June 25, 2025 • 62 mins
Mark Zweig takes us on a remarkable journey through his multiple years in architecture, engineering, and construction, sharing candid insights about the industry that few are willing to discuss.
From his early career in architecture firms to founding the Zweig Group (now in its 37th year), Mark reveals how his experience across multiple disciplines gave him unique perspective on the construction ecosystem. The conversation delves into his transition to design-build contracting and property development in Northwest Arkansas, where his team revolutionized downtown Fayetteville through high-quality renovations.
Perhaps most valuable are Mark's practical strategies for building a sustainable contracting business. He emphasizes maintaining an in-house carpentry crew as the backbone of operations, paying them consistently regardless of weather conditions, and developing strong relationships with reliable subcontractors. His approach to subcontractor management is refreshingly straightforward: avoid hard dollar bidding and pay immediately upon receiving invoices.
The discussion tackles the challenging relationship between clients, contractors, and engineers that plagues the industry. As Mark explains, "Developers hate soft costs" and "they think all contractors are criminals" – perceptions that create unnecessary friction on projects. He offers advice for navigating these challenges, stressing the importance of reaching a point where contractors can be selective about their clients.
Looking forward, Mark shares his thoughts on the growth potential of Northwest Arkansas while addressing challenges like infrastructure limitations and anti-development sentiment. He closes with an optimistic outlook for skilled trades, asserting that, unlike many white-collar professions, trade skills cannot be replaced by AI and offer both financial and personal satisfaction.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey guys, welcome to the Blue Collar Business Podcast
, where we discuss the realest,rawest, most relevant stories
and strategies behind buildingevery corner of a blue collar
business.
I'm your host, cy Kirby, and Iwant to help you in what it took
me trial and error and a wholelot of money to learn the
information that no one in thisindustry is willing to share.
Whether you're under that shadetree or have your hard hat on,
(00:30):
let's expand your toolbox.
Welcome back, guys.
Thanks for joining me onanother episode of the Blue
Collar Business Podcast broughtto you and sponsored by
podcastvideoscom.
We are in.
I think they believe call thisa conference room.
I do believe it's normallywhere I do my shows.
The team here splendid,knowledgeable, swift in action.
(00:52):
I couldn't have got to thisshow to where it is today
without them, so I wanted togive them a big shout out for
today's episode.
Today is a guest I have beenwaiting for so so, so long to
get on this show for you guys tohear the just raw experience.
Just in his storytelling of ourindustry, he literally has
(01:15):
pioneered a way for us smallcontractors.
He's the main reason ofarchitectural and design and
planning.
He's very, very high level.
But you guys are going to bevery treated today.
He's number one, the co-host ofmy favorite podcast other than
the Blue Collar BusinessPodcastcom Big talk, small
(01:37):
business, two of who I wouldconsider Eric much more of a
mentor, but I have gotten tolearn and love the wise words of
Mr Mark Zweig.
Thank you so much for joiningme today, sir Cy thank you for
pronouncing my name properly.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I can't tell you how unusual that is.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I've got two letters for a first name.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I mean, you already distinguish yourself from 95% of
the other people out there.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Let me build some credibility.
I appreciate that.
Oh, of course, I can't tell youhow many people in school just
would skip over my first nameand just call me Kirby.
For like two months I'd be like, hey, my name's Cy, but this
gentleman started a long timebefore I was here.
But this gentleman is very,very passionate about making
(02:25):
sure my entrepreneurship careeris smooth as possible.
He's down there at the Sam MWalton College of Business since
2005, pouring intoentrepreneurs just like myself.
He's a CFO and partner at JanusMotorcycles.
We've got one here atpodcastvideoscom.
If you're ever in the rogersarkansas area, pop in, see that
(02:46):
beautiful specimen right up,right up front.
Um, but of course everybodyknows mr swig for his design,
build, contracting and not onlyjust that, but your design and
planning mentality from theget-go, just just from your
experience.
So there's a little bit ofcredibility.
(03:07):
And he's also author of some ofthe greatest business books
that have been written in a very, very long time.
So go check those out.
Where can we find those, mrZweig?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Well, my latest is Confessions of an Entrepreneur,
and you can get that on Amazonor any bookseller platform.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Awesome.
Well, that's, you can get thaton amazon or any book seller
platform.
Awesome.
So well, that's, uh, my smallintroduction.
I hope you guys go look him upon linkedin.
I follow him.
I love his stuff on linkedinvery real, raw and, uh, there is
no fluff with mr zwag from whatI found out.
But today, honestly, brother, Iwant to get in to know when you
started in the constructionindustry.
What was that?
(03:46):
Like you know, you're probablygoing to blow my head off my
shoulders when we're like, hey,we paid the guy when he was done
.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Well, that's fundamental.
Well, you know, I reallystarted in architecture and
engineering.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
I went to work out of grad school in 1980 for a
company that served bothcontractors and developers and
they had occasionalopportunities to work with
architecture and engineeringfirms.
Nobody there liked them becausethey said they're too slow to
make decisions and they won'tpay a good fee.
I gravitated to that group.
(04:19):
I found I always wanted to bean architect, when I was a
little kid.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
And I just got seduced away by the world of
business.
I started working in bike shopswhen I was like 12 or 13, and I
made so much money that when Iwas in high school as a senior,
I was making $600 or $700 a week.
In the 80s, in the 70s, in theyeah.
My first job offer with anundergraduate degree in 79 was
(04:47):
$8,800 a year.
So I got seduced away by theworld of business.
I always had like three cars,two motorcycles, could eat out
every single meal paid for allmy college had the cash saved.
It was, you know, that was mything, but anyway.
So I thought I wanted to be anarchitect and I gravitated to
the AE farms and built myself anice little business there over
(05:11):
a three-year period.
Then I got recruited by one ofmy clients.
I was working in St Louis atthat time and I grew up in
outside of St Louis, okay.
And I got recruited to one of myclients.
That was a firm in Memphiscalled the Pickering Firm.
They had an office there and wehad another one in Little Rock
and we had another one inHuntsville, alabama, and we had
(05:31):
one in Baton Rouge Go Tigers,yeah, greenwood, mississippi,
which my boss used to say that'sanother country down there, it
is Mississippi.
I got to call it properlyMississippi, you're right.
Hey, you like Mississippi.
I think it's great, that'sright.
But anyway, then I got and Ibecame an owner there at a young
(05:52):
age.
They'd lost a bunch of money bygoing into CAD when nobody had
it Intergraph CAD and so this ispre CAD, this is pre CAD, this
is the they dual-screen CADworkstations, and you should
hear how we were using them.
We were using them to do thingslike design aluminum siding
(06:13):
projects for brick buildings forthe Huntsville Division Corps
of Engineers.
I mean like the worst possibleuse of CAD.
All you needed was like five orsix standard details and you
could have freaking hung sidingon these brick buildings.
Okay, but anyway.
(06:34):
And then after that I gotrecruited to another one of my
clients, a company called CarterBurgess, and I moved down to
Fort Worth, texas, and expandedmy role with a larger, more
successful company.
They just made a lot more moneythan Pickering and really
dominated in land developmentPickering.
We had a pretty good.
I started to learn aboutsubdivision development from a
(06:56):
guy we had there named Jim Dugan, who built a group from like
zero to 20 people in about ayear and a half and Jim
eventually left and became adeveloper himself, and so I
learned a lot about subdivisiondesign.
I got really interested in thatand at Carter Burgess that was
a big part of what we did.
We really dominated DFW landdevelopment at that time and
(07:20):
then after I guess I was thereabout three years, I decided I
was going to go to Boston towork for this company.
I had written for theirnewsletter since 1985.
And it was a consultingmanagement, consulting, media,
publishing, training firm thatserved the AE industry Different
(07:41):
.
It served the AE industry, okay, different.
I packed up the truck and movedto Beverly, like Uncle Jed in
Beverly Hills, but no, moved upthere to Boston and it was
nothing like it was supposed tobe.
This guy had like six or sevenof his family members working
(08:02):
there.
There was just a lot of badstuff going on.
Let me just say I had to turnthis place around, which I did,
and after six and a half monthsthe family members, which
included the guy's wife and herfirst cousin who worked there,
(08:22):
went to him and said you know,either he goes or we go.
So obviously you know I lostthat battle.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
And because they didn't like me, because I was
making them do what they neededto do in order to make the
business successful.
What do you mean, that word ofaccountability?
Oh geez, you wouldn't evenbelieve it started.
I've learned myself, sir.
Well, I got my business cards.
I was executive vice president.
I got my business cards.
I was executive vice president.
I got my business cards and thebill was $190.
Like $190 for 500 cards.
(08:51):
I'm getting these in Fort Worthfor like $35.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Right.
Something's wrong here.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
And the investigation into that, let's just say, is
really what began my downfallwith the family members.
But so then, after thatexperience, I was 30 years old.
I had a kid that was six monthsold, my then wife.
She was licensed schoolpsychologist in texas but not
(09:20):
massachusetts, oh so shecouldn't work.
So here we are, unemployed, um,and just bought an old
victorian pile of crap house.
It was my fourth house, myfirst house I built new and I
said I'd never do that again.
Of course I ended up doing thatand then I did a rehab.
That was a light rehab.
(09:41):
Then I did a more, a largerrehab, and if the first light
rehab in memphis than a largerone in texas, then massachusetts
was a pretty good rehab,considering was the second
cheapest house in the town Imoved into flips.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
I'm assuming when you're saying no, they're what I
lived in.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Oh okay, I clawed my way up the property ladder.
Understood I'm trying to do thesame.
So that fourth house.
It was an 1870 Victoriancovered with lime green asbestos
shingles.
The entire yard had beenasphalted.
It had a nice chain link fencearound it.
It was like living in anindustrial compound.
(10:22):
It suspended ceilings in everyroom with like four tube
fluorescent lights.
You know, it was just horribleanyway.
So I just got at that when Iwas unemployed, 13 days later
after I bought it, and I'm like,oh shit, you know, I am never
gonna work for anybody elseagain.
I had my business plan ready togo to start the company that's
(10:44):
the y group today, which isgoing to be 37 years old.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Congratulations, sir that's a long time.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
That's a very, very long time started it, sold it,
but the reputation turned itaround and turned it around
again, bought and sold it again,this time to the employees, a
small group of partners in thecompany, and they still own it
(11:11):
today.
But you know, that's where Ireally learned what I did about
the architecture and engineeringbusiness.
I mean, I work with companiesall over the United States and
some foreign countries.
I've been on the board ofprobably 12 or 13 of these
companies.
I've been an owner and maybe ahalf a dozen more over the years
.
I still am in a structuralengineering firm out in
(11:32):
California.
That's Miyamoto International.
I'm on the board and I'm one ofthe owners of that.
I started with them when theyhad eight or nine people.
We grew to 200.
I left cashed in my stock.
November last year I gotre-recruited back to the company
400 employees now to be a boardmember and anyway, I just got
(11:57):
back from LA on Saturday.
Loving the California life therefor a minute.
I like California, but I tellyou what downtown LA was not.
Our meeting was supposed to bethere, we moved it to Orange
County.
Let's just say, understood, sir.
But anyways, I really learned alot during that time.
Okay, I mean I was involved inevery aspect of these companies
(12:19):
that you can imagine Everything.
I mean I've served as aninterim CAD manager, I've done
the business plans for hundredsof these companies, I've done
turnarounds on them, I've dealtwith banks where companies had
financial problems, I've doneM&A, mergers and acquisitions,
been involved in several hundreddeals in the AE side over all
(12:44):
that time.
And so, anyway, that companythat I started then it did
really well, it grew, was twiceon the Inc 500 before we sold it
the first time.
Got it back was decimated, gotit back on the Inc list three
years later and they were juston the Inc list last year year,
again under its currentownership and management.
(13:06):
So four times with that company.
But anyway, so that's where Ilearned everything I knew about
the AE business.
The first time I sold it in2004 is when I decided I was
going to come here.
My then wife was from this areaoriginally.
(13:27):
She was actually born in Miami,oklahoma Okay, close enough
Grew up in, you know, likePineville, anderson, bella Vista
, then Bentonville and Rogers,then Fayetteville, when she was
17.
So you know she wanted to comeback here.
I had a friend of mine, danWuerl, who lives in Fayetteville
(13:52):
today, and I had been involvedin bringing Dan on.
I was the chairman of the boardof the College of Business at
Southern Illinois University,which is where I went to school
I'm back on that board again, bythe way, that's another one and
hired Dan as our dean.
Dan did an amazing job.
(14:12):
He and I became friends and soDan got me an interview here
with the dean of the WaltonCollege.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Thank God he did.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Well, I don't know about that, but the guy hired me
.
He gave me a job one night aweek as an adjunct and I flew
down here from Boston, bought ahouse right away, before I even
started working for the college.
I bought a house inFayetteville.
It was the guy who startedWilson Park.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
It was actually Wilson Park when the tennis
course came to be done.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
So it was AL Trent.
