From Small Town MS to Building the Southeast w/ Aaron Gregory – DT 328

Summary

Podcast Summary: Dirt Talk by BuildWitt
Episode: From Small Town MS to Building the Southeast w/ Aaron Gregory – DT 328
Release Date: April 10, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode DT 328 of Dirt Talk by BuildWitt, host Aaron Gregory sits down with Mike [Last Name], a successful construction company owner who has expanded his business from a modest operation in Columbus, Mississippi, to a thriving enterprise with over 400 employees across eight states. This episode delves into Mike’s entrepreneurial journey, the challenges of scaling a construction business, the implementation of systems like EOS and Traction, and the critical importance of company culture and employee engagement.

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Guest Background and Business Genesis

Mike begins by sharing his roots in the construction industry, having grown up working alongside his father who owned a local construction company. In 2007, at the age of 21, Mike took the initiative to found his own company with his then-fiancé, leveraging the solid reputation his father had built over 20 years.

Mike [01:33]: “2007, founded the company with my fiancé at the time... realizing there's always a lot to learn.”

He emphasizes the foundational skills he acquired, including drafting, design, and accounting, which were instrumental in managing and growing his business.

Mike [06:10]: "Studied drafting and design... also accounting, which has benefited me a lot throughout the years."

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Scaling the Business: Challenges and Strategies

Transitioning from a small-town operation to a multi-state enterprise posed significant challenges. Initially, Mike attempted to handle every aspect of the business, which led to inefficiencies and a lack of clear structure.

Mike [01:18]: “It’s a lifetime for others... 400 today. That's a lot of folks to shepherd and care for.”

Realizing the need for departmentalization, Mike implemented the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) and the Traction model to define clear roles and responsibilities within the company. This strategic move allowed for smoother operations and prevented the chaos that often accompanies rapid growth.

Mike [12:12]: “The concept for us was figuring out where I, as the owner, needed to be in the organization to help make it work... we departmentalized, and it works so smooth.”

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Leadership Dynamics: Visionary vs. Integrator

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on the balance between being a visionary and an integrator. Mike identifies his role as the visionary, constantly seeking new opportunities and ways to grow the business, while delegating operational tasks to a competent integrator.

Mike [18:03]: “Understanding the key roles of the visionary and the integrator... being able to set both of them free and go, man, here’s your lane and here’s what you do.”

This division of responsibilities has allowed Mike to stay connected with the front lines of construction, ensuring that the company remains grounded and responsive to on-site challenges.

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Building a Strong Company Culture

Aaron and Mike delve into the importance of fostering a positive company culture. Mike underscores the significance of hiring for character and cultural fit rather than solely focusing on technical skills.

Mike [38:03]: “Hiring for character and culture, not competency... building a family-like atmosphere.”

By creating an environment where employees feel valued and part of a larger mission, Mike has successfully increased employee retention and satisfaction.

Mike shares an inspiring anecdote where a consultant reported that 95-98% of employees expressed a desire to retire with the company, highlighting the effectiveness of their cultural initiatives.

Mike [40:31]: “They took a strata of the company from top to bottom and interviewed them all... 95-98% said, ‘We want to retire here.’”

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Addressing Labor Market Challenges in the South

The Southern labor market presents unique challenges, including lower wages compared to other regions and high competition from large conglomerates. Mike discusses strategies to attract and retain talent despite these hurdles.

Mike [102:56]: “You have to compete on a national scale... figuring out how to make it work.”

He emphasizes the importance of offering competitive wages, per diems, and travel benefits to make positions more attractive. Additionally, Mike highlights the company's commitment to supporting employees' personal growth and well-being.

Mike [104:03]: “Take care of the guys... pay sufficiently to attract them wherever we need to go.”

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Tenure vs. Transitory Workforce

Balancing long-term, tenured employees with a transitory workforce is another critical topic. Mike advocates for a dual approach where the company nurtures long-term employees while also providing opportunities for short-term workers who may bring fresh perspectives.

Mike [115:03]: “While we have the guys that are tenured bought in... we also have the transitory workforce that’s in their season of life.”

Using examples like Chick-fil-A, Mike illustrates how companies can thrive by embracing both stable and rotating staff, fostering a dynamic and resilient workforce.

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Implementing Mission, Vision, and Values

Aaron and Mike discuss the iterative process of defining and refining the company's mission, vision, and values. Mike stresses the necessity of collaborative input from the executive team to ensure these elements resonate throughout the organization.

Mike [57:35]: “Collaborative process... top brass isn’t involved, it can only go so far.”

They highlight the ongoing effort required to embed these core principles into everyday operations, ensuring that every team member understands and aligns with the company's overarching goals.

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Personal Reflections and Leadership Lessons

The conversation also touches on personal growth and the importance of humility in leadership. Mike shares his journey of understanding his strengths and the need to remain connected with his team despite personal challenges.

Mike [85:39]: “Having that connection is crucial... reciprocal encouragement.”

Aaron reflects on his own experiences, emphasizing the necessity of visible and engaged leadership to foster trust and motivation among employees.

Aaron [68:16]: “Leadership that is visible is extremely important... seeing what the heck we're doing.”

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Looking Forward: Industry Insights and Future Plans

As the episode concludes, Mike and Aaron contemplate the future of the construction industry. They discuss the potential for technological advancements, the necessity of sustainable practices, and the ongoing need to prioritize people over processes.

Mike [94:05]: “We get to provide an atmosphere for people to solve problems... that's beautiful.”

Aaron shares his passion for the construction industry as a human-centric field that still holds promise for the American dream, highlighting the unique opportunities it offers compared to more impersonal corporate environments.

Aaron [105:03]: “Construction... offers people such an extraordinary sense of purpose...”

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Mike [01:33]: “2007, founded the company with my fiancé at the time... realizing there's always a lot to learn.”

• Mike [12:12]: “The concept for us was figuring out where I, as the owner, needed to be in the organization to help make it work... we departmentalized, and it works so smooth.”

• Mike [38:03]: “Hiring for character and culture, not competency... building a family-like atmosphere.”

• Mike [40:31]: “They took a strata of the company from top to bottom and interviewed them all... 95-98% said, 'We want to retire here.'”

• Mike [103:04]: “You have to figure out how to make it work... as a company, we've got to compete on a national scale.”

• Mike [115:03]: “While we have the guys that are tenured bought in... we also have the transitory workforce that’s in their season of life.”

• Mike [57:35]: “Collaborative process... top brass isn’t involved, it can only go so far.”

• Aaron [68:16]: “Leadership that is visible is extremely important... seeing what the heck we're doing.”

• Mike [85:39]: “Having that connection is crucial... reciprocal encouragement.”

• Mike [94:05]: “We get to provide an atmosphere for people to solve problems... that's beautiful.”

• Aaron [105:03]: “Construction... offers people such an extraordinary sense of purpose...”

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Conclusion

Episode DT 328 of Dirt Talk offers a comprehensive look into the complexities of growing a construction business from the ground up. Through candid dialogue, Mike and Aaron highlight the indispensable role of leadership, the necessity of robust systems like EOS and Traction, and the profound impact of fostering a strong, people-centric company culture. For listeners aspiring to scale their own businesses, this episode provides invaluable insights and actionable strategies to navigate the challenges of the construction industry while maintaining a dedicated and motivated workforce.

Transcript

[Aaron]

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[Mike]

Yeah, it's been a while now. Yeah. Yeah. So know, compared to other companies, maybe not, but it's. It's a lifetime for others. Yeah. So 20. Announced it in 2025. So back in 2007, that's when I started the company.

[Aaron]

Oh, wow.

[Mike]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Aaron]

Okay.

[Mike]

Yeah, so 2007, I grew up in the industry. My dad owned a construction company, was partners in a business for about 20 years.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

So, you know, summers, weekends, anytime away from school, I was working with him. He's great craftsman. And so I enjoyed going out and learning and being in the. Being in the thick of it when I was, you know, 6, 7, 8. You know, there's pictures of me on equipment when I was a little dude. And. Yeah. So grew up in that.

[Aaron]

And was he doing earth moving site work?

[Mike]

Yeah, so he, he started out in North Mississippi doing municipal work, sidewalks, parking lots, storm drainage systems, that kind of thing. And yeah, didn't really travel. Wasn't a huge company, but enough, you know, it was. It was what he could manage and what he enjoyed. And so I grew up running that company, working at that company, and then project managing and helping run the operations side of it when I was in high school and college. And then my dad's partnership ended and he and his partner went their separate ways. And so I was sitting there at age 20, 21 saying, okay, I can go to college and do something completely different than construction, or I can take our reputation and the guys that want to work with us and people that want us to work for them and turn it into something. And so, you know, through a lot of prayerful considerations, like, okay, I think we've got all the parts and pieces here to do this. And so, yeah, 2007, founded the company with my fiance at the time, now, of course, wife of 17, 18 years. So you're 21? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Back then, thought, you know, thought I knew a lot. And, you know, sitting here many years later, realizing there's always a lot to learn. Right?

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

So. But yeah, it was. It was. It was a fun time. Again, my dad had a great reputation in the area, so, you know, got real creative with the name. Just stuck with the last name and ran with it.

[Aaron]

But.

[Mike]

But no, it was great, great opportunity. And of course, without what he had done over the years, it would have been much harder to start and pick up and run with it. But, yeah, I'd had a little money that I'd saved up over the years of working with him and the company and had a pickup truck, man, just ready to go.

[Aaron]

Do you start in northern Mississippi then?

[Mike]

Yeah, so I grew up in Columbus, Mississippi.

[Aaron]

Oh, okay.

[Mike]

Yeah, in the Golden Triangle area.

[Aaron]

I'm going to Columbus Thursday.

[Mike]

Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. But, yeah, so that's where our headquarters is. Still. Still headquartered there. And then. Yeah, so we worked all over north Mississippi, the Golden Triangle. Did a lot of work around Mississippi State University.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And that was a huge place of business for us for many, many years. And. And grew up from there and. And yeah, started. Started picking up clients in the, I don't know, 2010, 9, 10 era. That got us to start traveling, which was, man, was something completely new. Right. You, all your life, you'd grown up not traveling for work, and you had employees that were not used to it and so big there. But, yeah, we started traveling back then. And yeah, fast forward to today, man. We have three offices and working today in like eight states and all over.

[Aaron]

So how many people are at the company?

[Mike]

So we're right around 400 today.

[Aaron]

Holy.

[Mike]

Yeah, that's a.

[Aaron]

That's a handful.

[Mike]

It is. It's a. It's a lot of folks. A lot of folks to shepherd and care for, but we got a great team to do it.

[Aaron]

So did you go to Mississippi State then?

[Mike]

I did not. So while we were building the campus, I didn't have time to go to school there. We went. I went to East Mississippi Community College. Yeah. So it was perfect.

[Aaron]

Just for a few years.

[Mike]

Yeah, it was. It was perfect for the schedule that I was able to maintain working full time or part time. Some, you know, depending on what the semester load was and yeah, worked out well.

[Aaron]

But you still had the benefit of hanging out around Starkville.

[Mike]

Yeah, I burnt up that Highway 82 corridor between Starkville and Columbus multiple times a day. Yeah, working start, you know, I'd go to the job sites early in the morning, get things going and then, you know, I'd make sure my class schedule worked out to where I could get back. Whether it's a 9, 10 o'clock, whatever. Yeah, go to school, grab lunch on the way back a lot of times or whatever. So yeah, yeah, it was good work, worked well. And you know, I studied drafting and design there and also accounting, which. Yeah, I mean, both of those have benefited me a lot throughout the years.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Did you get a full degree?

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Oh, wow, wow, wow. So you were like really working and studying?

[Mike]

Well, yeah. I mean, it, you know, a lot of the stuff you learn, whatever, you know, college you go to, it's, it's applicable. But the real experience comes later when, when you go into, into business and you've got to figure it out. You've got to figure out how to manage people, you've got to figure out how to negotiate. You figure out how to build the team and, and go through all the experiences that, that really build to something.

[Aaron]

Why didn't you just call it a day on school when you started? Were you just too far in?

