From Engineer To Award-Winning Remodeler | Rob Stephenson

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What happens when you lose everything in 2008—and still choose to pay everyone back? Rob Stephenson rebuilt not just a business, but a reputation that now wins national NARI COTY awards.

Summary:

Rob Stephenson, founder of Stephenson Construction, shares how leaving engineering, moonlighting in rental units, and surviving the 2008 collapse shaped his disciplined, integrity-first approach to design-build. We unpack his early pivots from art and engineering, learning the trades out of necessity, brand lessons from Target, and how a move to Atlanta unlocked new opportunity. Rob breaks down practical pricing, cash flow, licensing, and client selection—plus a DIY cautionary tale involving a wet metal roof, no tie-off, and a painful lesson learned.

🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@TheSmallBusinessSafari

💡 GOLD NUGGETS 

• How growing up in Philadelphia sparked his love for home projects
 • Art vs. engineering at Tuskegee — and the early career pivots that followed
 • Learning every trade through rental-unit trial by fire
 • Building the first spec home, licensing insights, and partnership lessons
 • The 2008 crash: overleverage, failure, and choosing integrity over shortcuts
 • Moving to Atlanta and how Target taught him branding discipline
 • Building a design-build team that wins national COTY awards
 • Story proof: why case studies beat sales pitches
 • Cash flow, pricing, and client fit — practical rules that keep you alive
 • Quickfire picks: E-Myth for Contractors, basements, and service pet peeves
• DIY disaster: the wet metal roof and the importance of safety tie-offs

🔗 Guest Links

• Website: https://www.stephensonconstructionllc.com

• NARI Directory: Search “Stephenson Construction” on NARI.org

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rsstephenson/

🌍 Follow The Small Business Safari

• Instagram | @smallbusinesssafaripodcast
 • LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrislalomia/
 • Website | https://chrislalomia.com

From the Zoo to Wild is a book for entrepreneurs passionate about home services, looking to move away from corporate jobs. Chris Lalomia, a former executive, shares his path, discoveries, and tools to succeed as a small business owner in home improvement retail. The book provides the mindset, habits, leadership style, and customer-oriented processes necessary to succeed as a small business owner in home services.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
Um, yeah, this guy named Carlton Sheets.
Do you guys remember that guy?
I know that's really familiar.
Buy a house, no money down.
Right.
Oh, that's right.
That's right, yeah, yeah.
I saw him on an infomercial oneright now.
And he had this display$1,000.
I was like, if I pay$1,000, I'llbe able to buy a house and work
on it.
I mean, I don't know.
I was but I did that and um, youknow, started kind of looking at

(00:23):
um real estate from a standpointof investment properties.
So did you do that?
You bought one of those cheaphouses?
I did, I did, and it did work.
Uh it quickly taught me that Iwasn't a damn real estate
manager or at that time, andpeople are tough, you know.
Carlton flipped and lied, bro.

SPEAKER_01 (00:44):
Carlton's lied to me.
Carlton's giving me a bunch ofcheats.
He was giving us a bunch ofcheats in me.
It's like Carlton's full ofcheats.

SPEAKER_03 (00:54):
Welcome to the Small Business Safari, where I help
guide you to avoid those traps.
Pitfalls and dangers to lurkwhen navigating the wild world
of small business ownership.
I'll share those gold nuggets ofinformation and invite guests to
help accelerate your status tothat Mobile Top 5.

(01:32):
That's right, that's right, bigboy.
That's why I am inflecting rightnow.
You know that.
That's right.
You know what, Chris?
You know what?
Just went up to Chicago for theboard meeting.
They're like, hey, I listened toyour podcast.
Thanks for the marriage.
They did not send the limo.
I I did mention, and I said nored MMs in my bowl, man.
I said, I gotta have that.

(01:53):
I gotta have that.
If the if the president iscoming into the house, he's
gotta have some business, right?
You know what I'm saying?
L Epic.
Oh my god, please feed the ego.
That's what I kept tellingeverybody.
Feed the ego, feed the ego.
What am I?
I'm just a small handyman out ofAtlanta, but but man, don't let
anybody else say I'm a legend inmy own mind.
So let's keep rolling with this,Alan.

(02:13):
We've got another great episodefor you guys.
You know, you're probablydriving on the truck trying to
figure out how to make thingshappen.
If you're listening to us,hopefully this is your day to
get back up on it, man.
We're gonna give you 25.
You know what?
We'll probably give you the fullhour today.
You know, I'm gonna give you thefull hour today, Alan.
I'm gonna make sure thateverybody here has a great time.
Full hour mean what I think itmeans?
Uh full hour hour, by the way.

(02:35):
That's what we do because we gotto make this thing happen.
We got a great guest.
Um, so uh all jokes aside, um, Iam the president of Nary Books.
Hold on.
Having mentioned that you're thepresident of Nary, yeah.
All right, so I got times beforeyou can make seven times before
it makes an impression.
So you're at three now, right?

(02:55):
Three.
So in this in this high-payingposition of the dairy paid
president, right?
I got sucked into it, but I Igot I got volunteered in, and um
and one of the things I learnedfrom people before me is that
when you find the rightcharacter of people, you ask
them to join you.
And that's what he said.

(03:15):
He said, Chris, I saw somethingin you, and I believed in what
you were doing, and that's whyI'm so glad you did what you
did.
And um I didn't say I saw thisguy, but when he said, I'm gonna
raise my hand and I want to getinvolved because I want to I
want to raise the elevation ofwhat's going on with remodeling
here in Atlanta, and I got toknow this guy a little bit.

(03:36):
I'm like, oh man, I like thisguy, and I really want to have
this guy on the pod, and I wantto talk to him more.
But we've got him involved, andhe has raised his hand, stepped
in full force and doing somegreat things in our community
and remodeling.
We got Rob Steffenson fromStephenson Construction here in
Atlanta joining us today.
Rob, welcome to the show, bigguy.
Cheers, Rob.
Thanks for cheers.
Awesome.

(03:56):
So Alan just got a chance tomeet Rob and we're clinking it
up.
We're gonna drink a littlebourbon and we're gonna have
some fun with this thing.
I did.
I brought out the trays today,man.
This is I saw that in the store,and that's coming back finally.
Um, and that's been my favoriteuh forever.
So um let's talk about this.
Rob, as I mentioned before wegot on the podcast, I probably
don't know as much about you asyou think I did.

(04:19):
So let's talk about this.
Where'd you grow up?
What were you doing?
Let's talk about as young RobStephenson.
Was it oh my god, I can't waitto start remodeling houses and
helping people.

SPEAKER_02 (04:28):
No, it was not like that.
And um, thanks for having me.
Um, I'm from the Philadelphiaarea, a town called Gaiden
Fencing.
Um, it is one of those boroughs,if you will, the borough of
Philadelphia, the Philadelphiaarea.
And I got into remodeling reallyjust kind of by chance.
I um I really like we lived in aold um colonial style home, and

(04:51):
my dad and my grandfather usedto do a whole lot of stuff to
that house.
I mean, just you know, knockingout walls and all that type of
stuff.
And I just got fascinatedbecause he was always tinkering
and putting stuff together andmaking things work.
And um I actually wanted to bean architect.
So um I really uh uh I didn'tget the chance because my

(05:11):
parents told me that architectsdon't make any money.
They were right.
They could make you know likewe're gonna put you in college
if you're going to college,because they didn't pay for it.
So but if you're going tocollege, you're gonna have to
pick something that you can makesome money in.
So they're how about anengineer?
Uh I didn't know one thing aboutengineering, but you know, in
high school I was an an artist,believe it or not, I was weird

(05:33):
like that.
Well kind of uh I I just yeah, Idid like uh uh what do you call
freestyle painting and umrealism, you know, kind of stuff
like that.

SPEAKER_03 (05:41):
If you want to get back in it, yeah, nice.
You had a very artistic bent inhigh school, yeah.
But they told you you need toget into engineering.
I was you know that's the that'sthe 180.
Yes, you know that, right?
Uh you're talking to anengineer.
You're you're talking to that'sthat's a 180.
It's a one eight.
What kind of painting do you do,Chris?
Uh finger.
I did some pretty cool onefinger for you, Alan.

