July 30, 2025 • 64 mins
In this episode, Keaton Turner shares Matt Steffens experiences moving livestock in Redmond, Oregon, reflecting on growth and the podcast's impact. He discusses entrepreneurship's highs and lows, networking opportunities, and reacts to Matt Steffens' video on humble beginnings and the American dream. Keaton emphasizes perseverance through business challenges, highlights network expansion, and gives a shoutout to Ace McCarthy. Topics include construction challenges, team updates, customer savings, and overcoming resistance to change. He explores organizational structure, management, preventing burnout, and scaling businesses, concluding with shoutouts and encouraging audience engagement.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
What's up, Keaton Turner?
This is Matt Stephens out here in Redmond,Oregon.
Moving cows today, moving sheep.
That guard dog's running around here somewhere.
Anyway, just giving you what you wanted, man.
Your shirtless video on a Sunday afternoon.
Couldn't ask for a much nicer day.
90 degrees, sun shining.
(00:24):
We got the cows eating fresh grass over here.
Look at that.
Look at them.
There's a doggy right there.
Mister Bear, he's a guard dog.
He's a good boy.
But, just checking in with you, man.
Really appreciate what you got going on on thepodcast.
Been keeping up with it, listening to everyday.
I swear sometimes it's like, you're justtalking to me, man.
(00:46):
We've, we've been going through it, you know,just the same.
We're a six year old company now.
Myself and my business partner, Paul, westarted this thing in 2019.
In fact, we started not in this unfinishedbuilding, but in that little building right
there.
That one, we built a 12 by 12 office in thecorner of my pool barn.
(01:11):
We both quit our jobs, we went to work.
We've got, 62 employees as of Friday last week,mid $30,000,000 annual revenue, and it's been a
hell of a ride, man.
Been been learning a lot.
(01:32):
Been in Death Valley a few times.
And you know what?
Quite frankly, I guess I don't know what theopposite of Death Valley is, but we've been
there a few times too if we're if we're beingquite honest with ourselves.
We've had good years.
We've had bad years.
We've had good jobs.
We've had bad jobs.
And and, I guess it's all worth it at the endof the day.
So really appreciate your insight.
(01:54):
And quite frankly, all the insight of thepeople that I've met, believe it or not,
through your podcast.
And by through your podcast, I mean, you know,getting more active on LinkedIn, starting to
meet new folks and reach out to other people.
Met people from different states.
Met people from, you know, companies that Inever would have been around before, never
(02:18):
would have seen.
And, these guys are in it, and it's good toknow that we're not alone.
It's good to know that our problems aren'tunique.
It's good to know that there's other otherfellas in the fight.
Boy, it doesn't get a lot bigger now.
(02:38):
I'm doing that right there in fresh grass.
So full time contractor, part time farmerKeaton.
Anyway, hope you're doing well, brother.
Thank you for the good work.
Thank you for the podcast.
Thank you for the words of encouragement.
Thank you for this beautiful Sunday.
Peace.
(03:25):
Started in a 12 by 12 building just a few yearsago, now feeding 60 families.
If that isn't the American dream, I don't knowwhat is.
I love it.
(03:45):
Absolutely love it.
Matt Stephens, thank you, brother.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Another day, another shirtless video, and thatone that one had a lot of zest to it.
See, you know, some of these shirtless videos,I I pay attention not only to the fact that
(04:07):
it's a full grown man sending another fullgrown man who they've never met in person.
They're sending another full grown man a videoof themselves shirtless.
I pay not only attention to the fact they'redoing that, but I pay attention to the small
things in the video.
And that video had some zest.
That video had some pizzazz.
(04:28):
I I posted on my Instagram.
You can go look at it.
Huge shout, Matt Stephens.
He's out running cattle.
He's got a got a, you know, a cattle dog outthere working the cattle, chewing the fresh
grass.
He's got beautiful scenery in the background.
But the first thing that catches my eye is thisbig, luscious beard.
(04:50):
And, man, I I couldn't be more jealous of that.
Something I never talked about on the podcast,I don't think.
I literally couldn't grow facial hair to savemy life.
I I couldn't do it.
So, Matt, I'm jealous of the beard, dude.
If I had a beard, I man, they would they wouldhave to I'd have to carry around a stick to
(05:13):
beat them off of me if I had a beard like that.
That's that's unbelievable.
I love I guys know I love the shirtless videos,but I love that Matt talks about the humble
beginnings in a 12 by 12 building.
I love that he talks about how many familiesthey're impacting now.
(05:35):
Six I think he said 62 employees as of lastweek, and I'm sure that number's growing week
to week, month to month, year to year.
For a for a guy to start a business in 2019 andnow doing 30 to $40,000,000 a year, like, that
is unbelievable.
(05:55):
And I know Matt probably takes some time everyonce in while.
Maybe it's when he's on vacation, maybe when hegets a quiet moment.
He probably sits down, if I if if I had toguess, and asks himself, how is this real?
Like, how how in the world did we start abusiness six years ago?
(06:16):
We got 60 something employees.
We're doing tens of millions of dollars a yearin revenue.
We're impacting people.
Like, how is this possible?
Well, it's possible by all the things I talkabout every single day in this podcast.
I Matt, in that video, said, man, I feel likeyou're talking to me a lot of days.
(06:40):
I feel like you're directing these episodesdirectly at me.
I am directing them at you because I have gonethrough the exact same thing you're going
through, the bad days, the employee problems,the the customer problems.
He Matt went on to say, we've had good jobs.
We've had bad jobs.
We've had good years.
(07:00):
We've had bad years.
You know?
I'm sure in the early days, and it's stillearly days, You know, only six years in.
I'm only you know, I'm not even nine years inyet.
It's still early days.
There's still bad days.
We still have bad jobs.
You know?
I've I have jobs right now that that aren'tgoing the way that we would all want them to
(07:20):
go.
And so, yeah.
I love the video because there is a way to godo exactly what Matt's doing, and it's bellying
up every single day to the buffet of ballkickings.
I think I'm just gonna keep using that term.
It's bellying up every day the buffet of ballkickings and getting plate after plate.
(07:45):
And then you wake up one day like he is.
You're out farming.
You're running cattle, shirtless with thebeard, the backwards hat, the sunglasses
looking zesty, and you send another guy avideo.
And you're like, man, how am I how am I doingthis?
How how are we six years later here doing thisright now?
Well, it's it's day after day, grind aftergrind, all the things I talk about every day.
(08:10):
So, Matt, appreciate the video, man.
It's it's awesome.
You know, you asked the question, what's youknow, he's been in Death Valley a few times, he
says, and he's like, I don't really know whatthe opposite of Death Valley is.
I think the opposite of Death Valley is thestairway to heaven.
Maybe I maybe I run an episode on that onesomeday.
(08:31):
There's there's times you feel like you're onthe mountaintop.
You win the big contract.
You think money's just gonna flow from theheavens.
You're like, man, I am walking this stairway upto the heavens, and it's and life is good.
And the birds are chirping, and the sky isclear.
There's no clouds in sight.
Business is easy.
(08:52):
Employees are easy.
Customers are happy.
That's the stairway to heaven or themountaintop.
But as quickly as you can climb the stairway toheaven and find yourself up in the bright,
sunny, thin air on top of the mountain, it canall come quickly crashing back down, and you
(09:13):
can find yourself back in the valley.
You know?
I I Matt, the last thing I'll say about yourvideo, I love the fact that you are getting
more active on LinkedIn.
I I I say it all the time.
It is the number one business tool on earth.
And and the fact that you're meeting peoplefrom different states, different companies,
(09:38):
people that you know, I don't know if you wannaI don't know if we wanna start the slogan like
the Purdue Nation.
You know, some of you guys I know some of youguys have joined the Rise Calls with Corey
Carlson.
I have not been able to get on those recently.
I need to.
I got I'm I'm so bummed I missed the last one.
But, man, it makes me super pumped to see guysexpanding their network because I'm just a firm
(10:00):
believer your network is your net worthsomeday.
And and guys that are tuning in to listen tothis podcast area, you have a lot more in
common than you think.
Even if you're not a business owner, even ifyou're not someone far, you know, further along
in their career, there are a ton of people whowant the journey, the climb, the ball kickings.
(10:24):
They want more.
Whatever more is for them.
They want, like, the family thing.
They want the they want the wife.
They want the career path.
They wanna make a million bucks a year in theirown business.
They wanna scale the business they're alreadyrunning.
Man, I you have to tap into that networkbecause there are people out there who are much
(10:48):
smarter than me, by the way.
There are people out there doing much biggerthings than I'm doing, by the way, who would
love to have a conversation with you, who'd behappy to take your phone call, who would be
happy to grab a beer sometime because they'rein the same city you are, or maybe they're
visiting or whatever.
I just got a I got a voice mail last night froma from a kid that's gonna come stop by the
(11:11):
office, our office here in Indiana sometime.
He's coming through town and wanted to stop byand meet all the people that I talk about on
the podcast, Patton, Jeff, Tucker, Jake.
Who know you know, who knows?
We got a little keg in the office.
You can come have a beer anytime.
But, man, you gotta expand your network.
(11:32):
Don't be so shy.
Don't be so timid that you don't ever want tosend a message or put yourself out there.
Just start with very simple LinkedIn posts.
I'm telling you, it's one of the easiest stepsyou can take on the journey to getting where
you wanna go.
It's just putting yourself out there.
You know?
Worrying a lot less about what other peoplethink and worrying a lot more about how to be
(11:59):
real and transparent and expand your network,I'm telling you, works.
So, Matt, love it, brother.
I I really do love it.
I, you know, I love the shirtless video.
So if you haven't, go check out the Purdiumpodcast on LinkedIn.
I'll post a video on LinkedIn, and I will alsopost his zesty video on Instagram.
(12:26):
Love that.
What else is happening in my world today?
Hold on.
Quick coffee break out of the per diem mug.
I owe a massive, massive shout out.
I've shouted him out the last couple days kindof ironically.
I don't know that I had a plan to.
It just kinda happens that way.
(12:47):
And then I walk in the office yesterday, and Ihave a box addressed to Keaton Delbert Turner.
And I'm like, well, who who the heck got myfreaking middle name wrong?
Who and who's calling me a Delbert?
I open the the box says Epiroc on it.
(13:09):
And I'm like, dude, we Epiroc?
Did somebody send us parts?
Like, we got bits drill bits in here.
What's going on?
I opened the box.
It is full of two eight drilling gear, swag,hats.
Like, he's got two ace first of all, AceMcCarthy.
(13:30):
Go look the dude up.
If you don't know who Ace McCarthy is andyou're in our industry, you gotta go look up
Ace.
He's one of the greats.
I love the dude to death.
He's one of these guys, young, good looking guyin business out there.
I know Ace is bellying up to the buffet of ballkickings every day.
I know it because I know his business.
(13:50):
I know his industry.
I know the crap he deals with with machines anddrills breaking down and maintenance and all
the crap that guys like Ace have to deal with.
Ace, I cannot thank you enough, brother.
The the the hats are fresh.
I'm wearing them today.
I'm literally gonna wear these two eightdrilling hats.
Phenomenal.
I I post this on my Instagram as well.
(14:12):
I got a golf towel.
I got a box of Pro V ones with the two eightlogo on them, which are phenomenal.
I got a Rockform portable wireless golfspeaker.
That's that is literally gonna get stuck to thegolf cart on Friday.
And I'm gonna play some Cody Johnson, someMorgan Wallen, some Hank Junior out of this
(14:36):
portable golf speaker.
Unbelievable.
It's it's this is crazy.
I got let's see.
What else did I get in here?
I got a divot tool, a two eight custom divottool, which I will use to repair my divots from
when I throw a 140 yard wedge onto the greenand make my five foot birdie putt to win the
(15:05):
match.