[Mike]

Yeah, it's a good, good question. You know, it, it was, I felt like there was things that I still needed to learn administratively that I wanted to be better at. And man, as a kid, you look back, I loved drawing house plans and building plans. Really enjoyed that. And I mean, when I was a young kid, I wouldn't draw, you know, funny or silly things. It was, I was always looking at, okay, how can I design this house or this church or this commercial thing? And, and so I always enjoyed that. And so drafting and design was, came natural. So I really enjoyed that, that side of it. Right. And so I was like, I really want to learn this skill set. And you know, throughout my career it's helped, you know, whether it's. I had to put something together in the office and I could jump on CAD and do it myself or, you know, look at a plan and, you know, put markups or things on it. And so it was beneficial.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And then the accounting side of it, you know, my, I had the benefit. My dad's partner was an accountant and, you know, that there was so much I learned about running a construction company at a young Age from an accountant's perspective. Oh, that was so helpful going forward. You know, a lot of contractors, you get into this and you think the whole business is about building things. It's really tracking the numbers to build the things.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Which is where I would say most everybody gets in trouble.

[Mike]

That's correct.

[Aaron]

I think most everybody's. They start a company because they're good at building things.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

And that's not really the business in the grand scheme of things or like, you know, you can still be involved in building things as a construction company owner when you have like, what, 10 guys?

[Mike]

Sure.

[Aaron]

Maybe 20 guys.

[Mike]

Like probably a little bit more.

[Aaron]

Maybe a little bit more. Yeah. If you're active, like you're out in the field. But then once you start to get to any substantial size.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

You're not in the field like at all anymore. Sometimes, like, sometimes you just get. You. You should be. And some people are. Are more involved than others, but you can get so easily then just sucked into the world of banking and insurance and lawyers and contract negotiation and.

[Mike]

Yeah, well, I mean, there's. You're 100% right. A lot of businesses start construction there. It is a. Out of all the industries, it's a pretty low threshold of entry.

[Aaron]

It is.

[Mike]

Right. Depending on what you're going to do and where you're going to start. And so a lot of great craftsmen look at it and go, I can do this. And from the construction standpoint, they are the guy.

[Aaron]

Right.

[Mike]

They know they're the best at whatever trade. But then you get into business side of it, it's a completely different world. And so, yeah, there's a. There's a level of size that you get where you just. If you're going to be a great business, you can't be out there anymore. I don't think. I know some companies that's been around for a long time that their owners are still out in the field. So it works for some. And that's a completely different culture. It's a completely different mindset.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

But for me, you know, growing up working in my dad's company with the partner that was an accountant, I understood the importance of the numbers and understand the need to make sure that the estimates were exact and then you could track those exact costs as you were doing the work. You know, an understood margin. Right. And, you know, I still meet owners today who've been in a long time and know that concept of making sure the margins there from. From soup to nuts is hard. Right. Yeah.

[Aaron]

And it's a. It's still like. I know big companies that are still kind of run off. Like a post it note.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

In a way. And that. That's a little bit of hyperbole, but it's like, it's not far off. I mean, they're. They're kind of like licking their finger, putting it up in the air, like, all right, that's the number we're going with.

[Mike]

Yeah. There's. There's companies, you and I both probably know of, that, you know, the previous generation is still in charge of the estimates. And they literally get somebody to do the takeoff. And it comes in on a notepad and they're writing 20 bucks a yard here. Concrete, 450 a yard.

[Aaron]

Like, whoa.

[Mike]

Where's the labor cost? Where's the material separated out? Where's the equipment? And they're like, oh, this. We've been doing this for years. And it works like, oh, my goodness. That's terrifying.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah. The. You know, it can. I've seen it work a few times where an owner can stay out in the field, though, if they have somebody running the business, like, one of the smartest guys. I've been around talking about them all the time. Larry Ames in Denver.

[Mike]

Sure.

[Aaron]

The guy does not want anything to do with running a construction company.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

He has a massive construction company. Why is that?

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

Well, he has this guy named Ron in the office who's an accountant running the business. And he trusts him. He allows him to run the company. He doesn't micromanage. He's not. They're not. He's. He runs the field. He stays out in the field. He stays in his lane.

[Mike]

Yep.

[Aaron]

And it works.

[Mike]

Yep.

[Aaron]

Brilliantly. I mean, at least from the outside. And I've been around him enough to be like, all right, that's. That. He's done all right. Like, he's done just fine.

[Mike]

Absolutely. And no doable. Yeah. And so, you know, to kind of come full circle where we're at today. We were talking earlier about eos and traction. Right. And we've been doing that for years. Fantastic model. And we can go into detail about that later. But the. The concept for us was figuring out where I, as the owner, needed to be in the organization.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

To help make it work. Right. And a few years back, man, I. I tried to do everything that didn't work then. So I hired people and brought them on the team, but didn't have everything identified clearly that they need to be doing. And so, you know, every task was everybody's job. I got lost in that Mix. I'm like, I don't even know where I fit in my own business anymore. Right. What's. What's my role in this? But then to today, we've got things departmentalized and. And, you know, people are accountable for functions inside the business. Man, it works so smooth, and it's. It's fantastic. But I am still over the construction department, so as the owner, I get to see the construction side of things and make sure that I stay in close connection with the field. And we went through some times where it was really tough times, and I had gotten so far away from the front lines that that was the thing that I had picked up on in some of the failures we had was, man, I was too far away from the work. I feel like that me being closer to that and closer to the guys that are actually doing the work was a big deal. And so for the last several years, me leading the construction department, getting back out there, you know, visiting the job sites all the time, talking to superintendents all the time, shaking hands out on the job site, meeting these guys is paid dividends for us, right? Then the guys that are actually doing the work have a connection with the owner. And then I get to see stuff. Right? I'm walking a job site and I see something like, hey, you know, why are we doing this this way? Can we. Can we change this and, you know, feed into the planning side of things and help, you know, lay out the projects has been really, really good. And I can only do that because there's great guys running the business. Right. Fantastic cfo, you know, fantastic operations guy that's managing the business side of things. And so, you know, without those key roles, like you said earlier. Yeah, it's super tough to stay connected.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I can. It's funny, I can kind of tell how somebody runs their company based on how much they're on the phone and how much their phone's ringing and how busy their schedule is and how hard it is to get a hold of them.

[Mike]

Sure.

[Aaron]

There's. There's guys that just. And there's. There's. There's parts of business where you. You. That's just reality. Like, right. Everything is on fire and you are playing firefighter. But it's like there's people. I know that that's just a constant state of affairs. Like, they're just constantly exasperated.

[Mike]

That's correct.

[Aaron]

Because they're spending all of their time just running around the whole business, and it just, like, it exhausts me to see. I'm like, fuck, that's And I can't. Well, and I. And I can't do that because I'm oftentimes halfway around the world. I don't know what's. I can't know what's going on within the business halfway around the world. It just doesn't work. Like, even as connected as we are, I have to trust people. But it's so much better that way. Like with. Because of eos, we sat down beginning of last year, and as an executive leadership team, we went through the exercise of defining everybody's roles and responsibilities and how does the organization look and how are we organized. And you think, you know, but then you start sitting down and writing it out and challenging things and crossing things off the list and being very critical and trading things around. And it has got us to a place that is a million times better. And I think the last chess move we had to make just happened a few weeks ago. That was the other big move was selling the creative business was big. But then we finally have a leadership structure in place that makes sense. With Randy as the CEO of the company, me as the founder, Jason over sales, Dan over marketing, care over systems. It's like, it makes perfect sense now.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

And everybody's in the right place for them.

[Mike]

Everybody on the bus.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Yeah. It's so like, that cannot be overstated as well how important it is. Like, what is your superpower?

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

And, and, and what are you. I think another thing EOS talks about is like, what do you have the capacity for? And it's like, right now, I have the capacity to be on the road all the time, and that's a huge asset to our business. I'm not going to have that forever. I better go free up myself to go do that as much as possible.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

Which then means, though, I have to give away other stuff leading the company.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

But that's fine.

[Mike]

Right?

[Aaron]

Because if I get this over here, it aligns with not just what I enjoy, but what I'm capable of right now.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

That once I have a wife and kids at home, I'm not going to be wanting to be on the road all the time. It's just not. I'm not going to be able to. And then I can move within the business as well. So it's not just what I'm suited for. It's also what I'm capable of at this moment.

[Mike]

Yeah, 100 agree. And you know, as you, as you work through that process, my favorite part of the traction implementation was going through the book Rocket Fuel. Right. And Understanding the key roles of the visionary and the integrator. Yeah, because, you know, as a guy that started the company, I felt like I had to do everything. And right as you're building that company, you. You do, and you're the only guy. Right. So, you know, when I started out, I'm, you know, doing the estimates and at night, doing the billing late at night, you know, then would go get the guys started and have the meetings with the clients and go look at this other job, come back and check on the crews. So, you know, there's. There's a lot that's got to happen, and you got to do it all. And then as. As you keep growing up, we talked about those numbers. Is it 20, is it 30? Is it 40? Then you're like, whoa, I can't do everything anymore. And so you begin to peel off. Hey, this is taking a huge chunk of my time. And so you find somebody to do that, right? Then you have to go through a period of learning to trust that guy and making sure, okay, yeah, I couldn't actually trust those estimates or that person's doing the billing. Right. Or whatever. But you keep moving up, and as you, as you get to that size, then you're. All of a sudden you've got that team. You get to think about, wait a minute, what is my skill set? You know, is it. Is it. I'm the field guy and that's my thing. Or do I like the finance side? Is that my thing? Is it sales, whatever. But looking at where I fit in today, that visionary role, right. I'm always looking ahead, and, man, that is such a fun place to be, is to sit here and say, okay, this is what we've got now. What can we be in 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, and how do we get there? So always looking for those new ideas and figuring out the. What's the. What's the next evolution that we're going to make? You got to have a good integrator, too, to check you, right? Because you're going to have 100 ideas, and three of them are good. But the other ones, hey, let's pause that for a little bit. But, you know, going through that process of really learning how the visionary and the integrator work together and then being able to set both of them free and go, man, here's your lane and here's what you do. And so that's. That's been brilliant for us is. And I couldn't do it without a strong team. Right?

[Aaron]

Well, it just gives you. It Gives you a clear lane, though, too. It gives you permission to not be the guy for everything. Yeah, 100%, which is so nice.

[Mike]

So free.

[Aaron]

And I've just wholly acknowledged I am textbook visionary. I am dog shit at integration. I am dog shit at the details. I am not a numbers guy.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

That's why the company almost went into the ground, because I was trying to be the fucking guy doing the operations, like, get out, get away from this. It's just not my thing.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

Which is totally fine.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Everything's worked much better as a result.

[Mike]

I'm with you, man. I'm totally with you. Yeah. When we started traction, my right hand man, operation chief operations officer, we were looking at the company and it's like, okay, we've got a lot of stuff that's broke, right? We've got to do some stuff better. And, you know, when you look at a company, we all operate under a system, whether you know it or not. And so what I came to realize is, oh, we do have a system. And it's, it's called chaos. It's absolute chaos. And so everybody's in charge and thus nobody's in charge and we're not getting things done. So, so we knew we had to do something and we learned about traction, started reading about it. And at first, you know, I was really hesitant. I was like, man, I don't know systems and processes. Oh, my goodness, is it going to put me a box? I don't know about this. Why can't we just get the work and do the work? You know, what's, what's the deal here? Where's the disconnect? And so where we were at as a company, we said we. Okay, something's got to change, right? This seems to work. Here's some people using it. It's working well for them. You know, we went and visited with a few companies that were doing it, like, okay, we're going to do this. And then once you get through the process, it's like you said earlier, it's absolutely freeing.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

I mean, you talked about the guy whose phone's ringing off the hook and I don't have those days. I had those days.

[Aaron]

Yep.

[Mike]

Had plenty of them. I don't have those days.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

My calendar stays booked. But it's stuff that I want to do. Yeah, right. And. And it's stuff that makes our company better. It's, it's not uncontrolled. And that's that to me, that's the beauty of it. It's just the structure around Being able to live your life without chaos. Right?

