are great to know and havea back- background in, so then if anyone
is messing up, you can catch that. But thebusiness of it is people management. And
people management is not just trades onside, it's not just your company or your
employees, it's actually even clientmanagement. Because client management is,
(57:26):
in what I see is, is not just aboutkissing, you know, trying to do everything
that the client wants you to- to do, butmore so creating the experience for them,
which eventually a- helps your companycreate the experience for your employees.
And so I'll say two things, which is, one,invest in yourself, invest in the time,
(57:49):
and invest in some type of, I don't wannacall it a mentorship, but someone who
-knows what they're doing and you just--Sure
... learn from them. And then, uh, threeis invest into your people, right?
Which, if you do have employees, invest inthem as well, because they ultimately
would help you grow the company from whereyou are to where you go. And of course,
(58:13):
hire the right people. So those would bemy, those would be my four advice.
Awesome, George. Uh, this has beenextremely insightful. I really appreciate
you coming on, you know, sharing yourexperience, your story, how you've built
your business. You know, it's- it's- it'sbeen an inspiration for us to be able to
watch you over the years continue to buildthis. You know, Stephanie is, uh, you
(58:34):
know, constantly telling me how awesomeand- and how much she loves to work with
you, thinks that, you know, again, you-you- you-
-I always bother her. [laughs]-No, she- she- she's been, and- and- and
all of us have been very impressed. And,you know, again, you're- you're making all
the right moves, doing all the rightthings. I'm really excited to see what the
future holds for you. I have no doubtthat you will build a very, very
successful and profitable business herebecause of all of the blocking, the
(58:57):
tackling, the foundation, the systems, theprocesses. Like, you- you get it, you put
it in place, you're living it, and you'redoing it, and you're doing a great job at
it. So thank you for letting us just bea- be a partner, the little- little fly on
the wall, getting to see- see you and allthe success. But, you know, it's-
You've reached the success with us, andyou guys
-Thank you.-... have made a huge success, so I
-appreciate it.-Absolutely. Well, thank you again for
-coming on.-All right. Take it easy. Thank you.
(59:18):
All right. See you. Thanks for joining usfor this episode of Builder Stories. We
hope you enjoyed the conversation andgained valuable insights that can help you
in your journey along the way. Don'tforget to subscribe to the show and leave
us a review. And as always, if you orsomeone you know has a story to share,
please contact us at builderstories.com.We'd love to hear from you. I'm Eric
(59:42):
Fortenberry, and remember, every builderhas a unique story. Keep building yours.
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