(06:05):
My paintings aren't veryinteresting.
Yeah.
Sometimes he uses two fingers,it's just one on each hand.
That's true.
It depends how far he gets.
You know where I'm going.
So you're artistic, but theysaid, hey, if you're gonna go,
you gotta go for something thatmakes money.

SPEAKER_02 (06:22):
I had a cousin that was uh actually was an artist
that she was you know gettingher ass kicked out there.
So they I guess they called me,uh, you know, called me they're
gonna save me.
And so they said, Yeah, you'regoing in the engineering.
It was kind of a downer, it wasa crusher to me because I really
wanted to do that.
And so I enrolled at TuskegeeUniversity for uh aerospace

(06:44):
engineering, believe it.
Now, no kidding.
Yes, uh, it was an aerospaceschool and they had a wind
tunnel and all that good stuff,yeah.
Right, you know, TuskegeeAirmen, you know, yeah, industry
there.
That's cool, and so I went downthere and uh that wind tunnel
didn't work.

SPEAKER_03 (07:00):
By the way, uh Metro Philly to Tuskegee, Alabama,
yes, pretty much the same thing,right?
Okay, yeah.
How did you get to go that faraway to go to school?
My dad wouldn't even let me getout of the freaking state.

SPEAKER_02 (07:16):
I mean, I struggled, man.
I was like, what the hell isthis?
We're where are the buildingsTimbuktu.
I had no idea.
Um, everything was so muchslower, and the uh the
landscape, of course, definitelydifferent.
Um, and I actually didn't wantto stay there.
I was like, no, I want to getout of here.
I told my grandmother, I waslike, man, I'm out of here.
She was like, stay your ass downthere, you're gonna finish.

(07:39):
Um, I had, you know, mybackground, um, you know, family
background was really spotty,had some challenges growing up.
I had, you know, drug addictionin my family.
Uh, not me, but you know, my mymom was was struggling with
that.
Uh, you know, they my my mom andmy dad didn't get along, they
were all split up, it was allthat going on.

(07:59):
So it was like I gotta get thehell away from Philly, you know,
it was too much going on.
Was your grandmother a biginfluence in helping you get to
Tuskegee?
Absolutely.
She was probably the biggestinfluence, along with one of my
best friends who was down thereat the time.
It was about four years olderthan me.
And uh got accepted to a coupleschools.

(08:20):
He was like, screw thoseschools, you're gonna touch ski
geeks.

SPEAKER_03 (08:22):
And I said, All right, let's go.
So you went, started to haveregrets, and said no.
And grandma said, No, you keepyour ass there and make it
happen.
Oh, absolutely.
And so you got your four-yeardegree.

SPEAKER_02 (08:31):
Yeah, I got my four-year degree.
Engineering in which mechanical.
Good man.
I switched my major.
I went to mechanical.
You know, we looked at thelandscape coming out.
Uh I came to school to get ajob, right?
And um, you know, if I wasn'tgonna be working in
architecture, I wasn't gonna beworking in aerospace.
That industry is very, veryvolatile.

SPEAKER_03 (08:50):
100%.
Uh, as a guy who was amechanical engineer came out and
was in the aerospace engineerschool.
Uh so I my first job was atCurtis Wright.
And uh again, I was on theupside because they had just won
the Boeing contract.
Right.
And a lot of engineers weremoving from California to move
to Little Shelby, NorthCarolina.
So think about that.
California, yeah, that's kind oflike going from Philly to like

(09:12):
Tuskegee.
You're the middle of flippingnowhere, bro.
Yeah.
I mean, I couldn't even speakthat southern language, but I
learned it quick.
So uh you got your mechanicalengineering degree, and did you
decide then you're gonna be a uhremodeler?

SPEAKER_00 (09:26):
No.

SPEAKER_02 (09:26):
Uh uh no, I I I graduated and I worked um uh
interestingly enough, uh youknow, in the tech United
Technologies was in theaerospace industry too.
Um, but I worked with carriertransit coal, which made the air
conditioners.
So I I kind of had like a minorin air conditioning, and that
was kind of weird.
But uh, so I worked with them, Ico-opt with them, and then I

(09:46):
worked with them.
I was on an extended schoolplan.
I uh it took me a while to getthe hell out of school.
I was okay.
Then I had a great time.
So all right.
Once you made me stay there, youdecided, okay, I'll just stay
here.
Yeah.
So um, but one thing led toanother, and um I've I started
off in Athens, Georgia, andmoved closer to Atlanta and uh
worked for a company there andknew that okay, engineering

(10:10):
sucks.
Um, I'm I'm doing pretty good,but I hate this.
I I do not like my life rightnow.

SPEAKER_03 (10:15):
Is that the artistic coming out of you?
You think you think you wereyou're a total battle, right?
It was an internal battle.
Uh for me, uh same thing.
I was an engineer and I wasbattling with I'm so extroverted
that I just could not sit infront of this machine for eight
hours and design it.

SPEAKER_02 (12:28):
What the hell?
What do you mean I don't get todraw the plane and make it, you
know, or design the car?
Yeah.
No, you you fit what otherpeople, you know, put together
and design.
You fit that in and make it workin this cool design you had
nothing to do with.

SPEAKER_03 (12:42):
But at the time, you had healthcare, you had 401k,
you were sit, you you had a job.
Did you have to wear a tie everyday?

SPEAKER_02 (12:49):
No, but I did wear a damn uh you know, golf shirt or
something like that every day.

SPEAKER_03 (12:53):
Alan, did you have to wear a tie every day?
Every day, every day, buddy.
That's right.
Ev you gotta wear a day in thetie every day.
Oh, Alan looked apart, bro.
Right.
Oh, yeah.
No, he looked CEO.
I mean, he was he was anenterprise, he was he was big
daddy, he was balling hard, man.
Southeast regional president,maybe my I didn't mind wearing a

(13:14):
tie, right?
You know, I just got done.
Uh speaking of Halloween, wentto my neighbor's house who was a
Chick-fil-A, and uh he broughtit his bushel bag full, a duffel
bag full of Chick-fil-A ties.
They gave him Chick-fil-A tieslike every year, like a couple
of every year.
And these actually look prettygood.
They're not bad.
I'll show you guys after.
Okay, and I'll I know and I'llpost them online because they're

(13:36):
really good.
But uh, I said, you know what?
I as a kid who went to aCatholic high school, I learned
how to tie a tie in fiveseconds.
Oh, yeah.
Because we'd have our um, we'dhave our uh oh Father Paul me
holding he if you didn't haveyour tie on when you walked in
that door, you got a detention.
And we always used to make agame out of this of walking up

(13:56):
the sidewalk and tying it rightin front of him right when we
get there.
Tie and going on in.
All right, so you back to you.
Uh so you you were there, you'reyou're getting hey, we do have a
guest, do we?
We brought him here all the wayhere, and with a broken flipping
foot.
We walked for the love all theway around the house.
You made him go in the back doorwith the brokerage boat down the

(14:17):
stairs, and then to talk aboutyou.
I know, and you know what we'regonna make him do?
Talk about you and then we'regonna make him walk back out
next in the dark to get out ofhere.
All right, it tends to raintonight, right?
Down a damn long drive.
Okay, and they got a long drive.
Oh no, oh just thing out ofhere.
Oh god, that's the golf cartthat he could have had even I
could I could have picked you upwith that day.

SPEAKER_02 (14:38):
He had the thing parked in the side.
There's no way their thing'sgetting out of there.
Yeah, that's how he slides it inthere.

SPEAKER_03 (14:44):
Hey, if you can't power slide a golf cart, you
can't drive a golf cart.
Come on now.
That's what we're doing.
All right, so Rob, so you'restruggling with it, but but you
got the 401k, you got this, yougot the other.
Yeah, so were you thinking,what?
What were we gonna do?

SPEAKER_02 (14:56):
Well, you know, my first baby kind of uh made my
mind up for me.
Um I'm wondering when that yeah,I had a I had a baby girl, and
uh, you know, my wife and I werehere, and you know, just we
didn't have family and stufflike that.
We're struggling, and I wasgoing to this place, so I didn't
really like yeah, all of thatstuff was there, and yes, the
insurance paid for the birth ofthe baby.

