Building Wealth Through Construction with Paul Atherton

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Construction companies possess an extraordinary yet frequently overlooked opportunity to build substantial wealth—one that extends far beyond simply increasing revenue or improving profit margins. 

Paul Atherton, founder of High Spire, reveals the powerful secret that separates thriving construction business owners from those merely keeping pace: leveraging construction expertise into strategic real estate development. As Paul explains, wealth creation happens through three primary channels—operating an efficient business, buying assets at advantageous prices, and adding value to those assets. While most industries might excel at one of these, construction companies are uniquely positioned to capitalize on all three simultaneously.

High Spire's approach centers on their "Four Cs" framework: Community that connects business owners with peers who've already achieved what they're aiming for; Content providing streamlined systems benchmarked from high-performing companies; Coaching that offers personalized guidance; and perhaps most critically, Capital—helping construction companies optimize their funding strategies and potentially raise capital from limited partners.

What makes this approach particularly compelling is how it transforms construction knowledge into a wealth-building superpower. Construction companies understand building science, estimate costs realistically, move quickly on deals, and possess extensive networks that can be leveraged for real estate opportunities. During recent market challenges, companies implementing this dual-focus strategy have consistently outperformed competitors by maintaining robust marketing and sales pipelines while optimizing their operations.

The conversation takes a fascinating turn when addressing mental health across all levels of construction organizations. Paul advocates for a staff-first approach that helps team members create clear development paths—not just professionally but in all life domains from financial goals to family priorities. As he powerfully states, "Mental health is a commitment to reality at all costs."

Ready to transform your construction company into a wealth-building engine? Discover how your expertise could be the foundation for generational financial success by exploring High Spire's proven methodology.

https://www.highspire.com

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, paul.
So heli jet cheaper than theseaplanes?
I can't believe it.
I know, I know it's one oflife's mysteries.
It is, I think, like somepeople have never been in a
helicopter and you're just like,yeah, I just took one to this
city.
You know, that's kind of like aNew York millionaire thing,
almost right, yeah.
Yeah, because they gohelicopter to helicopter on the
top of the buildings.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, yeah, I know I don't, I know I'm hoping no.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Helijet staff or leadership ever listen to this,
because it is way too cheap forwhat you get.
I'm sure they know.
I'm sure they know that's whythey're cleaning up over there.
I feel like I'm robbing them.
Yeah, but yeah, so like 300 andchange versus 500?
Yeah, I know it's crazy.
That's nuts and quicker Aboutfive minutes quicker.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
That's nuts.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
And quicker About five minutes quicker.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
That's not that much.
However, seaplanes, if there'sany fog, they'll just leave you
sitting in the terminal for fouror five hours until it clears
Any fog Like fog.
Okay, we're on the West Coast.
There's fog everywhere, is that?

Speaker 1 (00:59):
just out of Victoria, because they're flying through
everything these days.
It used to be like that a lotmore than it is now.
I think they've figured a lotof stuff out, maybe GPS, the way
they got that going, I don'tknow.
I've seen them flying in allsorts of horrible weather.
The float planes Yep, I watchthem.

(01:20):
I mean they fly past our placeevery day.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Like they need, man, those planes need a clear line
of sight on the water.
They do, yeah, so any fog, theycan't fly, I don't know.
Well, they can't land, that'sthe problem.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah, you're preaching to the choir, singing
to the choir there, because Ihave been wondering how can they
fly right now, and I see themand I go all right, something
must be Really.
Yep, no, I'm not kidding you.
Too many customer complaints.
They want to Cherry bubbly.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Oh, yeah, please, they want to take some of
HelloJets customers.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, maybe Cheers.
Yeah, I guess we cheers onnon-alcoholic beverages.
It's only 11 am.
Be sad if we were cheering onsomething else.
All right, so we're going totalk about Highspire.
Today we were introduced bysome people that work with us,
which is fantastic.
What a great thing for them.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
It's very serendipitous.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
It's very cool.
Megan, who works with you,worked with Spire Developments,
a customer of SiteMax, and yeah,and the connection started.
Now you're here, you came allthe way from Victoria and we're
in the studio and it's a holiday.
It is Chilling out on a holiday, actually.
It kind of feels relaxing,right.

(02:33):
You don't feel like you'restopping anything else.
It's like, oh okay, this isokay right now.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, the city's quiet man.
There's nobody out in thestreets.
Quiet man, there's nobody outin the streets.
I'm just walking around with mycoffee, enjoying the nice
breeze, and walk up here and doa podcast with you guys yeah,
I'm surprised you don't have anyglitter on you right now,
because the pride parade wasyesterday oh, I'm sure it was
like turning around in the dustas you're walking down the empty
streets.
Okay I uh came up, uh berard,and then yeah oh yeah, I didn't

(03:04):
do the go down that area yeah?

Speaker 1 (03:06):
No, it was on Pacific down here.
Oh, okay, yeah, okay, differentdeal now.
Yep, no, glitter, you're good,you made it All right.
So, yeah, we're going to talkabout your organization, which
is helping lots of constructioncompanies get more out of their
tenure through time, and I thinkthat's a very, very important

(03:27):
thing.
So let's get into how thesepeople can do this.
Welcome to the Site.
Visit Podcast Leadership andperspective from construction
With your host, james Falkner.
Business as usual, as it hasbeen for so long now that it
goes back to what we weretalking about before and hitting

(03:48):
the reset button.
You know, you read all thebooks you read the emails.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
You read Scaling Up, you read Good to Great you know
I could go on.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
We've got to a place where we found the secret serum.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
We found the secret potion.
We can get the workers in.
We know where to get them.
Once I was on a job for a while, and actually we had a semester
concrete and I ordered aKorean-Finnish patio out front
of the site show.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yesterday I was down at Dallas and a guy just hit me
up on LinkedIn out of the blueand said he was driving from
Oklahoma to Dallas to meet withme because he heard the
Favourite Connect platform onyour guys' podcast Home.
It crush it and love it and wecelebrate these values every
single day.
Let's get down to it All, right, paul.

(04:34):
So tell me all about High Spire.
Like I just want to get a it'spretty cheesy to say, but the
elevator pitch, like what iswhen someone's like, hey, high
Spire, what do you guys do?

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Just give everyone the pitch Right, okay.
So our main focus is to helpconstruction companies build
wealth, and we do that throughtwo ways we help them build a
self-managed company, and thenwe help them leverage the
retained earnings into realestate.

