Choose Smart Growth, Not Fast Growth

In this episode, Nick and Tyler talk about the value of growing a construction business at a pace that aligns with your long-term vision — not just your short-term ambition. They reflect on the mistakes and lessons from pursuing aggressive scaling and why they’ve chosen to focus on sustainability, control, and craftsmanship. If you’ve ever felt pressure to grow faster than feels right, this conversation is a breath of fresh air.

 

Show Notes: 

Prioritizing Business Growth and Personal Success (0:00)
Promoting Modern Craftsman Workshops and Sponsors (1:35)
Hairline Concerns and Professional Appearance (4:49)
Balancing Work and Personal Life (9:46)
Understanding Business Profitability (30:57)
Investing in Efficiency and Equipment (41:15)
Delegating Tasks and Overcoming Guilt (56:22)
Preparing for Upcoming Events and Workshops (1:07:40)

Video Version: 

https://youtu.be/bSpOWQniJW0

 

Partners: 

Andersen Windows

Buildertrend

Velux

Harnish Workwear 

Use code H1025 and get 10% off their H-label gear

 

The Modern Craftsman:

linktr.ee/moderncraftsmanpodcast

Find Our Hosts: 

Nick Schiffer 

Tyler Grace 

Podcast Produced By:

Motif Media

 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Because they're prioritizing thewrong things, or they're growing

(00:03):
the wrong way, or, you know,they think that the path to a
more lucrative project, jobmargins, whatever that may be,
are something different thanwhat they're doing, and they're
just throwing hours and throwingsweat equity at their business
to try and figure out whatsticks and what works. So I
think that, yeah, you should becareful of that. I wouldn't face

(00:24):
that somebody's spending a lotof time working and really put
the hours into the day andgrind. I don't think that that
dictates whether you'resuccessful or not.
Welcome back to the moderncrossing podcast, guys. Today
I'm gonna read two really meanDMS I got.
One might be meaner than theother one is definitely meaner

(00:45):
than the other one is more of apersonal attack, personal and I
am not well.
I am I am unwell. But you guyssubmitted some questions or
statements that we're going torespond to and to dig into it,
but overall, really, hopefullygiving you clarity. Because I
think a lot of you guys listenfor the sake of the fact that

(01:06):
you feel as though you're, youknow, you're kind of stuck. I
know a lot of you guys email usand communicate that, hey, you
know, the podcast has helped me,or, you know, recently we got a
really difficult email that saidthat they're going to be closing
their business. And, you know,we wanted to dig into some
really hard hitting questionstoday that could potentially and

(01:26):
I think will provide the claritythat that you are looking for
and that I know I certainly wasat one point. But before we get
into it, make sure you head overto modern craftsman.co. Sign up
for the newsletter. We'relaunching a monthly workshop,
which is completely free, wherewe're going to dig into very
specific stuff for business.Help you guys grow and build
better and more profitablebusinesses. And the only way to

(01:49):
get access to that is by beingpart of our newsletter, and that
is on our website. This link inour Instagram. Find the link,
sign up for the newsletter, andwe'll we will see you there.
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(02:55):
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(03:15):
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(03:38):
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(04:00):
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(04:22):
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I feel badly because I I have alot of friends who, like, don't
have hair, and I'm alwayscomplaining that I have way too

(04:45):
much hair. And they're like,you're such an ass dude. I'm
like, I don't know.
Let me read you a commentyesterday on Instagram. I hate
to say it, but Nick You shouldprobably give up the fight with
the hairline. Shaking my head,it's a losing battle. Brother,
and you'd look way better justshaving it down at this point.

(05:05):
Like, Thanks, brother. I feellike your hairline hasn't
changed. That's what I think.But I now I'm, like, overly self
conscious. I'm like, should Ifly to Turkey and get my hair,
like, brought down to here?
Maybe, dude, just draw it in. Isthere anyone bald in your
family? My
dad has, like, basically myhairline, and it just continues

(05:27):
to get thinner. I mean, I'msure, I don't know. I'm sure my
hair is getting thinner,
dude, I just, I didn't realizehow, like, people who go bald
typically go bald. I didn'trealize how young they typically
start going bald, like, prettyshortly at, like, people who are
going to be fully bald, it'spretty shortly after high
school, yeah, that they startbalding. Like, it's a lot of

(05:51):
times in your early 20s. And Ijust, I guess I never realized
that I had to get a haircut. Iwas out in Cleveland. I had to
film some stuff with finehomebuilding and loctite. And I
was, like, every other time I'vegone out there, my hair is
either overgrown blonde,unacceptable. And I was like,
I'm gonna cut. I'm gonna get myhair cut. So I got my hair cut,
and I went out there and theywere like, no hat this time. I
was like, I brought a hat if youwant me to. And then they had

(06:13):
to, like, pull everyone and askthem if they wanted me to wear a
hat, because I always have a haton. They're like, No, you're
fine without the Hat. I waslike, All right, cool.
It's that's the funny thingabout when you're doing, like,
professional content, is they'relike, Hey, make sure this is
what you wear, because that'swhat you wore last time. Yeah.
And I'm like, Oh, I neverthought about the fact that
you're cutting this together. I

(06:34):
don't know. I just always wearhats at work too. I think it
like, I don't know it's morecomfortable. I don't like
wearing sunglasses. So I can usethe hat to kind of
do sunglasses made me sleepy,really.
I just, I can't I think thatit's like, if, if you've ever
skied, they will sell tintedlenses, and they're fine, as

(06:55):
long as you keep them on, butlike, as soon as I take them
off, I like, don't likesunglasses if it's not sunny. So
if I'm in and out of sun, yeah,as soon as there's no sun I have
them on, I have to take themoff, and then my eyes just never
adjust. So I'm like, I think I'drather just squint through it.
Yeah, I'm definitely a hat oversunglasses. Like, if I put

(07:15):
sunglasses on when I'm driving,it literally makes me want to
fall asleep.
Yeah, I don't know I I'm justlike, I know some people who put
sunglasses on just don't takethem off. And the only time I
ever really use them if I'msomewhere where I'm sitting like
a like an athletic event, whereI'm sitting in the same spot,
and I don't have to take themoff for like an hour, if not,
they just feel like a pain inthe ass to me, and I can't see,

(07:36):
I think I
said it before. It's funny thatmy kids, when they draw pictures
of me I have a hat on, yeah?Because I don't wear a hat,
except for when I'm basically,like, when I'm scrubbed down and
I'm just chilling, it's like,then I usually put a hat on, but
at work, I almost never have ahat.
Yeah, I I wonder, peopleprobably think that I'm balding,

(07:59):
because I always have a hat on.Like, I always wear a hat to the
girls. I coach Shelby's team,and I always have a hat on
because it's either after workor, like, I don't ever do my
hair. So I came to a game oncewith, like, when my hair was
longer and it was done because Ihad to do something all the
parents are like, whoa. Who knewthat you had this, like, full

