February 12, 2024 • 38 mins
Richard Elliott is not just a construction pro, he's the owner of more construction companies than we can count - Elliott Construction Group, Kukulu'ana Management, Rescue One Restoration, Handy Andy Hawaii, and Pillar to Post Home Inspection. 🏗️ From fixing up the small stuff to running multimillion-dollar projects, his insights are sure to inspire and elevate your construction ventures. 🚀
Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to learn from one of the best in the business – tune in now and let's build greatness together! 🔥
Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to learn from one of the best in the business – tune in now and let's build greatness together! 🔥
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey, everyone, We're in fullforce in twenty twenty four and already at
episode five. If you're new,amlu your host of The Builder Upper Show,
a podcast where we talk about everythingin construction and trades. Now let's
get into it. I would liketo welcome our guest, Richard Elliott,
(00:22):
owner of Elliott Construction Group, CuckoounaManagement, Rescue One Restoration, Handy,
Andy Hawaii Service Division, and Pillarto Post oh one more sure step Hawaii.
If that's not enough, can youcan you believe it? How many
things rich Elliott is doing so richthank you so much for joining us today.
How are you doing awesome? Awesome, having a wonderful morning so far?
(00:46):
How about yourself there, I'm doingwonderful. It's the beginning of the
year. I'm excited to, youknow, kick this off. This this
podcast will probably come out the secondmonth of the year. But you know,
right now, my feeling is justI'm full bore and I'm really excited
to have you on the show.You're an entrepreneur with many talents, and
(01:07):
you have so much going on,and you're juggling a lot. I'm glad
that you're just spending the time withme. Right now to to talk about
your experience. So maybe just tokick it off, you want to talk
about maybe one of your most recentprojects. One of our most recent projects
that we completed on the construction sidewas just definitely a fun and interesting project
(01:29):
was redeveloping a pool in the middleof a hotel that was operating. It
was quite an experience. It wassomething that I didn't expect to do or
was you know, very intrigued onbecause the design was incredible and the team
was incredible, but the psychondistance wasnot. But it turned out to be
(01:53):
a very rewarding job. We learneda lot along the way. And then
on the Kukula on a management side, probably one of the most intriguing projects
that we're having right now as we'reactually the construction managers for the Circusilla show
that's coming to Hawaii. Oh yeah, So that project is going to be
(02:13):
completed at the end of twenty twentyfour, which is this year now.
Wow. Crazy. So they're goingto have a standalone show that's coming to
Hawaii, which is going to bepretty cool and pretty interesting. It's going
to draw a lot of revenue forthe state as well as just something really
cool to be a part of becauseonly standalone Circusila shows are in major metropolitan
(02:36):
cities, and this is the firstLeo's say, smaller market, but it's
going to draw a lot of attention. So I'm very very excited about that
and look forward to the show launchingthem at the end of November early December.
So that'll be pretty cool, prettycool. Sneak sneak peek into yeah,
(02:57):
yeah, into what's to come.I'm me and my wife are big
fans of service Lay, so makinga trip out to Hawaii, you just
enjoy that. Yeah, absolutely.You You get to work, work in
the fun, in the fun weatherlike all year round. It's unbelievable.
So does does the weather aspect justmake it that much more exciting to get
outside and get stuff done? Everyoneasked, well, I ever moved back
(03:23):
to Chicago? Not a chance.I heard the same thing every single day.
I never have to look at theweather report. It's either sunny or
rainy, and like even on theweekend, it's like board shorts with a
shirt or no shirt. That's ouroptions. So that sounds awesome lifestyle,
right, So when you have timeand you have free time, what are
(03:43):
you going to do. And nicething about Hawaii is when you have the
free time, you're able to kindof jump right into it. Growing up
in Chicago, you always have thesewide array of things to do in the
summer, but then the winter comesand it's like you have to a spend
money to go to like an eventor be You're going out to dinner,
going out for drinks, which kindof gets it's not the healthiest lifestyle in
(04:05):
the world. We're out here,You've got the beach at your fingertips,
you got hikes at your fingertips,which is great. Do you ever try
surfing or anything like that, anywater sports? Yeah? Interestingly enough,
it'll probably laugh at me, Lou, but I owned a beach concession,
which is we rented out surfboards.Nice. Yeah, So me and three
(04:28):
of my friends we own the beachand session at the Halikoa for twelve years.
And it's a larger stretch of beachin mikeayh Key where we're able to
rent out equipment. So that wasreally really fun. I did that from
when I was twenty four the noyeah, twenty four to thirty six,
so it was a really fun experience. I was the only white guy in
(04:53):
Hawaii that ownedession, but all myother friends I kind of got brought and
to help with assist with the maintenanceof equipment as well as like the development
of the site, so that thatwas really neat, but kind of got
infused in a lot of the developmentand business side of things. So it
was fun. It was a lotof fun. But working with you know,
(05:14):
fifteen eighteen to twenty four year oldsa day was quite entertaining. So
it was a great college job fora lot of kids because all you're doing
is hint and out surfboards, umbrellas, set up one hundred and fifty umbrellas
a day, and just understanding whatthey're going through and life. That's you
experience a lot of life in thosemoments with your employees, which is a
(05:36):
lot of fun. That sounds amazing. I love surfing. I surfed probably
since I was seventeen, learned inSan Diego, brought it back and went
unsalted surfing on Lake Michigan. Itwas a little raw, Yeah, it
was a little raw. Lake Michigandoesn't let up, so you got to
(05:59):
be ready for those waves, that'sfor sure. Yeah, that's that's a
rough one. Yeah. At leastSan Diego Saltwater, but also too.
You guys are wetsuits both locations prettymuch year around, aren't you. Yes,
yep, absolutely, you have somany businesses it's wild. When did
you get into construction? I gotinto construction when I was twenty four.
(06:25):
Well, I take that back.My uncles were I had three uncles that
were masons. I had my stepdadwho was a union plumber. My brother
in law at the time was asheep metal worker as well as my dad
taught and he finished carpentry. Heinstalled hardwood floors on the side as he
(06:49):
was a police officer, so Ihelped a lot with that. So I'd
been around construction and I've been helpingin construction for a long period of time.
It was what drove me, Ithink, to architecture. So I
got into architecture in high school andthen went to Penn State and I graduated
in two thousand and eight with adegree in Landscape architecture accredited program. So
(07:15):
it was able to be able togo out in the field and get your
license. But two thousand and eighttwo thousand and nine was not a great
time to try and find a jobin the market, so my grandfather asked
me to come out to Hawaii andstart renovating apartments with him, And as
we started doing that, I gotmy license and I found that I really
enjoyed doing it. I thought architecturehad a lot of overlays and a lot
(07:40):
of system overlays, and that wasa complexity of it, where construction has
like sixteen overlays, so it makesthings a lot simpler than architecture landscape architecture.
So I was like, oh,this is kind of cool. And
so what I started to do isI pretty much completed all trades from demo
to finish, and when I didn'tknow something, I would bring in subcontractors
(08:01):
and I would actually hire them onthe weekends, and I would be their
labor so I could throw out alltheir techniques and their language and how they
were doing it, and then Iwould implement those during the week and then
I would rehire them on the weekend, so I could kind of get an
understanding of how the professionals do andthen kind of create my own way of
doing it, and then making surethat I could educate myself enough to be
(08:22):
able to direct them properly. SoI did that for three four years,
and then I started hiring people andmostly just stayed in the high end condo
renovation realm and started to create agood name for ourselves for high quality finishes.