You'll notice, like theirstreets around there are called
Trenton, it was named after him.
I was up on top of the hill.
It was a rock house.
It was really cool.
Did a major redo of that, builtan art studio and two car
garage, built another two-cargarage guest house, expanded the
(15:09):
house, put a pool in redid thewhole house.
Um, it was in a bunch ofmagazines as you're transforming
businesses over here.
Yeah well, that's I was, youknow, but I'd sold my company, I
had my cash, understood, sir,started working at the Walton
College and anyway, then, inJanuary of 05, I had so much fun
(15:31):
redoing that house, sort of.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
I'd never.
Remodels are oof not my cup oftea.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
It was a challenge.
I bought that house for$307,000.
I had about a million plus init when I was done, but today
it's worth several million.
The CEO and founder of AcreTrader lives there now, but
anyway.
So in January of 2005, I had anew company.
(16:00):
I started a Mark Zweig Inc.
And I started buying properties.
By then I'd had quite a bit ofexperience.
Like you know, I, as I said, Iclawed up the property ladder.
Last house I had in the Bostonarea had a like 5200 square foot
Austin beam on the CharlesRiver, next door to Pierre
Dupont.
The fifth come on, of course,jesus got it really cheap.
(16:23):
Okay, that was my specialty islike buy the worst derelict you
can't you know and redo it.
So we start doing that here.
We started buying these oldhouses and redoing them in
downtown fayetteville.
Really, uh, you know I I thinkit's most people would say we
started the rehab boom indowntown fayetteville.
Yeah, I agree with that.
(16:44):
The first house I did, you know,know, I was asking like at the
time it was like 200 bucks asquare foot and people thought
that was crazy.
They're like you're never goingto get that.
Well, the next one I did, I got300 bucks a foot for it.
They're like, who's going tobuy these houses?
And I knew exactly who wasgoing to buy them is older
people who are retiring and wentto school here or had kids here
(17:06):
, okay, and were self-employedor had a lot of cash.
Yeah, that's it.
Had this fantasy that they weregoing to walk to wherever and
live in a college town.
That was my very slight slendermarket there, sir they probably
got in their prius to go intotown two blocks to the food
co-op anyway, but anyway, sothat was a great market.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Because there was nobody serving it.
Okay, and so we built areputation there by doing a
really high-quality job.
Yes, sir, I had my owncarpentry crew, which was
absolutely essential.
Great guys Headed up by a guynamed Jack kid he's he's gone
now, unfortunately and Jack's,he had trained all these guys.
(17:55):
They were all from PrairieGrove.
They were all like non drinkersnon smokers just like super
solid citizens.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
So it's not like all construction trades people.
Let's be honest.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
That's right, the stigma we talk about on this
show that just comes with themimmediately.
There are high skilledtradesmen that have
professionalism about them.
I try to be one, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Absolutely.
I mean Jack was like amazing.
He had a seventh gradeeducation, but he was brilliant,
that's right, had to be one.
You know, absolutely.
I mean Jack was like amazing.
He had a seventh gradeeducation, but he was brilliant,
that's right.
Had nothing to do.
You know, he was a greatphotographer.
He had design.
Sense that I could.
He and I would talk at nightEvery night we talk about the
jobs because he was into it likeI was, and when he showed up
it'd be everything with jack wasjack.
(18:44):
You know, we buy this house.
It's like the foundations.
It's listing seven inches onone side.
We got a jacket up and replacethree quarters of foundation.
Jack, can we do that?
Yeah, yep, it was never like,well, I don't, I don't know that
, you're gonna be right.
Never got that from jack,always sure we could do that
100%, and then, without breakinga sweat, that's exactly what we
(19:08):
did, yeah, and we had our ownlaborers, and so that was really
part of the strategy, I thinkwas having these carpenters,
never letting anybody.
I paid everybody for 40 hours aweek, always Okay.
So I never sent anybody homedue to lack of work or weather.
(19:29):
We just always worked our way,it's hard for a side worker.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
I try.
I'm literally living thisbattle with myself right now.
And we've had historic amountsof rain.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
And I'm trying to do the same battle myself because I
don't.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
These guys have families.
They're my families, right,they're my families I.
They're depending on me exactly.
So no, I understand that point.
It is definitely harder being asideward guy, but jack and the
carpentry guys is was thebackbone it was absolutely the
backbone, because a goodcarpenter is really a master
builder.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
They know all the trades and they would keep an
eye on, like if the plumber didsomething stupid or the electric
.
You know, I mean at first therewere some little battles.
I did pretty well though, causeI, I put a really good team
together early on in the way Iwas able to do that.
Of course experimentation, ofcourse you know, but very
(20:23):
quickly I had good electrician,good plumber, good roofer, good,
you know, um, site work people,whatever foundations, whatever
I needed.
But, um, you know, I think thekey in our case was I did not
make people hard dollar bid okay, oh, that that is so
(20:45):
fundamental.
And same thing with you know.
Now I'm not going to say Inever got a bids out of my
painter I did I I will, I I betI didn't.
Always there were times I justsay go um, and you know, by not
making people hard dollar bid,small contractors,
subcontractors, hate biddingokay especially if they don't
(21:07):
have any time or accountinginside accounting.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
They don't even know their cost to be able to
preclude an estimate, which isthe big problem exactly and, um,
you know.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
So they got no real vehicle for doing estimates.
That's one thing, and the otherthing is they don't know what
it's going to take, especiallyon these renovations you't know
what it's going to take,especially on these renovations.
You never know what you're goingto discover.
Okay, so if you had thesepeople that you trusted and you
didn't make them bid, and thenthe other thing is pay them as
(21:38):
soon as you get their bill yourbill, I get it at Friday at 3,
at Friday at 3.05.
Here's your check, that's okay.
That's what they wanted.
Yep, and you know.
And they wanted to do qualitystuff too.
Of course, it wasn't like I wasbeating on everybody saying give
me the lowest price.
You know, I want that donecheap or half-ass, that you can
(22:01):
get away with it.
You know, I mean some peopleyou had to train because that's
the way they were used to doingthings.
Yes, sir, I mean, you know aswell as I do.
The residential market, oh,it's been atrocious.
It's not like commercial.
The better contractors, betterclients, better architects and
engineers are working over thereon that side.
Generally speaking.
Yes, sir, not in all cases, no,I would agree with that are
working over there on that side.
(22:21):
Generally speaking.
Yes, sir, not in all cases.
No, I would agree with that.
And so, anyway.
So we built a nice team ofpeople who worked together and
weren't, you know if somethinghad to be fixed or redone,
they'd help the other guy outbecause they were going to get
paid for it.
Yep, it's real simple.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
You know the design-build conversation,
especially for somebody likemyself.
I, as you know, have done thismarketing thing to you know.
Raise myself up into thatconversation, sure, and
hopefully I'm starting to seesome success of being brought in
on pre-plat of thesesubdivisions.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Which you should be.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Hey, do you see any VE options?
Yes, do you see?
You know how can we?
Can we do this before it getssent down to the state?
Yes, I can help you VE valueengineer for those members that
don't know, but those VE optionscan swing and win the job for
you.
And right now, as you guys arelistening, I know the
oversaturated market andeverybody's trying to get their
(23:26):
hands on something, and theweather, etc.
But being able to raiseyourself up and that was the
problem I didn't know how andother than putting myself out
there and going, hey, I'm hereand I want to do this the right
way, but I need payment termsbelow 100 days if you don't mind
.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yeah, I'm kidding.
How in the world can yousurvive 100 days as a little guy
?
You can't.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
I tried my average day to pay between two quarters
and 23 was over 100.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
That's terrible.
It was unbelievable.
I mean you must be working fora lot of big companies.
They're the ones that do that.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
We got into this commercial game because all we
hear is commercial, commercial,commercial.
As a smaller guy, just to yourpoint, was the bigger companies
more reputation, all this stuff,but nobody tells anybody about
cashflow that is a problem?
Definitely a problem, and I hadto experience it with my own
money and figure out the hardway that Cy.
(24:23):
You overextended yourself herea year ago.
That's why you're dealing withthis after two 90 day cycles and
no, you can't just fix it.
It's a compounded problem.
Now you got to bring outcompounded solutions to fight
them and get to swinging,because you got yourself in, I
get yourself out well, hopefullyyou got yourself a bank and got
a line of credit that helps youwith the AR.
Yes, yes and no, but I got it.
(24:45):
You know, on that point, mrZweig, they don't, they don't
want to touch guys like us.
Even if I'm starting our 10thyear in business in August it's
unbelievable, but um yeah, likeanybody that's conservative it's
unbelievable and since COVID,and
since risk and analysis, as youknow, know from the higher level
is just so minute and justmicroscopic.
(25:08):
They just want to know everylittle thing.
And I'm like at the commercialside of the things, like we were
just talking about when shotinto this coin, because it's
just what I thought I had to do,I didn't realize that this resi
work over here that paid within30 days you know it's not big
screaming valued contracts, butit's consistent cashflow.
If I'd have kept that going alittle bit more, you got to have
(25:29):
both, exactly.
And now you know the commercialworld I've been.
I didn't realize that, hey,there's industrial type, there
is retail type, exactly, they'reall different.
There is land development andland development.
I graduated in 2009.
So, everybody around here afterthe 08.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
They're all scared of land development.
They're scared to death.
All those guys went brokeExactly.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I mean you should be scared when I started my
business.
Here comes this next boom.
I'm like all right,subdivisions, history repeats
itself.
You don't know what you don'tknow, and so I didn't jump into
that game as hard as I couldhave at first, and I should have
now looking back, but at thesame time We've all made those
kinds of mistakes.
I've jumped so hard in thecommercial game, dealt with
(26:15):
these hard bid GC nasty, andyou'd have 10 or 12 or 15 of
those contracts happening andyou know, within a six month
period, yeah, your volatile cashflow.
Yeah, your cash flow iscompletely volatile because it's
all dependent on a pay, on paycontract, cause nobody teaches
you how to freaking red line acontract and then you can push
that contract back before yousign it and go hey, I'm not
(26:38):
waiting to you get paid.
You're a GC, it's your problem.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Exactly, or just let me contract directly with the
owner.
I'm glad to do that.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
And in the design build conversation it is such a
different conversation from acivil application.
I've gone to these developersand go hey look, I understand, I
don't care who you pick tobuild your building, but let me
control the site for you beforeyou build.
Your tin can Normally retail,let me take care of all of this.
Get it up that way.
(27:06):
Your guys just show up, cutfooters and they're going
vertical.
You don't have to worry abouttrack out, you don't have to
worry about a guy, a sky track,getting stuck in the brick
pallet.
Sell off, ruining some.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Italy yeah, exactly something.
Italy, yeah, exactly, I knowit's funny, you say that because
, like behind where I live now,I live on mount sequoia and I
got a pretty big old mid-centurymodern house and behind I got
maybe a little bit, I got maybeacre and a half, something like
that.
Behind me they're building anew house, okay, and it's
massive.
(27:36):
I I don't know how.
I could not believe how long ittook for them to do the
foundation in the framing.
I mean, I've never seenanything like this.
They start at 6 am.
It doesn't even matter what'shappening with the weather.
They're out there.
That's a good way.
So I've got all these trees backthere that are falling like
trees falling on other treesthat if that tree falls, crash
(27:59):
into my house, okay, a bunch ofthese things.
And we go to the guy, the firstoff, the general contractor.
He won't do anything about itsays well, the city won't, let
us take those up.
Well, that's bull.
We talked to the tree warden.
Tree warden said anything youwant to take out over there, you
can take out my god and and soanyway.
(28:20):
So and they've got this insanegrading.
I don't know how they could getaway with the slope.
I mean, the house is so closeto the property line and so big
it's got about a 45 degree slopeoff one side of it, directly
from the house.
Okay, I mean, I can't believethe runoff problems that they're
going to create.
(28:40):
But anyway, like, and then theygo.
Well, we can't get, and theowner is a doctor out of state,
he's a jerk.
Okay, you wouldn't have.
You didn't want to even cutthese trees.
I'm like, are you kidding me?
If I was building the house foranybody and somebody had a tree
that was falling into theirproperty, he had one fall over
(29:00):
into my.
I go, of course we take care ofthat.
We're out there, you know, butthey didn't do this first
because we can't even get abucket truck back there now or
whatever.
Like, you're idiots, that'syour problem.
The first thing I would havedone is the tree work, then I do
all my grading.
Okay, then I do.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I mean all my grading .
Okay, then I do.
I mean it's like there's justno sense and that general
contractor, you know, doesn'teven if he was a good one.
Um, I'm not saying that he's abad one, but that's right.
You know that's on you, sir.
That's your piece of propertythat you're representing for the
owner, and it's like these gcswant to do an absolute
minimalistic other than passingthey don't do anything.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
They are pimps.
It's they consider themselvespimps and then you know, they
just pimp out subcontractors,mark them up and give no quality
control and whatever happenshappens.