I will use your divot tool, Ace, so thank youfor that.
And then I got a legit card where I mean, dude,I I just this is too much.
He's got some awesome stationary, two eightstationary, build the best business for the
best people so they can live their best life.
(15:26):
I love that slogan.
I love that slogan.
He's got their core values on there, which areawesome.
Handwritten handwritten.
I'm not gonna read you I'm not gonna read y'allthat he wrote me.
That's between Ace and I.
But but, man, I cannot thank you enough.
And then on the back, he's got two drills, youknow, flying huge American flags.
(15:48):
Ace, man, you know, I'm a fan of you already,brother, but this is too much.
I gotta figure out how to return the favor andget you a box of swag back because this is this
is too much.
Ace has got a beautiful little family,beautiful little wife, just a great dude.
And and to me, there's nothing that fills mycup up more, to be honest with you, than
(16:12):
getting to know people in this industry likeAce.
I don't again, I I wish I knew him way better.
I wish we were closer in proximity so that wecould hang out more, drink beer together.
But just good Christian, young guy, building ayoung family, building a business, going
through all that you gotta go through to buildthe American dream.
(16:33):
To me, that is that is what's been so coolabout this podcast is getting to meet other
people.
Matt Stefan's another good example.
Guys, I would've never connected with, youknow, if I hadn't started putting myself out
there on LinkedIn, on Instagram, doing thepodcast.
There's so many good people out there.
This industry, construction industries, youknow, HVAC, there are so many good people out
(17:00):
there that just want to do good work, honestwork, build their little slice of paradise,
build their little family, their littlecompany, build their thing.
It gets me fired up.
I love it.
I love it to death.
So, Ace, can't thank you enough, brother.
You you're gonna get something back from me.
(17:21):
I gotta figure out how to one up you now.
My box is gonna be bigger and have more stuffin it.
So thank you, brother.
Really appreciate that.
Awesome swag.
Let's see.
What else?
What else is happening?
I'm heading into the office.
We're in the dog days of summer.
I think I've said this recently.
It feels like the dog days of summer aren'tending.
It is it's been it's been one of the craziestyears of weather that I can remember.
(17:49):
Storms, like, almost it seems like a stormevery single day.
Some of you guys that are working in theMidwest trying to move dirt, I feel bad for
you.
We don't move any dirt in the mid well, I takethat back.
We are moving some dirt down in Missouri, butwe don't move a ton of dirt in the Midwest.
But, man, if we were moving dirt in the Midwestthis time of year, if we're trying to strip
strip overburden or anything like that, I Ifeel bad for you because, woah, it is it has
(18:15):
been a very difficult year, weather wise herein the Midwest.
I don't know about anywhere else.
I know Texas has been hit with some weather.
But, we get a storm every day.
We get rain almost every day.
I think I think just a few days ago, we weredouble the national or we were double the
annual average rainfall for the year, and theyear's only half over.
(18:37):
So it's just been really wet.
It's been really hot and humid, almost too hotand humid, to to really, like, do anything
outside.
I realized just a few days ago, I talked to oneof the interns in our office yesterday, and he
was asking me about phishing.
And and I realized just a few days ago, I havenot this is terrible.
(19:02):
This is this is actually depressing to evenverbalize.
This is the first time in my life since I wasmaybe four years old where I have not casted a
line.
I have not went fishing all year.
Not one time.
Not one time.
(19:23):
I don't know why.
I I think just life happened.
Of course, you know, we were two days away fromgoing on our big annual guys fishing trip up in
Wisconsin, and and then we get the phone callthat that the tumor was found.
And so, obviously, that trip gets canceled.
Since then, we just have you know, every everyday we get is precious and we, you know, we
(19:48):
just haven't we haven't spent it fishing.
We've spent it hanging out as family orwhatever.
And then prior to that, I think business wasjust busy and and and sports and everything
else just didn't make any time.
So I have not gone fishing all year, and it isyou know, it's almost August.
So that's a first for me.
But it's been a really it's been a reallyinteresting, crazy summer, and it flew by.
(20:16):
I know everyone always says that.
Man, summer flew by.
I don't know if I have any real regrets, butthere are definitely things I wish I would've
gotten done that I haven't crammed in yet.
And and I say we're in the dog days of summer.
We're, I think, two weeks away from schoolstarting up again.
I had a meeting this morning, and then, youknow, an exec meeting.
(20:40):
We we meet every week, and I forgot that Imoved the meeting from a Monday meeting to a
Tuesday meeting because we're reviewing allthese dashboards and information.
Anyway, it was hard to do it on a Mondaymorning because the information hadn't all been
populated yet.
So we moved the meeting to Tuesday, and Iforgot I moved the meeting to Tuesday, and I am
(21:07):
literally on my way to taking kids to camp thismorning and realizing I'm missing my own exec
team meeting with my leaders.
So again, it's just like, man, we gotta getback to school so that, schedules get back to
normal.
And, you know, summer just feels like every dayis a Saturday almost in my house because
(21:31):
there's kids running around and sleepovers and,you know, get donuts, get Chick fil A, all all
the things.
But I but I hate to wish summer away.
I hate for it to be over, and and jump rightback into school.
So I feel like we're right at the end ofsummer, right at the dog days of summer.
Gotta figure out how to go fishing very soon.
(21:52):
I'm gonna do that.
What else is happening?
I I've had some interesting conversationslately.
We got a we got a new guy on our staff TurnerMining Group.
I'm really excited about this guy.
I'll I'll talk more about him later.
But a but a really cool guy with some reallyinteresting experience.
(22:15):
He he did a stint at KeyWit for a number ofyears.
I won't hold that against him.
I I might, actually.
I might hold that against him depending on theday.
But had a great conversation with him yesterdayin person.
Known him for several years.
He's been in my network for several years andreally pumped to have him on the team.
But we were talking about a a specificcustomer, and oh, man.
(22:38):
I I wish I could dive into all the details.
Once once the once the period goes by wherewhere it's not as fresh and and some of this is
old news, I'll I'll talk in more detail aboutthis.
But there's a customer out there, a customerthat we've been chasing for a number of years.
They're they're they've been hard to get into.
They've been hard to get them to take usseriously as a service provider to them.
(23:03):
And and they're using someone that does what wedo.
And I'm telling you, this is me being as honestas I can be.
I repeated this yesterday.
I said these exact words yesterday to one ofour guys, two of our guys in a meeting.
This is an honest statement.
(23:23):
I believe we could save this customer$15,000,000 a year.
I believe it.
I would bet would bet $50,000,000 on it becausethat's what it would cost to acquire the fleet
that we need to acquire to go do the work.
But I I think we could save them $15,000,000 ayear based on what they're currently spending.
(23:47):
I know exactly what they're currently spendingbecause I got people on the inside that know
what they're spending.
That's another really good part about thispodcast is I got people on the inside all over
the place.
So I get weird information.
Sometimes I gotta, like, turn turn my head theother way and pretend I didn't hear what I
heard.
But but I I know we could save this specificcustomer $15,000,000 a year.
(24:12):
The challenge the challenge I'm having is doesthe customer care?
That's a that's a real question.
And and some of you guys are like, what are youtalking about?
Does the customer care?
It's $15,000,000 a year.
Believe it or not, there are companies outthere who would pay $15,000,000 a year more for
(24:35):
something and have the peace of mind, the theapparent peace of mind, the foe peace of mind
to not have to worry about switching providers.
They they would be willing to pay $15,000,000more a year for something so that they don't
have to worry.
And and I'll be I'll be even more blunt.
(24:59):
It's specific people.
The organization cares about $15,000,000.
Right?
Like, the the the heads of the organizationcare about $15,000,000.
They would love to save their company$15,000,000.
What happens is that there are people inmanagement roles, people in decision roles who
(25:23):
don't care about $15,000,000 because I'm gonnatell you why they don't care.
They don't care about $15,000,000 because a,it's not their $15,000,000.
B, they're not compensated in a way thatthey're incentivized to go save $15,000,000.
C, they would have to put their neck out thereto try to save the $15,000,000.
(25:51):
And so there's a risk, but there's no reward.
If they put their neck out there, they switchservice providers, they save $15,000,000, they
look like a hero, but they don't have any realfinancial reward.
They're not getting any huge comp or anythinglike that.
They're they're gonna make their salary andmake their bonus.
If they put their neck out there, they try tosave the $15,000,000, they switch service
(26:15):
providers, and it doesn't work out, they gettheir head chopped off.
And so there's this perfect storm of peoplethat are in management roles for companies who
aren't incentivized to make any real change.
They don't wanna be a change manager.
(26:36):
They don't wanna be a change agent.
They don't wanna actually go move the needlefor their business.
They just wanna keep things status quo becausethat means their job is safe.
That means their retirement is safe.
That means they can just keep things comfy.
This is our number one competitor.
We don't we don't compete against, you know,all these other dirt movers.
(27:00):
Like, we we really don't compete against Amesthat much.
We don't compete against KeyWit or Ledcor.
You can name a bunch of these com like, sure,you'll see them on a bid list.
And sure, they'll submit numbers.
We'll submit numbers.
But what who we are all really competingagainst are the people in these organizations
in which we're trying to work for who don'twant change.
(27:22):
That's that is our competitor.
It's crazy to say that, but that is where thestate of the mining industry is here in The US.
People are reluctant to change.
They don't wanna stick their neck out because,again, their job's on the line.
(27:42):
If they change and it works, great.
Cool.
Doesn't really affect my comp.
Doesn't really affect my life.
If they change and it doesn't work, bigdownside.
Big downside.
You lose your job.
Not much upside, big downside.
And and worse worse than just losing your job,you now have a huge l on your resume, which
(28:03):
then makes it harder to go get your next job.
This is the game.
This is the game that we play.
And and every time we quote these big 100 ormulti $100,000,000 packages, the people we are
competing against are the people who don't wantchange.
They're the people who know things are notoptimized, know things are not efficient, know
(28:28):
that they're wasting money in certain areas,but they know that is less of an evil than
switching to someone new and bringing about abunch of change.
So so I had to say all that.
I had to get that off my chest.
I I love I can't wait to tell the story somedaywhen I really get to use some juicier details
when this is water under the bridge.
(28:51):
But you see companies that that take big changeand embrace it are customer Bayer.
You guys have heard me talk about the bigcontract win we had early this year.
We've been chasing it for five or six yearsnow.
We finally convinced Bayer to make a change,and and we didn't even convince anyone.
(29:11):
We were always there.
We were always ready.
We always had the ability.
They convinced themselves it was time tochange.
They had a change agent internal.
They had a guy tasked with making big waves,cutting costs, bringing technology and
(29:32):
efficiency into their operations, not just inmining, but across the board.
They had a guy who the organization said, hey.
You know what?
We want to drive efficiency in our business.
We want to decrease costs.
We want to see what this would look like if wemade big waves.
And so what do they do?
(29:53):
They make big waves.
They they told the folks that were there forfifty seven years that they're no longer there
anymore.
And and we start we start mining for them in2026.
So there are companies that embrace change, butman, the gist of all of the companies across
(30:14):
The US that do mining, they're so reluctant tochange.
They're so reluctant to adopt new systems, newtechnology.
They're so reluctant to do anything different,which is beautiful because I think that is a
ton.
That's where there's so much opportunity in ourindustry as new young people, young managers,
(30:36):
new blood gets in there.
I think my hope, my bet, my billion dollar betis that the industry will start to adopt change
as some of this new blood gets into some ofthese new roles.
That's my hope.
But that's what we're currently dealing with,and that's, that's some of the challenge with
(30:56):
where I sit.
And people ask me, who do we compete against?
Like like, our our competitor is always thecustomer.
The customer is our competitor.
Will they change?
Do they actually want change?
Do they wanna take a risk?
Does someone want to stick their neck out andtry to make an impact, a positive impact on the
(31:19):
business that he is representing.