I've always been a big component ofit's very hard to get to a
high quality finish. It's easier toget to a low quality finish. So
(08:46):
let's just kind of break your namein the market there. And we did
that over time, and quality wasalways the number one for me. I
feel like you can charge a fairand good amount of money to be able
to create a lifestyle if you dogood work. And so that really started
to develop and from there, youknow, we hit a five man team
(09:09):
and then fifteen man team, andthen it kind of had to get out
of the field. And then aswe're in this, you know, fifteen
man team, I'm starting to understandthat there's other areas and market sectors where
you're kind of giving money away.Yeah, so I found an area of
opportunity with restoration, and that's howRescue One Restoration came about. We started
(09:33):
noticing that we were giving away alot of high dollar value demolition, so
we decided, rather than continue togive it away, we would take that
upon ourselves. So I started tocreate a company with individuals to be able
to kind of cover that market sector. And it took some time, a
lot of bumps across the way,and you know, you're understanding, this
(09:54):
is a high dollar value market stream, but you need to have a stream
in order for that to keep continuea flow. As well as the restoration
company, I was getting a lotof people asking me about handyman services,
such as like, hey, we'vejust you know, acquired this client and
now we're looking for the client thatwants a ceiling fan replace. And it's
(10:16):
like, that doesn't work with aconstruction company. There's you know it doesn't.
We're not that agile in terms ofthe market sector. So I partnered
up with one of my good friendswho's no longer a partner, but we
we He had a handyman division thathe had created and so we took that
over and it was a lot ofups and downs. You learned a lot
(10:39):
about that market space because you're touchinga lot of clients, and every time
you touch a client, you're gonnahave more interaction, You're gonna have more
ups and downs and wear. Onthe handyman side, you do not so
it was that that kind of cameabout and we developed Pillar to Posts.
I should say I developed acquired Pillarto Post in I forgot when I did
(11:01):
that. That was I was workingwith a home inspector quite often. He
was giving us repair jobs and he'slike, Hey, I need a move
to Iowa and I want to sellmy company. And I was like,
okay, sounds good. I guessI'll buy it. So I bought it
from him. It's a franchise companyonce again, just kind of a market
sector or you're going through and you'relike, oh, find the opportunity and
(11:22):
you and you took an approach andsaid okay, sounds good. So that
kind of came about, and thenI think what was the next company?
Kukula Ana was we were doing abunch of work for Outrogger. So Outgger
Hospitality Group we've been working with forten years, fifteen years, and they've
developed a real solid trust with understandingof our execution with Eli Construction Group.
(11:46):
So over time we started doing abunch of work with them. And everyone
wants that big job or that youknow, big acquisition or this, but
it really comes in stages. Sowe started with small repairs you know,
two thousand to five thousand dollar repairs, and then jumped to twenty five thousand
dollar repairs and then one hundred thousanddollars jobs and then it keeps escalating from
(12:07):
there. But the opportunity then presentedover the past year and a half to
be able to turn and as systemin some of their development. Because I
was already doing that on my projects, they were just asking me to do
it as a construction manager on theirown development project, which was pretty cool.
I was very honored for them tosay, hey, have you know,
(12:28):
can your assist us in this?And I was, of course,
I would love to so that thatwas very exciting. And that's a different
realm that I've been doing for fifteenyears. I just didn't never really got
paid for it. So people arealways asking the questions in this and you
kind of I'm a big proponent ofgive, give, give, give,
give. And then the suirret step. I was a you're gonna laugh at
this one. This was a veryfunny kind of acquisition. Thing was I
(12:52):
was on a project and they spectthe same tile, but one was like,
I think three or four dollars more, and it arrives and I'm like,
it's the same thing. I literally, I'm like, I go to
doll tiles like it's the same.And I was like and they're like,
oh no, no, there's atreatment you can put on tile and the
(13:13):
treatment will make into your tile,carry it next to your rating. And
I was like, no way,I don't believe you. This doesn't work.
I was like, it's got tobe topical. And then it comes
off in a year and it looksthat it starts to yellow, and they're
like, no, no, no, it's something different. So they flew
a guy out to Hawaii to showit to me. So they do the
treatment and I was like, thisis pretty cool. This works. The
(13:33):
best way to describe it is ittakes a ping pong ball transfers it into
a golf ball. So what thatdoes It creates a little pockets, so
the pockets create section cups and whenthere's water there, it kind of sucks
to your foot, which is prettycool. And how it's done is removing
soft particles from the tile. Hardparticles would break the tile. The soft
(13:54):
particles just remove like dirt and allthese different residuals that are on there.
You can't see it from the eyeeither. So I was like okay.
So I'm sitting down at the tabletalking to the guy and he's like,
well, I'm going to come backout here and whenever you guys are completed.
And I said, okay, wellhow much is that going to cost?
(14:16):
You know, like you coming outhere? Like what do you like?
What do I need to provide you? He's like, oh, it's
nothing. He's like okay, cool, So you're just going to come back
out to treat the floor. Howlong you can be here for it?
He's like maybe like four hours andthen I'm done. And I was like
okay, and I ran the numbersin my head. I was like,
you flew to Hawaii and just toshow me the product, flying back out
here just to do four hours ofwork, and doll Tiles charged me like
(14:41):
twelve thousand dollars for this. Iwas like, I need this. Yes,
this looks like a good product fromme. So I asked him.
I was like, how do Iget a hold of it? Do I
sell it? What do I do? He's like, oh, it's a
distribute distribution rights? So I said, okay, who do I talk to
for the distribution rights? This wason Wednesday, I had I had bought
the distribution rights one other for Hawaiiand there's five total. There's one gentleman
(15:07):
that has another one, and thenI had first right of refusal if anyone
else wanted to acquire other license onmy contract that I infused in because I
wanted to make sure that, likeI could control the market if I needed
to. Yeah, So a weeklater I had to buy the rest of
them. But it was okay.Wow. So it's one of those things
where I, if I had moretime in the day, I definitely need
(15:28):
to put some more energy towards thatproduct. But I'm getting enough work that's
streaming in organically, which is great. For example, there's a big restaurant
in Waikiki and I walked in.I almost felt I was like, hey,
you probably need this product in there. I was like, I'll just
come over here and do a littlesample test and I'm like no, no,
no. Three weeks later, they'relike, can we do that little
(15:48):
sample test? And then I did, like, okay, do our whole
restaurant right now. Wow. Yeah, it's one of those It's just but
I, like you say, it'slike I need more time to be able
to develop in the best way todevelopment for something like that is you can
do online. But I also thinka commercial would really just pop that thing
off. It would be really quick. It's time allegation. So yeah,
(16:10):
I'm struggling on that. Other onesare doing well though, So it's it's
not always perfect. It's by anystretch. You just you see open areas
and you build a team, andonce the team's able to sustain itself,
then you're pretty much there for thefire calls and as well as continuing relationships
with clients. You like, seethe opportunity and you just go after.
It's wild And what is this inspirationfor you to be an owner? Like
(16:34):
does it run in the family?Is that that what it is? I
don't. I don't think it's anot everyone has it, b I don't
think it. I've never thought ofwhat I do as like I'm the owner.
It's like you're the leader of theteam. And once, once you've
captured that, you'll notice the residualvalue you have on your employees and how
(16:56):
they no longer think of it asyour company. It's company. And that's
gonna be a big thing for me. I always understand, you know,
even for me. I always telleveryone, go takeifaication, don't abuse it.
I don't want to gone every everyother week. But also we understand
that, like we're human beings andwe all have different whys, and you
(17:17):
have to understand their why. Andonce you understand their why, you can
really best engage with them. Andthen also I'm a big proponent, and
this is something you're gonna hear metell like everyone and I tell it.
And relationships and business and no matterwhat you're doing, think of your relationships
with your employees, with your clients, with your family as like a piggy
bank. If you have a piggybank and every day you put a put
(17:38):
a penny in it, right overthe course of one hundred days, you're
gonna have a hundred pennies in there. Have you ever tried to shake out
a hundred pennies out of a piggybank. It's really hard, really really
hard, you know what I mean. So like, yeah, sometimes you're
gonna have to draw on those pennies, and like you're gonna have to rattle
the piggy bank a little bit,so you're gonna lose a couple, but
you're not getting all a hundred ofthem out. But what a lot of
(18:00):
people like to do is put quartersin, you know, and a quarters.
If you have four quarters in there, it's it's yes, it's the
same amount, but it's not thesame meaning for people with touches. You
know, so, hey, how'syour day going? I am? You
know, what'd you grab for lunchtoday? You know? What do you
do over the weekend? Those littlethings stop them by just to see how
(18:21):
things are going. Those are moreimportant than like a big dinner here and
there. You know, they reallywant to feel hurt and they want to
feel as if you're part of theteam. They're part of the team.