[Aaron]

Yeah. I mean, I'm. My calendar's a mess, but it was like last week in Japan, all week I didn't get a single phone call.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

That I had to like, not a single thing. It. Because it's like. And I wasn't, I wasn't worried and any. At any point because it's like, I'm doing my job, everybody else is back home doing theirs. I thought it's. It's funny, you were resistant to the whole EOS thing because I thought it was the dumbest thing in the world. Because I, I think EOS entrepreneurial operating system is an oxymoron. It's like, that's not how entrepreneurship works. You're trying to. If it's true entrepreneurship, you're building something that hasn't been built before. So how do you create operating system for something that hasn't been done before? To me, it's like, that's just dumb. It doesn't make any sense. But then, then, then I realized, like, you arrogant sob, like, you're not good enough for. You're not too good for a system.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

You dumb, dumb. Like, you can still go build something that's a novel. That's still, you can still go pioneer with using a system. And you can argue that you can't really pioneer without, at scale, without systems and processes. And you can, you can get away with it up to a certain point, but if you want scale, if you want hundreds of people across multiple states, there has to be systems in place.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

If there doesn't have to be. I've seen it done without it. But for it to be healthy, sustainable for everybody involved and to be worth something without the guy, without. If you, if you're picked up and removed from the equation in theory, your business should keep going. It shouldn't, shouldn't revolve around you. You shouldn't be centered. Universe.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

But that's how a lot of them are. If you picked one person out of it, the whole thing falls apart. Yep. And I'm just a scary place to be.

[Mike]

I've seen those companies. Right. And you know, I talked about the company my dad built. His company probably never got over 30 people. And that was a lot for him. I was a huge number for him. And so as a kid, like, I watched that and I learned, man, we go on vacation when we were able to go on vacation, like, the company shuts down.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Dad needs to come to a, you know, an event at school. There's Nobody watching. Right. And he's like, having to rush back. And I was like, man, I knew as a business owner, that's not the model that I wanted to follow. It works for some people. More power to them, man. I said, I want a company that does run itself and how do we get there? Right. And so, yeah, I'm like you. I didn't. I was probably too naive to think about systems to begin with, but I joined several business peer groups, been several over the years. And about seven years ago, I joined C12, which is a Christian business owner peer group. And that was before eos. Right, before eos. But what my eyes got open to was the fact that all businesses really deal with the same problems.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

We're all. It doesn't matter if it's fast food, restaurant, you know, other type of manufacturing, or retail, or us in the construction industry, we're all dealing with the same problems. Obviously, some may be more important than others, depending on what industry you're in. But so then that got me looking at, okay, if we're all, as business owners and wherever you're at in your lifespan of your business, you're dealing with the same problems, then systems are not scary anymore because you can go out there and take the systems that are proven successful systems for operating a business and then apply it to where you're at. And that gets back to what we talked about earlier, is it's that Craftsman mentality versus business mentality. You have to have good craftsmen in your company.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

But you also got to manage the business side of it.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And so those things have to work in conjunction with one another. Right.

[Aaron]

Well, I think this is where the construction industry is screwing itself in a lot of ways. I think there's this uniqueness bias. Everybody thinks they're a special snowflake. Everybody thinks their market's unique, their way of moving dirt's unique, putting pipe in the ground's unique. And it's like, okay, cool. Yeah, you're building on Mississippi spec, which is a little bit different than Alabama specifically. But putting pipe in the ground is putting pipe in the ground. And yeah, it's a little bit different in Mississippi than it is Arizona because you guys have rain and this weird soil that does weird things at weird times a year. Like, I get all that, but you're still using an excavator, you're still using people. You're still using concrete pipe or iron pipe or whatever it is. It's all the similar principles.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

But everybody thinks they're special and Unique. And I think as a result, the industry is really suffering because each company oftentimes is not as healthy as it should be, or developing its people as it should be, or making the margins as it should be. And then it creates all this fragmentation across the entire industry, which then allows for this exploitation by these monster conglomerates, these giant companies. And it's not their fault they're out to make their money, but it opens up a lot of room for these engineering firms, consulting firms, law firms, materials companies, equipment companies, all the bigger companies, to ensure that they're making their margin at general contractors at the expense of your margin. You're last in line, you don't have any leverage in the picture. And you, like, okay, you won't do it. Fuck you. There's seven other guys that will.

[Mike]

And you're all the same.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Oh, you're gonna push against our contract? Oh, like you think this is a negotiation. That's really. That's cute. Like, that's not how this works. Sign on the dotted line or beat it.

[Mike]

But that's that mentality of construction being nothing more than a commodity.

[Aaron]

Yes. Which, which it's not right when done. Right. But at this, like, at the same time, the overall market kind of acts like that.

[Mike]

It does, yeah. And so I don't. It's very difficult for contractors to make margin in a world where construction is the commodity. Yeah, it's very, very difficult because it's low dollar. Who's going to do this? The cheapest.

[Aaron]

But it opens the door for guys like you. Like, that's the opportunity.

[Mike]

Yeah, that's exactly right. And so then you have to look at it and go, okay, wait a minute. If I don't want to be fighting over pennies all the time, how do I change the paradigm? And for us, that was going through and figuring out what does make us unique.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And that's difficult because in a lot of respects we are the same. So again, you can't look at the work necessarily and identify the uniqueness of it. Right.

[Aaron]

Yeah, we build better roads. So. No, you're building the road I want.

[Mike]

Right. And yeah, there are specialty contractors and they get hired because of their specialty. We get that. But. But as a company, what. What does make us unique? You could look at the hotel industry same way. Right. You've got, you've got all these various hotels. Marriott, Hilton. Okay, let's look at those two big companies. What makes them different? What is their uniqueness? You can stay at either hotel, you get a room, you get a bathroom, you Get a nice bed, whatever. But so for us, we had to walk through that process and go, okay, what and eos forced us to do that. What are the three uniques that really make us who we are and how do we capitalize on it? And so, yeah, walking through that process is painstaking. I mean, takes a lot of time and energy. But once you, once you do that and figure out who you are as a company and how do you get your team to buy into that mission and that vision and of course the values and then understand what makes you unique, then all of a sudden you can start fighting the paradigm of being the cheapest, fighting the paradigm of that commodity mindset of construction. And that's a lot of work.

[Aaron]

I, and that's something I was thinking about when you were talking before. I think people, the bottom feeders on the Internet that are business consultants that have never had a business in their life, they'll talk all about these systems and this and that and like, oh, you shouldn't need to work in your business, passive income, whatever it is. And it's like, yeah, you don't need to be involved in the day to day, but it's taken, I would argue it's more work to get to that point because you have to ask those difficult questions. You have to find the right people, you have to trust people, you have to understand who you are as an individual, you have to have confidence as an individual. You have to be trusting of other people. And, and like it requires so much more work up front that people don't see, right. They see the benefit on the back end of you not having to be involved in everything. But it's like, it takes, it takes more work to get there up front. Like, like anything though, the more you put in up front, in theory, the more you get on the back end. It kind of works that way with a business. Like the more you put in from a team standpoint, culture standpoint, vision standpoint, value standpoint, differentiation standpoint, it's a lot of work up front. It's oftentimes scary up front because you're like over here trying to pay your bills and then over here you're trying to like, well, we need to be talking about values. It's like, no, we need to be paying our bills. So you have all these external pressures saying like, no, no, no, that doesn't matter, just count your pennies and just do the damn work, right? But if you stay on the path, right, it's extraordinary.

[Mike]

Well, there's seasons in life too, right? And so whenever you take that snapshot of a business owner's life or the business, where are they at in their season? Right. If they're in that infancy stage, yeah. There may be less time spent towards the Mission Vision values because you are in a startup mode. Right. But you've got to transition. Tell you a funny story. My wife and I went to Miami to South beach for Valentine's Day. So we were sitting out on the beach. There was a family behind me, husband and wife, three kids, maybe late high school, early college year kids. The dad and mom were pouring into these kids about how to manage their finances and how to manage them well. Right. And hey, save while you're in college. Buy a house that you can turn into an Airbnb, do rentals, and, you know, grow that and put your money in some asset that does grow and everything. So it's a great conversation. I was listening to them. They were right behind me. So all of a sudden, the kids get up and leave. And so I turn around, talk to dad. I was like, man, I said, it's really cool to hear you pouring into your kids that way, right? And we talked, chatted about that for a minute. And I had a Gregory Construction hat on. He's like, hey, man, I see you're in construction. You know, what do you do? I said, yeah, I run a large civil construction company. He's like, oh, cool. I do, too. And I was like, oh, interesting. So we got talking about his business, and he's like, yeah. He said, I probably shouldn't be here. And I was like, really? He said, yeah. He said, man, he said, we have 30 employees. And he said, 12 of them quit. This was on over the weekend. He said, 12 of them quit Friday. And I was like, oh, well, I said, yeah, it's a tough day. I was like, you probably shouldn't be here today, but. But anyway, yeah. And so. And so I got hearing about his story, right? And so it ties into what you were saying. This gentleman, I think, second generation, healthy business. He moved away from the business at a, you know, when it was still in a small stage, Right. And. And didn't. Was not pouring into the company as that charismatic leader or either the guy that's involved all the time in the field or whatever. He was just totally disconnected. And so he hadn't poured into that Mission Vision Values. And some of the guys came to him and said, hey, you know, you're absentee owner, you know, in theory, the guy you were just talking about that's looking for that Passive income. And hey, we, we want to buy the business from you. Of course, this gentleman at the beach was like, nope.

[Aaron]

Yeah, kick not.

[Mike]

Yeah, I'm not gonna sell it. No, it's like, cool. So those guys took the, took the valuable guys left and started their own.

[Aaron]

Oh, wow.

[Mike]

Yeah. So, I mean, right. And so that's, that's, that's, that's the, that's the opposite or the consequences of what you just talked about is having, you know, this mindset of I'm going to create something in this industry, in the construction industry, it's going to turn into a passive income. Yeah, I don't think that happens.

[Aaron]

No.

[Mike]

You know, I don't foresee in my life ever that I'm not going to be connected to the business in some form or fashion and be the visionary, be the leader who's speaking into the team, be the guy who's thinking about the creativity of how do we grow and how do we get there. You know, I think understanding the skill sets and talents that God has given each of us is hugely important. And I didn't know what mine were for a long time. Right. I enjoyed drafting, as I said earlier. I enjoyed playing in the dirt and running equipment and all that kind of stuff. Loved it. But I know what my skills were. But today I understand that, you know, I. My skill set is creating and growing people and business.

[Aaron]

I love it.

[Mike]

And so, you know, being a part of something that continues to grow and that you can see forward momentum in the people that you shepherd and the business that you lead. Why would you want to be disconnected, you know?

[Aaron]

Yeah, I like, on the people thing, you have to give people a reason to stay at your business.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And to give their life to your business, which I don't think is a bad thing. I think there's a lot of people from a previous generation playing the victim game. And I try to be respectful of where they've been and like, they're in the position they are for a reason. And I'm just a little turd. You know, I just turned 30. Like, what do I know? But me as an employer, like, we've employed enough people at this point to have a decent sample size. And it's like, it's my job. Like one. My workforce is my responsibility. A hundred percent my responsibility. I have to have the workforce I need to do the work I need to do. That's my job to ensure that I have that workforce. They have a lot of options. I don't have a single employment contract with anybody. Here, there's no contracts keeping them here. So every day, every week, I better be reminding them why it's in their best interest to be here or else they're going to go somewhere else. It's just I struggle a little bit with people, especially blaming people or like, oh, they just, you know, everybody's out for another dollar. It's like they are. Because that's how your business must be designed. Like, if you keep leaving, if you keep losing people for a dollar, to me, that's you have a problem. Like, you have a problem. It's not the market that has a problem, it's your problem. So you better figure it out. Like, why are they leaving? Maybe that's question number one. I also get it's construction. I also get it's a crazy labor market right now. I also understand there will be those people that will leave for a dollar. They'll always be those people. But I think it should be the minority. Like, it shouldn't be the majority. And if it's the majority or if that's your genuine belief, if everybody's just out for a dollar, you're going to attract, you're going to attract that. Like, you're going to.

