Know Your Numbers, Not Just Your Craft

Tyler Grace shares how he shifted from over-delivering to running a lean, profitable small-shop—tracking every hour, pricing for reality, and choosing lifestyle over headcount. He breaks down T&M vs cost-plus in plain English, why “good enough” (when scoped) beats burnout, and how to design a business that actually pays you back.

http://trghomeconcepts.com

Find more of Tyler at "The Modern Craftsman" podcast: https://www.moderncraftsman.co

Show Notes: 

0:00 Good enough finally clicked
 5:00 How Tyler actually got into the trades
 22:30 The over-delivering trap (and not tracking time)
 26:00 Burnout and a hospital wake-up call
 31:50 Pivot to T&M so the hours finally pay
 37:10 T&M vs cost-plus—how he prices it
 40:10 Old houses: surprises, budgets, and change orders
 44:30 Staying small on purpose—simple tracking & cash flow
 58:30 Know your lane—match the work to the budget (don’t scale blind)
 1:03:20 Volume ≠ profit (the COVID boom lesson)
 1:05:00 The motto: work hard, get paid for your time
 1:14:00 Who he is and why—story & perspective

Find Our Hosts:
Reece Barnes
Matt Calvano

Podcast Produced By:
Motif Media

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
When my clients started saying,Good enough is good enough, I

(00:02):
realized for years I've justbeen giving away free work.
Alrighty sir, mics are hot. Oh,that's right,
I gotta admit it's weird beingon the other side of this, yeah,

(00:24):
in so many different ways, froma scheduling perspective. And
then just, should I prepare?
Should I not prepare? I'm soused to being the other way that
I almost didn't know what to do.
I still don't know what to do.
Doyou do you have guests prepare?
Do you prepare as a host? Iprepare as a
host, Nick generally, wings,wings, it. We try to prep our

(00:47):
guests with some questionnairejust to get them thinking a
little bit more. So it's notjust it's it's difficult in our
world, because I think peoplewant to come on the podcast and
they want to market themselves,and they want to promote their
brand. So sometimes it'sdifficult to give them enough
leeway to do that while alsomaintaining a decent

(01:08):
conversation. And it not just bea conversation where it's like,
damn you said all the rightthings, perfect.
Well, that's why you wanted tomarket your brand, right,
correct?
So it just winds up. Sometimesit's, I get it. I totally get
it. But the goal for us is toshed light on the industry, shed

(01:30):
light on perspective. Ipersonally feel that everybody
in life, in business, has a veryunique perspective of that
experience totally and I thinkthat regardless of who you are,
how long you've been doing, likehow old you are, that you have
unique insight to life and tobusiness that not everyone has,

(01:52):
and that, to me, is reallyinteresting, rather than than
just talking about saying theright things and all The
buzzwords, I'd rather learnabout your experience and what
lessons you've learned that Imay or may not ever experience
in my life, but I could probablytake something away from it. And
sometimes it's difficult to havethose conversations when you get

(02:13):
somebody on you've never metthem before, and it's awkward to
have a podcast conversation, andthey want to say all the right
things, and they don't want tobe vulnerable. So we do, we do
prep guests a little bit to tryand at least open the doors a
little bit. But it always, itdoesn't always happen,
yeah, totally. Um, well, I thinklike to that point, like, I've

(02:34):
really had an issue with guestslike clamming up. I've
definitely had guests likesuggest they're nervous before,
yeah, but I always, I take asimilar approach to you, is
like, I want to hear the uniquestory. I mean, you could we do a
podcast on, like, constructionaccounting, right? So it's like
talking about cost codes for solong, you know what I mean? And
it's like, there's, like, apretty traditional way of doing

(02:54):
cost codes, but I would like tohear the stories, right? The
wins, the losses. What like toyour point, what unique
perspectives have you gatheredover a career in business and
even personal has impacted howyou make decisions? And I think
that's like, largely what we'lldo here so you don't have to be
nervous. And I can see thatyou're
nervous. Tyler, yeah, man, I'mthis. Is this a lot for me?

(03:14):
Yeah, forthose of you that aren't
watching this, he's sweatingprofusely right now. It's
bad. Yeah, I was, I was tryingto, I was trying to, I was
trying to get out of it, but Icouldn't. I couldn't reschedule
twice in arow. That's right, that's right.
We just follow up and justconfirm, and just get, get this
meeting up. Maybe it'sweird though, because I got a
calendar alert that you guyschanged the date of it till
tomorrow for some reason, likethe calendar alert got canceled

(03:37):
and then changed, and thensomebody followed up with an
email and was like, I don't knowwhat happened with the calendar.
The calendar that it changed,but we're definitely on for
tomorrow. So I was like, damn,wait. Are we on May?
That's a Yeah, yeah, dude,builders budgets and beers is
big time. Dude,hell yeah. We got somebody else
coming on. No, but I think otherother than the nerves, I should

(03:58):
be good, yeah, right. You'llbe fine. You'll be fine. Well,
you can always edit it. Yeah, wegot Doug. Doug can chop this
thing up. He'll get this thingall nice and polished. Okay, but
for the listeners, Tyler, givethem a little background on
yourself, who you are, whatyou're about. I mean, we like,
there's gonna be a title andeverything, but I think it's
helpful for people to hear whoyou

(04:18):
are. How in depth are we going,like couple minutes,
yeah? I mean, dude, a lot, a lotof conversation pivots off of
this. I'm not gonna hold a timeor two, yeah, if it starts to
get longer, I'll start to chopit. But so who are you, I guess,
if you go back. So I'm Tylergrace. I own TRG home concept,
small remodeling contractor. Iam a co host of modern craftsman

(04:40):
podcast, who am I? I have amarried to my wife, Rachel. Got
married in 2011 I have twodaughters, and I
got seen in anger management.
It's like, when, yeah, whenthey're asking, like, who are
you? And he's like, Well, I'm soand so. He's like, no, no. Who
are you?
Yeah. Yeah, so, so I mean it, itall plays a part, I think, in

(05:04):
what I do and who I am, and Iguess getting into the trades,
if you want that background, Igrew up in a relatively affluent
town. It was get done highschool, go to college. I didn't
ever want to go to college, butthat was just the next step. So
I ended up trying to go tocollege. I was a science major.

(05:27):
Wasn't a huge fan of college.
Didn't want to become I realizedshortly after, I didn't want to
become a scientist. I didn'twant to be a professor, so I
dropped out. I'd always workedwith my hands, worked in the
trades, and I dropped out, and Ijust started working in
construction full time. And thenI realized I probably wanted
something to fall back on,because I wasn't in love with
where I was or what I was doing.

(05:49):
I still just didn't really havea path. And I think I kind of
fell into construction by proxy.
And then I ended up transferringto Drexel University in
Philadelphia, where I met mywife and I went to school. I
went to school. I got aconstruction management degree,
which was primarily commercial,and I absolutely hated it. It
was terrible. All my internshipsI absolutely hated and so when I

(06:10):
got done college, I decided thatI wanted to it was probably
naive and extremely foolish ofme, but I would just start my
own company, because I couldcharge 3540 bucks an hour, and
that was way more than any of myfriends would be making, and I
would be set and, you know, acouple years into it, struggling

(06:33):
not making money. Five yearsinto it, still struggling seven
years into it, realizing that itjust wasn't a viable model. So I
started switching things up andstarted marketing myself a
little bit better. But then, youknow, seven to 10 years
rebranding and starting tounderstand business, and I think
now I'm 1516, years in business,and I have I'm not from a

(06:55):
business perspective. I'm notthis amazing, incredible
business. Like, I don't have allthe systems in place, but I know
my lane, and I stay in my laneand I'm profitable in my lane.
And that's like, from alifestyle perspective, that's
what works. That's what you'rerunning.
Dude, I love it. And honestly,like, this falling into

(07:16):
construction story is so common.
And you did. You mentioned thatyou so you initially got like
trades experience in highschool.
Yeah, so my, my dad, he wasn'treally a contractor. He, he kind
of was a contractor, but he, hewould buy rental properties that

(07:37):
were disheveled and run down,and he would renovate them, and
then pull equity out of them andborrow against them and buy more
rental properties. And then ifthings got slower, he needed
cash, he would do some jobs forpeople. So I grew up maintaining
his rental properties andworking on and off in

(07:57):
construction. But I always saymy dad taught me what not to do,
sure, if it was whatever my dadtaught me, go 180 degrees in the
opposite direction and you'd bein the vicinity of where you
should be. Yeah. So that waspretty much my experience with
it. It just it wasn't doingthings the right way. It was a
bit of a mess, and it probablyjust typical construction. And I

(08:20):
knew that I didn't want that,but I did enjoy working with my
hands and creating stuff and theproblem solving behind it.
Totally, totally. I love it. Andso I So your dad was buying
disheveled, rundown properties,fixing him up, adding equity
point. I think they called itthe method. Now he was like,

(08:40):
basically, like a flipper beforeit was actually a flipper, yeah?
So he hold guy,yeah, he, I mean, he would
basically buy them for next tonothing. Back then you could buy
a house like 2030, grand. It'dbe a multi family, and they were
disgusting and run down. Andhe'd put lipstick on them, clean
them up and then borrow againstthe equity he had in them.

