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August 26, 2025 74 mins

Adam Copenhaver shares how Cope Grand scaled from small cottages to ultra-luxury builds in Charleston by systematizing pre-construction, translating “ankle-grabber” chaos into clear scopes, and making budgets readable to clients. He dives into cost code organization, lessons from the COVID lumber spike, working with owner’s reps, and how he uses Buildertrend to keep accountability visible.

https://www.copegrandhomes.com

Show Notes:

0:00 What we’re tackling today
4:15 How high-end builds work in Charleston
13:26 Making budgets clients can actually read
18:12 Cost-plus explained and where it wins
32:06 Fixed fee vs cost plus, what you really pay
37:55 When an owner’s rep actually helps
40:29 How we show receipts and progress
54:12 Markup vs margin in plain English
58:00 Change orders without the drama
1:01:04 Choosing work that actually fits us
1:07:19 Wrap up and next steps

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
100% every builder is going togo through an evolution, a

(00:03):
learning curve of fiscalresponsibility.
Mics are hot. We're live. Well,I guess not live, but we're
recording. Adam. Appreciate youcoming
on the show, dude, yeah. Well,my pleasure. You know, you and I

(00:26):
have got a rich historytogether, and I expect the
conversation, as it usually is,to be very
rich, very rich, warm, easy,conversational,
no doubt, yeah, with a littlebeard, you know, massage in
there, beard, tug, that sort ofthing too.
That's right, that's right. Youknow, the beard gets a lot of
attention. I'm starting tothink, like, I don't think I

(00:49):
could shaveit if I wanted to. Yeah, huh?
That's part of your avatar. Nowyou can't get rid of
it. Yeah, it's like, kind of apart of the brand. Not to say
that I would shave it. I mean,I've had a beard for like, 1015,
years. As long as I could have abeard. So anyways, enough about
beard. Time,15 years. Yeah, I would imagine
you started growing one aroundthe age of 12. Yeah, is that
right?

(01:12):
Okay, I'm 30. I started prettydamn close. I started growing
fish, yeah, about 1516 right?
There. It wasn't anything towrite home about, by any means.
I started with goatee, right?
Got plenty of sunshine,committed to the process. And,
you know, over the next fewyears, it flourished into a
beard. Is that partof the process you need? You
need sunshine, run your skin togrow facial

(01:32):
hair. A lot of sunshine, lot offertilizer. You got to really
make sure that, you know, itcomes in thick. I always, you
know, when people do ask aboutthe beard. Like, great beard.
I'm like, Okay, sweet. Noteveryone can grow a beard, but
you really need to commit to it.
And I always say, give yourselfa canvas, grow it out longer
than you want to, and then go toa barber and have someone cut it
into something, and then grow itlonger than you want to, and

(01:57):
then have them trim it, andyou'll have a beard in no time.
It's a, yeah, it's a process.
Thing, sunshine and fertilizer,miracle, grow aside. It's pretty
easyprocess. I would not have, would
not have figured out that itwas, or, you know, imagine that
it was that in depth of aprocess and a plan. But I do
like it. You know, we'reprobably gonna talk a lot about

(02:17):
processes today, so I dig theintentionality of it. I just
can't grow it right there. Yeah,dude, everyone talks about these
patches, or, like, the gaps, orwhatever do. My cheeks are as
patchy as they come, but you gotto grow it out. You got to grow
it out and let the barber dotheir thing and blend it in and
everything looks good. Don't,don't write it off. Adam, don't

(02:38):
write it off. You with a beardwould be just fucking
incredible.
Yeah. You know, I feel like Icould probably say that if it
was a Midwesterner, ruralAmerica, maybe Boston. But there
are certain places in thecountry where I think, and this
is nothing that maybe this istotally
off topic, but we're fine keepgoing. We

(03:01):
do we expect that my builder,Bob the Builder, do we expect
him to have a beard and notexpect him to have a beard? I
mean, certainly in everythingthat we do, we think about how,
how we want to presentourselves, to reflect the work
that we do, I would expect youto be an awesome builder, by the
way. Yeah, yeah. Well, your namenot to be raised, but Bob, but

(03:22):
Bob the Builder with a beard,correct? I feel like it was just
like a shoe in like, I don'tknow why you're doing what you
do. You might as well be a Bobthe Builder. Yeah.
Well, the reason I'm not, Imean, I grew up with a home
builder, and it was a lot ofscreeding concrete demolition,
like doing just like stuffaround the job site, and it just
didn't click for me. That wasn'tmy jam. I wasn't I wasn't trying

(03:45):
to figure out, like, how can Iget couldn't finish carpentry
or, like, super fascinated withframing or roofing. I was like,
how fast can I get out of thesituation? But I do have a
massive empathy for the fineAmerican contractor, and I have
found my angle to support them,even though it's not with a
hammer, it is with solutions.
So, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's,you know, it kind of comes with

(04:09):
the territory. I think you'relooking too much into this, like
regional beard concept. I think,I think, you know, Charleston,
South Carolina, would welcome abeard. For sure. That's just my
take. Though, we can agree todisagree. We can agree. I,
I, I'm all into inclusion. Alleverybody, okay, cool. Well

(04:31):
enough of this rant. Adam, let'sget the listeners a little
background on yourself. Tellthem who you are, what you and
your brother have built, whatyou guys are doing.
All right, yeah, hey, man, hey,thank you for mentioning Ben.
Ben's not on here today with us,but he is a man. Ben and I are

(04:52):
twins. We are birthed in thesame day together. We grew up
together. We share, well, wejust share the same. Same
upbringing, a lot of the sameinterests, and I think that we
click extremely well in thebusiness that we're in here in
Charleston, South Carolina,building some of the most Bad to
the Bone projects and mostwonderful clients. And we've,

(05:16):
we've had an advantage, frankly,because we are twin brothers,
and we do help each other andsupport each other, and we we
operate on the same wavelength,and we operate with the same
mission and core values. Andwhen you're in alignment like
with somebody like that, youreally do have an opportunity to
generate momentum and get on ahyperbolic, rather than linear

(05:39):
curve, growth curve, what you'reable to accomplish together. So
that's been great. Ben and Ihave had a lot of fun doing what
we do. But it also wouldn't be,wouldn't be, without giving
credit to the entire team thatwe built, too. So here in
Charleston, you know, we justgot a rock star Dream Team. I
mean, it's on our T shirts,Dream Team, Charleston. I don't

(06:01):
think we can officiallytrademark that, but yeah, that's
what we call ourselves. We referto ourselves as professionals,
Dream Team, Charleston, bad tothe bone, other things that
encompass just people that lovewhat they do and operate at the
highest leveltotally. I know I love it, and
you have always been like a,like, massively complimentary

(06:22):
towards your team. You havealways been like a team first
leader, which I've alwaysrespected. And that's, I think,
frankly, why I've been, like,drawn to you and your team so
much is because you guys arerunning a really polished
operation. And I talked to a lotof builders, so kudos to you
guys. But with that said, Imean, I think even just for
like, the sake of the listeners,they could look at cope grand

(06:42):
they could look at the homes andthe product that you're
building, and they wouldcertainly agree that they are
bad to the bone, like you guysare building some very high end,
very luxury, very disruptiveproduct. And I think I just did
a podcast the other day with abuilder who's focusing on like,
like entry level homes, likefirst time home buyer product,
anywhere from like a 250,000 toa $400,000 a year product, or

(07:04):
unit product. And TupeloMississippi and we opened this
conversation up that it's likeit can seem like intimidating,
or like everyone has to drive inthat direction. How did you and
Ben and the team get to buildingthe level of product that you
are.
Ah, yeah, that's a goodquestion. One home, one step,

(07:31):
one continued conversation ofbetter and our best every day.
And so I still remember, Iremember our first projects. I
remember our first house.
Remember our first renovation.
What was it? And the first housewas a, was a $600,000 which,

(07:52):
that's a high end house when wefirst started building. That's
and what was this? How long agowas this? Almost? Almost 10
years ago now. Okay, 15 and thatwas the first one. It Sean and
Susan payment, love you guysright here. They're incredible
retired attorney, and they justreally great clients to have,