[Mike]

Right. If you're the guy that's taking them for the dollar.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Again, you're feeding that whole mantra of a buck matters.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Mike]

And leaving a tenured company to go get a buck. Right. But when you talk about people, I mean, we could talk the rest of the day about people, but there's, there's a worldview that's so important, is, you know, for, for us, our company is centered around biblically based values. Right. So for us, when we look at that, work is something that God has commanded. Work existed before the fall in the garden. Right. Adam and Eve were there to tend the garden and then they sinned.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Right. So we as humans were created for work. So this mentality of, I, you know, I don't want to work to earn my living, that's not the people I'm ever going to recruit.

[Aaron]

Yeah, right.

[Mike]

Because for us, we want to hire for character and culture, not competency. And so then all of a sudden you bring in like minded individuals that have the same thought process, adopting our core values. And then all of a sudden you start to create this culture that they're happy to be there, they're happy to be part of a team. We have a vision that they can see what the future is going to look like. We have a mission that they can believe in. And it's something bigger than themselves.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

So all of a sudden that buck, that 50 cents, that $2 raise, it's not attractive anymore because you go to this place and they're not the same. So you build that family like mentality and culture and then all of a sudden the stickiness is there. Right. You get the families involved in the organization, then you have a spouse at home, like, honey, you're not leaving.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Mike]

Right. They take good care of us.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Right. And so that's, I think it was a year or two ago, another construction company, I can't remember who it was. I was watching one of their videos and they, someone came up to this lady and asked her about her job, you know, what does she do? And who are you? And so this young lady in her 20s said, I'm so and so my job, you know, maybe project engineer, some entry level role. And she said, I am a lifer. Wow, that's fantastic. Yeah, that's that, that's that thought process and culture mentality of you're building a culture and a, and a business and an atmosphere that there's a 20 year old that's coming in this organization. They love it so much. Like, I want to retire here. That's awesome.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And I got such an some encouragement out of this. We work with several consultants that look at various parts of the business. And so this consultant group we brought in probably six, eight months ago, the first thing they did was dive into the company and start interviewing everybody and asking a bunch of questions. And so they took a strata of the company from top to bottom and interviewed them all. It was like high 90s, 95, 98, said, we want to retire here. That's awesome. That's so encouraging.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

So encouraging.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Because you do get, you get the bad apples every once in a while. You get the problem. Employees, I mean, we deal with that. That makes the noise. Right. So that's what you hear a lot of. But then all of a sudden you're like, man, this, this section of people, this group, 98% of them said, hey, I'm gonna retire here.

[Aaron]

But that's cool. It's just, I see it on both sides. From business owner standpoint, they'll let those rare examples give them a jaded perspective of people in general.

[Mike]

Yep.

[Aaron]

And they'll just take this negative worldview about everybody's lazy, everybody's out for a dollar, so on and so forth. But it's like, I would say that's when one of the great things about seeing the world is that you start to realize these common themes between humanity, totally different cultures, but everybody. Most people want to work. They want a purpose in the world. A lot of people haven't ever had a purpose. So they might not. They might not have a purpose right now. They might not value it now. But like, inherently, everybody wants to work and have purpose in their life. I think that, to me, is true for the majority. And most everybody wants a better life.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

For themselves, especially for their family.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

So. So if you can give them purpose.

[Mike]

Yep.

[Aaron]

And if you can give them a better life for themselves, especially their families.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

Things work out. Okay.

[Mike]

Things work out.

[Aaron]

And I think part of it is hiring and part of it is also showing people that haven't seen that before that this is possible. Like, hey, you are not a piece of.

[Mike]

You're not a commodity.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not just. You're not just. Yeah. An operator. You're not just some pond scum in society. You can be whatever you want to be. And here is how you do that. Like, I think that's when things become really spectacular. Because now you can tap into a totally different audience like that. It takes a lot of work, but now you can tap into a totally different pool from a hiring standpoint that no one else or very few have access to.

[Mike]

Well. And you get those folks that buy into the culture, see it, feel it, embrace it.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And then they bring people.

[Aaron]

Yeah, right. Yeah.

[Mike]

How many companies do you hear says we have a hiring problem? Where are we going to find. We can't find the people.

[Aaron]

Yep.

[Mike]

You know, we're fairly large company. We've got people that constantly come. Right. And we still have to screen them and we still have to go through them. Don't get me wrong. It's not like they're just knocking at the door and every one of them are perfect.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

But we have a plethora of people that want to come. And so you start to attract. Because you do totally change the paradigm of what this industry can be. Let's face it, the construction industry is broken.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

A lot of aspects. Absolutely broken. And that's where the opportunity lies for a company, for a business owner, for leaders in the industry, is create something unique. It's totally different.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And you're not just a number. You're not just a traded commodity that operate a piece of equipment or use a shovel. You're part of something a lot bigger. And let me. Let me tell you how you can do that.

[Aaron]

It's. It's interesting. You say that too. Because you are in probably, I would say one of the most brutal markets in the United States. From a labor standpoint.

[Mike]

It's tough.

[Aaron]

The south is brutal. I mean, especially Mississippi, Mississippi, Alabama. Like I tell everybody when talking about labor, like you haven't seen a real labor challenge until you go to the South. I mean it is, it's no joke down there. And so if you're able to do it in the South.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

It's like you've got all the excuses.

[Mike]

Well, we hire from all over. Yeah, from all over. We got team members from a lot of different states and it takes a wide net, right?

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And so, yeah, you know, and that's one of the things when you look at the business and just say if we were just planted in small town Mississippi or small town Alabama, it's tough. I mean, it's really tough. And so you've got to take that broader net and again, find the folks that for us are willing to travel. You know, I mean that's, that's a whole nother game is just having folks that are willing to, you know, be on the road a lot and then find the ones that are awesome character, that want to be a part of a great company culture.

[Aaron]

Sure, yeah, it's. But I guess like the further I've gotten, the further I've become, like, yes, experienced people are great, they're necessary. But the more we can take just these young individuals and make them into something, the more we'll be successful. I think like the better off we'll be. I mean, I had a conversation not long ago, it was a tough conversation. Like I had to sit someone down and somewhat straighten them out. It just was not. Stuff wasn't working. And he said like, well, you know, no one's really taught me how to be an adult. Something along those lines. And it's just like, it's a good reminder. It's like, yeah, no one has. Your parents didn't, school didn't. Previous employer probably gave two shits about you. Especially when you're young. You, you really are just a number to any big company. So shit, no one has taught you how to be an adult. We're going to teach you how to be an adult and you have to do your part. Like it's not just a one sided deal here. I'm going to do my part. We're going to teach you. You've got to learn. And if we do that together, this is going to be really damn cool. Yeah, but I think a lot of people in a Lot of businesses, they're just. They're also assuming there's all these false assumptions that people will come into my business. I just need to hire the right people. And the right people, they have all the shit squared away. They know how to communicate effectively, they can lead effectively, they're healthy, like, their family's good to go. They're financially sound. They're not going to make any rash decision like they're locked in. And it's just like, that's also a totally false assumption. I think you want to find people that are grounded in some sense, but then it's like, all right, how can I help this individual get better? And if I can help them make their life better by being here, they're locked in. And now there's, you know, their partners locked in. Because families, you know, if you have to think about that stuff, if the family's not bought in, or if their family life is chaos right outside of work, it's not. It doesn't function. It. Something's broken there.

[Mike]

Yeah, well, I mean, we as leaders, right, we don't have all our stuff together. Our life can get messy. So why would we believe that all the team members we're bringing in are perfect? And so, yeah, no, I think you. You want to think that you're just going out and getting that perfect candidate every time. But, you know, humans are messy and their lives are messy. And, you know, work. Work problems usually stem from home problems or their life. And so, yeah, taking. Taking somebody in and giving them all the tools to be successful. You were talking about training people up. I have a friend in the construction industry out in Utah. They have a fantastic apprenticeship program for young people. And I was visiting them, learning more about it. And like, their first classes for a lot of guys are how to pack the right clothes, how to take care of, you know, kitchen, clean the house, and all this. I was like, whoa, that's am amazing. But it's that same thought of, hey, these guys are not used to this life, or they're just leaving the house for the first time, or they've only worked local, had somebody else taking care of their house for them. Hey, here's how to do this stuff. Here's how to, you know, maybe even something simple as do laundry. Right. Things that we might take for granted. Oh, you know, we learned from our parents or whatever, but there's a group of folks that never grew up that never had somebody to teach them. And so taking them and turning them into something. There's so many aspects of teaching and growing somebody that we as good leaders can provide that again, just totally turns it into this great culture of, wow, they're pouring into me, they're teaching me, they're growing me. I want to be part of that for the long term. And I'm committed to being a part of that organization. I mean, we ask a lot of guys, you know, six days a week, sometimes seven days a week, long hours, you know, horrible conditions, sometimes rain, sleet, snow, mud, you know, what, what motivates these guys to go to work? I mean, yeah, part of it's the pain. And yeah, I'm going to get overtime pay and premium pay and all that kind of stuff, but to stick around and do it over and over and over, it's. Yeah, my employer sends me back home every two weeks, and anytime I need something, my employer's got my back.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And so, I mean, all those things is. It feeds into getting that right team and then keeping that right team.

[Aaron]

Yeah, there's a, there's a lot of companies competing on pain benefits right now. And it's like, if that's your retention plan, it doesn't work at a certain point. It just, just doesn't. Math. Like, it, it, it. We had a company, it was years ago now, but big company, you would know them very, very well. He just said, matter of fact, he's like, after next Friday, we're not going to have a workforce challenge because we're giving the whole company dollar raise. And it's like, I just looked, I didn't even know how to respond. Just blank stare. I'm just like, holy shit.

[Mike]

Bandaid on it.

[Aaron]

You believe what you're saying right now? And it's years later. Do they have a workforce challenge? Boy, do they. It's like, man, okay, cool. You have pay and benefits. So does everybody else. Everybody else has that too. And honestly, there's a lot of other industries out there that can whoop your ass when it comes to pay and benefits that you will never be able to compete with, ever. A lot of them are your customers. So good luck. Like, if I'm going to work for you, it's shitty and rainy and cold or hot or whatever it is. I'm driving past the Amazon warehouse. They can pay me the same amount of money. I'm going to be thinking twice about and. And how could I ever blame somebody for thinking twice about that? Like, of course, because they just want to provide. And if that's an easier way to provide, then so be it. Right? So I better give them that reason to go work when it's hot and wet and cold, etc. Pays part of it. But there has to be something else there or else these other industries like, they just have deeper pockets, they're way more consolidated, they can offer more money. They have these bonuses and all this crazy shit that might not work out long term but can certainly capture people short term and they're out for their best interests. Like you might be building the Amazon warehouse, but Amazon doesn't give a shit about you. Big picture. They just want their workforce and they're going to do whatever it takes to get it.

[Mike]

Yeah, pay, pay cannot be the priority in long term retention. Right. You've got to have fair wages. Yeah. You've got to take care of, you know, a guy taught me a long time ago, he's like, you're trying to hire the right people, take money off the table. Right. Just take care of them. You'll see dividends for paying somebody. Well, if it's the right person from a character standpoint, but then, then 100% right. Long term, getting people to stay with you. It's got to be more than pay.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's very important. If they're not making their mortgage big problems, that's not sustainable. It's like that's, that's the low hanging fruit that has to be taken care of before anything else. But it's like if you stop there, you don't go any higher in the pyramid. Good luck. I don't, I just don't, I don't know how that's even possible. Like, or even like what you're talking about, mission, vision, values, etc. It's like if we weren't doing that, I wouldn't even like how does a business run without it? Yeah, I don't even know.