(09:03):
Because the the equity would bebased on, obviously home value,
but then also rental income. Sowhen he made them nicer, he was
able to get higher rents forthem, yeah, and he would, he
would borrow that money. Sogrowing up, we were very, very
cash poor in a very, a prettywealthy town, so it would, I
enjoyed construction, but itdefinitely was looked down upon

(09:26):
within my community. We weren'twe didn't really fit in with
where we lived. So even, like,we would get free lunches and
shit in school, which was sick,yeah. And then, like, we were
those kids and, you know, goingin and getting clothes from
like, Goodwill. And then when weneeded new bikes, my dad would

(09:47):
take us to the police impoundand tell us that they were,
like, our stolen bikes. So we'dget new bikes that were like,
like, stealing stolen bikes. Sothat, like, it was just that my
dad was just trying to survive.
There's five kids. He had fivethat my mom and dad had five
kids in six years. It it wasabsolute and utter chaos. I'm

(10:09):
sure my dad was self employed.
My mom was managing the numbersin the business. So, yeah, the
rental property thing made moneyfor him. He was building a ton
of equity in him, in his hisfuture, but we had no cash. He
couldn't pull cash out fromthem, so that was just what he
did. And he built a decent realestate portfolio as we grew up,
and things with my mom and mydad ended up going south, and

(10:35):
they liquidated pretty mucheverything when I was in high
school. So it never reallypanned out the way that he
anticipated. But, yeah, thatwas, that was my experience. It
was going and cleaning up rentalproperties and fixing putting
lipstick on a pig. Yeah, it, itwasn't. I didn't really enjoy
it, but I did enjoy actuallyworking hard and working with my

(10:55):
hands. Yeah,totally well, and I, that's
where I want to go, is like,what, like you mentioned
earlier, like, you basically,like, take what your dad did 180
and now you're in the vicinityof, like, how you do things
like, I think it's prettyobvious. I mean, that sounds
like a pretty like, negativesituation. It might not have
been like a negative situationas a kid, right? Free lunches,
going to the police impound,picking up bikes, like, like,

(11:17):
pole is a weird thing to say theleast. Yeah, exactly. And like,
all, like, just completelygutting, just nasty apartments.
Like, you're like, looking atthat as a model, and you're
like, I don't want to do this. Ipersonally can empathize with
you on that. It wasn't to thatlevel, like my parents, they,
they owned a multi family inLincoln, Nebraska, and it wasn't
like anything to write homeabout. But it was like, from my

(11:40):
understanding, like from myunderstanding, like, a pretty
solid investment. But yeah,tenants move out, and you've
got, like, some just massive,like, person that can't leave
their apartment, and then theythey move out, and you're
throwing chairs away that arejust disgusting, and, like,
replacing tile, and, like, justnasty. So I can empathize with
you on that. But how did that?

(12:03):
Like, like, you got back intoconstruction because of a
passion, like, to work with yourhands. Or, like, because for me,
I was like, I'm never going tobe a contractor after that. I
was like, No way. I obviouslylike, help contractors and
software. But like, what aboutthat still gave you an itch to
get into construction.
It was the only thing that so Ihad always my entire life. I'm

(12:25):
gas on, gas off. I'm going 110miles an hour, or I'm going zero
miles an hour. So whatever I do,I want to do the best that I
can. I didn't have that muchwork experience outside of that.
And I also at 16 years old, 17years old, even through
graduating from college, justhad no idea what I wanted to do

(12:45):
with my life. I anxiety tryingto figure out who I was, what I
needed to do, how I needed toget my life together, and the
trajectory of my life wasextremely overwhelming to me,
and I didn't know what I wantedto do, and anxiety got the best
of me, and I was like, I canfall back on this. I do know how
to do this. And for me, it was Icould work hard and I could get

(13:10):
paid for the work that I put inplace. And that was really the
premise. And the foundation ofstarting my business was that I
don't need to make a milliondollars a year. I want to make a
decent living. I want to workhard, and I'm going to get paid
for the work that I put inplace. So this, this was an
outlet for me that I feltcomfortable in at a time in my

(13:34):
life that nothing really made mefeel comfortable. It was the
least scary thing that I coulddo. Sure, being 20 years old and
coming into the world and tryingto figure out a path, it was
easier than going to work for acommercial construction company
that I knew I hated. It waseasier than completely starting
over and going back to schoolfor something else. It was

(13:54):
easier than going and working ata hardware store. It just made
the most amount of sense to me.
So it was, it started withhandyman stuff, with painting
little jobs, and I just veryslowly got into it and started
enjoying the work and enjoyingthe learning. And it was a
balance of being afraid ofeverything that I was doing

(14:17):
because I had no idea how to doit. But then the the reward of
moving forward and succeedingand learning, it was, it was
very addictive to me, yeah, andI just continued to build on
that and build on that, and I'vealways self performed so many
trades, and it just gave me anopportunity to constantly learn

(14:40):
and constantly better myself andnever become bored. So I think
once I started, it just reallysnowballed to this is this is
who I am. This is what I enjoydoing, and it's a little bit
different. Now, there's otherthings in my life that I enjoy,
but at the end of the day, Ialways fall. Back on. I want to
work with my hands, and I wantto get paid for my time. I'm not

(15:03):
asking for more than that, butI'm most certainly not asking
for less than that, sure, andthat's really been the
foundation of my business modeland what I've done now. But
yeah, it was definitely byproxy. It wasn't like, I was
like, I want to get intoconstruction, right? This is
what I want to do. I'm going toswing a hammer. It just, it was,
sadly, the easiest path forwardfor me, with the least

(15:28):
resistance. And I did fall inlove with it, very, very early,
totally well. And I love thebit. It was kind of like, like
you fell into it by proxy. Andit sounded like, you know, while
you're phrasing it as it was thepath to least resistance,
basically, right? It was likeone thing that, like, you were
the most confident in doing.
You're like, I know, I'vedeveloped these skills over,

(15:48):
like, an early adult experience,right? And then you could just,
you basically open up thisPandora's box of like, limitless
skills that you can develop inconstruction, yeah.
And I was able to actually dothings the right way, which was
also scary, because I didn't howfrom, like a process perspective
and from a permanentperspective, and just learning

(16:11):
how to do things the right way,because I had always been taught
the quickest, fastest premierethis way. Yeah, yeah. So, like,
it was very gratifying to learnto do things the right way. And
for for me, again, it's gas onor gas off. I was full gas on.
I'm going to learn everythingthat I can, everything that I've

(16:32):
done, is almost 100% selftaught. Learned on the job,
learned on the fly, learned byscrewing shit up. So it it, it's
a very difficult path in life,but it was also very, very
rewarding for me, and I thinkthat that was slightly
addicting, and I just ran withit.

(16:53):
Dude, I love it. I mean, do youadvise, like, people that are
listening, that have like,similar skill sets to do
that? I would, I would, I wouldsay work for somebody first. So
I like, I got done college. Iwas 2223 years old because the
program I went into was a fiveyear program with internships,
and I dropped out for a while.
So when I went back, I was alittle bit older. When I

(17:14):
graduated, about a year laterthan I would have been, had I
just gone straight through and Istarted my company the debt like
I didn't go to collegegraduation. I was working. I was
working throughout college. So Iwould say I was too young and
too immature, and I didn't knowenough, and I probably cost
myself a lot of money and a lotof experience. But I would tell

(17:37):
I would I think it'd be betteroff in hindsight, had I worked
with somebody other than just mydad and the commercial companies
I work for just to learn theropes a little bit more, I think
it would have given me a lotmore confidence in life and in
business, because I feel I wasprobably a shell of who I am
now, at 23 starting my business,having no clue about anything.