Maybe the homeowner providesquality control or the city
building inspector.
We know how good they are right.
Yes, sir, that's where thequality control is.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
There's no management well and at the same time by
the.
If you hard bid a job, you'reunder such time constraints
because you had to bid the jobso stinking tight just to be
able to get on the site, so youthink quality is really going to
be performed there.
It's very hard, of course.
It's like well, we tried tooffer that option up there at
(30:22):
that pre-contract but it wasgoing to toss us out of the job.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Yeah, I understand it's got to be a challenge.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
It's unbelievable and that's what I wanted to pick
your brain about.
Yes, you've had so much successwith turning folks around and
starting companies, and what iswhat needs to happen in this new
age, what you see from yourperspective?
What was so successful?
Yes, obviously any goodsubcontractor is going to show
(30:49):
up for payment, but from the Ayou know the A E side of it it's
civil engineers and myself.
I can't tell you.
I've respect the crap out ofthem.
I can't do their job, but Idon't believe they can do my job
.
Most of the time.
They believe that they can andwe get into well there's big
differences with civil engineers.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Okay, let's face it, the guys that do multi-site
development are not the sameguys that do subdivisions, or
not the same guys doingmunicipal engineering and roads
and and streets and you knowwater and sewer line extensions
yeah, they shouldn't be there wego, it's right, okay.
When they all start strayinginto territories that they're
(31:29):
not really good at, it takes alot of specialization.
Same thing with the surveyors.
It's like there's constructionstaking people and then there's
boundary survey people.
They're not even the same.
In many cases they may thinkthey are that's right.
So all that it, you know thespecialization drives it.
In my experience, yeah, you getthe ones that really know what
(31:53):
the hell they're doing.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
That's a starting point it's part of our no-go go
matrix.
When we have leads andopportunities, we have literally
a civil engineer classification.
If we've number one drawingswere this, we bid to that and
then we get out there and findout oh, they didn't even come
out and survey at all.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah, like no topo done, but here it is, I've had a
job here in town on a majorcollector.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
We shut down at night .
You'll get an absolute kick ofthis Perpendicular manhole in
the road bringing a service outnothing crazy.
But we suggested to do it atnight work.
Sure, I've done this at nightbefore I absolutely love it for
the safety of my guys Trafficnowadays but anyhow, instead of
going, there was a storm drainwe came across running
(32:39):
perpendicular into the job andI'm like, well, wait a minute,
this wasn't on our prints, I'msure this last item of the job
there was curb inlets on theproperty nobody went out there,
nobody shot them.
Don't even shot the top of thecurb inlets, didn't even shoot
the pipe within it.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
The engineer probably never even went out on the site
, no, and he didn't.
And that's the thing I mean.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
It's like, yeah, it's , it's sloppy, very, there's no
question about it and that's ourbottom line, picking it up
unless we push back and from youknow to somebody like yourself
that can decipher well, this isthe engineer being an engineer,
this is legit.
Yeah, what you're saying exactly, but there's a legit problem a
lot of times is that it justgets shoved on to the installer.
(33:23):
Well, all these engineeringproblems that he didn't take
care of.
Well, you're on the job, fix it.
You do it.
Well, wait a minute.
No, no, no, no, I don't havethe degree.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
You're the last guy there.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
That's the problem and it's part of the system.
End of the food line.
But why would you not?
You know we've we discussedthis, I think, on big talk
before shout out to big talk,small business.
Catch an episode over there,guys.
It's really insightful if youwant to hear more of mr zwag.
But literally I just don'tunderstand why civil engineers
and a contractor can gettogether on a project if you
really have vision for thatproject.
You mentioned subdivisiondevelopment earlier.
(34:02):
We have been, oh my gosh,takeoff after takeoff on
subdivisions.
But we catch things through ourprograms, pre-contract that we
bring up RFI and most of thetime nowadays, mr Zweig, we get
met with silence Because I don'tknow On RFIs, they don't even
answer them literally if,especially if you're bringing
out a problem that the engineersgot to go back and fix or make
(34:25):
attention to, well, once we getthere, you get this roundabout
explanation and how this isstill your problem, as the
installer kind of figure it outand we'll work through it.
And it's like, if you push back, you want to push back because
you're sitting here looking atyour bottom line, you're looking
at your customer, the owner,and going, hey, I want to do
(34:46):
this, but I need him to drawthis and to navigate that line.
Over the last couple of years,it's all about this installer is
crap.
That engineer, that's myengineer, you're the, you're the
problem, fix it.
And I'm like, and I'm like, howdo I even prove this disconnect
in the world to other incomingdevelopers to this area?
Speaker 2 (35:07):
I mean, look, cy, I think a lot of the problem comes
down to the client.
The client, I mean, first off.
Developers hate soft costs.
Engineering is a soft cost,okay, soft costs, engineering is
a soft cost, okay.
They want to spend the leastamount of money on that that
they have to in order to getwhatever it is they want built.
So that's a fundamental thing,right there.
(35:29):
That's where the problem starts.
They don't necessarily paytheir engineers to get good
engineers or pay them to do whatthey really need to do.
They might say we need to dosoil borings, we need a good
topo, whatever, okay, and theydon't get it.
That's correct.
And so, because they're notpaying for it, the packages Okay
(35:51):
.
So that's part of the problem.
And then, so that's one thing.
They hate soft costs.
And then the other thing isthey think all contractors are
criminals.
That's the other part of itplease, sir, talk about it for
just a minute, okay I mean someof them are, there, are, of
course, there, some are, I'mlook, I've said it before.
(36:11):
I mean, if I was to say, if Itook a group of contractors
versus a group architects andengineers engineers.
I'm telling you honestly, thearchitects and engineers.
They may be screwed up inplenty of ways, believe me, I
can talk about that.
But they're not criminals,that's right.
Okay, some of the contractorsI've worked for flat out are Yep
(36:33):
, yes, sir, but that said,they're not all.
Obviously they're goodcontractors, they're honest
people who are trying to do agood job.
But the presumption is thatyou're trying to screw them, so
they don't mind trying to do itto you.
That's right.
I mean from the clientstandpoint.
That's a big part of theproblem Client education.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
The culture, the engineer as well.
Oh yeah, I think is an issue.
Think the engineer to yourpoint.
Engineer provides pricingpackages.
Here's your three tiers.
You really need this tier, butyou can get away with exactly.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
You got three tiers.
Okay, this is the.
This is the bottom line good,better and best.
It's like sears, but what theydon't understand.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Is that right if they don't take that best package
right off the bat?
Speaker 2 (37:22):
you're going to see ceos and they're going to chip
away at you later 100 and it'sgoing to be me and you're going
to call me well, that's theproblem with design, build.
Okay, that that's a problemright there too, because you
know, a lot of times theythey'll win the job with a low
bid but then later it's going tobe change order, change order,
change order, change order.
(37:43):
I can't, I didn't think.
You know, this is what we saidwe're going to do, and the
client's not sophisticatedenough to understand that that's
not really what they need.
Therefore, it's out of scope.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Therefore, you know and the problem with being a
contractor trying to providetheir client education is I
can't tell you how many timesthat man.
I've worked almost a year on aproject via talk with city talk,
with whatever needs to happento get that project into a
budget and then a month laterthey're using somebody else
(38:15):
that's terrible, I mean.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
I mean they're just using you and abusing you, but
that's the market I mean it'snot all of them to be in their
defense, but it's.
Here's the thing, okay.
I mean, obviously you have tosurvive those clients.
You know as well as I do thefirst order for any business is
survival.
Yes, okay, that's the firstorder.
(38:38):
So you got to survive all that.
But you need to put yourselfyou and any other subcontractor
like you needs to put yourselfin a position where demand
exceeds supply.
When you have moreopportunities than you can
possibly respond to or do, thenyou're going to be more
(38:59):
selective about the clients youwork for.
As long as that's not the case,where you need these jobs, you
will end up working for badclients.
So it's one of the fundamentalthings is somehow you've got to
survive long enough to learnwho's good and who's bad and
drive demand beyond your abilityto supply it.
(39:20):
So you just can say no topeople and that's the way it
goes, and you work only for thegood clients.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
In the first five years you don't know what a good
or bad client is.
And to Mr Zweig's point, it'sthe experience of going through
those jobs and going man.
This client I really don't wantto deal with man.
We need the revenue right now.
Let's chalk it up as experience, learn, take from it, analyze
what went good and bad aboutthat job and don't do it again.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
If we have the time to do that.
That's another key pointPost-mortems don't get done.
I mean, you know as well as Ido.
We're on to the next one.
It's already a crisis.
I can literally I can talk onmy own Crisis, crisis, crisis.
I don't go ahead.
No, I was just going to say Imean, I have to think, knowing,
with the experience that I'vehad with subcontractors and site
(40:13):
contractors, you know people inyour business that an
intelligent guy like yourself,who's well-spoken and comes
across as being an honest guy, Igot to believe there's people
out there who will respond tothat and go this guy, you know
what he is, forget everythingelse.
(40:35):
Just as an individual, I puthim notches above these other
guys I'm dealing with who comeout here and drink like a case
of beer in one day on the jobsite each one.
I used to have this guy thatdid my concrete finishing.
He looked like he was 75 whenhe was about 45.
(40:58):
It's like well, my doctor says Isays I gotta slow down on my
drink and I, I'm done.
I cut down to eight beers a day.
Now.
Well, what were you drinkingcandy?
I'm drinking a case case a day.
You know I'm like so there's somany guys out there like that
yep, and that you come out, youcome across somebody like you's
younger, he's educated, he'swell-spoken, he's he's, you know
(41:22):
, clean-cut guy and there'sgoing to be clients that are
going to respect that.
I appreciate those client.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
You know kind words and and we are seeing success
from that, but from puttingourselves out there on this
youtube endeavor and sure, doingthis podcast yeah bringing
other, you know folks in, butyeah I, I do, and I think, do,
and I think to your point, sir,it's just time.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yes, it is.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
And it's grinding, not stopping when it gets hard
and not getting stuck as long asyou don't run out of cash.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
That's literally, you know.
I mean that's because you gotequipment and payments on that,
I'm sure, which is a big deal.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
And anybody.
That's a new age yeah oh, my glauto, commercial auto, like
you're going to do everything bythe book.
I know nowadays, it's not evenworth it.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
I'm not trying to be any way dude.
I used to have a gc license,unlimited residential commercial
.
I gave it up because when wedecided we wanted to slow down,
I mean the overhead that goesalong with that, yes, sir, and
and the warehouse and the office, and the vehicles, and the
accountant and the you know, youjust go down the line of the
(42:33):
overhead that you build up, thenyou have to take jobs that you
don't want because I gotta keepeverybody busy, I gotta keep
some cash flowing in.
That's death.
It's literally the hamster.
Okay, death it is.
Yeah, I understand that it's.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
It's such a tough, so hard to navigate.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
It really is um, but you need that overhead too to
grow.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
I mean, that's the thing, but then you can't get a
bank to help you with thatoverhead.
I mean you can very structured,but I want to hop on this real
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(43:15):
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(43:36):
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And if you guys want to gocheck out psyconexccom, you can
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.
I can speak on the results.
Get over there with Ike, he'sgoing to help you guys.
But, mr Zweig, where do you seethis?
Do you see?
What do you see?
I'm going to totally switch theball game up on you, northwest
(44:18):
Arkansas.
I'm going to totally switch theball game up on you, northwest
Arkansas.
Let's talk about it.
What, from your mind, sir, whohas lived, eaten, slept and
breathed this area for 20 years,do you really see it being the
DFW?
I know what work is coming inthe public side.
What is your perceptive view?
And maybe some blockades thatmight not get us there.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Well, I mean it's yeah, this is a boom area, yep,
and it's got every reason whyit'll continue to unless Walmart
falters.
If Walmart falters, it's reallygoing to put a kink in the
works.
They have put so much moneyinto all these communities and
there's so many companies thatsupport them and there's so much
(45:04):
growth related to theiremployment and all the companies
that support them that Walmartfaltering is a is a potential
threat.
Okay.
Now, on the other hand, theysell stuff that everybody needs
and they are a really smartgroup of people over there.
Yes, sir, they are, so Iwouldn't sell them short.
(45:26):
They have shown that they canadapt and move where they need
to in order to keep everythinggoing.
So that's a potential threat.
I mean, a general recession isalways a threat.
I mean, the interest rates arehigh.
I don't know how people canafford all the housing today for
what people make and whataverage house is selling for.
(45:47):
I mean, there's condos indowntown Bentonville for $2,000
a square foot.
That's 1,000 square feet for $2million.
Believe it or not, that blowsme away.
That makes me just cringe alittle bit.
I know it's mind-boggling.
So there are those.
Now, that threat's not uniqueto our area, that's basically
(46:08):
anywhere.
Okay, sir um.
And then I think, the other,you know the other.
Well, there's a couple otherthreats.
I mean anti-growth sentiment ofthe people who are already here
.
That's right, okay, they wantto fight everything.