(05:09):
I see, that's it.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Two things Okay, so you help them do that, yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Sorry, you look like you were going to ask a question
.
No, okay, I'll keep going.
So a lot of companies in thetrades eventually, when they see
other, when they see theirpeers say, exit, it's through
private equity or whatever theygo.
I want to do that, butconstruction companies,

(05:38):
typically, they don't haveaccess to private equity.
Okay, that's really difficultfor them to build wealth to
private equity.
Okay, that's really difficultfor them to build wealth.
And so what we do is, um, wehelp them do three things to
build wealth.
Which?
Um, if you look at theperformance of a lot of the
organizations that we work with,they tend to have, um, very

(05:59):
significant gains relative tothe industry.
Okay, and there's one mainreason why.
If you go and talk to anybodywho's built wealth, they've done
one of three things They'veoperated a business, they've
bought and sold assets moreefficiently than the rest of the
marketplace, and then they'veadded value to those assets

(06:20):
while they've owned them moreefficiently than the rest of the
marketplace.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Now construction companies are uniquely
positioned to do all three ofthose activities at the same
time, okay, which makes owning aconstruction company very, very
compelling for anybody who is,who has a desire to build wealth

(06:46):
.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
So when we say a construction company, that spans
a whole bunch of differentdisciplines, so we have GCs,
you've got large ones, you'vegot GC slash developers do their
own self-performance work.
Then you've got all thesub-trades that support those
projects.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
So are you talking across the board or are there
some opportunities that?

Speaker 2 (07:09):
some have more than others.
So, yep, Generally.
Well, generally, our clienteleare typically general
contractors.
However, we do have some largersub-trades that work with us
too, just because they have,kind of they have reached that
critical mass and they have alot of cash flow and big
networks and they're just set upwith leadership teams.
They have like 100 staff andthose guys are set up to also do

(07:30):
real estate as well.
Well, that's not true.
Actually, we have somesub-trades that are a little
smaller, but generally we workwith GCs or larger sub-trades.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
Okay.
So when you say, does realestate?
Okay, that's a big-, it's huge.
People get four degrees on thisparticular trade in order to

(08:02):
perhaps have less of a bill andtake that and then use that as a
barter system, but in order tocontribute into a project, so
they get a piece of it.
Or is it just taking revenueand being able to put it
somewhere else?

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Right, okay.
So, there's two threads to pullon here.
You can take your net profit atthe end of the year dividend
checks and go invest them intosome real estate fund and
there's lots of options or thestock market.
Or you can take that andleverage that money into your
own real estate project whereyou are the general partner,

(08:41):
you're the syndicator for theproject.
I see okay, right, andconstruction companies are
uniquely advantaged to do thatrelative to other real estate
developers who don't ownconstruction companies.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
I see, and the main reason for that is just for the
breadth of knowledge andunderstanding where the savings
can be.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
For sure.
Yeah, so there's three thingswhich impact whether or not you
make money on a real estateproject.
One is your purchase price.
One is what your cost basis isto develop the land, add value
to the land and you can alsopredict in your estimates

(09:30):
roughly what you think themarketplace will be.
And then you just build in thatbuffer so that you can sleep at
night.
So if the market does turnagainst you, well you know
you're not.
You don't have investorsbanging on your door and
projects going into receivershipbecause you need to be smart
about it.
But construction companies areuniquely set up because they
understand building science.
They're motivated to make surethat their cost basis doesn't

(09:51):
get out of whack.
They don't look at estimateswith rose-colored glasses Like
there's a sense of realism there.
They can move faster on dealstypically than real estate
developers just typical realestate developers, which are
brokers, lawyers, real estateagents et cetera and they also
have amazing networks typicallyuntapped networks that they can

(10:13):
leverage if they decide to doreal estate Exactly.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, I mean I would think that, like the tendering
process for people who are in it, who have been tendered too, is
you got a big network.
I mean you see all the peoplewho have been working on these
projects over the years and youget to know them.
You see them at events and youcan see many sub-trades, for
instance, working on thesethings that everyone else has
been working on for years.
And, yeah, as you can say, thatnetwork can be pulled on and

(10:42):
utilized pretty quickly.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
It's everything can be pulled on and utilized pretty
quickly.
It's everything.
And also, too, if people wantto go and reach out to LPs like
limited partners to perhaps comealongside them in their real
estate projects which is reallyimportant if you really do want
to build anything substantialthey have great networks of
accredited investors who arealways looking for opportunities
with people they trust.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Yeah, so that's the second part.
So the first part is that theyhave to create efficiencies
within their business in orderto have those gains.
To be able to do that, Huge,yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
So we focus, we put a ton of focus on helping our
clients build self, true,self-managed companies.
And this is really importantBecause what can happen is
people get a little too far outover their skis and they maybe
scale too quickly.
And then the owner decides toget into real estate.
They don't have their cash flowsorted out properly, they may

(11:36):
have some issues with staffing,they may have some, you know,
their sales forecasts aren'tsuper accurate and then fast
forward six months, 12 months.
They can get into trouble.
So we put a heavy emphasis onmaking sure that their company
is very, very dialed in and then, when it makes sense, we say
okay, let's start transitioningyour organization into also

(11:57):
investing in real estate so thatyou can do all three of those
activities that I mentioned atthe same time Add valued assets,
buy assets at a price pointthat gives you a clear path to
the upside and operate yourcompany very, very well.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
And so you do this through a coaching and
process-driven program.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah.
So there's kind of four facetsto our program that I think are
very, very important, and noneof them are more important than
the other.
We work very, very diligentlyto make sure they all move in
sync, and this is what I thinkevery business operator needs to
pursue.
So we call it the four Cs.
So we give people access to astrong community.

(12:42):
So anytime they're put into aroom, there's always going to be
a business operator in there,business operators in there that
have already done what they'reseeking to do.
So if somebody runs a $20million company or a $10 million
company or a $5 million companycomes into one of our events,
there's always going to besomebody in the room that runs a
$60 or $70 million company.
For those companies.

(13:03):
There's going to be people inthe room that runs a 60 or 70
million dollar company.
For those companies, um,there's going to be people that
have uh in the room, that haveum built up significant
portfolios and in real estateand also have very sizable
construction companies as well.
So it's very important toalways be in a room with people
that um have been where you'regoing uh and uh, or sorry, what

(13:24):
am I trying to say here?
They've, um, they're at a placewhere you're going and or sorry
, what am I trying to say here?
They've, they're at a placewhere you're trying to be, and
there's also people who aretrying to get to a point where
you are.
So it's really important tohave that.
And then what?
One thing that's also reallyimportant is when you're trying
to grow and scale a company,it's so critical to make sure
you have the right consultantsaround you.

