Building Systems that Actually Work in Construction | Eric Fortenberry

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In this episode, Eric Fortenberry takes us through his unique journey—from software entrepreneur, to running a construction company, to discovering firsthand the operational flaws that hold businesses back. What started as troubleshooting for his own company turned into the creation of JobTread, a platform designed to solve the biggest pain points in the construction industry.

Gold Nuggets from Eric’s journey:

• Working on Estimating First to get the profit built into the Job Upfront
• Building documentation systems that clearly define project scopes and make change orders simple and enforceable
• Fixing the “shopping and shit” TIME WASTER by moving crews from hourly pay to fixed-price work
• Driving a business turnaround from $5M to $8M in revenue with a 43% jump in gross profit in just one year
• Scaling JobTread from 200 customers in 2021 to more than 7,500 today (adding 500+ new accounts monthly)
• Structured onboarding, training programs to ensure customer success

Eric shares powerful insights that every business owner can use to tighten operations, boost profits, and scale with confidence.

Visit jobtread.com to learn more or schedule a demo. Eric is also active in the JobTread Pros Facebook group with over 7,000 members and can be reached directly at [e-mail].

https://www.youtube.com/JobTread

https://www.facebook.com/JobTread/

https://www.instagram.com/jobtread

https://www.linkedin.com/company/jobtread/

https://x.com/JobTread

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So, like I kid you, not like my favorite store here?
So have you all seen UndercoverBoss?
Yeah, yeah.
So I'm like all right, I'mgoing to play Undercover Boss
here and I start showing up atthe job sites, you know, trying
to just see like what is goingon, right, like so I show up at
this one job site.
I'm there at like 8 am and Iexpect the guys to already be
there.
Be there right at.
You know they don't show up toaround nine, you know.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
so, yeah, hang on so, uh, this is software boy trying
to get into construction world,chris in the construction world
.
So you already just heard.
Yeah, I got there at eight.
Well, hi, you're in texas, itgets, it's like 125 degrees with
3 000 humidity in the sun, andyou guys don't get started till.
What was that number?

Speaker 1 (00:42):
eight nine, well, you didn't get there from nine,
that's even better.
We typically started at 6 am.
That's why I was surprised tofind that the crews weren't
already there.
I was sort of expecting to rollup secretly but nobody's there.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
You mean, they just don't show up when they're
supposed to.
Oh shit, my God, how did thathappen?

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Did you create a program to fix that we?
How did that happen?
Did you create a program to fixthat we did Really.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
So what I found out, though, is they went to Home
Depot to go shop for all thematerials.
So I'm going to own this one,Actually.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
I call that the shopping shit trip.
They shop and take a shit andgrab a coffee.
Then they show up.
Do they have the coffee first,though no, actually the way it
rolls.
Then they show up.
Do they have the coffee first,though no, actually the way it
rolls.
They walk in.
And if you try to go to a depothere in Atlanta in the morning

(01:36):
and try to go into the 8th stallbathroom, there's a line, son,
there's a line I had no idea youtry to go to the coffee.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
I was going to the bathroom.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
If you try to go to the pro desk and get a coffee at
eight 30, the coffee's out.
Wow, they're making a new pot.
So, eric, I love this becausewelcome to the shit world that
we decided to get into.
So and you're helping us fix it, I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
I'm taking responsibility for this first
one, though I learned my lessonthat we should have already
ordered the materials, had themon the job site or at least had
them ready for pickup, likeanyway.
So they show up at the job sitearound 9, you know, and you
know I could tell the customerwas going to be a little bit
more of a pain.
You know he's kind of peepingout, looking, you know out

(02:20):
what's going on, you know.
But like at around 11 o'clockthey realized that they needed
to go back to home depot becausethey forgot some materials.
Instead of instead of callingthe project manager, instead of
calling the office, instead of,like you know, just like,
sending one person.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
All okay, chris, all three of these guys get back in
the car and go to home depot,right, every one of them every
one of them goes there becauseall three of them got to fucking
shop and take another shit,because they had five fucking
burritos last night and they allhave to come back at 12 and get
started.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
Oh, but then it's time for lunch.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
It's lunchtime, so it's noon.
They literally go to the van,they pull out their microwave,
plug it in and sit down on thejob site for an hour.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Because it's lunchtime, eric, I've been
working all day obviously shitall day except two shits.
You've shit for all day and youtook two shits and now you're
eating.
Yeah, I've had a busy day,chris.
I'm like I know you have, butfor oh my god I'm fired up the
straw.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
the straw that broke the camel's back was when, at 2
30, they all three get back inthe truck and go back to Home
Depot a third time.
That's when I get the call fromthe customer, who's irate.
He's like they have literallydone absolutely nothing.
Eric, you told me we're goingto get this job done on time and
these guys are literallysitting around doing nothing.
They keep coming and going.

(03:41):
He was so pissed and I was like, okay, I see the problem.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Welcome.
They keep coming and going.
He was so pissed and I was likeokay, I see the problem.
Welcome to the Small BusinessSafari where I help guide you to
avoid those traps, pitfalls anddangers that lurk when
navigating the wild world ofsmall business ownership.
I'll share those gold nuggetsof information and invite guests
to help accelerate your ascentto that mountaintop of success.
It's a jungle out there and Iwant to help you traverse

(04:09):
through the levels of owningyour own business that can get
you bogged down and distract youfrom hitting your own personal
and professional goals.
So strap in Adventure Team andlet's take a ride through the
safari and get you to themountaintop.
Hey, everybody, we're going tobe rocking and rolling.
I can't shut Alan up again.
Oh my God, alan's telling mestories Enough about me.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
Let's talk more about me, please, my God.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Alan.
I'm going to tell on Alan.
Before we got started.
Alan said a friend of mine haspassed away who I met and
they've asked me to give remarksabout this guy and I'm like I
don't know who he is.
So we actually workshopped it ala Johnny Carson.
Before we got on, Chris wasfeeding me jokes.

(04:52):
I feed them jokes because Ithink every funeral needs to
have them.
I mean, seriously, guys, it's atough subject, but think about
that and I want everybody tothink about this for just one
minute.
If somebody were to ask you tospeak at somebody else's funeral
, what would you say and howwould you deliver it?
Just think about that.
Ruminate on that for a littlebit.
I've been ruminating, I knowyou have.
It's a lot of pressure.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
I want all of you to think about it for a minute.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
This is a big deal, dude, and I think that is a,
because you've always heard thisstory on your obituary, your
tombstone.
What's going to be writtenabout you when you're gone?
How about this?
What are you going to say aboutyour best friend who's sitting
to your left talking on apodcast when he goes?

(05:33):
Because I think we figured outwhich one's going to go earlier
the guy drinking way too muchbourbon.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
I need to start looking at my remarks for Chris,
but I told him I'm like I'venever been to Vegas with you.
I've never even played yourfreaking golf course.
It's right outside your house.
Why would I speak at yourfuneral?
Obviously there are many otherpeople much more important to
you than me.
There are other people whocould tell way better stories

(05:57):
that would not work in aCatholic church.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
So you know I'm a son of a minister, I won't swear in
church.
Thank you, all right, alan.
So work on your remarks andremember I'm a really funny guy.
Thank you, no, again.
Think about that for a minute,because I thought that was a big
.
That's a big question.
You would ask in a mastermindgroup what would you say about
your best friend to help theirfamily get through this grieving
process?
I mean, it's a big question,wouldn't you agree?

(06:20):
I agree with everything you say, chris.
Thank you, alan.
Agree, I agree with everythingyou say, chris.
Thank you, alan.
Can we get to our guests now?
I mean seriously, eric, I'mwaiting patiently.
We got eric fortenberry fromjob tread on today.
Uh guys, I've had a chance to.
I've talked to him.
He probably doesn't rememberthis, but I did talk to him when
I was thinking about changingfield service software and I did
.
Um, he told me his story.
I've had three other guys herein the atlanta market who are

(06:42):
using his software.
I went to a NERI conference inAustin.
Did we mention?

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Oh, you're the president of NERI.
Thank you, I'm the president of.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Atlanta and on the national board, and Eric was on
stage Am.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
I supposed to genuflect.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Well, the hat, the scepter, I've got it all coming
the crown and I've got a newthrone.
So if you can't see me onYouTube, guys, new thrones for
both of us, by the way that wedo.
But Eric, I got a chance totalk to him, number one,
passionate about his job,passionate about his business,
more passionate about hiscustomers.
This is going to be rock androll.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
But we've got to cover something first, let's do
it.
He's in Texas, alum ofUniversity of Texas.
I'm assuming he's aware thatthere's a game coming up this
weekend.
All right, so you want totimestamp?

