Small Family Business to National Brand w/ Brian and Tony Dietz – DT 332

Summary

Dirt Talk Podcast Episode Summary: “Small Family Business to National Brand w/ Brian and Tony Dietz – DT 332”

Release Date: April 24, 2025

In Episode DT 332 of Dirt Talk by BuildWitt, host Aaron BuildWitt engages in an insightful conversation with John, Mike, and Chris, delving deep into the transformation of small family-owned construction businesses into nationally recognized brands. The episode covers a broad spectrum of topics, including equipment innovations, workforce development, strategic relationships, and the pivotal role of social media in modern business growth.

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1. Equipment Shows and Industry Innovations

The discussion kicks off with reflections on recent equipment shows, highlighting both the predictable displays and unexpected innovations that capture attendees' attention.

John remarks at [01:28] about his past experiences:

“Nothing knocks your socks off… Just for fun, but otherwise nothing surprising.”

Mike shares his awe at [04:19]:

“It blew my mind last time how much electrification was happening there.”

The conversation then transitions to the anticipation of attending Bauma, an international construction machinery trade fair. The hosts express excitement about witnessing cutting-edge technologies, particularly in electrification and hybrid equipment.

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2. Electrification and Hybrid Equipment

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to the surge in electrification within the construction industry. The hosts discuss the practical applications and benefits of hybrid versus full electric machinery.

Chris emphasizes the advantages at [05:11]:

“Hybrid is electric drive. I want to see hybrid… the crushing world, it's much quieter.”

John adds perspective on specific use-cases in mining where electric shovels make economic sense due to their stationary operation:

“They're developing it all in Europe because the governments there are saying you have to… use electric equipment.”

The panelists agree that while full electrification may not yet be feasible for all applications, hybrid systems offer substantial benefits in fuel economy, power management, and operator fatigue reduction.

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3. Workforce Development and Cultivating Culture

A critical theme revolves around developing a skilled workforce and fostering a positive company culture. The hosts discuss strategies to attract and retain young talent, emphasizing hands-on training and early exposure to machinery.

Chris shares at [09:00]:

“We have a demo day every year… you see kids getting on machines and just getting excited about machines.”

Mike highlights the importance of building confidence in young workers:

“Once you start seeing things come together… it's super interesting and sometimes hard, sometimes easy.”

They underscore the necessity of creating structured paths for career advancement within the company, allowing employees to specialize without the pressure to ascend into leadership roles unless desired.

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4. Building Strategic Relationships with Dealers and Manufacturers

The episode delves into the significance of strong, trust-based relationships with equipment dealers and manufacturers. The hosts share personal experiences of how these partnerships have been instrumental in their business growth.

Chris reflects at [84:37]:

“We have a relationship with Deere that’s been now three generations and 50 years in dirt… that relationship is as important or more important than the actual machine.”

John concurs, emphasizing the role of dealerships in providing support and reliable service:

“You need to develop that avenue. Invite your salesman out to your site… you create that relationship.”

They discuss how investing time and effort into these relationships leads to better service, preferential treatment, and access to the latest technologies, which are crucial for scaling operations.

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5. Leveraging Social Media and Marketing

Social media emerges as a powerful tool for expanding business reach and building brand recognition. The hosts explore how platforms like YouTube and Instagram have revolutionized marketing strategies in the construction industry.

Chris notes at [84:37]:

“Social media and grade control have been two of the biggest things in our world that just propelled us to the next level and just opened up doors.”

John shares his surprise at the efficacy of social media over traditional press releases:

“We only put it on social media. That was it. And it’s just… we just created that value.”

By actively engaging with their audience online, companies can showcase their work, share expertise, and attract new clients beyond their immediate geographic area.

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6. Leadership and High-Performance Teams

Effective leadership and the cultivation of high-performance teams are pivotal for transitioning from a small family business to a national brand. The discussion highlights the balance between maintaining a family-oriented culture and enforcing high standards of performance.

Chris advocates for a team-oriented approach over a family-like acceptance of individual shortcomings:

“If you’re not good, you don't stick around. It’s okay to be on a different team.”