[Mike]

Yeah, it's, it's very difficult. You know, we were now, now nearly 20 years old. We didn't have the mission, vision, values figured out for many, many years. And, and I would, you know, I, I would have probably answered the question in the early years with something that maybe is some semblance of what we have now, but it takes a lot of fleshing out from you as an owner. Like it was really, really deep dive into okay, what do you want this to be? And, and as a, as a guy that's started business, you, you know, you have a, I, I, I was getting married at the time, taking, I had my sisters and family members, I had people that were depending on the success of my business initially. And so the initial reason to start a business is not necessarily the same thing that then it turns into, from a mission and vision standpoint, right, there's usually a need, I need to pay my bills, I got to take care of my family, right? And so, okay, so I'm going to go out there and I'm going to break new ground and do this myself. But then all of a sudden when you do start to have that company that does live and breathe on its own, then how do you define it and put, put the parameters around it? The guidepost of what are your core values? How do you want your team to operate? Where are these lanes you want them to be in? Takes a lot to think through that and vet out with the team. And that was something that I didn't fully understand either. When you go through mission and vision values and working those out and then doing the checkup annually on are we still on track? Is this still who we are? There's such a great benefit in getting your core team to help develop some of that too. You can lead and be out there scattering the breadcrumbs, right, to lead them in this direction. But that's got to come up organically and make sure that everybody buys into that and embraces it and says, yeah, this is what we as a team are about. And then once you've got that, you've got that core that then all of a sudden that resonates, that just keeps resounding out through the rest of the group and you've got it.

[Aaron]

Well, I had this conversation yesterday with somebody and was like, hey, if I'm the only one breathing life into the core values here, we're screwed or this isn't going to work, man. It's just not, it doesn't, it's not sustainable. It can't all come from me. So it's like, if you have an observation, talk about it. Like you go talk about it, you go, right teach you go breathe life into this as well. Because I can't, I can't and shouldn't be the only one doing. I used to be, I used to be, it used to come from me. But now, like we revised our values very recently actually. And I think, I think mission, vision, values, it's like a, it's a, it's a garden. You have to prune it and you might want to get rid of, pull some long lasting, you know, long standing bushes out and put some new ones in and keep some, you know, and it's, it's this, it's like a, it's, it's not something you just, oh, we figured it out and all right, they're up on the wall now, everybody knows them. We're good to go. Like, we did it. That's like, that's like the starting point, honestly. That's where everything begins. It just takes non stop work. But we went, we went, we went through this, this process. It was way different than the initial process. The initial process was really kind of just me defining what my core values were, because my core values were the business's core values. The business, especially in the early years, is very much a personification of whoever starts the company. Typically. Like you can typically look at a company and get. It typically matches whoever started it very well. Like I've, I've met enough people, hundreds and hundreds of people that have started businesses at this point.

[Mike]

It's kind of like when the owner and the dog start looking.

[Aaron]

It's very, it's like, oh, this makes perfect. I get it. This is great context. But now there's more people involved. We're doing bigger things. We're involved in different areas. I have a different role this time. Way more collaborative. I needed to be totally sure that the executive team was bought in. They had feedback. I got rid of some stuff. I took their feedback, tried to add what they wanted. I tried to balance it with I want what I wanted because I knew I could come in and say, all right, here's the new values, let's get on board. I could have done that pretty easy, but you just don't get that. I like, I need a hundred percent buy in. For this to work, you have to make it that collaborative process and it should be that process. You're going to get a better result. We got a better result. And then you can roll it out with that confidence, knowing that it's not just me driving this, it's, it's backed by, right, the leadership within this company. We're good. And it's like, that's one thing I learned. We've done this exercise with over 100 construction companies at this point through the creative business. Now they're doing it for a bunch of other people. But I've been through it enough to tell you if it's going to be successful or not based on who's sitting in the room. Top brass isn't involved. It can only go so far. Sorry, that's just where it starts. Top brass isn't there.

[Mike]

Yeah. Or vice versa. It's like you said, if it's if it's the top or it's just the top brass, then it's bad, right?

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Mike]

You've got to have that, as you said earlier, collaboration to make it happen. And you're right. I mean, your mission, vision, values, you do need to refresh it, right? You go through and hey, is this. Is this still aligned completely with who we are as we grow as an organization? Is this mission still working out for us? Yeah, it's a process, and you need to go back through it. We in our company now, you know, thankfully, I'm definitely not the guy that's talking about core values only. There's tons of folks, and it's so cool because us at the top, we. We like to say we're chief repeating officers. Right. We repeat it a lot. And a lot and a lot and a lot. You know, a human really doesn't believe or understand something until they hear it seven times. Right. So we're like, okay, we're going to take it to the biblical mandate of seven times 70. Right. Just over and over. But. But then you start to see that people really get it. And so then when you start to have superintendents and you start to have, you know, safety folks and you start to have people that are down in the organization talking about core values and said, hey, man, that's what you're doing there. That. That doesn't align with our core value of safety or core value of integrity or, you know, you got team members talking about, we're not pursuing excellence here, man. You're talking about cool. Because then all of a sudden, they're understanding the why behind what we're doing. Right. It's not just core values on the wall anymore. It's. It's integrated into who we are and how we operate and how we produce results.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And so that's. That's a great place when you can get there. And it can't happen top down. It can't happen with the owner being disconnected. Right. It's. It's got to be integrated throughout the team.

[Aaron]

Yeah, it's the. The Bible thing's interesting. I'm reading the Bible for the first time, Mike.

[Mike]

Josh is awesome.

[Aaron]

Just from COVID to cover. I just. I'm not doing it in any. Which I know is. I don't know. It's not. I don't know if there's a right.

[Mike]

Way to do it, but start somewhere.

[Aaron]

I'm just gonna start somewhere. I'm just gonna go right into Genesis and we're gonna work our way through this thing. And the Old Testament is dense. It's. It's complex. It's. But it's provided a lot of context.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

One of the things, though, that I find is interesting is it's very repetitive, Very repetitive. And it's almost to the point where it's like, all right, I get it. Like, we don't have to. We don't have to. I don't have to read the same paragraph four different times, but that's the point. At the same time, it's like we're going to. We're going to go through this exercise multiple times for a reason.

[Mike]

Right?

[Aaron]

Because this is really important, and you got to understand it. Or even I say. I say all the time. Repetition doesn't spoil the prayer. Why do you say the same thing when you go to church? It's because it's just human nature. You got to say it. You got to say it. You got to say it. Right? And it's just. It's like the core leadership principle. You better get. You better get excited about repeating yourself all the time, or. I knew this year was really big, and I knew I needed to meet with everybody one on one before this year to just work on the vision and get everybody aligned. Like, here's where we're going. I had a version of the same conversation with every single person, which is. It's kind of a grind. You're kind of like, all right, this is getting old. But you also have to be in the mindset of, like, well, they haven't heard it yet.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

I haven't had this conversation with them. I've. I've already had 40 people over here, but I haven't had it with this individual. And I need them to really understand this. So I've got to start from the beginning and have the exact same conversation to ensure that every individual is good to go. And it seems dumb if somebody was listening from the outside. It's like, what are you doing? Why do you keep repeating yourself? But it's like, that's what it takes. I need them to understand this. And they like, just this based on this one conversation. They don't have 100% comprehension. This is the foundation for then me to build upon, you know, this entire year. Right. But it's a lot of the same stuff.

[Mike]

Yeah. But as the visionary, you're casting that vision.

[Aaron]

Yes.

[Mike]

So how do you know. How do you share and transmit that data down? You know, we. We have that conversation our company a lot of times is, when do we do something in a group setting versus Individual conversations. Right. Because as you grow, may not be humanly possible.

[Aaron]

Yes.

[Mike]

For you to visit with everybody to share one topic.

[Aaron]

400 people, that's.

[Mike]

Yeah, so, so you got to figure that out and navigate through those waters. But for us too, as we've grown, it's so important to find those, we call them like cultural ambassadors that carry the culture forward in the organization. It's not always just leadership. It's folks that are totally bought in and see what we are and then want to share that and can mimic that and give that as examples and testimonials that get it out to the team. So we do all hands meetings a couple times a year telling everybody where we're at in the company, how things are going. And you know what we always start with mission, vision, values, purpose. For us too, we've incorporated that. And so it really, you step into any one of our meetings, it's all going to start the same way. You're going to be, oh, this again, this again. But hey, you're bringing on new people. You've always got new folks involved. You've got folks that, yeah, they may have been there seven, 10 years plus, but they understand now the importance of it because they hear it over and over and over again. And so, yeah, you do become that chief repeating officer. And that's okay. That's part of it.

[Aaron]

I think it's a very important part of it. I think it's very important. What is, what is your mission?

[Mike]

To improve lives while we build the future.

[Aaron]

Oh, that's pretty good.

[Mike]

Yeah. Building the future everywhere and improve lives is not just internal for us. Right. It's not just taking care of our people. All that's a huge component, but it's improving the lives of people in the community. Wherever we work, you know, we're, we're bringing projects out of the ground. We're helping them, you know, get better connected to their world or have easier transportation or better building. So improving those lives. But internally, all the stuff we talked about, you know, taking care of our team, developing our team, you know, loving them, you know, mentally, spiritually, physically taking care of needs. And so it's, it's all around holistic, improving lives.

[Aaron]

It's. You talked earlier too about spending time in the field, which I think is extremely important. I've tried to really, for, for whatever reason, I'm in a very unique position. I get to see a lot, I get to meet a lot of people. It's just weird where I'm at, especially my age. So people ask me to come talk to them about what I'm seeing, which is also really weird. Speaking in general, that's just not my thing, not my personality. I'm very introverted. I want nothing to do with it. But if I want to get to where I want to go, I better figure it out.

[Mike]

Sure.

[Aaron]

So in crafting a message, I've really tried to distill the common themes I see between different great companies. And one of the common themes that I've discovered, which isn't groundbreaking, is that they have leadership that is visible. I think it's so important. It's so important. And it's actually quite rare within. The bigger the company gets, the more rare it is. And even with, like, not that big a company, like the guy you were talking about, 30 people, he's not really around. It becomes. It happens to a lot. I mean, I've worked for companies where it's like, you didn't even. You had no idea who was. I mean, some big companies, like, not a single clue.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

The. The biggest guy in charge was the project manager of that project. There was probably 17 layers above them. From a leadership standpoint, that's the only guy.

[Mike]

The front line.

[Aaron]

Not a clue. Yeah. Who any of those 17 people are or where they are, where they live. You don't even know their names. No idea. Yeah. And then I've worked at or been around a companies where it's like, you know exactly who's leading the charge. And even the first one I worked for, I hadn't. I didn't ever spend time really with the guy who had his name on the company, but I saw him. And that even was more than enough for me to be like, all right, like, he's. He's out here. He's. He's in this. We're in this together. It made me feel like I was part of something, like part of a team. It was. And maybe that's because I was young and malleable, but even just, I didn't have an interaction with him directly, but I saw him and I knew, hell, yeah. Like, he gets it. He sees what the heck we're doing. Right on. It's such a simple principle, but it. It's quite rare in the grand scheme of things.

[Mike]

It sounds simple, sounds even easy, but it's difficult.

[Aaron]

It's very. Because it's challenging. Yes.

[Mike]

And you got two spectrums. Right. You've. You've got the guy, the example I talked about earlier. He's totally disconnected because of choice. Then you've got others who are In a season where they're hammering away at the business. Yeah. They can't be out there.

[Aaron]

I've got this lawsuit that's up my ass right now.

