Ep. 63 - Fixing Bad Data Before It Breaks Your Job - Blue Collar Business Podcast

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:09):
Hey guys, welcome to the Blue Collar Business Podcast
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(01:14):
Collar Business Podcast.
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businesspodcast.com.
Uh guys, I have an interestingtopic today.
Uh, another young gun that hasput his time in uh in the

(01:36):
industry itself before leadingoff and trying to help guide a
major pain point that I havedealt with myself personally
within my um civil construction.
This is mainly going to begeared around um anything from
training to essentially GPSmodeling, the the major pain

(01:58):
point for, you know, maybe youolder gentlemen that are trying
to get into this, or maybe youyounger guys that are like, hey,
I don't know anything aboutthis, but I need to know about
this.
I have the guy for you today,um, Mr.
Tyler Foster, founder and CEO ofDirt Lab.
Basically, we're we're gonna gointo how he's helping

(02:19):
contractors stop losing time andmoney by bad data, rush designs,
training that just never reallysticks.
And uh former, I'm sorry,founder and CEO of Dirt Lab uh
focuses on construction dataservices and training.
Like I said, 10 plus years inheavy civil construction over at
Granite, um, had some prettymajor project highlights too

(02:42):
while he was over there.
Uh for uh was a director of datasolutions at his former company,
uh leading to teams in machinecontrol modeling and takeoffs.
Man, healthy resume, my guy.
Uh I really uh appreciate youjoining me, dude.
And I'm excited to give theaudience the inside look of such
a pain point that all of uscivil contractors face.

(03:05):
Appreciate it, Sai.
Thanks for having me.
I'm excited too.
No, man.
Uh, I've been watching yourstuff on LinkedIn.
He's a great, great follow onLinkedIn.
He provides some actual input umin this pain point.
And man, just kind of walk usthrough, you know, your story,
your background.
Number one, how'd you find outabout this pain point?

(03:25):
Because you really don't knowit's a thing unless you've kind
of been in it.
You know what I mean?
Um, walk us through from howeverfar back, take us through kind
of some of the experience, maybesome pain points that was like,
oh, this might be a thing.
Yeah, I mean, it it all started.
Uh, you know, I grew up in theMidwest, went to Purdue, did

(03:46):
civil engineering.
That was what kind of founded mymy background and seeing how
things are built.
I did some civil estimating,earth-moving construction
classes for some electives, gotme really excited about it.
And then uh during one of the uhthe halls are there for when uh
they have the employers come in,the the expo halls, walk past

(04:09):
the sign that granite had for abooth.
I'm like, that looks reallycool.
So uh talked to them, ended upgetting hired on, spent uh
several years in their largeprojects group.
Uh went on my first job in inCarmel, California, big dam
removal project.
Uh, then I spent some time inReno, where I'm at right now.

(04:33):
Big heavy civil new freewayproject, went down to Phoenix
for a year for an over$1 billion26-mile uh 10 million yard
freeway project, uh, and thencame back up here to Reno, left
the granite large projects groupand joined just the local office

(04:53):
here and was uh heading up theirtechnology department.
So that's when we startedgetting real big into modeling
takeoffs, uh drone topos.
But I think that that, you know,when we first started, I first
started getting into themodeling and stuff when I first
came here to Reno on the projectthat I worked on.

(05:14):
Super big projects, supercomplicated, different types of
material on the job site.
There's actually contaminatedmaterial, uh, different levels
of mercury contamination fromthe old gold rush days.
So the model was reallyintricate and it was super cool
to be able to see how you knowthese lines on this computer

(05:36):
translated out into the machineson the job site, and how
important it was that thosemachines were in the right spot.
Because you know, you got oldinspector coming behind you
telling you whether or not youput the dirt in the right spot.
So that really sparked myinterest in this whole thing.

(05:57):
That also was the time thatdrones started coming out,
that's when 107 came out.
You know, we were out thereflying a 3DR solo with a GoPro
on it, doing just job sitephotos and video and stuff.
Uh, you know, over the years ofthat technology progressing, and
you know, the the next project Iwent down to in Phoenix with uh

(06:21):
that huge that was actually thelargest project in Arizona
history at the time.
Uh, just a lot of, you know, wewere on the segment that tied in
the new freeway to the existingfreeway.
So you had all kinds offlyovers, HOV ramps, MSC walls,
a lot of front edge roads.
I mean, it was it was somethingcool being out there watching

(06:43):
all that dirt getting moved.
Uh and then after I kind of leftthe field work uh and started in
the technology department backhere in Reno, that was day in,
day out, takeoffs, models, anddrone topos in our area.
And it always seemed that wewere running into the designs

(07:06):
just not working.
You know, we we try and buildthis model, take it to the
field, and either where theyhave stuff matching up to the
existing, it's not matching up,or even just on the drawings, we
got two lines of curb coming inat different elevations, and it
just doesn't work.
And there really wasn't anybodyuh, you know, the the typical

(07:28):
chain of command sending in theRFIs, waiting several weeks or
sometimes to get an answer back.
Uh it it's just a huge timesuck.
And you know, time is money inthis industry.
We're we're it's physical work,and if you're not doing it,
you're not getting paid.
Uh, and nobody likes equipmentsitting around.

(07:50):
So it was always like, hey, weneed this yesterday.
You know, I know everything'slike that.
I think that's uh I think Imight put yesterday as a uh an
option for a delivery date forour services because it seems
like that's when most of themare needed.
Uh but you just you you end uphaving to basically sometimes
re-engineer the design whileyou're doing the model building

(08:14):
process because there's a gapbetween what's on the plans and
what works in the field.
So, you know, you just get thatkind of spurred this thought of
like, look, these are problemswe got to get in front of.
Uh and these are costly problemswhen you're reactive to them

(08:35):
instead of proactive.
So, you know, over the past fewyears at my my previous place
and and now doing this, likethat's where I think we fit in
really well, is when we're goingthrough and building this stuff
and doing these takeoffs andbuilding the models, we're
basically doing aconstructibility review.