(18:02):
So to me, the advice would be,go learn under somebody work
besides somebody, learn onsomebody else's dime while
you're getting paid for it. Getpaid for your mistakes, and then
at that point, maybe if you wantto go off on your own, you give
yourself a bit of a head start.
Totally. Do. Would you advise,like, more, like, learn the

(18:23):
business side or the trade side?
Because it sounds like you,like, you learned a lot of the
trades onyour own. Both, like, yeah, I
would work for somebody else tolearn the trades. But also, if
you can get any insight as tobusiness, I think that people
not that it, not that it's evenright, because I think a lot of
contractors, what they're doingin business is wrong and they

(18:45):
don't understand what they'redoing, but it at least, if you
gain some perspective of it,some insight, you have some sort
of basis, and that thatreference point may may not
actually be the right referencepoint, but it's better than
nothing. And you can work acouple jobs, and you can find
out what's working, what seemsright, but at least you're not

(19:06):
starting off just throwing shitat the wall. I think it gives
you a bit of a head start. And Ithink that if you're motivated
to learn that there's people whoare willing to teach you
totally, totally well. And Ithink, I think, to your point,
like, a lot of, like, buildersdo it wrong. That's what I was
kind of asking, like, do youlearn, like, the business side,

(19:27):
the trade side. But I think,like, your phrase of just like,
Dude get paid, learn from themistakes on someone else's dime.
And, like, pick up littlenuggets of, like, what basically
extrapolating what you do withyour dad. Like, learn what not
to do, and then, like, try andmitigate and bypass as many of
those,it just goes down to experience
and life. Experience isn'talways ideal. It's, you know,

(19:50):
there's not a company thatyou're going to work for that
everything's going to be 100% onthe up and up and completely
dialed. But the more exp.
Experience, the more dynamicyour your experience of life and
business can be. I think thatyou're you're a better person, a
more well rounded person, and amore well rounded business. And

(20:11):
I think that if you can do thatwhile getting paid for it,
rather than it just cutting intoyour bottom line and costing you
money, that it's a really goodoption for you. 100%
100% you mentioned that it waskind of like a rough, like, half
decade, decade of you being inbusiness. Like, what do you
largely chalk that up to,prior to finding a tiny bit of

(20:33):
success? Like, yeah. Imean, I think I mentioned it was
like a 567, year period, yeah,like, just not making money.
Thought you would make your3040, bucks an hour, and you
found out that there was more toit than that. Like, what do you
largely chalk those likedifficult years up to?
I always tell people it's aroundseven years. It seems as though

(20:55):
it's around seven years beforeyou start to hit your stride.
For me, it comes down to twothings, ultimately, and and I
don't know, had I known thesethings beforehand, I think that
my business and the jobs that Iwould have gotten probably would
have been too overwhelming forme at that point, because I just

(21:17):
wasn't ready for them. Butmarketing your business,
understanding how to market yourbusiness, who you are, who your
client is, who your customerbase is, how you make money, is
one thing. So branding yourselfand understanding how to market
yourself, I think, got me out ofthat, that seven year slump, and

(21:37):
then I wasn't I wasn't doinganything right. I was relying on
word of mouth. So I always sayit's more of the same, right? It
my clients love me. They weregetting a deal. The work was
great. I understood the tradeaspects of things, but every
referral that came from that wasnot, yeah, the works amazing. It
was the works amazing. And theprice is cheap because I wasn't

(21:59):
capturing the time and the moneythat was going into these
things. So I was just gettingmore of the same. I was relying
on word of mouth referrals,because that I was brought up
with the in like an old schoolmentality, and that was how you
got work, and you didn't need tohave your truck lettered. And if
you did good work, you wouldstay busy. And though, I rested
on those laurels, and it justreally sustained my business. I

(22:24):
didn't ever grow. I didn't itwas more of the same, more of
the same, year in and year out,and the same, unfortunately,
wasn't working. I just didn'tknow it. And then the other
thing is, the biggest differencein my business now is that I
wasn't tracking costs on a dailybasis. I wasn't tracking the
time that was going into job, soI was over investing time that I

(22:46):
wasn't really getting paid for,and I had I had no idea I was
not tracking time. I was notensuring that I wasn't putting
too much time in a job thatwasn't equitable for me. So
between those two things, justnot branding myself, not
marketing myself to the rightclients, relying relying on word
of mouth referrals, and overexecuting projects. I think I my

(23:10):
work was not profitable. Itwasn't sustainable. I was making
money and I was surviving, butit I was not getting paid for
the amount of time that I wasputting into it. I was working
2x to make 1x wagestotally well. And, I mean, I
think like, to the branding andmarketing point, like, you
basically had built a brand ofthe guy who was just going to
completely over deliver andunder charge, correct? And then,

(23:33):
like, and then you also say,like, you weren't tracking
costs, so, like, that's like,really, like, one in the same
and you mentioned laborimmediately, like, you weren't
tracking your time. Were youlike, Were you just like, like,
I can't take another one ofthese projects and like, get
paid 50% of what I should. Andyou just started writing your
hours down in a notebook. Or,like, what did you do to, like,

(23:56):
change that brand?
So I initially rebranded and,like, actually rebranded, like
it was Yeah, Tyler's modeling,it was TRG,
or like, Yeah, I mean, I wasalways TRG, but I got a new
logo. I got a new truck. I gotthe truck lettered. I got new
business cards. I got a websitemade.

(24:17):
You got a new business haircut.
You went into the businessbarber and they lined you
exactly. Hell yeah, dude, look,look good. Feel good. That's
right, baby. It's half thebattle and but sad like
realistically it is if the whatI did for my business from a
purely esthetic marketingperspective, and the way that I

(24:38):
was branding myself on socialand telling my story I was
curating this brand that italmost no I don't want to say
that the work was irrelevant,but I I don't think that I had
to do execute the work at thelevel that I was, and people
would have still been happy. AndI think that I. So sadly, if you

(25:01):
look professional, and you knowyou have a uniform, and you show
up and you're clean cut, and youcan have a conversation with
clients, sometimes the workisn't quite as important. That's
something that I learned. Ialways wanted to back it up with
good work, but I just wanted tobe professional. So that was
that was one thing that I did,and then that got me bigger

(25:24):
jobs, but it was still the sameshit. So the numbers were
bigger, so the headaches werebigger, the problems were
bigger. The margins never wentup. It was just more at if my if
I had a job that was $20,000before it was the same headaches
2x that once it was 40,000 so itgot me into a different client

(25:46):
base and a different job base.
But nothing really changed,because I didn't change anything
other than just the themarketing and the branding of my
business. I still didn't knowhow to be profitable. I didn't I
didn't know what would make memoney. I didn't really know my
numbers. So to be completelyhonest, I wound up in the

(26:07):
hospital twice. Like I wouldwork around the clock. I would
work, get up, you know, startworking at six in the morning.
Work till eight o'clock atnight. They were closing out
jobs where I realized I hadexhausted my budget with
employees and subcontractorsbefore the job was over, and

(26:28):
that I would essentially bepaying to close a job out. So I
would send everyone home, andthen I would work late hours,
till midnight, one in themorning, trying to close jobs
out, just so I wasn't payingemployees to do it.
How many builders do you thinkdo that? I'm sorry, but how many
builders do you thinkdo that? A lot like, I mean, I'm
working at my buddy's houseright now, and there's people

(26:50):
working next door, and they'rethere at like, 738 o'clock at
night, and I'm there because I'mgoing on vacation. I'm trying to
help my buddy out. Like, this isnot something I do anymore, but
it's like, everyone they're andI was like, maybe they're trying
to close the job out, but nope,they're there Monday morning, so
they're there to like, eight onFriday, and it's just the only
reason people are there isbecause they're under or they're
over on budget, they don't havemoney left. They need to close a

(27:14):
job out so they can go to thenext job. Like, nobody's
choosing to work those hoursbecause they're getting paid for
it. And like, I want to be atthe point in my life where, if
I'm working those hours, I'mgetting paid for it. But I
wasn't, and I was I was workinglike I would pull all nighters
in my shop and get shit readyfor the next day, and I just