So that's huge for me, andI think it's a good thing you can
take not only just in business,but also in your personal life. You
definitely concentrate on culture, which isyeah, yeah, you wonderful. It
(18:42):
sounds like that could be one ofyour secrets of scaling. One thing I
have the opportunity of doing too,is I have like a great office girl
that I can count on, Danielle. And the reason I can do the
things that I do is that Ihave someone taking care of the stuff that
I don't want to be taken careof, meaning our guys getting a car
(19:03):
accident. You know, she takescare of that. She lets me know
what's happening. She takes care ofthe insurance, the payroll, the this
and that, and so that's somethingthat's removed from my plate that allows me
to keep my capacity open in regardsto, you know, taking on new
jobs or understanding like if I'm notin the office for a week, it
doesn't matter, which is a hugehelp, huge help. Another thing that
(19:27):
I found really good success in andI was actually talking with my buddy Cody,
who owns a surf school. We'retalking about employees and items that struggles
he was going through. I wastalking to him, He's like, what
do you think about like yearly raisesor quarterly raises or this or that.
(19:48):
I said, throw that out thewindow. Man. That's like a very
traditionalist mindset. I feel. Ifyou show up to work and you look
across your table of all your guysand they all left tomorrow, would you
pay them? Mm hmm A bigyeah. And if you look at across
the table and you say, whatdo I wish to pay them? Or
(20:08):
what would I pay them if theywere gone? To pay him? That
right, because that's the value ofthem, right, And you'll never as
an owner to be upset if theyleave if you already paid them what you
feel they're justified for. It's like, you know what, you've got a
greater opportunity doesn't work with what we'redoing here, but congratulations. So I'm
a big, big guy in thatone. I think that's uh, that's
(20:33):
treated me well because there's spent sometimes guys are like, you know,
I was thinking about it. Ifeel like we've been super loyal to you,
and it's like, yeah, you'reright, you're right. You know
you should have I should have probablypaid you a little bit earlier. But
it's something that I did in myyouth and I'm not doing as much anymore.
So what is Cody's surf school becauseI want to know, I'm selfishly
want to know if I ever comeout to Hawaii, give him a shout
(20:55):
out. Stoke Drift, Stoke Drift, Okay, yeah, Stoke Drift Surface
School. Heat. They're right inmike a Key Okay. So it's a
it's a great little spot. Andno, they're they're doing really well.
I'm really proud of him. He'sbeen growing a lot online as well as
organically, and I look forward toseeing kind of their future when they branch
out to because I'm encouraging, Hey, keep growing, man, keep growing.
(21:18):
Don't be afraid. We gotta wegotta make that. Make that a
visit, a trip, make that, make that one happen. Awesome.
So when you're you mentioned previously whenI was talking to you, you have
a couple of kids, you gotyour wife, And when you guys are
out out and about driving around,do you ever do you ever show them,
(21:41):
hey, hey, dad built thator anything like that. Do you
ever point out any projects that youwork on to them? Oh? Yeah,
So my four year old, it'sactually quite entertaining because he loves coming
to any every job side I have. He wants to come there. It's
awesome. Yeah, I know,he's a he's a big construction guy.
And so I let him do somecool things. I'll bring him in at
(22:03):
like the end of the day.And uh so one day we went and
got them all outfitted with PPE andthen he had these like standalone jackhammers.
So I let him. I lethim run it. It's on a stand
so my guy pushes it. Buthe felt like he was doing the whole
thing. He's got the hair plugs, eyes and like gloves. It was
so cute, amazing. So hewas doing that and I asked him to
(22:25):
like clean up a little area.It was like a three by three.
He would not leave until he cleanedthe whole whole thing up and I'm talking
like sweeping it and like it washilarious. Any any concrete poor that we
have, he is there. Imean, I'm telling you, I take
him out of it's preschool, butmy girl gets whatever. It's pre school.
I'll learn about w you know,a later day. So he loves
(22:48):
watching that stuff. But now I'vegotten myself into the troubles every single time
because four year olds ask a lotof questions every single time he sees his
job. So Dad, you doingthat? Oh? I like that.
He's everything, which is cool,but it's not the pressure, the pressure
on you. Yeah. Really intolegos, very into Legos. Yeah.
(23:14):
He always tries to convince me that, like the six hundred and fifty dollars
like crane, that we need itfor our work, And I'm like,
but I'm not using that thing atwork. He needs it in his bedroom.
Yeah. I was like a laughat it, but I was like,
yeah, I love the fact thatthe internal thoughts are you know,
(23:37):
you're trying to figure out how youcan get that thing. I love that
A future pro that's for sure.Yeah, exactly exactly. How do you
How do you have fun with yourconstruction crew? I always say you got
to show uh, whenever you showup to a job site. Ever and
forever. I try and stay awayfrom disciplining any labor unless it's like a
(24:04):
moral thing. I always encourage allmy labor. If I have issues,
I talk to my management away frommy labor to make sure we keep like
a positive energy and community. Sovery encouraging constantly. Also, lunches are
a huge thing. Showing up andbringing just a water and a candy bar
is a huge thing. Saying thankyou is a huge thing. And I
(24:30):
think also you just kind of sinceI grew from the bottom up in regards
to doing the work and moving forward, you kind of understand like, hey,
lunch is great when someone just showsup and you can sit down and
have like a break for an houror for forty five minutes. You know,
at the end of the day,everyone's thirsty. Everyone's hungry kind of
(24:51):
thing. So to those little littlethings over time, and when you see
project success, don't always eat upall the capital or the prop proceeds with
just yourself. I mean, acouple hundred dollars here, a couple hundred
dollars there for all the guys,even the labors, you know, goes
a long way for them. Aroundthe holidays is tough. Like people are
(25:12):
appreciative, and I would say themost appreciative people and your entire crew when
you give away bonuses or do thingsaround the holidays, is probably your labor
staff, which I would highly encouragebecause those guys really are are the groundwork
of where you're starting, and theirsuccess is our success. And you know
(25:36):
one thing if I can give anyoneperspective on and this is something I've done
with my staff a lot too.Try not to do it as much with
my labor staff, but more mymanagement staff is I've walked into a room
and I've had really, really negativeenergy, and it's what I do it
when my team has that negative energy, meaning I see a lot of negativity
(25:56):
in the field, So I'll walkinto a room with them and just not
be nice, just provide that negativeenergy, and then within three minutes,
just stop and be like, didyou guys like it? All? Right?
Do you ever see me do this? Is that how I portray myself?
And then we go back to thepositivity, right, And that's positivity
breeds positivity. Negativity breeds negativity,and that's a big thing culturally too.
(26:18):
So if we if I see thoseguys that are kind of bringing everyone down,
I just say thank you for theopportunity to work together. This isn't
gonna work. It's going to bea short term loss, but a long
term game. Constantly, you don'twant those bad apples because those bad apples
bring a lot of people down.You got to Yeah, you got to
weed them out and you lead byexample, which is awesome. I think
(26:41):
that's the way to do it.When you're trying to bring in new recruits
or new hires, what is theway that you recruit today? I ask
individuals like, if they have anyonethat has like I go after good humans
because I can develop good humans.It's hard to go after talent. Talent's
(27:02):
always difficult for an any market sectoryou're at. So I'm a big proponent
of understanding that you know, we'regoing to have people come and go.
But the more you can develop people, the more they'll have some loyalty towards
you and also to your You getto mold them. But the problem with
that, it's not instant satisfaction,So it's going to take a year or
(27:23):
two to really get their potential out, which I'm okay with. And I
understand because I've tried to grow toofast and I hit too many wrinkles and
I didn't say the rewarding it.I was the fastest growing company in Hawaiian
I believe it was twenty nineteen forhandy Any Hawaii. Two thousand and seven,
(27:45):
the revenue was like six hundred thousandand I went to five point five
million. And I just found toomany hiccups that I wasn't personally satisfied with.