(15:17):
So look, I'm not complaining,but um I I was I didn't know
how, but I was getting myselfback into the housing industry.
I don't know.
Um, yeah, this guy named CarltonSheets.
Do you guys remember that guy?
That's really familiar.
Buy a house, no money down.
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (15:34):
Oh, that's right.
Remember, yeah, that's right,yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (15:35):
I saw him on an infomercial one and he had this
$1,000.
I was like, if I pay a thousanddollars, I'll be able to buy a
house and work on it.
I mean, I don't know.
I was but I did that and um youknow started kind of looking at
um real estate from a standpointof investment properties.
So did you do that?
You bought one of those cheaphouses?

(15:56):
I did, I did, and it did work.
Uh it quickly taught me that Iwasn't a damn real estate
manager or at bad idea, andpeople are tough, you know.
Carlton flipping lied, bro.

SPEAKER_01 (16:10):
Carlton's lied to me.
Carlton's give me a bunch ofsheets.
He was with a bunch of sheets inme.
It's like Carlton's wolf sheetsfull of sheets.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (16:20):
And uh, but but what kind of you know caught me again
was I bought a little four-plexunit, no money down.
Um yeah, yeah, I had to say thatword.
So that part worked.
That worked, that did work.
Okay, yeah.
Two houses or two propertieslike that I bought.
I, you know, and one of them wasa four-plex unit, and I actually
started doing work in here.

(16:42):
So I learned all the trades kindof on that house and watching
people come and do stuff.
And I have a moonlight, so Iwould go in there if I had a
tenant coming in, I would go inand fix it up.
And each place needed some work,each place needed a bunch of you
know stuff done with it.
I mean, uh honestly, how did youlearn to do that?
Was this stuff you learned fromyour your dad?

(17:02):
Or because it was YouTube.
I mean, well, yeah, there was noYouTube yet.
I just took took an interest init and just would ask and watch
and figure stuff out.
I mean, I really wanted to learnhow to do it.
So I learned how to do trim andread books.
I had all these books onbuilding houses and how to
renovate.
And you know, Home Depot used tosell those electric uh one, two,

(17:25):
three, you know, books and howto fire up.

SPEAKER_03 (17:27):
One, two, three, one, two, three.
Yeah, yeah.
Those books, remember that thatused to be a big part of where
you walked in.
Yeah, all those books right inthe front.
Yeah, look at guess what's notthere anymore?

SPEAKER_02 (17:39):
Yeah, because nobody's reading them.
No, and they don't want you toknow that, they want you to, you
know, buy them.
But I I I read a lot of thosebooks and just you know uh
poured through a lot ofliterature and questions, and I
would hire a trade and work withthem and watch them, you know,
do stuff.
I guess I'm gonna do sheetrock.
When one thing led to another,um, I got I got my ass handed to

(18:03):
me with those properties.
I no longer have those arevaluable lessons.

SPEAKER_03 (18:07):
Why do they always cost us so much, Rob?
Why do I have to why does italways cost me so much to learn
a lesson?

SPEAKER_02 (18:13):
It's it's either use your stuff or pay for it or you
know, out of your pocket, or youpay for it with your time and
effort.

SPEAKER_03 (18:19):
Yeah.
And when it's both, boy, doublyso when you sit there and pour
it all.
Yeah, I'll learn that one day.

SPEAKER_01 (18:28):
Yeah, but no, we won't.

SPEAKER_03 (18:29):
I probably knows.
See, Rob, you know what?
I think Rob knows me better thanme.
I think so.
You don't know one thing, butnot everything else.
Right, so you're doing this,you're moonlighting, but you're
keeping your real job, if youwill.
Yeah, uh, that's paying thebills, and that's taking care of
the uh mama, and that's takingcare of the baby and doing all
this stuff.
So now what?

SPEAKER_02 (18:49):
I got to the point where I was like, I want to do
this professional.
Um, I was like, okay, you know,uh apartment rentals and all,
you know, management.
That's not my bag, but I reallydo like doing this other stuff,
like you know, uh buildingcabinets and you know, uh
putting roofing on and stufflike that.
I got some real cool stories totell about getting caught on the
metal roof in the rain.

(19:09):
Whoa! We'll come back to that.
That would be uh the uhcondition.

SPEAKER_03 (19:15):
Yeah, that'll be the that'll be the question of I
want a DIY neighbor's too.
Oh, dude, because I know we hadsome because he did he did it
very similar to what I've done,right?
I was not born in the trades,but you were introduced to it
early.
I mean, that's and that's how Iwas.
That's how I ended up gettinginto my business was my my
growing up, every vacation Iever took, all we did was work
on somebody's house.
And then, oh, by the way, we cango see the beach.

(19:36):
Oh, hey, you can go to theamusement park on Sunday.
Yeah, we're gonna be working onSaturday.

SPEAKER_02 (19:40):
Yeah, yeah.
I'll see how this gets back toChris every time.

SPEAKER_01 (19:43):
Thank you.
We can't show it's this show.

SPEAKER_03 (19:47):
He's got people, don't feed his ego, he's gonna
feed his ego.
Thank you, Rob.
Hey Rob, I'm looking for a newco-host.
Yeah, Rob would be a goodco-host.

SPEAKER_02 (19:56):
Where'd you meet your wife?
At Tuspeggy, actually.
Yep.
Is she is she from she's fromBirmingham, Alabama?
Okay, yeah, and actually,interestingly enough, that's
where I started this business.
So that you know, properties Iwas talking about.
Uh that didn't start here inAtlanta.
We needed family to help usraise the baby girl.
So we left everything here andmoved to Birmingham where I

(20:17):
thought I had a job lined up forme, and I did not.
So another lesson.
First months.
Yeah.
I I uh, you know, did odd jobs,uh mowed grass and you know, did
stuff like that, had a a littlecircuit that I that I that I ran
for cutting grass.

SPEAKER_03 (20:36):
All right, hang on.
You skipped over a big partthere.
So you left the high-paying jobhere in Atlanta and moved to
Birmingham because I thought Ihad a job.
You thought you had a job.
And now you're telling me theengineer, yeah, uh, on the way
up, who had properties and was amillionaire, multi-billionaire
mogul of properties is nowmowing grass.

(20:57):
Well, mowing grass.
Tell me where your mental statewas right there.

SPEAKER_02 (21:01):
So uh I think I mixed um some chronological
order there.
I actually moved to Birminghamfirst before all the um
properties.
And I thought I had a job and Ihad interviewed, and you know,
at that time in the job market,if somebody says, Hey, we're
gonna bring you on in two weeks,you knew you had a job.
Right.
When was this?
This was uh 2000, 2000.

(21:24):
Yeah, 2000, 2002.

SPEAKER_03 (21:26):
Yeah, so it was a pretty stable job market.
And when somebody says, youknow, again, we're talking about
today's world where you have noidea if you have a job tomorrow,
today, whatever.
But back then, uh, especiallywhere we were, this wasn't the
you know, people probably don'tremember this.
The dot com bubble wasn't then,it didn't happen.
It was a very stable job market.
It was, it was.
Remember that too, right?
Oh, I remember the bubblebecause I was such a genius at

(21:49):
investing in e trade until itwas hot.
I know.

SPEAKER_02 (21:53):
Did you I did somebody's got your

SPEAKER_03 (22:03):
I got it.
Somebody got it.
No, it ain't sitting at thistable.

SPEAKER_02 (22:08):
Yeah.
Um, all right.
So so yeah, just to clean thatup a little bit, I I I moved to
Birmingham first.
Then I was cutting grass, I wasworking in odd jobs, and uh then
then the the Vulcan Materials,which is where I you know went
back to being an engineer, theycalled me.
And I was working as a rockquarry engineer slash field

(22:31):
engineer for a number of years.
And that is when it really tookoff.
I bought the properties, so onand so forth.
I was like, I can't do this.
So it was really my secondcorporate job that was crazy,
you know, raising crazy hours.
And but I got a little bit ofexperience uh in working crews
and then learning how to dothings.

(22:52):
And that's when I bought theproperties, I started
moonlighting, I had lights in mytruck.
My boss was like, What the hellare you doing?
Why you have a company truckwith lights in the back?
I mean, you know, what's goingon?
The saws and stuff in your bed,your truck bed.
It's been a little remote, likelittle stuff.
And then that's when I said,Okay, I want to do this for a

(23:12):
living.
There's got to be some way forme to do this.
And then I understood how thatuh in Alabama they had the home
builder's license.
And everybody that I could seewas building houses, you know.
It's like, damn, this that thatwould fit right with what I want
to do.