It's like and now I'm in, nownobody else can come in.
Okay, that that would alwaysget.
I mean, you know, I've gonetirades about that, I was
(46:30):
driving crazy just squeakingthat door open just a little bit
, you know that that I mean that, just so.
The anti-growth sentiment makeseverything so hard to do at some
level that developers andbusiness owners and you know,
multi-site restaurant whateverthey just say that's not worth
going there.
(46:50):
So that could be a problem.
Okay, it's probably worse inFayetteville than it is Anywhere
, yeah, than Rogers orBentonville or springdale, for
that matter, but um, but anyway,so you know.
But I think overall, if youlook at this area, I mean
there's so many things that areworking in our favor.
Um, it's, it's a sane area.
(47:12):
We don't have um, we've gotpretty good water quality and
air quality.
We never had like big, heavy,dirty industries here.
So that's like older places inthe northeast.
Like you know, we're going todevelop this site.
Oh, they had a manufactured gasplant site there in 1790.
The soil is completelycontaminated with arsenic.
(47:34):
You know what I mean.
It's like we just don't havesome of those problems that they
have in these other places.
We get a lot of press of beinga great place to be.
I mean, with all the newrestaurants and hotels and
museums and bike trails andevery other thing that's
happening around here.
(47:54):
It's mind boggling because 20years ago there was nothing
happening it's, it'smind-boggling, because 20 years
ago there was nothing happening.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I immigrated in 2001 and I can remember there being
three gates at the airport yeah,just being a123, and it I mean
you went downstairs you walkedout on the tarmac when you got
your plane.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Exactly that's the way it used to be, and to see
what.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
it don't get me wrong , I have that little bit of
anti-gross, you know, in me, butat the same time, how can I be,
you know?
Right, here's the thing.
I'm more of a realist.
People need houses.
People are coming to this areawhy.
Cost of living is lower thanpercentage base of the rest of
the country.
Yes, it's a great place toraise a family.
(48:38):
Yeah, the crime is lower thanmost percentage places right
there.
I mean, I leave my truckrunning at the gas station.
still, I mean probably not needto do that, but I just don't
understand the we are I don'tknow if you've heard of this, I
hope I'm the first one to tellyou for this little area, but,
as we have, I have two jobscurrently subdivisionsisions out
(49:01):
western Bennett County, okay,and the smaller towns up the 59
corridor there, gentry, decatur,kind of outside of Centerton,
and we are really they'regrowing Ooh yeah, and but we're
in a momentary where they can'taccept the sewer capacity.
And this is in Decatur, this isin Gentry.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
I'm sure that's happening.
I'm not surprised I hear this.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
The public infrastructure that is fixing to
come out.
I was in the city of Fort Smithyesterday.
There's 17 sub basins of FortSmith that are completely
getting new sewer linere-infrastructured during their
existing.
It's just crazy the amount ofpublic stuff that's coming to
Northwest Arkansas.
I should probably not besharing this on the show, but
(49:45):
either way, come on over, butit's already.
I'm just trying to let thedevelopers and the clients know
that may be thinking about thisarea.
It's happening.
Yes, there's some blockades.
Gentry Decatur is really likeah, I've had a subdivision on
Paws since November of last year.
Also killing that old, thatrain this year there's so many
parameters coming at us, right?
(50:06):
No, I believe it.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
It's definitely Well in the cities and towns around
here.
Well, I can't speak for all ofthem.
I've had limited experience inBenton County.
I had some here, okay it wasgood.
Yeah, county, I had some here,okay it was good, yeah, okay,
I'll be honest with you.
But you know, over there inwashington county, um, in in
fayetteville, like, and you knowit's so different than a lot of
other cities where they justdon't really want to support any
(50:31):
kind of growth or utilityconstruction in places like
downtown should have good waterand sewer.
But you could do a projectright in the middle of downtown
and they'll still make you, asthe developer, pay to run a
bigger water line from your siteto.
You know, and it's just likethey're just so anti-development
(50:55):
.
I mean like in texas when Ilived there in the early mid
mid-'80s, I mean they built theinfrastructure before the
development.
That like dictated thedevelopment, you know, and we
just don't do that here.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
No, we're behind the planning.
Your mind is what's needed inso many.
I wish you could just get thesefour or five larger cities
together and go.
Hey, at least agree on a pipestyle so we don't all have to.
I mean, it's like from Germanyto the US, from Rogers to
(51:33):
Bentonville, sure.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
I understand.
Yeah, there's no reason forthat.
I mean, the Northwest ArkansasCouncil has done a good job in
the sense of trying to developsort of a unique place for each
of these major cities like rolein the area.
But then there's things likethat that just—.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2 (51:53):
I know.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
And then the same contractor that just came to
town is over here in Bentonvilleand it's plastic pipe.
We ran 2,000 foot.
And then we come over here toRogers and the pipe alone swings
$25 foot and they're like, hey,what is going on?
We just did this over here.
Your numbers don't even makesense, but I just wanted to
highlight coming from your mind.
I completely agree on thataspect.
(52:15):
I don't think it has a choice.
Pea Ridge, all these outlyingcities are growing, the
beautiful new home campus, Imean, oh my.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
God, it's mind-boggling, it's unbelievable
.
It's like it came out ofnowhere.
Here is this unbelievable city,yep, now that you drive through
.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
We helped on five of the buildings, just some
underground water infrastructure.
But it was cool to say yeah andwe got out of there pretty
quickly.
As that started coming across,I'm like, well, you either go
all in over there and there's alot of residual companies that
are sitting in the NorthwestArkansas market that were
flooded here and the labormarket really took a toll with
(52:53):
that being in town.
But now that it's all opened up, every single one of them
companies got an office here nowas another general contractor
and another percent of profit,bringing people in.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
You're saying that they're used to working with.
Where would they come from?
Speaker 1 (53:09):
yes, sir, yeah, and and of course you can talk about
local knowledge has to be socritical.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
I mean, if you're smart, you know anything about
construction.
Okay, like site work inparticular, I mean, yeah, maybe
you can take your buildingcontractor and move them around
or whatever, but I would think,like your site work people,
you'd try to get that local.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Yep, and they're not as necessarily bringing.
There's out-of-towners comingin, but there's even more guys
here in the area.
I mean the saturated marketbecause it's been a market key
takeaway, sir, is if, where, ifa subcontractor was like myself
(53:50):
and this is kind of what I'vebeen trying to necessarily do in
the civil side of things, or Iguess it could be, uh say, a
carpenter you kind of referencedto this with Jack, but how does
a subcontractor take that nextleap, like?
We have been trying to presentthis to customers and we have
(54:11):
been working on the public sideof COIN, directly with the city
as a civil general contractor onsome other things.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
I mean are you saying like are we going to be in the
design bid build business orwe're going to go all design
build?
What do you forecast?
I mean, I think more jobs aregoing design build and more
design build jobs are led bycontractors than they are AE
firms.
They're just better at dealingwith the risk associated with it
(54:38):
.
The AE firms are just too riskaverse.
They can't you know.
Plus, they're also bad managers.
Oh my God, I mean so, you knowyou got.
So I mean contractor-led designbuild seems to me to be the way
a lot of things are going Okay.
I would agree, lot of thingsare going okay, I would agree.
(55:04):
And the other side of that isprogram managers, you know
whatever we want to call them.
I mean they don't do anythingbut they, they hire everybody
yes they put the thing together.
You know what I mean.
That's another thing.
But like the bigger clients,you know that they, they, they,
they're really going that way.
I think we're.
You know they got somebodythat's running their building
program or they've got they'redoing that big job with a
(55:26):
program manager if it's like abig public works job.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
That seems to be the other thing that I see happening
yeah, and there's some bigpublic work stuff coming in the
state arkansas I mean that'swhere to me it seems like your
political connections in yourrelationships yeah, that's what
it's.
Speaker 2 (55:43):
All you know that's going to be critical to you last
question for you.
Speaker 1 (55:47):
Yeah, the takeaway for the blue collar worker
skilled tradesman out there yeahthat's just sick and tired of
being stuck in the mud could bementally, physically,
emotionally, how I?
You just got to keep going.
I understand, but what's youriteration of that, sir?
Speaker 2 (56:07):
I mean, what would I say to that person?
I mean I'd say, look, you'renot going to be replaced by ai.
Okay, that's the good news.
Somebody actually has to dostuff at some point, and you
know, we all know that a lot ofthese jobs are hard to fill.
There's a shortage of people.
(56:27):
If you're skilled, you couldmake yourself a very nice life,
and not only that, you'llactually have more satisfaction
than the guy who's over therewith his degree working in an
office in a mega corp.
Yep, because you're going tosee things get done as a result
of your effort.
That's very satisfying, okay.
(56:49):
I mean, let's talk about what'ssatisfying in life.
We need to create, we need tobuild okay, that's a human need,
and so that's going to befulfilled by people like
yourself.
I think there's certainly morerespect is coming down to the
people that actually do things,people in the trades.
(57:09):
I mean, look at the latestmoney, you know, higher ed money
in the state of Arkansas that'sgoing to flow to trade schools
instead of all four-yearuniversities.
Speaker 1 (57:22):
I'm a big supporter of the Springdale School
District.
I had them on the show.
They're unbelievable people.
Man, I had no idea they haveheavy equipment in high school.
These kids are graduating withOSHA 30.
They're graduating with CDLsheavy equipment GPS college 30.
They're graduating with CDLsheavy equipment GPS knowledge,
diesel mechanics school.
Speaker 2 (57:41):
I had no idea that was a high school 20 years ago.
It wasn't.
That's why Real skills thatwill allow them to get decent
jobs out there where there'smore demand than there is supply
.
Speaker 1 (57:55):
AI is going to hurt the white-collar world too.
Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2 (58:01):
I'm not going to claim I know much about it.
I'm 67 years old, cy, I ain'tfrigging old my wife's like.
This summer we got to reallyunderstand AI.
Okay, I mean I'm not going tosay I haven't had any experience
with it.
I have had some and it's notall been good.
I mean, I was just at thismeeting for the earthquake
(58:22):
engineering firm.
I was bored.
I'm on out in California lastweekend and the CEO was trying
to tell me how a particularperformance metric was defined
and I said that's wrong.
His CFO had it right, had itwrong.
(58:42):
He said.
Google said and the ai responsequotes us is why crew wrong,
wrong, okay, oh my gosh.
So I'm like how the heck doesthat happen?
Speaker 1 (58:57):
Because there's hundreds of places where it's
defined properly.
Speaker 2 (59:08):
Somebody wrote an article for one of our
publications in 2018 or 2019,and that's what AI picked up.
So it's you know, like I said,my experience with it is it's
not always right, dude, that'sright.
No Trust, but verify it's myfirst motto.
It's just not, but anyway, yeah, it is going to replace a lot
of these white collar traps.
(59:28):
I mean, if you look at, like,what you can do and design and
how fast you can do it, it'scrazy.
Speaker 1 (59:34):
It's bizarre.
If you've listened to thiswhole episode, I'll give you a
little.
This is scary, but I can take apicture of your driveway with a
scale and tell JetGPT to tellme how much six inches of gravel
is going to take in thatdriveway, and they'll spit it
out.
Tell me the entire conversion.
Beautiful, Break it all out.
Well, for training new folks inour industry could be super
(59:55):
helpful.
Speaker 2 (59:57):
Yeah, or it'll make them super lazy because they
won't know how to actually do itif they don't have that ai.
That's the flip side of it youknow.
Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
But see, like it's so hard for me, mr's white, I'll
push back on that because it'sabout the only thing I will push
back on with you, because youhave the, the overall not, yeah,
the overall guy out there doingdirt work, you know, like
myself, but here I am trying todo new age.
It's all this GPS technology.
I'm just trying to train a guythat's coming out of school to
do it.
(01:00:26):
I can't find anybody that knowswhat a grade freaking stake is
anymore.
Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
Sure, it's a tool.
Okay, it's a great tool.
There's no question about it.
I'm not going to argue with youabout that.
It's a great tool.
Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
I'm not a big lover of AI.
Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
I just wanted your personal opinion.
No, I mean, like I said, I'm soignorant.
I don't claim to be any expertin it.
All I know is what I read andwhat I'm told, and that it's
going to change everything.
You know, some of the writingI've seen done is not great
either.
I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
But I'm sure it's all going to get better over time
as we train and work and plan.
But I can't tell you how muchthe audience appreciates your
knowledge and expertise.
Coming in today and just fun.
It has been truly very specialfor me.
I've been waiting for about ayear at this point to get you
here and now you guys understandwhy and I hope you love this
episode.
And if you want any more, Ithink this is episode 4243 here,
(01:01:27):
guys,Bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom.
You can watch or listenstraight from there, no
subscription needed.
You can watch it directly fromthe website.
But if you have a podcastsubscription you can catch them
on any of those podcastsubscriptions.
Make sure and drop a like and afollow at the end of this
episode if you wouldn't mind.
That sure helps the show out somuch.