Speaker 2 (07:32):
this one.
Yeah, we do.
Well, this isn't going outuntil the end of the fall.
I don't care.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
All right, we're going to get a prediction out of
him and we're going to find outif he's right or wrong, you
know what out in the middle?

Speaker 2 (07:40):
All right, Eric Portenberry, who is going to be
the national champion in theNCAA football.
I don't even care about that.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
I want to know who's winning Texas and Ohio State on
Saturday.
All right, fine.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
You answer that, then you answer the real question.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
I mean, it's obviously Texas.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
What's the line Three ?

Speaker 2 (07:59):
I think he doesn't care, it's three.
There are three dogs, I thinkOhio State's favored by three at
home.
How about that?
First time a number one hasbeen a dog in the first game?

Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yeah, Kind of a tough start to the season.
No cupcake there.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
And they got Arch In Arch.
You trust Eric.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
You know, I'm hopeful we'll have a good season.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
That is very political.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
Wow, you obviously between game and time.
One game at a time, oh my God.
One game at a time.
Who's going to win the nationalchampionship this year.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
I mean I'm going to go with UT as well.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
I would I'm telling you, dude, they'd look good.
I mean, here in Georgia bulldogland, we're all.
They're actually UT's getting alot of press about what that
team looks like right now.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Can you imagine how much that ticket's going to go
for?
Isn't Texas coming here thisyear?

Speaker 2 (08:47):
It is, and I'll tell you what I do know because I
don't have one.
And the other thing is I'mrenting out my house and I've
already rented it out and it's anumber, I'll bet it is.
Yeah, I'm covering mortgage fora couple months on that one,
not selling that house just yeteverybody.
For those who, uh, probablydon't listen much, my son went

(09:07):
to georgia.
He's down now in texas, inbaylor, um.
So our house that we had whilehe was in, uh, georgia, um, we
were gonna put it up for sale.
Well, we missed the window ofselling it.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
So now I have it, except for I offered to buy it
and you just glossed that overoh, eric, never have a real
estate agent.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
As a friend who lowballs everything he ever
tells you.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
I mean, we could do a live auction right here.
I like it See.

Speaker 3 (09:28):
I like the way Eric thinks All right.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Can we get back to Eric?

Speaker 3 (09:33):
please.
You want more predictions.
I'm not done talking to Eric.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
Do you want to know who's going to win the softball?
What do you think about UTsoftball?
They're good too, by the way.
We could, by the way, we couldtalk about the bats in austin.
We can't.
Well, that's true, that wascrazy, man.
I didn't get to go see them.
So, again, we talked about that.
How do you know it's crazy?
Well, because I had to watch iton youtube.
So, in austin texas, austintexas.
So if you don't know this, uh,at five o'clock at night,

(09:59):
there's a bridge in austin andthe bats come flying out of
there at sunset or sundown.
Right, have you ever watchedthat, eric?

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, it's a pretty crazy thing to see.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
Right.
So I did, because I do anothershow here locally for home
service companies, and this istwo name drops.
Thank you, anyway.
So I had a pest control guycome on.
I'm like, hey, do you knowabout this stuff?
I said so, is it true that batshit crazy Is?
That?
Is that a true statement?
He goes absolutely.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
It makes you crazy.
Yeah, he calls it guano.
It is guano, but I mean, howdoes it make you crazy?
Do you have to eat it?

Speaker 2 (10:46):
I think it's a good entrepreneurial story.
You're gonna like it.
So anyway, I will tell you um Iwe have him tell us.
Oh yeah, hey, eric, what'd youdo?

Speaker 1 (10:57):
started this thing.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
There's the hard questions from chris there we go
.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
All right, man, come on, give us that story.
I've, I love it let.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah, so where do you want me to?

Speaker 2 (11:06):
begin.
Let's not go with what you didbefore this.
Where'd you get this idea andwhat did you make All right?

Speaker 1 (11:14):
So, yeah, I sold my first company in 2015.
A buddy of mine was running aconstruction company.
They're about five years old,had 10 employees doing five
million in revenue, but juststruggling to scale the business
no systems, processes.
The owner asked me to come overand said hey man, can you help

(11:36):
me figure out how to scale thisthing?
I was like, yeah, sure, I meanit couldn't be that hard.
Right, I walk in.
I mean it was just like totalchaos.
Right, we had just papersbinders everywhere, like literal
timesheets are walking in thedoor, they're being put into
these folders.
They're printing off every bill, put them into these folders,
just waiting for the projectmanager to come by.
You know whenever that wasgoing to be.
You know whenever that personcomes by.

(11:56):
They'd you know initial on itand then someone would type it
up and put it in thisspreadsheet and then it I get
copied over to some otherspreadsheet and then ultimately,
you know, entered into intoQuickBooks and, like I think, at
one point I found likequadruple data entry and that's
like when my mind almostexploded.
I was like, all right, guys,like timeout, I see the problem,
like you know, and this is likeyou know, two hours in.
I'm like this is so apparent,like you guys are lacking

(12:18):
systems and processes.
You know, let me just go findyou something.
And I went and did a deep dive,just looked at everything all
the construction managementsoftware out there put together
this big spreadsheet, all thefeatures, the pros, the cons,
the cost, how customizable itwas, and at the end of the day I
struggled to make arecommendation for these guys.
I was like this stuff lookssuper antiquated, been started

(12:41):
10, 15, 20 years ago.
It looked like it was going tobe super expensive, you know, or
it was just going to besomething that, like you know,
we really weren't going to beable to customize to meet our
needs.
And you know, I just I kind ofdidn't really know what to tell
the guys.
Like you know, I thought I'd beable to easily find you
something and then just helpthem implement it.
But they, they ultimately cameback and were like you know,
look, eric, you're a softwareguy, can't you just build us

(13:03):
something?
And I was like Whoa, hold on,you know, I wasn't, I wasn't
trying to take on a full-timejob here, I was just trying to
help a buddy out, you know,asking me to like, create
another.
You know potential one-offsolution here that you know they
certainly weren't qualified tomaintain.
You know, once I uh, you know,kind pushed back initially, got
to thinking about it though, andyou know my wife is actually, I

(13:26):
think she really just likewanted me to get out of the
house and go, like, findsomething else to do with my
time Way too young to be retired, and you know she's like Eric,
you know this looks like itcould be another huge
opportunity for you, you know.
And I got to thinking about itand just, you know, again, think
she's right.
You know I think I need to goback and let me just talk to him
.
And so, you know, ultimately, Iwent back to the guys and said,

(13:47):
look, I'm willing to do itunder three conditions.
One, I take over as CEO, needthe full ability to write the
ship, you know, hire to fire,implement whatever systems
process we need, you know.
Two, I told them I'd give themone year of my time.
I would show up every singleday, like we would get this team
back on track, you know, fully,fully producing.
And three, though, everything Ibuild is going to be my
intellectual property.

(14:08):
So at the end of this year I'veyou know.
It gives me that, thatopportunity to go and create my
next software company.
And they uh, they agreed mademe partner.
You know whoa?