So I think a lot of timeslike can you grow revenue and can
you do these things? And youhappy with where you're at? And I
wasn't happy with where I was at. I didn't enjoy work. I didn't
enjoy the development process. And Iunderstand and I understood why because we were
(28:08):
really going after revenue. When we'regoing after revenue, you take everything and
anything in terms of work, andmy staff wasn't prepared for it. They
weren't skilled enough to handle the obstacles, where now you grow a little bit
more organically and you allow your teamto go through those trials and tribulations together
(28:30):
and that then allows them to overcomethe obstacles without infusing you, which is
huge And that's a big proponent forme right now is nothing really gets to
me until it needs to be adecision made, meaning, how do you
want to do this. We cango this route or this route you pick,
and it's like, okay, let'sgo this route, rather than me
(28:52):
coming up to the divide in theroad and having developed all those alternatives.
So yeah, it's a lot oflearning experience though over time, and I
think if people are worried about failure, then you probably shouldn't be in the
position of being the leader because thefailures typically will provide the most scar tissue
(29:15):
and definitely allow you to understand it'spart of growth as well as understand hey,
like if this was easy for everyone, everyone would be doing it.
So you just have to take thecontext that this is something we take upon
ourselves and you know, it's goodfun every day. You got to keep
(29:38):
your head on your shoulders and smileon your face and just keep moving forward.
Man that you have such a bigspike in the revenue too, did
you do anything special? Even fromlike a marketing standpoint, How do you
get yourself out there? So wespent quite a bit of money on marketing.
We spend a so we did alot of online marketing from Facebook,
(30:03):
Instagram. Instagram was very big atthat time. We did let's see,
we did a lot of community items, so we would we would go to
pretty much like every sales show.We had people on the ground, so
quite a bit of follow ups.We developed whatever we could do with like
(30:27):
the news industry for social proof.We would get ourselves out there. So
it was all boots on the groundto try and generate and get the phone
ring. And the phone was ringinga lot. I mean we would get
forty leads a day, which onthe handyman side of things is crazy.
Yeah, And understanding that the handymanspace is very complex, and the reason
(30:49):
it's so complex is if you're anelectrician, somebody calls you for electrical work,
Well, we're getting calls for likeeverything, right, and sometimes we
didn't have the skill set a todo the work or b to even bid
the work. You know, you'relike I have a handle on my window
and it's broken, and it's like, okay, well we need to source
(31:12):
the handle. Then once we sourcethe handle, then we can give you
a price, and then we cangive you and there it's like, well,
you figure out the handles, youknow, eight dollars, but when
you have to go there four timesbecause it doesn't match and you only have
one hundred and fifty dollars and likea bid, like it doesn't make sense.
So you have to understand like whereyour your market space fits. This
(31:34):
is a lot of things that welearned along the way that I was just
like WHOA, Okay, that's orbuilding revenue, but it's a smart revenue.
Is it financially profitable? Something thatyou said at the beginning, you
do advertising on Instagram and Facebook?Do you what do you see more fruitful
Facebook or Instagram? Instagram? Ithink is as much as you would get
(32:02):
Facebook leads, Instagram gives you moretouches. And typically once you hit twelve
touches in terms of your logo orthis or your slogan, people will start
to come back too. So wewere able to tap people more in terms
of understanding who we are and whatwe do, and that then creates them
(32:22):
to say, oh, yeah,I would sell you on Instagram or and
then I saw one of your vansand then it's like I figured I'd give
you a call. So you're like, oh, okay, cool, thank
you nice? Do you make itlike any Instagram reels and stuff like that.
We were trying to really so itwas paid to play, honestly,
(32:42):
that's the Yeah, a lot ofthat. And then so if you can
push yourself out there in the localcommunity, it was a big thing.
And then we also had a proponent. We had a lot of veteran guys
that were coming out of the serviceand we're trying to make it a transitional
employment platform for them. Yeah,so it was something that was pretty neat
(33:04):
and we were trying to develop aplatform for them to come and we would
train them for two years. Itdidn't take off like we wanted to.
I had some partnership issues and itkind of kind of fell down the roots
of what we were trying to doand now it's just more of like a
traditional handyman company. I would loveto get back there, but it just
(33:25):
takes a lot of capital in orderto get there, and I understand that
I've been on the bottom side ofthat. So it's just it's a difficult
market space without proper training, andthere's no one that really has proper training
for the handyman space currently. Besidesjust saying, I've been part of,
you know, renovations, high inrenovations and you know, so that's where
(33:45):
I kind of feel comfortable in thatspace because I used to do everything,
but not everyone has the same trainingor background, and it's a unique background.
Do you ever utilize technology to helpwith any of that type of stuff,
any back office stuff, even evenin the field. Every company,
we use a wide variety of technologyto be able to to really facilitate our
(34:07):
needs. So we use technology forall of our CRM and then all of
our accounting programs as well as ahuge one that we use as we have
a company wide We don't use textmessage anymore. We use Slack. So
the reason I bring that up iswe use that constantly. In that way,
it's an internal form of communication.That's probably what we use the most
(34:29):
on a day to day basis outsideof our accounting CRM and like job platforms.
I just found great value and understandingthat we're all in one place on
inside text messages everywhere and no onecan see anything. You weren't on that
one. Oh yeah, well wheredo people find your business? So where
(34:52):
do you strictly do business? Imean, it might be a dumb question
to say, just why, Yeah, you're gonna at this one. So
well, the the Kukulana management's alittle bit different. So we're we're on
all islands, so we're managing quitea bit of property. We have one
development in Maui right now, wehave won development in Kona. We're working
(35:15):
on a couple of developments for Aburgerand o Wahu, but all of our
other businesses are all in Ohahu.And actually, something I might try and
portray to people is so our constructioncompany, one of the facets I was
noticing is we were too spread out. So I really decided that we're just
going to stay in Waikiki and we'reonly going to do work in Waikiki.
(35:35):
And this is when COVID hit andeveryone laughed at me and my company,
and I was like, no,we're just going to stay in Waikiki.
And now we'll have eight to tentrucks, just simply working in Waikiki every
single day, and it's been veryfruitful. Because you don't have an hour
drive here an hour drive there.I can steal a van that has this
tool and bring it here. Butif you're if you want to focus on
(35:57):
a market sector and you want tocapitalize it, you will do it.
It's just going to take time.It took us about two years to be
able to get there, and everythingyou do is going to take time.
It does. It doesn't happen overnight. You need an opportunity and then you
need to capitalize on it. Yougot to take the next opportunity and capitalize
on it, and before you knowit, you'll have too much work and
you won't know what to do withit. Is it easy for people to
(36:19):
get ahold of you? Do?They just go to a specific website for
each company? Is that how?Oh? Yeah? Pretty much all the
companies are you know, google themand you'll find them on you know,
Luconstruction Group dot com, Handy AndyHi Service Division, dot US, Rescue
One Restoration dot US, sure Stepidot com, and Googolanta Management dot com.
(36:40):
So we're we're just pretty We don'tdo a whole lot of advertising.
And the reason I've been besides thehandyman company and restoration company, so those
shoe services are more in need theother ones are more planned is I've noticed
that I enjoy my clients and Ienjoy developing clients a little bit more organically.
When I get clients that are we'reoff the internet, sometimes I don't
(37:02):
really know how they act or thisor that. So I've just spent a
little bit more patient in understanding that. You know, the work will come,
it's just who do you want theclients to be. The last question
that I have before we wrap up, do you have any advice for new
construction owners that you'd like to sharewith the listeners. Yeah, understand your
(37:24):
market, understand your cost and capitalizeon that, and do good work.
Because at the end of the day, don't try and be someone you're not.
I see it happen all the time, and people are very unsuccessful at
it. If you're good at somethingdoesn't mean you're going to be good at
everything, right, So you know, the classic thing is the taper tries
(37:45):
to paint and you're like, juststay taping, I do it. They
just do your thing. Man you'regood at that, so yeah, that
would be a big one. Andthen also, don't be afraid to take
opportunity. Take take on opportunities,make sure they don't financially hit you,
hurt you. But every every riskyou take, there's opportunity behind it,
(38:10):
whether it's financially or whether it's alearning experience. Thank you for being a
guest on the show. And yeah, absolutely please everyone like, subscribe,
comment, and share the Builder UpperShow with anyone in the construction industry.
