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Aaron
Foreign. Welcome Everybody to the second BuildWIT update. If you missed last week's episode, I highly recommend you listen to it. I provided additional context as far as what, what the heck is going on. But for those that haven't and won't, briefly, this is a weekly look now going forward of what the heck is going on within build. Whip, the happenings, the lessons learned, so on and so forth. I want to bring you along the ride. So this is what the heck we are up to. Starting with something very exciting. We are reevaluating our server and media storage options. When we built our Nashville headquarters in 2021, we opted for a hefty local server with cloud backup. But nowadays, business is way different. Even without our creative business, we generate a mountain of content monthly and sit on what I assume is the industry's most diverse media library worldwide. The solution seems to be something more streamlined locally with a cloud based backup. So I built the office alongside our team in 2021, end of 2020, we leased it, built it in 21. The business was in a much different place. It's 25, four years ago. That's not that much time, but that's a lot of time when you are a startup. So. So back then when we were building it, all that we were really doing was creative work. We were dabbling in the training space. Now all we're doing is training and influence. We're not doing the creative work. We have this huge library we've created with I don't know how many terabytes of footage from not just contractors across the United States, but worldwide now. All kinds of stuff. We have a ton of really, really cool stuff. So we have all this footage we need to maintain and then we have all this additional footage coming that we need to add. The tricky thing with footage is that it's, it's bulky, it's, it's, it's a lot. So it's a lot different than just like files, for example. It just takes up more space and you have to have it backed up. So right now we have this big server. We have a server room here locally. It's very expensive, it's very cumbersome. It's worked so far, but we need a better option. So we're gonna do local backups with a more cloud based solution. And that's nice because we have multiple copies. So if, God forbid, the building were to burn down, we still have everything saved elsewhere. That's the goal. You want multiple copies of everything you have, and the bigger we get, the More files we have, the more work it is to make it all organized. So we're evaluating that this year. That's one of the not very sexy things within our business that we've got to establish to then allow us to move faster. That infrastructure as you grow, that's the kind of stuff that I never thought about while starting and you increasingly think about as you grow and as you go down the road. So I'm grateful for the team digging in on that and coming up with a good solution. The Influence team, which is myself, Jack and TJ with Jack Jessica back home. We finished our 2025 Europe tour with site visits in the Netherlands and Italy. We visited the world's most comprehensive battery powered construction operation, a remarkable Dutch marine construction equipment company and equipment and Europe's biggest demolition machine outside of Rome. It was fantastic. We get into it in detail in a separate podcast episode with me, Jack and TJ recapping the trip. We'll have videos on the Desp Jumbo, the big demolition machine, the Dike reinforcement with the battery machines and Van Tunen's machines in the Netherlands. So it was really cool stuff. I've always wanted to see Dutch contractors. It was my second time to the Netherlands, but first time seeing Dutch construction in the Netherlands and then my first time to Italy. Italy lived up to the hype. What amazing place, what an amazing culture. The company we visited, Despe, was spectacular. And then I went to the Pope's funeral which was very unexpected. We were coincidentally there when all of that was happening. So I went to the Vatican, saw all that and it will be something I will never forget. So stay tuned, we'll have a lot coming. We have to go through approvals on everything we do, every visit, everywhere, all of that, we edit it, we get it in the approval process and now is the waiting game. So over the coming weeks you will see it. If it's already not out. If you're looking for another industry event that is a snooze fest, this is definitely not for you. But if you're a leader looking to elevate yourself, your team looking for like minded individuals that are hungry, then look no further than the Ariat Dirt World Summit, November 5th through the 7th in Dallas 10 Texas. In our third year, we'll have about 1500 hungry industry leaders from about 500 companies looking to learn, grow, teach. It's going to be fantastic. We also have a world class lineup. We've got Jesse Cole from the Savannah Bananas, James Clear Atomic Habits, Kim Scott, Radical Candor, Mark Miller, Chick Fil A leadership Tim Grover, who is Michael Jordan's trainer. You will not hear from a lineup like this anywhere else. So check out details now. Dirtworld.com you can use code AARON10 for 10% off any registrations and we'll see you November 5th through the 7th in Dallas, Texas. Our development team is still churning through bugs. This is going to be going for a while with the launch of our new Build with Improve platform. For if you want to learn more about the BuildWit Improve platform, check out buildwit.com, b u I l d w I t t.com it has just more context if you're curious. The more companies using our platform so every week we're onboarding more companies, the more bugs we we add to our list because there's just more users interacting with the platform but also the more we're checking off. So we're working on those bugs. We're releasing new versions of the platform to make the performance