← Dirt Talk Podcast
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Foreign. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Monday edition of the Dirt Talk podcast. This is building buildwit number 43, titled 90% sold. Growing users and momentum. Big time stuff going on. This is, as always, real briefly, the attempt to explain. What the heck, Bill with us. Yeah, me, I'm running around and I'll explain. I was literally running around, but I'm running around the world visiting different construction mining sites. It's a huge blessing. I get to see amazing work, meet incredible people and build a data set that I believe exists nowhere else and will serve me and others in a profound way in the future. But there's a lot more going on. We've got a team of safely over 40 full time individuals scattered across America doing anything from training, content development to developing literally our bill would improve platform, to selling the platform into civil construction companies, to supporting those that are using the platform, driving utilization, to building out systems behind the scenes, to then growing our Ariat Dirt World Leadership event, our annual event that I've talked a lot about. So there's all sorts of fun stuff happening here. And this is a peek behind the curtain to see how our sausage is made. I put this together, this one together while I was in the middle of something called 4 by 4 by 48. 2020 was a weird year for obvious reasons. And as I was home feeling very weird like the rest of the world. This gentleman online, David Goggins, some of you may know him, he published this challenge that he does annually called 4x4x48 and invited everybody to do it with him. And I thought, well, I have nothing better to do, so why not? And it's pretty simple. All you have to do is run four miles every four hours for 48 hours. So it ends up being 12 four mile runs for 48 miles in total over a two day period. And I have done it now, this was the third time. So I put this together while I was in the middle. I think I was, as I was putting this list together, I was on run 11 of 12 at the very back end. It's a, it's a great, great opportunity because physically it's not that hard. Like 4 miles is, is pretty reasonable. So it's not like a hundred miles. It's not this ultra or whatever it is and it's not timed. You can do the 4 miles at 10 minute miles if you want to or whatever. You can walk it if you really want to. So physically it's pretty doable. The challenge is the disruption to sleep and then the compounding because when you're like seven or eight runs in or, and then you have to run at midnight or like 4 in the morning after you've been going for almost two days, you don't really want to, so. So it's really good from a mental standpoint and it builds a lot of confidence and character. So all that to say, I wrote this while I was cooked, as the kids say. So don't expect a lot in the following update. Over the past week on my travel schedule, I went up to Lansing, Michigan, the capital city of Michigan, the Mitten, to speak to about 450 utility professionals at the Great Lakes Damage Prevention Conference. I, I spoke about this on the last episode. I had two opportunities the previous week to speak to the West Virginia Contractors association and then to Beaver Excavating at their annual meeting. I redid my talk for this year from Dirt World and I, you know, I practiced it, but you just don't know how it's gonna go until you get up in front of people and make it happen. And it took me. I rated the first one a six out of 10, which was, it was still effective. I didn't feel that great about it, obviously. I then went to a coffee shop. I overhauled it pretty dramatically. I then gave my next1 an 8 out of 10. And then I gave it this time for the third time at a 9 out of 10. I was really, really happy with how this one went. And that's the only way speaking works. It's super scary. Everybody always asks, well, did you, did you plan it this way? From a speaking standpoint? 100%, no. Speaking is one of the things that I would have never, never told you I was gonna lean into 2020 if you would have asked me in 2020, hey, what's coming down the road? I would have talked plenty about this podcast. I would have talked about YouTube. I would have talked about LinkedIn or social platforms and writing even a book, potentially. I wouldn't have said anything about speaking. But it's really scary, which is why I've leaned into it. And the, the only way to get better is reps, reps, reps. And the only way to get reps is to get up on page in front of people and to do your best. So this was a great confidence boost because after, after three times, I'm like, all right, I've got this one down. I'm going to give this talk a few more times in the season this winter. And as I go, I'm going to continue to refine it into likely what I'll give at the Dirt World Summit in 2026 later this year. Speaking of Dirt World, we are about 90% sold for the 2026 ARIAT Dirt World Summit, which is November 9th through 11th in my hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. Selling this year has been a phenomenal lesson. Selling Dirt World has been full of lessons. It's been an absolute grind. It's been a grind for three years. Every single ticket, every year has been a fight until this year. And after the momentum we've built, after delivering on the value we've promised for three consistent years, we now have people that have bought in to the value we're creating and to the movement we're creating, which is Dirt World. It's really, really exciting stuff, but it still requires a lot of effort. And so I have known this is one of the most important things I could do in the 12 month period that is right now. And I have mashed my foot on the gas and have kept it mashed. It's still mashed until we're at 100%. The job's not done until it's done. Fortunately, I can now drive urgency because we are almost, you know, almost sold out, which is great. This is what I was hoping for. But the job's not done until it's done. And so it's been a great lesson in persistence and it's also been a great lesson in selling those that are open to it, that want to be a part of it. There's a lot of people I've talked to for three years now, they're still not on board. Those people I'm not talking to anymore, it's just not worth my time if they don't get it. If they don't want to be a part of it, that's fine. Frankly, I don't. And we don't need them. We're almost sold out with great people and great companies that do get it. So I it's been a great lesson in persistence and it's been a great lesson in focusing on those that are already bought in. Focus on those that have already wanted to be a part of it because they're going to continue to want to be a part of it. So really exciting stuff. And then once we're sold out, that's that until tickets go on sale after this year's event. And at that point I'm hoping we sell out within the first week or two. I do not want to be selling beyond the first week or two for the next event. And then after that hopefully it's a day and then after that hopefully it's an hour and minutes is, is where we're, where we're going and then we'll be building that waiting list and that's that can't wait on the bill would improve platform software product front we saw between December and January 44% increase in active Bill whit approved users. This is the result of us selling more companies, of us re implementing companies more effectively and of us supporting companies more effectively, which is, it's really, really exciting stuff. So we're growing substantially and we expect to see that growth continue through this year as more and more