We will see you next time.If you're a construction contractor and would like
(38:40):
to appear as a guest on ourpodcast, write us an email. It's
Lou at lumberfi dot com.
Hey, everyone, We're in fullforce in twenty twenty four and already at
episode five. If you're new,amlu your host of The Builder Upper Show,
a podcast where we talk about everythingin construction and trades. Now let's
get into it. I would liketo welcome our guest, Richard Elliott,
(00:22):
owner of Elliott Construction Group, CuckoounaManagement, Rescue One Restoration, Handy,
Andy Hawaii Service Division, and Pillarto Post oh one more sure step Hawaii.
If that's not enough, can youcan you believe it? How many
things rich Elliott is doing so richthank you so much for joining us today.
How are you doing awesome? Awesome, having a wonderful morning so far?
(00:46):
How about yourself there, I'm doingwonderful. It's the beginning of the
year. I'm excited to, youknow, kick this off. This this
podcast will probably come out the secondmonth of the year. But you know,
right now, my feeling is justI'm full bore and I'm really excited
to have you on the show.You're an entrepreneur with many talents, and
(01:07):
you have so much going on,and you're juggling a lot. I'm glad
that you're just spending the time withme. Right now to to talk about
your experience. So maybe just tokick it off, you want to talk
about maybe one of your most recentprojects. One of our most recent projects
that we completed on the construction sidewas just definitely a fun and interesting project
(01:29):
was redeveloping a pool in the middleof a hotel that was operating. It
was quite an experience. It wassomething that I didn't expect to do or
was you know, very intrigued onbecause the design was incredible and the team
was incredible, but the psychondistance wasnot. But it turned out to be
(01:53):
a very rewarding job. We learneda lot along the way. And then
on the Kukula on a management side, probably one of the most intriguing projects
that we're having right now as we'reactually the construction managers for the Circusilla show
that's coming to Hawaii. Oh yeah, So that project is going to be
(02:13):
completed at the end of twenty twentyfour, which is this year now.
Wow. Crazy. So they're goingto have a standalone show that's coming to
Hawaii, which is going to bepretty cool and pretty interesting. It's going
to draw a lot of revenue forthe state as well as just something really
cool to be a part of becauseonly standalone Circusila shows are in major metropolitan
(02:36):
cities, and this is the firstLeo's say, smaller market, but it's
going to draw a lot of attention. So I'm very very excited about that
and look forward to the show launchingthem at the end of November early December.
So that'll be pretty cool, prettycool. Sneak sneak peek into yeah,
(02:57):
yeah, into what's to come.I'm me and my wife are big
fans of service Lay, so makinga trip out to Hawaii, you just
enjoy that. Yeah, absolutely.You You get to work, work in
the fun, in the fun weatherlike all year round. It's unbelievable.
So does does the weather aspect justmake it that much more exciting to get
outside and get stuff done? Everyoneasked, well, I ever moved back
(03:23):
to Chicago? Not a chance.I heard the same thing every single day.
I never have to look at theweather report. It's either sunny or
rainy, and like even on theweekend, it's like board shorts with a
shirt or no shirt. That's ouroptions. So that sounds awesome lifestyle,
right, So when you have timeand you have free time, what are
(03:43):
you going to do. And nicething about Hawaii is when you have the
free time, you're able to kindof jump right into it. Growing up
in Chicago, you always have thesewide array of things to do in the
summer, but then the winter comesand it's like you have to a spend
money to go to like an eventor be You're going out to dinner,
going out for drinks, which kindof gets it's not the healthiest lifestyle in
(04:05):
the world. We're out here,You've got the beach at your fingertips,
you got hikes at your fingertips,which is great. Do you ever try
surfing or anything like that, anywater sports? Yeah? Interestingly enough,
it'll probably laugh at me, Lou, but I owned a beach concession,
which is we rented out surfboards.Nice. Yeah, So me and three
(04:28):
of my friends we own the beachand session at the Halikoa for twelve years.
And it's a larger stretch of beachin mikeayh Key where we're able to
rent out equipment. So that wasreally really fun. I did that from
when I was twenty four the noyeah, twenty four to thirty six,
so it was a really fun experience. I was the only white guy in
(04:53):
Hawaii that ownedession, but all myother friends I kind of got brought and
to help with assist with the maintenanceof equipment as well as like the development
of the site, so that thatwas really neat, but kind of got
infused in a lot of the developmentand business side of things. So it
was fun. It was a lotof fun. But working with you know,
(05:14):
fifteen eighteen to twenty four year oldsa day was quite entertaining. So
it was a great college job fora lot of kids because all you're doing
is hint and out surfboards, umbrellas, set up one hundred and fifty umbrellas
a day, and just understanding whatthey're going through and life. That's you
experience a lot of life in thosemoments with your employees, which is a
(05:36):
lot of fun. That sounds amazing. I love surfing. I surfed probably
since I was seventeen, learned inSan Diego, brought it back and went
unsalted surfing on Lake Michigan. Itwas a little raw, Yeah, it
was a little raw. Lake Michigandoesn't let up, so you got to
(05:59):
be ready for those waves, that'sfor sure. Yeah, that's that's a
rough one. Yeah. At leastSan Diego Saltwater, but also too.
You guys are wetsuits both locations prettymuch year around, aren't you. Yes,
yep, absolutely, you have somany businesses it's wild. When did
you get into construction? I gotinto construction when I was twenty four.
(06:25):
Well, I take that back.My uncles were I had three uncles that
were masons. I had my stepdadwho was a union plumber. My brother
in law at the time was asheep metal worker as well as my dad
taught and he finished carpentry. Heinstalled hardwood floors on the side as he
(06:49):
was a police officer, so Ihelped a lot with that. So I'd
been around construction and I've been helpingin construction for a long period of time.
It was what drove me, Ithink, to architecture. So I
got into architecture in high school andthen went to Penn State and I graduated
in two thousand and eight with adegree in Landscape architecture accredited program. So
(07:15):
it was able to be able togo out in the field and get your
license. But two thousand and eighttwo thousand and nine was not a great
time to try and find a jobin the market, so my grandfather asked
me to come out to Hawaii andstart renovating apartments with him, And as
we started doing that, I gotmy license and I found that I really
enjoyed doing it. I thought architecturehad a lot of overlays and a lot
(07:40):
of system overlays, and that wasa complexity of it, where construction has
like sixteen overlays, so it makesthings a lot simpler than architecture landscape architecture.
So I was like, oh,this is kind of cool. And
so what I started to do isI pretty much completed all trades from demo
to finish, and when I didn'tknow something, I would bring in subcontractors
(08:01):
and I would actually hire them onthe weekends, and I would be their
labor so I could throw out alltheir techniques and their language and how they
were doing it, and then Iwould implement those during the week and then
I would rehire them on the weekend, so I could kind of get an
understanding of how the professionals do andthen kind of create my own way of
doing it, and then making surethat I could educate myself enough to be
(08:22):
able to direct them properly. SoI did that for three four years,
and then I started hiring people andmostly just stayed in the high end condo
renovation realm and started to create agood name for ourselves for high quality finishes.
I've always been a big component ofit's very hard to get to a
high quality finish. It's easier toget to a low quality finish. So
(08:46):
let's just kind of break your namein the market there. And we did
that over time, and quality wasalways the number one for me. I
feel like you can charge a fairand good amount of money to be able
to create a lifestyle if you dogood work. And so that really started
to develop and from there, youknow, we hit a five man team
(09:09):
and then fifteen man team, andthen it kind of had to get out
of the field. And then aswe're in this, you know, fifteen
man team, I'm starting to understandthat there's other areas and market sectors where
you're kind of giving money away.Yeah, so I found an area of
opportunity with restoration, and that's howRescue One Restoration came about. We started
(09:33):
noticing that we were giving away alot of high dollar value demolition, so
we decided, rather than continue togive it away, we would take that
upon ourselves. So I started tocreate a company with individuals to be able
to kind of cover that market sector. And it took some time, a
lot of bumps across the way,and you know, you're understanding, this
(09:54):
is a high dollar value market stream, but you need to have a stream
in order for that to keep continuea flow. As well as the restoration
company, I was getting a lotof people asking me about handyman services,
such as like, hey, we'vejust you know, acquired this client and
now we're looking for the client thatwants a ceiling fan replace. And it's
(10:16):
like, that doesn't work with aconstruction company. There's you know it doesn't.