(08:56):
Uh, we're gonna walk through,we're gonna find the things that
don't work because the lastplace you want to find out it
doesn't work is in the field.
And now you're again you're backto this thing where you're
stopped, the equipment's notmoving, your guys aren't moving,
you're waiting for an answer,and uh it just doesn't work well
for anybody.
And coming from the contractorworld and being in the boots of

(09:20):
trying to perform the work,that's just not fun and it costs
a lot of money.
So I want to take my experiencefrom all that and my and the
knowledge and stuff that I'vegained from that and try and you
know put that through in myservices and try and you know
really serve my clients to helphelp them battle this stuff and

(09:42):
and get wins when sort of thecards are stacked against them.
Dude, incredible, man.
Incredible.
Um, so I don't want to skip oversomething that you said because
it's probably not as seen as theway to acquire new help nowadays
as you know, the old job fairsat these expo halls, and and not

(10:05):
necessarily a job fair.
It may have been a an awareness,you know, job for the college or
whatever it may have been.
And you know, for you to sitthere and walk in and go, hey,
I'll go travel the country andfigure out this trade.
And I just talk about a littlebit through your experience of
working at such a massivecompany, like right off the bat.

(10:28):
It wasn't the the structure youprobably had is what a lot of us
mom and pops are missing rightoff the bat, and I struggled
with.
But I I always wondered, youknow, what it would have been
like coming out and goingstraight to a large company like
that, or Key Wit, or one ofthese companies on the road.

(10:50):
But man, the amount ofexperience you were opened up to
that a lot of us may never eveneven get through or look our
entire career.
Yeah.
I mean, first off, I amextremely luckily, lucky to have
gotten that opportunity to dothat right out of school.
Uh, not because I had any ideawhat I was doing at that point

(11:13):
or what I was getting into, butnow looking back at the exposure
that I had uh to the work, Imean, I I'm forever grateful for
that because I definitely wouldnot be able to do what I do now
if I didn't have that foundationof information and experience
and exposure.
Uh and you know there's kind oftwo parts to this answer.

(11:37):
And the first part is gettingonboarded with that big company
to start off.
Uh my my first memory there wasengineer coming in just sitting
in a room full of old-timeestimators, and you know,
everybody's in their office, uh24-7.

(11:58):
There was no field work oranything like that.
And he and a guy, Steve, neededme to do some takeoffs.
And he came in with a printedout 11 by 17 or 24 by 36,
whatever they were.
He set them on my desk andhanded me a rubber bandit group
of colored pencils.
And I'm like, okay, you justhanded me a coloring book.

(12:20):
Like, there's gotta be somethingbetter here.
And, you know, I coming fromright out of school, I'm like,
how many labs I was just in andhow much stuff I how much time I
spent on computers and stuff,I'm like, how is it that I've
now backed the colored pencilson paper?
I'm like, I feel like I wentback 12 grades and now we're

(12:41):
just coloring stuff.
So that immediately I'm like,look, there's got to be a better
way to do this.
That's when I found Bluebeam,one of my favorite tools, and I
taught myself everything I couldbecause I very quickly started
working myself out of a jobbecause he was giving me
takeoffs to do, and I wascranking through them.

(13:02):
And it wasn't now handing him astack of paper that's all
colored up.
It was here's this printed PDFwith all these nice highlighted
areas, and oh, here's the Excelsheet that ties to this whole
thing.
You can just plug this into yourestimate now and go from there.
Um, but aside from just gettingstarted in takeoffs, what I

(13:23):
really got a huge helping of wasproject controls, systems, cost
tracking, quantity tracking,forecasting, all the project
controls.
So I really started off as whatthey called a cost engineer for
the first two years.
Um so that was like you're inthe weeds of the dollars, the

(13:47):
quantities, the time tracking,the what I think, and what I
think is widely not valued asmuch as it should be, is your
initial input for all of thiswork and everything that you do
has to be the most accurate andclean information because that's

(14:09):
what every decision down theline comes from.
So when time cards were wrong,now you're charging wrong
equipment hours, you're chargingstuff to the wrong cost code,
and when you look at your costreports, it doesn't make any
sense.
And now you're looking at dailycosts, well, that ties into
weekly costs, into monthlycosts, into forecasting.

(14:30):
And now you're like, hey, we'reprojecting we're gonna make 20
million on the end of the jobwhen in all reality it's gonna
go the other way because yourinputs are off.
So a mix of understanding thequality of those initial inputs
and um and then understandingand helping build a lot of
project control systems.

(14:51):
I learned a I got I was luckyenough again to uh I learned a
lot from uh a project controls,a senior project controls guy
over there that you know heopened my eyes to Excel coding
and VBA coding.
And I'm like, this is sort ofout of my wheelhouse, but I see
where this stuff is going.

(15:12):
And I, you know, I remember onestory he told us that they used
to do quantity audits uh at 25%completion of a project, and
they were accurately be theywould be able to tell how the
project was going to do threeyears down the road based at 25%
completion, just because of howwell everything was tracked.

(15:35):
So the systems and theprocesses, like they're hands
down some of the most importantstuff, and I'm grateful that I
had that foundation uh becauseit's led to my success over the
last 10 years of being able tosystematize or gamify my own

(15:56):
work and turn it into uh youknow an input-output system and
be able, you know, we're all Ifeel like at the end of the day
in construction, we're alwayslooking for an answer for
something.
And it's like if you can buildthe system that generates the
answers based on your time, yourmaterials, your quantities, like

(16:16):
uh, I think that's what sets youup for success in this industry
for sure.
So super grateful for that, andthen grateful that it
transferred right into fieldwork and dirt work and roadway
and and grading management andstuff like that.
So I was able to then take a lotof those systematic skills to
build takeoffs that I actuallyused to work in the field, and

(16:40):
they weren't just somethingstatic that died on a PDF or an
Excel sheet.
Those things were used as a toolin a working document to track
the work that was happening inthe field.
So that way, you know, I had onequick thing was uh on one of the
last projects I worked on.