And if and if they do, great.
We'd love to come alongside you and and helpdrive some of this change.
But if they don't, we're we're spending ourwheels, wasting our time, submitting budget
numbers and bids and proposals and negotiating.
Ultimately, they say, yeah.
You know what?
We're screwed up.
It's not optimized.
(31:39):
We're wasting $15,000,000 a year to get thesame thing.
But you know what?
We're just gonna stay this course for now.
We'll call you in three years when thecontract's up.
We'll talk about it again.
And and and it's just it's it's wildly, wildlyfrustrating to watch.
But such is life, such is the business that weoperate.
(32:03):
And by the way, I say all that, really to sayknow who your competitor is because a lot of
folks think their competitor is the othercompany they're, you know, quote, unquote,
competing against, the other dirt mover, theother HVAC contractor, the other general
contractor.
A lot of times, well, yeah, that might be yourcompetitor on paper, but your real competitor,
(32:28):
the real thing preventing you from winning thejob, winning the sale, converting the customer,
the real competitor might be the process.
The real competitor might be the customerhimself or the person representing the
customer.
The the real competitor might be like a barrierthat you haven't quite yet identified.
(32:51):
When I think about this specific example thatI'm talking about here, this competitor is the
customer and the person representing thecustomer who doesn't want change, for his own
specific reasons doesn't want change.
That means we need to adjust our approach.
Now we're not talking about the other dirtmover, the other mining company, the other
(33:14):
contractor as our competitor.
Now we adjust our approach to say, hey, the thecompetitor here is one of the decision makers
who doesn't want change.
How do we strategize?
How do we build an approach?
How do we create a message to that person whois anti change.
(33:38):
Because if we can if we can convince them youshould think about change, the rest of it
becomes much easier.
If you can't convince them that they shouldconsider a change, they should switch
contractors, they should award the project,would if you can't convince one of the key
(33:59):
decision makers, you're wasting your time evercomparing yourself to the other dirt mover, the
other mining guy, the other HVAC guy, the othercontractor.
You're wasting your time.
You're wasting your team's time.
You're wasting your energy.
This is why this one was so frustrating for meis we have spent a ton of time already as a
(34:22):
team pursuing this potential customer.
We have spent a ton of time building some,like, real cases for how we could affect some
change.
I know for a fact how much money we could savethem.
It's $15,000,000 a year.
But if the person who is in part of thedecision making process doesn't even wanna
(34:43):
consider change, guess what?
All that time you just spent, all the payrollhours you just spent, all the effort you just
spent takes the wind right out of the sails ofthe team because they're chasing a ghost.
They're chasing something that's never gonnahappen.
They're chasing something that's not real.
It's not a real opportunity.
(35:04):
It's not a real opportunity if the customer hasa process in place that's going to prevent you
from even being taken seriously.
So I had to say that I had to get that outbecause I think a lot of folks, when you think
about, you know, winning in business or winningnew customers, a lot of folks think of their
competitor as the other guy bidding theproject.
It might not That might not be your biggestcompetition.
(35:26):
The other guy bidding the project might not beyour big biggest competition.
The biggest competition might be the customeror a person in the process representing the
customer.
That might be who you need to focus oncompeting with.
So anyway, maybe I'll unpack more of that on adifferent episode, but that's not today's
topic.
(35:46):
Today's topic and and, man, that probablysounded a little bit like a rant.
I'll unpack all that someday, and and we'll getinto it.
What is today's topic?
Today's topic is a message I received onLinkedIn on Sunday from a guy, excuse me, from
(36:08):
a guy I'm not gonna share his full name.
His name is Michael W.
I will, I'll just say Michael W.
I'm not gonna share his full name.
Michael W writes at 02:37AM on Sunday.
Michael was up late.
Michael says, how many people are between youand your excavator operator?
(36:35):
I just want to know the number of bosses Iwould have.
This is not me picking on Michael.
Michael might be a great guy.
I don't you know, looks like maybe he's lookingfor a job or thinking about a career change or
whatever.
But his question is how many people between youand your excavator operator?
I just wanna know the number of bosses I wouldhave.
So first and foremost, you only have one boss.
(37:02):
Now a lot of people are gonna tell you, oh, yougot a lot of bosses, right?
The customer's a boss.
Your boss is a boss.
The wife is a boss.
You know, the boss has a boss, and so he's yourboss.
In a real structured organization, which iswhat we're all striving to build, it's who we
(37:22):
all wanna work for.
Like an organization with structure, you haveone boss.
Everyone only has one boss because if you servemultiple bosses, if the organization is is
kinda or the org chart's messy, and trust me, II speak on this one because I've lived through
(37:43):
this one.
If the org chart's messy and you have multiplebosses, guess what happens?
There's no accountability.
It's really hard for an employee to be heldaccountable when there's multiple bosses
telling them multiple different things.
I've screwed this one up many, many times.
You know, one of my direct reports will have ateam, And the team will kind of report to my
(38:06):
direct report, but then also kind of report tome.
It never works.
I've got my expectations.
I've got my priorities.
I've got my strategies.
And then a different person has theirexpectations and strategies and priorities, and
and they're conflicting sometimes.
And so you'll hear employees say, well, I don'tknow who to listen to.
I don't know what to do today.
I don't know what's important today.
(38:28):
You should only have one boss.
So, Michael, when you ask I don't know ifMichael listens to the podcast or not.
I have no idea.
I just wanna know the number of bosses I wouldhave.
When Michael asks, I want to know the number ofbosses I would have, that tells me he's working
in an organization currently where he's got alot of different bosses.
That is not a healthy situation to be in.
(38:49):
And any of you guys that have been there, it'sa tough it's a tough situation.
You know?
I I don't love bureaucracy.
I don't love red tape.
I don't, you know me, I don't love structure aton, but I can tell you operating a business
without structure, without some bureaucracy,without some organization, without some layers
(39:13):
of management, it's chaos.
And it sounds to me like Michael's got multiplebosses and he's living in chaos.
So Michael, in the event you'd ever worked forour organization, the idea would be, and I say
idea because that's our goal, the idea would beyou only have one boss.
(39:36):
If if if we put multiple bosses on top of you,you're gonna get confused, and you're gonna
have different priorities, and you and andyou're ultimately not gonna be a super
infective employee long term serving multiplebosses.
So you're only gonna have one boss.
I had to get that out the way.
That's probably a whole separate topic andepisode in and of itself.
(39:59):
How many people are between me and my excavatoroperators?
Let me let me just count for a second because II don't know if I'm gonna get this exactly
right.
This shows how much organizational structurewe've tried to put in place over the years and
how many layers we've tried to put in placeover the years.
So in the early days, I'm talking like earlydays, year one, There was one person between
(40:25):
the excavator operator and me from day one.
Now let me back up.
Like truly day one, there was no one betweenthe excavator operator and me because Albert,
employee number one, would run the excavator.
He wouldn't run it every single day.
Like he Albert was a guy.
(40:46):
He wanted to mentor and train some younger guysand get people in seats and move around.
So so quickly, he started to promote people tobeing the production excavator man.
But in in our very first job, when I startedthe business, there was no one between the
excavator operator and me.
I was the president, founder, and chief projectmanager of our organization, and Albert was the
(41:12):
production homing.
It was a small crew.
I think it was like a seven person crew.
So I could manage it all.
Albert could run the excavator and load trucks.
I could call him on his cell phone.
I, you know, I could touch base with him everyday.
I was the project manager.
We started to evolve a little bit.
(41:33):
Albert would put excavator operator in theseat, and then Albert would jump into a pickup
truck and start to begin to manage at a littlehigher level as things became a little more
complicated.
We added some more projects to our backlog andthose projects required an actual project
(41:53):
manager.
I couldn't manage them from afar.
And so very quickly, projects two, three, four,five, and so on, we always had a project
manager, and that project manager would managethe crew, and the excavator operator would be a
piece of the crew.
So so for a lot of years I say a lot of years,two or so years, there was one layer between me
(42:21):
and the excavator operators.
One layer, and that was the project manager.
As we've grown, and we've done a million thingswrong, I talk about it all the time, but as
we've grown, we have changed our operationsteams and our operations organizations such
that, you know, every project's a littledifferent, but some of the big projects require
(42:42):
multiple layers of people to help coordinatethe big crews, the big rosters, the changing
shifts.
You know, some of our operations run twentyfour hours a day, seven days a week, three
sixty five days a year.
Yes, even on Christmas.
And so it takes layers of people to coordinateall that.
(43:02):
Now I would say for the most part, there areI'll have to count them.
I'll I'll I'll literally have to count themright here with you because I don't I've never
actually counted how many layers there are.
So we'll have a production hoe man orproduction loader man.
And above him, typically, you will have a mindforeman.
And the mind foreman does all kinds of things,but helps coordinate the work and shift, you
(43:27):
know, schedule people around and look out forthings in the mind that are changing.
Above the mind foreman, you will have asuperintendent.
So that's two layers above the production hoeman or production excavator guy.
Above the superintendent, generally speaking,you'll either have a mine engineer on some of
(43:48):
your larger projects where there are some Andmine engineer wouldn't necessarily sit above a
superintendent.
It's kind of a dotted line next to, But I'mjust giving you a glimpse into, you know,
layers here.
You'll a mind engineer in some cases or somesort of admin person on the site to help keep
(44:09):
track of all the things that a site has to keeptrack of.
And then you might have above that, a projectmanager.
A project manager is someone that, you know,for us has P and L responsibility of the
project, someone that, you know, is managingfrom a high level.
They're not operating equipment, generallyspeaking.
(44:31):
They're managing from a high level.
They're making sure we are planning properly.
They're coordinating with the customer.
They're coordinating with vendors and they'recoordinating with our vice president of
operations, which is another layer ofmanagement.
And so, you know, for any one of our projects,and some of our projects change, right?
(44:52):
The smaller projects might run a little morelean.
It might just be excavator man and projectmanager.
Some of the bigger projects, there might beanother layer in there if it's a 100 person
roster.
But generally speaking, there are four layersof people between where I sit and where our
(45:13):
equipment operators sit.
And and I think that's important, especially asan organization grows.
I have really struggled with this one where youget too many direct reports at any level of the
organization, whether you're on a project teamor whether you're on, you know, back office
teams, you know, serving the back office.
(45:37):
Any individual person, any rock star can onlyhandle so many direct reports.
I I've heard a lot of people say the sweetnumber, the sweet spot 77 or 8.
Those are probably more office focused rolesthat are a little more strategic.
You know, I've seen field roles, fieldmanagement roles have 40 or 50 direct reports
(46:03):
or even some cases more than that.
But as the organization grows, the layers haveto grow with it.
It's just part of it.
I've seen a lot of people say, yeah, we wannastay flat.
We wanna keep a flat organization.
We don't wanna add too many layers because thenwe get a bunch of overhead costs and so on and
(46:26):
so forth.
I get it, and that sounds great in theory, butwhen you stay flat, you burn people out and
people take their eye off the ball.
Someone has a very focused job, a shifter or amind foreman has a very focused job, he's not
worried.
(46:46):
The mind foreman's not worried about whichvendors are doing what and what's the KPI for
the quarter and what's our annual goal.
Like a mind foreman's very focused on what'sexactly in front of him day to day to day.
You know, which equipment is down today?
Okay.
We gotta shift the plan.
(47:07):
Same thing with the superintendent on aproject.
Like, they they have a very specific set ofthings they're focused on.
They can't be you guys hear the saying, and I'msure you've heard it, like, you can't see the
forest through the trees because you're focusedon the tree.
Like, we don't want the superintendent focusedon the forest necessarily in our projects.
(47:30):
We want the superintendent focused on exactlywhat's happening day to day in the operation.
What's what's the plan today?
Let's not worry about next quarter or nextyear.