Speaker 3 (14:18):
they agreed.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
They must have been desperate seriously they didn't
give you the two, they didn'tgive the boat like the double
barrels.
I mean you're doing, you gaveme the hook them over and shit.
But I was thinking, I'mthinking double barrels, bro,
Like no, my company, my job, mybusiness, my baby.
And you came in and they saidokay.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
Pretty much.
You know it was again desperatetimes call for desperate
measures, but, like you know,they were just like pulling
their hair out.
All for desperate measures, but, like you know, they were just
like pulling their hair out,like I.
Literally there are threepartners in the business and all
three of them were running atfull speed in different
directions, you know.
And so it was just like theleft hand can't talk to the
right hand.
Like you know, they needed.
They needed not only thesystems and processes, but I
think they needed me to come inand play, you know, play

(14:58):
mediator a little bit and kindof help, help get them back on
the same page, get one unifiedleadership team going.
And yeah, man, we, you know,essentially I, just I built
JobTread out of a needs basis,started with the estimating.
You know, like and just like,for the life of me I couldn't
figure out like why in the worldcould we not ever hit our
target profit margin?
You know we're targeting 30%,you know want to make 30% on

(15:20):
every job and, like you know,just it's just so wildly all
over the map and it took a while.
But eventually, like, I satdown and I'm like watching these
guys build their estimates.
And I finally figured out whenI saw a guy he put out, he
pulled out his calculator and he, like, sat there and you know
he typed in his cost.
Then he just did times, youknow, 1.3, and so he was.
He was actually instead ofusing whoa wait, hang on.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Hang on, I need a minute.
Use your fingers.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
Go ahead.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
No, I'm going to fucking kill these guys, because
I've seen the guy do the samething.
I'm like what number is that?
He goes?
Well, I thought that was ourmargin.
I'm like I'm about to kill you.
Ding, ding, ding, here we go.
All right, go, eric.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
That yeah, so they were marking up their cost by
30%, you know.
And so that, like, if you markup your cost 30%, the most
you're going to get is a 23%profit margin.
So we're literally shootingourselves right in the foot,
right out of the gate had nochance to hit a 30% profit
margin, you know.
And like, again, it took me awhile to actually figure out

(16:21):
what was happening.
And you know, look to calculate, you know price, using margin,
instead of multiplying you're,you know you're dividing it.
You know a little bit morecomplicated, you know formula,
you know that versus just kindof multiplying by, you know, by
this, by this number.
But you know, at the end of theday, like when we figured that
out, how much is the last thing?

Speaker 3 (16:36):
just drove off the road you should be.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
If you're not, if you're not, if you didn't drive
off the road, you need to gopark in that Chick-fil-A, go
park in that QT, go park in thatpublic, don't park in that BP,
because you're probably going toget jumped.
But listen to this, becausethat's the number bro, you just
lost that.
He said oh, instead ofmultiplying, divide by, I'm like
that's exactly where I started.
I'm like.
I said I know this sounds likethird grade.

(17:00):
I said but you remember whenyou had your multiplication
tables, listen to division one.
I said so stop thatmultiplication bullshit.
Yeah, I said that's the wrongnumber, bro, wrong number.
So eric says god, I'm two hoursin and I'm like, oh my god, hey
, here's your problem.
Oh, wow, what's that?
Um, they, they flunk fourthgrade.
Okay, all right, eric, back to.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
I, it, uh, I I realized it's like man, you guys
need to put away yourcalculators, you know, just like
you know, and there was alsothis extent of like they're
literally just pulling numbersout of thin air, right, like you
know, they they totally makingthings up, you know, had the the
good old boy mentality, we canhave handshake type deals, like
you know.
No, no documentation, no scopesof work, you know, and like this

(17:45):
, this just kept biting us andwe didn't.
Like you know, like they keepdoing the same thing over and
over and expecting a differentoutcome.
You know, pretty sure that'slike the definition of insanity.
And so so I was like you know,look, guys, like this is this is
a clear first problem we needto solve is, is, is we needed to
have a tool where they couldbuild out and document all of

(18:07):
the cost for a upcoming job.
You know, we need to figure outall of the labor, all of the
materials, like any equipment,permits, like whatever costs.
I was like that is somethingthat you can go figure out right
now, go come up with the cost,document it, and then we will
just automatically calculate ourprice based on our target 30%
profit margin.
And so, by having this firsttransition to creating this

(18:32):
documentation.
It really smoothed over thewhole handoff from sales to
project management.
We literally we couldn't evenuse change orders because nobody
actually knew what the hell wesold them.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Like seriously, but the estimator said you were
going to paint the whole house.
No, it actually says paintrepairs, no, no, no, he told me
you were going to paint thewhole house, not for $200.
We want no, just not doing that.

Speaker 3 (18:59):
Did you get any pushback at first, or were they
like oh, please do this.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Well, you know, that's the interesting thing.
So, like you know, there's allthis fear about oh my gosh, like
you know, if we increase ourprice, like you know, we're
going to lose all these dealsand we're not going to be able
to close.
And I was like all right, fine,Listen, here's the deal, you
know, and we literally overnight, switched to how we were
calculating our jobs.
So, you know, instead ofmarking it up 30%, technically,

(19:23):
you'd need a 43% markup to get a30% profit margins.
Hello, Overnight we increasedour prices.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
So they did.
They didn't say hey, Eric, youdon't understand.
This is our business.
You're a software guy, Stay inyour lane.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
Well, the funny thing was the owner.
He was the only one thatunderstood the difference
between markup and margin, buthe failed to train and implement
a system that could calculateit correctly.
So he got it.
It was like oh yeah, duh, howdid they not know that?
It's like well, did you trainthem on that?
No, oh okay.

(20:01):
Did you give them a tool to doit for them?
No, oh okay.
Did you ever check their work?
Did you ever do performancereviews?
Like, did you ever look at?

Speaker 2 (20:09):
anything, right?
So, eric, you're in that room,you're telling these guys to do
this.
Was he in the back going, hey,what eric said?
You know, I've been saying that.
Hey, what eric said.
I've been saying that, hey, Iwas saying that too.
No, that's what I meant, guys.
That's what I meant.
What was he?

Speaker 1 (20:22):
that, like I've been telling you all this and yada
yada, and it's like you knowagain, sometimes you know
message sense not always messagereceive, or just kind of in one
ear out the other.
But you know again, I wasprepared for when we, you know,
increase the price overnight,for there to be some pushback,

(20:45):
and I told the guys like look,if any customer pushes back, you
know, just bring it to me, letme know, we'll negotiate where
we're not going to lose on pricedue to this, this change here.
We did not hear a single, not aone time did a single customer
push back and that's what toldme.
We were just leaving way toomuch money on the table.
You know, to some extent, likeI feel like we were getting
taken advantage of by some ofour customers who knew that we
were just way under pricing andI mean this is just such a huge

(21:07):
transition for us, you knowagain, being able to now, you
know, use, change, ordersbecause we had a clearly defined
scope of work.
I mean that was just likerevolutionary, right, like we're
no longer going to just keepdoing the work and keep going
about and not getting paid.
Like that is not how you builda successful, profitable,
scalable business.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
So you got to bless your heart.
Can you imagine the customerreferrals?
Hey, they do great work, butthey have no idea what they're
doing when it comes to the signme up.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yeah, that's right.
Well, I hey, and I can see thesales guys coming back going hey
, man, I just closed fiveneighbors.
I'm like like I bet you did bro.
Yeah, so you're looking foryour commission right now,
aren't you?
Yeah, we have, we have a newcalculation in place.
Yeah, you ain't getting any.
What?
Yeah, you just sold five?

Speaker 3 (21:54):
That's a good question.
Do you get involved in the payplans then, too?
Cause what I've noticed is alot of companies they just have
these convoluted play pay plansor they're ones that are just
counterintuitive.
I mean, was that part of whatyou built?

Speaker 1 (22:05):
I immediately.
The first thing I did was Itook both the salesperson you
know all the salespeople and allthe project managers and I
aligned their compensation wherethey both were going to get a
10% commission based on thegross profit of that job.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
They all said oh man, sign me up, Sign me up.
Oh, Eric, we loveic eric's, ournew friend I mean, they're like
hey, eric, sucks we.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
We for better, for worse we were going to be
aligned with everything from thefrom the sailing, you know,
from selling the job to howwe're operating the job.
It gave everybody an incentiveto make sure that this job gets
sold correctly, accurately, andthen we go and we operate and we
execute on what we sold.
What was their pay plan before?

(22:53):
Sales had some commission basedon just however they it was
very convoluted Some sort ofbonus structure, commission
piece based on just top-linerevenue.
Again, they could sell somebogus job at some huge amount
that we can't even deliver at.
They're still making money eventhough the company's losing

(23:15):
money.
It just didn't make sense,right?

Speaker 2 (23:20):
All right, so that was your one year of building
job.
Tread You're digging in.
I mean, it sounds like it was alot of fun, but obviously it
was a lot of like managerstrying to understand what the
hell's going on here.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
How are you guys dealing with this?
And why are we able to performbetter on certain jobs,
depending on the crew that getsassigned to it, versus others?
And so I kid you, not myfavorite store here.
So have you all seen UndercoverBoss?
Yeah, so I'm like all right,I'm going to play Undercover
Boss here and I start showing upat the job sites, you know,

(24:09):
trying to just see like what isgoing on, right?
So I show up at this one jobsite.
I'm there at like 8 am and Iexpect the guys to already be
there.
Be there right at 8.
You know they don't show upuntil around 9.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yeah, hang on.
So this is Software Boy tryingto get into the construction
world.
Chris is in the constructionworld, so you already just heard
.
Yeah, I got there at 8.
Hi, we're in Texas.
It's like 125 degrees with3,000% humidity in the sun and
you guys don't get started.
Until what was that number 9.