(17:01):
We unfortunately weren't thelead on the project, so we
didn't have all of our directaccess that I used to have to
all the accounting and all ofthe cost reports and stuff.
So I ended up having to buildsort of my own accounting
software to make sure that myitems of work were uh on track
and on budget.

(17:22):
We finally ended up doing someforecasting after nine months,
and on the$40 million of uh workthat I was tracking, I was off
by about 50 grand from nothaving any access.
And I, you know, it it was justa testament to setting that
stuff up in the beginning.
Because if you don't set it upin the beginning and you're

(17:45):
trying to do it later, it justdoesn't work out too well.
No, you're you're hinting aroundwhat uh I've been preaching on
the show here lately, and youknow, it's taken us, we I didn't
have that foundation, you know.
I I would have done anything tohave that kind of foundation.
I just fully sent, hard nosed,here I go, you know, mini X and

(18:08):
Skid Steered it and got it towhat it is today.
But accurate estimating and jobcosting is everything to
success, to moving forward, togrowth.
And if you're exactly right,there isn't enough highlight
shown on cost engineers and thefolks that really track to know

(18:32):
that's crazy when you said theyknow a company like that has it
down to such a privy that theycan forecast from 25% of
completion to know what theirprofitability is going to be at
the end of this project onwhatever sum of contract.
That's insane.
But you're right, it's all aboutas estimators and those

(18:53):
pre-contract guys ensuring thatevery number from their bid
sheet and how they not justtheir number, but maybe some
notes of why this number ismaybe a little bit elevated,
maybe it's a little softer,whatever it may be.
Oh, here's our contingency moneyto deal with this manhole issue
or whatever it may be.
But that all has to be labeledclearly when we want to go back

(19:16):
and visible, you know,transparently look at how he bid
the project.
Thank God we use Plan Swift andtools like that, that we're
gonna get into here in a littlebit on the show.
And I hope you kind of shedlight.
But on the earliers, uh forthese guys in the zero to five
category, year category, likethey don't know anything about
that.
They're just trying to get morework, do more work, get more

(19:38):
work, do more work.
And I was the same way.
Nobody taught me that, oh, jobcosting is like literally the
key to profitability, and youknow about if you're making
money, you know, with you knowwithin a week or two into that
project if, oh my gosh, ourgravel budget's gonna get
destroyed.
Oh my gosh, we need an extracrew just to deal with this.

(19:58):
And you know those things rightthen, not after the job or six
weeks into the job, or maybenever until you get to the end
of your PL, because I've beenthere as well, you know.
But the job costing through theentire thing doesn't matter if
you don't have a clear, accuratepoint from that estimator moving

(20:19):
forward.
Now the PM team can figure outoh, okay, the estimates like
this.
What can we work around and whatmonies do we have to play with
in this contract to do whatever?
And I know I'm getting a littlefar off here into the weeds, but
the last link of that into thatwork in progress is having uh
and what I struggled with aswell is making sure you have a

(20:42):
perfect internal accounting, notperfect, but accurate, and and
be able to go back and reallyget privy with the numbers after
contract, during contract,coming off that, but ensure that
it gets all the way back up toyour estimator.
And that's what job costing isfor is those three pieces

(21:02):
estimate, production, andcounting, all talking on the
same.
And I'm just now getting to apoint where our weekly whip
report is there every Tuesday.
But it's taken almost 10 yearsat this point to understand the
importance of job costing.
So that's and did I skip overthat you graduated with a civil

(21:24):
engineer degree?
Yeah, I did.
So I did civil engineering, gotthe bachelor's there.
I uh did the PE test, didn'tpass it the first time.
Uh, but then as I was like kindof transitioning and in the GC
space, sometimes it's not uhit's not really necessary.
And and if I'm being completelyhonest, uh I find it sort of

(21:48):
disheartening sometimes when I'mlike fixing a lot of the issues
that make it out on these plansfrom these stamps.
And you know, I I don't want totalk bad about professional
engineers, and you know, there'salways good ones, but there's
always bad ones in the bunch.
And uh unfortunately, it seemslike there's a lot more of
those.

(22:08):
Installers, uh, you were talkingearlier about downtime and
finding out in the field, andyeah, you're right.
Uh, before I get off thiscollege question, though, do you
think even with all yourexperience that you had, do that
you needed your collegeexperience?
I said this in a post the otherday.
I said, College teaches you whatyou what you what to do, and

(22:33):
experience teaches you what notto do.
That's a great way of puttingit.
Wow.
I am one of probably not verymany people who get to say,
yeah, I actually used my degree.
Uh, you know, with with ourmodeling and we do roadways and
stuff, like I did, you know,highway design and building out
horizontal, vertical curves, anddoing the calcs.

(22:54):
I have my reference manual thatI've pulled out from time to
time because the information Ineed to build something isn't
there.
I can always go back on it.
And I think it's super helpful.
I don't I don't know if there'sa 100% need, but at least for
me, it has helped metremendously.

(23:16):
Well, moving a little bit on, Iwas I hinted around about it.
You were talking about downtimeand finding out these uh PE
problems out there, and I can'ttell you the amount of things,
especially in the last twoyears.
And I don't think it'snecessarily the engineer's
fault.
I think they're just trying toadhere to their client.
I think we've got into this nowgeneration of you said it best

(23:40):
earlier with your yesterdaytimelines.
We're putting pressure on you toget a model back to us because,
oh, they want to start Monday.
They wouldn't cut me a contractfour weeks ago or four months
ago or four years ago when wefirst started talking about the
project.
Like now it's, oh, we want to doconstruction.
Let's rush all the documentationthrough.
And that's why we're yelling atyou, like, dude, we need we got

(24:02):
to get this model in the dozeron Monday.
We like I think it's I thinkit's so far up the spectrum that
the expectation is set that wecan push 40% construction
documents out to the market andget us a 100% answer, no to a T
and hold them to a contract ayear from now when materials

(24:25):
doing this up and down from thetariffs and all the other things
that we dealt with, andmaterials from COVID and backlog
and all the things that we'vealready walked through.
It's just um the finding issuesout there in that field is the
worst possible pain point, notjust for the contractor, but
working back up that ladder allthe way to the exactly.