That's someone else's job.
I I would say the vice president of operationsis worried about next year.
He's worried about cash flow at the projectsand and which projects are producing cash and
(47:56):
which ones are consuming cash.
He's worried about scheduling the next quarterand which KPIs matter.
Like, he's worried about big high level forestthings.
The people at the project level should befocused on the tree things.
Like like how do we cut a tree down today?
(48:18):
Not how do we cut the forest down today?
Once you blend these together or blur thelines, I don't think either one gets done very
well.
I've seen this a ton.
It's it's a struggle.
Trust me.
It's a struggle, especially when you're growinga company.
One of the biggest challenges is having a guytrying to zoom in and out of the business every
(48:39):
few hours.
I want you to be way high level today for alittle bit and let's talk strategy for next
year.
And then he leaves that meeting and he goes andhe is like deep in the weeds tactical tomorrow.
That's very hard to do.
It's extremely hard to do.
The people that do that really well tend to bevery high level leaders that work their way up
(49:01):
into big time management roles for companiesbecause it's hard to do.
You want someone that can do that, zoom way inon the tactical things day to day and then zoom
way out and be effective at strategy highlevel.
Someone that can do that has got really goodcontext in how operations work.
(49:23):
And so they're able to zoom in, but also has abig enough brain, enough IQ, enough empathy and
intelligence to zoom way out and thinkstrategy.
The people that can do that really welltypically are either high level leaders in
organization because they've worked their wayup there through results after results, year
after year, or they start their own business.
(49:48):
Because if you can do this, you have a fightingchance at starting your own business.
If you can get real tactical in a conversationand talk about why the tire blew out on the
haul truck and what we need to do to prevent itnext time and how we need to create an SOP and
how we need to change the mind plan.
Like, if you can do all that and then zoom wayout and go sit and talk to a banker about your
(50:11):
capital needs for the next three years, like,those are those are special people.
Those are people that that, you know, they theycan operate at a different level, but it takes
a lot of lot of little reps to get there.
I think the same is true for legitsuperintendents and legit project managers.
They've got their own levels of vision wherethey should see what, you know, what amount of
(50:36):
the forest they should be looking at.
But some of the best project managers I'vewatched are guys that can literally go put
their arm around a truck driver who's having abad day, and they can coach them.
They can mentor them.
They can give them pointers instead of justblowing them off and saying, ah, take the day
off.
You're you're suspended today.
(50:57):
They they have empathy.
They wanna help.
They wanna coach.
But then they can zoom out of the little bittytactical things like that.
They can zoom out enough to see the biggerpicture of the project.
How do I hit my financial goals this month?
And how do I set myself up and my operations upto hit my financial goals next month?
(51:20):
What vendors do I need to coordinate with?
The best project managers out there just solveproblems.
They don't they don't see a problem and hit ushit a wall and then just lob it over the fence
to the next guy.
They try to solve problems.
I'm a big believer, and I've said this a ton,you get rewarded for producing results in
(51:44):
whatever level you're in.
If you're a truck driver and you produceresults, meaning you deliver the product where
it's supposed to go on time, safely, withoutissue, if you deliver results day after day for
a long time, you're gonna get rewarded forthat.
You're gonna get more opportunity.
If you're a mind foreman and you produceresults day after day, you help the crews, you
(52:07):
help people avoid the things that a mindforeman should, you're gonna get rewarded for
that.
You're gonna get more opportunities.
Same thing for a project manager.
If you continue to produce results for yourorganization and you eat excuses, every excuse
that pops up, you eat it, you fall on it likeit's a grenade, it's your problem to deal with,
(52:30):
you make it go away, you're gonna get rewardedfor that.
And I think that to me is one of the reasonswhy it's so important to have layers of
management.
I was never one that was a fan of layers ofmanagement.
If you'd asked me five years ago, I'd be like,dude, I can run all this.
I don't need a I need like a regional managerand that's it.
(52:54):
And I can run the rest of it.
And I'm telling you now where I sit, I couldn'thave been more wrong.
I couldn't have missed it more because if yougive someone in their position too much to go
focus on, especially too much too soon, theydon't do a great job at any of it.
There's too much chaos.
(53:15):
It's drinking from a fire hose.
There's too many problems.
You you can only solve one problem at a time,and so you solve one problem, four more pop up,
and and you turn around and you're like, dude,I'm not I'm treading water.
I'm actually I'm actually not treading water.
I'm sinking every day in the water that I'mtrying to tread because I got more problems
popping up than than I can solve.
(53:36):
That's when you need a layer of management.
I've watched guys who are super talented,legit, good empathy guys, good attitude guys,
know how to move dirt, know how to do mining.
I've watched them completely burn up and burnout because they tried to do too much.
(54:00):
We put too much on them.
We should have had another layer, either alayer below them that could help lighten load
for them or a layer above them.
I've made this mistake so many times.
And what happens is the guy, the the thetalented guy, the the guy that's legit, he's
(54:20):
not going to ask for another layer, generallyspeaking.
Every once in while, you'll see a guy that'ssmart enough, and they'll say, dude, I'm I am
nearing burnout.
I need a layer.
Please help me.
But a lot of times, they won't ask for a layer.
They won't ask for help above them.
They won't ask for help below them.
They'll just try to keep wrapping their armsaround everything and and appearing like
(54:44):
they've got it all under control.
It's you guys have ever heard this analogy of aduck, you know, on the surface looks calm,
cool, and collected, but below the water, thoselittle feet are freaking flopping back and
forth and are swimming like crazy.
I've watched really good people completely burnout because there should have been an other
(55:05):
layer somewhere in the org chart.
There should have been another person to helpfocus on the areas where where the other guy
just didn't have time or energy to focus on, ormaybe wasn't uniquely positioned or uniquely
skilled to go focus on those areas.
And so to me, layers are super important.
Now I'm not a fan of just adding layers to addlayers.
(55:28):
I'm not a fan of like just, you know, bringingon more overhead, more management just to throw
a warm body at a problem.
If you're throwing warm bodies at the problem,you know, it might, the the problem might be
the bodies you already have, you know, in theorg chart.
But layers are important.
And, and I can tell you right now, Michael W,if there was only one layer between me and the
(55:54):
excavator operator, our business would befailing.
I say that with 110% confidence.
If there was one layer let me back up.
One of two things is true here.
If there's one layer between me and ourexcavator operator, one of two things is true.
(56:14):
Either our business is failing because we'remissing too many layers, which means too much
is sitting on Keaton Turner's plate to manage,which means I'm not managing any of it very
well.
So I'm not super organized, and I'm not a greatops director.
I'm not a great VP of ops.
I'm not a great project manager, although I'mbetter than most, but I'm not phenomenal.
(56:37):
So so either the business is failing if if ifthere's only well, if there's no layers between
me and the excavator operator, or the otherthing that could be true is we're an extremely
small business.
We're doing two, three, four, five millionbucks a year.
When we were doing Of course, we never did 2 or3 or $4,000,000 a year because year one, we did
(57:04):
20, And it was was chaos.
I was I was the guy managing we had we hadproject managers, so it was a layer, but
there's only one layer between me and theexcavator operators.
It's not sustainable.
It's not at a $20,000,000 a year company size,having the owner and again, this is just my
(57:28):
opinion.
Having the owner manage all those excavatoroperators, that is not a sustainable business.
That's a hobby.
That's a lifestyle business.
That's a mom and pop dirt mover.
Like, it's not sustainable because you're notfocusing if if if Keaton Turner, the owner, the
(57:50):
president, the CEO of the company is managingoperations down at that level, you know what
I'm not doing?
I'm not focused on next year or the year afterthat.
I'm not focused on our banking relationships.
I'm not focused on our org chart and how itneeds to develop.
I'm not focused on developing up and coming upand coming leaders.
(58:13):
I'm not focused on process and procedures.
I'm not focused on what risks and gaps we mighthave in our HR, our handbook, our policies.
Like, I'm not focused on all the other thingsbecause I'm focused on the excavator operator.
It's rare that an excavator operator ever killsyour business, especially you small business
(58:36):
guys.
Like, your excavator operator is not gonna makeor break your business.
You know what will make or break your business?
Is a class action lawsuit because you screwedup something in your handbook and your HR team
doesn't know how to deal with it, and so youhave a huge settlement.
That'll blow your business up.
(58:56):
I see it a ton.
I see it a ton.
Guys that run $5.10, 15, even $20,000,000businesses that have one layer between the
leader of the organization, the guy, there'sone layer between him and the people doing the
work.
(59:18):
And what that means is the leader of theorganization is leading field ops, leading
project managers, or leading a a group ofsuperintendents, leading a group of operators,
and they're not leading the business to whereit could and should go.
(59:39):
So this one's tough for me.
You know, how many layers?
It depends on your industry, depends on thebusiness you're trying to build, depends on
where you wanna grow.
And quite frankly, it depends on the caliber ofleaders you have in those layers.
There've been times we've had really highcaliber leaders in a specific layer and it
(59:59):
works at a little bigger scale.
And there's been times where we, you know,didn't have such a high caliber person and so
we needed another layer.
It's a tough one.
This is a tough one to get right.
But, you know, Michael, I would say if you'relooking for a company where there are zero
layers between you as the operator and the guythat owns the business, if you're looking for a
(01:00:25):
company that has zero layers between there,you're either gonna work for an extremely small
company who probably isn't growing, or you'regonna work for a somewhat larger company that's
failing miserably.
(01:00:45):
I believe it.
Prove me wrong.
I mean, you never see companies that have verysmall, flat organizations, small teams go on to
do really, really big things.
Now you might see a small organization with aflat org chart do great things.
(01:01:07):
They might make great margin.
They might kill it financially, and theculture's great, and everyone's happy, but
they're small companies.
And that's fine.
There's nothing wrong with that.
There's a lot of guys I know that are owneroperators.
They own the business, and they operate thebusiness, meaning everyone reports to them.
(01:01:27):
They got a team of 20 guys, and they all reportto the owner.
There's nothing wrong with that, but it's asmall company.
It's a small business.
And so, you know, what we're trying to build isnot a small business.
We are trying to build an industry impactingbusiness, and you can't impact an industry, in
(01:01:51):
my opinion, at a small scale.
To impact an industry, you have to be a bigbusiness.
You have to reach scale.
You have to change lives, not just twenty,thirty, 40 lives.
I'm trying to change thousands of lives.
I feel like that's my calling.
And so for us, yeah, it takes layers.
And and, you know, thank God for layers becausewithout layers, Keaton Turner managing a bunch
(01:02:17):
of a bunch of operations, a bunch of operators,that is a scary, scary thought.
And trust me, if you know me or if you if youknow our company, you don't want me managing
excavator operators.
So that's what I got for you, Michael.
I don't know if that I don't know if youlisten.
I don't know if that helps you, other smallbusiness operators.
(01:02:37):
I've always said the quicker you can get Ifyou're a small business owner, the quicker you
can get someone more legit than you to managethe things that you're currently manage, you
should do it.
If you can afford it, if you can scrapetogether the money, the quicker you can get
someone more legit than you are at the thingsyou're currently managing, the more your
(01:03:00):
business will grow.
It'll allow you to elevate yourself to go focuson things you are good at.
You put someone in charge of the things you'renot currently good at.
It's a win win.
But companies that fail to do this, they failto grow.
And if they do grow, they ultimately fail withthe wrong people in the wrong layer.
(01:03:22):
So I don't know if that was helpful.
This one I got today, I gotta run.
This one was way longer than I thought it wasgonna be.
Again, huge shout out.
Ace McCarthy, thank you for care package.
Matt Stephens, thank you for the shirtlessvideo.
I would love to hear from you.
I'd love to get your audio.
I would love to get a voicemail from you.