(13:45):
So this is how you market, howyou build a brand.
Who your legal counsel is?
Okay, uh, who can?
Who really understandsconstruction accounting?
Cause that is actually quitecomplex.
People underestimate howcomplex it is, um, and so we
provide those experts in ourcommunity.
That's one C you want me tokeep going to the three C's, two

(14:05):
more, let's go for it.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
Three our community.
That's one C.
You want me?

Speaker 2 (14:06):
to keep going to the other three Cs.
Two more, let's go for it.
Three more, actually, that'sfour.
Then that's four Cs.
Did I say three?
Yeah, you said three.
Four Cs, okay, yeah, it's fourCs.
Okay, all right, thank you forcorrecting me on that, all right
, okay, we provide content, andwhat I mean by that is simple,
clear systems that have beenbenchmarked off of companies

(14:28):
that already know what goodlooks like.
Okay, it's really important toum, uh and okay, I'm just gonna
say it and the date.
And now that we have aieverywhere, there's like you
type in a chat gpt, how manySOPs are there for a project
manager?
They'll say there's 45 to 60.
Well, I think that's ridiculous, because no one can follow 45

(14:49):
to 60 SOPs.
There's eight or nine, like theones that actually matter.
Follow Perito's principle 20% ofwhat you do gets you 80% of the
results.
Look, project managers, there'seight or nine SOPs, that's it,
okay.
So we give people simple, clearsystems that have been
benchmarked off of very, veryhigh-performing construction
companies already.
We help them excel in marketing, sales, operations, financial

(15:13):
controls, human resources andleadership.
Okay, so that's the contentbucket.
Yeah, okay.
And then we move to thecoaching bucket.
It's very important when you'rean entrepreneur to have a guide
come alongside you and help youmove along the path to get you
to where you want to go,hopefully sooner, with less
stress.

(15:33):
Okay, so we provide thecoaching component, and then
there's capital.
This is the most important onethis is what so many people
really underestimate.
And then when they they turn 60,they look back and go gosh, I
wish I knew this back when I was35 or 45.
Okay, so we focus on how to setup your capital stack when

(15:54):
you're trying to build wealth,how to build relationships with
lenders, how to raise capitalfrom LPs.
If you want to do that, it'sserious, but if you want to do
that, we help people do that.
It's extremely important tounderstand how capital works in
this world.
Okay, and then finally,selfishly, we also, with very,

(16:18):
very select projects that ourclients have, we also have a
mechanism in place where we wantto come inside.
When I say selfishly, I'm kindof saying that tongue in cheek
we want to come alongside andhelp them invest in those real
estate projects and get them offthe ground.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
So you guys are an LP as well.
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
Cool, very, very select projects, though I hear
you that's quite hard to getgoing.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, and you guys are self-funded that way.
Yeah, I hear you that's quitehard to get going, yeah, yeah,
and you guys are self-fundedthat way, yeah, okay, so take us
through the um, the communityof of people.
So I mean, how many companieshave you guys worked with so far
and how long has this beengoing for?
Right?

Speaker 2 (16:59):
So we work with about 115 people right now, I believe
.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
So leaders.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, yeah, mostly CEOs.
We also for the largercompanies that work with us.
We also work with what arecalled their second in commands,
or, abbreviated form, their twoICs.
Yeah, because that's reallyimportant.
Once a company gets to beingabove 15 million and they have a
leadership team, the CEO wantsus to work with their second in
command yeah to help deploytheir initiatives.

(17:26):
Yeah, so we'll work with bothpeople, or the ceo will say,
okay, how do I focus on thevision investing our capital
properly?
And then their second incommand.
We're focusing on the nuances ofwhat it takes to make their
company more efficient right,okay yeah, construction is such
a fragmented industry andthere's like just so much low
hanging fruit to help thosecompanies that are, say, doing

(17:48):
10 million to get up to 20million and 30 million, and then
focusing on operationalexcellence to help them move
past that benchmark as wellnotice any kind of struggle in
the past, like year, with withthe community of companies that

(18:10):
you're you're dealing with rightnow.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
Yep, I mean some of them like oh my God, like all
those works kind of dried up, orI mean how's things?
I mean you said so what's the?
What's the?
The U?
S versus Canadian mix?

Speaker 2 (18:23):
So we work with about it's about 75-25.
So 75% of our clients are inthe US, 25% are in Canada.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
So how did that happen?
Do you have a US operation?

Speaker 2 (18:36):
No, I think what we do typically is more palatable
to Americans.
Is that why?
Well, we say hey guys look Justmore uptake.
Our focus is to build wealth.
Americans love that.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
Canadians don't like that.
I don't know, I don't know whatit is because we're a.
Canadian company.
Yeah, so that's weird.
So I mean, how did you?
What was your like go-to-marketstrategy?
How did you find thesecompanies?

Speaker 2 (19:12):
I mean, did they find you or did you like?

Speaker 1 (19:13):
is it?

Speaker 2 (19:13):
referral based.
I mean, how did this all happen?
Yeah, so it's word of mouth um,uh, yeah, our, our, um, yeah,
we do marketing, outboundmarketing.
So, yeah, we get lots of ourcompanies through our personal
network.
Yeah, um, facebook, instagram.
We have a little.
I've been on some podcasts likethis and people just hear about
us.
We do a lot of work with NHB,chba, various platforms.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
So no secret sauce.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
No secret sauce, just grinding, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
So is the cost per company?
Does it vary depending on howmuch revenue they make?
No, no, it's just one flat fee,yeah, one flat fee, that's cool
.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah, one flat fee.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
And the retreat.
I'm sorry, yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
And the retreat.
Yeah, we do two retreats a year, one in the summer, june, one
in January.
That's extra, that's extra,yeah, um, but um, our, our price
point is such that we have,like I said, um, companies that
are doing 70, 80, 90 million ayear, and we also have companies

(20:15):
that are in two million a year.
Because here's the thing, thisis the message that we get
across to all our companies thisisn't a coaching program.
This isn't a program where youjoin up for six months, get some
information and jet.
This is a marathon, not asprint.
Our mandate is to just providea service that gives value, um,

(20:37):
for a price point that allowsyou to, uh, stay with us for a
long period of time.
Because, man, once you get intoreal estate, you need experts
around you.
You need people to help youunderwrite those deals.
Make sure you're doing your duediligence properly.
Make sure the lawyers thatyou're using actually know what
they're talking about.
Help you vet those people.

(20:58):
Help you vet your accountants.
Help you vet the architects thatyou're working with?
What about when you hire forsmaller companies?
What about when they hire anoperations lead?
That's the most important rolein any construction company,
like the role that gets theowner out of dealing with the
jobs.
We alongside people and helpthem with those key decisions,
those key linch points that'llhelp them see those accelerated

(21:20):
gains again and again, and again.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
So on the HR side, do you guys help people recruit
people like that?