(24:48):
So I'm just throwing some flagshere, guys.
If you guys are developing aproject, make sure interview a
couple engineers, not justbecause your buddy had a homeboy
design sidewalk because he playspoker with them.
Like, for the love of God, takesome time, do a little research.
Yeah, you might have to pay alittle bit more, but what's the
product?
How much hassle are you gonnahave with the city?

(25:10):
How much hassle are you gonnahave getting a price out of a
contractor if you'reself-performing this job,
whatever the case may be?
Like, do I don't know ifengineers are maybe at fault
here, and maybe you can help mehere because are they offering
some lower-tiered package tomake budgets work and keep
design rolling?
But the, you know, I knowthey're clearly saying, hey,

(25:33):
this won't be able to be enoughfor construction, but I think
it's a tornado effect that getsrippled all the way down to us
because the things that you knowwe're fixing to talk about that
you do from the takeoffs, theamount of takeoffs that are
going into one project before itmakes now.
I know you probably see aproject two or three or four
times before you're like, man,is this job ever gonna go?

(25:55):
Like, you know, and then wefinally get to a model and it's
go, go, go, go, go, because wejust got the contract yesterday.
So, but talk a little bit aboutmoving, you know, we've talked
about where your experience camefrom.
You figured out um, obviously,drones are just cool.
Number one.
Number two, there's a major painpoint.

(26:17):
I want you to kind of highlight,you know, the training so these
guys can maybe avoid thosedowntimes and what solutions
that you guys offer to maybefind those um problematic areas
within those plans without beinga civil engineer, but as close
to as possible as possible, andgoing, hey, push back on your

(26:39):
engineer on this.
I caught this on the model.
Can you make him do his job forme, please?
Go ahead, my guy.
Yeah, I I think uh just to kindof reiterate what you were
talking about there before iswith this tornado of stuff.
And like you said, I don't thinka lot of this falls on the
engineer.
It does go up the ladder, and Ithink it's just a trickle-down

(27:02):
effect of hey, we need this now,and it's just I need it now, I
don't care if there's issues,and I think it's really comes
from a lack of understanding ofwhat kind of problems happen.
I think it's a lack ofunderstanding from the owner and
developer side of like, hey,these are the problems that end
up happening when you keeppushing this and saying 30s are

(27:26):
good, 60% drawings are good.
And I get the luxury of talkingto a lot of these engineers when
we put together an RFI.
And every once in a while I'mlike, hey, like, can you help me
understand how this like worksinside your company?
Because they're like, well, wehad one person designing the
roads, one person doing thelots, one person doing the

(27:48):
intersections, and I'm like,okay, so nobody is reviewing
anything.
What I really think is happeningis the peer review inside a lot
of these things is justnon-existent due to the the
speed of want from higher up.
Uh but I think that comes backto a bigger problem, something I

(28:12):
just posted about the other dayof like in all reality, my job
should not exist.
I mean, it shouldn't.
It should not exist.
Because the drawing should be inbuildable fashion.
I mean, they are theinstructions to the Lego set
that we're gonna go build outthere in the real world.

(28:33):
Why is it okay that thoseinstructions haven't been?
I mean, we're not talking aboutpulling a six-block and changing
it from a four-block like on aLego set.
Like these are real dollars andbig dollars at that.
I mean, I just had a projectyesterday that's on its fourth
physical re uh redesign, andthey're ripping out concrete and

(28:56):
pouring new concrete, and andthey just keep changing it
because there hasn't been thatthought that goes into it up
front.
And I think a lot of it stems inthis space and in the
engineering space, it just feelslike it's been so commoditized.
And everybody goes, I'm gonnacharge the same hourly rate as

(29:18):
somebody else.
So now my incentive to doanything better or go above and
beyond is just washed away.
And, you know, even in my space,there's people that will build a
model per plan knowing thatthere's issues and these things
don't work, and they'll sendthat out to the field.
And there are contractors whowill knowingly go build

(29:40):
something wrong in order to geta change order to find the cost
that they forgot in the bid thatthey left on the table.
And then I think the same thinghappens in the design space
where they're they're just notthey're not putting in the due
diligence and the effortbecause, again, just coming down
from the owner.

(30:00):
So, like what I what I thinkwhere we really fit in there is
we find those constructibilityissues for a fraction of the
cost of the potential down theline of ripping out stuff that's
already built, um, stuff that'sgetting ready to go get built.
You know, you push a schedule bya couple weeks, everything, it's

(30:22):
again, time is money.
So that's where we fit in, iswe're able to take those
drawings, find the things thatdon't work, add that real-world
constructibility.
Okay, how is this actually gonnaget built?
Um, and now we can send thoseassumptions and things that
we've made to the engineer.
We can send our design files tothe engineer.

(30:44):
And a lot of times now,especially in our private
workspace, we get a lot ofclients who are like, engineer,
just send me this stuff becausewe're gonna fix it, we'll send
it back to you, and then we'llget buy off.
Because we're we're the ones nowtaking it from 75% drawings to
100% drawings, and they'reconstructible, and it's in a

(31:05):
format that contractors needbecause there's a whole nother
realm of stuff of contractorsthinking they can just pull an
engineer's file into theirsystem and it all works just
hunky-dory out there.
And aside from errors andelevations and stuff, you're
talking there's no there's no umSOPs for organization, there's

(31:28):
no standards for layering andcoloring.
So the usability of that data isnot what contractors need, but
sort of how this alllong-windedly ties together into
the training thing is like Ithink a lot of times in this
space with this technology,people buy the tech, but then
they skip the training and theyjust don't do it.