(08:15):
particularly in our first house.
Remember the second one? ThomasFinucane, you guys, the
finikins, are incredible. I justran out run into them on the
boat randomly with Mike Weaver,which is a mutual contact sound.
We go to the beach on the boatbecause I'm giving them the
experience of Charleston and andthey're our second clients that
we've got a house for, which wasthe fanucans, and it's just so

(08:37):
grace to be in their warmembrace. But there are projects
in there. So those are in the600 levels, but there's
renovations. There are smallerhouses. I remember building our
smallest house was about 700square feet. Built it for 200
some $1,000 it was a twobedroom, one bath, family room,
kitchen, completely hurricaneesque. Proof. You know, very

(08:59):
much high quality poem. And thenI remember going into the
million mark, and I was like,holy smokes, we're building
million dollar houses now. Andthen I remember the $2 million
houses and the three and thefour and the five, and now we're
topping near 10. And I say thatvery humbly to say it took an
incredible amount of hard work,and it took a lot of hard work

(09:19):
from not myself, but doubled upupon Ben, and then just
commitment, tireless andrelentless commitment from our
team to be able to earn thoseopportunities, to be able to do
so. And you you can't just gofrom one to 10. You really do
need to make those incrementalsteps to go to build those
projects to be able to build themuscles, to build the processes,

(09:41):
to build the systems, to buildthe protection devices for your
clients at each incrementalhigher level, because the higher
that you go, the more the riskon those projects, the more the
liability and and it cancollapse and fall down. Really.
Easily on yourself, if you'renot prepared and you don't have
the muscle to be able to drivethrough and provide the level of

(10:04):
service and quality that thoseprojects do require
totally well. And you talkedabout like, like, I'm not going
to call it the obvious, butprobably like, the comment that
gets made the most is like, theamount of hard work that goes
into it. And you talk a lotabout, like, the effort that
goes into it, the incrementalsteps, the learning, the process

(10:26):
development, the insulation fromrisk and liability, all that
stuff. I can't imagine thatyou're just like, you just get
done with a $500,000 home. Yougot a $750,000 home in the
pipeline, and you're all excitedabout it, you go, we should
really start building processes.
And actually, it was, youcorrect me if I'm wrong. But
what were some of those hardearned lessons that you guys

(10:48):
came across that prompted you tolean more into the process,
development, the insulation, andthen ultimately building
yourselves to a position to beable to take on these much
larger projects? Yeah,I think that is, I think that's
a really good question andrealization that, you know, on
the organic growth map. And I dothink that organizations and

(11:10):
people grow at differentdifferent paces, right? And most
of that evolution, or most ofthat growth, is through their
unique learning opportunities,their unique experience. And in
the beginning, I've got to saythat Ben and I were actually
after a volume. I remember myvision board. I remember how
many homes I wanted to build ina year. It was 16. I thought

(11:32):
that if I got 16, that I wouldmeet my financial goals. And
those sort of things we did, wedid just about get there and and
then we pulled back. And thereason people back is because
obviously, your goals changeafter you learn more and, and we
shifted gears from not wantingto do volume, we figured out

(11:52):
that our skill set was betteraligned to provide customer
service to discerning clients,no matter what price point that
they're at, right, but we wereno longer after that volume. But
the benefit of going to thatthat volume experience was it
allowed us to experience andlearn quicker than we would have

(12:13):
otherwise ever done. Love it.
Imagine building one or twohouses a year versus building
that we were up to, you know,having 12 projects going on at
one time years ago. We learnedso quick, and we learned well,
and we are very good at justtaking those learning was

(12:33):
learning moments and put theminto a, what we call processes,
systems and processes so that wecan create repeatable systems
with predictable results fromthat those beautiful thing
happens, where chaos isprobably, although maybe not
always defined that way bybuilders. It's the biggest
stressor that any builder has isthis thing that comes in, what I

(12:57):
call ankle grabbers, and createschaos. And you're like, how do
you figure all this stuff out?
You know, how do I keep onfalling in these pitfalls? Why
do I keep on getting my ankletripped up each of those moments
that we found doing volume, weput into our custom process, and
we made sure that a lot of thosemistakes are mitigated, vetted
out, and we're not experiencingthem anymore. We are in this

(13:17):
unique, you know, industry, andparticularly here in Charleston,
what we're doing is buildingwe're doing is building every
unique house. Each one is uniqueand to a unique client with any
budget and unique location. Soevery single one is different.
It's not like we've planned, youknow, home Plan A, B and C, and
we've done each of those homes100 times, and we know exactly

(13:38):
what to expect. So that's alsothe unique challenge and what
drives us. Because if I was justbuilding plan A, B or C over and
over again, my brain wouldprobably dismiss myself from it.
I would totally wouldn't beengaged in it. I wouldn't be
excited about the growth anddoing this next one and doing
that one and doing it better,because we probably would have

(13:59):
figured it out pretty damnquickly. Okay, damn
quickly. Totally like, andthat's a, that's a great answer.
I mean, it's a culmination ofthings in your comment, of like,
just getting the repetition andthe volume of units that you
were building, the projects thatyou were doing. I think that's
great. I mean, I we see it overat adaptive. We see it. I saw it
in other parts of my career. Islike, you need at bats, right?

(14:21):
You need at bats. You need to,like experience the process
until you can start making theprocess better. What were like,
tactically, like, dust off thecobwebs, dig back, what were
some of the biggest learningcurves, or, I guess, like ankle
grabbers, as you call them,yeah, when you were building it

(14:41):
volume, that just, like, totallystood out. You're like, damn, I
wish you would have done thatbetter, or you applied it. And
you're like, we're totallybuilding a process around this
to prevent it from happeningagain. I'm putting
you on the spot, but you cantake a minute think about, yeah,
there's, you know,what I'm thinking about and
laughing about is, there's many.
Things. But I think the mostmeaningful one, maybe for our

(15:03):
audience, is the opportunity tohave a very accurate and
detailed expectation of thefinancial performance of the
project. Okay, totally makingyou know, if you're moving at 12
different custom homes a year,there's going to be some level

(15:27):
of assumptions that you'remaking. And you know, especially
with a smaller team, so tospeak, we've got it. We've got a
bigger team. And one of theassets of one of the features of
a bigger team is we get to getinto the details and figure
things out in pre construction.
We are not a one man show with apickup truck that. Well, I've
done this 100 times. I can do itagain, and you make assumptions

(15:49):
like that, and that's okay,completely okay. There's a
different level of service thatdifferent level of clients are
looking for. When Ben and I wereyounger in cope grand, we were
setting up budgets on, you know,first, you know, call it the
yellow pad, and then Excel, andthen we quickly found builder
trend. But even in builder trendas a job costing software

(16:10):
platform, you can still take theeasy way out. You can still have
a budget that has 20 items todescribe the full scope of
construction of a house withjust bigger buckets and buckets
that maybe don't include a lotof detail. That's not what our
estimates and our proposals looklike. How many line items are

(16:33):
you runningin between, depending on the
project? In between 60 and 80.
Beautiful. Okay, I'm glad youdidn't throw like 202 50 years.
We did. We actually, I wentthrough a phase of, okay, we got
to track this. In order to trackit, we got to measure it. So we

(16:54):
need to be extremely detailed.
And what I figured out, and I'llgive an example of that, we used
to do rough plumbing, finishedplumbing. That's pretty easy,
right? Those are just two items.
We figured out that thereactually is confusion and chaos
with more options. So totallythe project managers would get

(17:16):
confused. Of okay, from anestimation standpoint, we've got
250 line items. Well, which onedo I code CMU block to totally
in addition to that, it's likeyou broke out the CMU block, you
broke out the mortar, you brokeout the labor, you broke out the
rebar, you broke out the block,fill the stucco. In reality,
it's getting done by all thesame contractor, or two

(17:38):
contractors, and then when theirinvoice comes in, you're like,
how do I split this up intothese cost codes that they were
budgeted for? So there is chaosif you if you try to get too
detailed, and so we've just gotvery specific on the scopes of
the work. And frankly, it's bywhich invoices are we receiving
and what scopes of work are inthose invoices. That's how our