And if you might happen to be aproduct or a service in the
(01:01:50):
blue collar skilled trades worldthat you may want me to
highlight on this show, hop overto bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom
, become a sponsor, shoot usover an inquiry and we will get
back to you.
Mr Zweig, thank you so much fortoday.
We'll catch you next time,Thanks it's been fun.
If you've enjoyed this episode,be sure to give it a like.
(01:02:11):
Share it with the fellers.
Check out our website to sendus any questions and comments
about your experience in theblue collar business.
Who do you want to hear from?
Send them our way and we'll doour best to answer any questions
you may have.
Till next time, guys.
Hey guys, welcome to the Blue Collar Business Podcast
, where we discuss the realest,rawest, most relevant stories
and strategies behind buildingevery corner of a blue collar
business.
I'm your host, cy Kirby, and Iwant to help you in what it took
me trial and error and a wholelot of money to learn the
information that no one in thisindustry is willing to share.
Whether you're under that shadetree or have your hard hat on,
(00:30):
let's expand your toolbox.
Welcome back, guys.
Thanks for joining me onanother episode of the Blue
Collar Business Podcast broughtto you and sponsored by
podcastvideoscom.
We are in.
I think they believe call thisa conference room.
I do believe it's normallywhere I do my shows.
The team here splendid,knowledgeable, swift in action.
(00:52):
I couldn't have got to thisshow to where it is today
without them, so I wanted togive them a big shout out for
today's episode.
Today is a guest I have beenwaiting for so so, so long to
get on this show for you guys tohear the just raw experience.
Just in his storytelling of ourindustry, he literally has
(01:15):
pioneered a way for us smallcontractors.
He's the main reason ofarchitectural and design and
planning.
He's very, very high level.
But you guys are going to bevery treated today.
He's number one, the co-host ofmy favorite podcast other than
the Blue Collar BusinessPodcastcom Big talk, small
(01:37):
business, two of who I wouldconsider Eric much more of a
mentor, but I have gotten tolearn and love the wise words of
Mr Mark Zweig.
Thank you so much for joiningme today, sir Cy thank you for
pronouncing my name properly.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I can't tell you how unusual that is.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I've got two letters for a first name.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I mean, you already distinguish yourself from 95% of
the other people out there.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Let me build some credibility.
I appreciate that.
Oh, of course, I can't tell youhow many people in school just
would skip over my first nameand just call me Kirby.
For like two months I'd be like, hey, my name's Cy, but this
gentleman started a long timebefore I was here.
But this gentleman is very,very passionate about making
(02:25):
sure my entrepreneurship careeris smooth as possible.
He's down there at the Sam MWalton College of Business since
2005, pouring intoentrepreneurs just like myself.
He's a CFO and partner at JanusMotorcycles.
We've got one here atpodcastvideoscom.
If you're ever in the rogersarkansas area, pop in, see that
(02:46):
beautiful specimen right up,right up front.
Um, but of course everybodyknows mr swig for his design,
build, contracting and not onlyjust that, but your design and
planning mentality from theget-go, just just from your
experience.
So there's a little bit ofcredibility.
(03:07):
And he's also author of some ofthe greatest business books
that have been written in a very, very long time.
So go check those out.
Where can we find those, mrZweig?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Well, my latest is Confessions of an Entrepreneur,
and you can get that on Amazonor any bookseller platform.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Awesome.
Well, that's, you can get thaton amazon or any book seller
platform.
Awesome.
So well, that's, uh, my smallintroduction.
I hope you guys go look him upon linkedin.
I follow him.
I love his stuff on linkedinvery real, raw and, uh, there is
no fluff with mr zwag from whatI found out.
But today, honestly, brother, Iwant to get in to know when you
started in the constructionindustry.
What was that?
(03:46):
Like you know, you're probablygoing to blow my head off my
shoulders when we're like, hey,we paid the guy when he was done
.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Well, that's fundamental.
Well, you know, I reallystarted in architecture and
engineering.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
I went to work out of grad school in 1980 for a
company that served bothcontractors and developers and
they had occasionalopportunities to work with
architecture and engineeringfirms.
Nobody there liked them becausethey said they're too slow to
make decisions and they won'tpay a good fee.
I gravitated to that group.
(04:19):
I found I always wanted to bean architect, when I was a
little kid.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
And I just got seduced away by the world of
business.
I started working in bike shopswhen I was like 12 or 13, and I
made so much money that when Iwas in high school as a senior,
I was making $600 or $700 a week.
In the 80s, in the 70s, in theyeah.
My first job offer with anundergraduate degree in 79 was
(04:47):
$8,800 a year.
So I got seduced away by theworld of business.
I always had like three cars,two motorcycles, could eat out
every single meal paid for allmy college had the cash saved.
It was, you know, that was mything, but anyway.
So I thought I wanted to be anarchitect and I gravitated to
the AE farms and built myself anice little business there over
(05:11):
a three-year period.
Then I got recruited by one ofmy clients.
I was working in St Louis atthat time and I grew up in
outside of St Louis, okay.
And I got recruited to one of myclients.
That was a firm in Memphiscalled the Pickering Firm.
They had an office there and wehad another one in Little Rock
and we had another one inHuntsville, alabama, and we had
(05:31):
one in Baton Rouge Go Tigers,yeah, greenwood, mississippi,
which my boss used to say that'sanother country down there, it
is Mississippi.
I got to call it properlyMississippi, you're right.
Hey, you like Mississippi.
I think it's great, that'sright.
But anyway, then I got and Ibecame an owner there at a young
(05:52):
age.
They'd lost a bunch of money bygoing into CAD when nobody had
it Intergraph CAD and so this ispre CAD, this is pre CAD, this
is the they dual-screen CADworkstations, and you should
hear how we were using them.
We were using them to do thingslike design aluminum siding
(06:13):
projects for brick buildings forthe Huntsville Division Corps
of Engineers.
I mean like the worst possibleuse of CAD.
All you needed was like five orsix standard details and you
could have freaking hung sidingon these brick buildings.
Okay, but anyway.
(06:34):
And then after that I gotrecruited to another one of my
clients, a company called CarterBurgess, and I moved down to
Fort Worth, texas, and expandedmy role with a larger, more
successful company.
They just made a lot more moneythan Pickering and really
dominated in land developmentPickering.
We had a pretty good.
I started to learn aboutsubdivision development from a
(06:56):
guy we had there named Jim Dugan, who built a group from like
zero to 20 people in about ayear and a half and Jim
eventually left and became adeveloper himself, and so I
learned a lot about subdivisiondesign.
I got really interested in thatand at Carter Burgess that was
a big part of what we did.
We really dominated DFW landdevelopment at that time and
(07:20):
then after I guess I was thereabout three years, I decided I
was going to go to Boston towork for this company.
I had written for theirnewsletter since 1985.
And it was a consultingmanagement, consulting, media,
publishing, training firm thatserved the AE industry Different
(07:41):
.
It served the AE industry, okay, different.
I packed up the truck and movedto Beverly, like Uncle Jed in
Beverly Hills, but no, moved upthere to Boston and it was
nothing like it was supposed tobe.
This guy had like six or sevenof his family members working
(08:02):
there.
There was just a lot of badstuff going on.
Let me just say I had to turnthis place around, which I did,
and after six and a half monthsthe family members, which
included the guy's wife and herfirst cousin who worked there,
(08:22):
went to him and said you know,either he goes or we go.
So obviously you know I lostthat battle.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
And because they didn't like me, because I was
making them do what they neededto do in order to make the
business successful.
What do you mean, that word ofaccountability?
Oh geez, you wouldn't evenbelieve it started.
I've learned myself, sir.
Well, I got my business cards.
I was executive vice president.
I got my business cards.
I was executive vice president.
I got my business cards and thebill was $190.
Like $190 for 500 cards.
(08:51):
I'm getting these in Fort Worthfor like $35.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Right.
Something's wrong here.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
And the investigation into that, let's just say, is
really what began my downfallwith the family members.
But so then, after thatexperience, I was 30 years old.
I had a kid that was six monthsold, my then wife.
She was licensed schoolpsychologist in texas but not
(09:20):
massachusetts, oh so shecouldn't work.
So here we are, unemployed, um,and just bought an old
victorian pile of crap house.
It was my fourth house, myfirst house I built new and I
said I'd never do that again.
Of course I ended up doing thatand then I did a rehab.
That was a light rehab.
(09:41):
Then I did a more, a largerrehab, and if the first light
rehab in memphis than a largerone in texas, then massachusetts
was a pretty good rehab,considering was the second
cheapest house in the town Imoved into flips.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
I'm assuming when you're saying no, they're what I
lived in.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Oh okay, I clawed my way up the property ladder.
Understood I'm trying to do thesame.
So that fourth house.
It was an 1870 Victoriancovered with lime green asbestos
shingles.
The entire yard had beenasphalted.
It had a nice chain link fencearound it.
It was like living in anindustrial compound.
(10:22):
It suspended ceilings in everyroom with like four tube
fluorescent lights.
You know, it was just horribleanyway.
So I just got at that when Iwas unemployed, 13 days later
after I bought it, and I'm like,oh shit, you know, I am never
gonna work for anybody elseagain.
I had my business plan ready togo to start the company that's
(10:44):
the y group today, which isgoing to be 37 years old.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Congratulations, sir that's a long time.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
That's a very, very long time started it, sold it,
but the reputation turned itaround and turned it around
again, bought and sold it again,this time to the employees, a
small group of partners in thecompany, and they still own it
(11:11):
today.
But you know, that's where Ireally learned what I did about
the architecture and engineeringbusiness.
I mean, I work with companiesall over the United States and
some foreign countries.
I've been on the board ofprobably 12 or 13 of these
companies.
I've been an owner and maybe ahalf a dozen more over the years
.
I still am in a structuralengineering firm out in
(11:32):
California.
That's Miyamoto International.
I'm on the board and I'm one ofthe owners of that.
I started with them when theyhad eight or nine people.
We grew to 200.
I left cashed in my stock.
November last year I gotre-recruited back to the company
400 employees now to be a boardmember and anyway, I just got
(11:57):
back from LA on Saturday.
Loving the California life therefor a minute.
I like California, but I tellyou what downtown LA was not.
Our meeting was supposed to bethere, we moved it to Orange
County.
Let's just say, understood, sir.
But anyways, I really learned alot during that time.
Okay, I mean I was involved inevery aspect of these companies
(12:19):
that you can imagine Everything.
I mean I've served as aninterim CAD manager, I've done
the business plans for hundredsof these companies, I've done
turnarounds on them, I've dealtwith banks where companies had
financial problems, I've doneM&A, mergers and acquisitions,
been involved in several hundreddeals in the AE side over all
(12:44):
that time.
And so, anyway, that companythat I started then it did
really well, it grew, was twiceon the Inc 500 before we sold it
the first time.
Got it back was decimated, gotit back on the Inc list three
years later and they were juston the Inc list last year year,
again under its currentownership and management.
(13:06):
So four times with that company.
But anyway, so that's where Ilearned everything I knew about
the AE business.
The first time I sold it in2004 is when I decided I was
going to come here.
My then wife was from this areaoriginally.
(13:27):
She was actually born in Miami,oklahoma Okay, close enough
Grew up in, you know, likePineville, anderson, bella Vista
, then Bentonville and Rogers,then Fayetteville, when she was
17.
So you know she wanted to comeback here.
I had a friend of mine, danWuerl, who lives in Fayetteville
(13:52):
today, and I had been involvedin bringing Dan on.
I was the chairman of the boardof the College of Business at
Southern Illinois University,which is where I went to school
I'm back on that board again, bythe way, that's another one and
hired Dan as our dean.
Dan did an amazing job.
(14:12):
He and I became friends and soDan got me an interview here
with the dean of the WaltonCollege.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Thank God he did.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Well, I don't know about that, but the guy hired me
.
He gave me a job one night aweek as an adjunct and I flew
down here from Boston, bought ahouse right away, before I even
started working for the college.
I bought a house inFayetteville.
It was the guy who startedWilson Park.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
It was actually Wilson Park when the tennis
course came to be done.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
So it was AL Trent.
You'll notice, like theirstreets around there are called
Trenton, it was named after him.
I was up on top of the hill.
It was a rock house.
It was really cool.
Did a major redo of that, builtan art studio and two car
garage, built another two-cargarage guest house, expanded the
(15:09):
house, put a pool in redid thewhole house.
Um, it was in a bunch ofmagazines as you're transforming
businesses over here.
Yeah well, that's I was, youknow, but I'd sold my company, I
had my cash, understood, sir,started working at the Walton
College and anyway, then, inJanuary of 05, I had so much fun
(15:31):
redoing that house, sort of.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
I'd never.
Remodels are oof not my cup oftea.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
It was a challenge.
I bought that house for$307,000.
I had about a million plus init when I was done, but today
it's worth several million.
The CEO and founder of AcreTrader lives there now, but
anyway.
So in January of 2005, I had anew company.
(16:00):
I started a Mark Zweig Inc.