(24:40):
?

Speaker 1 (24:40):
You didn't get there until 9.
It's even better.
We typically started at 6 am.
That.
That's why I was surprised tofind that the crews weren't
already there.
You know, I was sort ofexpecting to roll up secretly
you mean they just don't show upwhen they're supposed to oh,
shit.
Well, so what I?

Speaker 3 (24:59):
did you create a program to fix that?
Uh, we did so.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
So what I found out, though, is they went cattle prod
they went to home depot to goshop for all the material.
So you know I'm gonna own thisone like we should have had.
I call.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
I call that.
That's the shopping shit trip.
Well, they shop and take a shitand grab a coffee.
Then they show up.
Do they have a coffee firstthough?
Uh, they get that.
No, actually.
So the way it rolls the other,uh, they walk in and if you try
to go to a depot here in Atlantain the morning and try to go
into the eight-stall bathroom,there's a line, son, there's a

(25:37):
line I had no idea.
You try to go to the coffee.
I was going to the bathroom inthe middle of the day.
If you try to go to the pro deskand get a coffee at 8.30, the
coffee's out.
Wow, they're making a new pot.
So, eric, I love this becausewelcome to the shit world that
we decided to get into andyou're helping us fix it.
I love it.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
I'm taking responsibility for this first
one, though I learned my lessonthat we should have already
ordered the materials, had themon the job site or at least had
them ready for pickup Anyway.
So they show up at the job sitearound 9.
At least had them ready forpickup, anyway.
So they show up at the job sitearound 9, and I could tell the
customer was going to be alittle bit more of a pain.
He's kind of peeping outlooking out what's going on, but

(26:18):
at around 11 o'clock theyrealized that they needed to go
back to Home Depot because theyforgot some materials.
Instead of calling the projectmanager, instead of calling the
office, instead of just sendingone person manager, instead of
calling the office, instead of,like you know, just like sending
one person all okay, chris, allthree of these guys get back in
the car and go to home depot,right, every one of them every

(26:39):
one of them goes there becauseall three of them got a fucking
shop and take another shit,because they had five fucking
burritos last night and they allhave to come back at 12 and get
started.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
Oh, but then it's time for lunch, it's lunchtime.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
So it's noon.
So they literally go to the van, they pull out their microwave,
plug it in and sit down on thejob site for an hour Because
it's lunchtime.

Speaker 2 (27:02):
Eric, I've been working all day, obviously.
You haven't done shit all day,except two shits You've shit for
all day except two shits.
You've shit for all day and youtook two shits and now you're
eating.
Yeah, I've had a busy day,chris.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
I'm like I know you have but for, oh my god, I'm
fired up the straw.
The straw that broke thecamel's back was when, at 2 30,
they all three get back in thetruck and go back to home depot
a third time.
That's when I get the call fromthe customer who's irate.
He's like they have literallydone absolutely nothing.
Eric, you told me we're goingto get this job done on time and

(27:35):
these guys are literallysitting around doing nothing.
They keep coming and going.
He was so pissed I was likeokay, I see the problem.
We were not aligned with how wehad sold that job.
We sold that job at a fixedprice, yet we were paying our
guys a variable cost because wepaid them time and material, t&m
.
We had an hourly rate and a dayrate.

(27:56):
These guys were incentivized togo in inventory Home Depot and
the nice cool HVAC instead ofgetting the job done on time.
The first time I realized,realized too, these guys.
There were always issues.
They never completed theproject the right way and they
never cleaned up afterthemselves.

(28:16):
We had to constantly send ourguys back to the job site to fix
what they should have doneright.
And so this is where I was likeall right, here's what we need
to do.
We are going to now send outbid requests and we're going to
make all of our crews bid onevery single job.
And if they tell us it's goingto take five days and cost five
thousand bucks, great, I'll goplug that into my budget.
I'll go sell the job, I'llissue a work order and, bam,

(28:40):
you're off to the races.
Now, if you get it done inthree, awesome you.
You're getting paid the sameamount.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
If it takes you seven .
It's on you.
How many jobs started to uh getdone in like magic three days.
All of a sudden you're like, oh, it was, it was like it was
like overnight.

Speaker 1 (28:53):
They became like experts at their profession.
The quality of the work shot up.
We completed the jobs on time.
They're on budget.
Like.
The customers were more happy,like they realized they couldn't
keep just dragging these thingsout and getting paid to do
nothing.

Speaker 3 (29:11):
Now, to be fair, where were they going to go take
a dump?
Where did they fit that in,chris?
Well, here's what we do.
I would tell you this, becauseI do have a— Do you have a
training for that?
Do you have a?

Speaker 2 (29:21):
process.
I do.
Actually, I tell them where togo, but no, we have a
pay-for-play thing.
The same way.
We do not pay by the hour, wepay by the job and quality
outcome which results in thereview from the customer on
Google.
And so he built this into asystem which is extremely hard
to do.
And that's the thing I telleverybody is that doing this it

(29:44):
sounds great.
And, guys, if you haveeverybody right now on time and
materials, it's hard to switchover because the mentality
changes.
But immediately you just heardthis from Eric.
He just saw it from the outsidelooking in it happens.
So you know what they do.
They get everything done in themorning.
That coffee happens at 6.30, 7o'clock when they're getting

(30:04):
ready for work, before theyleave the house.
Everything kind of gets takencare of.
You know what I'm saying as acare of.
You know what I'm saying as aregular guy.
You know what I'm saying.
If you don't know what I'msaying.
He took a shit before hefucking left the house and then
he went to my job and then hestarted working and oh, by the
way, if he didn't have thematerials on hand already which
we already told him what to havethey'd be sitting there and
they're ready for him to getready to work.

(30:25):
So no excuses to go back toHome Depot because we need all
three of us to go shopping.
So I love that, eric, that youget to see this Fun stuff and
you know again, that's what'samazing.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
So we got estimating, we got that dialed in, we got
our project management, our jobcosting you know, kind of all
those aspects of it.
But like when to the backoffice?
I I might've should havestarted there first.
I just I didn't want to diginto the QuickBooks side until
you know.
I sort of got got my feet underme and understood all the other
things leading into that.

(30:58):
But, man, when I took over thisbusiness, we had over $800,000
of accounts receivable.
Dude, what, what?
Yeah, we had earned nearly amillion dollars that we failed
to collect.
And instead of focusing on ourAR and collecting our
receivables, you know what thegeniuses did?

(31:18):
They went to the bank and theytook out $200,000 lines of
credit collateralizing that ARto make payroll.
Wow, that's when my mind almostjust exploded.
I was like what the hell'sgoing on?

Speaker 2 (31:35):
I think you just broke, chris.
I, I'm hurt, I'm actually gonnastart crying.
I'm like, oh my god, thatsounds like a great idea boss
what's the top line revenue ofthis company?

Speaker 3 (31:45):
at the time they were doing five million in revenue
with 800 grand grand in AR.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
So I'm doing 5.5 million and my AR is 35,000.
Oh my God.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah, it's the most asinine thing I've ever seen.
All right, how'd you fix that?
Well, so there was that.
And look, and so what'shappening?
Right, we got the guys out inthe field telling the back
office hey, send that, you knowprogress invoice, like send that
invoice, the final invoice,like you know they're sending.
Telling the back office thislady, she was awesome, she

(32:19):
worked her butt off, she sentthe invoice, but what happened
was that she was so overwhelmeddealing with AR and AP that she
just assumed that the people inthe field would make sure that
you know we're getting paid.
Now, unless they're collecting aphysical check, which I don't
know, probably one out of five,or you know four or five
customers still paid with acheck.

(32:39):
There was no way that theywould know, because they didn't
have visibility into QuickBooks,nor should they to know if we
actually got paid.
And the problem was we justkept working.
We kept going, not knowing thatwe're not even getting paid,
because she's so overwhelmeddealing with everything that's
coming in at a million miles anhour and the guys in the field

(33:01):
have no idea.
They just keep going.
And so we're just sitting here,not focused on AR at all, and
every day that goes by, yourchance of collecting that is
just dwindling, you know, and weended up having to write off
hundreds of thousands of dollarsof those receivables because we
couldn't keep kicking it downthe road and pretending like

(33:21):
we're going to get paid one day,Like that was just total bogus.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
All right, hang on.
All right, kramer, you justsaid oh, we just wrote it off.
Oh, hey, it's a write-off,jerry.
Remember the famous Seinfeld?