We're not that agile in terms ofthe market sector. So I partnered
up with one of my good friendswho's no longer a partner, but we
we He had a handyman division thathe had created and so we took that
over and it was a lot ofups and downs. You learned a lot
(10:39):
about that market space because you're touchinga lot of clients, and every time
you touch a client, you're gonnahave more interaction, You're gonna have more
ups and downs and wear. Onthe handyman side, you do not so
it was that that kind of cameabout and we developed Pillar to Posts.
I should say I developed acquired Pillarto Post in I forgot when I did
(11:01):
that. That was I was workingwith a home inspector quite often. He
was giving us repair jobs and he'slike, Hey, I need a move
to Iowa and I want to sellmy company. And I was like,
okay, sounds good. I guessI'll buy it. So I bought it
from him. It's a franchise companyonce again, just kind of a market
sector or you're going through and you'relike, oh, find the opportunity and
(11:22):
you and you took an approach andsaid okay, sounds good. So that
kind of came about, and thenI think what was the next company?
Kukula Ana was we were doing abunch of work for Outrogger. So Outgger
Hospitality Group we've been working with forten years, fifteen years, and they've
developed a real solid trust with understandingof our execution with Eli Construction Group.
(11:46):
So over time we started doing abunch of work with them. And everyone
wants that big job or that youknow, big acquisition or this, but
it really comes in stages. Sowe started with small repairs you know,
two thousand to five thousand dollar repairs, and then jumped to twenty five thousand
dollar repairs and then one hundred thousanddollars jobs and then it keeps escalating from
(12:07):
there. But the opportunity then presentedover the past year and a half to
be able to turn and as systemin some of their development. Because I
was already doing that on my projects, they were just asking me to do
it as a construction manager on theirown development project, which was pretty cool.
I was very honored for them tosay, hey, have you know,
(12:28):
can your assist us in this?And I was, of course,
I would love to so that thatwas very exciting. And that's a different
realm that I've been doing for fifteenyears. I just didn't never really got
paid for it. So people arealways asking the questions in this and you
kind of I'm a big proponent ofgive, give, give, give,
give. And then the suirret step. I was a you're gonna laugh at
this one. This was a veryfunny kind of acquisition. Thing was I
(12:52):
was on a project and they spectthe same tile, but one was like,
I think three or four dollars more, and it arrives and I'm like,
it's the same thing. I literally, I'm like, I go to
doll tiles like it's the same.And I was like and they're like,
oh no, no, there's atreatment you can put on tile and the
(13:13):
treatment will make into your tile,carry it next to your rating. And
I was like, no way,I don't believe you. This doesn't work.
I was like, it's got tobe topical. And then it comes
off in a year and it looksthat it starts to yellow, and they're
like, no, no, no, it's something different. So they flew
a guy out to Hawaii to showit to me. So they do the
treatment and I was like, thisis pretty cool. This works. The
(13:33):
best way to describe it is ittakes a ping pong ball transfers it into
a golf ball. So what thatdoes It creates a little pockets, so
the pockets create section cups and whenthere's water there, it kind of sucks
to your foot, which is prettycool. And how it's done is removing
soft particles from the tile. Hardparticles would break the tile. The soft
(13:54):
particles just remove like dirt and allthese different residuals that are on there.
You can't see it from the eyeeither. So I was like okay.
So I'm sitting down at the tabletalking to the guy and he's like,
well, I'm going to come backout here and whenever you guys are completed.
And I said, okay, wellhow much is that going to cost?
(14:16):
You know, like you coming outhere? Like what do you like?
What do I need to provide you? He's like, oh, it's
nothing. He's like okay, cool, So you're just going to come back
out to treat the floor. Howlong you can be here for it?
He's like maybe like four hours andthen I'm done. And I was like
okay, and I ran the numbersin my head. I was like,
you flew to Hawaii and just toshow me the product, flying back out
here just to do four hours ofwork, and doll Tiles charged me like
(14:41):
twelve thousand dollars for this. Iwas like, I need this. Yes,
this looks like a good product fromme. So I asked him.
I was like, how do Iget a hold of it? Do I
sell it? What do I do? He's like, oh, it's a
distribute distribution rights? So I said, okay, who do I talk to
for the distribution rights? This wason Wednesday, I had I had bought
the distribution rights one other for Hawaiiand there's five total. There's one gentleman
(15:07):
that has another one, and thenI had first right of refusal if anyone
else wanted to acquire other license onmy contract that I infused in because I
wanted to make sure that, likeI could control the market if I needed
to. Yeah, So a weeklater I had to buy the rest of
them. But it was okay.Wow. So it's one of those things
where I, if I had moretime in the day, I definitely need
(15:28):
to put some more energy towards thatproduct. But I'm getting enough work that's
streaming in organically, which is great. For example, there's a big restaurant
in Waikiki and I walked in.I almost felt I was like, hey,
you probably need this product in there. I was like, I'll just
come over here and do a littlesample test and I'm like no, no,
no. Three weeks later, they'relike, can we do that little
(15:48):
sample test? And then I did, like, okay, do our whole
restaurant right now. Wow. Yeah, it's one of those It's just but
I, like you say, it'slike I need more time to be able
to develop in the best way todevelopment for something like that is you can
do online. But I also thinka commercial would really just pop that thing
off. It would be really quick. It's time allegation. So yeah,
(16:10):
I'm struggling on that. Other onesare doing well though, So it's it's
not always perfect. It's by anystretch. You just you see open areas
and you build a team, andonce the team's able to sustain itself,
then you're pretty much there for thefire calls and as well as continuing relationships
with clients. You like, seethe opportunity and you just go after.
It's wild And what is this inspirationfor you to be an owner? Like
(16:34):
does it run in the family?Is that that what it is? I
don't. I don't think it's anot everyone has it, b I don't
think it. I've never thought ofwhat I do as like I'm the owner.
It's like you're the leader of theteam. And once, once you've
captured that, you'll notice the residualvalue you have on your employees and how
(16:56):
they no longer think of it asyour company. It's company. And that's
gonna be a big thing for me. I always understand, you know,
even for me. I always telleveryone, go takeifaication, don't abuse it.
I don't want to gone every everyother week. But also we understand
that, like we're human beings andwe all have different whys, and you
(17:17):
have to understand their why. Andonce you understand their why, you can
really best engage with them. Andthen also I'm a big proponent, and
this is something you're gonna hear metell like everyone and I tell it.
And relationships and business and no matterwhat you're doing, think of your relationships
with your employees, with your clients, with your family as like a piggy
bank. If you have a piggybank and every day you put a put
(17:38):
a penny in it, right overthe course of one hundred days, you're
gonna have a hundred pennies in there. Have you ever tried to shake out
a hundred pennies out of a piggybank. It's really hard, really really
hard, you know what I mean. So like, yeah, sometimes you're
gonna have to draw on those pennies, and like you're gonna have to rattle
the piggy bank a little bit,so you're gonna lose a couple, but
you're not getting all a hundred ofthem out. But what a lot of
(18:00):
people like to do is put quartersin, you know, and a quarters.
If you have four quarters in there, it's it's yes, it's the
same amount, but it's not thesame meaning for people with touches. You
know, so, hey, how'syour day going? I am? You
know, what'd you grab for lunchtoday? You know? What do you
do over the weekend? Those littlethings stop them by just to see how
(18:21):
things are going. Those are moreimportant than like a big dinner here and
there. You know, they reallywant to feel hurt and they want to
feel as if you're part of theteam. They're part of the team.