(18:00):
budgets are set up. That islove. Go ahead,
yeah, so it's just given, Ithink it's given the appropriate
amount of detail and given theefficiency in now that we're
also running, you know, foryears now, running cost plus
budgets, man, you want to try toconfuse a client,

(18:20):
yeah? Throw a bunch of CostCodes on a cost plus
budget, totally liability. Youwant to create a bad
relationship, to be unorganizedon a cost plus budget, try that
out.
Totally, totally well. And Ithink, like, even more so, like,
whether it's a client or it's anemployee or whatever, or even
just, like, reflective on aproject, and how do we do? Like,
you've got to remember that thecost code needs to be telling a

(18:42):
meaningful story, right? And themore that you add to it, it
dilutes that story that youcould potentially be telling.
And when you to your point of,like, adding, I can't remember
the phrase you had, it was like,when you when you add volume of
cost codes, it creates confusionsomething along those lines,
which is accurate. Butbasically, if you do that,
you're by default with theconfusion not using Cost Codes

(19:07):
appropriately. You could bebucketing stuff in the wrong
area. And then when you'relooking at your historics, and
you're running estimates andbidding and stuff in the
background, and you're lookingat pre con, like, how could we
be running this better? You lookat this big, diluted list of
cost codes that don't meananything, it's like, we don't
need to track the two by fourwhat we should be tracking,
framing, right? And then we cango back on our historicals, and
we can look and it's like wejust did a 6000 square foot

(19:29):
home. It's effectively the sameproduct as what we had done
here. This is what we can lookat from a job costing
standpoint. That's the entireintention of it on that thought,
I'm curious, have you? Was thereever a point when it comes to
because you'd mentioned that youwent that you went to that level
before, like, the tons of costcodes we got to track
everything? Was there ever apoint where you guys almost

(19:50):
like, lost control on thisthing, or you almost like you
almost thought you were going tolose a big project, or, like,
the business was going to gosouth, type of situation?
Uh, losing control, or businesscoin cell. No, that might

(20:13):
sound come on. There was a timeAdam was there. I'm just, I'm
just busting yourchops. You're right, yeah, you
should do that. You shoulddefinitely call me out, like,
come on, Adam, remember, digdeep. I'll try to dig deep. But
let me finish my first comment.
There was never a time that Ifelt over leveraged, at risk,

(20:34):
right? There's always issues, orthere has growing a business,
right? There's business issuespotentially took on the wrong
client, but there was neveranything that Ben and I or our
team were not willing to makesure that we were going to be
safe and we were going to bedoing the right thing for

(20:55):
whoever was involved, teammates,Team organization, our clients,
our trades, our suppliers. So Iwould think that there has been
plenty of things that tried tosink us, but I think the
resiliency behind Ben and I andthe team really haven't ever
gotten us close. And I'm goingto knock on wood that I don't
ever want to I don't ever wantto be tested like that, but I do

(21:16):
think that we've also had awonderful team of advisors,
clients, accountingprofessionals, that have always
looked after our best practicesand what we were doing to help
make sure that we were keepingeverybody

(21:36):
protected. Love it. Love it.
Well, I think meanother but give me an example
if you throw out, if that's aquestion that you might get to
with other with other folks. Imean, where are some other folks
almostlost it? So I think that the
like, the reason I bring up thelost it thing, is because
there's like, a statistic outthere, and this is certainly

(21:56):
like, not to the decimalaccurate, but it's something
along the lines of, like, 60% ofbuilders fail because of
bankruptcy, which is typicallybecause of poor cash flow
management, right? And that goesand that goes into, I mean, you
made comments about runningcost, plus you made comments
about tracking cost and costcoding. And I, every time that I
talk to someone about it, it'snot as much of like, they almost

(22:19):
lost their business because ofit. Actually, there was one that
I just had recently, and therewas like $180,000 issue. But
it's not uncommon for me to talkto builders, and candidly, Adam
like builders like you that arebuilding very high end luxury
products that at some point theywere looking at like a 50 to 100
and 1000, $100,000 loss, and,like it put them in a really

(22:44):
hard situation of, like, notmaking what they should have, or
years of thinking they weremaking x dollars, but actually
coming out after, like, aforensic analysis on their books
being like, you might have halfa million In cash in the bank,
but after we run whip, you'reactually down. You're under
billed 80 or 800 grand, right?

(23:07):
Yeah. So it's like you'reeffectively $300,000 in the
hole, right? That's what I'mtalking about. Like, do you have
any stories like that? That'slike you and Ben came across and
you had to dig out of, oh,yeah, 100% I mean, we've
definitely written some checks.
I hope to never write one again.
Butjust clarify you say you've had
like you and Ben like out of thesavings account, just had the

(23:29):
fuck had to write acheck grant savings account that
was unexpected to take care ofsituations, yes, and most
notably, I mean, it's happened.
It's happened number of times,but most notably, it was during
covid. Yeah, absolutely. Whilewe have provisions in our

(23:51):
construction agreement forescalations of materials, it was
not uncommon during that time tofind the price of the lumber
package, even though we said,hey, we have no idea what this
is going to end up at. We don'tknow there were lumber packages
that were 6080, 100 over$100,000 over what we originally
budgeted. And anybody that'sbuilder that's listening this,

(24:15):
anybody else might think thatthat's BS, anybody that's a
builder that's listening to thisis going to say, Yeah, I
remember that, and I experiencedit too. And during that time,
100% did we have some I rememberin this office, like having
conversations with our clients,and they get really emotional,
and I can understand why, if Iwas sitting over there and I'm
facing what do I do? Do Icontinue construction with my

(24:37):
house? Or do I knock up with the60 grand or 80 grand, whatever
it might have been, andhonestly, like Ben and I came
out, doing the right thing,living by the golden rule,
supporting our clients, wantingto survive, that those builds
with an excellent reputation.
Would I have done it differentlythese days? I think so. I. Um,

(24:58):
but, and when I say differently,I would have, I would have been
a lot more prepared for how tohave those conversations,
potentially how to make othermodifications, maybe even
provided loans, rather than justsaying, hey, we'll take care of
this, and it'll come out ofwhatever proceeds we expected to
make on the job. So there'sprobably plenty of people out

(25:21):
there listening, thinking, youguys are idiots, like, why would
you ever make that businessdecision when you're trying to
grow a business, when you'retrying to grow a business, not
everybody went through thosegrowing pains, right? Of having
to make those decisions,uniquely they were ours, and
uniquely we made thosedecisions. And will I do that a
number of other times in thiscareer, I'm certain that I will

(25:44):
to do the right thing for ourclients, to make sure that we're
standing behind the work and thecommitments that we made,
regardless if whose fault is ittotally you've got to go
tactical. You've got to go like,in the weeds of what you would
do to prevent that. Again, youmade a comment of, like,
providing loans, being moreprepared to have those

(26:05):
conversations. Like, Sure, let'sdo it. We go deep. Because I
think that is, there arecertainly builders that listen
this podcast that areempathizing with you right now.
Yeah. What would Ben or Adam do?
Go ahead,yeah, I would say that what Ben
and Adam would do is, what we'redoing now. We we would bid our
projects certain to the penny,right? We would, we would take

(26:29):
our expectations from oursuppliers or subs, then we would
build them in, and we would say,Okay, this is the cost of the
project. We'd arrive at thecombination of all the quotes
and everything, and that's it.
Through years of experience, weunderstood that well. We're
going over budget on this. We'regoing over budget on that

(26:50):
incrementally by 1000s, maybesometimes even 10s of 1000s. And
so we're learning from these andwe're saying there's no need to
do that again. There's no needto just to take this bid, take
it at face value, or understandthat there's something missing
from the scope of work, and usethat now with our experience,
we're building those scopes ofworks with our with our

(27:12):
subcontractors or trades orsuppliers, and we're saying, no,
actually, we know we're going toneed these things that are going
to become required, that plywoodthat's going on the ceiling of
the porch to accept the TNGtongue and groove. We're going
to need that in our humid, hotSouth Carolina climate.
Otherwise, these boards aregoing to go and sorry, these
boards are going to do thesethings right and warp. And