SPEAKER_03 (23:29):
That fits your artistic and your engineering.
Everything kind of brings ittogether, right?
Brings your process, brings yourcreative outlet.
And you're in Alabama at thetime in you said I'm gonna be a
home builder.
And at the time, you're sayingin 2000 you had to have a
license?
Uh yep.

SPEAKER_02 (23:43):
Um, well, 2000 now here with 2004.
Yeah, that is when they changedthat because they were they were
grandfathering in.
So I worked, you know, all theabout 2004 is when I started,
you know, that a licensing, youknow, piece, you know.
So I got my license in two four2004.

SPEAKER_03 (24:02):
Don't quote me on this, but there's no flipping
away they had in Georgia then.
No, no, they didn't, as a matterof fact.
I remember that you could doany, you could, you could go
build a house anywhere, right?
I mean, no, it was uh right whenI started 2008.
Yeah, 2008, roughly thousandnine is when they had I switched
you.
Had I started the business inseven, well, I'd be out of
business, but that's anotherstory.
Um, but I could have been ableto just grandfathered in because

(24:24):
I had documented work that I haddone, you know, in my own
basement.
I had helped my other buddywith, and I had people vouch for
me.
I could have, yeah.
But I've been in good shape.
So your wife's on board with allthis.
Not really.

SPEAKER_02 (24:38):
Let's keep going.

SPEAKER_03 (24:39):
Oh, let's pick at that thread, shall we?
Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 (24:43):
Yeah.
Well, you know, I I I was Iwould say I was a little bit of
a gambler back then because, youknow, sh, you know, going back
to when we moved from theAtlanta area to Birmingham, uh,
we both had employment lined up.
You know, we wouldn't have justleft.
And we got baby, you know, we wewouldn't have just left.
And so she came over and she wasworking with technical

(25:04):
recruiting at the time.
That was a helified field.
Like people were making alltypes of money doing that, you
know, recruiting people forthese, you know, dot-com or
technical uh um companies.
So she had employment and I hadit lined up.
And when we got, you know, allfinished with that, like that
first year, neither one of ushad a job.
Neither one of us were working.

(25:26):
And that was some scary shit.
And that was before 2008, youknow, that that bubble hit.
You hadn't even said it.
Yeah, you haven't even seen thatyet.
It's just 2001 uh one, 2002.
I'm I'm you know, freaked thehell out.
So I once I finally got the thejob with Vulcan and I started
down the path of getting my mymy my builder's license.

(25:48):
Um I then built my first house.
You built a spec home?
Built a spec home.
That's policy.
The spec home.
I I they used to have theseloans where you could, you know,
it was a w of uh, you know, acon that was a contract to perm
or something like that.
What was it called?

SPEAKER_03 (26:05):
It was uh construction to perm loan.
Construction to perm loans,yeah.
As in fact, uh at the time, thebank I was working at, Sun
Trust, was the best constructionperm loan in the southeast.
You probably had a sun trustperm.
And by the way, by the way, atthat time, probably my
organization was the one who wasservicing your loan.
Um, as I said on my big cushyass job.
Um, so you did this about thetime when you had that day where

(26:27):
it was like, thanks for callingSun Trust pullback.
That was actually that was priorto Sun Trust with Greg.
Thank you for calling Bank ofAmerica.
Goodbye.
Thank you very much.
Goodbye.
Uh, another story for adifferent podcast.
That's the Greg Spencer podcast.
It's Greg Spencer's uh GregSpencer's episode.
We talked about that.
You go back and listen to thatone.
This is another guy's good greatfriend of mine who did it.

(26:49):
But back to Rob doing this.
So you pulled out a constructiondeprimant, uh, but then you're
working for Vulcan.
And I'm I'm assuming your wifehad her job in the back.
She wasn't working yet.

SPEAKER_02 (26:59):
It was it was hell for her trying to get a job in
Birmingham.
Yeah, look as hell.

SPEAKER_03 (27:03):
Yeah, she she wasn't working then, and I was, you
know, trying to people don'tremember this, but you think
about this for a minute.
You didn't work remote, quoteunquote, in 2001.
Uh you're like, Well, well, thethe the the the internet, Alan.
Oh, AI.
No, none of that shit wasaround, dude.
Yeah, you had to be in a place,and Birmingham was not the
place.
And you had a baby at this time,yes.

SPEAKER_02 (27:24):
And we had another one on our way.

SPEAKER_03 (27:26):
Oh, good.
Way to go, double down.

SPEAKER_02 (27:27):
It was it was like, okay, what the have I got
myself?
Like so spend the first spechome, modest yeah.
I was a modest.
I was probably about a little1700 square foot home.
Okay.
Um, you know, block uhfoundation.
Um pretty, pretty niceneighborhood.
It wasn't, you know, a gatedcommunity or anything like that.
Little community was calledMillion Dollar Lakes in

(27:48):
Tuscaloosa County.
And it's really a old coal town.
But um, you know, that was anice little place.
It really wasn't a milliondollar lake, but you know, the
houses were, you know, at thattime.

SPEAKER_03 (28:02):
In Alabama, everything they call is a
million dollar Alabama,million-dollar ban, bullshit,
whatever.
Um, I mean if you like Alabama,I'll screw you.
You know, we're running out ofstates, right?
Offended.
I pissed off.
Well, actually, I told you I gotyelled at in Chicago.
We're like, what are you pickingon Illinois for?
Why didn't you back us up?
I'm like lost Illinois.

(28:23):
No, I'm not I am not I'm notrunning for president, Alan.
I'm just running the podcasthere, my friends.
All right, so Rob, you're builtyou so you sold it.

SPEAKER_02 (28:31):
I sold that house before it was done being built.
Yeah, pretty cool.
And you were feeling prettyhigh.
I was pretty, I was like, Oh,this is it.
I see I can do a tunnel.
I I've got pictures of me andthe babies.
We're all hanging out standingin front of the house, and it
was it was I mean, it wasawesome.
Um, I I had I looked back at thehouse, I screwed some shit up on
the house.

(28:52):
I mean, I had guys working onthere stealing money from me.
It was just like, what?
But it was a uh hell of abeginning, you know.
And um, I had this partner I wasworking with.
Um his name was worth his name'sa true crime.
His name was John Place, andJohn Place was a uh home
inspector, okay, and umplace-to-place inspection or

(29:16):
something like that.
He was a good guy, but yeah, hehe uh um he didn't he didn't
make it through the um entirepartnership.
He introduced me to some reallycool people and actually was
instrumental in me getting thenext four properties.
Um no, sorry, two, the next twoproperties in a subdivision that

(29:38):
his buddy owned.
So, you know, from thatstandpoint, he opened he helped
open some doors for me.

SPEAKER_03 (29:44):
So clearly you're establishing you got the grit,
you got the scrappiness, you gotthe stick to itiness, you're
you're making this thing happen,you're still making this all go.
You got rid of the partner,great move.
Uh, so hard partnerships.
You know, we've had some greatpartnership with the stories on
here, but it it is tough for alot of us.
Yep.
But you're in Birmingham doingall this, and we're doing this
here right now in Atlanta.

(30:05):
Yeah.
I want to hear how the heck yougot here.
Okay.
So that's full.
You're killing it in Birmingham.
No, no, not wait a minute.
Hey, he just quadrupled.
He went from one spec that wassuccessful to four.

SPEAKER_02 (30:18):
I went to, yeah, what's it?
Yeah, but the fourth wasn't aspec.
I'm taking pictures of mybabies.

SPEAKER_03 (30:23):
I'm telling them, I'm I'm telling I'm telling I'm
telling my wife, look, I'mmaking, I'm toning it.
We're in Birmingham.

SPEAKER_02 (30:29):
Yeah, you know, we're gonna go have we're gonna
go eat hot and fish.
I saw the end of the tunnel.
I was like, I okay, and so Iquit Vulcan, I got out of there,
left them behind while I wasbuilding.