And I started buying properties.
By then I'd had quite a bit ofexperience.
Like you know, I, as I said, Iclawed up the property ladder.
Last house I had in the Bostonarea had a like 5200 square foot
Austin beam on the CharlesRiver, next door to Pierre
Dupont.
The fifth come on, of course,jesus got it really cheap.
(16:23):
Okay, that was my specialty islike buy the worst derelict you
can't you know and redo it.
So we start doing that here.
We started buying these oldhouses and redoing them in
downtown fayetteville.
Really, uh, you know I I thinkit's most people would say we
started the rehab boom indowntown fayetteville.
Yeah, I agree with that.
(16:44):
The first house I did, you know,know, I was asking like at the
time it was like 200 bucks asquare foot and people thought
that was crazy.
They're like you're never goingto get that.
Well, the next one I did, I got300 bucks a foot for it.
They're like, who's going tobuy these houses?
And I knew exactly who wasgoing to buy them is older
people who are retiring and wentto school here or had kids here
(17:06):
, okay, and were self-employedor had a lot of cash.
Yeah, that's it.
Had this fantasy that they weregoing to walk to wherever and
live in a college town.
That was my very slight slendermarket there, sir they probably
got in their prius to go intotown two blocks to the food
co-op anyway, but anyway, sothat was a great market.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Because there was nobody serving it.
Okay, and so we built areputation there by doing a
really high-quality job.
Yes, sir, I had my owncarpentry crew, which was
absolutely essential.
Great guys Headed up by a guynamed Jack kid he's he's gone
now, unfortunately and Jack's,he had trained all these guys.
(17:55):
They were all from PrairieGrove.
They were all like non drinkersnon smokers just like super
solid citizens.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
So it's not like all construction trades people.
Let's be honest.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
That's right, the stigma we talk about on this
show that just comes with themimmediately.
There are high skilledtradesmen that have
professionalism about them.
I try to be one, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Absolutely.
I mean Jack was like amazing.
He had a seventh gradeeducation, but he was brilliant,
that's right, had to be one.
You know, absolutely.
I mean Jack was like amazing.
He had a seventh gradeeducation, but he was brilliant,
that's right.
Had nothing to do.
You know, he was a greatphotographer.
He had design.
Sense that I could.
He and I would talk at nightEvery night we talk about the
jobs because he was into it likeI was, and when he showed up
it'd be everything with jack wasjack.
(18:44):
You know, we buy this house.
It's like the foundations.
It's listing seven inches onone side.
We got a jacket up and replacethree quarters of foundation.
Jack, can we do that?
Yeah, yep, it was never like,well, I don't, I don't know that
, you're gonna be right.
Never got that from jack,always sure we could do that
100%, and then, without breakinga sweat, that's exactly what we
(19:08):
did, yeah, and we had our ownlaborers, and so that was really
part of the strategy, I thinkwas having these carpenters,
never letting anybody.
I paid everybody for 40 hours aweek, always Okay.
So I never sent anybody homedue to lack of work or weather.
(19:29):
We just always worked our way,it's hard for a side worker.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
I try.
I'm literally living thisbattle with myself right now.
And we've had historic amountsof rain.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
And I'm trying to do the same battle myself because I
don't.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
These guys have families.
They're my families, right,they're my families I.
They're depending on me exactly.
So no, I understand that point.
It is definitely harder being asideward guy, but jack and the
carpentry guys is was thebackbone it was absolutely the
backbone, because a goodcarpenter is really a master
builder.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
They know all the trades and they would keep an
eye on, like if the plumber didsomething stupid or the electric
.
You know, I mean at first therewere some little battles.
I did pretty well though, causeI, I put a really good team
together early on in the way Iwas able to do that.
Of course experimentation, ofcourse you know, but very
(20:23):
quickly I had good electrician,good plumber, good roofer, good,
you know, um, site work people,whatever foundations, whatever
I needed.
But, um, you know, I think thekey in our case was I did not
make people hard dollar bid okay, oh, that that is so
(20:45):
fundamental.
And same thing with you know.
Now I'm not going to say Inever got a bids out of my
painter I did I I will, I I betI didn't.
Always there were times I justsay go um, and you know, by not
making people hard dollar bid,small contractors,
subcontractors, hate biddingokay especially if they don't
(21:07):
have any time or accountinginside accounting.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
They don't even know their cost to be able to
preclude an estimate, which isthe big problem exactly and, um,
you know.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
So they got no real vehicle for doing estimates.
That's one thing, and the otherthing is they don't know what
it's going to take, especiallyon these renovations you't know
what it's going to take,especially on these renovations.
You never know what you're goingto discover.
Okay, so if you had thesepeople that you trusted and you
didn't make them bid, and thenthe other thing is pay them as
(21:38):
soon as you get their bill yourbill, I get it at Friday at 3,
at Friday at 3.05.
Here's your check, that's okay.
That's what they wanted.
Yep, and you know.
And they wanted to do qualitystuff too.
Of course, it wasn't like I wasbeating on everybody saying give
me the lowest price.
You know, I want that donecheap or half-ass, that you can
(22:01):
get away with it.
You know, I mean some peopleyou had to train because that's
the way they were used to doingthings.
Yes, sir, I mean, you know aswell as I do.
The residential market, oh,it's been atrocious.
It's not like commercial.
The better contractors, betterclients, better architects and
engineers are working over thereon that side.
Generally speaking.
Yes, sir, not in all cases, no,I would agree with that are
working over there on that side.
(22:21):
Generally speaking.
Yes, sir, not in all cases.
No, I would agree with that.
And so, anyway.
So we built a nice team ofpeople who worked together and
weren't, you know if somethinghad to be fixed or redone,
they'd help the other guy outbecause they were going to get
paid for it.
Yep, it's real simple.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
You know the design-build conversation,
especially for somebody likemyself.
I, as you know, have done thismarketing thing to you know.
Raise myself up into thatconversation, sure, and
hopefully I'm starting to seesome success of being brought in
on pre-plat of thesesubdivisions.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Which you should be.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Hey, do you see any VE options?
Yes, do you see?
You know how can we?
Can we do this before it getssent down to the state?
Yes, I can help you VE valueengineer for those members that
don't know, but those VE optionscan swing and win the job for
you.
And right now, as you guys arelistening, I know the
oversaturated market andeverybody's trying to get their
(23:26):
hands on something, and theweather, etc.
But being able to raiseyourself up and that was the
problem I didn't know how andother than putting myself out
there and going, hey, I'm hereand I want to do this the right
way, but I need payment termsbelow 100 days if you don't mind
.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yeah, I'm kidding.
How in the world can yousurvive 100 days as a little guy
?
You can't.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
I tried my average day to pay between two quarters
and 23 was over 100.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
That's terrible.
It was unbelievable.
I mean you must be working fora lot of big companies.
They're the ones that do that.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
We got into this commercial game because all we
hear is commercial, commercial,commercial.
As a smaller guy, just to yourpoint, was the bigger companies
more reputation, all this stuff,but nobody tells anybody about
cashflow that is a problem?
Definitely a problem, and I hadto experience it with my own
money and figure out the hardway that Cy.
(24:23):
You overextended yourself herea year ago.
That's why you're dealing withthis after two 90 day cycles and
no, you can't just fix it.
It's a compounded problem.
Now you got to bring outcompounded solutions to fight
them and get to swinging,because you got yourself in, I
get yourself out well, hopefullyyou got yourself a bank and got
a line of credit that helps youwith the AR.
Yes, yes and no, but I got it.
(24:45):
You know, on that point, mrZweig, they don't, they don't
want to touch guys like us.
Even if I'm starting our 10thyear in business in August it's
unbelievable, but um yeah, likeanybody that's conservative it's
unbelievable and since COVID,and
since risk and analysis, as youknow, know from the higher level
is just so minute and justmicroscopic.
(25:08):
They just want to know everylittle thing.
And I'm like at the commercialside of the things, like we were
just talking about when shotinto this coin, because it's
just what I thought I had to do,I didn't realize that this resi
work over here that paid within30 days you know it's not big
screaming valued contracts, butit's consistent cashflow.
If I'd have kept that going alittle bit more, you got to have
(25:29):
both, exactly.
And now you know the commercialworld I've been.
I didn't realize that, hey,there's industrial type, there
is retail type, exactly, they'reall different.
There is land development andland development.
I graduated in 2009.
So, everybody around here afterthe 08.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
They're all scared of land development.
They're scared to death.
All those guys went brokeExactly.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I mean you should be scared when I started my
business.
Here comes this next boom.
I'm like all right,subdivisions, history repeats
itself.
You don't know what you don'tknow, and so I didn't jump into
that game as hard as I couldhave at first, and I should have
now looking back, but at thesame time We've all made those
kinds of mistakes.
I've jumped so hard in thecommercial game, dealt with
(26:15):
these hard bid GC nasty, andyou'd have 10 or 12 or 15 of
those contracts happening andyou know, within a six month
period, yeah, your volatile cashflow.
Yeah, your cash flow iscompletely volatile because it's
all dependent on a pay, on paycontract, cause nobody teaches
you how to freaking red line acontract and then you can push
that contract back before yousign it and go hey, I'm not
(26:38):
waiting to you get paid.
You're a GC, it's your problem.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Exactly, or just let me contract directly with the
owner.
I'm glad to do that.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
And in the design build conversation it is such a
different conversation from acivil application.
I've gone to these developersand go hey look, I understand, I
don't care who you pick tobuild your building, but let me
control the site for you beforeyou build.
Your tin can Normally retail,let me take care of all of this.
Get it up that way.
(27:06):
Your guys just show up, cutfooters and they're going
vertical.
You don't have to worry abouttrack out, you don't have to
worry about a guy, a sky track,getting stuck in the brick
pallet.
Sell off, ruining some.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Italy yeah, exactly something.
Italy, yeah, exactly, I knowit's funny, you say that because
, like behind where I live now,I live on mount sequoia and I
got a pretty big old mid-centurymodern house and behind I got
maybe a little bit, I got maybeacre and a half, something like
that.
Behind me they're building anew house, okay, and it's
massive.
(27:36):
I I don't know how.
I could not believe how long ittook for them to do the
foundation in the framing.
I mean, I've never seenanything like this.
They start at 6 am.
It doesn't even matter what'shappening with the weather.
They're out there.
That's a good way.
So I've got all these trees backthere that are falling like
trees falling on other treesthat if that tree falls, crash
(27:59):
into my house, okay, a bunch ofthese things.
And we go to the guy, the firstoff, the general contractor.
He won't do anything about itsays well, the city won't, let
us take those up.
Well, that's bull.
We talked to the tree warden.
Tree warden said anything youwant to take out over there, you
can take out my god and and soanyway.
(28:20):
So and they've got this insanegrading.
I don't know how they could getaway with the slope.
I mean, the house is so closeto the property line and so big
it's got about a 45 degree slopeoff one side of it, directly
from the house.
Okay, I mean, I can't believethe runoff problems that they're
going to create.
(28:40):
But anyway, like, and then theygo.
Well, we can't get, and theowner is a doctor out of state,
he's a jerk.
Okay, you wouldn't have.
You didn't want to even cutthese trees.
I'm like, are you kidding me?
If I was building the house foranybody and somebody had a tree
that was falling into theirproperty, he had one fall over
(29:00):
into my.
I go, of course we take care ofthat.
We're out there, you know, butthey didn't do this first
because we can't even get abucket truck back there now or
whatever.
Like, you're idiots, that'syour problem.
The first thing I would havedone is the tree work, then I do
all my grading.
Okay, then I do.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I mean all my grading .
Okay, then I do.
I mean it's like there's justno sense and that general
contractor, you know, doesn'teven if he was a good one.
Um, I'm not saying that he's abad one, but that's right.
You know that's on you, sir.
That's your piece of propertythat you're representing for the
owner, and it's like these gcswant to do an absolute
minimalistic other than passingthey don't do anything.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
They are pimps.
It's they consider themselvespimps and then you know, they
just pimp out subcontractors,mark them up and give no quality
control and whatever happenshappens.
Maybe the homeowner providesquality control or the city
building inspector.
We know how good they are right.
Yes, sir, that's where thequality control is.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
There's no management well and at the same time by
the.
If you hard bid a job, you'reunder such time constraints
because you had to bid the jobso stinking tight just to be
able to get on the site, so youthink quality is really going to
be performed there.
It's very hard, of course.
It's like well, we tried tooffer that option up there at
(30:22):
that pre-contract but it wasgoing to toss us out of the job.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Yeah, I understand it's got to be a challenge.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
It's unbelievable and that's what I wanted to pick
your brain about.
Yes, you've had so much successwith turning folks around and
starting companies, and what iswhat needs to happen in this new
age, what you see from yourperspective?
What was so successful?
Yes, obviously any goodsubcontractor is going to show
(30:49):
up for payment, but from the Ayou know the A E side of it it's
civil engineers and myself.
I can't tell you.
I've respect the crap out ofthem.