(27:33):
somebody might have an issuewith it. Somebody might not. We
are because we know we can dobetter. And so we're building in
those facets of materials thatwe know we're going to use. And
so we're protecting the budgets,protecting our clients. And in
our stipulated some budgets,certainly our clients get the
benefit of any savings thatwe're able to develop through
any means possible. And so it'splanning for those conversations

(27:58):
before they ever get there. It'sbudgeting to not have to deal
with the cost of regret, totallybudgeting properly, to not have
to deal with the cost of regret,which, for clients can stick
around for years and decades andfor as long as they own and
experience that home. And so Ithink that's an important

(28:19):
aspect, is one of the thingsthat we do today to protect
those conversations of projectoverruns and and proper
accounting, is just gettingsuper specific and detailed and
having great conversations aboutthe scope of work and the
project and the level of fit andfinish that wouldn't
deliver totally, totally. I lovethat. Like getting subs and

(28:41):
trades and vendors involvedearly, but also like, I think
you're making an exceptionalpoint, emphasizing the
importance of Job Costing rightand looking at your numbers. I,
again, I did an episode withwith Shane glass. He's running
like multiple entities in Ohio,and he is just like, an absolute

(29:02):
stickler on categorization JobCosting like, making sure that
things are consistent and evenconsistent and accurate, and
even if it's wrong, right, evenif it shows an overage, at least
you can act on that in thefuture, right? And then you can
come to the table with the suband be like, Look, this is what
we did last time on a verysimilar situation, using plywood

(29:23):
and between the tongue andgroove to prevent stuff from
being warped. And we missed ithere, and we were 10,000 over.
We're gonna need this in placeon this one, and this is what we
need you guys to bid us on, sothat we can be more accurate.
That's huge. It's huge. And Ithink you're going that extra
step. I think a lot of builders,they look at this and they go
like, why do I need a job cost?
Or, why do I need a job cost ofthat level. I hear a lot of

(29:44):
builders that are still doingthree cost codes,
subcontractors, material andlabor. And you go, fine, right?
Like you're keeping your like,your P, L, clean. And I guess,
like, you have an idea. Of whatyour material was, but you
prevent yourself from ever beingable to go back to the dialed in
accuracy that you're talkingabout if you're not doing that,

(30:06):
if you make that effort, thenyou have to use it.
Yeah, I think that's chaos atevery level. I think that's
uncertainty at every level. Idon't think that I can meet
expectations to a client withoutgiving them the level of detail
that our clients are asking whenthey're asking us to build multi

(30:28):
million dollar projects totallyor even or even less. I mean, we
still take on projects. It's allabout the clients, but we still
take on projects that are submillion all day long. I mean,
construction costs and laborcosts are difficult to do so,
but as long as we're inalignment, our team on on the
goals are our rules for clients,and also the scope of work

(30:53):
related to the financialexchange that we're trying to
make together, then we'll do it100% it's about the client. But
yeah, I like, I like, I likethat. You mentioned I actually
wrote down Shane glass. I guess,I guess I need to go be a
builder buddy with him, becauseI think that we share, I'll make
an interest from sentiment, withbeing able to provide certainty
through Job Costing not onlycertain to the client, but x,

(31:15):
but certainty and theexpectation of how well is your
business actually going to beable to perform and protect your
team, which protects yourclients. I mean, I think that's
huge. Is, is oftentimes we talkabout doing what's best for the
business, I say what's best forthe business and best for the
clients. Because ultimately, ifit's best for the business, it

(31:36):
is good for the clients. And Ithink some individuals clients
that are looking for the lowestprice contractor are really only
and this, there's alwaysexceptions to the rule. Are
really always shootingthemselves in the foot. Is, you
know, I can be the mostimpressive contractor to anybody

(31:56):
by going out and using all thelowest bids that I get on a
project. But go ahead. Reese,tell me what happens if we use
all of LS bids on a project.
You'regoing to change order the show
to your customer, and you'regoing to come at the same number
that the guy was before. That'swhat I've been hearing. What do
you think? Yeah, yeah. I guessit's a common, low quality
product too. Go ahead. Yeah.

(32:17):
I guess the combination of thattotally missing on job site
supervision, quality management,code enforcement. We all know
that building inspectors aregenerally awesome. They still
miss things, right? And so themore eyes you have on a project,
the better the outcomes aregoing to be. If you really don't

(32:38):
have any supervision there, whatdo you what are your
expectations? And then, youknow, we're in a wind driven,
rain, humid, hot, earthquakeprone, hurricane prone
environment here in SouthCarolina, with salt air that was
very corrosive, I mean, and whatyou're going to end up with is
with an investment that's goingto last a fraction of the time,

(33:00):
yes, that you really intendedthat investment to do so, I
mean, it's no it's no secretthat, but we talked about it
that the lowest cost, the lowestcost bid. And we've learned this
lesson earlier in Cook grantsdays when we were bidding
projects with subcontractors. Italso applies to our clients. The

(33:22):
lowest bid will always be themost expensive. It's just over
time you're going to pay for it,whether it's a change order or
in fixing problems that weren'ttaking this consideration. Go
ahead.
So, so what does a client dowhen you, if you, if you come to
that realization there, Reese,you as somebody that might be

(33:43):
interviewing a builder US perse. All right, Adam, I was
totally focused on finding thelowest bidder because I wanted
to maximize my value. It kind oftotally battleshipped me there
and took the wind out of mysails. And now I'm thinking,
What do I do? Does it mean Ihave to use the more expensive

(34:04):
builder? What do you? What doyou do for these clients that
want that are focused on I'm oneof them. I'm focused on value,
right? I'm attracted to thelowest cost. I'm not somebody
that picks the highest cost orthe medium, sure? How do you How
might you and I get to worktogether? If you know, I'm not

(34:25):
the lowest cost provider,this might be fluffy, but my
answer would be like, You needto help the consumer identify
the value. Yeah,holy smokes. That is, I don't
know. I wasn't expecting thatwe're gonna be on the same
wavelength, but that, in otherwords, it's exactly what I was
thinking,dude, it's your job as the
salesperson in my world, or thebusiness owner, which is a

(34:50):
salesperson in your world, tohelp the customer identify what
their value. Is, yeah, andwhere, and if they, if they
don't share the same value, thenthey're not a customer for you,
right? If there's someone, ifthere's someone that's like, I
want Adam. I want a 2500 squarefoot right on the water, and I
want it to be 800,000 bucks. Yougo. You are out of your mind.

(35:14):
There is no way we can do thisfor you. But why do you want it
to be 2500 square feet? I squarefeet? Why do you want it right
on the water? Why do you want itto have these finishes? What are
you trying to accomplish withthis asset? Why are you even
talking about building a home?
If those are your expectations,what are you trying to do right

(35:34):
now, in my world calleddiscovery, that's what do I
think? That's what I think. Whatdo you think? Well, obviously,
many of things, but one, apodcast. So you've got really
good asking, really greatquestions, really great
questions ultimately producesreally great clarity and really

(35:56):
great conversation. Thatgenerates a level of
conversation for expectations tocome into alignment. I mean,
when? When all you get to do isvalue a builder on their cost,
you really do miss everyopportunity to understand the
value for the next several yearsof relationship or decades to

(36:18):
come, if you end up in somedispute. So I would you know if
there's, if there are buildingclients out there listening to
this conversation, seek yourclarity, you're making a really
big financial investment. Okay?
And so there's a number of waysthat you can do that. You can do
it yourself. We can hiresomebody to do it. There are
plenty of ownersrepresentatives, which are not

(36:40):
big in Charleston, but we'vebeen invited to a number of
projects now with more and moreof them, and I'm excited to get
to work with them. For thatreason too, is because it does
help clients understand thelingo, the conversation, having
somebody in their corner so thatthey can understand and hit the
easy button on how to relate towhat they should truly value in

(37:03):
the building process. Now, it'snot necessary. It's kind of
still relatively new inCharleston, particularly coming
from working in the DC market.
Of course, owners reps were abig thing up there, but I'll
tell you that they can be, youknow, as a builder, they can be
your worst enemy, or they canalso be the project's biggest

(37:29):
blessing. And the differentiatoron that is whether or not you're
able to provide the level ofdetail and organization and
transparency that they requireto perform their job as an
owner's representative?
Totally get that. Get an ownerrepresentative. Definition out
there, just for the for thelistener trying to build their

(37:50):
own house. Yeah. So an owner'srepresentative would be or
commonly referred to as anowner's rep. Is in my previous
life, you know, in construction,one of my roles was working with
an awesome commercial contractorin DC called Clark. Okay, cool.