better and then we're adding more that we find and we'll eventually, over the coming weeks, chip away, chip away, chip away to make the product perform better. So we are in the trenches right now working through those, but we've made good progress since launch in I guess beginning of April. So we've been doing this for about a month now and we will be doing this until the end of time building a product and making it better and better and better. But we're on the way and I'm very happy about it. So that's a little bit about the software platform. Next, from a sales standpoint, we're hiring three business development representatives to book meetings with companies and individuals within our target market. For our sales reps, these meetings serve as discovery where we learn about each company and its issues before recommending how Build with improve can help them develop their workforce and leadership. So you have your business development reps. They are looking through the market in all different ways. They're looking through who's coming to our website, they're looking through who interacts with me on social media. They're looking through the marketplace in general to find companies within our target market. They're finding out who the best people are within those target companies to contact, to line up within our sales reps and then our sales reps will walk everybody through the process and show them our platform and hopefully get them on board. Yeah, we're selling them something, but we're not building this just to make a quick buck. We're building this to solve what I think is their biggest problem or help them overcome it. And I think every dirt world company can use what the heck we have to offer. And this is part of the process is sales. So these are business development reps, book meetings, calls, interact with the industry. It's a really important role. They're the tip of the spear. They're the face of the company in a lot of ways. It is a more junior position. So it's a good way for people to get into, build wit and find their way. So I'm very excited to bring these new people in. We're in the hiring process right now, and once they're in, our sales team should get a big shot in the arm. We should be able to move much faster. So that's very exciting there. And then internally, thanks to the model from the book, who we have finalized scorecards for our team. These define each team member's role and their measurables for 2025. And now that we've defined what makes each role successful, we can better measure performance in coming quarters. So again, this is something that is foundational, that key infrastructure we need to get to the next level. Who phenomenal book, highly recommend it. It breaks down their hiring process really nicely. One of the biggest takeaways for me and from the book in general is the concept of a scorecard. The scorecard is really for hiring. So before you hire a role, you want to define what the role is, what's the function of the role, which is harder than it sounds. And then you want to define what are the key deliverables for that role. So how can we determine over the next year or whatever it if whoever's in that role has been successful or not? So that's for the hiring. And then you bring them in and you match them with the scorecard. And now they have at least a blueprint. When they dig in, we're a little bit behind. We are building out scorecards or we have for everybody within our team, including myself. So I had to define what my role is, what my job is, which again, is harder than it sounds. And then I had to record maybe five key measurables for 2025. So if I do these five things that are measurable, that I can put numbers to, timelines to, etc. If I do these five things, I have other things I need to do. But I have been successful in my role here at Build Whip. And you have to define these things because if it's up in the air, then you can't offer specific feedback. You can't guide people, they can't guide themselves. You can't really have that review process take place in an effective manner. So now that we have those scorecards in place, we can meet with everybody on our team quarterly to discuss performance. You pull out scorecard. Hey, you're doing great here. Hey, this is a little off track. Why is that? Can I support you better? Is there something missing? Do we need to change this? Those are then the conversations we can have in a much easier way. So that's what we are doing. We have struggled so far with performance and performance management, but I'm very excited about this because this is the first formal step we've taken to get on a better path. And I love having feedback offered to me and I love giving feedback. It's a skill. It's uncomfortable, but that's what helps people grow. And people are grateful for it. They want to know what they can do better. So setting aside a time quarterly because. Yes. Is it ideal for it to happen naturally? Should it? Sure, but it doesn't always. And setting aside a time, a quarter, to reflect upon each person within your sphere, within your team and to offer them feedback to help them perform better, be better. Everybody wants to be better. To have that time set aside, I think is really special and has been one of the best things I've been able to do over the past year and a half because I've done it with my. With the people within my team, but we haven't done it from a company standpoint yet. So that's what we're working on as we speak. So that is what the heck happened at BuildWit this week. There's a million things happening, but those were some of the key highlights. If you have questions or discussion points about any of these, feel free to email. Email me Aaron A A R o n at buildwith b U-I-L-W-I-T-T.com and I can address them on a future build with update. These will be coming every week, so I hope you enjoy them and we'll see you next time.