(08:21):
flow of hair under there.
You sent a couple questions, andI also had one that was a pretty
No, Bs, kind of hard hittingquestion that I thought we
should maybe dig into. Allright, let's do it. If you're
such a great builder andbusinessman, then why are you
still grinding 60 hours a weekand constantly putting out

(08:42):
fires. Don't you think youshould be further ahead by now?
Is this directly to you? Yeah?Was it like a listener or,
I would assume, yeah, someonethat follows the content.
So it was like a comment on oneof your posts. It was a DM,
yeah,

(09:02):
damn. I know I read that littletroll Well, you know what? But
is it like, I feel like there's,I mean, there's definitely truth
in that, right? I'm stillgrinding 60 hours a week as we
see, pulling my hair out. I'mgonna be so self conscious about
this now, dude. Like, where areyou? Oh, I'm in Turkey getting
my
hair fixed. No, it's so funnybecause my one friend, Dom's

(09:25):
bald. And I'll send them thesevideos where they have these,
like, it'll be painters on ajob, and they'll tape somebody's
head and just use the airlessand just tape their face off and
just spray it black. And I sendit to them all the time. I think
that's what we should do. Dude,it's funny that you say that
because I actually just recordeda midweek this morning, because

(09:47):
I was away, and a lot of it was,it was based on, like, what your
time's worth and how you'recapturing hours and how your
accounting. For your time, andhow that's changed from when I
first started in business towhere I am now. And I think,

(10:08):
like, part of the change in,like, the simplest thing is just
everyone says we'll charge moremoney, and I think that if you
increase your rate, or whateveryou're charging, or your markup,
I think that that's not fixingthe problem like that. The lack

(10:28):
of rate is a symptom of biggerissues. And I think that, yeah,
we're just going to charge ahigher percentage, or I'm going
to charge more as an hourlyrate, is not really a fix. I
think that it's a step in theright direction, but it's
there's bigger issues, likebigger fundamental issues than

(10:49):
if it were just, I'm going toadd $20 to my hourly rate, and
that's going to fix all of myissues. I think that it would be
so simple. So I think that thatconversation leads to like how
you're how you're evolving as abusiness, where you came from,
where you stand now, and whereyou intend to go. And I don't

(11:12):
disagree with the the listenerscomment, but I also think that
it depends on what you want outof your lifestyle and what makes
you tick? Because I, Ipersonally think that a lot of
what you do is what you want tobe doing,
yeah. I mean, like, therespecifically, like, the 60 plus
hours a week. I don't give ashit about that. Yeah, even when

(11:33):
I'm even when I'm old andwealthy, like, I'm still gonna
be grinding it out. Like, Ijust, I thoroughly enjoy that
part. But there, you know, Ithink we all can attest to the
fact that there's days whereit's like, I feel like I should
be further along. And so I'vereflected on this quite a bit
recently. Was listening to,actually, Chris Williams,

(11:54):
Williamson's podcast, modernwisdom, and they he was talking
about, I forget exactly how hedescribed it, but basically we
we delay gratification becausewe say we'll work really hard
right now, so then eventuallywe're happy, and then when we're
happy, we we wish we could goback to when we were working

(12:16):
really hard. And it's just likewe basically never accept the
fact that we are in the goldenages, yeah, and so that's
something that I try to remindmyself constantly. It's like,
Listen, I don't, don't delaybeing happy because you think
you need to accomplishsomething, and then eventually
you'll be happy, because, as weknow, we move the goalpost

(12:36):
constantly, right? But I willsay that when I read that, where
it really kind of hit home, isthat what you were getting at,
it's, you know, it's not justabout charging more money and
like, everything is fixed,because we've all done that. And

(12:57):
even on the personal side, youknow, there was a period of time
where I was just getting behindin my finances, like everything
else, like I was just bills arestacking up on my desk, and I
was like, I'll get to themlater, and, and I mean, this
happens every so often, and I'lljust talk about the most recent,
like, I walked out to my trucklast week, and my trucks booted,

(13:18):
and I'm like, what the fuck I'mLike, why? Like, and sure
enough, like, one of the dadsfrom school texts me. He goes,
is that your is that your truck?I'm like, yeah. And he goes,
you're an idiot. I'm like, I aman idiot. And I look it up, and
I get $1,200 worth of ticketsand and Meg and Julian, they're

(13:39):
like, how did you not know? I'mlike, I just didn't. And sure
enough, like, I look, I gothrough the mail on my desk the
other day. I'm like, here's the$1,200 invoice that, yeah, came
30 days ago. But my point withthis is this stuff piles up, and
every day I was looking at it,and I'm like, man, like, who
knows how many you know, 1000sof dollars are sitting in bills

(14:01):
right there that I I'm justlike, ignoring because something
else is taking my attention, andit started building this, like,
insane amount of stress in mymind that because it was so
stressful, I just kept puttingit off. So the other day I
finally, I was like, You knowwhat? I'm not doing anything.
I'm doing two things today. I'mgonna go through every piece of
mail and make sure I'm caught upon everything. I'm gonna go

(14:22):
through my entire email inboxand make sure I'm caught up on
everything. That's it. And I satdown and I created a
spreadsheet, and it was like arobust spreadsheet. I'm like,
I'm gonna, I'm gonna knoweverything about everything,
like, when, when money's owed tome, when I owe everything. Come
to find out I didn't know thatmuch. Yeah, there's a handful of

(14:43):
invoices in that pile, and mostof them were paid, yeah? And I
remember, like finishing that,I'm like, I feel substantially
better, and I've done nothing,yeah, you know, it's the same
thing with business, right,where it's, you know, we charge
more money because we need to,because. Is we're moving so
fast, and we're trying to getwork done, and I need to go sell
a job, because if I don't sell ajob, I can't pay my guy, pay for

(15:05):
my guys. But you got to kind ofignore all that for just a
moment and understand exactlywhere you stand today, because
if you don't, and this goes off,goes back to what I think we
were talking with Matt Arnold,is that you have to understand
where you're going, but until,like, you can't understand where

(15:25):
you're going, until youunderstand where you're at right
now, and that's personal andprofessional, it's like, it's
very difficult. And then again,tied back to like, the happiness
mantra is, like, it's verydifficult to be happy if you're
stressed out, and it's verydifficult not to be stressed if
you don't understand where youstand, what what, what is in
front of you right now and whatyour responsibilities

(15:47):
are, you have to understand whatyour goals are in business. If,
if one of your goals is not towork less working 60 hours a
week can be irrelevant. If yourgoal is to continue to grow your
business where every day it'sdifferent than it was the day
before, you're going to have toinvest considerable time into

(16:12):
that business, because there'sreally no benchmark or metric
that you can base the success ofYour business off of, because
it's constantly evolving andconstantly changing, and that's
like, that's one of the dangersthat I find in in rapid growth,
is that you're relying on otherpeople's numbers, other people's

