← Dirt Talk Podcast
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- [00:00]
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Foreign. Hey there everybody. Welcome back. This is the BuildWit update number 29 and I've titled this one A pickle Trash and dirt world is ego. As you may know if you've heard these before, this is my attempt at explaining what the heck goes on at billwhit week to week allows you to follow along and understand a little bit of how our sausage is made. One of our values is transparency wins. And here we are, the good, bad and the, I don't know, average happenings of our business build whip with the first thing this week, a start with a pickle here. And this is the kind of stuff that I wish I could leave out, but you know when I said in the intro, the good, the bad, you need to have some of the bad or else it's not business, it's not realistic. And so the short of it is we planned to pay our hotel bill for the 2025 Area Dirt World summit after the event, which would be no problem because the way pre sales work, we offer a huge discount for those buying their tickets right after the event. And per our projections, we would bring in the necessary cash to pay the bills. Again, without question. And we've been working for months with the credit department of the hotel we had the event at to have a line of credit, pay for the event up front and then pay them even a week after. No question. And we thought we would get it. We planned to get it because we met the requirements. We had a few years of events at this point and huge chain, huge brand. It should be no problem with where we're at in business. However, it was a problem. It was a problem. So their credit department said, nah, we're good. You actually don't have enough history. And then the hotel was like, well, if the credit department said that, sorry, so how about you pay us all the money before the event and. Well, we didn't have the money. You know, seven figures, that's a lot of cash for anybody. Seven figures is a lot of money, but definitely for us. And so a few days before the event, we were scrambling. We were scrambling and we had a few tricks up our sleeve. We pieced it together by Friday. So the event was. When was it? I think it was happening? Yeah, early in the week, Wednesday. So we had to pay up the Friday before. We squeezed in bio whisker, got it in, had the event, everything was good to go. I don't stress about this stuff anymore. It doesn't do you a whole lot of good. You just get those curveballs that's how business works. That's how life works. Everybody gets curve balls and it's about how you respond to them. By getting all stressed out, you can't respond in a, you know, meaningful way, an intelligent way. So while not great, and Randy says he stresses because he's the finance guy, especially while not great, we did figure it out. We got it done. And no one was the wiser at the area dirt World Summit. So, yeah, not ideal, but that's how the cookie crumbles. The top question I'm asked is, what does Bill Witt do? Our purpose is to build the dirt world's next generation. The dirt world is the companies and people building the critical infrastructure and supporting those who build our critical infrastructure that we need to live the lives that we do. Our business is much bigger than me. I run around the world building our brand. But the business itself does two things. One, we help develop the next generation through our product called billwhit Improve. It's a daily training and development platform that about 300 civil construction companies are using to not just make their people better workers, but better people. And of course, we have the 2026 ARIAT dirtworld summit, the best opportunity to develop yourself and your teams as leaders. So check us out. Billwhit.com, book a meeting with us and we'll talk to you soon. Next up, we far exceeded our October sales goal and we set a record for monthly sales activities with a full team, full sales team of 10 people for the first time, which is very exciting. We have plenty of work to do before year end to build our pipeline into 2026. But the good news is we are trending in the right direction. So very relieving to be on the up and up from a sales standpoint. We've been working hard to build that team. Been listening to these updates. You know, we've been chipping away at that. We finally have a full team and the full team, all their activities, they're bearing fruit, which is great. On the vlog front, we spent a day with Casella Waste in Vermont to learn about the waste collection process from curb to landfill. And I am so excited to publish this video. Not just showing off a great company, Casella, but a very misunderstood topic in America, landfills. Trash. People think it just disappears one or it's wildly unregulated too. And both of those things are not true. It takes a lot of hard work to make trash go away. And making trash go away is a very well thought out and engineered process. And me, I love Trash. I love landfills. I was a trash man when I was a child. For Halloween, one year off to dig up the pictures. They're great. My mom even put some dirt on my face to make me look like I was a trash man. Working hard. Yeah. I've always loved trash trucks. Trash landfills. So this was a childhood dream come true. Following trash from curb to landfill. Stay tuned. It'll be up on YouTube if it's not already. And then the second visit. Following our visit, our trip to rural Vermont. We took a total 180 within just a few hours. And we ended up in New York City to see some utility work with DeFazio Industries. I have always wanted to see utility work in Manhattan and it is bananas. Just a few Hundred feet of 18 inch ductile iron pipe can take years. Not because the pipe work is all that complicated, but because of the utility conflicts. You open up the ground and there's no reason to mark anything. You're gonna hand dig everything anyway because there's so much there. No one knows what's there. Then you open it up. And now you have to figure out what's there. And now you have to figure out what's live, what's not, what you have to move, who has to move it. It's crazy. And not only are you doing all that, but you've got people all around you, trucks all around you, no place for your materials. It is. It's just nuts. And again, fortunately, we'll have a video on the subject as well. I cannot wait. It was. It was an education to say the least.
- [07:55]
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- [08:25]
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Our latest bill would improve development. Sprint is all about quality. A sprint is a time, you know, a chunk of time in which we're trying to achieve something. So the latest Sprint is all about quality. We need the existing product to work fantastic before any new features are in the works. And so with a few weeks of effort, we should be able to decrease friction, which will ultimately increase utilization. The less problems people have while using the product, the less friction there is in general, the more utilization will remain and grow, which is our hope. And so that's what the development team is working on currently. Next we hosted a webinar with all 2025 ARIAT Dirtworld sponsors to highlight the best ways for them to drive value for our attendees and ultimately themselves. We are far from a traditional trade show or association event and that means we have to educate. You know, these are great vendors, they're great companies, they've been to all kinds of shows. But if they haven't been to Dirt World, we have to spend time educating them on how best to approach the show. Because if they use the traditional model, which is you set up a booth and you hang out at the booth the whole time, they're not going to be all that successful. It's about engaging with the audience and approaching the audience in the right way. And it was just a great time. It was very well received. We're trying to go above and beyond. We're to trying. Like I've said in previous episodes, one of our focuses is wow. So this was a great opportunity to wow our sponsors. They help make the event possible. We want them to be successful and we want them again to go about it in the right way to make sure that the experience at the event is the best for our attendees and sponsors. So that was awesome. And then finally, the 2025 area dirt world Summit is a go. So in the next week I'm recording this after. But the following week from when I originally wrote this, we are sending the 2025 Area Dirt World Summit 52 weeks, 51 weeks of preparation for three days. And it is my absolute favorite three days of the year. So sponsors are set, attendees are set, we were able to pay our bills. Fortunately, we figured it out. So now it's time to just let it all run, enjoy the show and execute. I cannot wait. So that is BillWit update 29. If you ever have questions or comments, feel free to email me anytime. Aaronillwood.com would love to hear from you. I always love hearing from people. You. You'll be amazed. I respond. People are like, well, do you have a team that responds for you? I'm like, what? I'm looking around. I'm like, what are you talking about? No, it's just me. I have no life. I have nothing better to do than to respond to you on a Sunday. If I'm messaging you, it's me. So message me. I appreciate you listening to these episodes and we'll see you on the next one. Stay dirty, everybody.