(31:51):
And I think sometimes I I don'treally think it's like the cost
of it, because in all reality, Ithink the cost compared to
sometimes the purchase price ofthe hardware is so much smaller.
And you know, this kind of stuffis gonna guide, you know,
through the life cycle of that,let's just say a GPS rover, uh,

(32:13):
through the life cycle of thatpiece of equipment for seven
years, let's just call it, howmuch work is that gonna help you
build?
And we're scared to spend 2,000bucks on a training to learn how
to use it.
Like, I I don't think there's alot of downstream thinking.
And part of what we try to do inthe training too, like
especially when we do modelbuilding training, is really

(32:36):
trying to teach the why, not thehow.
Uh, I think the how is the stuffthat you forget because you're
like in this box where you'relike, okay, I need to do this
thing, I need to click thisbutton, then this button.
Well, there's probably a coupleways you can do that.
Let's understand why you need todo this, and then you can figure

(32:57):
out the how.
Uh and something that I try anddo in our trainings is I don't
want to wait until you ask.
Uh I want to kind of push thatin front of you and force feed
you because that's like reallywhat I found, you know, just
getting, like I said earlier,getting involved with Bluebeam
early on and tools like that,where I took the time and taught

(33:24):
myself everything that I couldwith that software, found the
use cases for all these things.
So now when somebody's walkingme through something they're
doing on Bluebeam, I'm like,hey, did you know you can do
this?
I know you didn't ask me for anyof this, but I gotta let you
know that this is a possibilitybecause you know, sometimes it
pains me when I watch somebodyplay around the computer.

(33:45):
I'm like, hey, there's a lot ofthings we can be doing, you
know, and I just I just go, thisis a 10-second tip that over
your career is gonna save youmaybe a month.
And if you can stack up a lot ofthose 10-second tips, you're
talking years of time savingsdown the road.
So um then, and the last thing Iwould say on like the the

(34:08):
training is you know, these arelike real projects that we've
worked on.
Uh it's real information, it'sreal learning, real details.
I think a lot of times in someof these trainings for takeoffs
or modeling, you're working withthe perfect data set and the
perfect CAD file and the perfectPDF.
And yeah, it looks great.

(34:30):
But then what happens whenanybody tries to do something
new for the first time and theyrun into an issue?
It's it's all shoulders or handsup to the sky.
And that goes back to when youjust know the how, you learn the
one way to do it.
Well, when there's somethingthat interferes with that, you
have to know the why in order tofigure out the way around it.

(34:50):
So um I I think it's it'sinvaluable.
Uh, and it really, you know, tothe force feeding thing, like
I've had clients tell us I hadone the other day, because we do
video reviews of our RFIs andwe'll send videos where we walk
through the model and stuff.
And my clients are learningthings that they had no idea

(35:12):
about.
And I think that's somethingthat helps us stand out is uh
it's not transactional.
Like I'm here to build arelationship, a partnership with
my clients.
And if I can help you learnalong the way, like I want to
learn all the time.
I sometimes I struggle when I'msitting here working in the
business instead of on it,because for me, on the business

(35:33):
is a lot of learning.
And when I struggle, like if Ican help teach people while I'm
doing this, like it just itmakes me warm inside.
Literally why I built theresource, dude.
It's uh I went looking forresources to help me learn
things like we dove straight offinto GPS technology.

(35:56):
I knew I had to have it, um, butI didn't just tiptoe lightly.
We bought a couple basin rovers,bought a full iMachine, brand
new machine control.
Uh I of course got sold, I'llput it that way, an extremely
powerful software that's I justthought it all seamlessly talked

(36:18):
together, you know, just being aditch digger in my thinking,
like, okay, well, if theestimator can do his stuff up
here and the guy in the fieldcan do this and they can report
this, and we can get it all theway through.
And everybody's talking on thesame set of uh or the same
layers, you know, same model, nobig deal.
And that's just not it.

(36:40):
It it's just not it at all.
And they all have their piece ofutilization, no doubt about it,
but it took um, man, I wouldhave loved to have known you two
years ago.
There ain't no doubt about it,because we uh we kind of
struggled.
Uh we we spent all that moneyand the software guy within the

(37:01):
dealer um no longer worked thereuh before we even got the basin
rovers delivered to us, betweenthe time when we sold the paper
and signed the paperwork,anyways.
It was it was pretty roughtransition and um put a very bad
taste in my mouth.
Literally set it aside, we'lljust we'll just go back to what

(37:22):
we were doing.
And I'm like, I couldn't stomachthat the amount of money we
invested into this technology.
And we had uh luckily, man,truly luckily, the people that
we've had uh on the teamembraced it.
I've had other guys come fromother outfits that were very uh
accustomed to GPS, whether it beTrimble, whether it be Leica.

(37:43):
But the to your point, where Iwent with that is knowing the
why uh is key and crucial withall of this, not so much the
how.
We don't need to be so focusedon, hey, you need to click this
button to go here, to click thisbutton to go here.
And that's a lot of that, uh,should I say, dealer support

(38:04):
training that you get.
Uh, and it's so common.
Hey, we're gonna train you justto do this.
And I get it why they do it atthe same time.
They don't want to create anymore problems and questions for
themselves.
A lot of these guys, uh, whereI'm leading with this is the
industry gap.
I'd hope hopefully you can talkabout in your in your clientele
base is that we do have thisaging out generation, you know,

(38:30):
that the dirt guy isn't awhite-haired overall, you know.
But literally, you when you walkup, you you think dirt guy, you
think older gentleman, whitehair overall is the typical dirt
guy, and that's just not thetypical dirt guy anymore.
You've got young guns, and I'mnot talking about myself.
I I came from lunch earlier witha guy that's uh got five times

(38:52):
equipment I've got, and he'sonly been in business for half
the time, and just differentbusiness models for different
different folks, let's put itthat way.
But they are going after itmachine control, keeping labor
costs down, and they'recompeting with this old timer
who barely has a basin rover, umto main dirt companies here

(39:14):
locally.
And so I'm seeing both modelsstill work, but you cannot argue
that it is more efficient to putsomething in with GPS one time.
There is still a process, youstill need a gentleman that has
moved this earth and knows theprocess.
Yes, this machine can do it inplace, record it, give you the

(39:37):
information and data, but at thesame time, they still need to
know how to get it done alongthe way.
But if you understand, you know,the why of the how, I know
that's kind of hard to describeum within the pain point, but
being able to jump on and help,you know, my estimator during