Speaker 3 (33:30):
Yeah, hey, it's just a write-off.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
That's 100 grand, bro .
That's 100 grand that I didn'tget because everybody just
screwed up.
I mean I would lose.
I mean no, I'd be out ofbusiness.
I would have been out ofbusiness.
There's no way I would havekept going.
I mean I don't and I'm notgoing to a bank to get me a loan

(33:51):
because my guys can't collectmoney and work we performed and
finished all right.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
I'm gonna ask it again how'd you fix it?
Fix it, come on tell me how youfix it.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
Funny man well, there's, there's.
There's one more piece to this,this puzzle, though.
That's ar.
Now, on the ap side, theaccounts payable side, you know
that that was like.
I mean, when I started digginginto that that was like death by
a thousand cuts.
There was no like huge, likejust obvious, glaring, like hey,

(34:18):
we just totally, like you know,got robbed.
But like there were so manytimes where we were being double
billed, we were beingoverbilled, we had materials on
the wrong jobs, we literally hadno handle on what these
expenses were for, but they werecoming in at rapid fire.
We're running 15 jobs at a timeand again we have this

(34:42):
disconnect between the backoffice and the field.
And so the way that we fixed itis that we needed to integrate
with QuickBooks.
I needed to be able to.
Whenever the guys in the fieldusing the software logged in,
they needed to see here's all ofour open invoices.
You know the project managers.
They needed to be able to havework orders and purchase orders

(35:03):
that every single bill that camein referenced On the accounts
payable side.
It was very simple.
We implemented a rule and saidif this bill is over a certain
amount, or if it was under acertain amount like 500 bucks,
we weren't going to get ourpanties in a wad, we're just
going to move on and pay it.
But if that bill was over thatamount and if that bill didn't

(35:26):
match the purchase order, thework order, then those are the
ones that we're going to flag.
If they matched awesome,approved, paid, we're done.
But it allowed us to then be alittle bit more strategic and
focus our time on the errors andon the issues that you know.
Again, like we didn't agree tothis, why are we being billed

(35:47):
for this?
Or oh, hey, we already paidthat bill.
Like we didn't agree to this,why are we being billed for this
?
Or oh, hey, we already paidthat bill?
I I never could directly likepoint to any one crew and say
like you are intentionallyfrauding us.
I, I, I couldn't do it, Icouldn't.
I as as much as I wanted tofind that, I did not ever find
that, but there was alwaysexcuses like oh, you know my my
spouse, or she didn't know, oraccidental, and it's like you
can't.
you can't kick your crew out.
You know, my spouse, or shedidn't know, or accidental, and

(36:09):
it's like you can't kick yourcrew out.
For you know, if they say theymade a mistake, I mean you know
I'm going to forgive once, youknow maybe twice, I mean after
that we're done.
But you know like it was veryhard to directly, like you know,
I couldn't even like accusesomeone because, like you know,
they were very disorganized,they didn't have systems and

(36:32):
processes, like they weredisconnected.
And so, like you know, at theend of the day, by linking up
our QuickBooks and giving thatvisibility to everyone out in
the field, as well asimplementing a non-payment
clause in our contract that said, if you do not make a progress
payment, we can stop work.
I'm not an attorney so I don'tknow what goes for everyone
else's states out there.

(36:53):
But make sure that if you wantto be able to legally stop work,
you have to protect yourself.
And in some states they'll saylook, you entered into that
agreement.
I don't care what you signed,you agreed to this project.
You have to get it done, evenif they don't pay you which
again, that's bogus BS.
But protect yourself with legalcontracts.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
I think when Eric's talking about.
Move out of that state.
What's that?
Move out of that state?
No, but if you're getting tothat point, it's way beyond that
.
But the point is is that youhave a conversation and again
it's 17 years.
I'm in two.
I'm in my second legal thing in17 years.
I already settled the first one, so it doesn't happen.
What Eric's saying, though, is,if you have it there and the

(37:33):
understanding's there, probablytwo rational people one of you
being really organized andgetting your shit together.
That's you being the contractor, being the service provider.
Sometimes those homeowners area little crazy.
What Did I just say?
That I did.
I'm going to keep saying that,but you've got to have that,
because if you have that, youcan come back to it and they go
well, can we just agree to this,this and this?

(37:56):
I'm like, yeah, we can, andthen, next thing you know, a
magic check comes up.
So back to Eric's point havingthat as an upfront contract or
being involved in that earlystops a lot of that legal shit
that happens after.
Legal stuff is just at the end.
That's the divorce contract.

Speaker 3 (38:11):
I always thought you just sent over a couple boys to
pay him a visit.
Well um, there's anintermediate process.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
Funny enough.
You just said that, uh, we justdid pay a visit and uh, magic,
uh, funny enough, they werethere and uh and uh, uh, goody
and chris actually collectedbecause they were thrilled with
the project.
They, oh, we just did.
We see that we didn't see theemail.
You didn't see the email, thetext, the phone call, maybe the,
the physical mail that we sentyou to.
None of that, okay, but we'rehere.
They paid.

(38:37):
So back to eric.
I love how he shows that youknow that visibility shame if
anything happened to that dog.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
We, actually we had a crew show up one time, uh armed
, wanting to know where hispayment was a car by fred.
And uh, yeah, we, we, we hadthis, this one crew show up.
Uh showed up with, uh, you know, very visible guns on their
belts and uh wanted to knowwhere their uh, where their
check was.
And I was like man, I got toget back to software.
This is uh, no, we're not,we're dying over here I don't

(39:06):
know what's going on.
But you know, thank god, likethese guys had some you know
good locks on the doors andthings.
But uh, you know, anyways, Iwouldn't get sideways with, uh,
you know, with people over uh,something too too small uh, but
you know what one other eitherellen you know what software.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
Am I ellen?

Speaker 1 (39:23):
no, no, oh sorry I think what one other just like
again, I think one of the thecraziest things that happens
like right after it took over,our insurance provider reaches
out you know we're a month due,you know, for our renewal, and
says, hey, you know we're goingto renew you guys, but can you
go ahead and just send over allof the COIs, the certificate of
insurances for all of the guyswho worked on any jobs in the
last 12 months?

(39:47):
And I was like, yeah, sure, no,oh, eric, well, we collect it
when they start, but unless theysend in their update, we
probably have about half of them.
Oh, and so insurance obviouslydoesn't like that and they fine
us $35,000 that we had to payright then in order to get our

(40:09):
policy renewed.
Or we're going back out tomarket and it's like wait what
we have to come up with $35,000cash that we don't even have.
We're like borrowing, you know,by collateralizing our AR to
pay this, like stupid, likethere was no, like there were no
deaths, no injuries, no thefts,no issues, no claims whatsoever
.
But we, you know, according toinsurance, took on this extra

(40:29):
liability and all we had to dowas be organized and make sure
that we collected it from oursubs, but nobody's tracking it.
You know again just one ofthose things like hey, you know
it'll never happen to us Likebut.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
But, eric, these guys are good guys.
You know they've worked with usfor years.
Yeah, I know, but didn't pay.
It was their insurance.
Oh, you know it lapsed, oh, didit?
Oh, that's funny.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
Haven't heard that story before Put a little
feather here on the cap.
At the end of that one year, wegrew this business from 5
million in sales to 8 millionand we increased their gross
profit by 43%.
So, single-handedly,implementing the right systems,
the right processes, we hadhundreds of thousands of dollars

(41:14):
of additional profit on thebottom line after just one year
of this transformation.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
All right so looking back on it.
You're in the middle of it.
I just want to know here's myquestion how many years do you
think that took off your life?

Speaker 1 (41:27):
Oh, a lot.
I mean like and I can onlyimagine, like again, these
partners in the business.
It was like, literally likecats and dogs fighting every day
and like they, just they couldnot, you know, get on the same
page.
They both were very, verybullheaded and just their way
was the right way and you knowit just, it took a lot more than

(41:50):
just the system to bring themtogether.
It's about leadership andcoaching and making sure that
you have a cohesive, functionalmanagement team that is on the
same page and not just havingone person say one thing and
then someone else turning aroundand undermining them.
We had to do a lot of that typeof work as well, but it
definitely can be stressful, man, undermining them.
Like you know, we, we had to doa lot of that type of work as
well, uh, but it it uhdefinitely a stressful.