SPEAKER_03 (30:43):
Let's go back to that.
You quit Vulcan.
Did you come back and tell yourwife you quit, or did you
explain to her what you're aboutto do?
I didn't tell her shit.

SPEAKER_02 (30:50):
Oh and still married today.
Oh man, she will not let me livethat.
I've done that more than onetime, so I I'll revisit that in
the future.
But feel married, yeah.
Still married.

SPEAKER_03 (31:00):
So I told her I was quitting, and I I I'm still
married, yeah.
Probably not as happily as youare, but I uh uh but but I even
told her to ask for marriednesson that.
Oh my god, for forgiveness, um,I have a couple times.
Have you?
It hasn't worked.
I still chew too.

(31:24):
That is like an echo change.
Let's keep going, please.
Back to Rob.
It's not about me.
Let's go back to Rob.

SPEAKER_02 (31:29):
Well, I mean, you know, right after that, um, you
know, when I I walked away fromVulcan, when I walked away, um,
it looked good, you know.
Um, I had a couple I had thosespec houses going on.
I had your license.
Oh, yeah, and definitely had alicense.
Um I had um, you know, we wereflipping houses at the time.

(31:50):
Remember those properties I toldyou I was I I I had some, you
know, I was managing, you know,at the fourplex and then another
little house.
Man, it looked really good.
But I was over-leveraged indebt.
And um, you know, most of thetime when you buy a house,
you're gonna have debt, youknow, it's good debt, whatever.
But you don't want your paymentof your um, you know, loan to be

(32:14):
more than what you're collectingin rent.
In other words, you know, youdon't paying.
If somebody's living there, theyneed to be covering whole rent
and expenses.

SPEAKER_03 (32:22):
Right.
So some of it, it just to lay itout there, people think about
this all the time.
You're like, oh, I'm gonna rent.
Okay, good.
So you need to get$2,000 in rentif you got$1,500 in debt
obligations at least in debtobligations property taxes.
Right.
It's called loan service, right?
Correct.
Okay.

SPEAKER_02 (32:40):
And if you're not handy and shit goes wrong, then
you're going, but it's notpersonal.

SPEAKER_03 (32:46):
That ship is past, way past.
We we haven't we haven't bleedshit so far.
So let's keep going.

SPEAKER_02 (32:52):
Uh, but you you you have to have enough to be able
to cover that.
And one of the things that alsomotivated me to do some of that
work was that I I didn't haveenough money to cover the
repairs.
So I almost had to learn how todo it anyway.
So, yeah, I I it's something Iwanted to do.
I was like, ah, I'm not worriedabout that.

(33:12):
I'll fix that myself.
I do that type of thing.
So that went, you know, thatwent on for years.
Um, but when when it reallychanged was um in 2008.
So I got my license in 2004, youknow, fast forward, you know,
about you know, four years, andall of a sudden, the subprime
market, you know, if youremember all that and people

(33:34):
getting no, I don't remember athing about 2008.

SPEAKER_03 (33:38):
You've just picked Allen's cab, and Alan's gonna go
dark for a little bit.
We're gonna put him on mute andput him in the timeout vibe
really nice.
And he needs to drink a lot ofso 2008, you're in Birmingham
and you're over-leveraged.
I'm over-leveraged.

SPEAKER_02 (33:50):
So I lost my house.
I lost that fourplex, I lost umthat rental property I had.
I had two houses that werecoming out of the ground.
The first house I you know sold,those two that were coming out
of the ground, I'm payinginterest-only payments on.
I had um, you know, two flipsthat we were doing, a couple of

(34:10):
my buddies, and we were workingtogether, and the people who
were um you know pre-qualifiedto buy the house and started
everything, they've gone away,so now we're scrambling trying
to find buyers for that.
And, you know, my ass was tight.
Your world evaporated.
And I mean, just in like amatter of months, it was all
over.
So I know a house, you know, wewere what do you call it?

(34:35):
Um uh when you when you whenyou're when you stand a place
where you're not supposed to.

SPEAKER_03 (34:41):
Um that was my house, but at the same time,
you're squatting in your ownhouse.
We were squatting.
Oh, yeah, it's funny because thefirst word that came to mind
started with an F and then withuh duck.
Um so holy shit, man.
I mean, so you're staring at it,right?

SPEAKER_02 (34:55):
You're staring at the you're staring at the bottom
of the bottom.
Yeah, people looking for subs,like, yo, man, we're gonna get
paid.
Yeah, I'm going to pay you, butI can't right now.

SPEAKER_03 (35:04):
That's not the place you want to be.
No.
And that's not the way you cameup.
That's not the way you wereabout about so as a person, tell
us how you got because today,Stephenson Construction, LLC.
These guys have won nationalawards at Neri for the work they
do.
And I'm telling you, man, I'veseen the work.
It is amazing.
So this story is so is so goodbecause everybody who's

(35:26):
listening out there, you know,for the people that are just
going through a rough time,you're gonna be okay.
You're gonna be okay.
You're gonna be okay.

SPEAKER_02 (35:33):
But you're staring at the belly of the beast.
Yeah.
The one thing that I had in mymind that I I I didn't want to
let go or compromise was my uhmy name, my character, um, all
that Stephanie's in constructionhas been around.
You know, when I started and Istarted building and all that, I
never bellied up the company,you know, never you know,

(35:55):
bankrupt the company and justwent to another name.
I was like, I and maybe I was afool for doing it that way
because some you know, the youknow, the American way is hey,
what do you think, Calendar?
Let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_03 (36:07):
Is he a fool for doing that?
He is who he is, becauseeverybody is.
You know what?
Um, I will tell you 100% respectthat because you know what you
could, and you know contractorshave done it, and you know that
that probably saves your family.
That probably saves putting uhyou're right.
Uh a lot of guys do it, but youknow what?

(36:27):
It's just not the way you'reraised.
You can tell that's not yourcharacter, it's not your
integrity.
That's yeah, it's hard.
And I I know many guys who'vedone it.
Um, and you know what?
And uh do it.
I I thought I was like I didn'tsee the way out of it either.
I mean when when my store went,we we did the same thing.
Every vendor was paid, everybodydid say, yeah, I know you did,

(36:47):
and then we just went boom.
I know you did, yeah.
And we could we could havepulled the plug earlier and
screwed everybody, and I'd havebeen a lot better off.
I'll never forget watching you.
Uh I mean, there is nothing,absolutely literally nothing you
could have done to get around2008 as a guy with a big lease,
interior decorator, andfurniture uh vendor with a with

(37:08):
a franchise over top of you.
You get I mean, it's like one,two, three, and then you you
can't get out from it.
But you could, I mean, you couldhave bankrupt, you could have
done that, you know, and said,Hey, screw you guys, yeah.
I'm taking care of my family.
That's right.
But you know what?
And a lot of guys out therethinking, hey, why aren't you
taking care of your family?
Because you know what?
I'll I'll I'll do it.
I'll I'll take care of my familyanother way, but I'm not gonna,

(37:29):
I'm not putting that in theuniverse.
I'm not putting that, you know,God didn't tell me whatever you
guys think.
Yeah, you can't do that.

SPEAKER_02 (37:36):
Right.
You gotta figure it out becausenot only are you dealing with
your family, you're dealing withother people.

SPEAKER_03 (37:41):
And here we are in 2025.
I'll tell you what, it didn'tfeel good at the time, but you
know what?
That's what it looks like today.
Yeah, because right now, man,you're doing great, and you know
that.
Yeah, and you know what, youcould have been the other guy,
and yeah, maybe you'd be doinggood, but I I guarantee you,
next time good feels bad, youget out of it again, and good is

(38:01):
good, but you can't be great, itcan't feel great, it can't feel
good being a douchebag anymore,right?
And yeah, you're ducking people,you're not listening to this
podcast if you're doing that.
All right, uh, so you you hitit, you're still at the belly.

SPEAKER_02 (38:12):
Yeah, at that point, it was like, okay, you got to do
something, and you can't stayhere because your world's
falling apart around you.
And I was like, okay, no, Iprobably could come back, you
know, but I know a lot of peoplein Atlanta.
Um, you know, a lot of my myschoolmates uh had a little bit
more of a uh support system, andand let's just face it, in

(38:33):
Birmingham, Birmingham's stillstuff in the 60s, man.
They are still stuffed withthose water holes and dog biting
days, man.
They are still stuck there, andso I don't care how professional
or how prepared I came to a jobin certain communities, I was
gonna get that job.