[Mike]

You've got stuff that you got to take care of, and then you get to the stage of where you don't necessarily understand the importance of it.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And that's really, from naive perspective, maybe even a little bit of humbleness and humility mixed in there of like, I don't have to be out there. I mean, maybe I'm promoting the team. We had, we hold a field leadership summit every year. This year we did it in Nashville, right down the street, brought in 80 folks. And we bring in all of our project management team, our superintendents, and we get all these teams together that are disconnected geographically. Bring them together and teach them leadership skills, scheduling, training, all this kind of stuff. Well, we wrapped it up and our coach that we were working with wasn't on the schedule, so we didn't know it was coming. It was really interesting. But we did as this round robin, all got up in the room and we all went around and told somebody, gave each other feedback from the meeting, thanked them for what they're doing, and gave them some advice that they could use to be better in the team. Right. Whatever that was. So I had all these, you know, 79ish people come around and give me, give me advice. And over and over, it's like, thank you for what you do. We want to see more of you.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

We want you to be out here more. I was like, whoa, that was. That was very impactful because, you know, I could look at that and like, I'm out there enough. Like, sure, deal with it.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

Or, you know, I might have the perspective of I didn't understand that that meant something to them. And then kind of where I was at is like, I didn't, I didn't understand that they want that.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And. And that that really has an effect on them. And so this, this year, I have really made a push to, to be on the job sites more often. And that means a lot of air travel. That means a lot of travel time. That means managing my schedule really well. I have three young kids at home. Sure. And so between my primary job of taking care of my wife and kids, I have to make sure that I'm taking care well of this very important job of representing the culture of the company, representing the care and, you know, representing the. The company namesake. Being out there and saying, yeah, I appreciate what you're doing. And it's, it, it is challenging, but it's very, very, very important for the health of the organization in our traction. Corporate L10 meeting. One of our issues. We were actually just talking about this yesterday in our executive L10, we have an issue that's always out there is executives going to visit job sites. And so we had that discussion. It was like, hey, do we still need this on there? And so of course, because of the role I'm in, I got the problem and said, yeah, you guys need to get out and go see the job sites more often. Right. But it's not, and it's not just the owner, it's other executives too. You mentioned. Yeah. Is there 17 layers of both get out and go see the work. Yeah, even. And it doesn't have to stop with the leader. You know, we, we've done this in times better than what we're doing right now, but is actually get the office staff out too. Right. So an executive's going take a couple people from the office, go visit a job site, introduce them to people, let them see the folks they're working for. You know, in, in the construction company, you have to understand you're either on the front lines or you're supporting somebody on the front lines.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And, and at times you can become the company that the office is disconnected from that reality. Right. They don't understand that.

[Aaron]

Just most general contractors, you said it.

[Mike]

I mean, but you don't, you don't understand that. Right. And so how do you, how do you meld those two together? And, and it's, it's intentionality. Yeah, it's absolute intentionality. And, and to get out there and go visit.

[Aaron]

I also think it requires a degree of humility as well because I think it's very easy to get defensive with that feedback and say, well, you know, they have no idea how much I do. They have no idea what it takes to make payroll or get these contracts squared away or get these jobs. Keep work ahead of this company. Build backlog finances. You could go down the list. You have 100 things to choose from. They have no idea. But it's like it goes back to human nature. Humans, we all have a desire. It's like, I think children are very like, like a six year old. You can learn a lot about how adults act by looking at a six year old. Because I think it's all similar emotions and actions. It's just, it's, it's not hidden from view. With a six year old, it's all at face value.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

Because they haven't had to conform to society yet. They just want to matter. They just want to matter. That's, that's, that's. We, we all just want to matter, especially to our parents. We really want to matter to our parents just in a very deep sense. But we just want to matter in general to people around us. And that says to, to them that, that they matter. And especially from an ownership standpoint, it's like you could very easily play the card that is, you have no idea how much I have to do and I am so busy and so much. But that's like again, going to the six year old and saying, hey, yeah, I know, you know, dad, I haven't been around a lot. I've been working, but I'm working so hard because finances are tight right now and our mortgage is, you know, the interest rates just went up and so our mortgage is higher enough. I don't pay the mortgage, the home goes away. It means Nothing to the 6 year old. All the 6 year olds can comprehend is that dad or mom is not around.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

Absent that, is it the intentions, the reality? None of that matters in the grand scheme of things. I think people are the exact same way. I think workforce is identical in a way. All it says, regardless of how much I have going on, is that you don't matter.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And of course they matter. But I can say it all day long if I'm not showing it. Right, okay, cool. Yeah, you can say it all day. But I haven't seen it. So I'm not buying it. Or I'm jaded from the 18 different other employers I've had that really haven't given a about me.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

I'm not buying what you're giving me.

[Mike]

It's just lip service. Right, right, right.

[Aaron]

So I. Spending that time, I think is one of the most valuable things anybody in leadership can do. And I, I've gotten away from this so many times, like raising money for a few years. It was terrible. I had a terrible time and it consumed my entire fucking life. Everything about it. It was this storm cloud that followed me everywhere I went. I could not get away. This impending doom of payroll. And you know, just too many times having the conversation like, yeah, payroll goes out next week. How much more do we need? It's the shittiest conversation. And because I was so wrapped up in that, I was absent from the rest of the company. And what happened was stuff went haywire in some weird ways or some cultural stuff, like there were just like some mutations within culture and business was like, everything was chaotic. Not saying I'm, I'm the guy to keep it all together, but my absence was a big problem. Yeah, huge problem. And I, and I didn't even realize it until I got out of that and was like, holy shit. Like, I haven't even been around for two years. I've even been at the business and I've been there every day, but I've.

[Mike]

Even been here night and day 24 7, trying to make it work, but haven't been here yet. No, I understand.

[Aaron]

But then it's like, again, I can tell people like, you guys have no idea how hard it is make parental isn't. But they don't give a shit. Yeah, it's like, well, that is the basic understanding that we have here is that you pay me every two weeks. Am I supposed to say good job?

[Mike]

That's the minimum.

[Aaron]

Am I supposed to shake your hand and say thank you? No, that's the agreement we have. But I want to matter just like anybody else.

[Mike]

Right. I think as I said earlier, we, as the leaders, sometimes we don't understand that human need of connection that they have on the front lines to the leadership. Yeah, you, you don't really grasp that. And, and if you're not staying connected with them, well, you, you miss it because at various levels, whether it's project manager or, or, you know, superintendents or other leadership categories, you have the circle that you spend most of your time with, right. You've got those few direct reports that you're reporting with. And so you, you assume that layer by layer by layer, things are getting passed along and you're getting that handshake and that appreciation and stuff. But yeah, there's nothing, I mean, you know, there's nothing like going out into the field and meeting especially like the new hires, right. Or the guys that's only been around a few months and like, oh, man, you're Mr. Gregory, man, it's great to meet you. I appreciate it. This is a wonderful company, man. Thank you for everything you're doing and all that kind of stuff. And so that there's a mutual benefit that goes both way. And so you don't realize how encouraging it is for them until you get that reciprocal encouragement back. I'm saying, whoa, yeah, this means something, right? And, and it to your point, as you're, as you're managing the fires in the company as they inevitably come up, don't you got to make sure you're doing, doing those important things of staying connected now?

[Aaron]

Well, and it's you can fall into the trap, too. It's like, you don't really need to be told, good job. Like, doing what you're doing. You wouldn't be in the position. Like, if you needed someone to come alongside you and be like, great job, Aaron. You're doing great. Like, keep it up. And so I think especially people that go and build a business, they don't. You can't really need that in a sense, because there's a long period where you don't get any of that. So if you need outside validation, like, it's the wrong place to look.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

But a lot of people do need that positive encouragement and. Or I've seen this a lot, especially with the previous generation. It's like they're just kind of an ass because they were raised by people that were kind of asses because they didn't get that encouragement coming up. They're not going to hand it out. Like, no, you need tough love. I didn't get it coming up. I came up through the school of hard knocks. You come up through the school of hard knocks. Like, how well is that going to work out for you? Like, really? You're just going to run that play? Like, it's not going to work. The world's different. And you can kick and scream about it all day. World's still different. Doesn't matter what you think. Right. You can think whatever you want. Reality is reality. And I see that a lot, especially with previous generation. It's like, I didn't get it, so I'm not giving it.

[Mike]

Yeah. And. And I think it's the absence of understanding that it is needed and then what benefits can come from it.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

It. It. You're 100, right. This industry was built on go out there and get it done. Period.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Like, whatever it takes.

[Aaron]

Just shut up.

[Mike]

Yeah, shut up. Do the work. Family. What's. No, they'll get the. They'll get the. Receive the money that you earned by busting your ass. Don't worry about it.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

You know, you got to go out there and we've got to build this and we got to get it done. And today is different. It is, again, that whole culture embodiment of care, compassion, empathy, all these things that. That would make a previous generation of construction guys, like, squirm. Like, what in the world? I don't want anything to do with that. But. But it's. It's required today to fight the other industries that are. Want to take our team members.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Or at the, you know, at, at the fork in the road for the kid that's trying to pick a industry, do I go into pharmaceuticals or do I go into construction or engineering? And these things that, that have in the past been looked upon as bad environments. Right. And so you've got to take all that and go, okay, this is the past. And yeah, that got us through a lot of seasons and revolutions in industry to get us to what we are as a country and an industry today. But what do we need going forward? And it's a completely different mindset. It's connection, it's care, it's feeding into the people, caring about the people, seeing the people, as you said earlier, making sure they understand they matter and are part of a bigger picture. And it can't be, it can't be something that is, you know, underestimated the value of, for sure.

[Aaron]

Well, the irony is it's like, wait a minute, you guys told us to, to, to do this. Like, you guys told us not to work our lives away. Like, or, or we watched you work your life away. Or it's like my dad, divorced, twice divorced from my mother, he was gone every week working, right, to provide us the lifestyle we had. But like, now that I'm an adult, that wasn't probably the whole reason, but it's like that had something to do with it. That was part of the equation. It definitely was. And it's like me, I'm looking at that like, I don't want to do that.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

I'm sorry that happened to you. That's terrible. I was there too, though. I experienced it in the way I did. I don't want it. And you've told me to not go down that path. And now your generation is resenting me for it. It's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You guys did this? Not me. Okay.

[Mike]

Right. Well. And I tell young people all the time, you could always learn something from others, either what to do or what not to do. Right? And so as we look back as leaders to previous generation of leaders in the construction industry, you can start to pick and choose. You did this. Well, this was a failure. Right? And I don't want to repeat that. So we're not changing the reality that construction work is hard, that it's difficult, that it's demanding schedules. I'd argue that our schedules today, way more intense.

[Aaron]

It is brutal.

[Mike]

I mean, way more intense than it was generations back. Yeah, technology, it's all great and everything, but I also think it demands faster paced construction, which is Only more pressure, more difficulty. So you've got to take some of the things that were learned in the past from the school of hard knocks and apply it. But you've got to put it through the filter of, hey, you guys back then may have not handled the people side of it very well. You may have not handled the family side of it well. Yeah, you know, I mean, I'd love for all our team members to have healthy home lives, to have a home that they own, that they're pouring into their future. Right. And so all these thoughts about care for the team member have got to go into the playbook of how you execute. It cannot just be, we're going to go do good work. We're going to go out there and bust it. We're going to be the, the best, you know, ditch digger that's out there. Okay. Like, that can be one of your goals, but how are you executing it through the people side of it? And, and you're right, as you used the word earlier, jaded. We as leaders can become so jaded.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Because we do get taken advantage of. A lot of times your good nature can get taken advantage of. And so you've got to take that and go, okay, that's not everybody. That's not every story. All the stories and all the individuals are not the same. How can I learn from that? And go, okay, that may have been a bad idea and didn't work out, but I cannot write everybody else off because of that.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I understand where they're coming from, but I'm starting to, now that I'm understanding more, have less and less patience for it. Less, less and less patience for a business owner or a leader complaining. Because it's like, then sell the company. Then sell the company. Why are you here? Why do you employ people? If employing people sucks, don't do it. Don't do it. Like, does someone have a gun to your head? Like, I don't know. So then get out. Like, right? If you, if you want to be in this position, like, that's the table stakes. Like, that's, that's where you should be. And you're doing nobody. Starting with you. You're doing nobody any service by being jaded about people. Because it's like, this is a people business. And especially the people that are like, yeah, I wish it, you know, I wish we could just build stuff, not, not, not, not deal with people. It's like, what are you even saying? Like that. That. That's the most ridiculous thing anybody could say. It makes no Sense. Because nothing gets built without people. So it's like that's. Yeah, like that doesn't even make sense. Like what are we saying? This is all a people business. The equipment, the materials, the work, all of that is secondary.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

All of it revolves around one thing, which is human beings. Which it has been that way, is that way. I'm betting that it's going to continue that way. Cross our fingers. Maybe robots take over. Who knows? Maybe. But I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon.

[Mike]

Yeah, we're talking about. You were reading through the Old Testament. It could be difficult, understand that.