(27:34):
couldn't ever catch up. So Iwound up crazy enough. It was a
Saturday. I was working in myshop, and I was building built
ins for this job. I was closingout so we could install them on
Monday, and my wife was nextdoor with the neighbors, and it
was maybe six or seven onSaturday, and I come inside, and
I text my wife, and I said, Ijust got home, what do you guys

(27:56):
want to do for dinner? And thenI felt nauseous, all of a
sudden, sick to my stomach, andsomewhat vulgar, but I was like,
I have to go to the bathroom.
Really bad. Yeah, I went into, Iwent in to go to the bathroom.
And all of a sudden, like, Ididn't have to go to the

(28:17):
bathroom, but my throat startedclosing, and I started wheezing,
and then I started getting hiveson my whole body, and I couldn't
breathe. So I called my wife, Ichewed a couple of Benadryl. She
got me in the car, and sherushed me to the hospital, and
they put me, they gave mebasically epinephrine, which is

(28:38):
like an EpiPen, and then theygave me a bunch of liquid
Benadryl, and they kept meovernight till I stabilized. And
they're like, Yeah, you you wentinto anaphylaxis, which is an
allergic reaction to something.
They're like, Did you eatanything? And I hadn't eaten
since lunch. They were like, Didyou Was there something you were
working with? No, so I, I kindof, I was like, Maybe I was

(29:02):
allergic to the MDF I wasworking with. So the next day, I
went out in my shop, I workedwith the same crap just to see.
I was like, I want to know ifthis is what it is. I know. I
didn't eat anything. So my roundtail, yeah. I was like, at least
I have an EpiPen now. Like,yeah. Okay, yeah. So nothing
happened. So I was like, Allright, I had a weird allergic

(29:23):
reaction to something that Idon't know what it is like,
okay, there's nothing I can doabout it. So I was supposed to
go an allergist. Never went toan allergist, and six months
later, I was closing out a jobagain, working on godly hours,
and I was out in my shop again,wrapping up this project. I came

(29:43):
in. It was around. It was rightbefore Christmas. I ate dinner,
went to sleep, woke up likethree, four hours later, with
the same exact symptoms, thesame thing happening. Mm. It was
actually, it was two days beforeChristmas, and I woke up and I'm
like, Damn, I'm going intoanaphylactic shock again. So I

(30:05):
have my EpiPen. I like hitmyself with my EpiPen, and I
didn't know that the EpiPen issupposed to buy you time to get
to the hospital. I thought,like, EpiPen and you're good.
That's why I, like gave myselfthe EpiPen, and then I went back
to sleep, yeah, and I woke backup, like, 45 minutes later,
going back into anaphylaxis,anaphylactic shock again. So my

(30:27):
wife had to call the EMS. It wasduring covid, these EMS guys
come into my house upstairs, mylittle kids there, because it's
four or five years ago, at thistime, with, like, fully suited
up people apparent. They looklike they're in hazmat suits.
Yeah, covid and I'm passed outon the bathroom floor, going

(30:48):
into anaphylactic shock. Again.
They rushed me to the hospital.
Same things get me stabilized.
What did you eat? I hadn't eatenin a while, so I started looking
into it more. And basically whatwas happening is I was working
so much and like the adrenalinerush of working and grinding it

(31:09):
out and just trying to get somuch stuff done had depleted all
my body's natural adrenaline. SoI was having some sort of, like
tiny allergic reaction tosomething that if I was healthy
and I wasn't stress induced, Iwould have been fine, no issue.
But because I had no naturaladrenaline left in my body to

(31:32):
fight it, my body went intoanaphylactic shock. So it was
basically stress inducedanaphylaxis, and at that point,
like my kids watching me getcarted out on a stretcher by
EMS. I was like, I'm done. Ican't do this anymore. So at
that point, I was like, I'mgoing from fixed cost to T and M
and I'm charging everyone mytime and my materials and my

(31:55):
hours. And as soon as I starteddoing that, I like all of my
numbers became supertransparent. I didn't have to
work 12 hours a day because Iwas making my rate in eight
hours a day, right? And like, mylife in my business, 100%
changed,dude. Hey, that's an insane
story. Yeah, fact that you wentinto inflamshock twice because
of stress is nuts. And B, Iapplaud you. I admire you. That

(32:20):
a, you like, that was the eyeopening moment, albeit, like a
moment that's pretty hard toignore, right? Yeah, but still I
ignored it once, exactly withTouche, but like, good for you
on dude, yeah. And second, like,immediately making that pivot
and basically addressing head onwhat you had been coming to
terms with, like, I'm gettingthis brand recognition of the

(32:43):
guy that over delivers, and I'mcheap, and I know what the
problem is, and you just comein, was it as simple as you just
saying? Like, to hell with fixedprice. TNM, here we go, and
everything was off to the races.
Like, was it truly that simplechanging your pricing model
pretty much? And, like, itwasn't that I was cheap, right?
When it like I was probably moreexpensive than other people, but

(33:08):
I was giving them two times morethan everyone else was, right?
So I wasn't. I was marketingmyself as I would be the
expensive guy, but I was alsoputting way more into it than I
was I should have been. So Ireally had to look within and I
had to say, Am I doing thisbecause I'm getting paid for

(33:29):
this because my clients trulyappreciate it, or is this my ego
building to this level becausethis is what I fucking want to
do, and ultimately it was what Iwanted to do, and my clients, if
they were, if they knew theywere paying for it, probably
wouldn't have the work done tothe level that I was doing it.

(33:50):
So I was doing it because it waswhat I wanted to do, but I
wasn't truly getting paid forit. So when you look at my job,
the numbers were good. Theyweren't inexpensive. There was,
there was potential to be makingmoney on them, but not when the
job should have taken 100 hoursand I was putting 150 into it.
That's when it became reallyunprofitable and unsustainable

(34:14):
for me. And I had to look in themirror and say, I either need to
execute to a lower standard. Ican't sell perfection. Or if I'm
going to, I need to capture allthe hours that it takes to get
there. So when I went to TNM, itwas for clients that had hired
me to do fixed costs before. Imean, this is, this is when I

(34:36):
really realized I was on tosomething. I was working for a
client which was the firstclient when I got sick the first
time working for her, she waslike my client, my ideal
client's a pain in the ass.
They're they're very particular.
They want things a certain way.
That's my ideal client. She wasthat, and she wanted to be a
part of everything. Everythinghad to be just so it was great,

(34:57):
because I wanted. To do it justso but I went and I did a job
for her after the first job thatshe got, like a huge deal on,
and I said, I'm going to be tand m now. So it's 150 year old
house, and we're renovating acouple of bedrooms, and there's
some old doors that wereretrofitting and then cleaning

(35:19):
up. And I said, Do you Do youwant these to be like the doors
that we did prior? If you do,they're going to cost this much.
If you want us just to sand themand then prep them with some
shellac based primer, they'regoing to be imperfect. There's
character. They're going to bethis much. So prior me, would

(35:40):
have just done them to theperfection, and it would have
cost a lower price. Now, when Igave her the choice, do you want
it to perfection, or do you wantit less, all of a sudden, she
valued less other thanperfection. So when she would
have had to pay 2x to get it toperfection. She was like, No,

(36:01):
I'm not interested. That's goodenough, yeah. So when, when I
work for her fixed cost, goodenough was never good enough. It
had to be perfect. But whenshe's paying me hourly, she
could actually see that like,yeah, it might not be worth
another $400 to get that doorperfect. So I no longer was
conceding all of that, and I wasgiving my clients the

(36:24):
opportunity to say, hey, I'll dowhatever you want. Here's what
the budgeting looks like forboth. You're just going to pay
me for my time to do it. Andwhen my clients started saying,
Good enough is good enough, Irealized, like, for years I've
just been giving away free worktotally, like, for years. So
that was that, like, prettyinstantly, I started getting

(36:45):
paid for eight hours of my timein an eight hour day. And it's
not that I was necessarilymaking more money. I was just
working way less so I could worka normal amount of hours in a
year and get paid for it andhave nights and weekends free
and not wind up in the hospital.

(37:07):
Totally, dude. Love it. Love it.
This might sound like a like aquestion, certainly not a
sidetrack. I just want yourdefinition of it, because when
you say time and material, like,we don't hear a lot of time and
material. Yeah, we heard,typically, from, like, smaller
builders, which, like, you'repretty loud about, like, being
like a smaller builder. But isit, like, what's the difference
between time, material and cost,plus, they're pretty similar.