SPEAKER_03 (38:53):
All right, so we're on a podcast, and Rob, we gotta
say it.
Uh I mean, obviously you don'tlook like Alan, other than we're
all bald.
We are all bald, we got we gotthat going for us, but you're a
black man, yeah, and you'resaying that that did not work.
Oh no.
We gotta, I mean, we gottaaddress the elephant in the
room.
I we don't know what that means.
Uh well, I I don't use it as acrutch or an excuse, you know.

(39:14):
You never have.
I never I never knew you to seethat, but but I think people
need to understand that becauseit's important.

SPEAKER_02 (39:20):
Well, there is definitely uh some advantage
advantages that whites may haveover blacks in this industry
only because most of the peoplethat are you know conducting the
business are white.
So what does that mean?
That means that no kind of likewill favor likes um just because
they you know a little bit morefamiliar with that.

(39:41):
You're not familiar with um, youknow, who am I coming in this
house?
You know, um, I I never alwayswent to to to racism or you
know, they don't like me becauseI'm you know I'm black first.
You can tell when somebody's alittle bit uncomfortable with
you know your your physical uhuh being, whoever you are, you

(40:02):
know, they're looking at youlike, okay, well, I don't know
where this guy came from, and Idon't really know.
And then if you're going head tohead with somebody, you know,
they may feel more comfortablesaying, you know what, this guy
seems like a good old boy, youknow, he he he understands, you
know, what we're doing.
I'm gonna go ahead and give himthe job.
Even if he's not qualified asmuch as this other guy, I don't

(40:22):
know him, and and he's notbelievable.
And so I just run into that alot.
Okay, that is how do youovercome that?
Yeah.
I you know, uh, it's a goodquestion.
Um I I don't really focus on umwhat people think of me, I focus
on who I am and what I provide.

(40:44):
And if you don't like that,screw you.
I'll move on to the next.
But there are certain areas inthis country where that thought
process doesn't work.
And Birmingham was one of them.
I couldn't work for all theblack people in Birmingham and
make the type of living that Iwanted to make.
I mean, I could, and I hadgreat, you know, clients and you
know, great experiences, but Iwanted to be diverse.

(41:06):
I wanted to do work foreverybody.
I don't care what color youwere, I wanted to do the work.
I wanted to be the guy thateverybody calls to do remalin.
And I just happened to be.
Um, and uh actually I wantpeople to kind of look past
that, even if it I'm I'm okaywith it being upfront and
personal, even looking.
Yeah, that's a black dude.
Yeah, I am.

(41:27):
I'm a damn good looking one,too.
You know?

SPEAKER_03 (41:30):
Ah, for the record, if you're not watching another
podcast, you gotta go check outother YouTube.
Yes, he's a good looking man.
I'm not gonna lie.
And I'm not like that either.
And again, we love that.
Hey, I'm not doing everything.
We're just talking about it, butbut you talk about this.
I mean, it had to be hard.
I mean, we know it is, and butwe don't know it is because Alan
and I cannot relate.
I've I've said this over andover to all the guys who work

(41:50):
for me.
I have black guys, I haveHispanic guys, I have guys from
uh the Middle East.
I don't know.
What you guys go through.
It's gotta be hard uh to workthrough that.
So how do you do it?

SPEAKER_02 (42:01):
Okay, so when you think of that in your statement
there, when we say it's hard,when you think about this, I've
always been black.
I've always waited what Alan.
Right.
This this is not new.
I did not know that.
You know, being you know, Ialways woke up in the morning

(42:22):
and saw this.
I may be an engineer, but I'mdumb still.
You know, I it it didn't happenovernight, so that it's
something that, you know, I'mlike, oh shit.
Now oh, all of a sudden I can'tdo X, Y, and Z.
It's always been there.
It's always been there.
I've always had to deal with it.
So as I get older, and it'slike, okay, this is who I am.

(42:43):
I mean, what what else can Iwhat else can I do?
The only thing I can do is putmy best foot forward and try to
be the best that I can be andput myself in a position where
there's people who don'tnecessarily care what color you
are.
They just want the work done theway they want it done.
You know, Atlanta's great forthat because it's a melting

(43:04):
pot's all type of people here.
They're not um um afraid ofseeing, you know, uh a person
like me driving in a ripped,very nice truck through a
neighborhood that'spredominantly one uh nationality
or another.
They don't care.
But now very cosmopolitan, Iwould say that.
I I so another thing is I I tryto keep myself as you know clean

(43:27):
cut as possible.
Um, I speak intelligently.
Yeah, when people talk to me,um, they may look at me one way
and then start talking.
It's like, oh, okay, he he's anintelligent person.
He's he's somebody I can have aconversation with.
Um, I don't really meet astranger.
And so these things I I thinkkind of helped me.
And I went to a university, Igive Tuskegee a lot of credit

(43:48):
for this, that you know, nothingwas really given to us there.
It wouldn't have like thestate-of-the-art everything.
Like our our library wasn't thebest.
So we would have to find a wayto get things done um that
either utilized um, you know, astraveling or you know, working
in groups or going somewherebecause I couldn't just go into

(44:08):
the library and find a book Iwas looking for.
I I might have to go to Auburn'slibrary.
Well, how do you get intoAuburn's library?
Um, meet some friends, talk tosome people, get in there
somehow, some way, talk to theperson at the front, you know,
make friends, you know, and thatI could think, God, I'm studying
an Auburn library.
You know, the those are the kindof things that you would wind up
doing.
And it just gave you a littlebit more confidence to uh excel

(44:33):
in places where you normallymight not.

SPEAKER_03 (44:36):
Wow, what a great life lesson, right there, Alan.
Well, he he figures out ways toget stuff done, really.
He always has, yeah.
The the his stick-to-itiveness,the gravity, the the grit, the
everything you have to have tobe a great entrepreneur to be
where he's at.
He he's he's been establishingthat and filing that away and
doing that, and had to gothrough all those problems.
I mean some shit.

SPEAKER_02 (44:57):
You have I don't rest my laurels on the problems
like that.
You know, they're there, andsometimes I look back and I say,
oh wow, that was that was thatwas a lot to get through.
That was a lot to to do.
But I'm sure there were otherentrepreneurs and people out
there that had very similarstories, right?
So I don't walk around with thisbadge saying like, oh, I had to

(45:18):
go through all these differentthings and good turn.
I I listen, I want to be thebest remodeler in Georgia,
right?
And I can't do it online, can'tdo it alone.
I have to have great peoplearound me.
I have to have a I have to be alittle bit crazy to try to do
things a certain way.
Like, you know, you have a yougotta be a little bit off to be

(45:40):
an entrepreneur, a little bit ofa gambler, you know, you gotta
have that in your in yourfatally optimistic.
Yes, fatally that's a great one.

SPEAKER_03 (45:48):
Yeah, you can't.
You know, I've often said that.
I'm kidding.
That's Alan's light.
I love it.
Fatally optimistic.
Yeah, you are, you can tellbecause you just said, um, I
think we caught this.
You said, Hey, mama, we'repicking up the babies, we're
moving back to Atlanta.
To what?
Man, and you came back, and sothat was crazy.
And I I keep thinking, and thisis kind of a constant theme with

(46:11):
somebody who's just really builtthemselves.
Uh, and I mean it wasn't fromnothing.
I mean, you had an engineeringdegree, yeah, but you kind of
created a nothing when thingsimploded around you, yeah.
But you you had to learn how tosell and you had to learn how to
hire, you had to learn how tomotivate and lead, and then you
had to learn the wholebureaucracy of I mean, there's

(46:32):
so much that you had to learn,man along the way.
Uh did you have somebody in yourear?
Did you have a mentor?

SPEAKER_02 (46:40):
Did you been uh blessed uh along the way with
mentors?
Sometimes I didn't even realizethey were.
It's like, okay, my dad, I givehim all credit.
Even though I was pissed off athim when I was in school and I
didn't even talk to him.
Uh as we as I became a grown-assman and realized that him and my

(47:03):
mom, you know, they weredifferent people.
Um I I I gained a lot from fromhim.
Uh just as, you know, hey son,you might not want to go that
route.
You know, look about look atthis, look at this, you know,
maybe this is the way to go.
Or thought processes and stufflike that.
Um, we had a good relationshipthat way.