Mike echoes the sentiment, emphasizing the creation of a positive, learning-focused environment:

“Culture of learning and the loss of fear of mistakes.”

They stress the importance of clear communication, continuous training, and fostering an environment where employees feel valued and empowered to contribute effectively.

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7. Contractor Recognition and the “Contractor of the Year” Award

The hosts discuss the process and benefits of earning industry accolades, such as the "Contractor of the Year" award. They outline the rigorous application process, which includes detailed background checks, safety ratings, and peer references.

Chris explains at [78:48]:

“You can nominate somebody. So you fill out a bunch of pretty detailed info about your background… and they interview you and get to see firsthand who you really are.”

Receiving such recognition not only legitimizes the company’s efforts but also enhances its reputation, leading to greater trust and more business opportunities.

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8. Overcoming Industry Challenges and Negative Perceptions

Addressing common industry challenges, the hosts discuss strategies to mitigate negative perceptions and foster a collaborative spirit both within and outside the company.

Chris advises against public criticism on social media:

“Just find the solution. It’s very narrow-minded to just go and put it out there to the general population and complain about your struggle.”

John emphasizes the importance of trust and transparency:

“If you treat your salesman well… you may get the best customer that they have.”

By focusing on solutions and maintaining positive relationships, companies can navigate challenges more effectively and sustain long-term growth.

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9. Implementing Organizational Changes Inspired by Leadership Summits

The conversation concludes with insights on how leadership summits and continuous learning have transformed their management practices. Drawing inspiration from military leadership principles and business books like "Built to Sell," the hosts share how structured processes and empowered teams have enhanced their operational efficiency.

Chris recounts at [85:22]:

“The first summit was a turning point for us… implementing leadership skills changed our entire process.”

Mike adds about the importance of systematic organization:

“It's been fun to watch in our own business… making it easier and smoother.”

By adopting these practices, companies can ensure that they remain resilient, adaptable, and positioned for sustained success in a competitive market.

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Conclusion

Episode DT 332 of Dirt Talk by BuildWitt offers a comprehensive exploration of the multifaceted journey from managing a small family-owned business to establishing a nationally recognized brand. Through candid discussions on equipment innovation, workforce development, strategic partnerships, and effective leadership, John, Mike, and Chris provide valuable insights and actionable strategies for construction professionals aiming to elevate their businesses. The episode underscores the importance of embracing technology, fostering a positive company culture, and leveraging modern marketing tools to drive growth and maintain a competitive edge in the evolving Dirt World landscape.

Notable Quotes:

• John [01:28]: “Nothing knocks your socks off… Just for fun, but otherwise nothing surprising.”
• Mike [04:19]: “It blew my mind last time how much electrification was happening there.”
• Chris [05:11]: “Hybrid is electric drive. I want to see hybrid… the crushing world, it's much quieter.”
• Chris [09:00]: “We have a demo day every year… you see kids getting on machines and just getting excited about machines.”
• John [78:48]: “You can nominate somebody. So you fill out a bunch of pretty detailed info about your background… and they interview you and get to see firsthand who you really are.”

This episode serves as an essential guide for construction entrepreneurs seeking to navigate industry challenges, adopt innovative practices, and build a robust, high-performing team that can sustain long-term growth and success.

Transcript

[John]

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[Mike]

Last time was pretty surprising itself, but.

[John]

I'm talking, like, what's. What's on display. It's like, well, last time, nothing knocks your socks off. Like. Like, it's like, yep, that's a loader. That's an excavator. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or like a Ford dealership. Like, you know what you're going to get, and maybe there's like a race car sitting there that you're not expecting. Like, wow, that's pretty cool. Like, just for fun. But otherwise nothing to do with. Yeah, yeah, it's like. It's pretty.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

Predictable.