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yeah, so we actually do work with recruiters that
specialize in the constructionspace.
But yeah, man, if you run aconstruction company or you're
hiring, say, a COO, we willdefinitely come alongside you

(21:46):
and help you make that finalpick.
If you got it down to two orthree people.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
Right.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
Okay, cause if you get that wrong, you know it's
just.
It's just, there's opportunitycosts there and getting oh it's
huge, that wrong.
Yeah, no, it's massive.
Yeah, no, like I Alongside youand help you get to the next
level.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Nice, yeah, yeah so.
And High Spire has been goingfor how long?

Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, so we're coming up on two years now.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
Two years.
That's a lot of growth in twoyears, yeah, wow.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
That's a lot I mean 24,.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
Wow, you got four customers a month.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah, we're.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Almost five.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yeah, well, fortunately our retention's
great.
Like I said, people they lovewhat we do.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
Well, with the pitch that it's not a sprint, it's a
marathon.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
It's a marathon, not a sprint.
A lot of guilt towards the endof leaving.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
Well, we also Like self-loathing, Like you wouldn't
want to give up because you'rejust about to see the gains.
Like year one, one and a half,your retention is good.
Because people are like, well,I've been doing this, I've gone
to one and a half retreats orwhatever that would be and spent
this money.
We've seen, yeah, businessmight be tough right now or

(23:05):
whatever it is, but I got tostick with this thing because I
mean, they have a proven model.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
You asked an interesting question that I
wanted to pull a thread on.
You said hey, how have peoplebeen?
What's happened to them in themarketplace recently?
Yeah, and we have an actionbias to marketing and sales.
Anybody listening to this?
Look, and I said this alreadyconstruction is a fragmented

(23:30):
space.
I guarantee you yourcompetition is probably not very
effective at building a goodbrand, deploying that brand
through efficient marketingtactics and then closing
customers.
It's very fragmented, and so weactually have an action bias
with our clients in doing that.
Very well, and even though, yes, it was tough, but most of our

(23:54):
clientele because I keep trackof how most of our organizations
are doing through our reportingsystems most of them actually
fared significantly better thanthe rest of the marketplace
because as soon as they joinmarketing and sales immediately,
like we sort that out you builda plane while you're flying,
look, building your op system80-20.

(24:14):
Okay, like we can tell you look,this is the simple stuff that's
going to make your operationsefficient, but you need that
market wind.
And so when people join up intoour program, like I said, we
just get into their marketingsales right away and we figure
out how we can give them a thickcash pipeline.

(24:35):
That's everything.
It's a lot more fun to run acompany when you're flush with
work and you're just figuringout what to hire people and SOPs
and making things moreefficient, than it is in a
company where you don't knowwhere the work's going to come
from.
Okay, so I kind of went on atangent there.
No, I hear you.
I hope anyone listening to thisfocuses on the marketing and

(24:56):
sales because I guarantee youtheir competition is probably
not doing that very well.
There's a huge opportunity outthere for construction companies
to focus on this.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
Well, the marketing and sales is a very difficult
thing in the business, in thisbusiness, because the sales
cycle's long.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
It is yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
And the.
You need a shorter sales cycleto be able to pay top talent.
Can you elaborate on that?
Yeah, because great salespeopleand great networkers are going
to go in industries where theycan have immediate results to be
able to create revenue forthemselves.

(25:36):
They're not going to stickaround for.
Oh yeah.
Well, I talked to this guyeight years ago or three months
ago or six months ago or howeverlong ago, and they finally got
the deal.
And by the time they got that Iwas like I'm on to the next
thing.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
I think I disagree with you okay yeah, I actually
think there's a wonderfulopportunity for people.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
I didn't say there wasn't an opportunity, I'm just
saying the mindset of okay,really, I seriously really
lightning hot sales people isyeah, like with roofing
companies, they just want to seelike well, I mean roofing's a
bit different.
But I'm talking like if you werelet's say you were a um, you
know you're, you're looking foryour uh, your next, your next
jobs, your next, let's say yourgc.

(26:23):
Right, let's say you were a,you know you're looking for your
next jobs, your next, let's sayyour GC.
Right, let's say you're doing20, 30 million bucks and you're
looking for so you can go to thedevelopers and say, hey, you
know, can we?
They'll say, well, yeah, we'vegot some projects coming up and
you can bid on them, et cetera.
But you know, one's coming 2026, one's 2027.

(26:45):
Salespeople, they keep going tothese events, they keep doing
the stuff.
They're like well, I can't makea commission yet.
So they say to the businessoperator I need a bigger base
because I can't See what I mean.
So the base becomes big.
And when the base becomes big,then what happens?
The pressure becomes high,mm-hmm, because they're like hey

(27:07):
, I've been paying you X amountof dollars every month.
Where's the results?
It's like well, I'm plantingseeds here and plants are
growing at different stagesbased on the seed count lead

(27:29):
count.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
So, respectfully, if I had a construction company say
that, I would probably spendsome time looking at how they're
nurturing their leads andopportunities in the marketplace
and what that funnel lookedlike, because there is an
element of predictability thatyou can inject into your
organization and a good businessdeveloper or a good sales
manager should be able to dothat so they can generally say,

(27:51):
like high end, low end range,this is what we can expect as
far as jobs closing.
Yeah, and if they haven'tfigured out that formula with
clarity, where if I'm just beingtotally blunt if I like
personally call up that companyand talk to that guy, he can
tell me in 30 seconds, withinsix months, what their high, low
, high range of closing shouldbe.

(28:11):
If they can't do that, thenthere's probably an opportunity
to they need you guys.
Improve their well, yeah, yeah,they do.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
Well, I mean this is a good conversation.
This is the reason we're goingthrough this stuff.
I am just giving the baseline.
I mean it's not necessarily forconstruction, just in sales in
general, totally, yeah, I meanit's kind of that paradigm.
But so High Spire the name,which is just like the tallest

(28:43):
peak on a building whereeveryone aspires to be the high
point.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Yeah, I wanted something that was cool.
Did you come up with a name?
You know what?
I didn't.
So there's a brilliant,brilliant brand builder named
Jesse Campbell.
He runs a company called LoveMoney.
They're based in Victoria andAustralia.
They came up with it.