[Aaron]

And it could be wild.

[Mike]

It's crazy. Yeah, it is crazy. It's human nature expounded upon. But the Exodus story, the Israelites leaving Egypt and being carried through the wilderness, it's an amazing story. And I find so many similarities between that story and leading people in a business. And so one of the things I would say is a business owner do go through seasons of where you can get so frustrated at people.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

You can get that mentality of, oh my goodness, I wish we could do it without people. You know, the old saying is, you know, business would be great except for clients and employees. Right.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And how many times you heard that? Over and over. Right. What do you say? But you look at the Old Testament story, those Israelites, they went to Mount Sinai and Moses was up on the mountain talking to God and communing with God and getting the ten Commandments. Right. He's going to bring it back and he goes to the bottom of the mountain and what have they done?

[Aaron]

They created monkey business.

[Mike]

Yeah. They created an idol and worshiped it. Then. And then Moses's brother Aaron said, I just threw the gold into the fire and out came his calf. And they. And it was this God. And Moses has this conversation back and forth of it's so funny is one time God's like, Moses, step away from them. I'm going to destroy.

[Aaron]

And you destroy all of them.

[Mike]

I'm going to destroy all of them and I'm going to raise a people, people from you. And Moses intervenes. No, no, no, don't do that. And then vice versa. There's a time when Moses is like, why am I dealing with these people? Break the tablets, destroy them, and we'll start afresh. And so you as a leader, I look at that and go, okay, there's seasons that you're going to be in. And it's just like, oh my goodness, this. What are we doing here? Why? Why do we have these problems. And, you know, how do we, how do we deal with the people side of it? But you're 100% right. Our business is people.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

It's people on both sides. You know, when you look at our mission statement, it revolves around people. And because we understand that whether it's the people we're working for, the personalities and the needs that they have, or the people that are building our business, the needs, the personalities, the pouring into. What do they need to make it work? I was reading this quote the other day, and it's. It's not all that grand, but it's. It's so beautiful. It's. If you grow your people, they will grow your business. And. And that is something that we cannot lose sight of is growing them, as I said earlier, mentally, spiritually, physically, all the way around. As I have a whole healthy person.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

That can then go, okay, now we're going to do bigger and better things.

[Aaron]

I think, though, this is where the construction industry can really compete against the big behemoths that is a majority of the US Economy now, like a majority of most other industries, very consolidated, with only just a few players that play in that market. The players know each other very well. They have it kind of fixed. Like there's a whole game being played in finance, in airlines, in the auto industry and the tech phones. Pharmaceutical, you can just go down the list. Insurance, Almost every other industry but construction. I'm just so in love with it, in part because it's a human business and because I think it's one of the few places where the American dream is still very much alive. Where somebody, anybody can. It's a. It's an equal opportunity employer. I just saw that the other day. I'm like, I fucking love that. It's an equal opportunity employer. If you're willing to put in the work, you will get the reward. You will get whatever you sow. It might not work out for everybody, but it's as close of a correlation as I think it gets. And I think there's a lot of people trapped in this gray world that is these giant corporations. Some of them we need. I do business with many of them like anybody else. I have an iPhone, you know, and so on and so forth. I have a Ford truck, but I know a lot of people working at those companies. It's gray, it's soulless, it's cold. It's. It's like. It makes me sad for them in a way, because in a sense, they're trading their time for money. And some do love what they do. Like maybe someone's just stoked on making pickup trucks or phones or whatever it is. I don't want to pick on any one place. But a majority is not that way. The majority is trading their time for money. They are a number. They are nothing more. They are a hired hand. They have no real investment in what they do. The company, the company doesn't give a about them. It's just cold. And they couldn't tell you like what impact they're making in the world, anything. And it just, it really saddens me. But then we have construction, which yes, can be miserable, can be hot, can be cold, can be wet, can be long hours, can be dark, can be weekends, whatever it is, but also offers people such an extraordinary sense of purpose. Offers people the ability to work hard for a greater good, have an impact in the community. Have the satisfaction of a day's work with something to show for it. Have the satisfaction of working alongside other human beings in the real world, not on a damn computer screen. We have so many spectacular things that most of these other worlds don't have. And so it's like, I think it's our responsibility to facilitate, facilitate that process well into the future to, to build these great businesses like you are, for my perspective, support these great businesses and doing more of what you're doing, not only to build these great places to work, but also support the community. It's like Covid was very eye opening. All these companies can just work at home, which means they're kind of not doing anything. Whereas the physical world built world that everybody needs zero work at home. Because if some guy taking out your trash works from home, your trash doesn't go away, your faucet doesn't turn on, your roads don't like your life doesn't work. It doesn't. It just. There's no future for any of humanity without infrastructure. And so that's where it like it goes to big picture. Why like this is very important. We, we can't screw this up. We have to do this right.

[Mike]

Well, the other thing we get to do is we get to provide an atmosphere for people to solve problems.

[Aaron]

Yeah, right.

[Mike]

I mean you use the examples that you just had of manufacturing, building cars, right? Or insurance or whatever. Man it is wash, rinse, repeat. Every day, every day, every day, every day, every. For us like we, we have the opportunity to give a meaningful career to a guy or a lady that wants to go out and see a challenge, take it head on and find a solution for that. And that's beautiful.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Again, as we said earlier, we're like many of us are designed and built to create and to solve problems, fix them, make it better. This industry is perfect for you. Right. If you realize that is your talent, your skill, your God given ability is to go out there and see it and fix it. And so. Yeah, I mean, I think that I love how you phrase that as having the opportunity to present to people, to create this beautiful thing. Yeah. Come join us. It's fun. It's gonna be hard. Yeah, it's gonna be hard. It's also hard to go to a factory for 40 years or. Yeah.

[Aaron]

Have a miserable existence.

[Mike]

Yes. Come over here. Yeah. Get to play in the dirt, get into sunshine. Right.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Have a new job every six months that you're, you know, going to the next project site. And so I mean, we work to capitalize on that. That component is, hey, this is why you want to be here. You know, we, we have such many construction companies do this. Right. We recruit from engineering schools. Guys go there thinking they want to build and so they said, I'm going to become an engineer.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Mike]

They go. And then they realize, whoa, if I keep going down this road and I go work for an engineering firm, I'm going to be at a desk forever. Yeah, I'm going to design all these beautiful things, but man, I don't ever get to build them. Right. And so all of a sudden we're sitting here as a construction industry going, hey, come on, man, come on. You know, we'll, we'll, we'll take care of the wages. You'll have the same wages. You'll have, I think better opportunities for bonuses and growth and profit, you know, profit sharing of. For your own personal wealth. And oh, by the way, you actually get to build it too.

[Aaron]

Sure. Yeah. And solve the, yeah. Solve big problems. And like engineering is important. We need the engineers because if they don't do the engineering, we don't have projects. But yes, like that whole market is growing like wildfire right now because they're now. And I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole. That's a can of worms. But engineering is great to recruit from for anything really. Because at least from my perspective, going through engineering school, it teaches you how to solve problems, really complex problems for four years. And so the problems I've encountered in business honestly aren't that hard compared to what I had to do for four years in engineering school. Like how much I had to struggle and beat my head against the wall. To pass every exam. It's like, this has kind of been easy because I was trained to do this. And this is also, like, to the, to the greater point, why I try to use my story as an example. It's like my dad was a director at Deloitte, one of those, like, the cornerstone of the evil empire in a lot of ways. Like, he worked for companies that I hate right now, like, some big time. Those are his clients. Like, holy shit. This is not saying, like, he was great at what he did, but now that I understand the world works, like, whoa, wait, anyway, I shouldn't be here. I have no business being in construction. And people say that all the time. The comments, it's like, I know, you're right. I shouldn't be here.

[Mike]

I embrace that.

[Aaron]

I have no business being here. I never grew up. I didn't grow up working. I still don't know how to work. I still have to figure out things, very basic things myself, because I didn't grow up getting wrenches thrown at me by my father. Like, you did. Good for you. But I'm here anyway and I'm loving it. And so, like, I think I'm an example of what we need to do more of. It's like, well, we need more farm kids. Like, okay, great, we do need more farm kids. But, like, show me the farm kids. Show me where they are. We'll go recruit them. They don't exist. So again, we're a little disconnected from reality. No, no, we need more kids from cities that have been never exposed to construction, that have never used a ratchet strap in their life, that don't know the right end of a shovel, don't even know how to shovel, don't even know how to push a broom because they've never done it. We need to grab those people and say, hey, I know there's this path called higher education and finance and law and whatever it is, but there's this alternative over here that's really damn cool. The more we can do that, the more I think the better off we'll be, because that's the majority. So it's like that just, to me, mathematically makes sense.

[Mike]

Oh, yeah, 100%. I mean, there's. There's an untapped workforce in major CITIES in the U.S. how do we get them? What do we do? I don't know. And you, you mentioned the folks that are thinking about, hey, I don't know exactly what to do, but I'm going to go to college and maybe I'll be a Doctor, maybe I'll be a lawyer, maybe I'll get the business degree or whatever. There's that group, but then you know, there's also the group of folks that are, you know, third generation poverty that's never had a job.

[Aaron]

Especially like a place like Mississippi.

[Mike]

Yeah, well, you could say that, but that I speak to folks in big cities that have that same issue.

[Aaron]

It's everywhere.

[Mike]

It was in St. Louis a couple of years ago for a conference and we, we brought in a speaker who had a non for profit in St. Louis to break the curse of generational poverty. And this was phenomenal to me. It opened up my eyes. He deals with folks and families, people that are three generations in to never having a job.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

That's mind blowing to me.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And so yeah, there is a workforce where you can curve them off from institutional knowledge and college of that getting a four year degree that they may never use. Right. There's those folks, but then you've also got folks that have never worked and like how can you take, how can you take that group of people that has been marginalized? Maybe they've never had the opportunity, maybe they've never been exposed to it. Maybe they've never even had the idea of I can actually go provide for myself. There's a huge untapped workforce there. So you know, I think us in the construction industry, we love seeing problems and fixing them. There's several problems out there that may provide awesome solutions for workforce too.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

As we move forward.

[Aaron]

Yeah. I think it's between 5 and 7 million working age males in the United States that do not have a job, that are not looking for a job. So they're not considered in the unemployment statistic. They're just out there jobless, living somewhere, living somewhere with somebody on some form of subsistence and that. And it's actually become a rising percentage. There's more people than ever before of working age. Men that don't have jobs, that just aren't looking for jobs.

[Mike]

Yeah, right.

[Aaron]

And we need like a million people.

[Mike]

Half million people.

[Aaron]

Half a million. A million Ish.

[Mike]

Yeah. Way more in that bucket you just said than what we need in the construction industry. Right?

[Aaron]

Fraction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of it's inner city. I bring up the south just because the like you drive back roads of South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Louisiana especially. It's just like this is a different world out here. This is wild.

[Mike]

It is.

[Aaron]

I think that's, that's a, that's a. I think when I say the south is one of the hardest labor markets as well. I think it's just because like large part of it is wages. Wages are so much lower in like especially in Nashville or Tennessee or Mississippi. Like an operator will make like 25 bucks an hour, whereas an operator in Chicago is making like 70, 65. It's like, how is there that much of a discrepancy, a guy doing the same job, two different regions? I get it. Union, non union, cost of living, tax. I understand all that, but it's like, how is there a $40 spread for the same job? Is that not a challenge? Like that's. Well, I get it.

[Mike]

Shop. Right. And so it's a market based, you know, we'll step into a union market and do fine.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

You know, and so I think when you start to break down a lot of those numbers and understand union wages.

[Aaron]

Compared to open shop, it's, it's, there's benefits.

[Mike]

Yeah. There's not a lot of disparity in the actual take home pay a lot of times. And so, you know, yeah, there's, there's fringe benefits and there's things and that the union has and good for them, you know, but I mean, we, we've got to compete on a national scale. You know, for us, I said earlier, we're a traveling company. Right. So when you come on, you know, we're going to try to keep you as close to home as possible. But likelihood of you being in your neighborhood working or in your same city, maybe even in your same state, it's highly unlikely.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Mike]

We do a lot of things to get them back home and take care of the folks. Right. That's a huge part of what we do. But we've got to look at how we pay people to attract them to, to go wherever we need to go. We have an office in Huntsville, Alabama. We opened that office up seven years ago with the idea of that area is booming. You know, we want to be a part of that terribly hard market to break into.