(38:12):
Yeah, so Clark is gigantic man,still fond members Clark. But
anyway, listen, we were buildingthese really big super
structures and that sort ofthing. And there was owners,
representatives involved fromthe stakeholders of whoever the
project was, so whoever theclient was, oftentimes, clients
were big financial institutions,and so they would have

(38:35):
inspectors that were in betweenthe owners and the builders or
the contractor. And those werereferred to as owners, reps, in
their capacity, they would comeout and they would do their
inspections and inspect thedraws and expect for quality.
They would have conversationswith the builder that would
handle, be the intermediary tohandle conversations in between
really busy owners and reallybusy builders or contractors.

(39:00):
And so it's an intermediary, iswhat it is. And oftentimes, on
your larger projects, you'regoing to find owners, reps that
come in are hired by the ownersto be in there, you know, to
help them, assist them with theproject, and understand what's
really a priority for them toneed to know, and to help save
their time and add value to theexperience

(39:23):
totally. It's, it's, it's, I seeit a lot with really high end
luxury, and that makes sense.
Was just like the way Charlestonis blowing up. But yeah, it's
typically, it's someone who,like they do, they've got the
they've got the capital to buildan asset like you guys are
building, and they'll sendsomeone down that can just be
like boots and like boots on theground, help with decisions,

(39:43):
make sure that everything'sgoing the way that it needs to
be going, and what they'rebuying is getting delivered is
like a way that I see it? Yeah,I'll tell
you. Do I feel it's completelynecessary? I think that, I think
that it depends on the client,honestly,
and the. Builder, probably, andthe builder and the builder

(40:03):
probably like, how, like, what,like, how quality of a builder,
how focused is the builder onproviding and delivering a
quality experience and product?
I think that that's probably,yeah, you were going a different
route to get to the samedestination that I was thinking
of is, let's, you've, you'vewatched him probably participate
in a number of webinars andpodcasts that we've done on our

(40:25):
processes, our systems, namelyour software that we continue to
support and use, which isbuildertrend. And I think that
the level of organization thatbuilding software's
communication devices havegotten to that the client
experience is so much morerobust has the opportunity to be
so much more robust than it everhas been with the level of

(40:50):
documentation, the presentation,the organization in which you do
it, the routine, the timeliness,and so builder trend has been a
huge asset for us to not take anowner's representatives place,
but certainly report on theinformation that an owner's rep
would be reporting totally if Iwas a if I was a bad builder and

(41:11):
I wanted to provide informationthat wasn't accurate, could I do
so sure? Would an owner Sure?
But what I'm saying is you'll beout of business if you did that
repeatedly anyway. So I don'texpect that there's too many
people out there doing that, butwhat I'm saying is there are
plenty of tools to stillcontinue to make clients very
comfortable and very certainwith the progress and the the
schedule and the financialaccountability of Every product

(41:37):
project throughout the progressof construction. So talking
about that, I still think, andyou know, as we're on, as we're
as we're in your environmentwith adaptive which is financial
literacy and responsibilitytotally, you know these
questions that you were askingme earlier about mistakes and

(41:58):
growth, 100% every builder, nomatter where he comes from, he's
going to go through a level, anevolution, a learning curve of
fiscal responsibility totallyand it's, it's one of the fiscal
responsibility is, I don't know,and this is maybe just me

(42:21):
thinking that most people aregood in this world, but I think
that these, like, financialresponsibilities don't come at a
at, like, in a malice experienceform, like they're not trying to
do it intentionally. Therecertainly are builders out there
that have tried to pull the rugover a client's eyes to try and
make a buck, but I think a lotof it does come from just with,
like, the nuance of what they'rebuilding. And I think a lot of

(42:42):
builders get into this for thepassion for the trades and for
the craft and delivering a veryhigh quality product, and just
like the sheer amount ofvariability that happens in
those builds and delivering thatproduct can really hurt their
ability to uphold that financialresponsibility. And I think
that's where products likeadaptive, like builder, trend,

(43:02):
pro core, like, truly, you takeyour pick, that's really like,
what they're trying to solve foris insulating the builder so
that they can uphold thatfinancial responsibility to the
consumer, which I think most ofthem do want builders. Do want
todo that as a builder, I really
want to be focused with ourclients, I was gonna say in the

(43:25):
field, in the field with ourclients, totally building
beautiful homes while buildingbeautiful relationships and
totally maximizing the theopportunity To have the best
experience, or the grandexperience, and so if that
requires me to always be in theoffice doing financial

(43:48):
reconciliations, and you know,there's, in our business,
there's, I don't know, 300invoices that come through every
month atleast. That's insane. It's
insane, right? And so thevariability I'm talking about Go
ahead, yeah,and if, and if we didn't have
processes and systems in placeto deal with them efficiently

(44:11):
and accurately, you can imaginewhere my time would be taken and
be taken away from the clients,away from their experience, away
from the quality control, awayfrom all the creative work that
we get to do with the architectsand the engineers. And so when I
think about the need forsoftware's and processes and
systems, it's a necessity. It'slike totally liability thing.

(44:35):
It's, it's, you're not a builderif you're in the business,
working on putting out the firesall the time, and I think that,
hey, we've been there in somelevels of capacity before,
feeling really good aboutbreathing today, about not
having those issues. There'salways little nuances and
leveled up things. And, youknow, innovation here and there.

(44:57):
But. Think that that's a bigpart. You know, I think if
there's, if there's buildersthat are out there still
thinking about, man, I'mstruggling with this financial
stuff and the upkeep, and mywife's doing it, and my advice
would be, you got to step backand step out of it, and you got
to say, you got to realize thatthere's a quote. And I'm going

(45:18):
to get this quote and I'm goingto get this quote incredibly
wrong, but I'm going to get theessence of it that every system
that you design and the resultsthat you get from it are in
perfect alignment with the waythat you designed it. So you're
going to get the results thatyou designed the system to give
you totally if you reflect onthat, and you say, Holy smokes,

(45:42):
I'm the one here. My design ofthis system or this process is
the reason why I'm getting theseresults. Okay. So then you say,
All right, what's the mostimportant thing to do first? And
I'm going to say, You got to getit organized. Okay, you got to
get it organized. So then, onceyou organize, you can realize

(46:02):
your priorities, and then you'vegot to get resourceful. So get
organized, prioritize and getresourceful and identify and
make the hard decisions that mywife or whoever else might have
been running my books or doingmy bookkeeping, if they don't
have the knowledge they need tobe prepared to do the
organization and the fiduciaryresponsibility associated with

(46:24):
accounting, to make sure thatthe job costing and the budgets
and the reporting are all up todate and accurate totally. Then
you've got to find somebody thatcan and adaptive, I think, helps
out in a reallybig way with that or something
or something. Go ahead. Goahead.