(01:03:43):
If you got a question for me, if you got atopic, if you just wanna hear your voice on the
Purdium Podcast, send me a message.
Audio message, video, voicemail.
Send me a message.
980 That is (980) 737-3436.
Would love to hear from you.
Praying you're killing it.
(01:04:03):
Praying you're getting your per diem.
And I pray, good Lord willing, we do this onemore day.
What's up, Keaton Turner?
This is Matt Stephens out here in Redmond,Oregon.
Moving cows today, moving sheep.
That guard dog's running around here somewhere.
Anyway, just giving you what you wanted, man.
Your shirtless video on a Sunday afternoon.
Couldn't ask for a much nicer day.
90 degrees, sun shining.
(00:24):
We got the cows eating fresh grass over here.
Look at that.
Look at them.
There's a doggy right there.
Mister Bear, he's a guard dog.
He's a good boy.
But, just checking in with you, man.
Really appreciate what you got going on on thepodcast.
Been keeping up with it, listening to everyday.
I swear sometimes it's like, you're justtalking to me, man.
(00:46):
We've, we've been going through it, you know,just the same.
We're a six year old company now.
Myself and my business partner, Paul, westarted this thing in 2019.
In fact, we started not in this unfinishedbuilding, but in that little building right
there.
That one, we built a 12 by 12 office in thecorner of my pool barn.
(01:11):
We both quit our jobs, we went to work.
We've got, 62 employees as of Friday last week,mid $30,000,000 annual revenue, and it's been a
hell of a ride, man.
Been been learning a lot.
(01:32):
Been in Death Valley a few times.
And you know what?
Quite frankly, I guess I don't know what theopposite of Death Valley is, but we've been
there a few times too if we're if we're beingquite honest with ourselves.
We've had good years.
We've had bad years.
We've had good jobs.
We've had bad jobs.
And and, I guess it's all worth it at the endof the day.
So really appreciate your insight.
(01:54):
And quite frankly, all the insight of thepeople that I've met, believe it or not,
through your podcast.
And by through your podcast, I mean, you know,getting more active on LinkedIn, starting to
meet new folks and reach out to other people.
Met people from different states.
Met people from, you know, companies that Inever would have been around before, never
(02:18):
would have seen.
And, these guys are in it, and it's good toknow that we're not alone.
It's good to know that our problems aren'tunique.
It's good to know that there's other otherfellas in the fight.
Boy, it doesn't get a lot bigger now.
(02:38):
I'm doing that right there in fresh grass.
So full time contractor, part time farmerKeaton.
Anyway, hope you're doing well, brother.
Thank you for the good work.
Thank you for the podcast.
Thank you for the words of encouragement.
Thank you for this beautiful Sunday.
Peace.
(03:25):
Started in a 12 by 12 building just a few yearsago, now feeding 60 families.
If that isn't the American dream, I don't knowwhat is.
I love it.
(03:45):
Absolutely love it.
Matt Stephens, thank you, brother.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Another day, another shirtless video, and thatone that one had a lot of zest to it.
See, you know, some of these shirtless videos,I I pay attention not only to the fact that
(04:07):
it's a full grown man sending another fullgrown man who they've never met in person.
They're sending another full grown man a videoof themselves shirtless.
I pay not only attention to the fact they'redoing that, but I pay attention to the small
things in the video.
And that video had some zest.
That video had some pizzazz.
(04:28):
I I posted on my Instagram.
You can go look at it.
Huge shout, Matt Stephens.
He's out running cattle.
He's got a got a, you know, a cattle dog outthere working the cattle, chewing the fresh
grass.
He's got beautiful scenery in the background.
But the first thing that catches my eye is thisbig, luscious beard.
(04:50):
And, man, I I couldn't be more jealous of that.
Something I never talked about on the podcast,I don't think.
I literally couldn't grow facial hair to savemy life.
I I couldn't do it.
So, Matt, I'm jealous of the beard, dude.
If I had a beard, I man, they would they wouldhave to I'd have to carry around a stick to
(05:13):
beat them off of me if I had a beard like that.
That's that's unbelievable.
I love I guys know I love the shirtless videos,but I love that Matt talks about the humble
beginnings in a 12 by 12 building.
I love that he talks about how many familiesthey're impacting now.
(05:35):
Six I think he said 62 employees as of lastweek, and I'm sure that number's growing week
to week, month to month, year to year.
For a for a guy to start a business in 2019 andnow doing 30 to $40,000,000 a year, like, that
is unbelievable.
(05:55):
And I know Matt probably takes some time everyonce in while.
Maybe it's when he's on vacation, maybe when hegets a quiet moment.
He probably sits down, if I if if I had toguess, and asks himself, how is this real?
Like, how how in the world did we start abusiness six years ago?
(06:16):
We got 60 something employees.
We're doing tens of millions of dollars a yearin revenue.
We're impacting people.
Like, how is this possible?
Well, it's possible by all the things I talkabout every single day in this podcast.
I Matt, in that video, said, man, I feel likeyou're talking to me a lot of days.
(06:40):
I feel like you're directing these episodesdirectly at me.
I am directing them at you because I have gonethrough the exact same thing you're going
through, the bad days, the employee problems,the the customer problems.
He Matt went on to say, we've had good jobs.
We've had bad jobs.
We've had good years.
(07:00):
We've had bad years.
You know?
I'm sure in the early days, and it's stillearly days, You know, only six years in.
I'm only you know, I'm not even nine years inyet.
It's still early days.
There's still bad days.
We still have bad jobs.
You know?
I've I have jobs right now that that aren'tgoing the way that we would all want them to
(07:20):
go.
And so, yeah.
I love the video because there is a way to godo exactly what Matt's doing, and it's bellying
up every single day to the buffet of ballkickings.
I think I'm just gonna keep using that term.
It's bellying up every day the buffet of ballkickings and getting plate after plate.
(07:45):
And then you wake up one day like he is.
You're out farming.
You're running cattle, shirtless with thebeard, the backwards hat, the sunglasses
looking zesty, and you send another guy avideo.
And you're like, man, how am I how am I doingthis?
How how are we six years later here doing thisright now?
Well, it's it's day after day, grind aftergrind, all the things I talk about every day.
(08:10):
So, Matt, appreciate the video, man.
It's it's awesome.
You know, you asked the question, what's youknow, he's been in Death Valley a few times, he
says, and he's like, I don't really know whatthe opposite of Death Valley is.
I think the opposite of Death Valley is thestairway to heaven.
Maybe I maybe I run an episode on that onesomeday.
(08:31):
There's there's times you feel like you're onthe mountaintop.
You win the big contract.
You think money's just gonna flow from theheavens.
You're like, man, I am walking this stairway upto the heavens, and it's and life is good.
And the birds are chirping, and the sky isclear.
There's no clouds in sight.
Business is easy.
(08:52):
Employees are easy.
Customers are happy.
That's the stairway to heaven or themountaintop.
But as quickly as you can climb the stairway toheaven and find yourself up in the bright,
sunny, thin air on top of the mountain, it canall come quickly crashing back down, and you
(09:13):
can find yourself back in the valley.
You know?
I I Matt, the last thing I'll say about yourvideo, I love the fact that you are getting
more active on LinkedIn.
I I I say it all the time.
It is the number one business tool on earth.
And and the fact that you're meeting peoplefrom different states, different companies,
(09:38):
people that you know, I don't know if you wannaI don't know if we wanna start the slogan like
the Purdue Nation.
You know, some of you guys I know some of youguys have joined the Rise Calls with Corey
Carlson.
I have not been able to get on those recently.
I need to.
I got I'm I'm so bummed I missed the last one.
But, man, it makes me super pumped to see guysexpanding their network because I'm just a firm
(10:00):
believer your network is your net worthsomeday.
And and guys that are tuning in to listen tothis podcast area, you have a lot more in
common than you think.
Even if you're not a business owner, even ifyou're not someone far, you know, further along
in their career, there are a ton of people whowant the journey, the climb, the ball kickings.
(10:24):
They want more.
Whatever more is for them.
They want, like, the family thing.
They want the they want the wife.
They want the career path.
They wanna make a million bucks a year in theirown business.
They wanna scale the business they're alreadyrunning.
Man, I you have to tap into that networkbecause there are people out there who are much
(10:48):
smarter than me, by the way.
There are people out there doing much biggerthings than I'm doing, by the way, who would
love to have a conversation with you, who'd behappy to take your phone call, who would be
happy to grab a beer sometime because they'rein the same city you are, or maybe they're
visiting or whatever.
I just got a I got a voice mail last night froma from a kid that's gonna come stop by the
(11:11):
office, our office here in Indiana sometime.
He's coming through town and wanted to stop byand meet all the people that I talk about on
the podcast, Patton, Jeff, Tucker, Jake.
Who know you know, who knows?
We got a little keg in the office.
You can come have a beer anytime.
But, man, you gotta expand your network.
(11:32):
Don't be so shy.
Don't be so timid that you don't ever want tosend a message or put yourself out there.
Just start with very simple LinkedIn posts.
I'm telling you, it's one of the easiest stepsyou can take on the journey to getting where
you wanna go.
It's just putting yourself out there.
You know?
Worrying a lot less about what other peoplethink and worrying a lot more about how to be
(11:59):
real and transparent and expand your network,I'm telling you, works.
So, Matt, love it, brother.
I I really do love it.
I, you know, I love the shirtless video.
So if you haven't, go check out the Purdiumpodcast on LinkedIn.
I'll post a video on LinkedIn, and I will alsopost his zesty video on Instagram.
(12:26):
Love that.
What else is happening in my world today?
Hold on.
Quick coffee break out of the per diem mug.
I owe a massive, massive shout out.
I've shouted him out the last couple days kindof ironically.
I don't know that I had a plan to.
It just kinda happens that way.
(12:47):
And then I walk in the office yesterday, and Ihave a box addressed to Keaton Delbert Turner.
And I'm like, well, who who the heck got myfreaking middle name wrong?
Who and who's calling me a Delbert?
I open the the box says Epiroc on it.
(13:09):
And I'm like, dude, we Epiroc?
Did somebody send us parts?
Like, we got bits drill bits in here.
What's going on?
I opened the box.
It is full of two eight drilling gear, swag,hats.
Like, he's got two ace first of all, AceMcCarthy.
(13:30):
Go look the dude up.
If you don't know who Ace McCarthy is andyou're in our industry, you gotta go look up
Ace.
He's one of the greats.
I love the dude to death.
He's one of these guys, young, good looking guyin business out there.
I know Ace is bellying up to the buffet of ballkickings every day.
I know it because I know his business.
(13:50):
I know his industry.
I know the crap he deals with with machines anddrills breaking down and maintenance and all
the crap that guys like Ace have to deal with.
Ace, I cannot thank you enough, brother.
The the the hats are fresh.
I'm wearing them today.
I'm literally gonna wear these two eightdrilling hats.
Phenomenal.
I I post this on my Instagram as well.
(14:12):
I got a golf towel.
I got a box of Pro V ones with the two eightlogo on them, which are phenomenal.
I got a Rockform portable wireless golfspeaker.
That's that is literally gonna get stuck to thegolf cart on Friday.
And I'm gonna play some Cody Johnson, someMorgan Wallen, some Hank Junior out of this
(14:36):
portable golf speaker.
Unbelievable.
It's it's this is crazy.
I got let's see.
What else did I get in here?
I got a divot tool, a two eight custom divottool, which I will use to repair my divots from
when I throw a 140 yard wedge onto the greenand make my five foot birdie putt to win the
(15:05):
match.
I will use your divot tool, Ace, so thank youfor that.
And then I got a legit card where I mean, dude,I I just this is too much.
He's got some awesome stationary, two eightstationary, build the best business for the
best people so they can live their best life.
(15:26):
I love that slogan.
I love that slogan.
He's got their core values on there, which areawesome.
Handwritten handwritten.