[Chris]

I will say earlier on for us, because we've been going to, like, Las Vegas for shows.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Years.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

You know, price since, I don't know, 2011 or maybe earlier. So coming in, that was where we discovered grade Control is where we discovered incon. That's where, like that, like, there are things that maybe at our level now, it's not shocking because we have been around it long enough and, you know, like, you have tremendous exposure to the industry. You've been out to every type of job site and you, you know what's there. But for us, like, the value. And as a small contractor coming into newer spaces and growing like there was nothing in our area. And so you go to your local dealer, they don't have anything that's new because it's a small little, you know, remote dealership or satellite location. But when you go there, you're like, holy crap. There's stuff from all over the world.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And it's stuff you've never seen, and you get to meet people. I think that the conversations that we have at Straight up, like, our whole connection with Deer was from a conversation in the John Deere booth at a. At a con expo that was like, oh, same here. Mind blowing.

[John]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Chris]

Straight up. It's probably the same time I met you. That same event, like, met. You went there. And then because of those conversations, like, I don't think people realize the caliber of people that are in the booth at every. It's the top people in every booth are in the booth, working the booth, that the guy that designed it is the engineer that you think is just like a, you know, standing there to hand you a pen. No, that guy is. You have a problem with your. We straight up solve problems. We couldn't come up with solutions for. For a long time. Bring it up to the guy in the booth, and they're like, well, open your hood. You're missing a piece of foam. And that foam is what pushes the air through the radiator. It's going around, and your machine's overheating. You're like, but the local sales, you know, service tech can't. Doesn't know that stuff.

[John]

So there's.

[Chris]

That's where.

[John]

Yeah. There's huge value in the shows. I think there's monster value in the shows. Yeah. And I don't want it to come off like. Yeah. Like, shows are a waste of time. Like, the shows are super valuable.

[Chris]

Yes.

[John]

I just mean, like, what's at the show? It's like. Yes, it's pretty.

[Chris]

Yeah. Yeah.

[John]

But I'm stoked for Bauma.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

Bama's wild.

[Mike]

It blew my mind last time how much electrification was happening there. Like, before that day. I thought it was something in the far future.

[John]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And then when we went there, it was like. I was like, oh, like, every booth and everyone had some kind of. You know, I mean, then there was, like, what, hydrogen? And there's all different. Some of that stuff was kind of wacky.

[Chris]

Sure.

[John]

But, yeah, it's. I mean, they're developing it all in Europe because the governments there are saying you have to. To even, like. I mean, there's some job sites, like, even in the bidding process now. They'll give you, they'll give you a discount essentially if your fleet is electric when doing this job. And so to be now competitive, you have to be electric or they'll mandate it in certain areas where there's like noise restrictions. So. Noise restrictions, you can't make noise. So you have to use electric equipment, which.

[Chris]

The hybrid stuff is very cool. Hybrid is for us. Yeah. In our world, hybrid is electric drive. I want to see, I want to see hybrid. Everything was brilliant. Like, we like the crushers we're using now, the dozer, dozers, loaders, everything is starting to have, you know, at least one piece in that line.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

That's hybrid that you're getting the obvious better fuel economy, more power, like when you need it. That's. And like the crushing world, it's much quieter. Less hydraulic hoses, less cooling fans. So, you know, like even just trying to put a crusher on site, it's so much quieter.

[John]

Sure.

[Chris]

And for the fatigue for the guys all the way around, that, that hybrid stuff is amazing.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

But the, the full electric, I don't, I don't know.

[John]

I don't see it for us in.

[Chris]

Our, in our needs right now.

[John]

No. I, I, I think there's like in mining, it's been there forever.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

Because you're running a shovel in one spot and it's cheaper. It's like it's, it's, it's economics. Like it makes financial sense to run a shovel with, with electricity rather than diesel because it's just cheaper. It's like makes perfect sense. Or drag lines or anything like that. Even like some cranes, it makes sense if it's in one spot. Piling rigs, if they're in one spot. Like if, if you're not moving stuff around, they'll, Komatsu is going to have their, they're gonna have a 7,000 shovel at the booth this year. Yeah. And it's electric. It so as a trailing cable. But it's like it's in one moving. Yeah. It's on one bench, one face for sometimes weeks at a time.

[Chris]

Well, that's like the crushers that, you know, you take that hybrid crusher, you can actually just turn the engine off, plug it in, and then you run the whole thing on election.