(39:59):
those topcon magnet struggles,like we didn't even get to the
modeling side of things.
He was just trying to getproficient at 3D takeoffs and
feeling comfy and comfortable.
There's just one pain point fromjumping 2D to 3D that is such a
mind-blowing gap.
And it's growing every day asthe industry keeps cycling new

(40:23):
things.
Uh, you know, they have 2D.
I was at the cat demo days theother day, and the 2D stuff that
they have built into theseequipment now for efficiencies,
where you know, you canbenchmark yourself with these
auto hydraulics and the amountof gravel waste and and and
things like that.
I mean, overdigging.
But what it's doing is, yeah, alot of guys will say, well, uh a

(40:46):
true operator doesn't need auto.
No, you're right, it doesn't.
But to keep a job on job cost,like we were talking about
earlier on this, we don't needthat extra spillage because that
extra spillage is one to twopercent in the overall project
cost.
You know, it can get into that.
But do you see a lot of guysreaching out to you from younger

(41:06):
and older generations?
Kind of kind of talk about thisindustry gap you're facing and
where we all are facing.
Yeah, I think you hit it rightthere on the head.
There's the old timers that arephasing out, the newcomers that
are coming in.
And, you know, luckily we workwith a lot of small to medium
contractors.
There's a lot more of them inthe country.
Uh, and what you're seeing is alot of the sun's coming up now.

(41:31):
The kids are taking over and uhthey're coming into the
spotlight and they're startingto hand over the reins.
But like you said, they're nowcoming with a technology
lifestyle.
That's what they started with.
Uh I'm kind of in that middleground where I didn't have
technology as a young kid, butyou know, through the 90s.

(41:53):
Yeah, through the 90s, it'slike, hey, this is a self.
Oh, okay, this is cool.
Computer screen.
Like, we've seen atransformation of that, and I
think it helps.
I it's hard not to think thatit's like uh, you know, the show
Alaska Last Frontier.
Like, I feel like we're the lastfrontier of the old school

(42:14):
physical way, and I but I thinkit's so important to translate
how the technology works.
Like, before we even hopped onhere, we were just talking about
all these the tech that comesout, and it's like, hey, we're
here to solve this problem.
You're like, that's a problem?
What are you talking about?
Uh, and it's just it's just notthe case.

(42:36):
So there's this gap, and from myown experience of when I was in
the field trying to push evenjust digital plans out in the
field on an iPad, it was it wasso difficult because of kind of
like you mentioned, the ego ofthe guys.
I know what I'm doing, I I seeit on TikTok all the time with

(43:00):
people with a a blade orsomething with GPS on it, and
then you get the comments,that's not a real operator.
Yeah.
They oh, dude, uh, anytime Ipost that iMachine, uh, YouTube
froths with hey, dude.
It's ridiculous.
But it's it's it's true, and uhI think that the the the ego and

(43:25):
the we've done it this wayforever, but then when you have
somebody that is going to stillpush you to do it anyways, like
that's what I'm like, look, I'mnot gonna go print out a paper
plan and bring it to you.
This is your plan set, it's inthe iPad, and then what two
weeks later, when the internet'sdown or something, they're like,

(43:47):
hey, where's the plans?
Where oh, you don't want paperanymore?
Like, until they've had somebodyto help them, because I think
that's what happens.
I mean, it sounded like thatkind of happened with your
stuff.
It's like, hey, you sold us thisstuff now, where's the support?
Like, the support piece is themissing piece in most of this.

(44:07):
There's nobody to turn to,nobody to ask questions when you
run into something.
Uh, I was in that when I wasdoing this stuff internally.
I was living on YouTube, livingin forums, having to self-teach
everything that I could becausethere wasn't anybody to ask a
question to.
You go into the forums, it'sthree days for the first

(44:29):
response, and it's like, well,what computer version are you
on?
It's like, oh my goodness.
So, you know, the the answersdon't come quick enough because
everything is needed yesterday.
So the support piece is going tobe huge.
Uh, that's where I like to thinkthat we fit in because we can
kind of talk both worlds.
We've seen the physical stuff,we know the digital stuff, and

(44:51):
we can kind of be thetranslator, even the design
piece when we're talking to theI have no idea what you're
talking about.
Can you just talk to theengineer?
Yep, you got it, and then I'lltranslate that back, and vice
versa, because the engineerdoesn't know the
constructability issue you'rerunning into, and vice versa.
So that gap, I mean, there's oneside of the story that people

(45:15):
think technology is taking jobsand keeping people out of there,
but I like think that it'sfilling the gap that exists, and
for the existing operators, it'sjust gonna make them better.
Uh yeah, you can get someoperators that can hit great on
that first cut, but they're alsoa dime a dozen.
Why don't we make them like fivetimes as many people just to be

(45:37):
able to cut at once?
And now all those costs, hey,you guys want those party
barbecues and stuff after thejob and like swag and and
rewards and stuff like that?
Like, that's what all it adds upto.
So that gap, uh I think there'sgonna be the the younger crowd

(45:59):
is gonna be making the push forthe technology, and you know,
the older crowd is gonna makethe push against it, and you
just gotta find somebody thatcan be that middleman and that
support piece in order to marryboth of those together.
Because without that, you eithergot really expensive
paperweights or you just gotproblems you can't solve.

(46:21):
So the support is hands beforeanybody buys any, like I say it
all the time.
I don't care if it's Trimble,Lica, TopCon, GeoShack,
whatever.
One, it doesn't work without thedata.
And two, you're never gonna havesuccess with it unless you have
a support network or person orthe dealer or whoever it may be

(46:45):
that you can rely on to help youimplement it, help teach your
people, and help just answerquestions when they come up.
I think you said it best, dude.
Um, a great way to describe youis a digital translator.
And there is so many miss likeit's not just, hey, teach my
guys.
It's no, they're the engineerCAD file is terrible.

(47:08):
Will you please call theengineer?
Oh, yeah, no, I know how tospeak their language.
What are we what are we talkingabout?
Oh, I found this area.
And a lot of times we feel alittle overwhelmed because we're
still learning about modeling orwhatever we're paying for,
right?
And we're just trying to learnthe lingo and we're like, whoa,
now we're supposed to pitch backon the engineer.
Why?
What did you find?