I'm not gonna read you I'm not gonna read y'allthat he wrote me.
That's between Ace and I.
But but, man, I cannot thank you enough.
And then on the back, he's got two drills, youknow, flying huge American flags.
(15:48):
Ace, man, you know, I'm a fan of you already,brother, but this is too much.
I gotta figure out how to return the favor andget you a box of swag back because this is this
is too much.
Ace has got a beautiful little family,beautiful little wife, just a great dude.
And and to me, there's nothing that fills mycup up more, to be honest with you, than
(16:12):
getting to know people in this industry likeAce.
I don't again, I I wish I knew him way better.
I wish we were closer in proximity so that wecould hang out more, drink beer together.
But just good Christian, young guy, building ayoung family, building a business, going
through all that you gotta go through to buildthe American dream.
(16:33):
To me, that is that is what's been so coolabout this podcast is getting to meet other
people.
Matt Stefan's another good example.
Guys, I would've never connected with, youknow, if I hadn't started putting myself out
there on LinkedIn, on Instagram, doing thepodcast.
There's so many good people out there.
This industry, construction industries, youknow, HVAC, there are so many good people out
(17:00):
there that just want to do good work, honestwork, build their little slice of paradise,
build their little family, their littlecompany, build their thing.
It gets me fired up.
I love it.
I love it to death.
So, Ace, can't thank you enough, brother.
You you're gonna get something back from me.
(17:21):
I gotta figure out how to one up you now.
My box is gonna be bigger and have more stuffin it.
So thank you, brother.
Really appreciate that.
Awesome swag.
Let's see.
What else?
What else is happening?
I'm heading into the office.
We're in the dog days of summer.
I think I've said this recently.
It feels like the dog days of summer aren'tending.
It is it's been it's been one of the craziestyears of weather that I can remember.
(17:49):
Storms, like, almost it seems like a stormevery single day.
Some of you guys that are working in theMidwest trying to move dirt, I feel bad for
you.
We don't move any dirt in the mid well, I takethat back.
We are moving some dirt down in Missouri, butwe don't move a ton of dirt in the Midwest.
But, man, if we were moving dirt in the Midwestthis time of year, if we're trying to strip
strip overburden or anything like that, I Ifeel bad for you because, woah, it is it has
(18:15):
been a very difficult year, weather wise herein the Midwest.
I don't know about anywhere else.
I know Texas has been hit with some weather.
But, we get a storm every day.
We get rain almost every day.
I think I think just a few days ago, we weredouble the national or we were double the
annual average rainfall for the year, and theyear's only half over.
(18:37):
So it's just been really wet.
It's been really hot and humid, almost too hotand humid, to to really, like, do anything
outside.
I realized just a few days ago, I talked to oneof the interns in our office yesterday, and he
was asking me about phishing.
And and I realized just a few days ago, I havenot this is terrible.
(19:02):
This is this is actually depressing to evenverbalize.
This is the first time in my life since I wasmaybe four years old where I have not casted a
line.
I have not went fishing all year.
Not one time.
Not one time.
(19:23):
I don't know why.
I I think just life happened.
Of course, you know, we were two days away fromgoing on our big annual guys fishing trip up in
Wisconsin, and and then we get the phone callthat that the tumor was found.
And so, obviously, that trip gets canceled.
Since then, we just have you know, every everyday we get is precious and we, you know, we
(19:48):
just haven't we haven't spent it fishing.
We've spent it hanging out as family orwhatever.
And then prior to that, I think business wasjust busy and and and sports and everything
else just didn't make any time.
So I have not gone fishing all year, and it isyou know, it's almost August.
So that's a first for me.
But it's been a really it's been a reallyinteresting, crazy summer, and it flew by.
(20:16):
I know everyone always says that.
Man, summer flew by.
I don't know if I have any real regrets, butthere are definitely things I wish I would've
gotten done that I haven't crammed in yet.
And and I say we're in the dog days of summer.
We're, I think, two weeks away from schoolstarting up again.
I had a meeting this morning, and then, youknow, an exec meeting.
(20:40):
We we meet every week, and I forgot that Imoved the meeting from a Monday meeting to a
Tuesday meeting because we're reviewing allthese dashboards and information.
Anyway, it was hard to do it on a Mondaymorning because the information hadn't all been
populated yet.
So we moved the meeting to Tuesday, and Iforgot I moved the meeting to Tuesday, and I am
(21:07):
literally on my way to taking kids to camp thismorning and realizing I'm missing my own exec
team meeting with my leaders.
So again, it's just like, man, we gotta getback to school so that, schedules get back to
normal.
And, you know, summer just feels like every dayis a Saturday almost in my house because
(21:31):
there's kids running around and sleepovers and,you know, get donuts, get Chick fil A, all all
the things.
But I but I hate to wish summer away.
I hate for it to be over, and and jump rightback into school.
So I feel like we're right at the end ofsummer, right at the dog days of summer.
Gotta figure out how to go fishing very soon.
(21:52):
I'm gonna do that.
What else is happening?
I I've had some interesting conversationslately.
We got a we got a new guy on our staff TurnerMining Group.
I'm really excited about this guy.
I'll I'll talk more about him later.
But a but a really cool guy with some reallyinteresting experience.
(22:15):
He he did a stint at KeyWit for a number ofyears.
I won't hold that against him.
I I might, actually.
I might hold that against him depending on theday.
But had a great conversation with him yesterdayin person.
Known him for several years.
He's been in my network for several years andreally pumped to have him on the team.
But we were talking about a a specificcustomer, and oh, man.
(22:38):
I I wish I could dive into all the details.
Once once the once the period goes by wherewhere it's not as fresh and and some of this is
old news, I'll I'll talk in more detail aboutthis.
But there's a customer out there, a customerthat we've been chasing for a number of years.
They're they're they've been hard to get into.
They've been hard to get them to take usseriously as a service provider to them.
(23:03):
And and they're using someone that does what wedo.
And I'm telling you, this is me being as honestas I can be.
I repeated this yesterday.
I said these exact words yesterday to one ofour guys, two of our guys in a meeting.
This is an honest statement.
(23:23):
I believe we could save this customer$15,000,000 a year.
I believe it.
I would bet would bet $50,000,000 on it becausethat's what it would cost to acquire the fleet
that we need to acquire to go do the work.
But I I think we could save them $15,000,000 ayear based on what they're currently spending.
(23:47):
I know exactly what they're currently spendingbecause I got people on the inside that know
what they're spending.
That's another really good part about thispodcast is I got people on the inside all over
the place.
So I get weird information.
Sometimes I gotta, like, turn turn my head theother way and pretend I didn't hear what I
heard.
But but I I know we could save this specificcustomer $15,000,000 a year.
(24:12):
The challenge the challenge I'm having is doesthe customer care?
That's a that's a real question.
And and some of you guys are like, what are youtalking about?
Does the customer care?
It's $15,000,000 a year.
Believe it or not, there are companies outthere who would pay $15,000,000 a year more for
(24:35):
something and have the peace of mind, the theapparent peace of mind, the foe peace of mind
to not have to worry about switching providers.
They they would be willing to pay $15,000,000more a year for something so that they don't
have to worry.
And and I'll be I'll be even more blunt.
(24:59):
It's specific people.
The organization cares about $15,000,000.
Right?
Like, the the the heads of the organizationcare about $15,000,000.
They would love to save their company$15,000,000.
What happens is that there are people inmanagement roles, people in decision roles who
(25:23):
don't care about $15,000,000 because I'm gonnatell you why they don't care.
They don't care about $15,000,000 because a,it's not their $15,000,000.
B, they're not compensated in a way thatthey're incentivized to go save $15,000,000.
C, they would have to put their neck out thereto try to save the $15,000,000.
(25:51):
And so there's a risk, but there's no reward.
If they put their neck out there, they switchservice providers, they save $15,000,000, they
look like a hero, but they don't have any realfinancial reward.
They're not getting any huge comp or anythinglike that.
They're they're gonna make their salary andmake their bonus.
If they put their neck out there, they try tosave the $15,000,000, they switch service
(26:15):
providers, and it doesn't work out, they gettheir head chopped off.
And so there's this perfect storm of peoplethat are in management roles for companies who
aren't incentivized to make any real change.
They don't wanna be a change manager.
(26:36):
They don't wanna be a change agent.
They don't wanna actually go move the needlefor their business.
They just wanna keep things status quo becausethat means their job is safe.
That means their retirement is safe.
That means they can just keep things comfy.
This is our number one competitor.
We don't we don't compete against, you know,all these other dirt movers.
(27:00):
Like, we we really don't compete against Amesthat much.
We don't compete against KeyWit or Ledcor.
You can name a bunch of these com like, sure,you'll see them on a bid list.
And sure, they'll submit numbers.
We'll submit numbers.
But what who we are all really competingagainst are the people in these organizations
in which we're trying to work for who don'twant change.
(27:22):
That's that is our competitor.
It's crazy to say that, but that is where thestate of the mining industry is here in The US.
People are reluctant to change.
They don't wanna stick their neck out because,again, their job's on the line.
(27:42):
If they change and it works, great.
Cool.
Doesn't really affect my comp.
Doesn't really affect my life.
If they change and it doesn't work, bigdownside.
Big downside.
You lose your job.
Not much upside, big downside.
And and worse worse than just losing your job,you now have a huge l on your resume, which
(28:03):
then makes it harder to go get your next job.
This is the game.
This is the game that we play.
And and every time we quote these big 100 ormulti $100,000,000 packages, the people we are
competing against are the people who don't wantchange.
They're the people who know things are notoptimized, know things are not efficient, know
(28:28):
that they're wasting money in certain areas,but they know that is less of an evil than
switching to someone new and bringing about abunch of change.
So so I had to say all that.
I had to get that off my chest.
I I love I can't wait to tell the story somedaywhen I really get to use some juicier details
when this is water under the bridge.
(28:51):
But you see companies that that take big changeand embrace it are customer Bayer.
You guys have heard me talk about the bigcontract win we had early this year.
We've been chasing it for five or six yearsnow.
We finally convinced Bayer to make a change,and and we didn't even convince anyone.
(29:11):
We were always there.
We were always ready.
We always had the ability.
They convinced themselves it was time tochange.
They had a change agent internal.
They had a guy tasked with making big waves,cutting costs, bringing technology and
(29:32):
efficiency into their operations, not just inmining, but across the board.
They had a guy who the organization said, hey.
You know what?
We want to drive efficiency in our business.
We want to decrease costs.
We want to see what this would look like if wemade big waves.
And so what do they do?
(29:53):
They make big waves.
They they told the folks that were there forfifty seven years that they're no longer there
anymore.
And and we start we start mining for them in2026.
So there are companies that embrace change, butman, the gist of all of the companies across
(30:14):
The US that do mining, they're so reluctant tochange.
They're so reluctant to adopt new systems, newtechnology.
They're so reluctant to do anything different,which is beautiful because I think that is a
ton.
That's where there's so much opportunity in ourindustry as new young people, young managers,
(30:36):
new blood gets in there.
I think my hope, my bet, my billion dollar betis that the industry will start to adopt change
as some of this new blood gets into some ofthese new roles.
That's my hope.
But that's what we're currently dealing with,and that's, that's some of the challenge with
(30:56):
where I sit.
And people ask me, who do we compete against?
Like like, our our competitor is always thecustomer.
The customer is our competitor.
Will they change?
Do they actually want change?
Do they wanna take a risk?
Does someone want to stick their neck out andtry to make an impact, a positive impact on the
(31:19):
business that he is representing.
And if and if they do, great.
We'd love to come alongside you and and helpdrive some of this change.
But if they don't, we're we're spending ourwheels, wasting our time, submitting budget
numbers and bids and proposals and negotiating.
Ultimately, they say, yeah.
You know what?