[John]

Can you really.

[Chris]

Yeah. If you have the, if you have the, you know, if you have the hookup, you can run the cleaning crushers with.

[John]

Sure.

[Chris]

You just plug them in.

[John]

I didn't even know that.

[Chris]

Which is really cool.

[John]

Wow.

[Chris]

Like now it's, you know, so same thing. You get on A site that's, you know, certain. Trying to hit certain green points or whatever, that's a pretty valuable option.

[John]

When are you guys going to be at the show?

[Chris]

Do you know what days we fly in? Monday night. So it'll be Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. I think Friday. We fly Tuesday afternoon. So any of those days.

[John]

Yeah, I'll see. I. I come in at the back end.

[Chris]

Okay.

[John]

I did. I did too many days last time. It's just.

[Chris]

I'm not saying those are the days we're in.

[John]

Yeah. In German. Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike]

We did too many last time.

[John]

Yeah.

[Mike]

You can only see so many cranes, and you're like, I.

[Chris]

Well, unfortunately, there's stuff there that's really innovative and exciting. It just. You're not going to see it in the States. So, you know, you. You get to a point where you're kind of like, you know, you go and you see something, you're like, hey, that's branded Husqvarna. They got all these compactors and all this stuff. And then that will never, you know, and you ask them, they're like, we'll get you set up. And you're like, I don't want to be the distributor. Like, I'm not fighting that battle. Like, if you're not. If it's not at. Readily available and able to get service, it doesn't really help us. Yeah.

[John]

This is. The scale of Bama is just. It makes your head spin. I mean, I spent like five days there. Last time. I tell people I saw like maybe 10 or 20 of the actual show. Like, you have all the halls. I didn't even go in a majority.

[Chris]

You walk through them.

[Mike]

We walked the halls one day. It's a lot.

[John]

There's just so. Yeah, so much.

[Chris]

There's like seven or eight buildings, three rows of buildings.

[John]

You're like, yeah, yeah. And they're all like former hangars. So these are big, giant. I mean, you could spend all day in one of these buildings just looking at booths in a single building.

[Chris]

If you want to go down a rabbit hole, it's the place to go. Yeah, there's everything. Yeah, everything there. There's a whole building for whatever's down that rabbit hole.

[John]

I really recommend it to people, though. Like, I wish more Americans went. I think that same.

[Chris]

It's very eye opening.

[John]

It's very eye opening. Yeah. And even from just like a work tool standpoint or some of the small, like, the equipment's one thing, but all the little st. They have there.

[Chris]

And in today's world, honestly, if you Have a need. If it fits in your use, they. You can connect with people there and you can. They'll ship to you.

[John]

And that's what Shay did.

[Chris]

Changes your. Yeah, well, yeah, he's taking it to an extreme.

[John]

Yeah. But that's. That's all he did is he went to Europe and connected with the Europeans and started to.

[Chris]

And he's bringing.

[John]

Just get it all in the same heart's concept to. Yeah, yeah.

[Chris]

America. Yeah.

[John]

And he's found. And he's found some manufacturers in Europe and then some in the States that will make what he wants and.

[Chris]

Yeah, but that's.

[Mike]

The whole thing goes back to not having that fear of failure like just going out getting good ideas and most of them are not even your ideas. You see it somewhere, whether it's at a show, at another competitor at some other, you know, wherever. And I think that's a great thing and was very eye opening for us going like to incon in Sweden. Going to like you just see these ideas and you're like oh, that's really cool. Like that's a cool way to fence a job site or a cool way to whatever move barriers or just random trench. You know, it might be shoring that you've never seen before but all of a sudden you're like oh, we could improve any. Whether you improve on yours or adapt theirs. It's just. It opens your mind up and then.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And so you come out with cool stuff.

[Mike]

You know, go back to inventing.

[Chris]

You come home thinking you're going to buy wheeled excavators or trailers.

[John]

Like yeah, come on. Yeah, we'll excavate like trailers.

[Chris]

They're pretty cool. I mean they're everywhere. Yes. With like Navia 50 attachments in that trailer.