(29:09):
If I'm being totally honest, Iwish I was smart enough to come
up with this name, but I came upwith what we're doing and then
they came up with the name, andthen I had to pay a bunch of
money to get the URL.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Was it an instant?
I love that.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
Or did it take a while for you to get used to it?
Oh no, no, I just.
I was with my wife and my bestfriend and it was like nine
o'clock at night and the emailcame in the email came in and I
looked at it and I was like thatone and they said, yeah, oh,
that one.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
So you had something to choose from.
Yeah, okay yeah, interesting.
There's some other ones tochoose from that's cool, yeah,
um, so I I'm always interestedin, like the and I think
everyone is is the origin storyof.
I mean, what were you doingbefore this?

Speaker 2 (29:50):
Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
So got a degree in engineering, got my professional
engineering certification.
I always say to our clientsdon't hold that against me.
I think every owner of aconstruction company has run-ins
with engineers.
I tried my best to be one ofthe good ones to work with.
I really appreciate what peoplego through to put these

(30:12):
projects together.
But yeah, so I worked incommercial construction for
years, worked in China, workedall over the US Houston, seattle
, wisconsin, utah, throughoutWestern Canada and then got
married in 2016.
And my wife said, hey, youtravel way too much for a
husband.
And I said you have a reallygood point.
So then I thought, hey, whydon't we get into business

(30:34):
coaching and I can work fromhome?

Speaker 1 (30:41):
But that's 2016, though that's 2016,.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yeah, and then I started business coaching.
And and then, uh, worked with anumber of cool companies and
then I noticed that the onesthat built up a lot of wealth
Okay, okay, there's kind of twobuckets.
There are ones that ran a goodbusiness and so they would go
from 5 million one year to 6million, the million the next
year, and $6.5, and then $5.8and then $7.3.

(31:04):
And they'd increase their netprofit percentage from $8 to $9
to $11 and $15 if they weredoing very, very well.
And that's fine, good, they'reabout as successful as a dentist
.
There's nothing wrong with that, by the way.
They're in the top percentileof how companies improve

(31:26):
relative to the marketplace.
And then I also worked withcommercial GCs that started at
10 and then went up to 20 and 30and 40 and just kept growing.
But I noticed the ones thatbuilt up real wealth, like
wealth that would change thetrajectory of where their
grandchildren are heading inlife.
They got into real estate tooand they use their construction

(31:47):
companies to be real estatedevelopers.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
And so we thought let's start a company that
focuses on that.
Okay, because just increasingrevenue and increasing net
profit percentage is fine.
There's a massive opportunityout there for construction
companies.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
We want them to capitalize on that, so that was
the first vector then that wasthe first vector, yeah Right and
then you obviously neededbucket number two or two parts
to it, which was you need to beefficient in order to be able to
have that capital, to be ableto do those things.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
That's cool, yeah, yeah.
So then, was that your?
How long were you doing so?
From 2016, so, let's say, twoyears you've been going now, so
2023, 2016 to 2023, that's quitea bit of time Seven years there
.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yeah.
Of general coaching of any kindof company Construction
companies.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
They were construction companies.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
Was it High Spire, then no, something else, right,
yeah?
So I was working for anotherorganization and then just
decided it was time to go out onmy own.
Okay, cool Story for anothertime, gotcha.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
Fair enough.
There always is.
So that's pretty cool, Likethat ideation of like the why,
the why people do things, Ithink is very, very important
and you've been resolute on thatfocus for since you started.
Yeah, Because the benefit is somust be so rewarding, right,
Seeing people you know actuallyhave something.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
Oh man, you know, like our clients are great.
You know they come in and wegive them like the ones that are
running 50 million dollarjuggernauts, or you know ones
that are doing four or fivemillion a year you, we, we spend
so much time when they comeinto the program, really
understanding, okay, what didyour path look like for your
company?

(33:36):
And when you chart that pathout for them and say, okay, low
end, high end, this is what youcan expect over the next two to
three years, and then five, yousee the light bulb go on and we
chart that path for them and yousee, okay, now I get it.
And then when it starts to workand they look at the rest of
the marketplace I'm just beinghonest they look at the rest of
the marketplace and theirfriends are, oh, I'm running out
of work and everything.
They're like it's a toughmarket but we're getting through

(33:58):
.
And then now the marketplace isturning around and one guy I
was just talking to he did areal estate deal.
He's going to make a milliondollars on it, no problem.
When we underwrote the deal.
That's great.
Is that a US deal?

Speaker 1 (34:15):
so it's turning around there definitely not so
much here.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
I'm seeing it turn around here too, with our
Canadian companies where well,so most of our companies are in
Alberta, vancouver.
They're in commercialconstruction, a couple are in
Victoria and some are in Toronto, but we are looking at because
we forecast all their cash flowand we are seeing it starting to

(34:40):
improve.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
Is this tariff supply chain thing a big problem?
We?

Speaker 2 (34:43):
are seeing it starting to improve.
Is this tariff supply chainthing a big problem?
No, no, no.
Surprisingly, you know what Imean.
The news is Fear mongering.
Oh man, yeah, they justcatastrophize everything.
It's actually not Like if youtalk to a lot of your suppliers
like why are lead times so crazy?
Well, because they're supplyingto the US.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
Hmm.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
At least that's what we've seen.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
I might be totally wrong, but that's my own
anecdotal experience on this.
They're busy, yeah, okay.
Yeah, it's not impacting as muchas CBC News is telling us yeah
it's interesting, you know,where we see, like, housing
seems to be just this.

(35:27):
It's just a big loudconversation all the time
Housing, housing, housing,housing, people, people,
immigration, immigration.
Where is everyone going to live?
Blah, blah, blah.
How do we get rents lower?
How does people afford a house?
Generation can't afford places.
Baby boomers are going to begiving the kids all their money,
like I mean, it's just this isthe loud conversation that's
going on all the time.

(35:48):
Yeah, and what you're saying isis that there's all this other
construction stuff that's goingon.
That's like over here, yeah,yeah, but so in Vancouver, how
many customers do you have here,do you think?
Do you call them clients,customers, what do you call?

Speaker 2 (36:06):
them.
We like to call them clientsClients.
Okay, they are our clients.
I do like to you know, in theengineering world, we call our
customers clients because we doeverything we can to make them
successful, and that's ourmandate too.
Yeah, yeah, in Vancouver, here,oh gosh, 20 or so You're

(36:27):
putting me on the spot butprobably less than 10, I think.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
Oh, less than 10.
Based in Vancouver?
Yeah, right, yeah.
And from those, how often doyou meet with them?

Speaker 2 (36:41):
Oh, it's full on.
Yeah, we meet with them once aweek.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
Okay, so during that once a week do you hear anything
like well, what's your pulse onon where construction is in
Vancouver specifically?

Speaker 2 (36:53):
So, again, this is like the Vancouver market is
massive.
It's absolutely massive.
Our clients are working inthree, um, three, three areas.
So one is um, uh, like.
They're like they're workingfor the school board or bc
housing yeah, okay.