We're screwed up.
It's not optimized.
(31:39):
We're wasting $15,000,000 a year to get thesame thing.
But you know what?
We're just gonna stay this course for now.
We'll call you in three years when thecontract's up.
We'll talk about it again.
And and and it's just it's it's wildly, wildlyfrustrating to watch.
But such is life, such is the business that weoperate.
(32:03):
And by the way, I say all that, really to sayknow who your competitor is because a lot of
folks think their competitor is the othercompany they're, you know, quote, unquote,
competing against, the other dirt mover, theother HVAC contractor, the other general
contractor.
A lot of times, well, yeah, that might be yourcompetitor on paper, but your real competitor,
(32:28):
the real thing preventing you from winning thejob, winning the sale, converting the customer,
the real competitor might be the process.
The real competitor might be the customerhimself or the person representing the
customer.
The the real competitor might be like a barrierthat you haven't quite yet identified.
(32:51):
When I think about this specific example thatI'm talking about here, this competitor is the
customer and the person representing thecustomer who doesn't want change, for his own
specific reasons doesn't want change.
That means we need to adjust our approach.
Now we're not talking about the other dirtmover, the other mining company, the other
(33:14):
contractor as our competitor.
Now we adjust our approach to say, hey, the thecompetitor here is one of the decision makers
who doesn't want change.
How do we strategize?
How do we build an approach?
How do we create a message to that person whois anti change.
(33:38):
Because if we can if we can convince them youshould think about change, the rest of it
becomes much easier.
If you can't convince them that they shouldconsider a change, they should switch
contractors, they should award the project,would if you can't convince one of the key
(33:59):
decision makers, you're wasting your time evercomparing yourself to the other dirt mover, the
other mining guy, the other HVAC guy, the othercontractor.
You're wasting your time.
You're wasting your team's time.
You're wasting your energy.
This is why this one was so frustrating for meis we have spent a ton of time already as a
(34:22):
team pursuing this potential customer.
We have spent a ton of time building some,like, real cases for how we could affect some
change.
I know for a fact how much money we could savethem.
It's $15,000,000 a year.
But if the person who is in part of thedecision making process doesn't even wanna
(34:43):
consider change, guess what?
All that time you just spent, all the payrollhours you just spent, all the effort you just
spent takes the wind right out of the sails ofthe team because they're chasing a ghost.
They're chasing something that's never gonnahappen.
They're chasing something that's not real.
It's not a real opportunity.
(35:04):
It's not a real opportunity if the customer hasa process in place that's going to prevent you
from even being taken seriously.
So I had to say that I had to get that outbecause I think a lot of folks, when you think
about, you know, winning in business or winningnew customers, a lot of folks think of their
competitor as the other guy bidding theproject.
It might not That might not be your biggestcompetition.
(35:26):
The other guy bidding the project might not beyour big biggest competition.
The biggest competition might be the customeror a person in the process representing the
customer.
That might be who you need to focus oncompeting with.
So anyway, maybe I'll unpack more of that on adifferent episode, but that's not today's
topic.
(35:46):
Today's topic and and, man, that probablysounded a little bit like a rant.
I'll unpack all that someday, and and we'll getinto it.
What is today's topic?
Today's topic is a message I received onLinkedIn on Sunday from a guy, excuse me, from
(36:08):
a guy I'm not gonna share his full name.
His name is Michael W.
I will, I'll just say Michael W.
I'm not gonna share his full name.
Michael W writes at 02:37AM on Sunday.
Michael was up late.
Michael says, how many people are between youand your excavator operator?
(36:35):
I just want to know the number of bosses Iwould have.
This is not me picking on Michael.
Michael might be a great guy.
I don't you know, looks like maybe he's lookingfor a job or thinking about a career change or
whatever.
But his question is how many people between youand your excavator operator?
I just wanna know the number of bosses I wouldhave.
So first and foremost, you only have one boss.
(37:02):
Now a lot of people are gonna tell you, oh, yougot a lot of bosses, right?
The customer's a boss.
Your boss is a boss.
The wife is a boss.
You know, the boss has a boss, and so he's yourboss.
In a real structured organization, which iswhat we're all striving to build, it's who we
(37:22):
all wanna work for.
Like an organization with structure, you haveone boss.
Everyone only has one boss because if you servemultiple bosses, if the organization is is
kinda or the org chart's messy, and trust me, II speak on this one because I've lived through
(37:43):
this one.
If the org chart's messy and you have multiplebosses, guess what happens?
There's no accountability.
It's really hard for an employee to be heldaccountable when there's multiple bosses
telling them multiple different things.
I've screwed this one up many, many times.
You know, one of my direct reports will have ateam, And the team will kind of report to my
(38:06):
direct report, but then also kind of report tome.
It never works.
I've got my expectations.
I've got my priorities.
I've got my strategies.
And then a different person has theirexpectations and strategies and priorities, and
and they're conflicting sometimes.
And so you'll hear employees say, well, I don'tknow who to listen to.
I don't know what to do today.
I don't know what's important today.
(38:28):
You should only have one boss.
So, Michael, when you ask I don't know ifMichael listens to the podcast or not.
I have no idea.
I just wanna know the number of bosses I wouldhave.
When Michael asks, I want to know the number ofbosses I would have, that tells me he's working
in an organization currently where he's got alot of different bosses.
That is not a healthy situation to be in.
(38:49):
And any of you guys that have been there, it'sa tough it's a tough situation.
You know?
I I don't love bureaucracy.
I don't love red tape.
I don't, you know me, I don't love structure aton, but I can tell you operating a business
without structure, without some bureaucracy,without some organization, without some layers
(39:13):
of management, it's chaos.
And it sounds to me like Michael's got multiplebosses and he's living in chaos.
So Michael, in the event you'd ever worked forour organization, the idea would be, and I say
idea because that's our goal, the idea would beyou only have one boss.
(39:36):
If if if we put multiple bosses on top of you,you're gonna get confused, and you're gonna
have different priorities, and you and andyou're ultimately not gonna be a super
infective employee long term serving multiplebosses.
So you're only gonna have one boss.
I had to get that out the way.
That's probably a whole separate topic andepisode in and of itself.
(39:59):
How many people are between me and my excavatoroperators?
Let me let me just count for a second because II don't know if I'm gonna get this exactly
right.
This shows how much organizational structurewe've tried to put in place over the years and
how many layers we've tried to put in placeover the years.
So in the early days, I'm talking like earlydays, year one, There was one person between
(40:25):
the excavator operator and me from day one.
Now let me back up.
Like truly day one, there was no one betweenthe excavator operator and me because Albert,
employee number one, would run the excavator.
He wouldn't run it every single day.
Like he Albert was a guy.
(40:46):
He wanted to mentor and train some younger guysand get people in seats and move around.
So so quickly, he started to promote people tobeing the production excavator man.
But in in our very first job, when I startedthe business, there was no one between the
excavator operator and me.
I was the president, founder, and chief projectmanager of our organization, and Albert was the
(41:12):
production homing.
It was a small crew.
I think it was like a seven person crew.
So I could manage it all.
Albert could run the excavator and load trucks.
I could call him on his cell phone.
I, you know, I could touch base with him everyday.
I was the project manager.
We started to evolve a little bit.
(41:33):
Albert would put excavator operator in theseat, and then Albert would jump into a pickup
truck and start to begin to manage at a littlehigher level as things became a little more
complicated.
We added some more projects to our backlog andthose projects required an actual project
(41:53):
manager.
I couldn't manage them from afar.
And so very quickly, projects two, three, four,five, and so on, we always had a project
manager, and that project manager would managethe crew, and the excavator operator would be a
piece of the crew.
So so for a lot of years I say a lot of years,two or so years, there was one layer between me
(42:21):
and the excavator operators.
One layer, and that was the project manager.
As we've grown, and we've done a million thingswrong, I talk about it all the time, but as
we've grown, we have changed our operationsteams and our operations organizations such
that, you know, every project's a littledifferent, but some of the big projects require
(42:42):
multiple layers of people to help coordinatethe big crews, the big rosters, the changing
shifts.
You know, some of our operations run twentyfour hours a day, seven days a week, three
sixty five days a year.
Yes, even on Christmas.
And so it takes layers of people to coordinateall that.
(43:02):
Now I would say for the most part, there areI'll have to count them.
I'll I'll I'll literally have to count themright here with you because I don't I've never
actually counted how many layers there are.
So we'll have a production hoe man orproduction loader man.
And above him, typically, you will have a mindforeman.
And the mind foreman does all kinds of things,but helps coordinate the work and shift, you
(43:27):
know, schedule people around and look out forthings in the mind that are changing.
Above the mind foreman, you will have asuperintendent.
So that's two layers above the production hoeman or production excavator guy.
Above the superintendent, generally speaking,you'll either have a mine engineer on some of
(43:48):
your larger projects where there are some Andmine engineer wouldn't necessarily sit above a
superintendent.
It's kind of a dotted line next to, But I'mjust giving you a glimpse into, you know,
layers here.
You'll a mind engineer in some cases or somesort of admin person on the site to help keep
(44:09):
track of all the things that a site has to keeptrack of.
And then you might have above that, a projectmanager.
A project manager is someone that, you know,for us has P and L responsibility of the
project, someone that, you know, is managingfrom a high level.
They're not operating equipment, generallyspeaking.
(44:31):
They're managing from a high level.
They're making sure we are planning properly.
They're coordinating with the customer.
They're coordinating with vendors and they'recoordinating with our vice president of
operations, which is another layer ofmanagement.
And so, you know, for any one of our projects,and some of our projects change, right?
(44:52):
The smaller projects might run a little morelean.
It might just be excavator man and projectmanager.
Some of the bigger projects, there might beanother layer in there if it's a 100 person
roster.
But generally speaking, there are four layersof people between where I sit and where our
(45:13):
equipment operators sit.
And and I think that's important, especially asan organization grows.
I have really struggled with this one where youget too many direct reports at any level of the
organization, whether you're on a project teamor whether you're on, you know, back office
teams, you know, serving the back office.
(45:37):
Any individual person, any rock star can onlyhandle so many direct reports.
I I've heard a lot of people say the sweetnumber, the sweet spot 77 or 8.
Those are probably more office focused rolesthat are a little more strategic.
You know, I've seen field roles, fieldmanagement roles have 40 or 50 direct reports
(46:03):
or even some cases more than that.
But as the organization grows, the layers haveto grow with it.
It's just part of it.
I've seen a lot of people say, yeah, we wannastay flat.
We wanna keep a flat organization.
We don't wanna add too many layers because thenwe get a bunch of overhead costs and so on and
(46:26):
so forth.
I get it, and that sounds great in theory, butwhen you stay flat, you burn people out and
people take their eye off the ball.
Someone has a very focused job, a shifter or amind foreman has a very focused job, he's not
worried.
(46:46):
The mind foreman's not worried about whichvendors are doing what and what's the KPI for
the quarter and what's our annual goal.
Like a mind foreman's very focused on what'sexactly in front of him day to day to day.
You know, which equipment is down today?
Okay.
We gotta shift the plan.
(47:07):
Same thing with the superintendent on aproject.
Like, they they have a very specific set ofthings they're focused on.
They can't be you guys hear the saying, and I'msure you've heard it, like, you can't see the
forest through the trees because you're focusedon the tree.
Like, we don't want the superintendent focusedon the forest necessarily in our projects.
(47:30):
We want the superintendent focused on exactlywhat's happening day to day in the operation.
What's what's the plan today?
Let's not worry about next quarter or nextyear.
That's someone else's job.
I I would say the vice president of operationsis worried about next year.
He's worried about cash flow at the projectsand and which projects are producing cash and
(47:56):
which ones are consuming cash.
He's worried about scheduling the next quarterand which KPIs matter.
Like, he's worried about big high level forestthings.