(47:25):
My dad wasn't the guy who was acome on, son, we're going to the
game.
No.
It was sit down, let's talk,let's figure this out, you know,
what's going on in your head,you know.
Really?
Yeah.
He was a he was a cerebral cat,you know.

SPEAKER_03 (47:40):
He was well, your dad was very cerebral.
My dad, again, very cerebral,but was very like, uh, what are
you doing?
Let's get to work.
Hey, it's seven o'clock in themorning.
We gotta shovel snow.
What?
Yeah, get up.
What?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
And he was the guy, he was thecorporate guy all his life.
So, all right, so you startedthis business.
We gotta wrap this stuff up alittle bit.
Um, oh my god, are you just thisis why people will buy what

(48:06):
you're talking about?
So, Stefan's in constructiontoday.
You do, you have a team, yeah,it's a design build firm here in
Atlanta.
Right.
Um, you work for everybody, allwalks of life.
I know that.
Uh you do some amazing stuff.
Thank you.
Talk about what you guys havedone and where you're at today.

SPEAKER_02 (48:21):
Okay, so um, when we got back here, uh it was 2009,
2010, and I got an opportunityto do a basement.
Uh I had really had done like areal basement like that, and I
did a lot of work myself, butquickly learned that Atlanta's
different than Burmian, and thatI can't you couldn't go all over

(48:42):
the place and do work.
You know, you can't go to FultonDale and then turn around and
come back to Buford and then goup to, you know, Cherokee.
Yeah, I mean, it was crazy.
And so Atlanta traps legendary.
That's my first, you know, backthen I I spent like$900 on gas,
like the first month here, and Iwas like, okay, uh so um the the

(49:05):
bubble caught up to me even inremodeling or the 2008, it it
caught up to me in like 2011 to2012.
All right, you know, even payingpeople off and getting people
back on track.
I just couldn't make it becauseI had too much going on.
And so I took another corporatejob and I got lucky.

(49:26):
Um, I worked for Target, allright, as a what they call a uh
um an ETL, which is a basicallyassistant store manager.
And while I was working atTarget, uh I worked there for a
couple years, and while I wasworking at Target, I I didn't
know anything about marketing,and I didn't understand, you
know, how to get people whodon't know you to know you and

(49:49):
ask for your services.
I really didn't.
It sounds silly, but I didn'tknow how to do that.
Coming from engineering, salesand marketing were foreign to me
100%.
So um I uh uh this this is thisis great.
I I worked over in Johns Creekat the Johns Creek Target super
target over there.

(50:10):
Okay.
Have you guys been in thattarget?

SPEAKER_03 (50:12):
My my son did a Chris's job there.
Super Target up on Brooklyn on141.
Yes, yeah, yeah, that's a bigone.

SPEAKER_02 (50:18):
So some beautiful people that come in there, okay?
It's it's they are beautifulpeople.
Oh my goodness.
And I I would be working and I'dlook up and there would be this
beautiful woman asking me wheresomething was.
Uh, and then eventually, andthen Target markets two women,
they tell it in their books itsays she probably doesn't

(50:39):
anymore, but when I was there,it's like she wants to come in
and find this.
If you're going to help her,XYZ, I was like, damn, they're
they're not real size than theynow.

SPEAKER_03 (50:47):
Yeah, it was Alan continuously.

SPEAKER_02 (50:52):
Made an emphasis for them how how how clean the store
was, and um you know, but uhthey came in the store one time
and I was over the logisticsaspect of it, and we used to do
all uh changes on the floor, andwe just got done with a change,
and all of a sudden there werepeople, ladies coming in, okay.

(51:14):
Where's this?
And they're going right to it.
I mean, how the hell do theyknow?
I just I just set this up todate.
There's no way.
I mean, they haven't been in thestore.
How did they know this?
And then I saw the commercialnow.
That may sound silly, but it allclicked.
And that's what I was like,okay, now I understand what this
marketing thing is.

(51:34):
And this is how people find outwho you are, what you do,
without you actually having totell them personally.
It's like you gotta understandhow to get this information out
there to them.
Branding.
They were talking about brand,brand, brand.
Well, what was brand?
Well, the floors are clean, thelights are bright, the shelves
are immaculate, you're liningthese things up every night

(51:57):
before you go home.
And that's when it dawned on me.
First of all, who am I sellingto?
Uh uh, what am I uh proposingthat I'm selling?
What, what, what's the market?
Who is it?
And and what type of people do Iwant coming in my quote unquote
store?
You know, uh, what does my storelook like?
So that's when I really startedspending more emphasis on

(52:18):
capturing what my projects looklike.
Um, you know, making sure I hadon, you know,
professional-looking clothes orwhatever, where I'm going, what
I'm doing, making sure that I'malways on brand, and then making
sure that you know myadvertising and marketing and
what I'm on what I'm doing andselling meets that criteria that
the target client wants.

SPEAKER_03 (52:40):
Because your target client is your client, and
that's what you figured out.
And then I think that's the hardpart for all of us is that hard.
We we just talked about this atan area about educational what
we're gonna do.
Who's the president of an area?

SPEAKER_00 (52:53):
I forget.

SPEAKER_03 (52:54):
Um, oh you know what?
We'll uh put that in the shownotes.
That's big old moi.
All right, let's keep going.
Um, but you hit on this is thatyou you've got to go through
that whole thing because cashmakes ear flow, right?
But the sales make the cashregister rig.
But if you don't have that brandout there, people don't want to

(53:15):
see you.
It's called the funnel, it's themagic funnel, all them thing
down.
So you're doing it now.
How big is your team?
Tell us a little bit about whatyou do.

SPEAKER_02 (53:22):
Awesome.
So now we're a team of five.
I just uh basically hired mywife as um out coming outside of
sales business development.
We'll talk about that one afterthe show.
Right.
But I have my day-to-day teambecause she's kind of like
Savite.
But my my day-to-day team, Ihave two designers and I have a
project manager, and thenthere's me.

SPEAKER_03 (53:41):
Nice.
And you guys are delivering onprojects, you guys have won
awards.
Uh, how can everybody find youhere in Atlanta?

SPEAKER_02 (53:47):
Um, you can find me at
www.stepinsonconstructionlc.com.
Uh, you can find me on the Narywebsite, the National
Association of Home Builderswebsite.
Um, and just do a Google searchin your neighborhood for best
basements in Atlanta, andhopefully my name will come up.
But we know what kind of a tellme a couple of awards.

(54:07):
What are the awards?
Absolutely.
That's well, hit it.
We've we we won the um NationalAssociation of Remodelers
Industry uh contractor of theyear national, two years in a
row.

SPEAKER_03 (54:20):
Okay, so two years in a row against all the nation,
all the contractors, all thenation.
I'm talking about what's thecriteria for that?
I mean, that's uh that's huge.
Uh well you're in his category.
Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 (54:30):
Yeah, it's a the category is with basements over
$250,000, right?
And so, you know, you have toyou know submit a particular
documentation and pictures andtell a story from start to
finish, um, you know, and thenget the consent of the
homeowner.

SPEAKER_03 (54:47):
So he's doing it a little bit downplayed.
So over 250, that means no,there's no cap, Alan.
In fact, we're sitting in mybasement right now.
I could do this thing to amillion.
I mean, I probably should.
Uh, but another story.
But if you go out to SiliconValley, if you go to New York,
if you go to Texas, if you go toFlorida, where he's up against
all of them and the 250 plusprivate wine cellars and the new

(55:11):
yeah, with the private winecellars, with the automatic wine
cellar, uh the whole thing,automation, the the entire
thing.
He wins, and I was there for it.
He wins over the entire nation.
And I'm telling you, man, you'relike, you want to, you know, I
was like Atlanta Proud.
I was like, ATL, ATL.
I mean, you would have thought Iyou thought I was like ATL.