(47:29):
Teach me, let me learn a littlebit.
And so you're helping learnalong the way, but translating
all this new lingo verbiage isnumber one, intimidating for a
bunch of normally, mostgenerally simple-minded folks
that dig ditches for a living orpush dirt for a living.
Like we never thought softwareline items were gonna grow to

(47:52):
what they are today.
It is unfricking real what ittakes to internally take off
appropriately an accuratetakeoff.
Like it's not just one softwareif you're doing it accurately,
in my opinion, from myexperience.
Um, but you do have these 90skids that are embracing tech

(48:15):
life because we're much, Iguess, um, I don't know the
exact word for it, but I guesswe're more willing to embrace it
quicker.
Um, they're eventually going tohave to embrace it.
And I think that's maybe what weknow.
It's like, oh, okay, once it'shere and it's implemented, it's
not going away.

(48:36):
And it's and if it really isthat truly efficient, educate
yourself, I think, is where I'mgoing with this.
Is once you truly educateyourself into the GPS uh realm,
it literally sells itself ifyou're going to do this for a
living.
And and now that GCs anddevelopers, now that they're

(48:58):
figuring out, oh, well, you havebase and rover.
Well, I'm only paying for oneversion of staking, and that's
quickly became the industrystandard that it's required that
you have your own.
And I'm not talking on big megahighway projects.
Obviously, you guys come withyour own licensed survey team,
but I'm talking at these smallerscale commercial, like
commercial projects.
Now it's even, hey, if you're autility guy, you better have

(49:19):
your own base and rover.
Can I not just get the engineerto come out?
No, we're not paying for that4,500 bucks staking package
anymore.
We're done with that.
And in and it's just going to beforcibly um, you got to deal
with it.
And so I think obviously beingmore techie driven and the

(49:39):
things that we have had toembrace, and not just the 90s,
the 80s, whatever generation, Ithink we're just more willing to
dive in more quick to embrace itand go, this is gonna suck.
Let's endure the suck, get onthe other side of it, because if
it's truly that much moreefficient, I am eventually going
to see the ROI from it.

(50:01):
But you are exactly right whenyou said that the support piece
of this is the missing link.
I would have seen ROI within sixmonths.
I would have seen the thingsthat I see now from pure
experience and minor education.
Don't get me wrong, we had ourcouple of training days that
they come out and helped uslocalize, and that's on the

(50:22):
YouTube channel and and andthings like that.
But man, I didn't get any properstep-by-step training.
When my estimator ran intosomething that he's never seen,
he can't.
I mean, he recorded every phonecall that I paid for extra
training sessions, and he and hewould go back and watch them and
read the scripts and transcriptsand search through and find his

(50:44):
problems and really dive in.
But it still was never enough.
And there was not somebody thatyou could just pick up the phone
unless it was fifteen hundreddollars for the hour uh through
the dealer or whatever.
Um, it was extremely tough toget him, his questions answered.
And so um, you know, training issuch an afterthought in our

(51:05):
industry, or maybe it has beenup to this point.
You know, you have people likeBuildwit, you know, people like
yourself um building thesetraining systems and being that
soft landing point for thesemajor investments that these
guys are purchasing, whether itbe GPS or whether it be
leadership or whatever it maybe, but there is an absolute

(51:28):
need for training our people.
Hey, you I've had really goodpeople leave because I didn't
have a train, just inrun-of-the-mill training
handbook.
Like, what was the employeehandbook?
Stuff that was so simple that Ishould have had figured out if I
had the right people in place.
But now we're even, you know,with the the video stuff that

(51:50):
we're doing, we're doing 15 to20 videos of me sitting at my
desk talking about literally mypet peeves, how we handle
safety, how we handle job sideawareness, trips, slips, falls.
Hey, we wear PPE.
And they have to sit there andwatch it.
But it I the overall, in generalof our industry, it's such an
afterthought.
It's oh, you you can hold ashovel, here you go.

(52:11):
And we expect them to just goscreaming towards success.
And that's just not um thegenerational pool that we have
anymore.
And we need to, as employers,figure out how to invest in
services like yourself, my dude,and get these people the right
training because they arestarting to become available.

(52:32):
Obviously, you know, thepodcast, I started trying to
shine light on every little uhlayer of something that these
guys could run into on theirscale and growth, especially
excavation guys.
And you're a main key and pointto it, man, because it was such
a struggle for me.
I've shared in length theimplementation was absolutely

(52:56):
such a struggle, boss, man.
I hated it to be honest withyou.
But the one of the last thingsI'd like to ask you, how are you
just approaching all of thatconglomerated mess?
I just talked about itdifferently with Dirt Lab.
And what advice would you giveto other blue-collar leaders
that are trying to upskill theirteams, that are trying to be
different with such a fastmoving tech environment, my guy?

(53:20):
It's not a simple.
I think everybody's stuck onsimple right now.
And as simple as it can be toget in touch with us and you
know we're train your people,it's not like everybody wants
the the quick three points andthe thing that they can just pay

(53:40):
for once and never have to goback again.
And it's like like we were justtalking about with the rise of
technology and it coming in andnow it's here to stay, and
you're you're you're not eventalking about ROI anymore.
You're talking about feasibilityof existence.
Like you're not good, likecontractors are gonna have a

(54:03):
hard time existing, whatever thetime I don't know what the
timeline is, if it's 10, 20years, when everybody else is
using this kind of technology,it's gonna be so much harder to
be competitive.
And it's one of those thingslike it, even if you don't like
it, you better figure out how touse it because you know the

(54:23):
industry isn't gonna just haltbecause you don't want to put a
GPS rover on your machine.
Like, this is the way it'sgoing.
I mean, when you start seeing itget into government, so like
we've seen DOTs are writing thisstuff into specs, as they
should.
I mean, it should have happenedyears ago because you're talking

(54:44):
public dollars that just getblown on some of these projects
of rework, miscalcs, estimatesare off, and uh$200 million
project turns into a$300 millionproject.
Well, everybody else is payingfor it.
And this kind of stuff, youknow, especially when it starts
coming from there, and they'regonna say, hey, you can't bid on