(37:15):
Or they're working with umlarger institutions that are
putting up, say, um like, uh,storage facilities that have a
lot of freezer capacity for foodstorage, or they're building
$1,500 per square footmonstrosities out in West
Vancouver.

(37:37):
We have noticed that they'rethat's not true.
Actually we have companies thatwork on smaller projects, but
we have noticed that it hasgotten easier.
It's like there is this shockthat hit the market Trump got
elected, tariffs, the news wars,all around the world, people
were a little bit more gun shyabout spending money and now

(37:59):
we're starting to see, withcompanies that have good brands,
efficient sales cycles, goodcredibility in the marketplace,
that a lot of those projects arestarting to come to fruition.
Now it's like people are justgetting just recognizing this is
the world that we're in and westill.
Time is moving past us and thisis the thing I think customers
are learning that it's not goingto get cheaper ever.

(38:21):
No, it's not getting cheaper.
So cheaper Ever no, it's notgetting cheaper.
So the stock market just turnedaround a bit.
So people are starting to.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
A bit yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
It's ripping.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
Yeah, yeah.
So take me through that little.
That part I always talk aboutthis is the cheaper part Is it's
never getting cheaper.
So at some point don't we allhere in Canada specifically have
to earn more If it's not goingto get cheaper?

(38:51):
Like if for somebody to rent atwo-bedroom condo downtown,
let's say, or Burnaby, and it'sgoing to cost them $4,500 a
month, that's what it's going tocost For something new anyway,

(39:14):
let's say $3,500 to $4,500 amonth, the kind of job.
They have to have to have thatjust for their rent.
That's not including all theother stuff.
They have to have to have thatjust for their rent and that's
not including all the otherstuff they have.
Don't you think we, if it'sonly when you say it's only
going to get more expensive,it's not getting cheaper?
I mean, the opposite of that isit's only going to get more

(39:37):
expensive.
How do we reconcile that?
How do people make it ingeneral?
Do they all move intoconstruction?
Everyone makes a lot of moneythere, but I don't know.
I mean, I think I think we'rein a.
We're in a weird spot right nowwhere, you know, I.
I remember when the federalelection was happening.

(39:58):
I remember going to a, a, aPolly of rally, and he was
saying going to a poly of rallyand he was saying, oh, we're
going to bring the prices ofhomes down.
I mean, I liked a lot of thestuff he said but I was like
what's the plan there, because Icouldn't quite figure out.

(40:19):
So what are we going to do?
Is suddenly steel going to beless, concrete, going to cost
less?
We're going to pay people less?
How?
How is it going to be lessConcrete going to cost less?
We're going to pay people less.
How?
How is it going to be less?
Okay, sure, maybe you can havesome gains in terms of holding
times, how long it takes to do aproject, efficiencies there,
cities, permits that can becheaper so that it's not like a
crazy amount of money per doorjust for holding costs.

(40:42):
Sure, you could do that there.
But on balance, how is it goingto be cheaper?

Speaker 2 (40:53):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
This is a very touchy subject how touchy.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
Well, we had an event recently and Mike Campbell from
Money Talks came.

Speaker 1 (41:04):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
And I had a chance to sit down with anyone in
Vancouver knows who he is, andhe's quite a famous economist in
Canada.
Um, and we talked about this.
What do you do?
I grew up in a home that myparents owned, and my mother,
you know her full-time job wasworking with us.
Four kids, yeah, and my fatherworked for BC Hydro.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
Good luck finding that now.
All right, so we are seeing anevisceration of the middle class
?

Speaker 1 (41:38):
Yeah, and yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
I, I, I don't know, like I'm not the, I don't, I
don't understand.
I don't know, like I'm not the,I don't, I don't understand.
I don't know what the solutionis.
All I can do is personally youand I talked about this when we
came in like, what's yourmission?
The mission is okay.
With the people that we workwith in construction, we know

(41:59):
how to build wealth.
We know how to build wealth.
I don't know how to do thiswith somebody who's making
$75,000 a year working inanother industry, but I do know
how to help constructioncompanies at least the owners of
those companies help theirstaff to beat the curve.

(42:21):
That's the audience that I canspeak to.
And yeah, I mean I talked tomichael campbell and he just
said, yeah, this is up to meworking with the politicians to
help um bring back moreopportunity and more
international investment intocanada, because right now, yeah,
it's not there it's the deadzone I you know my friend is

(42:43):
just talking to on Wall Street.
And again we talked about thatand he said it's just him and it
might not be a factor withother people.
But he said if I pick up thephone and tell some of our
investors and our fund that wewant to invest in Canada, they
won't pick up my call next timethat's sad man.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
It is sad because this place is awesome.
It's so yeah, I mean soresource rich.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
Yeah.
Yeah, it's incredible.
I mean, the conversation wentdown a weird thread there.
But I mean, you know, mentalhealth is a commitment to
reality at all costs, and that'sthe reality we're dealing with
as business operators here.
But I think there's massiveopportunity if you own a
construction company in Canada.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
Can I ask you something on the mental health
side of things?
Sure, because I had a.
I did a session with Angelo andJohn Luca and they they're,
they're all about mental health.
That's the human project there.
That's Angelo's book.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
I was going to ask you about that.
You should take that Cool, Iwill.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Thank you, he's awesome.
We talked about the mentalhealth of construction people in
terms of the value stack.
As you go all the way throughfrom CEO all the way down to
someone cleaning up a site, sothat entire chain through there,
mental health is.

(44:09):
It's not like once you get pastthe field and it goes into the
office and people are behindcomputers, it doesn't mean
mental health stops.
Mental health goes all the waythrough the chain and what we
seem to be only focusing on isthe site, people, their mental

(44:30):
health.
We're not talking about thewhole company's mental health.
And for some reason, like ifyou've got a PM who's dealing
with four projects, because, forwhatever reason, they're
totally overworked, overstressed, all that kind of stuff that
person's probably struggling.
So what I try and bifurcate iswhat is the threshold of what we

(45:01):
consider life is hard versusmental health?
So I know that because I knowfor a fact that there are people
who run construction companiesthat are totally ahead of their
skis, that are having darkthoughts.
Yeah For sure.
Yeah, because their whole lifeis involved in that thing.