companies seek to better train and develop their workfor is what our product does. Now this isn't all good news because it does create additional strain on the infrastructure that we are working to replace to keep up with it and to better serve users in the future. So as usage has, has gone up, gone up, gone up, we have seen performance issues. Our development team is on it and what they're doing is essentially they're expanding in dirt world terms. They're widening the highway without disrupting traffic on the highway at all. So they're trying to double, you know, the lanes without disrupting any of the existing lanes. And so they're replacing some of this infrastructure, upgrading a lot of this infrastructure while usage is growing. And they've been threading that needle so far and will continue to do so until the platform is entirely up to snuff for the foreseeable future. So that's the project going on right now. It's building as we go. It's not ideal, but they're making it happen and I am super appreciative of their hard work behind the scenes on the new feature standpoint. Our new home screen release went out to our internal billwith team. We use billwit improve at buildwith the whole company does. So it went out to the team and to a few select customers and over the coming weeks we'll continue rolling it out to existing customers. It's a major upgrade. It's the biggest upgrade since we launched. Bill would improve last year replacing Bill with training. The new home screen, the UX ui, it's a lot more intuitive. So when you, when you open the app, that's what I'm talking about. What you see first thing, um, up at the top you see announcements. So me as an executive, I can record a message, I can send it out to my company which is I think gonna be a huge value add. I can see whatever lesson I have next I can see leaderboard. You know, who else in my company is is doing very well from a streak standpoint. You know, how many days consecutively they've been training so that I can see where I match up within the company. And then with this upgrade as well, if I'm an executive, I can have a monthly report sent to me that shows me the training and development happening within my company over that past month, which is awesome. I saw it the other day and oh my gosh, it is just so neat. And even build with internally will help us drive so much more development that would not be happening otherwise. So really exciting stuff on product standpoint. From a sales standpoint, we base our sales goal. So our revenue goal for the month is what we invoice. That has been the best metric that we've found because collection, cash flow, it varies. And so rather than cash in, we measure everything by what we invoiced for the month and that number is going up and up and up and up and up. This year we're growing not at a insane rate, but it's no joke. We've got to be on every single month to ensure that at the end of the year, December 1st, end of our sales year, that we are where we are, that our team gets the full bonus, that we've got cash in the bank so that we can best support our customers and build a better dirt world. February, big goal. But because we were able to invoice, partially because we were able to invoice a lot of our summit sponsors this month that have already signed up, we've already sold a majority of summit sponsors as well, not just tickets. We are within week one, 60% of the month goal, which is awesome. And I'm reporting on this because it's such a big deal internally, when you're on a losing team, which I think everybody has been on at some point, it sucks. It sucks. Losing sucks and losing consistently sucks. And the more you lose, the lower your confidence goes, the more you seem to lose. But if you're winning, if you're kicking ass, you've got that confidence, you've got that momentum behind you and there you go, now you can make it happen. And as a business, we're seeing the advantage. It's happened, I think, over just the past few months and honestly, me personally, that momentum is shifting and we're putting that momentum behind us in our teams and we're seeing huge results, huge results, and we're going to keep our foot on that gas, like I said. So Sales kicking ass, hitting our goals. February, this is the third month of the year sales year. And that momentum is a really good feeling going into the rest of the year. I'm super grateful for it. And then finally, I've talked a lot about Churn and how one of our rocks for 2026 is eliminate churn. We have renewal conversations with each customer when they come up to the end of their contract if they want to continue with Bill would improve. And we are to eliminate Churn, involving an executive in each one of those conversations, it's me. Sometimes my travel schedule is insane though. So most of the time it's either Dan Randy or Jason Kara's behind the scenes. Um, but they are alongside our sales team, our customer success team in each one of those conversations to, to, to better build a relationship with each customer and then sometimes to challenge the customers. We are now finding ourselves in a position of seeing more training and development in the civil construction industry in America than anyone else. And so we're becoming the subject matter expert on training and development of the next generation, of the existing generation of leadership. And some of these conversations require pushback and require challenging. In my speaking, that's what I'm doing as well. I'm not there to make everybody feel good. It's not my goal. I'm there to say, hey, we need to be better. This is a way to be better. And I think it's a similar conversation. We want each customer we're working with, we want their people to be better. We want them to train and develop their people. We want them to offer relevant training not just for their jobs, but for them as human beings. Like this morning, I watched a training video on Bill Whitten prove about how health insurance works. If you were to ask somebody out on your job sites, hey, explain to me how a 401k works. Explain to me how a mortgage works. Explain to me how health insurance works. Most adults will not be able to answer those questions for you. And that is why most adults are in a lot of ways failing financially and effectively care for their families. It's not that they don't have the resources, it's that they don't have the knowledge. And that is what this platform provides. So even when a company says we're going to do more in person training, it's like, that's, that's great. But what are you doing for mental health then? What are you doing for financial health, for physical health, for stress, for communication? Because that's what this platform also provides. So the results of those conversations are very promising and we're going to continue executive involvement in those conversations for the year because it is a key objective for us. And it's exciting to see that churn starting to slow down and growth become more and more so that's what the heck is going on here at billwit. I actually found some energy today. I wasn't expecting to have a whole lot. Maybe I'm giving you all I've got. Got a long day ahead of me, though. Let's hope not. I appreciate you all listening. I appreciate you all building, being a part of what we're doing here, building the next generation, Dirt World's next generation, building a company that from the ground up. These podcasts are an effort to not just share what we're doing, but hopefully make you feel like you're a part of it. Because the Dirt World is a part of if you have any questions, comments, feel free to email me anytime, aaron@billwood.com. we'll see you on the next one. Stay dirty.