(46:45):
There are opportunities for youto be resourceful today, to find
the physical manpower or womanpower help. There you go. Woman
power construction. That waseasy for me to do. Woman power,
that's great. I love it, man.
Sorry, these are the things thatI get excited about. I can't I

(47:05):
can't hideit. You're good. You're good.
Keep going.
All right, so either find thewoman power, find the
technology, the software power,or find the AI power. You know,
there's some incredibleadvancements that are coming to
help. I mean, I've talked aboutthis. I remember maybe last
year, it was a podcast orsomething, or something I was

(47:26):
invited to, and I talked about,holy smokes, after after
college, after our education, nomatter where you stopped,
somewhere between 18 and 22 or24 most everybody stops
learning, maybe stretch it into,like, the first five years of
your career, where you'relearning new stuff about a

(47:47):
career in an industry, and thenyou start to really plateau. So
your growth curve goes likethis. On learning, you kind of
flatten out, and then it's justhorizontal, or maybe right on a
decrease. And I was saying, Iwas making the point, don't let
yourself do that. There's aninsane amount of podcast,
webinars, online content, peoplesharing in our industry to help

(48:11):
level up. There's people thatare always willing to have a
conversation. I'm one of them.
Anybody that's listening tothis, look me up at cope grand
homes, Adam at cope grand.comyou can email me, call me and
say, I've really got this issue.
Would you mind just spendingfive minutes or 10 minutes with
me to help talk me through it?
And I will, and there's 1000s ofpeople that'll do that now. You
can also talk to AI, if youtotally talking to somebody

(48:35):
about these issues. There areother resources out there to get
help. And I guess this, thiscontent here is kind of, really,
I feel now, is kind of directedtowards, how do we help other
people? How do I share myexperience to help others? And
that's really, actually bringingme a lot of gratification to be
able to share that, and hope itdoes too

(48:57):
well. Hey, that was beautiful,by the way, but other that's why
I'm doing this. That is myentire role right now, head of
construction network, like cooltitle, sure. But what does that
really mean? That means gettingbuilders on to share their
stories, building community,getting them to network, knowing
that so many builders run intothese challenges and they have

(49:20):
all these insane careers withall these learning patterns that
are willing to open up and shareto better the industry. That's
really what we're doing. So Ilove that you shared your
contact. I love that you openedyourself up to this because you
don't. You don't have to be theone and a half million, $2
million a year guy who has gonefrom remodels to getting into

(49:41):
doing a new construction home,and you've hired a bookkeeper
who you found on Craigslist, whowas there for six months a year,
and you thought they were doinga good job and handling your
invoices, and you were justhappy to get out from underneath
them. And then all of a sudden,you turn around and your books
are a mess, and you fire them.
And then you go and try and tryand find money you. Still the
client's money, right? Like,they're doing all this crazy

(50:01):
stuff. And, like, of course, Iuse a financial example. But the
point being is, like, you needto step back to understand what
you've built and then focus on,get organized, prioritize, and
then get the resources in place.
Oh, man, you just did it. Like,just like that. It's good. It's
good. We might name the episodethis, organize, prioritize

(50:22):
resource. But point being,that's what it's about. Like,
that's what it's about. And Ialways my big, like, my big
soapbox recently, if you gothrough this episode, is like,
you look at all these buildersover the last and we're coming
up on time. We've been way overso thank you for giving me more
time. Point being, is my bigsoapbox has been in the last
five years. You brought up covidfrom like, a price escalation

(50:42):
standpoint, right? Commoditieswere insane. Supply chain was
nuts. Totally crippled. Buildingprocesses like brutal but that
also brought a ton ofappreciation to the market.
Insanely low interest rates, andthat gave builders in the last
five years an opportunity toexplode, and they didn't know
what they were scaling. Theythey knew they could run out and

(51:05):
go double their top line, right?
They knew that they could go outand double their volume in
projects, but they hadn't takenthat step back to understand
what they were scaling, toexecute that on a positive
level. And that typicallyresults in a step back, a really
bad experience that's going toprevent them from ever doing it
again. And it again, evenhurting that learning curve even
more. And that's what we'retrying to prevent. The

(51:26):
literally, the entire reason whyI started this podcast, and this
is important for you, because Idon't know why you're not doing
a podcast, but the entire reasonwhy I did this podcast is
because I wanted to pro or Iwanted to make project
financials less intimidating tobuilders, because I had nearly
10 years of listening tobuilders say, I have no idea how
much money I'm making on myprojects. I hate getting into

(51:46):
the weeds of my financials, andthat's why we're doing this.
We're getting real stories fromreal builders and real
construction accountingprofessionals to make this topic
less intimidating, so thatbuilders can get out there and
they can crush they can buildtheir widget, whatever that
widget is, whether it's astarter home for $200,000 a
year, or it's a beautiful,beautiful luxury custom, $8
million product, $50 millionproduct, whatever it is, and

(52:09):
you're gonna hit your margin,you're gonna make money. And
it's not just about stuffingyour pockets. It's about hiring
great people and getting theminto a position to take great
opportunities and grow asindividuals and contribute to a
community that's going to have ahealthy, thriving business. End
of rant, thatwas the end of preaching,

(52:29):
because that was all reallygreat stuff, and it did, you
know, just to add this onenugget I did, you reminded me of
something during covid, we neverknew how much it was costing us
to run our businessduring covid. Yeah, overhead.
It's a real thing.
Well, those builders out there,me included. I mean, we don't

(52:50):
respect actually, how much itcosts to hire, retain, keep, and
pay the professionals do theirwork. And so if you think that
part of me, if you think thatit's okay for a 16 month job to
go to 18 months and you'rerunning multiple jobs at a time,
you're you're losing, you'relosing bleeding, you're

(53:16):
bleeding, and covid caused that.
Covid caused a lot more of that.
We did not respect how much timeactually the supply chain was
actually costing our company.
And so while everybody thoughtthat the market was going
bonkers, and US was builderswere doing incredible, how well
we weren't. Dude,it's far more complicated. It

(53:40):
was two years of that we justwere not and to your point, when
you're when you're not payingattention to the financials, and
you think that you get to lookat them once a year, a couple
times a year, that's one of thethings that that we've got now,
is how much, how much are weearning related to the overhead,
right? It's a real number. It'sa real KPI. And I'd offer you

(54:03):
guys as builders to figure outhow to measure that with either
on your own to a simplecalculation, and your bookkeeper
and keep track of your targetthere, because a margin, a
percent margin is a percentmargin. And some builders get
super excited when they get toearn it. But we participate in
some coaching, some professionalcoaching. And Scott Beebe, his
thing is, $1 is not $1 right? $1is never $1 and once you break

(54:28):
it down and understand all thecosts that are incurred with
earning $1 you realize that atthe end of the day, you're left
with a penny or two cents orthree and that minimal, that
small of a margin, can be suckedup like that by mistakes, and if
you make repeated mistakes,you're negative. You're actually
negative. You took all yourclients money, you paid all your

(54:51):
people, and now you owe peopleto build and finish their
houses, or you go out ofbusiness and you leave them at
risk. That's a very dangerousthing, so I preach all the time.
I'm. Being fiscally responsible.
So go out there and get theresources. Know what your PNL,
your profit margins are, keepahead of your forecasts and be
real with clients. Do not takeon jobs just to earn them by

(55:12):
using a lower margin to beatcompetitors. Understand there is
a cost of doing work andsupplying what we supply in
every market. And if you're notthere, you're not running,
you're not running a businessthat's going to be around for
you, your children, yourclients, your team, employees.

(55:33):
Yeah, and I think, I thinkclients, you know, as they hear
that too, I think that thatshould resonate race. You know,
those folks that do get theshiny object, I'm going to go
with the lowest cost buildertype of thing to get the best
deal. You're running a risk thatthat builder is probably running
a Ponzi scheme of using the lastdeposit they got to start and

(55:57):
finish your house, your money isgoing to be on use to finish the
last house in the project, ifthey don't have somebody else,
your house isn't gettingfinished.
Yeah, dude, yeah. Makes me sad.
It makes me sad. And that'swhere, like, I think another
thread that I'm super interestedin doing, and again, we're like,
over on time. So if you got toget to it, go to it. But the

(56:19):
other thing that I'm interestedin doing is educating the
consumer to the value of theasset that they are purchasing.
I don't think the Americanperson understands that when
they are building a home, thatthey are buying an asset, and
depending on how much theyinvest in that asset is going to

(56:40):
dictate what that asset will do.
I think you look at a lot ofthese volume builders, and this
is the third time I brought itup on the episode. Then I had
with with Thomas Joseph, I madethe comment about, like, the DR
Horton and the Lennar product,okay? And I just use them as big
national builders. That's whathappens when you're the big dog.
You get made the example, right?
And I talked to a lot of peoplethat buy and built like people

(57:02):
in my generation, they're buyinginto those homes, right? And
there's certainly nothing wrongwith them. But the majority of
the problems that I hear is orstories that I hear, they move
into that product, and theybuilt 1000s of units over that
year. They move into that assetthat they bought for 600 grand,
700 grand, 500 grand, whatever.