(16:34):
experiences, to to reallyquantify Your success, and if
you don't perform consistently.If the numbers, the bottom line,
the you know, margins are alwayschanging, then it's very
difficult to gage your success.There's really no benchmark. So

(16:56):
you know if, if you're tellingyourself, I'm making X amount,
and you aren't factoring in howmany hours you're working, then,
yeah, I think that that's anissue. But if, if those aren't
part of your goals, and yourgoals are just constantly
refining what you're doing, andyou're not necessarily baking,
basing that off of a timeinvestment or financial metric,

(17:19):
then I mean, it kind of it. Itis irrelevant. And I don't know
how much it matters for me, Ithink the important thing is to
understand that, right if, ifyou're ignorant to the amount of
time that you're investing, oryou're investing that amount of
time because you feel thatyou're underwater and you're
trying to make up for it. Ithink that that's one thing. But

(17:43):
I think that if it's somethingyou want to do, as with what you
said, right, there's a lot ofpeople who are uber successful,
who would never have to workanother day, let alone hour, in
their life, that still probablywake up and put 12 hours into
their day every day, with workrelated stuff, because that's
just what drives them, andthat's what they do. And it

(18:06):
would be not only incorrect butfoolish to say that they're not
successful business owners,right? I do think that there is
value and credibility to thatstatement for probably most
people who are strugglingthrough business and spending 80

(18:27):
hours a week and only gettingpaid for 20 hours, right? Well,
that's a major
issue, yeah, and they're becausethey're prioritizing the wrong
things, correct?
Or they're growing the wrongway, or, you know, they think
that the path to a morelucrative project, job margins,
whatever that me may be, aresomething different than what

(18:50):
they're doing, and they're justthrowing hours and throwing
sweat equity at their businessto try and figure out what
sticks and what works. So Ithink that, yeah, you should be
careful of that. But I wouldn't,you know, I wouldn't base that
somebody spending a lot of timeworking on their success or lack
of success. There's a lot ofpeople who their goal is to make

(19:12):
enough money that they don'thave to work and like, that's
completely different. Butthere's some people that, like,
find passion and a lot of selfworth and just overall enjoyment
in life and continuing to refineand invest their time and and
really put the hours into theday and grind. And I don't think

(19:34):
that that dictates whetheryou're successful or not. Yeah,
it's, you know, I think, for meand for a lot of people like,
like I said, you know, readingthat comment makes me reflect on
what I have been thinking a lotabout and just where my
priorities lie. And I mean, evenas simple as answering i. This

(20:00):
might come out the wrong way.Well, whatever, answering
questions, answering DMS, likeconstant people constantly.
I've, I have a handful of peoplethat reach out to me, and the
only thing they ever say islike, Hey, do you have XYZ?
Yeah. And it's just, it's neveranything else. It's always like,
can you help me with and they,interestingly, the two of them

(20:21):
messaged me the other day, andI'm like, I'm just, I'm not, I
can't I gotta just say no tothis shit. Yeah, because it's
like, I'm in the middle ofsomething. They're asking me for
help. It's just, it's constantlyone sided. And, you know, it's
just, it's frustrating, becauseI know that where my priorities

(20:41):
need to be, and I need to focuson the stuff that is moving the
needle. And I think I forgetwhen I did this, but I created
this. You know, this is a sheetof paper for those who are
listening, but it's basicallylike, Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.Here's what you focus on. And so
when I come in the office, Ithat's the first thing I look
at. It's like, All right, today,you know, for example, today,

(21:04):
like we're recording a podcast.It's Friday, which is not
typical, but today, I'm supposedto only focus on my branding and
personal growth. And it givesme, like a bullet list of things
that I should focus on. And thepurpose in doing that was so
that I would have a goal thatthat was, you know, achievable,

(21:25):
and I was making progress on it.So each week there would be this
forward progress on the brand,there would be this forward
progress on, you know, pipeline.You know, Wednesdays is my
pipeline day, so I'm going backand making sure I'm doing all my
follow up with potential leads.And, you know, I was just on a

(21:46):
phone call with an architectbefore we started recording, and
he was, he was asking aboutbusiness development and how we
handed handle new projects andand pipeline. And I had was
explaining to him how my brainis all over the place. Today, I
was explaining to him how eversince I've been doing this,

(22:11):
there's been this like immediateresponse to it, and one of these
days is focused strictly onmarketing. And then the lead in
pipeline, the lead follow up inpipeline build, and by focusing
on them for an entire day, forthe last few weeks, we have more
people reaching out and morepeople being aware of what we're

(22:34):
doing. And because previously, Ican summarize the way I felt
about it is that it would belike, I'm taking my foot off the
gas, you know, I'm like,throttling up and down based on
what I think I should be doingor what I feel like doing,
rather than saying, this is athing I'm supposed to do and I

(22:54):
need to make and I need to makeprogress at this so let Me
dedicate some time to actuallymaking progress, yeah, and it's,
it's, it's, you know, I thinkit's, oftentimes people don't
realize just how small,consistent effort can make such
a big, you know,

(23:16):
a big difference the I think alot of times in life, I always
will relate stuff to analogiesor another profession or
industry. And to me, it's likewhen you think about driving and
racking miles up on a car, thosemiles are from like your small,

(23:37):
everyday little trips, not tripsacross the country, right? And I
think that in order toaccumulate those large changes
or actual progress, it has to besmall, incremental contributions
to whatever you're doing, justlike finances, right? If you
want to save money, very fewpeople are going to win multi
million dollar lottery. It'slike the small, incremental day

(24:00):
to day contributions that youmake that actually make a
difference in what you're doing.I had a few more listener
questions that we can we candive into that are kind of,
we're going to go into these alittle bit cold but what's
something that you believedabout running a business in year

(24:21):
one that you've completelychanged your mind about,
Well, the obvious one is thatyou'd have more free time. Oh,
yeah, it's gonna be my own boss.I'm gonna make my own schedule.
Yeah, I think,
if I think deeper at that, it'sthat I would year one, I

(24:43):
expected to have figured out howto run the business. Like, oh, a
year will give me plenty of timeto get this stuff in place. And
I think the reality, I know thereality. Is, is if I had spent a
year consistently building that,sure, but I didn't. I spent a

(25:06):
year working and dedicated ahandful of days trying to clean
stuff up. And when you do thatfor, you know, a decade, you
know, those those cleanup daysslip further and further in the
wrong direction. So, yeah, Ithink I completely
underestimated how much time andeffort it would take to really
set the business up to operateappropriately.