(42:11):
You know it can be stressful,man, and, like you know, the
more jobs you take on it, itjust compounds.
And when you don't have thatfoundation built, you know, when
you don't have the rightsystems and processes, like man,
these guys are getting grayhair.
I mean, I got gray hair nowover, you know, and it was only,
like you know, one year of mytime.
But like you know I I see thistime and time again, like this
is what burns people out.

(42:31):
You know there's there'snothing wrong with working hard,
but like when, when you feellike it's just like, why am I
doing this?
You know, you're just likeliterally sitting there just
churning away and like notseeing the fruits of your labor.
Like you're like I sell moreand I'm not making any more
money.

Speaker 3 (42:46):
well, that's, that's how you know you got a problem.
Newman and Seinfeld.
The mail, it just keeps coming.
It just keeps coming.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Publisher clearinghouse week.
I know we keep referencingSeinfeld because we're old, but
this is, I think, going throughthe crucible was what you just
did.
But that's what steel?
Just that's how it happens.
Right, you got to fire it up.
Right, you got to fire it up.
You got to fire up steel.
Do you think that having thatone year experience helped you
form where job tread is today?

(43:14):
Do you think if I didn't dothat, I wouldn't be here?

Speaker 1 (43:17):
oh, 100.
I mean I, I I've seen so many,you know so.
So many other people who youknow have tried to create some
sort of a, a system or software,like.
But they didn't actually everspend any time in the trades or
in construction or like workingat a construction business, like
they're just trying to likesolve some problem that they

(43:37):
think is a big problem.
But like, until you reallyunderstand it, you know it's,
it's very hard and I'm I'm a bigbeliever in like it's called
dogfooding, right.
Like you eat your own dog food.
Like you you build, you know andcreate your own solutions.
Like to your own problems,solve your own problems, and
that's like.
That's what I did in my lastcompany, it's what I've done
with this Like.

(44:03):
I truly believe that helps youto build the best possible
product and to help you build itthe fastest way too.
Because when you feel your likeyour own pain, like you know
your arm is on fire.
Like you're going to put outthat fire very, very quickly.
Versus, ah, someone else iscomplaining about something,
yeah, their arm's on fire.
We'll get to it when we can.
Like, no, like your literallyarm is on fire.
Like you're going to deal withit right away and like that is

(44:23):
so valuable and so helpful todrive things forward in a very
meaningful way.

Speaker 3 (44:28):
So I got to ask you this you took this over for a
year and you talked about hiringand firing authority.
Did you find that, at the endof the day, you needed to let
people go and get the rightpeople, or was it just more of a
training and an adoption of thenew process?

Speaker 1 (44:43):
No, absolutely Some people needed to go and it were.
You know it was hard becausethere were relationships
involved and the can't do.
They were like the king ofkicking the can down the road,
you know, and making the harddecisions was, you know it's
hard but like, at the end of theday, like it's just not always

(45:04):
the right fit for everyone.
And so, you know, but probablyone of the one of the hardest
ones one of the partnersactually was was, was in a, was
in the financial role and thatfinancial seat.
He's a marketing guy really hadhad no background in accounting
or, you know, wasn't, wasn'tyou know, just, he was in the
wrong role.
And that was probably thehardest, the hardest ones.

(45:26):
I was just like guys like weneed a real cfo in here.
We went, we did a search, wefound somebody who had
construction experience.
Cfo brought him in, you know,and and I think he made a very
uh it, it.
It was really important that wegot somebody who could sort of
rein in all of the, the financesand the cash flow and like

(45:47):
having the daily, you know, orthe kind of the monthly
closeouts and things like that.
That like, just, we were justagain we had a bookkeeper.

Speaker 3 (45:57):
I mean that guy had to have been relieved though,
because sometimes, if you'reshoved into the wrong role and
then they find the right rolefor you, it's like, oh, thank
God.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
Yeah, well, you know, nobody likes to be kicked out
of their own company, but Ithink at the end of the day— you
just kicked them all the wayout.

Speaker 3 (46:13):
You just didn't find the right role.
The right role was to belooking for a job.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
So Alan says I bet you he was relieved to get the
kick the fuck right out of thecompany.

Speaker 3 (46:20):
What I heard was the right role.
He's a marketing guy.
Well, he's gone now.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
So the right role is— Give us the epilogue on that
year.
Are you still a partner in thatcompany?
Did you sell back to those guys?
What did you do?

Speaker 1 (46:32):
Look, even though in my agreement, you know, all of
the intellectual property ismine, just to make sure it was
clean, clean, clean.
You know, I basically got asigned-off deal.
I just gave them backeverything that they had, you
know, given to me as a partner.
You know, gave them a littlestake in this thing and had a
very clean documented processBecause you wanted to be out.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
I mean, obviously you have to be out of that because
the focus you have on job tradeand I want to focus on that now
is growing this business anddoing what you've done and
growing this one.
So you had this idea, you gotout of it.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
I probably should have stayed in it, though they
did break 20 million in sales inuh 2023, so maybe I should have
stayed in it, but I didn't wantto be distracted by all the
drama and the mess, you know.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
We got them back on track, though, so you know you
know, we can watch your babygrow from a, from afar.
Yeah, so you got that going foryou all, right, right?
Oh, my God.
Oh, I'm saying that, but I'mnot really saying it.
I don't believe it.
I'm still pissed.

Speaker 3 (47:36):
I'd be so jealous right now.
Anybody can have access to this.
Now with the software, let'stalk about job trends.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
So who do you serve?
And let's talk about when youstarted it.
What would you call day one?

Speaker 1 (47:50):
I ran that construction company in 2018,
officially started JobTread in2019.
I recruited my best developerdesigner and my CFO from my last
company.
They came on, we built for twoyears and we started selling it
in 2021.
And so we got it to about 200companies.
And this was, like you know, Ilearned the hard way, like
starting up in the middle ofCOVID.

(48:11):
Like you know, it was no easyfeat either.
But but, once they kind ofopened up and we got to start
going out to the trade shows, wegot about 200 customers going
that first year.
The next year, in 2022, we gotto 1,000 customers.
2023, we got to 2,200 customers.
Last year we ended at 4,500customers and our goal for this

(48:31):
year was 7,500.
We actually hit it yesterday,four months early.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
Hang on, hang on, Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding,
ding, ding.
This dude is kicking the shitout of it.
Man, I mean I love what he'sdoing.
Because you got to celebratethis?
Because right now I'm having aflat year in my business.
I thought I'd be having a greatyear, but no man, the economy
was tough, the business is tough.
I man, the economy was tough,the business is tough.
I love what you're doing.
I love how you're doing it.
So congrats.
Let's keep talking about whatyou did.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
Yeah, appreciate it.
No, and you know again, I, I,uh, I'm very fortunate that our,
our core team, you know was,was, was really you know people
who had worked for me at my lastcompany for, you know, rounded,
you know decade, you know so.
So we've all been together andI think when you can have that
immediate level of trust,respect, everybody knows their

(49:18):
role, everybody knows what to do, it really helped us to hit the
ground running.
People look at us and we, youknow, early on, like I mean, we
were just a very well-oiledmachine.
You know, we, we, we areextremely efficient at what we
do.
You know we are wildlyprofitable, even at $199 price

(49:44):
point.
You know, like we, we have keptthat same price point.
You know, the whole time, likewe were undercutting all of our
competition on price and it'sjust because, like I mean one,
I'm not totally in this for themoney.
Like I, I want to just createsomething awesome.
I've already had my big exit.
We're good to go Like, we wantto truly make as big of an
impact as we possibly can andthat is by getting this into
tens of thousands of contractors, hands all over the world,

(50:07):
eventually hundreds of thousands.
I mean, you know, like there'ssuch an enormous opportunity
here and I'm so passionate aboutentrepreneurship, like you know
, like if you meet an up andcoming entrepreneur, your chance
of becoming a successfulentrepreneur yourself are eight
X according to the Kauffmanfoundation, and I'm such a big
believer in that and so, likewe've literally built this stage
and have created this platformthat we can not only give you

(50:29):
the tools and the training, butwe want to give you the
inspiration, the motivation, theguidance, like connecting
people, giving you a network, away to just like again like so
many entrepreneurs feel likethey're on their own and they're
lost and they're struggling andthey're depressed.
And it's like man, like thereare so many others just like you
that are out there doing thesame thing at the same time, and

(50:52):
it's like all we got to do isbring them together.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
We got to work together.
Tell it, come on, minister son.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
Yeah, so okay, who's your who, who is your target
client and what is theirexperience when they sign up?