I can't do their job, but Idon't believe they can do my job
.
Most of the time.
They believe that they can andwe get into well there's big
differences with civil engineers.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Okay, let's face it, the guys that do multi-site
development are not the sameguys that do subdivisions, or
not the same guys doingmunicipal engineering and roads
and and streets and you knowwater and sewer line extensions
yeah, they shouldn't be there wego, it's right, okay.
When they all start strayinginto territories that they're
(31:29):
not really good at, it takes alot of specialization.
Same thing with the surveyors.
It's like there's constructionstaking people and then there's
boundary survey people.
They're not even the same.
In many cases they may thinkthey are that's right.
So all that it, you know thespecialization drives it.
In my experience, yeah, you getthe ones that really know what
(31:53):
the hell they're doing.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
That's a starting point it's part of our no-go go
matrix.
When we have leads andopportunities, we have literally
a civil engineer classification.
If we've number one drawingswere this, we bid to that and
then we get out there and findout oh, they didn't even come
out and survey at all.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah, like no topo done, but here it is, I've had a
job here in town on a majorcollector.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
We shut down at night .
You'll get an absolute kick ofthis Perpendicular manhole in
the road bringing a service outnothing crazy.
But we suggested to do it atnight work.
Sure, I've done this at nightbefore I absolutely love it for
the safety of my guys Trafficnowadays but anyhow, instead of
going, there was a storm drainwe came across running
(32:39):
perpendicular into the job andI'm like, well, wait a minute,
this wasn't on our prints, I'msure this last item of the job
there was curb inlets on theproperty nobody went out there,
nobody shot them.
Don't even shot the top of thecurb inlets, didn't even shoot
the pipe within it.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
The engineer probably never even went out on the site
, no, and he didn't.
And that's the thing I mean.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
It's like, yeah, it's , it's sloppy, very, there's no
question about it and that's ourbottom line, picking it up
unless we push back and from youknow to somebody like yourself
that can decipher well, this isthe engineer being an engineer,
this is legit.
Yeah, what you're saying exactly, but there's a legit problem a
lot of times is that it justgets shoved on to the installer.
(33:23):
Well, all these engineeringproblems that he didn't take
care of.
Well, you're on the job, fix it.
You do it.
Well, wait a minute.
No, no, no, no, I don't havethe degree.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
You're the last guy there.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
That's the problem and it's part of the system.
End of the food line.
But why would you not?
You know we've we discussedthis, I think, on big talk
before shout out to big talk,small business.
Catch an episode over there,guys.
It's really insightful if youwant to hear more of mr zwag.
But literally I just don'tunderstand why civil engineers
and a contractor can gettogether on a project if you
really have vision for thatproject.
You mentioned subdivisiondevelopment earlier.
(34:02):
We have been, oh my gosh,takeoff after takeoff on
subdivisions.
But we catch things through ourprograms, pre-contract that we
bring up RFI and most of thetime nowadays, mr Zweig, we get
met with silence Because I don'tknow On RFIs, they don't even
answer them literally if,especially if you're bringing
out a problem that the engineersgot to go back and fix or make
(34:25):
attention to, well, once we getthere, you get this roundabout
explanation and how this isstill your problem, as the
installer kind of figure it outand we'll work through it.
And it's like, if you push back, you want to push back because
you're sitting here looking atyour bottom line, you're looking
at your customer, the owner,and going, hey, I want to do
(34:46):
this, but I need him to drawthis and to navigate that line.
Over the last couple of years,it's all about this installer is
crap.
That engineer, that's myengineer, you're the, you're the
problem, fix it.
And I'm like, and I'm like, howdo I even prove this disconnect
in the world to other incomingdevelopers to this area?
Speaker 2 (35:07):
I mean, look, cy, I think a lot of the problem comes
down to the client.
The client, I mean, first off.
Developers hate soft costs.
Engineering is a soft cost,okay, soft costs, engineering is
a soft cost, okay.
They want to spend the leastamount of money on that that
they have to in order to getwhatever it is they want built.
So that's a fundamental thing,right there.
(35:29):
That's where the problem starts.
They don't necessarily paytheir engineers to get good
engineers or pay them to do whatthey really need to do.
They might say we need to dosoil borings, we need a good
topo, whatever, okay, and theydon't get it.
That's correct.
And so, because they're notpaying for it, the packages Okay
(35:51):
.
So that's part of the problem.
And then, so that's one thing.
They hate soft costs.
And then the other thing isthey think all contractors are
criminals.
That's the other part of itplease, sir, talk about it for
just a minute, okay I mean someof them are, there, are, of
course, there, some are, I'mlook, I've said it before.
(36:11):
I mean, if I was to say, if Itook a group of contractors
versus a group architects andengineers engineers.
I'm telling you honestly, thearchitects and engineers.
They may be screwed up inplenty of ways, believe me, I
can talk about that.
But they're not criminals,that's right.
Okay, some of the contractorsI've worked for flat out are Yep
(36:33):
, yes, sir, but that said,they're not all.
Obviously they're goodcontractors, they're honest
people who are trying to do agood job.
But the presumption is thatyou're trying to screw them, so
they don't mind trying to do itto you.
That's right.
I mean from the clientstandpoint.
That's a big part of theproblem Client education.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
The culture, the engineer as well.
Oh yeah, I think is an issue.
Think the engineer to yourpoint.
Engineer provides pricingpackages.
Here's your three tiers.
You really need this tier, butyou can get away with exactly.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
You got three tiers.
Okay, this is the.
This is the bottom line good,better and best.
It's like sears, but what theydon't understand.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Is that right if they don't take that best package
right off the bat?
Speaker 2 (37:22):
you're going to see ceos and they're going to chip
away at you later 100 and it'sgoing to be me and you're going
to call me well, that's theproblem with design, build.
Okay, that that's a problemright there too, because you
know, a lot of times theythey'll win the job with a low
bid but then later it's going tobe change order, change order,
change order, change order.
(37:43):
I can't, I didn't think.
You know, this is what we saidwe're going to do, and the
client's not sophisticatedenough to understand that that's
not really what they need.
Therefore, it's out of scope.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Therefore, you know and the problem with being a
contractor trying to providetheir client education is I
can't tell you how many timesthat man.
I've worked almost a year on aproject via talk with city talk,
with whatever needs to happento get that project into a
budget and then a month laterthey're using somebody else
(38:15):
that's terrible, I mean.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
I mean they're just using you and abusing you, but
that's the market I mean it'snot all of them to be in their
defense, but it's.
Here's the thing, okay.
I mean, obviously you have tosurvive those clients.
You know as well as I do thefirst order for any business is
survival.
Yes, okay, that's the firstorder.
(38:38):
So you got to survive all that.
But you need to put yourselfyou and any other subcontractor
like you needs to put yourselfin a position where demand
exceeds supply.
When you have moreopportunities than you can
possibly respond to or do, thenyou're going to be more
(38:59):
selective about the clients youwork for.
As long as that's not the case,where you need these jobs, you
will end up working for badclients.
So it's one of the fundamentalthings is somehow you've got to
survive long enough to learnwho's good and who's bad and
drive demand beyond your abilityto supply it.
(39:20):
So you just can say no topeople and that's the way it
goes, and you work only for thegood clients.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
In the first five years you don't know what a good
or bad client is.
And to Mr Zweig's point, it'sthe experience of going through
those jobs and going man.
This client I really don't wantto deal with man.
We need the revenue right now.
Let's chalk it up as experience, learn, take from it, analyze
what went good and bad aboutthat job and don't do it again.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
If we have the time to do that.
That's another key pointPost-mortems don't get done.
I mean, you know as well as Ido.
We're on to the next one.
It's already a crisis.
I can literally I can talk onmy own Crisis, crisis, crisis.
I don't go ahead.
No, I was just going to say Imean, I have to think, knowing,
with the experience that I'vehad with subcontractors and site
(40:13):
contractors, you know people inyour business that an
intelligent guy like yourself,who's well-spoken and comes
across as being an honest guy, Igot to believe there's people
out there who will respond tothat and go this guy, you know
what he is, forget everythingelse.
(40:35):
Just as an individual, I puthim notches above these other
guys I'm dealing with who comeout here and drink like a case
of beer in one day on the jobsite each one.
I used to have this guy thatdid my concrete finishing.
He looked like he was 75 whenhe was about 45.
(40:58):
It's like well, my doctor says Isays I gotta slow down on my
drink and I, I'm done.
I cut down to eight beers a day.
Now.
Well, what were you drinkingcandy?
I'm drinking a case case a day.
You know I'm like so there's somany guys out there like that
yep, and that you come out, youcome across somebody like you's
younger, he's educated, he'swell-spoken, he's he's, you know
(41:22):
, clean-cut guy and there'sgoing to be clients that are
going to respect that.
I appreciate those client.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
You know kind words and and we are seeing success
from that, but from puttingourselves out there on this
youtube endeavor and sure, doingthis podcast yeah bringing
other, you know folks in, butyeah I, I do, and I think, do,
and I think to your point, sir,it's just time.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yes, it is.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
And it's grinding, not stopping when it gets hard
and not getting stuck as long asyou don't run out of cash.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
That's literally, you know.
I mean that's because you gotequipment and payments on that,
I'm sure, which is a big deal.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
And anybody.
That's a new age yeah oh, my glauto, commercial auto, like
you're going to do everything bythe book.
I know nowadays, it's not evenworth it.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
I'm not trying to be any way dude.
I used to have a gc license,unlimited residential commercial
.
I gave it up because when wedecided we wanted to slow down,
I mean the overhead that goesalong with that, yes, sir, and
and the warehouse and the office, and the vehicles, and the
accountant and the you know, youjust go down the line of the
(42:33):
overhead that you build up, thenyou have to take jobs that you
don't want because I gotta keepeverybody busy, I gotta keep
some cash flowing in.
That's death.
It's literally the hamster.
Okay, death it is.
Yeah, I understand that it's.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
It's such a tough, so hard to navigate.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
It really is um, but you need that overhead too to
grow.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
I mean, that's the thing, but then you can't get a
bank to help you with thatoverhead.
I mean you can very structured,but I want to hop on this real
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(43:15):
marketing campaign has been forme to put myself out there and
ensure the right folks arefinding me and not just wasting
time making sure Ike and theteam has the information about
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You need a website anything inthe regards of marketing.
(43:36):
Get over tobcperformancemarketingcom,
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Click the link in thedescription just below this
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(43:56):
And if you guys want to gocheck out psyconexccom, you can
definitely take a look at theproduct that you're going to get
.
I can speak on the results.
Get over there with Ike, he'sgoing to help you guys.
But, mr Zweig, where do you seethis?
Do you see?
What do you see?
I'm going to totally switch theball game up on you, northwest
(44:18):
Arkansas.
I'm going to totally switch theball game up on you, northwest
Arkansas.
Let's talk about it.
What, from your mind, sir, whohas lived, eaten, slept and
breathed this area for 20 years,do you really see it being the
DFW?
I know what work is coming inthe public side.
What is your perceptive view?
And maybe some blockades thatmight not get us there.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Well, I mean it's yeah, this is a boom area, yep,
and it's got every reason whyit'll continue to unless Walmart
falters.
If Walmart falters, it's reallygoing to put a kink in the
works.
They have put so much moneyinto all these communities and
there's so many companies thatsupport them and there's so much
(45:04):
growth related to theiremployment and all the companies
that support them that Walmartfaltering is a is a potential
threat.
Okay.
Now, on the other hand, theysell stuff that everybody needs
and they are a really smartgroup of people over there.
Yes, sir, they are, so Iwouldn't sell them short.
(45:26):
They have shown that they canadapt and move where they need
to in order to keep everythinggoing.
So that's a potential threat.
I mean, a general recession isalways a threat.
I mean, the interest rates arehigh.
I don't know how people canafford all the housing today for
what people make and whataverage house is selling for.
(45:47):
I mean, there's condos indowntown Bentonville for $2,000
a square foot.
That's 1,000 square feet for $2million.
Believe it or not, that blowsme away.
That makes me just cringe alittle bit.
I know it's mind-boggling.
So there are those.
Now, that threat's not uniqueto our area, that's basically
(46:08):
anywhere.
Okay, sir um.
And then I think, the other,you know the other.
Well, there's a couple otherthreats.
I mean anti-growth sentiment ofthe people who are already here
.
That's right, okay, they wantto fight everything.
It's like and now I'm in, nownobody else can come in.
Okay, that that would alwaysget.
I mean, you know, I've gonetirades about that, I was
(46:30):
driving crazy just squeakingthat door open just a little bit
, you know that that I mean that, just so.
The anti-growth sentiment makeseverything so hard to do at some
level that developers andbusiness owners and you know,
multi-site restaurant whateverthey just say that's not worth
going there.
(46:50):
So that could be a problem.
Okay, it's probably worse inFayetteville than it is Anywhere
, yeah, than Rogers orBentonville or springdale, for
that matter, but um, but anyway,so you know.