(25:30):
Yeah, when I think back to firststarting my business, I think
that my experience, everyone Ihad worked for, I think that the
general notion was that you hadto land jobs based on price and
fitting the bill as far asclient price, which I still

(25:52):
think is true today, but I alsothat price doesn't necessarily
have to be the least expensiveprice. It has to align with a
lot of their other goals andvalues, but I can recall sending
estimates, meeting with clients,and just being so nervous that I
was going to send a price thatwas too much and that they were

(26:15):
going to think I was expensive,and I was so far from that. But
I guess you know, the clientsthat I was being marketed
towards, and when you're firstin business, the jobs that
you're landing typically arebecause you're somewhat of a
bargain. So I think the biggestthing for me, and just mindset
as far as industry goes, in theindustry that I'd been brought

(26:38):
up working in since I was ayoung kid, was that you got to
fit that price point forclients, and if you don't,
there's no way that you can getthat job. So for years, I was
doing things to bring my pricedown. You know, whether it was,
hey, we we don't have to use aplumber on this job. Because if

(26:58):
you're only getting 10 grand forthis bathroom, how can I pay
2500 of it to a plumber when Ijust start out? So things like
that, where it's like, how canwe really squeeze this price
down as much possible to getwork, where I realized that, you
know, those are I'm just sellingto the wrong clients in the
first place. So I would saythat's probably the biggest

(27:20):
thing there,
yeah, it's, it's, I mean,there's so many things that I
think we underestimate goinginto this. And the other, the
other component of that is we gointo it thinking we want one
thing, and we immediately changeour mind, you know, it's like,

(27:40):
I'm just going to be a smallcarpentry company, and then it's
like, you want to build myhouse? It's like, Yeah, I'll be
a builder. And you know, you're,you're, you're constantly
changing or moving the goalpost,and you're trying to do that and
build systems around what you'redoing. I mean, I think it's a
big reason why Spencer is sosuccessful. Yeah, he's, he is

(28:01):
who he is. His his business isexactly Spencer Lewis is who I'm
talking about. He in, and he hasjust built systems around that,
yep. But if he had, you know, Ithink he talked about that on
one of the podcasts when we hadhim on, is that when he hired
someone, you know, he wasn't anymore profitable, and it was
because he was changing hisbusiness and everything like

(28:22):
everything else had to change.
Yeah, it's crazy that you don'trealize that. And it's I think
that that takes me back to whatI what I speak to a lot of
people about where it's like, ifyou have a handle on your
business, like, first off, youhave to have a handle on your
business. Where you stand now ifyou want to grow, if you want to
make a change, like, you have tobe profitable. Now you have to

(28:42):
understand where you stand, whattype of jobs that necessitates.
But I think that it also iscritical for understanding once
you do make the move, if it'sprofitable, if it's working or
not, because again, you havesome sort of benchmark to go off
of to say, Hey, this is worse.This is better. I understood

(29:03):
where I was before, and now thisis what you know. This is how
all of this is winding up, whatthe numbers look like, what's
wrong, what's better, what'sworse. And you have that
juxtaposition where I don'tthink that you can understand
how those decisions and howthose changes impact your

(29:24):
business real world, until youunderstand where you are. And I
think that it gives yousomething to compare against,
and something to make changeswith, either for the better or
for the worse. But if you I seeso many people where it's like,
I need to make more money. Ineed to make a change. And to
me, it's like to make thatchange is probably only going to

(29:49):
magnify your issues and yourshortcomings, like typically, if
your business isn't isn'tsuccessful, doing $500,000 worth
of work, do. A million dollarsworth of work is not going to
make it more successful. It'sprobably going to make it less
successful.
Let's, let's dig intospecifically when we say you

(30:11):
need to know where your yourbusiness stands, and how you do
that. Because I was on a did awebinar yesterday with a group
from QuickBooks and into it. Andwe were talking about this, and
one of the things I hadrecommended is having some sort
of dashboard. And I talked aboutthe fact that, I mean, my my

(30:31):
team, Julian, Tim and me, havebeen building this dashboard for
over a year, and it just, itbecame this insanely complicated
thing, and it but it was tryingto tell me everything at once,
and if you relate it to a V likea car, you know, when you're
driving down the road, the thingthat matters the most is
typically your speed limit,right? You know, you could argue

(30:53):
how much
you paid your parking tickets.
That doesn't tell me that on thedashboard, but that's actually a
good point, like it should whereit's like, that's information
that is relevant, but notshowing up on the dashboard.
And, you know, and when I relateit back to business, it's well,
what do you need to understandabout your business? You need to

(31:15):
understand number one, you know,at a project level, are your
projects profitable? We'll justtalk about one single project,
because if you don't, if you ifyou don't know if a if a
specific project is profitableor not, then you don't know if,
then you're robbing from otherprojects that make it look like
you're you're all of theseprojects are great. And so how

(31:38):
do you do that? Right? Like youunderstand what your labor
actually cost. You know, we talkabout labor burden. If you guys
go to our website, we have anExcel calculator on there that
helps you calculate your laborburden. You can download that
for free, but that was somethingthat we screwed up bad. Like,
early on, we were billing outguys at rates that weren't

(32:01):
covering what the true cost ofthat person was, and we didn't
know. So it's like, every hourthis guy worked, you know, it
was costing the company of fivebucks. It's like, well, it's
only five bucks. It's like,times 40, times 52, weeks. Yeah,
that adds up real quick.Material procurement, I I think

(32:22):
it was, what year was that 2020I think we did an audit, and we
went backwards and realized thatwe had $100,000 worth of
purchases made in a 12 monthperiod that were not accounted
for against the job. So theywere written off as overhead,
like just miscellaneous tools.And we, we actually ended up

(32:46):
downloading the majority ofthose receipts. They were at,
you know, big box stores andthings like that. They were,
like, $5.45 bucks, you know,all, like miscellaneous part,
everything under 100 bucks,basically. And when we went
through them, we realized all ofthis stuff was job costs. So
that was 100 grand right off thebottom line that we just never
got the bill for because theywere small purchases that no one

(33:09):
thought was really important.And so for us, we basically said
we are going to have a strictprocess. And I think we dumped
it like you spend it, you sendit, meaning if you spend the
money, you send the receipt. Andfor two, I think two or three
years, we essentially had thismissing receipt report that when
a receipt didn't have anattachment on it, a report would

(33:32):
go out to the whole company andit would say whose card it was.
No one wanted their name on thatreport, yeah, so and so, it just
really instilled everyone to,like the the pressure to make
sure that they were capturingit. And the following year, we
had, like, less than $5,000 ofmissing receipts.
So that being said for, I mean,this is obviously cost plus, but

(34:00):
regardless, well, it doesn'teven matter, yeah, so that's
what I'm like, regardless. Thisis a shortcoming on the budget
end of things as well, rightwhere it's like, what? What's
that conversation like? Or howare you handling that
internally? Because I'm assumingthat it's not just like, oh
yeah, we could have added$30,000 to three projects, and

(34:22):
we would have been fine. How areyou accounting for that from a
budget perspective, to ensurethat that's accounted for in the
jobs? Because it's to say hey,that we're $100,000 short. If
those projects wouldn't haveallowed you to charge the
additional money, or youwouldn't have been able to
manage that budget to accountfor that.