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Yeah, so it's.
It's, you know, really anyconstruction based business.
So home builders, remodelers,deck builders, pool builders,
roofers, painters, electricians,concrete, you name it.
If you are custom bidding everyjob, then you need to have a

(51:25):
good handle.
And we took the approach offocusing on the financials first
.
So many other systems out therefocus on the project management,
the scheduling.
It's like what's the point inscheduling my job if I'm not
going to make money on it?
You know we got to make surethat this is going to be a
profitable job worth schedulingand so, like, we've put a very
big focus on the financialaspects.
And so, you know it's typicallysmall, medium sized businesses.

(51:47):
You know you're.
You know I mean we got tons ofsolo owner operators.
I got people who have startedtheir business a month ago and
just are getting this in placeand that's awesome.
They're laying the foundationfrom the very get go.
But we got people who've beendoing this for 20, 30, 40, 50
years, you know, and maybe it's,you know, some someone kind of
taken over.
You know change, change of the.
You know the leadership there.

(52:07):
But, like you know, at the endof the day the bulk of our
customers are residential.
You know, probably about 75%are residential contractors.
You know the other 25% you knowcommercial, or maybe you know
hybrid between the two, but it'ssmall, medium sized businesses
usually, you know, doinganywhere from.
You know a couple 100,000 to,you know I don't know.

(52:27):
We got a couple doing.
You know 50, I think we haveone doing over 100 million.
You know a couple.
You know we started gettinglike these huge franchises now
are bringing all of their youknow their organizations and all
the different franchisestogether.
So like it's really kind of,you know, grown on us and over
the years as we've continued toadd more and more functionality,
it's enabled us to take on andwork with larger customers.

(52:49):
You know who needed some moreof that advanced you know
functionality that we didn'thave day one.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
So what happens when I sign up?
Because now I'm hearing man,you're really busy.
How am I going to get anypersonal attention?
And I'm a solopreneur and Idon't know how to work a
computer.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
Yeah.
So every single customer thatsigns up, you get a dedicated
customer success manager, ourentire customer success team.
We hire you.
You have to have constructionexperience, some sort of
construction experience.
I'm not saying you had to swingthe hammer or whatever, but be
involved in a constructioncompany somehow, work with
construction companies, comefrom the field, whatever it is.
You've got to understand whatit's like to be at a

(53:30):
construction company and thechallenges that they have.
I can't teach that to someone.
I can't teach you about thechaos that happens, you know, in
the back office.
Like you.
Just you got to innately get itand I think that helps them to
really appreciate and haveempathy for all of our clients.
And so every single customerthat signs up has a dedicated
point person on our team Now,even before they have to get in

(53:52):
with that person.
Like, we have a whole onboardingand training series Every
single day.
We do multiple live trainingsper day and so you know we have
a Job Tread 101.
That happens every single day.
We encourage every new customerto go to that and our training
team is phenomenal.
The head of our training team,she, actually has a doctorate
degree in organizational changemanagement and leadership and

(54:15):
it's put together an entirecurriculum to help people learn
how to implement software and to, like you know, really bake it
into your culture.
You know you've got to have buyin from everyone.
It's like she walks everyonethrough this and we've created
all of this content to helppeople so that they can go

(54:35):
through and, again, like inthese live trainings, it's
group-based, you know what Imean.
There can be multiple people inthere, but that has been, like,
so crucial to us.
Being able to scale is that youcan go through these live
trainings or you can watch them.
They're all recorded as well.
You know, I encourage the liveone because you can ask
questions and interact and thenyou use your time with your

(54:56):
customer success manager to be alot more strategic and focused
on the things that are specificto your company, that you need
to get help with or ask about orwhatever it may be, but like
they can knock out the bulk oftheir training.
You know, with these, withthese videos, we actually have a
whole certification program.
We do live boot camps in personat our office once a month as
well, so there's lots of ways toget help and if that's not

(55:16):
enough, which almost always is,we have this whole ecosystem of
third-party partners who havebeen able to build businesses,
to provide services likeimplementation services,
coaching services.
They might be marketingagencies, bookkeepers,
accountants.
They're also here, part of thiscommunity, fully trained on
JobTread, and they're availableto be resources to help these

(55:39):
businesses to get up and running, you know, as quickly as
possible.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
Eric, if you guys haven't figured out this passion
, this kid's got passion, bro, Iknow I want to start a
construction company now.

Speaker 3 (55:50):
No, the More Trusted Toolbox is back, the More.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
Trusted Toolbox is not back.
Alan, you are going to put thataway.
You hold to that sidearm, son.
This thing is kicking ass herein Athens, in Atlanta, we're
kicking ass.
In fact, we're coming to Dallas.
We're going to kick the shitout of the handyman over there
too.

Speaker 3 (56:06):
I got one more question for Eric.
It's really important.
We created a bond, we did, Ithink so Are we bonded?
We?

Speaker 2 (56:13):
are bonded.

Speaker 3 (56:14):
Look at the size of that water bottle he's got.

Speaker 1 (56:16):
Well, everything's bigger and bigger.
It is true, it's awesome, man.
These are the best waterbottles ever.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
Water bottles available on our site.
That's right.

Speaker 3 (56:24):
He's pushing his birch.
I love it.
If you sign up, you get a waterbottle.
All right, let's importantquestion.
I should get three greatquestions.
Pick a task, all right, fine.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
Let's have it.
Let's start a fight here,because I just went down there,
so I can't wait to hear thisanswer.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
I'm going to go with Terry Black's barbecue.

Speaker 3 (56:46):
Hey, that was my answer.
Are they in Dallas or are theydown in Lockhart?

Speaker 2 (56:50):
No, they're in Waco, they're in Austin, and.

Speaker 3 (56:52):
I believe they came up.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
And I'll tell you what.
So we were in Austin, we wentto Terry Black's.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
I thought this was a crappy question.
Look at you go.
Anyway, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
So I go up to my son who's at Baylor, and so my son's
name is Austin, he's going toBaylor, and I was in Austin for
the Nary Conference and I wentto Terry Black's in Waco Nobody
there.
I was like Austin.
I said, bud, we waited in linefor like 20 minutes to get
through this.
He goes Dad usually it's likethat.

(57:20):
I said, but this barbecue isjust killer too.
It's so good that brisket waskiller.
Yeah, I'm hungry now.
Yeah, you should be.
You know Alan's a big cook, somaybe I'll take them there.
Nah.

Speaker 3 (57:33):
Yeah, probably not, probably not.
Why change?

Speaker 2 (57:36):
Hey, when you come up here we can play golf on my
course.
Alan's going to carry the bagsfor you.

Speaker 3 (57:42):
Yeah, I could carry both bags.

Speaker 1 (57:44):
I mean I was going to say y'all should both come down
to Dallas.
We have our annual userconference every January and so
we'll have, like we sold out at1,000 people last year, we'll
have probably 1,200, 1,300people coming in town.
I'd love to have you all asguests at JobTread Connect.
Maybe I can get the duo.
You two are a great duo man, Ithink we can do a live podcast

(58:06):
from JobTread Connect.

Speaker 3 (58:08):
Yeah, normally Chris doesn't take me anywhere.
You know what?
We'll come down and do a liveremote.
Let's do that because Januaryis kind of a boring month.
Anyway.
Let's go to Texas, guys.

Speaker 2 (58:16):
I you know I didn't go with Eric and software, but I
will tell you here's what Itold you.
I am, and I told him that too.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
That's a teen years.
I still won't learn.
Well, this is a couple of yearsago.

Speaker 2 (58:35):
And I was, I am, so I'm very service oriented.
We actually.
He even agreed with me.
So hang on while I ambullheaded.
He actually agreed.
He said I said look I, there'sno doubt in my mind you will
build a better software than Iwill go to, I said.
But two years ago I said I gotto go to an FSM but I do 2,500
jobs a year and he's like hegoes.
I know I can build it, he goes,but you're right, you probably
go this way.
I'll tell you what.
He earned my trust right there.

(58:57):
And since then people haveasked me here in Atlanta, other
people hey, what would you gowith?
I'm like, based on yourbusiness, I would go with him
Based on your business.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
Oh, he's going to sell some from this podcast.
Oh, hell yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
And I will tell job trader.
I'm like I know it was a gamechanger.
I'm like, yeah, that's awesome,because you know why this guy
has figured it out man Passionbringing it to the business,
Passion bringing it to theculture.
What he's doing, I love whathe's doing.
This is the American successstory just in a little small
microcosm, but it's going to bebig.