The people at the project level should befocused on the tree things.
Like like how do we cut a tree down today?
(48:18):
Not how do we cut the forest down today?
Once you blend these together or blur thelines, I don't think either one gets done very
well.
I've seen this a ton.
It's it's a struggle.
Trust me.
It's a struggle, especially when you're growinga company.
One of the biggest challenges is having a guytrying to zoom in and out of the business every
(48:39):
few hours.
I want you to be way high level today for alittle bit and let's talk strategy for next
year.
And then he leaves that meeting and he goes andhe is like deep in the weeds tactical tomorrow.
That's very hard to do.
It's extremely hard to do.
The people that do that really well tend to bevery high level leaders that work their way up
(49:01):
into big time management roles for companiesbecause it's hard to do.
You want someone that can do that, zoom way inon the tactical things day to day and then zoom
way out and be effective at strategy highlevel.
Someone that can do that has got really goodcontext in how operations work.
(49:23):
And so they're able to zoom in, but also has abig enough brain, enough IQ, enough empathy and
intelligence to zoom way out and thinkstrategy.
The people that can do that really welltypically are either high level leaders in
organization because they've worked their wayup there through results after results, year
after year, or they start their own business.
(49:48):
Because if you can do this, you have a fightingchance at starting your own business.
If you can get real tactical in a conversationand talk about why the tire blew out on the
haul truck and what we need to do to prevent itnext time and how we need to create an SOP and
how we need to change the mind plan.
Like, if you can do all that and then zoom wayout and go sit and talk to a banker about your
(50:11):
capital needs for the next three years, like,those are those are special people.
Those are people that that, you know, they theycan operate at a different level, but it takes
a lot of lot of little reps to get there.
I think the same is true for legitsuperintendents and legit project managers.
They've got their own levels of vision wherethey should see what, you know, what amount of
(50:36):
the forest they should be looking at.
But some of the best project managers I'vewatched are guys that can literally go put
their arm around a truck driver who's having abad day, and they can coach them.
They can mentor them.
They can give them pointers instead of justblowing them off and saying, ah, take the day
off.
You're you're suspended today.
(50:57):
They they have empathy.
They wanna help.
They wanna coach.
But then they can zoom out of the little bittytactical things like that.
They can zoom out enough to see the biggerpicture of the project.
How do I hit my financial goals this month?
And how do I set myself up and my operations upto hit my financial goals next month?
(51:20):
What vendors do I need to coordinate with?
The best project managers out there just solveproblems.
They don't they don't see a problem and hit ushit a wall and then just lob it over the fence
to the next guy.
They try to solve problems.
I'm a big believer, and I've said this a ton,you get rewarded for producing results in
(51:44):
whatever level you're in.
If you're a truck driver and you produceresults, meaning you deliver the product where
it's supposed to go on time, safely, withoutissue, if you deliver results day after day for
a long time, you're gonna get rewarded forthat.
You're gonna get more opportunity.
If you're a mind foreman and you produceresults day after day, you help the crews, you
(52:07):
help people avoid the things that a mindforeman should, you're gonna get rewarded for
that.
You're gonna get more opportunities.
Same thing for a project manager.
If you continue to produce results for yourorganization and you eat excuses, every excuse
that pops up, you eat it, you fall on it likeit's a grenade, it's your problem to deal with,
(52:30):
you make it go away, you're gonna get rewardedfor that.
And I think that to me is one of the reasonswhy it's so important to have layers of
management.
I was never one that was a fan of layers ofmanagement.
If you'd asked me five years ago, I'd be like,dude, I can run all this.
I don't need a I need like a regional managerand that's it.
(52:54):
And I can run the rest of it.
And I'm telling you now where I sit, I couldn'thave been more wrong.
I couldn't have missed it more because if yougive someone in their position too much to go
focus on, especially too much too soon, theydon't do a great job at any of it.
There's too much chaos.
(53:15):
It's drinking from a fire hose.
There's too many problems.
You you can only solve one problem at a time,and so you solve one problem, four more pop up,
and and you turn around and you're like, dude,I'm not I'm treading water.
I'm actually I'm actually not treading water.
I'm sinking every day in the water that I'mtrying to tread because I got more problems
popping up than than I can solve.
(53:36):
That's when you need a layer of management.
I've watched guys who are super talented,legit, good empathy guys, good attitude guys,
know how to move dirt, know how to do mining.
I've watched them completely burn up and burnout because they tried to do too much.
(54:00):
We put too much on them.
We should have had another layer, either alayer below them that could help lighten load
for them or a layer above them.
I've made this mistake so many times.
And what happens is the guy, the the thetalented guy, the the guy that's legit, he's
(54:20):
not going to ask for another layer, generallyspeaking.
Every once in while, you'll see a guy that'ssmart enough, and they'll say, dude, I'm I am
nearing burnout.
I need a layer.
Please help me.
But a lot of times, they won't ask for a layer.
They won't ask for help above them.
They won't ask for help below them.
They'll just try to keep wrapping their armsaround everything and and appearing like
(54:44):
they've got it all under control.
It's you guys have ever heard this analogy of aduck, you know, on the surface looks calm,
cool, and collected, but below the water, thoselittle feet are freaking flopping back and
forth and are swimming like crazy.
I've watched really good people completely burnout because there should have been an other
(55:05):
layer somewhere in the org chart.
There should have been another person to helpfocus on the areas where where the other guy
just didn't have time or energy to focus on, ormaybe wasn't uniquely positioned or uniquely
skilled to go focus on those areas.
And so to me, layers are super important.
Now I'm not a fan of just adding layers to addlayers.
(55:28):
I'm not a fan of like just, you know, bringingon more overhead, more management just to throw
a warm body at a problem.
If you're throwing warm bodies at the problem,you know, it might, the the problem might be
the bodies you already have, you know, in theorg chart.
But layers are important.
And, and I can tell you right now, Michael W,if there was only one layer between me and the
(55:54):
excavator operator, our business would befailing.
I say that with 110% confidence.
If there was one layer let me back up.
One of two things is true here.
If there's one layer between me and ourexcavator operator, one of two things is true.
(56:14):
Either our business is failing because we'remissing too many layers, which means too much
is sitting on Keaton Turner's plate to manage,which means I'm not managing any of it very
well.
So I'm not super organized, and I'm not a greatops director.
I'm not a great VP of ops.
I'm not a great project manager, although I'mbetter than most, but I'm not phenomenal.
(56:37):
So so either the business is failing if if ifthere's only well, if there's no layers between
me and the excavator operator, or the otherthing that could be true is we're an extremely
small business.
We're doing two, three, four, five millionbucks a year.
When we were doing Of course, we never did 2 or3 or $4,000,000 a year because year one, we did
(57:04):
20, And it was was chaos.
I was I was the guy managing we had we hadproject managers, so it was a layer, but
there's only one layer between me and theexcavator operators.
It's not sustainable.
It's not at a $20,000,000 a year company size,having the owner and again, this is just my
(57:28):
opinion.
Having the owner manage all those excavatoroperators, that is not a sustainable business.
That's a hobby.
That's a lifestyle business.
That's a mom and pop dirt mover.
Like, it's not sustainable because you're notfocusing if if if Keaton Turner, the owner, the
(57:50):
president, the CEO of the company is managingoperations down at that level, you know what
I'm not doing?
I'm not focused on next year or the year afterthat.
I'm not focused on our banking relationships.
I'm not focused on our org chart and how itneeds to develop.
I'm not focused on developing up and coming upand coming leaders.
(58:13):
I'm not focused on process and procedures.
I'm not focused on what risks and gaps we mighthave in our HR, our handbook, our policies.
Like, I'm not focused on all the other thingsbecause I'm focused on the excavator operator.
It's rare that an excavator operator ever killsyour business, especially you small business
(58:36):
guys.
Like, your excavator operator is not gonna makeor break your business.
You know what will make or break your business?
Is a class action lawsuit because you screwedup something in your handbook and your HR team
doesn't know how to deal with it, and so youhave a huge settlement.
That'll blow your business up.
(58:56):
I see it a ton.
I see it a ton.
Guys that run $5.10, 15, even $20,000,000businesses that have one layer between the
leader of the organization, the guy, there'sone layer between him and the people doing the
work.
(59:18):
And what that means is the leader of theorganization is leading field ops, leading
project managers, or leading a a group ofsuperintendents, leading a group of operators,
and they're not leading the business to whereit could and should go.
(59:39):
So this one's tough for me.
You know, how many layers?
It depends on your industry, depends on thebusiness you're trying to build, depends on
where you wanna grow.
And quite frankly, it depends on the caliber ofleaders you have in those layers.
There've been times we've had really highcaliber leaders in a specific layer and it
(59:59):
works at a little bigger scale.
And there's been times where we, you know,didn't have such a high caliber person and so
we needed another layer.
It's a tough one.
This is a tough one to get right.
But, you know, Michael, I would say if you'relooking for a company where there are zero
layers between you as the operator and the guythat owns the business, if you're looking for a
(01:00:25):
company that has zero layers between there,you're either gonna work for an extremely small
company who probably isn't growing, or you'regonna work for a somewhat larger company that's
failing miserably.
(01:00:45):
I believe it.
Prove me wrong.
I mean, you never see companies that have verysmall, flat organizations, small teams go on to
do really, really big things.
Now you might see a small organization with aflat org chart do great things.
(01:01:07):
They might make great margin.
They might kill it financially, and theculture's great, and everyone's happy, but
they're small companies.
And that's fine.
There's nothing wrong with that.
There's a lot of guys I know that are owneroperators.
They own the business, and they operate thebusiness, meaning everyone reports to them.
(01:01:27):
They got a team of 20 guys, and they all reportto the owner.
There's nothing wrong with that, but it's asmall company.
It's a small business.
And so, you know, what we're trying to build isnot a small business.
We are trying to build an industry impactingbusiness, and you can't impact an industry, in
(01:01:51):
my opinion, at a small scale.
To impact an industry, you have to be a bigbusiness.
You have to reach scale.
You have to change lives, not just twenty,thirty, 40 lives.
I'm trying to change thousands of lives.
I feel like that's my calling.
And so for us, yeah, it takes layers.
And and, you know, thank God for layers becausewithout layers, Keaton Turner managing a bunch
(01:02:17):
of a bunch of operations, a bunch of operators,that is a scary, scary thought.
And trust me, if you know me or if you if youknow our company, you don't want me managing
excavator operators.
So that's what I got for you, Michael.
I don't know if that I don't know if youlisten.
I don't know if that helps you, other smallbusiness operators.
(01:02:37):
I've always said the quicker you can get Ifyou're a small business owner, the quicker you
can get someone more legit than you to managethe things that you're currently manage, you
should do it.
If you can afford it, if you can scrapetogether the money, the quicker you can get
someone more legit than you are at the thingsyou're currently managing, the more your
(01:03:00):
business will grow.
It'll allow you to elevate yourself to go focuson things you are good at.
You put someone in charge of the things you'renot currently good at.
It's a win win.
But companies that fail to do this, they failto grow.
And if they do grow, they ultimately fail withthe wrong people in the wrong layer.
(01:03:22):
So I don't know if that was helpful.
This one I got today, I gotta run.
This one was way longer than I thought it wasgonna be.
Again, huge shout out.
Ace McCarthy, thank you for care package.
Matt Stephens, thank you for the shirtlessvideo.
I would love to hear from you.
I'd love to get your audio.
I would love to get a voicemail from you.
(01:03:43):
If you got a question for me, if you got atopic, if you just wanna hear your voice on the
Purdium Podcast, send me a message.
Audio message, video, voicemail.
Send me a message.
980 That is (980) 737-3436.
Would love to hear from you.
Praying you're killing it.
(01:04:03):
Praying you're getting your per diem.
And I pray, good Lord willing, we do this onemore day.
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