(34:44):
Well, that's the last point.That's the last point I was
going to make is like the budgetoverruns is the last where, you
know, fixed costs would be agreat example, where, if you're
spending money and you'rewatching your framing line item
deplete, you know, every week orevery day. Hopefully every day,
like, you can just see how muchmoney you've spent against it,
when, when you're running out ofcash. It's just like a personal

(35:07):
like, when you don't have muchmore, if you don't have any
money in your wallet, you're,you're, you're gonna stop
spending and or as that money,like, reduces, you only have 20
bucks left, like, you'reprobably not going to go out and
spend the $20 for risk forever,
I guess frivolously,frivolously, frivolously,
forget it. Willy nilly, I'llcall it, but so that, like

(35:33):
though those three things, youimplement those three things,
and you'll be you feel way moreconfident about where your
project stands. To your point,the $100,000 that's a lot of
money. And could we have buildon those jobs? Probably they
were multi million dollarprojects, and they were spread
out across like eight jobs.Yeah. So it wasn't just one job,

(35:54):
and, and, and, or there wasprobably a lot of things that
were bought that didn't need tobe bought, where that particular
site super if they knew theywere spending, if they had spent
all these little micropurchases, but their their
miscellaneous line item on thebudget was being depleted, they

(36:16):
would look at that and say, Youknow what, I guess I don't
really need a new shop back.I'll drive to the city and grab
the one on storage unit ratherthan buy one. Yeah, and that's,
you know, in because it'sexactly what I'm trying to do as
a business. Is like, Where do Istand as a business? The the
whoever's running that job needsto understand where the job
stands, and they're going tomake decisions based on where

(36:37):
the job stands. It's like, Hey,I got this much money to do this
task, and it's like, and Idon't, and that that's it. I
don't have more money. There'snot more money I can go ask for.
I was told I have X amount ofdollars for this particular
task, and it's my job to get itdone.
And I think that that, thatreally reaffirms what I was

(36:59):
saying about like, you can'talways just tap into more
budget, right? Like you can'tjust say, hey, we need to make
more money. We can charge moremoney. Because that's not always
the case. There's a couple ofways to make money, though. One
is sell more or, you know, spendless. So it's the it's the same
thing when you're managing abudget for a project, because at

(37:22):
the end of the day, the budgetsfor a project are our bottom
line. But if you if you can'tincrease budget, if you can't
sell more, what are you doing toprotect your margins on that
project and not go over budget?Is it through efficiency? Is it
through better systems? Is itthrough tracking those budgets

(37:44):
more appropriately to understandlike, hey, yeah, my, my super
understands that we only have xamount in consumables, and
that's 90% gone. So we need toscrape together to figure out
where all this stuff is, or howwe can meet this budget, rather
than say, hey, we can just gospend this much more money on

(38:07):
that, or understand where that'scoming out of from, from
another, another line item inthat budget. I think that for
me, that's pretty easy to managebased on my scale, but I think
that the the challenge is whenit's not just you, and there's
many other people managing thoseprojects and having a hand in

(38:28):
those projects, and there'scommunication breaches and
systems that aren't robustenough to support all of those
decisions while maintainingefficiency. I think that that's
that's the struggle for peoplewith growth and with change and
having some sort of metric to gooff of. There's a lot of cooks

(38:49):
in the kitchen. There's a lot ofpeople involved, and a lot of
moving parts to manage all ofthat. Yeah, for me, it's for me,
it's fairly simple. You know,it's me managing those numbers,
it's me analyzing those numbers,maintaining the budget, the
communication, and obviously I'mlimited as to the amount of work

(39:11):
that I can do. But that beingsaid, there's also not a lot of
waste, right? So I'm limiting myexposure, I'm limiting my debt,
my damage, and I'm able toguarantee my profits through
efficiencies and throughmanaging that really day to day
to guarantee my profits. Where Ithink a lot of people, there's

(39:34):
some fluff, there's some burdeninvolved there, and I think that
it becomes tough to manage. Andwhen you have $100,000 across
eight jobs at the end of theyear, you know that that's a lot
of money that is just that'scoming out of our revenue,
that's coming out of our bottomline at the end of the day. And

(39:59):
when. You're operating anindustry with tight margins and
a very competitive industry. Idon't care how big you are,
$100,000 can affect a lot ofpeople,
yeah. And I think that's one ofthe benefits of being a
solopreneur, is that you youlike you said, you don't have a
lot of waste or or, in otherwords, a lot of overhead, yeah,

(40:21):
and it's money and money out.And I think when these guys, you
know, go from a single man showto then starting hiring,
starting to hire employees,there's this disconnect from job
profitability to businessprofitability. Yeah, I know I
faced it. We were super, youknow, we were really profitable
on projects. So individually,looks great, but, you know,

(40:45):
really profitable on projectsstill only equals so much cash,
yep. And at the end of the year,it's like, you know, if we're
spending all of that cash orspending more than that cash,
then now the company's notprofitable. And, you know, and I
think for the latter part of theless last decade, that's where I

(41:07):
was. I was just overspending myoverhead and, and I'd like to
sit back and say it was allstrategic, and it was part of
the growth and, but, you know,no, there was definitely some
foolishness to it, where it's,you know, I was doing things
that were bigger and granderthan I probably should have.
And, you know, did they pay offin the long run? Sure, I guess

(41:30):
you could say that. But thereality is, is I was, it wasn't,
I wasn't going into it knowingthat I should be spending this
much on marketing, but instead,I'm spending that. It was just,
I'm just going to spend it andfigure it out. And which is a,
which is terrible, a terriblepiece of advice. We know what we
spend on marketing and when I'mif I'm going to overspend, it's

(41:53):
not, you know, I'm not, I'm notsaying I won't overspend on
marketing, but I, what I amsaying is that I know I'm
overspending on marketing. Yeah,and where
are you going to how you canaccount for that? How you going
to make going to make up forthat, or where you going to
borrow from, right? So thatyou're just not completely going
in the red, right? Spoileralert, Mark Williams wrote a
bunch of questions for our Omahatrip that's coming up. Yeah, I

(42:16):
was reading through them today,and one of the questions that
caught me off guard, where I waslike, I'm not sure I know the
answer to that, but it was ifyou were given, I mean, if you
were given $100,000 to spend inyour business or on your
business, what would you do withit? Like, if you were handed 100
grand today, and I like, now, Ithink I might have a better

(42:38):
idea, but I think that that thatwas a difficult question, yeah,
but my mind goes towardsbecause, and I think it's just
based solely around my type ofbusiness where I'm looking to
leverage the Lean nature of mybusiness and efficiencies and

(43:00):
really just trying to createhigher profitability and not
necessarily increase sales. Likea lot of people would be like,
I'd dump it into marketing rightwhere, at the end of the day,
you're looking to increasesales, and in order to increase
sales, you have to put morepeople in place to get to
generate more of that work. Sofor me, I look at it more like,