(45:23):
Totally, totally Right.
And so does their mental healthnot count?
Oh, it's because they have hugeopportunity.
It doesn't get addressed.
Is that why Because the upsideis so good you got to suck it up
.
Is that what that is?
Well, I think we have a hugething to deal with here.
There needs to be a big, bigconversation of the people,

(45:44):
everybody having a sense ofwell-being all the way through
the value chain.
And I don't really know wherethat starts.
So maybe from your perspective,when you're dealing with your
clients, their turnover thathappens on their

(46:07):
self-performance side, or maybeit's with a sub-trade, you know,
in some of the lower per-hourjobs and then not even salary
jobs.
Some of that just work per-hourstuff.
The turnover there because oflife circumstances.
It's a very unique thing.

(46:29):
In construction, yeah, mostlybecause of the fact that there
are very few industries that youcan walk up to hoarding, knock
on it and talk to somebody whocan hire you and say I need a
job.
Where else can you do that?
You can't even walk into a banknow without an appointment.

(46:51):
You can't.
The whole front line ofeverything now is behind a veil
almost.
You've got to get a key card toget upstairs.
You can't just go to areception.
Everything is blocked off inthe rest of the world for people
to get jobs, but constructionbecause it's out in the open and
you can see the people and youcan identify it as they have a

(47:13):
busy vest on, you know who theyare.
So, because of the fact that itis a place where people can come
for opportunity, who come fromvarying life circumstances, it
brings along this mental healthconundrum of key issues which a

(47:35):
lot of people have, stuff that'svery hard to fix.
Young people who have madestrange decisions it might not
have been their fault, whatevercircumstances and now they're
like I need help and they'relooking to these companies for

(47:56):
guidance, for it's their tribe,it's their people, it's their
thing and they want anopportunity.
Some people don't even know theopportunity that they have and
some might even see this as justa temporary job for some other
kind of fantasy that they have,and some might even see this as
just a temporary job for someother kind of fantasy that they
have.
So I know this is a long, longessay here on this side of

(48:17):
things, but from the coachingside, how do you see that mental
health strata of focus betweenthose different stratas, so
right at the top brass, middlemanagement, all the way down
through the field, how do youguys address how people's mental

(48:38):
state is For?

Speaker 2 (48:39):
sure.
Well, first of all, I think inany business landscape, the
default or the assumption isthat companies are going to put
their priorities this way Money,customers, staff.
We always tell our clients it'sthe other way around.

(49:03):
It's staff, customers and thenmoney will come.
That's the first thing.
You put your staff first.
That is your number onepriority.
Hire based on core valuesthat's a whole podcast episode
on its own.
Hire based on core values andfocus on building a good culture

(49:28):
.
Okay.
And then every person in yourcompany absolutely must be given
the opportunity to improvetheir lives, and we do this
through mandating with ourclients, professional
development programs with theirteam.
And there's two aspects of aprofessional development program

(49:50):
.
There's one okay, I'm going togo from being like a laborer to
a carpenter, to a site super orI'm just going to increase my
skillset.
That's what we focus on.
We don't.
That's not about promotion,it's about increasing your
skillset, or office admin,office manager, or just
increasing their skillset.
That's one bucket.
But then, with the professionaldevelopment program, there's

(50:11):
also a life development programthat we have in our content,
where the leadership team in thecompany gives their staff a
very clear path to improvingtheir life and lots of other
domains finance what they dowith their free time, what they

(50:37):
do with their health, what theydo with their spirituality.
Okay, um, and and, and.
Then what they'll do is holdthat person accountable every
quarter to improving in thoseareas, if they want it, and a
lot of staff, from what we'veseen at least, actually say, wow
, no one's ever taken the timeto care about this.

(50:59):
And then the company gives themresources to improve in that
area.
We've seen organizations saylike okay, you know you're
making X amount as a carpenter,x amount as our office admin.
What is your financial goal?
How can we help you with this?
Okay, and just put it out inthe open.
What do you want?
What is your vision for yourlife?
Um, health, health-wise.

(51:21):
Do you want to spend more timewith your kids?
Okay, cause then all of asudden, um just say it.
If you want to spend more timewith your kids and we're making
you work 55 hours a week becauseit's crazy right now well,
let's just put it out there yourpriority is more time with your
family.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
We'll make those adjustments.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
You just put it out in the open and then it goes
back to my quote.
Mental health is a commitmentto reality at all costs, because
now a lot of the staff haveseen that vision for their life
put on paper say that one moretime.
Mental health is the commitmentto reality at all costs, to
unpack that for a second.
so, um, any, any.

(52:01):
If you ever work with a lifecoach, typically what they'll do
is they'll unpack what'shappening in your life right now
and there's things that arelatent in everybody's
subconscious that is causinganxiety and causing stress, and
a good life coach will help youunderstand what that is.
Not everybody has the time orthey believe in life coaching to

(52:24):
go and take those steps fortheir life, but a system that
will actually ask the rightquestions what does a good
financial future look like foryou?
What do you value in life?
Where do you want to be healthwise?
We'll at least move the needlein that direction so that if any
of those domains are out ofwhack, the individual will

(52:46):
understand oh, this might bewhat's causing my anxiety,
because now they have clearlyidentified it and therefore
they're healthier mentallybecause they're able to address
the situation and bring it outin the open rather than just let
these.
They're not seeing their kidsfor years on end and they just

(53:08):
like I've seen lots of people dothat where the dad's just
working a million hours andtheir health is failing.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
Can I ask you about this up-and-coming generation?
Do you think or would you addsome credence to this that
social media over the years hascreated more of not necessarily
a personality profile of this,but more of a vector of
narcissism, like the me me mething?

(53:41):
Yeah, the only reason I askthat is because the conversation
of where do you want to go,what do you want to do with your
career, how can we help you?
There has, year by year, beenan increase in people's ability

(54:10):
to be able to see long term.
They're always like it's a nowthing, it's a now like.
They see people the Jake Paulsor the whoever being able to
just make millions of dollarsjust doing videos.
They don't see the hundreds ofthousands of other millions of

(54:33):
them that don't make that money.
They just think it's possibleand we're told anything's
possible.
All the time you go on TikTok,it's like this is how you can do
this.
This is your dreams, this isall about you.
You have to believe in yourself, all of these things.
And then they go to theirconstruction job and someone's

(54:54):
like so tell me, over the nexteight years, where are we going
to go with this?
Someone's like eight years.
There's this.
There needs to be a realitycheck with compassion to be able
to show people away that thatother stuff is a fugazi.