So that's huge for me, andI think it's a good thing you can
take not only just in business,but also in your personal life. You
definitely concentrate on culture, which isyeah, yeah, you wonderful. It
(18:42):
sounds like that could be one ofyour secrets of scaling. One thing I
have the opportunity of doing too,is I have like a great office girl
that I can count on, Danielle. And the reason I can do the
things that I do is that Ihave someone taking care of the stuff that
I don't want to be taken careof, meaning our guys getting a car
(19:03):
accident. You know, she takescare of that. She lets me know
what's happening. She takes care ofthe insurance, the payroll, the this
and that, and so that's somethingthat's removed from my plate that allows me
to keep my capacity open in regardsto, you know, taking on new
jobs or understanding like if I'm notin the office for a week, it
doesn't matter, which is a hugehelp, huge help. Another thing that
(19:27):
I found really good success in andI was actually talking with my buddy Cody,
who owns a surf school. We'retalking about employees and items that struggles
he was going through. I wastalking to him, He's like, what
do you think about like yearly raisesor quarterly raises or this or that.
(19:48):
I said, throw that out thewindow. Man. That's like a very
traditionalist mindset. I feel. Ifyou show up to work and you look
across your table of all your guysand they all left tomorrow, would you
pay them? Mm hmm A bigyeah. And if you look at across
the table and you say, whatdo I wish to pay them? Or
(20:08):
what would I pay them if theywere gone? To pay him? That
right, because that's the value ofthem, right, And you'll never as
an owner to be upset if theyleave if you already paid them what you
feel they're justified for. It's like, you know what, you've got a
greater opportunity doesn't work with what we'redoing here, but congratulations. So I'm
a big, big guy in thatone. I think that's uh, that's
(20:33):
treated me well because there's spent sometimes guys are like, you know,
I was thinking about it. Ifeel like we've been super loyal to you,
and it's like, yeah, you'reright, you're right. You know
you should have I should have probablypaid you a little bit earlier. But
it's something that I did in myyouth and I'm not doing as much anymore.
So what is Cody's surf school becauseI want to know, I'm selfishly
want to know if I ever comeout to Hawaii, give him a shout
(20:55):
out. Stoke Drift, Stoke Drift, Okay, yeah, Stoke Drift Surface
School. Heat. They're right inmike a Key Okay. So it's a
it's a great little spot. Andno, they're they're doing really well.
I'm really proud of him. He'sbeen growing a lot online as well as
organically, and I look forward toseeing kind of their future when they branch
out to because I'm encouraging, Hey, keep growing, man, keep growing.
(21:18):
Don't be afraid. We gotta wegotta make that. Make that a
visit, a trip, make that, make that one happen. Awesome.
So when you're you mentioned previously whenI was talking to you, you have
a couple of kids, you gotyour wife, And when you guys are
out out and about driving around,do you ever do you ever show them,
(21:41):
hey, hey, dad built thator anything like that. Do you
ever point out any projects that youwork on to them? Oh? Yeah,
So my four year old, it'sactually quite entertaining because he loves coming
to any every job side I have. He wants to come there. It's
awesome. Yeah, I know,he's a he's a big construction guy.
And so I let him do somecool things. I'll bring him in at
(22:03):
like the end of the day.And uh so one day we went and
got them all outfitted with PPE andthen he had these like standalone jackhammers.
So I let him. I lethim run it. It's on a stand
so my guy pushes it. Buthe felt like he was doing the whole
thing. He's got the hair plugs, eyes and like gloves. It was
so cute, amazing. So hewas doing that and I asked him to
(22:25):
like clean up a little area.It was like a three by three.
He would not leave until he cleanedthe whole whole thing up and I'm talking
like sweeping it and like it washilarious. Any any concrete poor that we
have, he is there. Imean, I'm telling you, I take
him out of it's preschool, butmy girl gets whatever. It's pre school.
I'll learn about w you know,a later day. So he loves
(22:48):
watching that stuff. But now I'vegotten myself into the troubles every single time
because four year olds ask a lotof questions every single time he sees his
job. So Dad, you doingthat? Oh? I like that.
He's everything, which is cool,but it's not the pressure, the pressure
on you. Yeah. Really intolegos, very into Legos. Yeah.
(23:14):
He always tries to convince me that, like the six hundred and fifty dollars
like crane, that we need itfor our work, And I'm like,
but I'm not using that thing atwork. He needs it in his bedroom.
Yeah. I was like a laughat it, but I was like,
yeah, I love the fact thatthe internal thoughts are you know,
(23:37):
you're trying to figure out how youcan get that thing. I love that
A future pro that's for sure.Yeah, exactly exactly. How do you
How do you have fun with yourconstruction crew? I always say you got
to show uh, whenever you showup to a job site. Ever and
forever. I try and stay awayfrom disciplining any labor unless it's like a
(24:04):
moral thing. I always encourage allmy labor. If I have issues,
I talk to my management away frommy labor to make sure we keep like
a positive energy and community. Sovery encouraging constantly. Also, lunches are
a huge thing. Showing up andbringing just a water and a candy bar
is a huge thing. Saying thankyou is a huge thing. And I
(24:30):
think also you just kind of sinceI grew from the bottom up in regards
to doing the work and moving forward, you kind of understand like, hey,
lunch is great when someone just showsup and you can sit down and
have like a break for an houror for forty five minutes. You know,
at the end of the day,everyone's thirsty. Everyone's hungry kind of
(24:51):
thing. So to those little littlethings over time, and when you see
project success, don't always eat upall the capital or the prop proceeds with
just yourself. I mean, acouple hundred dollars here, a couple hundred
dollars there for all the guys,even the labors, you know, goes
a long way for them. Aroundthe holidays is tough. Like people are
(25:12):
appreciative, and I would say themost appreciative people and your entire crew when
you give away bonuses or do thingsaround the holidays, is probably your labor
staff, which I would highly encouragebecause those guys really are are the groundwork
of where you're starting, and theirsuccess is our success. And you know
(25:36):
one thing if I can give anyoneperspective on and this is something I've done
with my staff a lot too.Try not to do it as much with
my labor staff, but more mymanagement staff is I've walked into a room
and I've had really, really negativeenergy, and it's what I do it
when my team has that negative energy, meaning I see a lot of negativity
(25:56):
in the field, So I'll walkinto a room with them and just not
be nice, just provide that negativeenergy, and then within three minutes,
just stop and be like, didyou guys like it? All? Right?
Do you ever see me do this? Is that how I portray myself?
And then we go back to thepositivity, right, And that's positivity
breeds positivity. Negativity breeds negativity,and that's a big thing culturally too.
(26:18):
So if we if I see thoseguys that are kind of bringing everyone down,
I just say thank you for theopportunity to work together. This isn't
gonna work. It's going to bea short term loss, but a long
term game. Constantly, you don'twant those bad apples because those bad apples
bring a lot of people down.You got to Yeah, you got to
weed them out and you lead byexample, which is awesome. I think
(26:41):
that's the way to do it.When you're trying to bring in new recruits
or new hires, what is theway that you recruit today? I ask
individuals like, if they have anyonethat has like I go after good humans
because I can develop good humans.It's hard to go after talent. Talent's
(27:02):
always difficult for an any market sectoryou're at. So I'm a big proponent
of understanding that you know, we'regoing to have people come and go.
But the more you can develop people, the more they'll have some loyalty towards
you and also to your You getto mold them. But the problem with
that, it's not instant satisfaction,So it's going to take a year or
(27:23):
two to really get their potential out, which I'm okay with. And I
understand because I've tried to grow toofast and I hit too many wrinkles and
I didn't say the rewarding it.I was the fastest growing company in Hawaiian
I believe it was twenty nineteen forhandy Any Hawaii. Two thousand and seven,
(27:45):
the revenue was like six hundred thousandand I went to five point five
million. And I just found toomany hiccups that I wasn't personally satisfied with.