(43:22):
how could I put $100,000 intothe business that will increase
my margin? So for me, it's like,potentially equipment, um, or
processes that would allow me tocomplete the amount of work that
I want to do in a shorter amountof time, that costs me less

(43:43):
money to put that work in place.
What what equipment like? What'syour immediate thought there? I
don't know, with regard to mespecifically, but like, what
came to mind is, and this issomewhat random, but on my
business Instagram profile, thisdude came up, I think I sent you
this, and he's a tree guy. Andlike you think most tree guys,

(44:06):
right? You need how many peopleto handle pre work, right?
That's not by yourself. And thisguy, instead of hiring people,
he bought a truck that the bedand the cap can come off of. He
has a trailer he can put hischipper into this he bought a
mini excavator that hecustomized a trailer for so he

(44:29):
can literally go climb a tree,cut a tree down, get in his
excavator, put it on thistrailer, put it in his chipper
and perform this tree work,really, with minimal physical
effort, with a very lowoverhead, liability and risk
from an insurance perspective,and employees and make great

(44:50):
money not having to put a ton ofwork into place, as far as like
volume and treat people. So tome, that's like he is creating.
Creating higher margins, ratherthan looking to sell more work
and creating efficiency withinhis business by investing in
equipment and really uniqueprocesses and systems to

(45:14):
generate a higher amount of workquicker. So to me like that's
where my brain somewhat goes,where it's like, well, rather
than saying, I want to increasemy sales volume, what if I could
find a way to make the sameamount of revenue with 30% less
labor put into it? So that'swhere my mind goes, where it's

(45:36):
like, where could I invest thatmoney to create better
efficiencies within my business,so I could either work less, or
if I work the same amount, I'mgoing to be making 30% more
money,
right? I love that. I love thataccount because it is, it's
just, I mean, his content isgreat too, yeah, like
therapeutic watching, you know.And I think that, I mean just

(46:00):
watching machinery. I, you know,build with Aaron, our buddy, you
know, his content, I just sitthere and watch these machines.
Just like so easily handlematerial, whether it's tree
work, site work, whatever. But Ifigured it had, it would have
something to do with yourexcavator.
Well, I mean, even, like, Ithink he posted something today,

(46:23):
or, I don't know, recently, itcame up where he's like,
typically, if you're climbing atree, you're dropping everything
so that the people on the groundcan manage it in a certain way.
And he's like, I don't havepeople on the ground. I have
equipment on the ground. That'sme, so he can basically drop
everything however he wants,which is saving him time, more

(46:45):
efficient, and then can get in apiece of machine that's like air
conditioned, and literally justpick it up with this attachment
that he has, put it into achipper, not move it twice, not
have to sort it. And it's like,Damn, that's just, it's a no
brainer, and you need the cashto be able to invest in the

(47:06):
equipment. But it's like,
you're 100 grand, like you'regetting, you're getting set up,
nice, for sure,
and like you also don't need,you know, 12 tree jobs a week.
Yeah, to stay busy, you're nothaving people call out. You're
not getting hurt. You're You'reit's less wear and tear on your

(47:31):
body. You're managing your risk,all in an industry where, like,
I think that that plays a hugepart in it, as far as insurance,
safety, everything else and tocreate efficiencies in what
would seem to be like a brutetask or just a very blue collar
job. I mean, That'd be dope. Itlike if somebody offered that.

(47:52):
I'm like, Oh, yeah. Like, thissetup is legit.
I would love to think that Iwould spend the money on that,
because I love the idea of it.And personally, I told bank the
other day, I'm like, I think Imight buy an excavator too.
What? Like, I gotta fix thedriveway up in New Hampshire.
And she's like, and I'm like, bythe time I spend the money and

(48:17):
hiring someone like, I couldhave made 30 payments on that
excavator, yeah, dude, and thenI could just rent it out, or
just not, yeah or not. And she'slike, I mean things ridiculous,
but where my mind goes, it'slike, all right, someone hands
me 100 grand. What do I put itin? And all I'm thinking about
is increasing lead generation. Iand, like,

(48:41):
it's marketing, right? So, like,you need to spending money, and
then you're gonna, you'regetting money to spend
money, yeah, and it's like, I'mlike, All right, how do I deploy
100 grand into marketing that Icould 10x where it's like, you
know what? Like, what? Basicallythrow $100,000 at my biggest

(49:02):
pain point in marketing, and mybiggest pain point right now in
marketing is that is one that Idon't know the answer to, which
is the fact that we are known,we're being brought to the table
for these projects, and we'regoing, and we're going, I mean,
the fact that five times, nowI've been, you know, I've we've

(49:26):
bid work because they're reallygreat projects and we want to be
considered. And all five timesthe clients are like, You guys
are amazing. Your communicationis amazing. I love the way that
you're you put together theproposal. You clearly understand
how to do the job, all thisstuff, and they outweigh all of
that based on the fact the otherguys built 40 homes, he's like,

(49:49):
he's just done it 40 times.
But the What's crazy to me,though, is that, like your
mindset and mentality forpenalization is similar to what
I'm saying. Right? Where it'slike, you're creating
efficiencies and spending moneythat are going to make you 10x
on the back end, but then on theother side of the thing, you're
like, I just want to drum upmore work so that I could put

(50:11):
more work in place, which isjust going to cost me more money
at the end of the day. Whereit's like, I don't know. I think
it's a cabinet shop, right? Areyou going to invest in a CNC?
Are you going to invest
in, oh, 100
grand in the cab shop, CNC, forsure, automatization, as far as
finishing goes where it's like,you like, there's, there's, I
don't know the exact name isbusiness. I met with him once he

(50:32):
does, like, knock down cabinetryand stuff for his business. But
he went from having, like, adozen employees to having two
and instead of spending money onthe employees, he spend money on
all the optimization with, like,the CNC, all the breakdown
cabinetry, the finishing whereI'm like, So you spent on that

(50:53):
once. And like, you don't havepeople calling in sick. You
don't have somebody sprayingsomething different than the
next guy spends it. And I'mlike, to me, if you can afford
it, that's the move where it'slike you, you are creating
systems processes, where you caneither put more work in place in
the same amount of time, or itcosts you less money to produce

(51:16):
that one unit of work, whichthat's like a money printing
machine to me when you canfigure out those type of
efficiencies. But yeah, in what?On one hand, you're all about
that with like, AI andpenalization and off site
construction, but on the otherend, you're like, Nah, just more

(51:39):
work.
I was talking to Tim the otherday, and, you know, we were
talking about, like, thesesocial media brand deals, and we
were just, he was he just, like,a space he didn't really know.
And I was explaining it to him.I'm like, the screwed up part
is, is when a good brand dealcomes around, and it's like,

(52:02):
yeah, that's great. Like, youknow, I get to make a little bit
more money this year. And thereality, like, the initial
thought, is that goes into, youknow, my bank account, and we
deploy it within the family, andthen I get the money, and then I
deploy it right back into thebusiness, and like, Yeah, let's
invest it in that. And what Iwas trying to get at with him is

(52:25):
it would be interesting to havemapped that out over time, where
it's, you know, all of thisreinvesting, and how much money
that, you know, I could havepulled out and just continue to
keep, like, the baseline of thebusiness, but instead, I've put
back in to know if have I reallygot a higher ROI on it, right?