(55:33):
I was big boy.
I was I was I was I was it waseverybody but yeah, good time.
That was big.
I was so happy for Rob and uhRob's team does a great job.
Absolutely.
Rob, we're gonna end with ourfinal four questions because you
bring uh so much that we've uhwe've really enjoyed here, but
we gotta talk about this.
Okay, what's the number one bookyou would recommend to our

(55:53):
audience?
Somebody trying to start abusiness, somebody trying to
scale a business.
Uh the e-myth for contractors.
Nice, and I go Gerber.
Big one.
So there's the e-myth, and thenthere's the e-myth for
contractors.
That's it.
Yeah, yes.
I've read it and it uh it stillhas a resume for me because I
keep I keep absolutely pickingmyself in the key on it.

(56:14):
Listen to it.
That's why I probably needed it.
Listen at like three timesspeech.
You hear me?
Are you done?
Cindy comments gets phone.
All right, you leave it.
Oh my god.
Oh, Cindy, why do I have himwith me?
I don't know.
All right, number two.
What's the favorite feature ofyour own home?

SPEAKER_02 (56:35):
Um, I'm gonna say the basement because we're
working on it right now, andthat's you know, gonna be pretty
cool.
I'll have some pictures, youknow.

SPEAKER_03 (56:42):
What do you what's the favorite part though?
Why is it I your bourbon barlike me?
Or you hunt.
I hunt.
Oh, guess what?
Rob is gonna be heading up.
Uh he's not heading up, but he'sheading up our membership.
I thought about it.

SPEAKER_02 (56:56):
I thought about it.

SPEAKER_03 (56:56):
He wanted to, yeah.
He wanted, we're gonna have ourfirst first clay southern
shootout at the uh nice, yeah.
I called it code name shootingshit.
I said, for the love of God,we're the southeast, we have got
to be shooting shit.
Didn't we invent guns?
And they're like, Yes, Chris, wegotta do it, we gotta do it.
And so somebody came up to meand says, So you shoot.
I'm like, no, never.

(57:18):
He's going to.
I'm gonna.
No, I'm going.
Oh, yeah, I'm gonna be there.
I I'm gonna get on team.
So what's the what's thecraziest thing somebody's asked
you to do in their basement?
Oh boy.

SPEAKER_02 (57:28):
Uh, let's see.
Oh, that's a tough one.

SPEAKER_03 (57:31):
Well, it's not as crazy, but um, safe rooms, you
know, that uh safe room, yeah.
Nice, that's kind of weird.
You know, yeah, put your safesin the basement.
I know that.
Yeah, uh, I mean, no, no, thisis how about exercise room.
How about exercise pull?

SPEAKER_02 (57:43):
It's like a panic room.
How about exercise pull?
I've had somebody ask me to dothat, but not inside of the
house.
Oh, did they?

SPEAKER_03 (57:50):
No, I I put I put the exercise pole in the house.
You did?
I did.
Back in the day.
Oh no.
In your in big daddy's house.
Uh no.
I was back in my handyman days.
She says she calls up, says, I'dlike to have a pole put in my
house.
I'm like, I can't have anexercise.
I thought you said pool.
Well, all right, we we wouldcall them boys, we would call
call them stripper poles.
All right, hello.

(58:10):
Oh my god.
She says that's pool, right?
I said pull it.
My accent's bad down here.
Oh, for the love of God.
You're from Pennsylvania, you'refrom you're from getting a
chance to come see if it worked.
I I I put that thing because Isaw her and I was like, Oh, this
is good.
Oh, you got on there, didn'tyou?
Uh I gave it a couple of stings.
I did, just I did.

(58:31):
But let me say that justgirlfriend was not the petite.
Girlfriend was not the petite5-1 girl.
And I was like, I made sure thisthing was anchored down, but I
was never gonna send one of myguys over there because I knew
because when you walked inthere, it was now chicken room.
I was like, oh damn, yeah, Ibusted one of my guys there.
I said I knew I could keep myshit together and get in, get
out, get paid.

(58:51):
I'm done, I'm out of here.

SPEAKER_02 (58:52):
All right.
Oh, yeah, like a panic room wasprobably the you know, the panic
room instrument.
What do you okay?

SPEAKER_03 (58:59):
But yeah, people want them.
Yeah, I like that one.
All right, let's go on.
Yep.
Next question.
Yeah, what's a customer servicepet peeve of yours?
Because Alan and I haven'ttalked about customer service
much, but if you don't knowthis, we're kind of customer
service freaks.
What's a customer service petpeeve of yours and you're the
customer?

SPEAKER_02 (59:17):
Um, yeah, that's a very good one.
Um well, not being transparentwith them.
Um, you know, so are you it'sjust a question for what when
you're out there, you're at arestaurant, yeah, you're going
to Target.
Oh, when they don't acknowledgeyou when you walk into the
space, into their space, andthey don't not acknowledge you,

(59:40):
and uh, you know, they they theyact like you're you you're just
supposed to be there and they'regonna they're gonna uh you're
gonna wait for them to get toit's like they're annoyed that
you that you're Alan.
Check this out.

SPEAKER_03 (59:51):
I just did training for two new uh technicians that
started with us this morning.
I said, so when you walk intoChick-fil-A, both of them say,
Do we know what a Chick-fil-A?
I'm like, uh-oh.
Okay.
So when you walk intoChick-fil-A, what do they say?
You know, welcome toChick-fil-A.
When you walk in McDonald's,there's the yeah thing that you
have to hit to come talk to me.

(01:00:11):
So you don't want me to talk toyou?
No.
How about when I'm at Walmartand I clearly have that look
like I need help?
And they run.
They walk the other way atTarget, but Target.
We always said target.
Yes, target.
That was upscale for me growingup.
What can I help you find?
Bright?
What can I help you find?
Can I help you find?
Right?
Oh, can I help you findsomething?
All right, last, Rob, youstarted out early.

(01:00:31):
I want you to think early back.
What is a DIY nightmare story ofyours?
Metal roof.
Oh, let's go metal roof.
Uh should we?

SPEAKER_02 (01:00:40):
So, okay, but it was this was for me.
It wasn't for a client.
I would say for a client, it wasa tile job that I had to rip out
and redo.
That does that doesn't soundgood.
I was on top of that duringrental property thing I had a
fourplex.
And the then the tenant was, youknow, complaining that there was
a leak coming from the roof.
And, you know, I thought I cando everything.

(01:01:00):
And I looked up there and Isaid, Oh, okay, it's just a
little sheet metal blase blah.
If you get that from HomeDeclub, and so I get up there
with my makeshift tie-off, andI'm walking on this roof.
And it's probably about a 4 and12 pitch.
It's not a very steep pitch.
So makeshift tie-off for theuninitiated is was what?
Was a trick?
A D loop that I screwed into youknow the fair the ridge.

(01:01:25):
And the ridge was just apopped-up piece of metal.
So I just screwed it in there,and I was gonna come back and
silicon it later.
All right, and that's supposedto be a good idea.
That wasn't the problem.
That wasn't the problem.
That ain't the problem.
The problem is it startedraining when I was on that roof.
And I didn't get offimmediately.
And I had a rubber sole shoes.

(01:01:46):
Mm-hmm.
And I thought I was coming offthat damn roof.
I started slipping and sliding,my behind got tight.
I mean, I I I you know I waslike, I was gonna have to buckle
down.
I found the chimney and I sliddown to the chimney.
I just stayed there until itstopped raining.
And then I just made my way upin front of the chimney to the

(01:02:08):
ridge and tiptoed off.
When I tell you I was scared,that was a three-story drop.
How old were you then?
Twenty no.

SPEAKER_03 (01:02:21):
Maybe three five.
Today, would you do that?
Hell no.
Exactly right.
I'm telling you.
And on that note, we get out ofhere.
You guys gotta learn something,right?
I said you've learned a lot ofstories on this one.
You know, Rob's steppers atconstruction has done some great
stuff, but you know what?
He went through the trials, hewent through the tribulations.
We all do it.
He came up, he said he couldhave stayed there in the

(01:02:43):
corporate world and been allcushy and done the whole thing,
but he said, No, I gotta go makeit happen.
Keep making it happen, make itup the mountain.
We gotta get going.
We gotta get out of here.
Cheers, everybody.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, it was awesome.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of the Small Business
Safari.
Remember, your positive attitudewill help you achieve that
higher altitude you're lookingfor in a wild world small

(01:03:03):
business ownership.
And until next time, make it agreat day.