(55:06):
this unless you're usingtechnology.
Because we know it's proven thatyou're gonna do way more things
right the first time.
Caveat, it means you have tohave good data because that
stuff will build things wrong ifthe data's wrong.
But it's understanding that,like you said, it's here and
it's here to stay, and it's onlygonna keep growing in uh

(55:29):
absorption from the industry.
Everybody's gonna be using itmore and more.
You're gonna have to to staycompetitive.
So the way that I like to tryand separate ourselves in this
is that I don't want to be thattransactional relationship with
any of my clients.
Now we can do that from thebeginning when it's services,

(55:52):
like you know, when we're doingoverflow stuff for contractors
that's already got in-houseresources, that's definitely
more transactional.
But when they have questions,we're here as a resource.
Um I I want it to be apartnership and I want to grow
because when you start doingthis, yeah, I have one client
that I look at when we I startedworking with them, you know, six

(56:15):
years ago or whatever it was.
It was like base and rover.
Well, now they got base androver.
They've got a dozer, they justbought a new excavator that's
lit up.
Like they're gonna keep growing.
Well, now their demands for thetechnology and the support are
gonna keep growing.
Like, though, you know, I wantclients to be able to hook their
trailers to Dirt Lab and be ableto use us as a resource as they

(56:40):
scale and grow.
Um, you know, like I saidbefore, we got I'm not trying to
build a multi-billion dollarcorporation.
Like, I want to be a small teamto make sure that our service is
very personable and it's veryrelatable and it's current.
You know, we have to staycurrent in the technology and
what's happening and what's newbecause we're providing those

(57:02):
types of services.
And a lot of times that's reallydifficult for contractors and
anybody who's trying to learnthis is like, when do I spend my
time learning about it?
You know, everything's hair onfire all the time.
Like we said, the timelines areyesterday for everything.
So it's like, when do you dothis?
Well, you can either find thetime, which means something else

(57:25):
is gonna have to come off theplate, or you can pay down your
ignorance debt and work withsomebody like me who is spending
the time currently to do thesethings and stay up to speed.
And it's our job to regurgitatethat stuff in a format you need,
in the length and amount thatyou need, and in the language
that you need, so you don't haveto fight that uphill battle.

(57:49):
I mean, like it's essentiallyuh, you can think about it like
going to class almost.
Yeah, you could learn a lot ofsubjects on your own, but you go
to a place where somebody cantake all the information and put
it, boil it down to what youneed to know and how you need to
know it.
So that's really like where Iwant to fit in is really thought

(58:10):
of as part of the team.
Like it, not just a serviceprovider that we're just
flipping invoices back andforth.
Like, I want to be part of theteam and I want to be able to
grow.
I want to be able to serve andhelp contractors grow.
And because, you know, I justlove this industry at the end of
the day.
I think it's one of the bestindustries uh around and it's

(58:31):
fun, it's dirty, it's physical,and you know, I don't get as
much physical stuff anymore.
Just I got soft hands now fromworking on the keyboard and the
mouse all the time.
I call myself the keyboardwarrior now when I get out there
with the boys.
You know, they expect me to getin the machine, and uh I can
still hang with them, you know.
Uh, you know, every once in awhile.

(58:52):
They uh uh those things I get toenjoy when I get to get out
there and do a little bit ofwork.
But man, um, where can we findyou?
Uh website dirtlab.io.
Uh that's our website.
Um, and our contact informationis on there.
There's it's really simple rightnow.
There's basically, hey, ifyou're a contractor, click this

(59:14):
button.
If you're a designer, click thisbutton.
And that puts us in contact, uh,puts you in contact, and we'll
reach out and start chatting tosee how we can support you.
Man, I really appreciate yourtime, man.
Uh, seriously, what aninteresting, interesting, unique
model and super needed.
Um, what a solution to a greatthat is uh a problem that we're

(59:38):
all running into, whether we'restarting, whether we've been in
the game 60 years and we'retrying to embrace it.
So covering all the bases, man,and uh and helping designers
along the way too.
That's uh that's really cool.
My last question for you today,buddy.
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(01:00:00):
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(01:00:42):
the link in the show notes slashdescription below.
Thanks, guys.
I ask everybody that comes onthe show, what's the takeaway
for the blue-collar worker who'sjust sick and tired of being
stuck in the mud?
And that could be physical,emotional, or or mental.
Ask for help.
Don't be afraid to ask for help.

(01:01:02):
That's really good.
That's really good.
You're right.
Um we talked about that a littlebit earlier.
I think we're we're quicker toask for help, you know, the
younger generation.
You're right.
We do need help.
Quit acting like you got it allfigured out because pride
becomes for the fall.
I've been there, you know.
I mean, everybody's doing lifefor the first time.

(01:01:23):
So it's, you know, sometimesit's easy to say, oh, that
person's got it all figured out.
It's like, no, they probablydon't.
Uh, you just don't see that partof it.
So it's like, look, everybody'strying to figure this out for
the first time, and usually thepeople that you see up there,
they're the ones who kept askingfor help.
I really appreciate your timehighlighting such a problematic

(01:01:45):
issue.
Uh, we will be super fans alongthe way.
I'm probably gonna get you inwith our own estimator and
probably get him a little bit oftrainability after the struggles
that we've had.
So, guys, I'm gonna also bereaching out to Tyler over
Durlab.
Um, follow me over there, uh,Durlab.io.
While you guys are searching theweb, hit up blue

(01:02:07):
collarbusinesspodcast.com or ifyou're on a streaming platform,
podcast streaming platform, anyof them, if you wouldn't mind
dropping us a rate and a follow.
Go check out uh Tyler onLinkedIn as well.
Great follow.
Uh enjoy his stuff over there,guys.
Until next time, Mr.
Tyler, thanks so much.
And we'll thank you, Sai.
This is awesome, super fun.

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Ep. 63 - Fixing Bad Data Before It Breaks Your Job

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 63 - Fixing Bad Data Before It Breaks Your Job