(52:48):
Like, I'm basically, like,lending the money back the
business. But am I ever reallypaying myself back for it, you
know, break even, or am I payingmyself back at it with
compounding interest,
dude? The thing that's crazyabout that too, to me. And it's
so hard to really wrap your headaround where I think about jobs

(53:08):
in the past, right, where it'slike, I ate $5,000 there, I ate
$10,000 there. And then youthink about it at the end of the
year, right, where you're you'renew in business, like most guys
are trying to make $100,000 whenthey start their business, yeah.
And it's like, if, if, right atthe end of the year, say, you
made $100,000 and then you have,like, 150 grand worth of

(53:33):
mistakes and fluff and burdenand everything else. And it's
like, if I wouldn't have madethose mistakes, would I have
made a quarter million dollars?Like, would it have just been
that easy? And it's the samething with you. It's like, if I
didn't have that one expense, orif I were to have not put this
back into the business, would Ihave made a half million

(53:54):
dollars? Right? And to me, like,it's not quite that simple. I
mean, I think about it even, youknow, right? Buying equipment,
buying a truck, it's like, well,if I didn't buy that truck and I
just kept my old truck, would Ihave another $100,000 in five
years, or would I have justspent that on something else?

(54:15):
It's hard to, it's hard to wrapyour head around,
yeah, and it's because I thinkit's the latter. I don't think
it's like, I don't think you'reactually, you're not actually
getting that money back, but itis, you know, it's, I wonder. I
mean, it's a personality thing,because I wonder, is there going

(54:35):
to be a point in time in my lifethat all of a sudden I'm I, I
don't deploy it back into thebusiness as much, and then I
just watch my personal income goup. Well, yeah,
and it's like, if I didn't havethat one expense for the past 10
years, would I just be in acompletely different like, if it
was just that simple? And to me,that's where it comes down to,

(54:56):
like, fundamentally, there'smuch more going on. If, if it's
one thing that you have to fix,it would just be too easy,
right? Like, there's there. It'sthe incremental, just like we
were talking about earlier, it'sall of these little things that
are going to add up to be thebig things. If it were as simple
as reducing this one cost ofyour overhead or getting rid of

(55:20):
just those receipts that youdidn't track, or adding $15 to
each employee, like it would beso simple, it's just not
exactly we went through. We weregoing through our overhead list
the other day. We printed outall the transactions, and we
were highlighting things that wedon't need anymore. And they
were like they were softwarepieces, Tyler, I'm talking like

(55:43):
$20 a month software.
Oh, yeah. I texted you thatabout that, like, a month ago,
yeah, and they were in. He waslike, Hey, make sure you cancel
that. Meanwhile, I have two vansthat I've owned for two years,
and one of them needs $18,000worth of repair work. So
instead, I took the other I tookthe other van, I brought up the

(56:04):
Mercedes and traded them in, andnow, now I have a $1,500 a month
payment. Yeah, that
could be an excavator, dude.
No shit. I'm like, I'm like,Thank God I saved that 20 bucks
a month, because now, yeah, nowspending another 1500 for two
new vans. It makes no sense. Andlike you said, it's in, you

(56:24):
know, when you said theincremental thing, I think, you
know, from a personal level,when I was going through that, I
was like that, when I hadoverwhelming amount of mail, I'm
just like, Dude, there's somuch, like, I have like, six
credit cards that all havepayments due coming up. And I'm
like, I don't even know where Istand with that right now. And
if it was just one credit card,I would know, yeah, and it's

(56:46):
like, not, not that I have noidea. Like, obviously, I can log
in and see it, but it just, youknow, we we go through life, and
we compound all of these littlethings that just continue to add
up. And, you know, I was goingthrough our transaction, and
it's like, man, like, Spotify,Apple TV, Netflix, Comcast,

(57:07):
Disney plus Hulu. And I'm justlike, This is fucking crazy,
yeah. Like, we you get rid ofcable, and then you're spending
more for this, like, for for 18different streaming platforms,
then my, my four year oldfucking ordering $30 rental
movies. And I'm like, for 35 youcan buy it, like, stop renting

(57:28):
the movie. The
other thing that I've neverreally have been able to wrap my
head around right, where youhave these, like massive
businesses and like, theiroverhead right, is millions of
dollars every year. And it'slike, where, if you were just to
cut $100,000 out, would you make$100,000 more? Nope, but it like

(57:49):
you think that you would rightwhere, it's like, Yo, we could
just get rid of $100,000 worthof overhead. And now I go from
making 150 to $250,000 a year.It's just as simple as that, and
like it doesn't
work out that. I think the onlyway it works that way is if you
get rid of the 100 and youimmediately take it well, I
also think that like it like thereason, that's the reason why we

(58:16):
continue to spend so much money,because at the end of the day,
it's like, well, that's only Xamount per month, and it like,
our overhead is already amillion and a half dollars. So
what's another 80,000 right? Imean, I was just talking my
buddy stopped by yesterday. Ihaven't seen him a couple years,
but I talk to him every now andthen he's like, my my overhead

(58:36):
from my plumbing companies, youknow, 80 some $1,000 a month,
and then I'm looking to pull in100 130 so right at the end of
the day with, like, I could beprofiting $350,000 a year, and
it's like good money, but at theend of the day, like, that's a
big nut to be bringing in$80,000 worth of work every

(58:58):
month. And you have one monthwhere you're $10,000 low, or
your sales aren't what theywere, or you only sell 70 grand.
Like the risk there, like therewards great, but the risk is
also really great, and like, oneor two things go wrong and the
margins just aren't there forme, personally, to justify

(59:20):
having that much risk and thatmuch exposure, where I think
that there, there are ways tomake a living within this
industry where you don't need toexpose yourself to that degree.
And that's, you know, that's lowon the this the scale of
exposure for a lot of people.But at the end of the day, like,

(59:43):
I think that you can do it withlike, you can make this happen
with a lot less if you want to.And I think that people get
caught up in the mix, and, youknow, trying to compete with
other people or comparethemselves to other people. And
I think that there's ways. Dothis more intelligently, where
you don't have to necessarilyput yourself in such a whole

(01:00:06):
month to month, which willprobably free you up a little
bit and reduce the level ofstress and anxiety in your life.
Yeah, I think, I think to tokind of put a bow on that, if
you're you know, I know you guysare listening and like, Dude,
you this is, this is my liferight now. I'm stressed. We got
an email yesterday. I actuallywant to respond to it before the