But I think overall, if youlook at this area, I mean
there's so many things that areworking in our favor.
Um, it's, it's a sane area.
(47:12):
We don't have um, we've gotpretty good water quality and
air quality.
We never had like big, heavy,dirty industries here.
So that's like older places inthe northeast.
Like you know, we're going todevelop this site.
Oh, they had a manufactured gasplant site there in 1790.
The soil is completelycontaminated with arsenic.
(47:34):
You know what I mean.
It's like we just don't havesome of those problems that they
have in these other places.
We get a lot of press of beinga great place to be.
I mean, with all the newrestaurants and hotels and
museums and bike trails andevery other thing that's
happening around here.
(47:54):
It's mind boggling because 20years ago there was nothing
happening it's, it'smind-boggling, because 20 years
ago there was nothing happening.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I immigrated in 2001 and I can remember there being
three gates at the airport yeah,just being a123, and it I mean
you went downstairs you walkedout on the tarmac when you got
your plane.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Exactly that's the way it used to be, and to see
what.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
it don't get me wrong , I have that little bit of
anti-gross, you know, in me, butat the same time, how can I be,
you know?
Right, here's the thing.
I'm more of a realist.
People need houses.
People are coming to this areawhy.
Cost of living is lower thanpercentage base of the rest of
the country.
Yes, it's a great place toraise a family.
(48:38):
Yeah, the crime is lower thanmost percentage places right
there.
I mean, I leave my truckrunning at the gas station.
still, I mean probably not needto do that, but I just don't
understand the we are I don'tknow if you've heard of this, I
hope I'm the first one to tellyou for this little area, but,
as we have, I have two jobscurrently subdivisionsisions out
(49:01):
western Bennett County, okay,and the smaller towns up the 59
corridor there, gentry, decatur,kind of outside of Centerton,
and we are really they'regrowing Ooh yeah, and but we're
in a momentary where they can'taccept the sewer capacity.
And this is in Decatur, this isin Gentry.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
I'm sure that's happening.
I'm not surprised I hear this.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
The public infrastructure that is fixing to
come out.
I was in the city of Fort Smithyesterday.
There's 17 sub basins of FortSmith that are completely
getting new sewer linere-infrastructured during their
existing.
It's just crazy the amount ofpublic stuff that's coming to
Northwest Arkansas.
I should probably not besharing this on the show, but
(49:45):
either way, come on over, butit's already.
I'm just trying to let thedevelopers and the clients know
that may be thinking about thisarea.
It's happening.
Yes, there's some blockades.
Gentry Decatur is really likeah, I've had a subdivision on
Paws since November of last year.
Also killing that old, thatrain this year there's so many
parameters coming at us, right?
(50:06):
No, I believe it.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
It's definitely Well in the cities and towns around
here.
Well, I can't speak for all ofthem.
I've had limited experience inBenton County.
I had some here, okay it wasgood.
Yeah, county, I had some here,okay it was good, yeah, okay,
I'll be honest with you.
But you know, over there inwashington county, um, in in
fayetteville, like, and you knowit's so different than a lot of
other cities where they justdon't really want to support any
(50:31):
kind of growth or utilityconstruction in places like
downtown should have good waterand sewer.
But you could do a projectright in the middle of downtown
and they'll still make you, asthe developer, pay to run a
bigger water line from your siteto.
You know, and it's just likethey're just so anti-development
(50:55):
.
I mean like in texas when Ilived there in the early mid
mid-'80s, I mean they built theinfrastructure before the
development.
That like dictated thedevelopment, you know, and we
just don't do that here.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
No, we're behind the planning.
Your mind is what's needed inso many.
I wish you could just get thesefour or five larger cities
together and go.
Hey, at least agree on a pipestyle so we don't all have to.
I mean, it's like from Germanyto the US, from Rogers to
(51:33):
Bentonville, sure.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
I understand.
Yeah, there's no reason forthat.
I mean, the Northwest ArkansasCouncil has done a good job in
the sense of trying to developsort of a unique place for each
of these major cities like rolein the area.
But then there's things likethat that just—.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2 (51:53):
I know.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
And then the same contractor that just came to
town is over here in Bentonvilleand it's plastic pipe.
We ran 2,000 foot.
And then we come over here toRogers and the pipe alone swings
$25 foot and they're like, hey,what is going on?
We just did this over here.
Your numbers don't even makesense, but I just wanted to
highlight coming from your mind.
I completely agree on thataspect.
(52:15):
I don't think it has a choice.
Pea Ridge, all these outlyingcities are growing, the
beautiful new home campus, Imean, oh my.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
God, it's mind-boggling, it's unbelievable
.
It's like it came out ofnowhere.
Here is this unbelievable city,yep, now that you drive through
.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
We helped on five of the buildings, just some
underground water infrastructure.
But it was cool to say yeah andwe got out of there pretty
quickly.
As that started coming across,I'm like, well, you either go
all in over there and there's alot of residual companies that
are sitting in the NorthwestArkansas market that were
flooded here and the labormarket really took a toll with
(52:53):
that being in town.
But now that it's all opened up, every single one of them
companies got an office here nowas another general contractor
and another percent of profit,bringing people in.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
You're saying that they're used to working with.
Where would they come from?
Speaker 1 (53:09):
yes, sir, yeah, and and of course you can talk about
local knowledge has to be socritical.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
I mean, if you're smart, you know anything about
construction.
Okay, like site work inparticular, I mean, yeah, maybe
you can take your buildingcontractor and move them around
or whatever, but I would think,like your site work people,
you'd try to get that local.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Yep, and they're not as necessarily bringing.
There's out-of-towners comingin, but there's even more guys
here in the area.
I mean the saturated marketbecause it's been a market key
takeaway, sir, is if, where, ifa subcontractor was like myself
(53:50):
and this is kind of what I'vebeen trying to necessarily do in
the civil side of things, or Iguess it could be, uh say, a
carpenter you kind of referencedto this with Jack, but how does
a subcontractor take that nextleap, like?
We have been trying to presentthis to customers and we have
(54:11):
been working on the public sideof COIN, directly with the city
as a civil general contractor onsome other things.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
I mean are you saying like are we going to be in the
design bid build business orwe're going to go all design
build?
What do you forecast?
I mean, I think more jobs aregoing design build and more
design build jobs are led bycontractors than they are AE
firms.
They're just better at dealingwith the risk associated with it
(54:38):
.
The AE firms are just too riskaverse.
They can't you know.
Plus, they're also bad managers.
Oh my God, I mean so, you knowyou got.
So I mean contractor-led designbuild seems to me to be the way
a lot of things are going Okay.
I would agree, lot of thingsare going okay, I would agree.
(55:04):
And the other side of that isprogram managers, you know
whatever we want to call them.
I mean they don't do anythingbut they, they hire everybody
yes they put the thing together.
You know what I mean.
That's another thing.
But like the bigger clients,you know that they, they, they,
they're really going that way.
I think we're.
You know they got somebodythat's running their building
program or they've got they'redoing that big job with a
(55:26):
program manager if it's like abig public works job.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
That seems to be the other thing that I see happening
yeah, and there's some bigpublic work stuff coming in the
state arkansas I mean that'swhere to me it seems like your
political connections in yourrelationships yeah, that's what
it's.
Speaker 2 (55:43):
All you know that's going to be critical to you last
question for you.
Speaker 1 (55:47):
Yeah, the takeaway for the blue collar worker
skilled tradesman out there yeahthat's just sick and tired of
being stuck in the mud could bementally, physically,
emotionally, how I?
You just got to keep going.
I understand, but what's youriteration of that, sir?
Speaker 2 (56:07):
I mean, what would I say to that person?
I mean I'd say, look, you'renot going to be replaced by ai.
Okay, that's the good news.
Somebody actually has to dostuff at some point, and you
know, we all know that a lot ofthese jobs are hard to fill.
There's a shortage of people.
(56:27):
If you're skilled, you couldmake yourself a very nice life,
and not only that, you'llactually have more satisfaction
than the guy who's over therewith his degree working in an
office in a mega corp.
Yep, because you're going tosee things get done as a result
of your effort.
That's very satisfying, okay.
(56:49):
I mean, let's talk about what'ssatisfying in life.
We need to create, we need tobuild okay, that's a human need,
and so that's going to befulfilled by people like
yourself.
I think there's certainly morerespect is coming down to the
people that actually do things,people in the trades.
(57:09):
I mean, look at the latestmoney, you know, higher ed money
in the state of Arkansas that'sgoing to flow to trade schools
instead of all four-yearuniversities.
Speaker 1 (57:22):
I'm a big supporter of the Springdale School
District.
I had them on the show.
They're unbelievable people.
Man, I had no idea they haveheavy equipment in high school.
These kids are graduating withOSHA 30.
They're graduating with CDLsheavy equipment GPS college 30.
They're graduating with CDLsheavy equipment GPS knowledge,
diesel mechanics school.
Speaker 2 (57:41):
I had no idea that was a high school 20 years ago.
It wasn't.
That's why Real skills thatwill allow them to get decent
jobs out there where there'smore demand than there is supply
.
Speaker 1 (57:55):
AI is going to hurt the white-collar world too.
Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2 (58:01):
I'm not going to claim I know much about it.
I'm 67 years old, cy, I ain'tfrigging old my wife's like.
This summer we got to reallyunderstand AI.
Okay, I mean I'm not going tosay I haven't had any experience
with it.
I have had some and it's notall been good.
I mean, I was just at thismeeting for the earthquake
(58:22):
engineering firm.
I was bored.
I'm on out in California lastweekend and the CEO was trying
to tell me how a particularperformance metric was defined
and I said that's wrong.
His CFO had it right, had itwrong.
(58:42):
He said.
Google said and the ai responsequotes us is why crew wrong,
wrong, okay, oh my gosh.
So I'm like how the heck doesthat happen?
Speaker 1 (58:57):
Because there's hundreds of places where it's
defined properly.
Speaker 2 (59:08):
Somebody wrote an article for one of our
publications in 2018 or 2019,and that's what AI picked up.
So it's you know, like I said,my experience with it is it's
not always right, dude, that'sright.
No Trust, but verify it's myfirst motto.
It's just not, but anyway, yeah, it is going to replace a lot
of these white collar traps.
(59:28):
I mean, if you look at, like,what you can do and design and
how fast you can do it, it'scrazy.
Speaker 1 (59:34):
It's bizarre.
If you've listened to thiswhole episode, I'll give you a
little.
This is scary, but I can take apicture of your driveway with a
scale and tell JetGPT to tellme how much six inches of gravel
is going to take in thatdriveway, and they'll spit it
out.
Tell me the entire conversion.
Beautiful, Break it all out.
Well, for training new folks inour industry could be super
(59:55):
helpful.
Speaker 2 (59:57):
Yeah, or it'll make them super lazy because they
won't know how to actually do itif they don't have that ai.
That's the flip side of it youknow.
Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
But see, like it's so hard for me, mr's white, I'll
push back on that because it'sabout the only thing I will push
back on with you, because youhave the, the overall not, yeah,
the overall guy out there doingdirt work, you know, like
myself, but here I am trying todo new age.
It's all this GPS technology.
I'm just trying to train a guythat's coming out of school to
do it.
(01:00:26):
I can't find anybody that knowswhat a grade freaking stake is
anymore.
Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
Sure, it's a tool.
Okay, it's a great tool.
There's no question about it.
I'm not going to argue with youabout that.
It's a great tool.
Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
I'm not a big lover of AI.
Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
I just wanted your personal opinion.
No, I mean, like I said, I'm soignorant.
I don't claim to be any expertin it.
All I know is what I read andwhat I'm told, and that it's
going to change everything.
You know, some of the writingI've seen done is not great
either.
I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
But I'm sure it's all going to get better over time
as we train and work and plan.
But I can't tell you how muchthe audience appreciates your
knowledge and expertise.
Coming in today and just fun.
It has been truly very specialfor me.
I've been waiting for about ayear at this point to get you
here and now you guys understandwhy and I hope you love this
episode.
And if you want any more, Ithink this is episode 4243 here,
(01:01:27):
guys,Bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom.
You can watch or listenstraight from there, no
subscription needed.
You can watch it directly fromthe website.
But if you have a podcastsubscription you can catch them
on any of those podcastsubscriptions.
Make sure and drop a like and afollow at the end of this
episode if you wouldn't mind.
That sure helps the show out somuch.
And if you might happen to be aproduct or a service in the
(01:01:50):
blue collar skilled trades worldthat you may want me to
highlight on this show, hop overto bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom
, become a sponsor, shoot usover an inquiry and we will get
back to you.
Mr Zweig, thank you so much fortoday.
We'll catch you next time,Thanks it's been fun.
If you've enjoyed this episode,be sure to give it a like.
(01:02:11):
Share it with the fellers.
Check out our website to sendus any questions and comments
about your experience in theblue collar business.
Who do you want to hear from?
Send them our way and we'll doour best to answer any questions
you may have.
Till next time, guys.
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