(55:15):
It's like you could ifsomeone's done it.
It's possible, Everyone knowsthat right, but the chances is
lottery ticket-ish.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
You're probably not going to be happy if you get
there too.
That's true.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
So you know where I'm going with this.
It's a challenge for us tobring everyone together.
Not all of those conversationsare going to be as easy with
everyone who's on a job site,but yeah, I mean, I think that

(55:53):
the thing that keeps meoptimistic is that, like we said
before doing this episode, it'sconstruction is this last
bastion of opportunity.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
It really is.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
Like I think if people could, just if parents
can get out of their own headsthat their kid doesn't need to
go and get a degree and all theologies and end up with nothing,
and you know, they maybe evenif they did save up for their
college, right?
Well, if you want to go inthere and go and micro target

(56:28):
exactly what you want out ofthere, awesome, go do that.
But if you're going to do thatbecause you're like, oh wow, I
saw a movie and this is whatit's like to be on campus, it's
like, is this the reason youwant to go for like a four-year
holiday with some school?
No, but you talk to those sameparents and they're like, well,

(56:51):
you're not going to go inconstruction, are you?
You have a college fund here.
Why would we do that?
That needs to change.
It's changing.
I think it is evolutions in howindustries become more

(57:13):
sophisticated over time, becausethere's this sort of blue
collar thing that it's beensince the beginning of time.
You know jobs that are hard andyou've got to be tough and
you've got to do all thesethings and it takes some brawn
sometimes and you know you can'twear a suit to the job site.
You know, you've got to wearclothes that don't get torn.
You got to wear gloves, hardhat, different, very different

(57:38):
thing.
It's professional, though.
That's what I'm saying.
So what the evolution ishappening behind the scenes is
the professionalism ishyper-increasing.
Over the past I'm going to sayeight years, eight to 10 years
the professionalism has hockeystick, and that's where I think
the brand of construction needsto actually look at what it is,

(58:08):
because people have apreconceived notion.

Speaker 2 (58:10):
That is inaccurate.
And just looking at, I can nameso many companies.
Any like you mentioned parents,any parents looking at those
companies would say oh, you knowwhat?
Maybe this is a good career formy son or my daughter?
Yeah, just because there's somuch opportunity out there.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
Yeah, just because there's so much opportunity out
there and once you're in, likeyou get an entry-level job at a
lead core or a PCL or one ofthese big companies or a big sub
you're not going to be lookingfor a job after that even if you
don't like where you're working.
After a couple of years.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
You're going to be wanted.
Lessons in life 101,.
Man, you can work for thosecompanies.
Actually, you know beautifulcompany that works with us.
Their owner worked at PCL forquite a while.
He's brilliant.
He learned all kinds ofwonderful, wonderful skills.
Yeah, yeah, you know you weretalking about, uh, I think,

(59:08):
cheap dopamine.
Uh, there's a, a great quotethat I'm going to paraphrase, by
a guy named nival ravi khan,and he said the future is going
to be owned by people who areable to resist cheap dopamine.
He said it much more eloquently.
I'm paraphrasing yeah, but Ireally believe that, um, and,
and you know what I say, all youneed to do is go out of cell

(59:29):
phone reception for three orfour or five days and then come
back in and you'll just be like,oh, wow, all this stuff that
was important to me on LinkedInor Instagram or Facebook, I
don't really care about.
I just enjoyed sitting by thelake with my tent and my five
and four year old and my wifefive and four year old and my
wife, so let's look at the nextfive years.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
What do you see as the big opportunity in
construction for your clientsand also for people listening to
this?
You obviously want as manypeople in your community as
possible.
Do you have a capacity problem?

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
No, we put an action bias towards not growth.
We put an action bias towardshiring great people who work for
us and then we grow once webring them in.

Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
So you're kind of pinned right now.
The customers or the clientsyou have.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
No, we have capacity.
We have a really goodrecruitment funnel, with um
great people that are coming onboard.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
So so what is the, what is, in your opinion, the
opportunity for these companies?
Uh, to join your, your tribe ofhigh achievers, high spires.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Yeah, that's actually I like that.
So I think there's a wonderfulopportunity.
I think construction is afragmented industry.
It's going to continue to be afragmented industry and I think
it's a wonderful opportunity togo in and improve and see
accelerated gains for and justpick off a little bit of

(01:01:07):
low-hanging fruit and level upyour companies.
I think there's a massiveopportunity in the middle market
in real estate Huge the middlemarket is kind of above what
your typical heart surgeon canafford, but too cheap for a big
fund to worry about.
And I think there's also amassive opportunity with AI and
VAs to increase overheadefficiency.

(01:01:28):
Any companies that aren'tutilizing those two components
and how they operate are crazy.
Like there's no reason you haveto build out these massive
teams anymore.
You can do so much withartificial intelligence and
virtual assistants now toincrease the value of the seats

(01:01:48):
that you have working for youyeah and thereby improve their
lives and ultimately build yourcompany up so that you do hire
more, more people too.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
But yeah yeah yeah, well, that's pretty cool, yeah,
I mean it's a.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
I'm so optimistic for the future.
I mean mean all these thingsabout people say I always hear
AI, private equity, the laborshortage, the economy.
Honestly, I don't think thosethings are going to turn into
these black swan events that aregoing to totally turn the
construction industry upsidedown.
I see nothing but opportunityover the next five years and,

(01:02:26):
yeah, I feel just so blessed tobe a part of it.
And and yeah, I feel, um, uh,just so blessed to be a part of
it and I think anyone in theindustry is is just going to
really enjoy the ride over thenext decade.

Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
Well, this has been awesome, Paul the uh.
What's the expensive URL?
What's that the expensive URL?
Highspirecom?

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
Is that what?

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
you got.
Yeah yeah, that's.
That's a good one.
Yeah, yeah, so people can gethold of you highspirecom, is
that what you?

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
got.
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's agood one.
Yeah, yeah, so people can gethold of you.
Highspirecom paul atherton onlinkedin yeah, I'm on linkedin.
Yeah, yeah, and our company'son instagram and facebook and
all that but yeah, videos ofstuff of your retreats and all
that oh, yeah, yeah, all thatstuff's on youtube.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
Instagram account on instagram.
Okay, what's the instagramhandle?
Uh it's just highspire I.

Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
I think it's High Spire Official.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
Official.
Oh yeah, I know you're acelebrity.
It's like a band, it's like,hey, this is not the fake ones.
Yeah, guys, come on.

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
Very serious, and then you can message I'm always.

Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
I'm very active on for the four days.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
That's right.
If I don't, respond to you infour days we're out camping or
something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
Well, that's cool.
Yeah, all right, paul, this hasbeen awesome.
I've really enjoyed theinteraction and the cerebral
conversation about a lot ofthese topics.
You handle them pretty well.
It was pretty awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
This was super fun, james, so glad I came over.

Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
Thanks, man.
Cheers, Awesome Cheers.
Well, that does it for anotherepisode of the Site Visit.
Thank you for listening.
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(01:04:05):
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