(57:22):
Grand, whatever it is, which isa lot of money, and they're six
months into it, and they havedrywall falling out of the
season ceiling from a plumbingleak or a toilet that's not fit.
And it's like falling off or agarage slab that's cracked. And
it's like posing foundationissues
secretly affecting their health,exactly, and that's what I'm

(57:43):
saying, is like educating theconsumer as to why a quality
built product and asset to thatlevel is far more important than
whatever I can beat a contractorup on price, because if you do
that, you're gonna run intothose issues. And you made the
comment earlier, I took thechange order out. But you took
the you're going to pay for itat some point, whether it's in
mold and remediation, whetherit's fixing and repairing the

(58:05):
home, whether it whatever itmight be, you're gonna pay for
it. So if you can't afford a2500 square foot home, build a
damn good 1200 square foot home,1500 square foot home, that gets
something that you can do.
Yeah, and that's the that's theopportunity to have those
conversations with clients, youknow, getting them, we started

(58:26):
off this conversation of beingeducators and getting them to
understand what it takes and theproper level of investment that
they want to make to get theexchange that they're looking to
get. It's getting them tocertainty on what they can have
for what they want to investtotally not sugarcoating it. To
say I can deliver somethingbetter than anybody

(58:51):
else, the same. So many people,when you do that, use
car salesman. Use, damn it, man,it's it's unfortunate. Every
industry has it, but, yeah, ithappens in construction, you
know, itdoes. It does. And that's where,
like, I don't know, maybe, like,a part of me does think that
most people are good, but Ithink that, like, people make

(59:14):
desperate decisions, desperatesituations, and I think you can
mitigate a lot of thatdesperation if you just take a
step back and just take a stepback and focus on
getting organized, organized,and
then a resource. Understand yourresources. That's right. That's
right. What level? What's thevalue of the investment of

(59:38):
picking the right person andhaving the best experience,
dude, I think that. I thinkthat's an obligation of a
builder helping the client getthere.
Speaking of the the obligationof a builder is helping people
get theirs, is taking that tothe next level of a build, or
having those conversations withtheir subs and suppliers

(59:59):
totally. Totally,totally. There was a lot at the
contractor coalition, someonetalking about, like, that
subinvented relationship, and Ithink it's so crucial. I think
it's, I don't think, I think thepeople that just look at vendors
and trades as just like peoplethat are executing the work,
just like such a short termgoal, like, if, like, if you're
getting into this thing, andyou're a new builder, and you're
not prioritizing, like, reallybuilding a strong relationship

(01:00:21):
and curating a good, like,motivated crew of people that
are excited to work for you,you're missing the boat, because
the faster you start, the moretenure you're going to have, and
the better product and outcomeyou're going to have with those
individuals. I thinkrelationships, well, there's a

(01:00:43):
certainly our Creator. The youknow, is the meaning of life,
but looking back, the one thingthat we can take with us is the
value of our relationships. Andman, we have, you know, luckily,
we're fortunate to get to workon those and have them and
create new ones and repair oldones every single day. Yep, and

(01:01:04):
that's talking about beingfulfilled. I might leave us with
that. I might I might say, hey,of all the things that are
worthwhile and meaningful inlife, in this industry, in
construction, it is beingtransparent, having wonderful
conversations and building themost wonderful relationships

(01:01:25):
that you can.
I love it. I think that's great.
Sorry to get deep on you onthat.
That's what it is. Greatrealization for me
again recently, and I've beensharing that with some other
groups and other people. And soit came back up. Because I think
it really is transformative,monumental, and how we deal with

(01:01:48):
thingstotally what I think it grounds
the episode, right? Becausethat's, that's, I mean, that's
really, um, that's why you doit. I mean, I think you can,
like, argue, like, do it formoney, you do it for this, you
do it for that, but you don'treally get, you don't get to the
money without relationships,right? The money should be the
byproduct or the outcome of HaveI ever told you? Have I ever

(01:02:08):
mentioned in front of you? I'veever mentioned in front of you
because we've spent some time indifferent events, in different
forms? Have I ever mentioned youthat that US builders are just
fools with egos,fools with egos. I mean, I don't
think. I don't remember it. Youmight like
your brain. You have anincredible amount of retention.
So I'm sure, I'm certain nowthat I've never brought it up in

(01:02:31):
front of you, but I will explainthat US builders are just fools
with you guys. I started sayingthat years ago after self
reflection, saying that, man,our ego just wants to build the
most beautiful homes andbeautiful projects and unique
and character and all thisstuff, right? Put whatever,

(01:02:51):
imagine whatever home or projectthat you want to build. Those
are our egos. But gosh, are wefoolish? Because if, if we're
after it to create a successfulbusiness or we're going to make
money this, this business is thetoughest one that we could ever
imagine to run and and create asuccessful career that provides

(01:03:16):
predictable and repeatableresults. I really do think that
in a lot of cases, we have totake our ego, I have to check
our ego out the door so thatwe're not fools, because it's
really easy to get captivated bythe shiny objects and building
beautiful things. But if, if wethink it's going to be easy,
we're just fools, another foolin this industry.
You got to watch the TrentWaldrop episode. It's getting

(01:03:39):
ready. It'll drop, I think,like, what next week? Next
Tuesday? What is it to the sixthtoday? You gotta watch it,
because I admire that guy,Tupelo Mississippi. He isn't
trying to compete with thebiggest and the baddest. He is
just totally focused on buildinga quality, price sensitive

(01:04:01):
product for people that justwant to get into a good house,
he like the ego gone, biggestheart in the world, totally
focused on just like, dude, I'mtrying to sit across the table
from people that are trying toget out of a mobile home, having
zero ever like expectation thatthey could get it even build a
house, let alone buy one. Andthey can sit across the table

(01:04:23):
from me, and we can talk about,what are what is their budget?
What are they trying to do? Cutsquare footage out, add square
footage in. Talk about finishes.
Talk about quality, structure.
Do they want? Tyvek, do theywant zip what's that going to do
to the home? Like he is allabout it at a level of consumer
that I think, and I agree withhim is totally forgotten on so
to your point of like egos orfools with egos, like, you gotta

(01:04:45):
listen this episode, becausethat's what we talked about. And
he is, I thought it was just asuper compelling episode. And no
doubt, yeah, I loveinspirational, yeah.
Mississippi, sir, dupelo, yeah.
Barely has one. I. Just gottalisten to it. Yeah, you gotta
listen to it. You gotta listento it. He's just a great dude.
He's a great dude. He's got anawesome story. You gotta listen
to it. It reminds me a lot ofthat comment you made fools with

(01:05:08):
egosnow, and I want to change that.
I bring it up because I want tochange it totally. I want this
to be an industry with thesmartest guys in the room, and I
want us to share best practices.
I really do want us to share inbest practices. I don't think
that that's where we need tocompete. There's obviously the
right things to do in business,the right things to do in

(01:05:30):
accounting, the right things todo with communication and a way
to be accountable, and I thinkwe can all share and help each
other with that so that we don'thave to be foolish in what we're
doing to expect results thatwe're never going to expect or
get. Sorry. Totally 100%you keep your phone on. Adam,
you keep your phone on I'll begiving you a call. I've got some
I've got some stuff up my sleevein terms of what you're talking

(01:05:52):
about. But, dude, I don't know.
We've got the record for thelongest podcast here, and I
actually do. I want people tolike and subscribe and follow
and comment if they made it thisfar, because I love it. I've
been, I've been going, like,much more conversational, much
more long form, like, I dude, Ikept these, like, almost
religiously, like, 30 to 45minutes, 4648 but gets into 50.