So I think a lot of timeslike can you grow revenue and can
you do these things? And youhappy with where you're at? And I
wasn't happy with where I was at. I didn't enjoy work. I didn't
enjoy the development process. And Iunderstand and I understood why because we were
(28:08):
really going after revenue. When we'regoing after revenue, you take everything and
anything in terms of work, andmy staff wasn't prepared for it. They
weren't skilled enough to handle the obstacles, where now you grow a little bit
more organically and you allow your teamto go through those trials and tribulations together
(28:30):
and that then allows them to overcomethe obstacles without infusing you, which is
huge And that's a big proponent forme right now is nothing really gets to
me until it needs to be adecision made, meaning, how do you
want to do this. We cango this route or this route you pick,
and it's like, okay, let'sgo this route, rather than me
(28:52):
coming up to the divide in theroad and having developed all those alternatives.
So yeah, it's a lot oflearning experience though over time, and I
think if people are worried about failure, then you probably shouldn't be in the
position of being the leader because thefailures typically will provide the most scar tissue
(29:15):
and definitely allow you to understand it'spart of growth as well as understand hey,
like if this was easy for everyone, everyone would be doing it.
So you just have to take thecontext that this is something we take upon
ourselves and you know, it's goodfun every day. You got to keep
(29:38):
your head on your shoulders and smileon your face and just keep moving forward.
Man that you have such a bigspike in the revenue too, did
you do anything special? Even fromlike a marketing standpoint, How do you
get yourself out there? So wespent quite a bit of money on marketing.
We spend a so we did alot of online marketing from Facebook,
(30:03):
Instagram. Instagram was very big atthat time. We did let's see,
we did a lot of community items, so we would we would go to
pretty much like every sales show.We had people on the ground, so
quite a bit of follow ups.We developed whatever we could do with like
(30:27):
the news industry for social proof.We would get ourselves out there. So
it was all boots on the groundto try and generate and get the phone
ring. And the phone was ringinga lot. I mean we would get
forty leads a day, which onthe handyman side of things is crazy.
Yeah, And understanding that the handymanspace is very complex, and the reason
(30:49):
it's so complex is if you're anelectrician, somebody calls you for electrical work,
Well, we're getting calls for likeeverything, right, and sometimes we
didn't have the skill set a todo the work or b to even bid
the work. You know, you'relike I have a handle on my window
and it's broken, and it's like, okay, well we need to source
(31:12):
the handle. Then once we sourcethe handle, then we can give you
a price, and then we cangive you and there it's like, well,
you figure out the handles, youknow, eight dollars, but when
you have to go there four timesbecause it doesn't match and you only have
one hundred and fifty dollars and likea bid, like it doesn't make sense.
So you have to understand like whereyour your market space fits. This
(31:34):
is a lot of things that welearned along the way that I was just
like WHOA, Okay, that's orbuilding revenue, but it's a smart revenue.
Is it financially profitable? Something thatyou said at the beginning, you
do advertising on Instagram and Facebook?Do you what do you see more fruitful
Facebook or Instagram? Instagram? Ithink is as much as you would get
(32:02):
Facebook leads, Instagram gives you moretouches. And typically once you hit twelve
touches in terms of your logo orthis or your slogan, people will start
to come back too. So wewere able to tap people more in terms
of understanding who we are and whatwe do, and that then creates them
(32:22):
to say, oh, yeah,I would sell you on Instagram or and
then I saw one of your vansand then it's like I figured I'd give
you a call. So you're like, oh, okay, cool, thank
you nice? Do you make itlike any Instagram reels and stuff like that.
We were trying to really so itwas paid to play, honestly,
(32:42):
that's the Yeah, a lot ofthat. And then so if you can
push yourself out there in the localcommunity, it was a big thing.
And then we also had a proponent. We had a lot of veteran guys
that were coming out of the serviceand we're trying to make it a transitional
employment platform for them. Yeah,so it was something that was pretty neat
(33:04):
and we were trying to develop aplatform for them to come and we would
train them for two years. Itdidn't take off like we wanted to.
I had some partnership issues and itkind of kind of fell down the roots
of what we were trying to doand now it's just more of like a
traditional handyman company. I would loveto get back there, but it just
(33:25):
takes a lot of capital in orderto get there, and I understand that
I've been on the bottom side ofthat. So it's just it's a difficult
market space without proper training, andthere's no one that really has proper training
for the handyman space currently. Besidesjust saying, I've been part of,
you know, renovations, high inrenovations and you know, so that's where
(33:45):
I kind of feel comfortable in thatspace because I used to do everything,
but not everyone has the same trainingor background, and it's a unique background.
Do you ever utilize technology to helpwith any of that type of stuff,
any back office stuff, even evenin the field. Every company,
we use a wide variety of technologyto be able to to really facilitate our
(34:07):
needs. So we use technology forall of our CRM and then all of
our accounting programs as well as ahuge one that we use as we have
a company wide We don't use textmessage anymore. We use Slack. So
the reason I bring that up iswe use that constantly. In that way,
it's an internal form of communication.That's probably what we use the most
(34:29):
on a day to day basis outsideof our accounting CRM and like job platforms.
I just found great value and understandingthat we're all in one place on
inside text messages everywhere and no onecan see anything. You weren't on that
one. Oh yeah, well wheredo people find your business? So where
(34:52):
do you strictly do business? Imean, it might be a dumb question
to say, just why, Yeah, you're gonna at this one. So
well, the the Kukulana management's alittle bit different. So we're we're on
all islands, so we're managing quitea bit of property. We have one
development in Maui right now, wehave won development in Kona. We're working
(35:15):
on a couple of developments for Aburgerand o Wahu, but all of our
other businesses are all in Ohahu.And actually, something I might try and
portray to people is so our constructioncompany, one of the facets I was
noticing is we were too spread out. So I really decided that we're just
going to stay in Waikiki and we'reonly going to do work in Waikiki.
(35:35):
And this is when COVID hit andeveryone laughed at me and my company,
and I was like, no,we're just going to stay in Waikiki.
And now we'll have eight to tentrucks, just simply working in Waikiki every
single day, and it's been veryfruitful. Because you don't have an hour
drive here an hour drive there.I can steal a van that has this
tool and bring it here. Butif you're if you want to focus on
(35:57):
a market sector and you want tocapitalize it, you will do it.
It's just going to take time.It took us about two years to be
able to get there, and everythingyou do is going to take time.
It does. It doesn't happen overnight. You need an opportunity and then you
need to capitalize on it. Yougot to take the next opportunity and capitalize
on it, and before you knowit, you'll have too much work and
you won't know what to do withit. Is it easy for people to
(36:19):
get ahold of you? Do?They just go to a specific website for
each company? Is that how?Oh? Yeah? Pretty much all the
companies are you know, google themand you'll find them on you know,
Luconstruction Group dot com, Handy AndyHi Service Division, dot US, Rescue
One Restoration dot US, sure Stepidot com, and Googolanta Management dot com.
(36:40):
So we're we're just pretty We don'tdo a whole lot of advertising.
And the reason I've been besides thehandyman company and restoration company, so those
shoe services are more in need theother ones are more planned is I've noticed
that I enjoy my clients and Ienjoy developing clients a little bit more organically.
When I get clients that are we'reoff the internet, sometimes I don't
(37:02):
really know how they act or thisor that. So I've just spent a
little bit more patient in understanding that. You know, the work will come,
it's just who do you want theclients to be. The last question
that I have before we wrap up, do you have any advice for new
construction owners that you'd like to sharewith the listeners. Yeah, understand your
(37:24):
market, understand your cost and capitalizeon that, and do good work.
Because at the end of the day, don't try and be someone you're not.
I see it happen all the time, and people are very unsuccessful at
it. If you're good at somethingdoesn't mean you're going to be good at
everything, right, So you know, the classic thing is the taper tries
(37:45):
to paint and you're like, juststay taping, I do it. They
just do your thing. Man you'regood at that, so yeah, that
would be a big one. Andthen also, don't be afraid to take
opportunity. Take take on opportunities,make sure they don't financially hit you,
hurt you. But every every riskyou take, there's opportunity behind it,
(38:10):
whether it's financially or whether it's alearning experience. Thank you for being a
guest on the show. And yeah, absolutely please everyone like, subscribe,
comment, and share the Builder UpperShow with anyone in the construction industry.
We will see you next time.If you're a construction contractor and would like
(38:40):
to appear as a guest on ourpodcast, write us an email. It's
Lou at lumberfi dot com.
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