(37:28):
But like, what's like, thegeneral difference, would you
say thebiggest difference is that
there's a lot of similarities,and there's actually a lot of
similarities, like I think Icould go back to fixed costs now
and be profitable for me, thebiggest difference between T and
M I have designated markups. Mymarkups as a TNM contractor, on

(37:51):
subcontractors and on materials,is higher than a cost plus
contractor. So most cost pluscontractors are anywhere from
like 12 to 20% plus, because Ido so much less work. If I was
working on a 12 to 20% markup, Iwouldn't make no money, right?

(38:11):
So I'm going to be in 35 40%markup on a lot of my my items
that are time and material, butthat's fully disclosed in the
contract beforehand. And thenalso my labor rate is a loaded
labor rate, so in in, in costplus, you have designated rates
or market rates, and then youhave your plus on top of it. I

(38:36):
don't have my plus on top of it.
So when I have a contract, Ihave my labor rates all spelled
out, but they're loaded laborrates. So if I'm saying I'm
charging $150 an hour, that'sall of my my labor, my labor
burden, my overhead,everything's in that so I'm not

(38:57):
having a plus on top of my ownlabor that I own. I'm only
marking up people who don't workunderneath me, and material. So
that's, that's the two biggestthings. And then sometimes with
with TNM, you might be asked tosign a DNA or a D and E, a do

(39:19):
not exceed because it's a bitmore of an open checkbook
legally than cost. Plus got itbecause so, like, I'm literally
just billing whatever money Iput out my markup and then
whatever labor rate based onwho's working for me and a cost
plus it protects me a little bitmore cost, plus, it's kind of a

(39:43):
balance between that andmanaging the budget like you
might still over execute, butyou know that you only have so
much in a budget. You can onlycharge that technically with me,
if things go over it. It'sreally up to the client as to
how they want I'm supposed tomanage that budget, but
technically and legally. Be, ifit's if it's T and M and it's 2x

(40:04):
what I thought it was going tobe, I may be entitled to those
funds. I don't operate that way.
I try and manage the budget andlet my customers choose how they
want to spend their money. Buton on remodels of old homes, I
may budget for something that Ithink is going to take four days
and it takes 10 because we weopened up, and it's completely
different. So I don't, I'm justmanaging my budget every two

(40:27):
weeks and saying, Hey, like,this is where we stand. This is
what we're over. How do you wantto address this moving forward?
So my biggest thing is, like,again, I want to work hard. I
want to get paid for my time. Idon't want, I don't want to get
paid for more than my time. Sowhatever time and resources we
put into a job, you're going toreimburse me for them my markup,

(40:48):
and I'm not looking to make morethan that.
Yeah, dude, I think that'sthat's great. Do you think that,
like TNM builders, they can getinto a slippery slope, which is,
like, over billing, a lot ofwork, it's a lot of work. And
what, just, like, call tracking,tracking, yeah, yeah. And it's

(41:09):
the, I think it allowed, like Isaid, I could go to fixed costs
now, because I understand how totrack my costs and how to budget
and what, what I would with theability, what I would be able to
do now is have that veryexplicit scope to protect me. So
if it's not included in myscope, technically, I don't have

(41:33):
to do it where it's a changeorder. I have access to more
funds or more time, but it, Ithink where most people screw up
is they, they assume that T andM just means an open checkbook,
right where it's like, if itdoesn't matter if it was in my
scope or if it wasn't, if Ididn't properly communicate that

(41:53):
to my clients and then give themthe options or understand like
for, for example, I'm workingfor a friend of mine right now,
and what we assumed wasdifferent than what we ran into
legally, yeah, it's an opencheckbook. I could just keep
getting paid for it. Keepgetting paid for it, but if I
don't have the conversation withhim, a friend or a client, hey,
this is what we ran into. Thisis how much more it's going to

(42:17):
be. This is what was this wasnot included in that, and I just
keep doing it, and then I justinvoice for it, whether he's my
friend or a client. Yeah, I haveaccess. I'm entitled to that
money, but the person's notgoing to be happy. So, like, I
think that's what most people dowrong, is they, they aren't
managing the numbers closelyenough, or they're just letting

(42:40):
the jobs roll on and build andbuild and build and not
reflecting back on schedule,scope and budget to ensure that
all those things align, and thejob just gets way out of control
and costs way too much money. Soyeah, you knocked it out of the
park. The job is perfect, butyou also spent 50% more that the
client didn't realize until yourfinal bill. So I think that
that's the biggest issue, and Ithink a lot of cost, plus people

(43:03):
run into that too totally. Butthat's been the biggest
difference for me. It's given methe perspective and the insight
that I know immediately whenwe're over budget on any item,
and I can go to my clients andask them, How do you want to
proceed moving forward? You oweme in order to do this extra

(43:26):
work, it's going to cost thismuch. Do you want to dip into
contingency? Do you want to getmore money? Do you want to spend
more or do you want to reducescope on the back end, but at
the end of the day, I can't justdo it for free, which I used to
do for I mean, for 10 years Idid it totally
I mean, it just comes intoconversation, right? And

(43:48):
there's, like, certainlydocumentation, that's where I'm
curious. Like, how you do it youmentioned, takes a lot, it takes
a lot of work, but, like, itboils down to communication and
transparency and and even if youare, like, a fixed price
builder, I understand that,like, you're not sharing numbers
and you're going off of priceand everything's like, marked up
and baked in. The game is to,like, execute the work at an

(44:10):
efficient enough level you canreap higher margin, higher
reward, whatever. But when itcomes to tracking the stuff and
documenting and beingtransparent, whether it's TNM or
cost plus, what are you doing?
Like, how are you doing itsounds like a lot of
conversation, a lot ofconversation with the client.
But are you just, like, updatingExcel sheets?
Are you like, is this wherewe're like, I use adaptive you

(44:34):
don't. Yeah,you don't. That's why I'm
curious how you doit. That's why I stay small,
because the smaller I am, themore manageable it is, the less
I have to spend on software andall of these systems, and I can
guarantee that I'm making moneyevery single day. So like, I've
pushed my ego aside with enough,and I just this is where I want

(44:56):
to be. So I try. Track my costsdaily, just through like it
could be a spreadsheet for ajob, it could be a notes folder,
whatever it is. I invoicethrough an Excel budget, like,
so my invoice so I create abudget for a project. It has all
the line items for that project.

(45:16):
I create a scope, I create aschedule, and then when I go to
take a deposit for a job, or itcould be a deposit to secure my
spot in the schedule. But thenwhen I go to start a job, I'm
looking at my two weeks on thatproject that I'm going to have
the most money out, and I'msecuring funds to cover that,
plus some wiggle room. Sotypically for me, that's when

(45:39):
subs come in and it's not mywork. I'm self performing.
That's when I'm putting the mostmoney out. So I'll take when I
start the job. Day one I startthe job. I invoice every two
weeks. Day one I start that job.
I'm getting a check for my twoweeks of my highest exposure so
that I can cover whateverhappens in any two week
interval. Change orders, extrasaside, right? So day one, I have

(46:01):
my deposit from securing theschedule, but then also I'm
getting a check cut to me that'sgoing to cover any two week
period of my highest exposure.
So if I have a sub on day twothat comes in and he charges me
$3,000 I cut him a check for$3,000 and that's backed out
against the money that I took onday one. If I go to Home Depot

(46:24):
and I spend $363 that just getstracked, and that's backed out
of what I got paid. So at theend of my two weeks, I'm going
and I'm looking at whateverything costs for that two
weeks, just tracking it on anExcel spreadsheet, and that's
what my invoice is for. So thenit restores all of those funds

(46:44):
from day one when I got thatcheck. So I'm always ahead if
they're extras that gets paidwithin that two weeks. So I'm my
highest exposure is day nineworkday, or day 10 workday, the
second Friday where I have twoweeks worth of money that's gone
out, but I'm still not in thered at all because I took for my

(47:05):
highest exposure. So all I'mdoing is every two weeks, I'm
just tracking who worked for me,how many hours, what I paid
them, what all of my expenseswere for that project. If we use
stuff that was, you know,inventory that I had, how much
that cost, and thensubcontractors, and what I paid
them, materials, what gotspecial order, what I paid for

(47:28):
them. And then that's what I'minvoicing for. And then that's
restoring me back to day one.
So, like, it's pretty simple. Itjust would be more complicated
if I was running three fourjobs, or if I was depending on
other people to make sure thatthey were tracking their costs.
It's me buying everything. It'smy credit cards, that it's going
on, that I have a bookkeeper. Soit's pretty straightforward for