[Aaron]

Yeah, well, because you had one contractor cleaning house there for a while.

[Mike]

Yeah. And then even if you looked at two or three in the civil market that just own everything. But yeah, so we, we work to recruit from Huntsville. We as a company on average pay a good bit more than what those contractors pay.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Mike]

But those guys don't want to travel, they don't want to go anywhere.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Right. And so for us as a company, again, we've said this whole podcast is wages are important. They're hugely important. That's what gets you that first opportunity but then you've got to figure out what those wages need to be and the per diems and the travel and everything that goes into that to take care of that person. So they'll go with you where you need them to go. They'll be bought into the culture. They'll fulfill the mission of the job. And you know, yeah, there's, there may be in the absolute raw number that you're looking at a disparity between union forces and open shop. We've got to compete against them.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

So you got to figure out how to make it work.

[Aaron]

Well, that's what I mean. Yeah, you, you have to figure out how to make it work. I think going back to knowing who you are as well, being very open, that we're a traveling company, that's how this works. I think because labor is constrained, people are also afraid of telling the truth. I see this a lot and I've been guilty of this in the past of helping companies with these, these marketing messaging, so on and so forth. That's not, it's not deliberately deceitful, but it's, it's not the truth. Like, the truth is, hey, this is hard work. You're going to be away from home, but by leaning into that, you're actually going to attract the right kind of person.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

And there's a lot of people that want to do that. There's a lot of people that want to travel. Like, a lot of people want to hang out around home. I want to be in Huntsville. I want to be in a 50 mile radius of Huntsville. If you ask me to go outside of that, I'm going to somebody else.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

That's just the way it is, which is fine. We need those people. We need people to build Huntsville. Lots of work there. Fantastic. We also need people to travel. There's certain specialties, certain customers needing certain work in certain areas. You got to go follow them. That's just the way it goes. But there's a lot of people, especially younger people, that want to travel. Oh, yeah, I'm asked all the time.

[Mike]

Yeah, we hire folks all the time. That's never traveled before. Yeah, I mean, it's. I'm in the air all the time, as you are.

[Aaron]

Quite sure. Yep, yep.

[Mike]

We hire folks all the time. It's like I've never flown before.

[Aaron]

Well, I feel like that's a majority of people at the airport, you know, like, majority of people in the security line. Like, have you never done this?

[Mike]

Yeah, first time.

[Aaron]

But anyway.

[Mike]

Yeah, but there's been so Many opportunities where we've hired people and, you know, they're not all young, but you hire folks. And if it's somebody that works for me, a lot of times, you know, that first week I'll say, hey, we're going on a flight. You know, they start Monday and oh, pack your bags because Thursday we're gonna go to a job site somewhere. And there's no telling how many times I've gotten, I've never flown before. It's like, well, find time to start, come on. You know, so, yeah, but you're 100% right. There's, there's tons of opportunities to connect with people that do want to travel. Right. And so you mentioned leaning into that fact. It doesn't matter what relationship we're talking about. Great relationships happen. Great relationships in employee to employee relationships happen with clear expectations. Absolutely clear expectations. And so there's a lot that goes into that bucket. But when you're talking about the travel component is straight up front with them. There's going to be a lot of travel.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

You know, these are our goals. These are how often we want to get you back home. Here's how we do it. Here's, here's the process for that, here's the cycles, all that kind of stuff. But the reality is you're going to be on a job site. Our average job is going to last six to eight months. It's going to be off in the middle of nowhere. You need to understand you're getting into that. Are you good with it?

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And nine times out of 10, everybody copacetic, they understand, they do it. But you're going to get the 10% who's like, oh, I didn't, I didn't really think about this.

[Aaron]

But that's good. You want to get them up front rather than send them out there, them cause chaos or them have chaos in their life. And it just makes everything so much worse.

[Mike]

100%.

[Aaron]

I mean, I went to work, when I went to Peter Kiewit, it was, I went to work for the Northwest District because I wanted to get away from my home district, which was southwest. And I remember them, hey, give us your top five states you want to work in. Here's the list. And they give me a list of 10 states that they work in. And I write out the five and they're like, just. By the way, the list doesn't really matter. Like, they said it a nicer way than that. Like, we're here to make you feel good. Everybody's going to put Hawaii as Number one. So you're probably not going to get Hawaii. And I wrote out the list. I got my, I think my second or third, which was Washington. So I was like, great.

[Mike]

Pretty good odds there.

[Aaron]

But that was also the fun of. It was like. And they were like. And we can't tell you until a few weeks before, so sign your letter. You're going to one of these 10 states between the Pacific Northwest, California. You could be in Vegas, you could be in Hawaii, you could be in Alaska. Can't tell you Canada, but we'll let you know. And it was like, but that was the fun. That was, that was what I wanted. That was exactly what I was looking for. I was like, awesome.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

I don't know where I'm gonna be until a few weeks. They give me a call, you're going to Washington. I'm like, cool, I'm going to Washington. This is awesome. And yeah, I was in, you know, early 20s, so nothing matters. It makes it a lot easier. But even that, I think there's businesses built on like, I think is tenure important? Yes. And you do need certain people to stick around. But there's also extraordinary businesses built upon somewhat transitory labor. Like Chick Fil A, for example. A majority of their workforce is young kids. They're not going to work there forever, but they need to turn them into performing individuals within their business. They've done okay from a business standpoint despite extraordinary turnover because it's built into their model. Like that's, that's part of it. And then they attract who they need to from a management and leadership standpoint. They get those people in the right position to succeed and they go on down the road. And I think that's, that's a very worthwhile model as well.

[Mike]

It exists. I mean, we, I love the Chick Fil A model. And you say they've, they've done okay. I think they've done, yeah. Fabulous.

[Aaron]

It's worked out.

[Mike]

It's worked out for them. I think whether you like their chicken or not doesn't really matter. I think they are the epitome of a well run business.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Right. And so, yeah, that's, that's a good example of how we in the construction industry can handle the labor needs and understand that there's a transitory group of people that are going to filter out and realize that. Yeah. You know, this season of my life, it was okay. Traveling, not now.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Mike]

Right. And you do need that core. You need the core people that are there and you guys are working in harmony to Maintain the institutional knowledge base of what we do and how we do it. But you're going to have. The farther you get out from that nucleus, a group of people that they're going to be cycling over. And that's okay. Yeah, it's okay. Build the team to be able to mentor them up, train them, turn them into the person you need them to be for that season. And if you get somebody that hangs around a decade, 20 years, awesome.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

But you're going to have people cycle around them and that's okay, too.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I think it's. That's. It's really just one or two generations removed from, like, you stuck around at a company your entire life, which is just treated as good. That's just a positive thing, is tenure. But it's like, I was even going through this thought exercise the other day while I was in Japan. Most everybody's been, you go to work for a company, you go to work there your whole life. It's extraordinary, actually. Like, everybody we met at the. At the company we were visiting was. Had been there 30, 40 years. Wow. Just insane. Unheard of in the United States. It's just a cultural thing. And you immediately go to. That's extraordinary. That's so positive. But then I went through the thought exercise of like, are there downsides to that, though? And it's like, there definitely are downsides to that. There are a hundred percent downsides to just valuing tenure above everything else. And I think this is a trap construction companies get into as well, is they'll have the old crusty estimator that's been there forever, that just has the tenure. He's not going anywhere, but he's hurting the entire company because it's. He's untouchable. He's been here for 37 years. We've got three more years. Can't do anything about it. Or the equipment manager or the general superintendent, the opera, you know, whoever it is, I see this all the time because tenure is treated as this, the. The gospel. We cannot. We cannot do anything about that. Sorry. Sacred cow. And by not touching it, by not wading into those waters, I watch entire companies hurt.

[Mike]

Right.

[Aaron]

As a result. Which is also pretty interesting to see.

[Mike]

Well, and I think. I think that usually when that happens. Right. It's companies that probably don't have good accountability amongst team members.

[Aaron]

No. Yeah.

[Mike]

If you have good trust and good accountability, then there is nobody who's untouchable. There is no protected class. And so, yes, you know, as a business owner, I love the idea of tenured employees that are lifers. I said that earlier. Like, how cool is that to have the thought process of, hey, I want to be a lifer at this company. But even so, your performance matters.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Right. And you still have to be hitting those KPIs and those measurables to make the company successful. And so I think, I think it's a both and. Right. You've got the guys that are tenured bought in. They're going to be there. They're also willing to grow and willing to be held accountable for the performance.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Mike]

And then you've got the other side of the coin that are the people that are cycling through. They're in this season of their life and, you know, they're the guy that's right out of high school and he's going to work and then all of a sudden, you know, after he's married a couple years and the kid coming, like, you know what? I enjoyed that. I'm going to go back home, may make less money for 10 years, 15 years, but I'm going to pour into my family. Right. And that's. That's fine. That's great.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

No issue there. Right. And that's, that's, that's what we have to balance to continue to grow the company into something bigger and better, is provide everything that we can for both those individuals. The guy that wants to be here forever, the superintendent who bought in and he's going to become a general or regional and just continue to move up. And then the guy operator that's coming in, he's only going to be there six months, a year, two years. Right. And then he's got to move on. And that's okay.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Mike]

We want to train and we want to set the standards so that both of them can operate well.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Yeah, that's good.

[Mike]

That's really good. Yeah. You can't have a one size fits all approach. It does not happen. It does not work. No, you can't have that. And that goes, that's cultural, that's tenure. I mean, that's the whole gamut of a human experience. You've got to figure out how to plug those people in and make sure that obviously they're filtering in through the character side of things, the core value matching. But then their life, their desires, their expected outcomes, it works. And you can make that, make that happen in the company.

[Aaron]

Yeah. I like how Bill Belichick said the same roles applied differently. And maybe I'm attributing it to him. It wasn't him. But it's like, oh, that's exactly what it is. Like, everybody's under the same rules, but you do have to apply them differently for each individual because each. And that's even true. The company, like a company has to have a certain degree of diversity and doing things differently or else you can get. When the tide goes out, you can get caught without your swim trunks. Which is, I think, what's making some people nervous right now with the market, especially with all this private investment. What I see and talking business owners, it's like, these mega projects are cool and yeah, we've got to go make hay while the sun shining. But holy shit. Like, one, the numbers here don't make sense. Like the quantities don't make sense, the materials don't make sense, the dollars involved just doesn't make sense. And then two, it's like, all right, we're gonna go put a lot of our eggs in this basket. Great. What if it doesn't work? Or what if funding just stops midway through one, which has happened multiple times. Two, what do we do at the end? We're going to go ramp up everything to accommodate this. What happens when we get to the end? And then what? Like, we ramp up? Can we. Is it even sustainable? Like, should we even be at that level or should we be honest with ourselves and say, all right, we're going to ramp up to this, but then we have to go step, take two steps back at certain point or else it's going to kill us?

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And it's a weird. Especially in the south, there's a lot of that going on right now. These monster projects.

[Mike]

Yeah, they're happening all over.

[Aaron]

They're happening all over. But it seems like the south is a hotbed for it from a labor standpoint.

[Mike]

You're right. That is concerns as a business owner. It's a concern of mine. Like, you know, over the 20 years of business, we have pivoted on what we do, like what type of work we do. I mean, there's always been a core of civil, but there's other things that we bolted on throughout the years. And so we're in a hyper growth mode, growing with the current industrial revolution in construction. And we're going to ride that wave. But it's up to me and my leadership team to look ahead the five to 10 years and to figure out what do we pivot to next.

[Aaron]

Well, I need to pee really bad, so I think we'll wrap it up here.

[Mike]

Okay, excellent. Good. Time to stop. It's been a pleasure.

[Aaron]

Thanks. For coming out.

[Mike]

Yeah, it's good stuff.