(01:00:27):
end of the day, but, you know,he's like, I'm giving I'm
closing my business. I can't dothis, and I'm way too stressed
out. And I was like, I can'trespond to this, like, on my
phone. I gotta sit down andreally chat with this guy, but
it, you know, this is, it is,like the first and most

(01:00:48):
important thing you have to dois just shut your phone off, sit
down with a piece of paper, orwhatever it is, and go item by
item, and just get your life,your business, whatever, your
finances, just in front of you.Where do you actually stand?
Because that exercise will, youknow, create clarity, whether

(01:01:08):
it's more stress inducing orless stress inducing, it doesn't
matter. At least there's actualclarity. Yeah, and I will say,
you know, you get all thatinformation out, and you don't
know what your first move is,whether you're you can either
work with a financial advisor tohelp you on that, or work with
use AI, yeah. And one of thatwas actually one of the things I

(01:01:33):
was messing around with, islike, all right, I'm gonna give
it the information on my creditcards, just like, hey, this is
the interest rate. Here's theterms on the credit card. Here
are the the here's my limits oneach card. Tell me how I should,
you know, be managing myfinances across these cards so I
continue to earn points and andleverage and build credit. But

(01:01:54):
I'm not doing it foolishly. Andcome to find out, the card that
I use as my primary card is theworst card I should be I'm
using. It's like no, no. Usethat one only for this and keep
your keep your spend per monthunder this amount, and move all
of your primary purchases tothis card because it's less APR,
but you'll still earn thepoints.

(01:02:15):
That's i i think it ultimately,it comes down to, again, a bunch
of those little things. But ittypically, it's not just one
fix. And I think even, even withregard to, you know, the charge
more money, where it's like,Hey, I just got to charge more

(01:02:37):
money for my employees. I'mgoing to add $10 to their hourly
cost. Where you think thatthat's going to make the fix,
but if they use One Hourinefficiently that day, right?
You just made an extra 80 bucks,like you're paying much more for
that employee than in one hour,then you up their rate

(01:03:03):
throughout the day. So it's likeyou have to focus on what you're
investing into these projectsand how you're managing people's
time. You could charge as muchas you want if you're over
executing, you're overdelivering. You're not managing
the amount of labor that's goinginto projects. Like it's not
always just the numbers, as faras your hourly rate or what

(01:03:26):
you're charging, or youroverhead, or your markup or your
margins. One last thing I wantedto dig into here, which I
thought I can recall a specificinstance where somebody brought
this up. But do you ever feelguilty delegating tasks you used
to do yourself, and how do youwork through that?

(01:03:48):
Um, no, no, I've never feltguilty about that, but I think
it's primarily driven by thefact that just because I've
delegated a task doesn't meanI'm going to, like, not step up
and help. Like, there's thetimes I do feel guilty is when
you know, a big delivery orsomething that's kind of like,

(01:04:10):
shitty end of day delivery,right? Like, yeah, and I'm and I
have to leave because I have ameeting, and it's like, and then
you get the classics, like, Oh,of course, delivery truck shows
up and Nick can't help, like,Yeah, I do genuinely feel
guilty. Because if I didn't haveto leave, you know, I would, I
would hang out and just get itdone. And I remember, you know,

(01:04:31):
white oak was an example. Therewas concrete. Guys were on site.
Whole wasn't prepped correctlyfor them. And they were, they
were kind of pissed. And theywere like, it's this isn't our
responsibility. I'm like, You'reabsolutely right. And I went and
got a shovel, and it wasfreezing out, and I put my
jacket and hood on, and I justsat there, and I just dug the
hole out by hand. And 10 minutesinto it, all the concrete guys

(01:04:54):
were like, all right, fuck it,we'll help. And they just all
gone the hole, and they we dugit out by hand. Which it was
supposed to be dug by anexcavator, like, but I wasn't
gonna let these guys wait, like,lose an entire day, and you
don't have an excavator, and Idon't have an excavator, further
furthering the point.
Meg, I can, I can specificallyrecall, I shot a project with

(01:05:16):
fine homebuilding once where Iwas up in the attic and we were
renovating a kitchen, and we hadto put a flush beam in, and it
was all blown in cellulose. Soit wasn't like enough of a job
to get a vacuum in there, likeit was one beam in the kitchen.
So I just went up and, like,moved it all over, and the guy
shooting it took, like, a prettycool photo of me with, like, the

(01:05:39):
light coming through the roof,vent in the attic, and sent it
to me, and it like wasn't fortheir magazine. He just sent it
to me, and I remember posting,this is years ago, like that,
I'm proud to be on the tools,like no job task is above me.
And a lot of people contradictedwhat I was saying or didn't

(01:06:00):
agree with me. Where it's like,as the owner of the business,
your time is much better spentdoing other things. And I agree
with that. And I think thatthere are certain aspects of my
job right, especially when I'mcharging a client a premium for
my rate, that I don't need to bedoing stuff like that. But I
also think at the end of theday, it is important, like,

(01:06:21):
maybe it's not right. Maybe Ican't charge a client my rate to
go up and do that for an hour.Maybe that's a freebie. But I
also think that it shows a lotto the people around you, to
your team, that you're not abovethat, and that you're willing to
lace up your boots and getdirty. But I also think that,

(01:06:43):
like, there's a lot of thingsthat you should be willing to
do, or go to bat for your teamand not just put on somebody
somebody else, because it's notwhat you want to do. I think
that it has to be a calculateddecision where financially or
from like an opportunity cost.It doesn't make sense for you to

(01:07:05):
be doing that type of thing.
Yeah? At the end of the day,don't ask something. Don't ask
someone to do something that youwouldn't do, not saying that you
have to do it. But if it'ssomething you wouldn't do, then
that's where I think there's anecessary guilt. Yeah? Well, if
you guys are listening to this,we're going to be headed to
Omaha this week, and hopefullyyou're joining us. If you're

(01:07:27):
not, then you'll either have toget a last minute ticket by
DMing Tyler or I and showing upin Omaha. And if that's not an
option, then maybe we'll see youin Chicago in the fall, but
stoked to I'm stoked to get toOmaha. This is what our seventh
summer.
Yeah, seventh August today,bananas.

(01:07:51):
So we're that's where we'll bethis weekend.
All right, guys, make sureeveryone signs up for the
newsletter as well. Nick and Iare looking to be doing, putting
out a monthly workshop via zoom.And if you want to get involved
with that, if you want the link,if you want the schedule, if you
want whatever resources, we'regoing to be diving into on those

(01:08:13):
workshops, the only place to getthat, it's going to be through
the newsletter. So make sure yousign up there, you can sign up
modern craftsman.co we havelinks on the Instagram channel,
whatever you need. There's amillion ways to get on there,
but definitely sign up for thatnewsletter.
Appreciate guys. Talk to younext week.