(59:35):
He is big, bigger.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
I mean we're arguably probably the fastest growing
construction software out thereright now.
I mean we're signing up over500 accounts every single month
this whole year.
Get on the wave everybody.

Speaker 2 (59:51):
All right, eric, we usually ask four questions at
the end.
All right, I've got just one.

Speaker 3 (59:57):
I like it, you ready?
Yeah, I know which one you'reasking.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
All right, we usually ask what's your favorite book,
what's your favorite part ofyour home?
Endless customers playroom.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
All right, your playroom, yeah, so we have a
third story.
This is what sold us on thehouse is a third story walking
at it, converted to this likeplayroom for the kids.
Incredible, just like built inlike swings and slides and oh
good, lord, well, he's gotanswers.
I look, all right, give me theuh first one again uh endless
customers by marcus sheridan,phenomenal book, great, great,
great book he's gonna be, uh,he's gonna be our keynote.

Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
Actually a job trick connect oh, we gotta go, hey, we
gotta go well we're coming up.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
You know what?
We'll interview him.
We're coming down, we'll beyour podcast.
We'll be your hypebeast, baby.
Let's go all right back to this.
So we're also customer servicefreaks.
What's a customer service petpeeve of yours when you're the
customer?

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
hmm, customer service , pet peeve of mine.
I mean like, uh, so like whenI'm uh interacting with someone
else's company you went to.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
Terry Black's.
You're the customer and, by theway, they're phenomenal at
customer service too.
That was really cool.
I was like, what's this, what'sthis?
And they would like walk me allthe way through it.
They're like so where are youfrom?
And I was with my son.
I went, I'm from Michigan.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
They went.
Oh, we'll help you, honey.
Come on, bless your heart.
They did too.
I got to bless your heart sobad, you know.
I would say my pet peeve is whena customer brings an issue like
you got to listen and you haveto very like you know,
intentionally listen and makesure that you understand what
they're explaining, whatchallenge or frustration, like
so many times, people justimmediately get on the defense.
They immediately start thinkingabout how are they going to
combat this, or they just startblaming something or whatever
it's like.
Just listen and acknowledge myfrustration, acknowledge the

(01:01:48):
problem, and that you understandBefore we solve that problem.
Did you hear me?
And I think it's so importantthat people, everyone, whatever
type business you're running,like you know you have to
provide a great customerexperience and you do that by
listening.
You got two ears and one mouth,you know so.
So listen and understand andthen you can figure out what,

(01:02:12):
what problems, you need to solve.
But so many people jumpstraight to trying to like, come
up with excuses and blamethings and they just skip over
the whole listening Like, listento your customers, I so bad
wanted to go.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
what did you say?
But I use this.
I talk to my sales guys aboutthis all the time.
When you're in a house, if youare trying to say, the customer
says my door doesn't work, Ineed a new door.
They're like, all right, well,we have the best storage.
I'm like, no, no, no, no, youblew it right there.
Why does this door bother you?
Because you don't know what.
You don't know.

(01:02:44):
What is your pain?
Tell me your pain.
So Eric felt our pain inconstruction.
I love that story.
I love that he felt that painbecause, brother, that pain I
live every freaking day becauseI don't need project managers.
My subs knew what they weredoing.
I tell my guys that every day Iwas like dude, I don't need you
if, uh, these all these guys,they wouldn't have jobs right,

(01:03:06):
all right.
But eric, here we go.
All right, software boy, youready, let's do it.
Give us a diy nightmare story.
I don't want to hear about acontractor, I want to hear about
what you did, because thesehands didn't happen overnight.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
Well, I'm going to.
It's a partial DIY and apartial contractor here.
So my daughter's room is it'sgot a closet and it's got this
like little attic kind of nook,you know, where we kind of just
small little tiny little walk-incloset or attic thing, and so

(01:03:38):
like we were having trouble withkeeping her room cool, and you
know, or too hot or too colddepending on the season, you
know, and like I don't know, webasically came to the conclusion
that because it was so cold inthat little attic room that we
needed to replace the insulation.
And my neighbor, a couple doorsdown, just so you know, owned

(01:04:01):
an insulation company and youknow they she's like oh well,
here we'll just come blow insome spray.
You know, spray and insulation,you know I was like all right,
you know, sounds great, right,you know, we're going to just
get that thing insulated andcool, not a big deal, right,
like that'll, that'll solve ourproblem and so they, they come
in and they basically blow inall the the spray foam there and

(01:04:21):
, uh, you know we're thinking,okay, yeah, this is good, yeah,
uh, but like my, my daughterstarted having a bunch of like
rashes breaking out and likejust all these like skin things
and, like you know, doctors areall oh yeah, it's like eczema
and like she'll grow out of itand blah, blah, blah, and like
we're like, hmm, I don't knowthis, this doesn't quite seem,
seem right.

(01:04:41):
And like we, you know, my, mywife, who was just super
persistent, you know, kept kindof digging in, digging in.
Finally we go and we get hertested.
We run some like huge paneltests.
We find that she has some crazyamount of flame retardant in
her system.
Oh good lord, what?

Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
Yeah so literally just chock full of flame
retardant.
Holy shit, ellen, we just wentanti-flame.

Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
And so we're like how in the world is this possible?
Well, come to find out, werealized that the spray foam
never cured because there wasnot proper ventilation in the
attic.
We literally just sprayed thewhole thing, sealed it all up
and expected it to dry.
It makes sense.
There also just so happened tobe a leak right above, like in
the roof, where now it'sdripping in there, and so that

(01:05:26):
led to mold, which, by the way,then she ends up chock full of
mold as well.
How does that make?

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
you feel as a dad.
Oh, it has been the worstseveral years going through this
mold as well, you know, and so,like man it, uh, it's.
How does that make you?

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
feel as a dad.
Oh it's.
It has been the worst, you know, several years, uh, going,
going through this.
Luckily, we're all good now.
She's all good.
The home's been fullyremediated, like she's passed
all this.
But you know we had, you know,this is up there this is the top
10.

Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
Yeah, this is pretty.
Oh, my god, as a dad, I you'reprobably going to carry that
forever it'll be in her book.

Speaker 3 (01:05:53):
You know, as a catholic hero.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
You're absolved, eric .
You're okay, it's fine, you'lldo better.
Keep going, keep doing whatyou're doing.
Hey, you bring it passion,bring it fire.
Job tread, eric fortenberry, gofigure it out.
Hey, eric, how can everybodyfind you guys?

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
yeah, I mean I would say, uh, you know, website's
probably great wwwjob treadcom.
You know, if you want toconnect with me personally, I'm
really active on Facebook.
We have our whole JobTread ProsFacebook group.
That's got over 7,000 membersin there, but definitely super
active there.
I'm on LinkedIn as well.
You can reach out to medirectly, eric, at jobtrendcom.
But we've got tons of videos onYouTube.

(01:06:30):
But probably our website greatplace.
We'd be happy to have youschedule a demo.
Our but you know, probably ourwebsite great place.
We'd be happy to have youschedule a demo.
Our team will spend, you knowhowever much time we need to
walk you through it, show you,you know, what it'd be like
using JobTread.
We don't do a free trial.
We do a 30-day money-backguarantee just because, again,
we get so many new customersthat we can't go, and you know
just like we need you to havesome skin in the game If it

(01:06:52):
doesn't work out, if it's not agood fit, we're happy to refund
your money though, no questionsasked, no harm, no foul, you
know.
But we'd love the opportunityto show you JobTread, help you
understand how it can improveyour business.

Speaker 2 (01:07:03):
So his sales is good, my sales is better.
Go call this dude man.
I'll tell you what.
Don't short yourself.
If that's your business, ifthat's your model, that's your
niche, you're blowing it becauseyou guys got to keep going up
that mountaintop.
And guess what?
We're all screwing it up.
We keep thinking everybody'smarking it up like we are.
They ain't Make it happen.
He learned our lessons.
He's learned it.
He's put it in a system.

(01:07:23):
Make it happen.
Let's keep going.
Hey, by the way, if you don'twant to do that, keep listening
to this fucking podcast, becausewe're going to make you better.
Let's kick out of here.
We got to go.
Cheers everybody.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of the Small Business
Safari.
Remember, your positiveattitude will help you achieve
that higher altitude you'relooking for in a wild world of
small business ownership.

(01:07:43):
And until next time,