(47:50):
me. As far as invoicing andkeeping track of everything.
It's just not that difficultwith the amount of work that I
do totally and so and so you'rerunning one project at a time,
yeah, yeah. And how manyprojects
do you do a year? So I'm, Ithink I'm right now I'm like, a

(48:11):
bit of an anomaly, because Ihave so much of the social side
of things that it's not my fulltime job. But when it Yeah, like
it is. But I also have otherthings that I'm doing that
that's not the only way that Imake money. But when I did, I
might do three, four jobs ayear, but if you think about it,

(48:34):
if, if I'm making 40 to 45%margins, I don't need to sell
that much in a year, and Ibecause I can't, I only have so
many hours that I can make. Ionly have so many people who can
work for me that I'm makingmoney on. So I need to guarantee
that I'm getting paid for everysingle hour that I'm working.
Because when you're when you'reonly selling, you know, a

(48:56):
million dollars worth of work ina year or less, every hour that
you don't capture is severelyand significantly cutting into
your bottom line. So that's whyit's so critical for me to get
paid every single penny that Iput out and capture every single
hour that I work. So it mighthave been like three, four

(49:18):
bigger jobs in a year, and thenI always have fill in work for
return clients that I'm going itmight be two days here, three
days here, and it's the samething. I give them a budget for
a job, and then we just back outagainst that budget, the time
that we're putting into it andthe scope, and if something's
different, we charge more money.
Totally,totally. You're just running it
lean. You're just do it lean.

(49:42):
It's how many bills you get on aweekly basis from subs and
vendorswhen I'm in. So I self perform
so much that my subs aretypically and we do mostly
interior renovations. So it'snot, you know, I don't have
roofers ciders all the time. Sotypically, it's my. Electrician,
HVAC and plumber. So yeah, andthen like, yeah, I have some

(50:07):
specialty subs, but we're whenwe're self performing everything
else. I'm not cutting checks tosubs and vendors that much. So
it might be like, if it's akitchen remodel, it's my my
plumber and my electrician andmy countertop sub cabinets, I'm
a dealer for, so I'm buying andselling cabinets myself. So
there's three people that I'mcutting checks to. So it might

(50:29):
be they invoice me at roughinner template, and then they
invoice me at completion. So I'msaving myself all of that time
that I don't need. I don't needsomebody track my costs. I don't
need a secretary. I don't needsomebody to cut those checks
like it's all doable for metotally. And it's, it's built
into my rate, so my loaded laborrate captures all of the

(50:52):
downtime that that's required todo all of that. So another big
thing that I did when I went toTNM is I said I had this
realization I can't work 40hours a week with my belt on for
52 weeks a year, like there'sgoing to be downtime. I need to,

(51:13):
if I if I want to be on the job40 hours a week, I probably need
to work an additional day on theback end, on Office, on
scheduling, on securingmaterials, picking up all of
that. So when I came up with myloaded labor rate for myself, I
basically determined how manyhours I could work in a year,
which is around 2000 how muchmoney I wanted to make, what my

(51:36):
overhead is. And then instead ofhaving my hourly rate be based
on a 40 hour work week. I baseit on a 32 hour work week. So if
I only worked Monday throughThursday, and then I took Friday
to do all of my paperwork stuff,I'm actually capturing the rate
and getting paid for those extraeight hours, dude. So, like, my

(51:57):
rate's inflated. It's divided by1600 rather than 2000
Okay, well, a like, that'ssolid. But this goes back to
knowing your overhead, right?
Yeah, like, your overhead is youand, like, whatever low, right?
It's low. It's insurance, like,vehicles, it. But dude, and
that's even, like, when you'rethinking about, like, tracking

(52:18):
overhead, is it appropriate toput, like, weekends and holidays
in there. PTO,so that's where my loaded labor
rate, it's all in there, inthere. I'm 100%
but my point is, is, like, Ithink that's like, so assumed in
the business world, right? Whenyou're talking about, like,
burden cost and like, what doesit actually cost for an employee

(52:39):
or someone's time? Like, it'snot just the 50 bucks an hour,
right? To make 100 grand a yearat a 2000 hour working year,
right? It's 180 grand becauseyou've got insurance, you've got
time off, you've got benefits,you've got weekends, holidays,
all that stuff. And I thinkthat's like going back to just
again, applauding you for a likerunning a business is doing a

(53:02):
project at a time, three tofour, five a year, right? Making
a sweet margin. I don't know ifpeople are mathing out there,
but 35 40% margin on a millionbucks a year is pretty much 350
400 grand a year, right? That'swhat you want, right? That's
good. And the fact that you gotthrough all of this trial and

(53:23):
tribulation and also consideredthese components, that's, I
think, the story, know, yournumbers. That's what you preach
on your podcast at contractorcoalition. Some of all this
stuff is like, you've got to bethinking about not just how much
time does it take for me toframe a house, right? It's how
much time does it take for me toframe the house or line up the

(53:45):
subs, procure the work, get thematerials, take care of all the
stuff in the back end. And, hey,I might want a weekend off. I
might not want to do all thisstuff. I
get sick. You might get sick,you know, there might be rain.
Totally, your productivity mightbe less than what you
anticipated, totally I mean,yeah, so that's, that's what I

(54:06):
find that most people screw up,is that they just don't
understand the cost of doingbusiness, and they think that
more is is better, right? Forme, my model doesn't work if I
put two times that into place,because there's only one of me,
and I need to assume a lot ofcosts, and I can't operate as

(54:27):
lean as I am, and I have tocontinue to put more work in
place. And the amount of jobsthat I can sell at the price
point that I sell would bedifficult in my market to be
able to substantiate that amountof work with the team. So I have
to, I have to understand how Imake money and what makes me

(54:47):
money, and if I can shoot forthose, those margins, at the end
of the day, it doesn't makesense for me to put more work in
place. It would cost me money.
It would cost me time. It wouldcost me cost. Me lifestyle,
which I'm just at this point,I'm not willing to do. So it
doesn't, it doesn't make sense,and I'm not if I can do this in
my market, I think a lot ofpeople can do it, and it's not,

(55:13):
it's not everywhere. But ifyou're near a major city and
there's people who want thingsdone the right way. There's
there's ways that you canoperate your business to make
sure that you're getting paidfor it, but it takes time, and
it takes confidence, and ittakes understanding your
numbers. Like you said foryears, I didn't overhead and all

(55:34):
that, that stuff's all simple.
Like for me, it's simple. It'snot that hard. You can sit down
and figure out what youroverhead is in short time. You
can figure out, you know, whatyour revenue potentially can be.
You can figure out what yourprofit should be based on that.
It's that, to me, is so easy todo. The harder part is make sure

(56:00):
that what you're budgeting andwhat you're putting in place are
the same thing, like budgeting,what do you mean? Like, what
you're budgeting for a project,and then what you're actually
putting into that project, asfar as resources go, totally
making sure that they're thesame. And for me, that's where I
lost all of my money. My numberswere all right, what I could get

(56:22):
for that job was great, right? Ican't charge much more than I am
for those jobs, but I can putless time into them. So, like,
that's how I ended up makingmoney. It wasn't like, oh, yeah,
well, if I sell a kitchen for200 grand, I need to sell it at
250 grand. It's like, No, I haveto find a way to execute that
kitchen faster with reasonableresults, and I can't spend the

(56:47):
amount of hours that it wouldrequire of a $250,000 kitchen,
so I had to, I had to look inthe mirror and understand that,
like my ego was preventing mefrom being profitable.
That's the Mic drop. Dude. Thatwas, um, I do you think it could

(57:08):
get any simpler for like, thelistener? Like, let's say they
they tune into this episode.
They want to hear how TylerGrace runs business. Cool story.
Guys, obviously doing somethingright? Do you think it get any
simpler than that is a take thetime to understand your
overhead, your revenue, yournet, your profit, and then make
sure that what you're budgetingis actually what it's going to

(57:30):
take to hit those numbers.
Yeah, just track your costs on adaily basis. Right for me, and
like, I have a ton of people whocall me and they'll hop on a
consulting call with me, andit's like smaller contractors.
And how do you operate, andwhat's your business look like,
and what's your model look like?
And the biggest thing for me iscreate a very, very