(01:06:16):
We're deep territory. We're inan hour and six.
And I love it. And you and Icould probably keep going for
anothercouple hours. Yeah, we could. We
could. I'm actually, yeah, let'sjust save it
for another time. We'll we'lldiscover some other really cool
topics that might be timelinefor the audience. And let's save
it. You and I just like talkinganyway. So let's do it.
We do. We do actually, hang onwhile we're here, I'm going to

(01:06:38):
be in Charleston. I'm going tobe putting on an elite builder
dinner in Charleston, an elitebuilder dinner. That's right.
That's right. Elite builderdinner. What's elite? That's
what I said. Keep your phone onyou. I'm literally just, I
haven't, I haven't invitedanybody. I just have, I have the
location set. It's not even onmy calendar. This is we talked

(01:07:04):
about the date. It's the end ofAugust. I will text you the
date, but we'll keep it goingthere. What did I think it was
because I'm going to be inMinneapolis September for this
point being we'll keep itripping there. I'm going to get
you the details on it. Adam, Iappreciate you. Sir. Always good
chatting. I'll try and I'll tryand tack on. Actually, we should

(01:07:26):
probably do a weekend. Probablydo I could do like the elite
builder dinner, then do aweekend and hang out with you
and Ben, that sounds great,but we'll get the experience.
Yeah, talk to Mike Weber, seewhat he thought
Big Mike. I'll have to shoot hima text. I think I saw some stuff
on his Instagram. I have afeeling that Mike Weaver does
exceptionally well inCharleston, South Carolina.

(01:07:49):
Yeah, I think he does. I thinkhe did. I think he really
enjoyed himself. Of course, hegot the whole experience. We did
projects. We did project tours,we did site tours. He got to
visit the Keeble golf course.
That's whatI'm saying. I feel like this is
right up Mike's alley. He'slike, Yeah,
I can't come here and not go orswim or do the ocean. And we're

(01:08:12):
like, well, well, how about justget out on a boat? He's like,
Yeah. So that's what I'm saying,yeah. But somebody might have
hopped on a boat, went to thebeach, and the Dolphins are
swimming. And it's like I said,the clients, it just so happened
where we pulled up next to someclients of ours, and we're like,
Wow. You never expected it was aThursday afternoon or something
like that.
Wow. Did you get EMS in theirhouse, in that client's house?

(01:08:34):
Did you guys use MJ tile in thathouse? Um, or was that before
you knew? Mike,no, we are working on having
some EMS or products in some ofour houses and and honestly, why
don't you just put all of yourWhy don't you do all MSR in your
house, in your house?
You know, with, I'm just, I'mnot going to make that
commitment on trying somebodynew to develop or devote all of

(01:08:57):
our projects to it. However, wehave projects in different
stages. So so long as we have agreat experience on these first
couple, we will continue to doit, and maybe that will turn
into all of them. Well,I think you could forecast using
it all, because I hear greatthings about Mike and I mean, I
don't talk to a lot of tilepeople candidly, but that guy
knows tile, and that guy knowsquality,

(01:09:21):
knows how he's very resourceful.
What did you say? And he'stexting, and he's texting, okay,
I'll be heretomorrow. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Mike's the guy. Yeah,Mike's the guy. Okay, cool. I'll
get you dates on that. We'll getdown to South Carolina. It's the
end of August, so I'll get youactual dates. I'm pretty
sure enjoy the hell out of thatmove, man, dude, it's gonna be,
it'snot gonna be a grind. It's just,
it's exciting. It's excitingbecause you

(01:09:45):
get to, I mean, not the career,but most of the career, but it's
a fresh start. I was sharingwith somebody that's in my
network, was telling me abouttheir having a tough time with
their daughter, who's 18, and,you know, the friends are going
to college, and she's not yet,you know, she. Hasn't left for
college yet. And I was like, Noway. This is such a cool
opportunity. I wish she couldrealize that. What I didn't

(01:10:06):
realize I was in the stresspoint that she was, where I felt
like, oh my gosh, my whole worldwas getting ripped apart. I'm
losing everything all that.
Like, no way. Now this is youropportunity to go reflect on,
like, all your friends that youmade up to this point, like,
love on which experiences thatyou really cherish the most, and
say, Wow, I'm never losing them,but now I'm going to a place

(01:10:26):
where I get to make morefriends, and this time I get to
say, oh my gosh, I really likethese people. I'm going to go
focus on this group and how tomake those friends, and then I'm
going to put all of themtogether, and it's going to be
awesome, and the rest of life isgoing to be grand. And I was
like, the opportunity is in isin gratitude, but also
reflection. Because I think thatwe can all like she probably is,

(01:10:49):
is maybe stifled in her ownworld, a little bit totally the
opportunity. So you, you man,you get this opportunity to move
again and really make it betterthan ever, 100
I'm so stoked. So I moved toBoston right out of college, and

(01:11:10):
I was there for a year. And Ithink that's probably like, with
this gal, what I'm picking up onis like, she's probably like
little analysis paralysis, likeshe just needs to do one jump,
she just needs to go, like, gosomewhere and do something, and
then from there, it's like, it'snever going to be easy, but
you're always like, in the backyour mind is like, okay, I can
do this type of thing, you know?
And that's what we're stokedabout, is like, just like, total
fresh perspective, been inColorado for five years, done a

(01:11:32):
lot of really great things fromjust like, like, an experience
standpoint, passion standpoint,and we're super excited to go
and explore New England and doit in Boston. In Boston. We got
a great team out there, superstoked to work with them in
office. I've been remote forfive years, since I was a
builder, trend, dude, five and ahalf years, almost like, Dude,
it's been a grind, and I cannotwait to get into an office

(01:11:54):
setting, make friends, driveresults, just like, do all the
things that are important. Soyeah, you get to take that chair
into the office with me. No, butwe are going
to take it with us. Obviously,Dude, we got one of these guilty
to be the first thing that'sunpacked, the first opportunity
to sit down. Yeah, before thecouches and the beds come, you

(01:12:16):
might be sleeping on it atnight. That's
right, that's right. Yeah, no,the Kelty is definitely coming.
But, yeah, no, we're superstoked. It'll be good. I
appreciate you. You have to comeup to Boston too, because I'm
gonna do a podcast studio upthere. We could have you in for
for a podcast episode of The andthe studio.
Yeah, you know what? I've neverbeen to Boston. I mean, I think
we talked about that with thecoalition seven through or

(01:12:36):
something, yeah, but I'd love togo, I think probably like that
particular time of the yearwhere Boston's actually Boston.
I'm not sure if that's baseballseason or if it's fall. It's
probably not winter,probably dude, like, right now,
honestly, September, October.
Yeah, those are always but we'llmake it happen. Yeah, well, and

(01:12:56):
you could just comeup whenever. I mean, Boston's a
great city whenever peoplecomplain about the weather, but
I grew up in Nebraska, so like,I'm like, whatever wind and cold
isn't a big deal. You're fromCharleston. You might, you might
not from Pennsylvania.
Oh, okay, okay, okay, so yeah,that's why I moved I was like,
No way. Don't want that anymore.

(01:13:17):
Like, if I have the choice ofextending my spring, summer and
fall, which is exactly whatCharleston does effectively. It
also removes the gray slushystuff, right? Using language
appropriately, that sticks tothe bottom of your boots and
your pants that you just can'tseem to shape and you drag into
your house and all those stuff.
Like, no way do I want? And thenplus, like, oh, it's wintertime.

(01:13:39):
It's gonna be super cold. Ican't wait for the snow, and
then it doesn't come anymore.
Like, if I'm gonna be in thenorth, I mean, I guess I'm gonna
want the snow, and it doesn'tsnow, and it's just gray,
slushy, icy, nasty stuff thesedays,
just brutal. I mean, that was,that was Nebraska.
Oh, sorry, that's what you'regoing back to. Yeah,
I'm just empathized. I mean,it's like, it was like 90 days

(01:14:01):
of not zerosun. Yeah, that's how it was at
State College. When I went toPenn State it was like three
months, three months, seven daysof not seeing the sunshine. And
I'm like, I can't do that.
Bruno, yeah, yeah. Collegefootball season basically ended
too early. And after collegefootball season, it was like,
what? Wait a second, thewhole why are we still here?
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, well,okay. Well, the wife and I will

(01:14:24):
break up the winter and we'llcome down to Charleston to see
you guys get a little sunshine.
Yep, awesome. Appreciate you,sir. We'll talk to you later.
All right. Cheers, thanks guys.
Yep, thank you.
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