(57:50):
comprehensive budget, create avery comprehensive scope and a
comprehensive schedule beforeyou do a job. And this is why I
say I could do fixed cost nowthat I understand how to do
this. And then when you go tostart that job, track your cost
every single day, track theamount of time that you're
putting into each one of thosetasks, and make sure that if you

(58:12):
only allocated four days fordrywall, that you don't spend
more than four days on drywall,right? But everyone is doing too
much work and trying to growmore, and they think that more
revenue is going to make themmore money, and they're not
realizing that they're puttingsix days worth of time into it,
and it's it's costing themmoney. So you either need to

(58:32):
charge more, you need to get adifferent team, or you need to
build efficiencies within yourprocess that allow you to hit
those numbers. So it's as simpleas creating, create that roadmap
and that foundation, and thenfollow it when you go to do the
job. And, yeah, you can't belike, Well, I only said two
days. I'm just going to slapthis paint if it's going to look
like shit. No, if you just, ifyou if there was an egregious

(58:55):
omission on your part, as far asbudget, learn from it, and then
make it up somewhere else on thejob, like build efficiencies
elsewhere on the job, so it'snot costing you money. And to
me, that's the simplest thing.
Just have have the work and theresources that you put in place
match the budget that youdeveloped. And if there's things

(59:17):
that you have to do for that jobthat are outside of your scope,
your budget, your schedule. It'sa change order. Yeah, to me that
it's as simple as it can get.
But people cannot slow down forlong enough to realize that
they're putting work into placethat's not equitable for them or
their business. Yeah, at leastthat was my experience,

(59:41):
dude, I know I I completelyagree. I just got, I just had
another podcast with a businesscoach out of Canada, and we
talked about this. It's likepeople try scaling these
businesses, and they don't evenknow what their product is, that
they're scaling like they don'tknow the numbers on the product
they're trying to scale. They'rejust. At this and they're going,
I did. I can do five remodels ayear, and I'm gonna step out and

(01:00:05):
do a spec home so I can get anew construction and I'm gonna
do two new builds a year, andstart like, getting rid of my
remodels. Meanwhile, youprobably weren't making money on
your remodels. Now you'regetting into a totally new beast
with new construction, droppingyour margin opportunity, running
a much leaner margin game. Andthen you're like, my path to
money is to do five a year, 10 ayear, and you don't even know

(01:00:27):
what one of them costs, letalone what the remodels were
that you were doing five yearsago. It's like, what? What are
you if you don't know whatyou're scaling, why are you
trying to scale?
Yeah, and like, you just youhave to know where you live in
business. And I so I know that Ican't go price a new
construction house that costs $2million at a 35% markup, because

(01:00:50):
people would laugh at me, right?
Those builders are operatingwith a much tighter margins than
I am. So I understand I'm notgoing to be in the $500,000 job
range, because those companiesare built on the foundation of
much smaller markups leading tomuch smaller margins, because
they're putting much more workin a place. So I have to

(01:01:12):
understand that if I put myselfin that boat and I'm competing
with people in that boat, that Ihave to be I have to drop my
markups. I have to be morecompetitive. I have to have the
optics of being in the 12 to 20%range, because most of those
contractors are fixed cost orcost plus where they're living

(01:01:33):
in that range. But like, I knowthat I don't make money in that
range. So why would I jump upand try and do jobs that are
$500,000 plus when they don'tlead to the numbers that I need
to survive? So that's what likeyou're saying. You might like
going to spec or doing 2x theamount of work if you're not

(01:01:55):
profitable right now. Why do youthink 2x is going to make you
more money? It's just going tomake your headaches go to 2x and
you're going to be losing moremoney, and you probably don't
have the systems in placeanyway. So just understanding
where you live in business andwhat makes you money, and why
your numbers are where they are,and how the more you do, you

(01:02:18):
have to be more competitive, andyou have to have lower markups.
And if you're not doing thesales volume to support that,
you're just screwing yourselftotally, totally noted. That's a
thank you for coming on thepodcast, and that's why I wanted
you here, because I think you alike, obviously have like, a

(01:02:40):
very committed following withNick on modern craftsman, as
well as your own personalfollowing. But I think your
story needed highlighted becauseof how you view business, it is
so easy for the majority ofbuilders to look out at who the
big like builders are. And Iwant to go and do this big
luxury, and no knock to the guysthat do it. It's incredible.

(01:03:01):
It's incredible work, and theyrun hell of business on it. But
it doesn't always have to bethat way. It's like, correct?
You need to look at like, whatare we doing this for? It's to
make money. If you're running abusiness, it's to make money.
That doesn't mean you got to bemoney hungry. You don't get to
run out there and do it. Ofcourse. You want to deliver a
quality product, and you want tostand by your work. You build a
reputation, impact a reputation,impact a community, do all those

(01:03:22):
things, but it's not a charity.
It's a freaking business. You'rehere to make money at it. And if
you're like, trying to idolizethese big, huge construction
companies, you're going to be,you're going to be a stat. Yeah,
I don't know why I lost my trainof thought on stat, but you're
gonna be stat, there's so manybuilders, dude, during covid,

(01:03:45):
the number of people that sawthese killer interest rates just
tank, and everyone was buildinghouses, and they'd go double
their top line, and they'd workat it for 1218, 24, months and
come back just totally scorn,like, Dude, I just busted my
ass. I did three times the work,and I made a fraction of what I
made at the lower volume.
There's no way I'm gonna do thatagain. Fire the team, cut my
costs, get rid of I'm neverdoing this again. And it's like,

(01:04:08):
well, wait a minute, like, didyou ever really know what you
were making on your jobs? Or didthat opportunity, just like,
flare up the reality that youprobably weren't tracking what
you needed to and you didn'thave the processes and systems
to sustain that type ofgrowth, yeah, and it's some it's
so much more important thesmaller you are, to ensure that
you're getting paid for yourtime, right? If, even if I were

(01:04:31):
making $300,000 a year, if Iweren't being honest with
myself, and I was working 3000hours like that's a much
different story than me working1600 and making even if I'm
making $150,000 there's a bigdifference between working 1600
hours making that and working3200 hours making that and for a

(01:04:57):
long. Time, I never was honestwith myself to say, yeah, it's
the numbers look good. Likethat's a big number for working
with my hands. But when Iactually realized that I was
working 3000 hours to make that4000 hours to make that, it's

(01:05:18):
like, I might as well just gocollect shopping carts at Home
Depot, because the rate isprobably better. And like, I
think a lot of people justaren't honest with themselves
when it comes to that, you know,with with what I experienced,
and getting sick and overworkingmyself and just putting work in
place, that was not equitable. Iknew that I had to make a

(01:05:41):
massive change, not only in myin my business, but in my life.
And this, this, I still amliving and abiding by that motto
that I really, I think,developed when I first started
my business that I want to workhard and I want to get paid for

(01:06:01):
my time, and that's it. And foryears, I didn't get paid for my
time, and I still stand by that,right? I just I want to get paid
for every hour I put into yourjob. And I don't want more than
that, but I sure as hell don'twant less than that anymore,
totally. And that, to me, hasbeen the secret sauce, and
there's a million ways to dothat, but yeah, it's for me, the

(01:06:23):
simple, the simple, the simplerbusiness, the simpler life, the
better. It just leads to betterthings for me. And I realized
that most of the contractors outthere are like me. They're the
size of me. They do the type ofjobs that I do. I think that a
lot of what people see online isa small percentage of what the

(01:06:47):
actual industry has the capacityfor. So I realized that I don't
I shouldn't be ashamed of this.
I shouldn't be ashamed that, youknow, I might do a kitchen
remodel and then the deck that Ishould be a sounding board. I
should be somebody who'ssupporting other people who want

(01:07:07):
to understand how to make moneyby being small and by being a
contractor and wearing the belt.
And when I owned that, and whenI started recording my midweeks
and focusing on how to create amore sustainable business model
for belt on contractors. I feellike my world opened up and I
just own that. And I was like,this is, this is who I am. I
don't want to grow bigger thanthis. I don't want to be

(01:07:29):
building 20,000 square foothomes. And I want to, I want to
make money doing this. How can Ido that? And how can I teach
other people to do that? That'sawesome. I love that. I love
that. And you said that youfound that with your midweeks,
like, and because you starteddoing your midweeks, like, two
years ago, a year and a half,yeah, I think so right around
there, that's awesome, dude,just as of recently, you're

(01:07:52):
like, a butterfly, yeah, thecocoon. You're just crying now
you're just monarching. You'renot even, you're monarching,
dude, exactly. And that, that's,that's been, that's what I
think, that if I, if I can hangmy hat on anything, it's that
I'm monarching, right? You'remonarching. Dude, no, it, it's

(01:08:16):
been an interesting path, andthere's been so much self
discovery throughout this, andI've just realized that, like,
there's so many people in myposition that are just killing
themselves to try and make $1and they're not getting paid for
their time off. They're notgetting paid for retirement, and
they're like all my customersget paid for every hour they

(01:08:40):
work. Why am I working for themand not doing that totally so it
it has been. It's been aninteresting journey the past
couple years, and a lot of selfdiscovery and just analysis and
inventorying myself and mybusiness. And then as as I come
across those findings, justsharing it with other people,

(01:09:02):
and I think, I think it's beensuper helpful for myself, and I
hope helpful for other people,dude, I I think the self
awareness is huge. And I wouldsay that's one thing, like,
after kind of hearing your storyis like, you're pretty self
aware guy, and it sounds likeyou have been for a while, like
you've known what you wanted todo and what you haven't wanted
to do, and you've stayed verytrue to it. That's not to say

(01:09:24):
that you didn't get burned,because you certainly did, and
you certainly, like, ran in thewrong direction for quite a
while, but now you're just like,Dude, this is the way that it's
done. This is the way that I'mdoing it, and I think that
there's a greater populationthat should feel supported in
doing it, so I apologize, dude.
It comes down to being confidentin yourself and in your

(01:09:48):
business, and I don't think, Ithink I was trying to convince
people for a really long timethat my model made sense, and I
was trying to convince myclients that it made sense. And
the more that I've inventoriedmyself, and that that that self
awareness, that self discovery,has enlightened me to what

(01:10:09):
actually works and what doesn'twork, and understanding my
numbers and understanding mybusiness, and that has created a
lot of confidence with me, whereit's like, you don't have to
hire me. You can absolutely hiresomebody else. This is what I do
well. This is what I don't dowell. And I'm not trying to
compete really, with anyone. I'mnot trying to compete with

(01:10:30):
bigger companies like this iswhat I offer. This is how I can
serve you. And if, if I can'tmeet your needs, then you
probably should go with somebodyelse. And I think that that has
been critical for my success,from a business perspective, a
life perspective, podcastperspective, all of those things
like, I'm not going to pleaseeveryone. What I do may not be

(01:10:52):
right for you, but I can sharethat with you, and I can share
my experience withyou. Yeah. Totally, totally,
dude. I love it.
Appreciate it. Maybe you come.
You could start your own companynow.
Yeah, dude, why not? You know,what do they call it? Fiddler,
f, i, d, l, a, r, fuck it. Dog.
Life's a risk,right? Is that I never heard of

(01:11:13):
that. I like that, though,fiddler, bro, fuck it. Dog,
guy, I, I,I try and keep things as simple
as possible. I just, I'verealized that life is very
short. Business is very youknow, it your clients can be
very fickle. I put, I put myclients before my own health
before my own family. I putserving people and making people

(01:11:37):
happy above all else in my lifefor so long that I'm just at the
point where I'm like, I'm notdoing that anymore. Yeah? Nice.
Yeah. When I was honest withmyself, and I looked myself in
the mirror and said, this isn'tworking, how could I make a
change? And when I started doingthat, it just it did. It opened
up the doors for a lot ofopportunity, and it's been, it's
been so much more enjoyable andless stressful. I have a better

(01:12:02):
a better business now, a betterlife. I'm a better father,
better husband. It just there'sa lot of things that it has
fixed or enhanced, that whenthings weren't working, like
life was really stressful andreally chaotic and really
challenging, and there are a lotof days where I'm like, I don't
want to be in this businessanymore. It just doesn't make

(01:12:23):
sense. And it's not like thatanymore. Sure, I have my days
where it's like, this sucks. Idon't want to be doing this.
There's a pain in the ass. Butlike, at the end of the day, I'm
getting paid for it. Yeah,totally can't complain.
It works. It's worth it, if youfound a way to make it worth it.
And it sounds like to, like,regain the appreciation and the

(01:12:46):
excitement to what it is, yeah.
Again, going back to your selfawareness, like you knew what
you wanted to do. You wanted todeliver a quality product you
were, you were like, you've got,like, this, like, almost like
Midwestern like, perspective ofjust like, I'm just gonna work
my ass off and I'll get paid,what I get paid? Yeah,
yeah. But it That to me waslike, this the selling point,

(01:13:08):
right? That, yeah, that was whatI always wanted. And I thought
that's where I could, I couldprovide value, but I realized
that there, there's a lot ofopportunities to provide value
elsewhere, where, yeah, I'mstill gonna get paid my rate,
but I can create a lot of valuefor you in that rate, and I'm
not gonna concede my time. Yeah,totally, I love it, dude. Well,

(01:13:29):
I appreciate you jumping on, Iguess, about like 20 minutes
ago, again, the good oldMidwestern goodbye, yeah, man,
but yeah, I really do. Iappreciate you. Go ahead. We're
gonna say, No, I appreciate youhaving me. I know it took a
little bit time to get on here,but did you get a lot going on?
You're fine. Appreciate, Iappreciate you taking the time

(01:13:50):
to have me on. You know, tell mystory. Who I am, dude, I
love it. I think it's great. Ithink, I think, I think the
listeners are gonna get a lot ofvalue out of this. Have you ever
done this before, like, tell,told your story from this side
of the mic.
It's It's funny that you saythat because I just sent Nick a

(01:14:11):
podcast structure or format thatI want to record something with
him and I separately, where it'sjust like, who we are, how we
got here, what our path lookslike. So I've done it in bits
and pieces, but it's tough,because you forget where people
come in during the journey.
Right? We have people who havefollowed us from the outset, who

(01:14:32):
know everything, or may haveforgotten about things. There's
people who follow you along thejourney, and not everyone is
there for the whole story. So Ithink it's important to circle
back and to tell people who youare and why you do things and
what makes you who you are. Itcomes down to what we were
talking about at the beginningof this conversation, where I

(01:14:55):
know that I have uniqueperspective. Perspective of life
through my own lens. And I thinkI've gone through shit that some
people have, some peoplehaven't, but I can provide
insight that's unique to me,that somebody else may be able
to take something away from sowhether it whether it's my
story, whether it's a similaritythat they are brought up, they

(01:15:17):
didn't know what they wanted todo, that they struggled with
figuring out what they want todo for their whole life that
they struggled with capturingtime, whatever it may be, I have
unique insight, and it's not thebest insight, it's not the only
insight. I'm not telling youthat you have to do things my
way, but I think that there,there's value in telling your
story and being honest and beingopen and being vulnerable about

(01:15:39):
where you screwed shit up andhow you weren't doing things
right, and how you grew fromthat. So I appreciate the
opportunity to do that. It'sprobably been done in bits and
pieces and here and there, butI'm not although I host a
podcast and I have a socialmedia following, and I'm very

(01:16:00):
public facing in our industry. Idon't typically get on and talk
about myself. Dida hell of a job. Appreciate it.
It really is. It's a greatstory. And I guess it's a
perspective that needs shared toyour point. It's the I think
it's more of like theidentifying right people, being
able they can identify withvulnerable perspectives, right?

(01:16:22):
Because there's really, there'snot like, any an agenda to push.
There's no like, this is the wayit has to be done. It's the,
this is what I've found work.
And there's a lot that comeswith it. And I think that's
where the greater community getsvalue. It's like, Yeah, this is
just Tyler grace, like, you see,you've been listening to him for
years with Nick Schiffer. You'vebeen following on Instagram. You

(01:16:45):
like this celebrity guy, whichyou are a celeb lab, bro, you're
an influencer. Um, but dude,you're a great dude. You got it
like a very real, viable story,like your old man was just
running on equity in a dream.
And just like trying to patch ittogether. And you learned,
leaned into it, and you found,like, Hey, I like this. I don't
like how that works. Dropped outof college, get into it. Like,

(01:17:05):
get back into construction,finish your degree, lose your
ass, anaphylactic shock, like,twice. Like, pull out of the
trenches, start making ithappen. Wife loves you. Kids
love you. You love you. It'sgreat if I
can do if I can do it, anyonecan do it, I promise you.