[John]

I think they do everything with.

[Chris]

And they just excavator rolling all over town and that thing hauling dirt. Ye. I mean it's pretty cool. Yeah, it doesn't really work well because the minute you're blocking traffic with your excavator and trailer people are going to kill you. So you know, we're. Yeah, it's in our area. It just. It doesn't seem like it would. But I love thinking it was going to be a thing, you know.

[John]

Hey, I still think it'll catch on some areas one day. Like how they do and yeah. They pull all their. All their attachments are with them.

[Chris]

Well if you're working like in your area right here around Nashville. Yeah. In the inner city area. Oh, that'd be great because you just go, you know, move it you're not like trying to stage a material just working out of that bin.

[Mike]

Everything's happening and they have like 20 attachments. They just set them all off to the side, go get their item, four come back and I mean it's, it's.

[John]

Yeah. And then they know how to put all the attachments into the trailer in like the buckets, into the other buckets.

[Chris]

Yeah, it's like, it's pretty special. And they're making like $6 an hour. That was the craziest thing. The money. There was no money for it. Like those operators in Sweden, the economy, the way that works, very, very different. So that's why they need those trailers and all that. Those tools is like they're.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

You can't have a team of 10 guys, you know.

[John]

Well, the labor. Yeah, labor is totally different.

[Chris]

Very, very different.

[John]

So. And that's what I tell people is hey, Europe's had to contend with the constrained labor force for a lot longer than we have. Like if you look up the, the, the, the, the, the lowest birth rates by country of countries in the world, almost all of them are the eu.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

And so yeah. Oh yeah, they're, they're going to have a significant, they haven't had a significant population problem because of the massive influx in migrants because of their open border policy, which is pretty wild to see how entire demographics have changed within like a 10 year period. Like English, English people are a minority in London. And no matter how you think about that, like for that to happen within like a 10 year period is pretty, is pretty just incredible. So anyway, so that's lessened the burden a little bit. But they're still going to have the problem because even with migrant like migrants get old and, and, and, and then when they move here they start to have less kids, et cetera. It's the same in the States. Yeah, but they've just, they've just had to do more with less. So. Yeah, you can't have seven laborers standing around one guy with a machine. The guy with the machine has to figure everything out.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Mike]

Yeah, well, they figured out how to do it, so.

[John]

Yeah, but that, but that's where, but then like Shay's taken that and applied it in Aspen and his. The guys on the ground love the equipment because now they have to do less backbreaking work all day.

[Chris]

Same with our guys. I mean every, every machine that has an incon will be. If you put two machines next to each other, one's got a rotator, one doesn't. They will use Whatever size it is, they'll use them with the rotator before the other machine all day long. Like, it. It just solves all your problems. Like, the ability to use that tool changes their daily workload.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

So. And they love it. I mean, we love it. It's a.

[Mike]

Also, I think it's a. I mean, the tilt rotators for us are just part of a great control, all that stuff, but it sets your team up to win. So, like, the guys feel good about it. We talk about it quite a bit. If you feel good all day, you go home happy. You come back in the next day, you're happy. Like, you're, you know, you're trying to improve not just our productivity and bottom line, but, like, their lives are better if they go home happy, you know, Whereas if they just beat against concrete all day.

[John]

Yeah.

[Mike]

You know, they're kind of miserable and not. Not happy going home. So I think that's. That's something that's cool. And we've different things where we go out and see other things at job sites or other countries or whatever. I feel like.

[Chris]

Helps.

[Mike]

Helps build that. You know, there's a company, but there's.

[John]

Almost like this, like, the crusty old guy mentality is like, because my body's destroyed and I'm.

[Mike]

I don't.

[John]

And I'm miserable, for sure. You need to be.

[Chris]

So that's. That's a cultural thing. You need to. But you can work through it. Because we've worked through it.

[Mike]

No, you can. But how many companies are out there making fun of great control? You're like, why still?

[Chris]

It's still embarrassed for you.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Come on.

[Mike]

Like, I thought we were late to the party. And it's like, are you kidding? I mean, there's. There's companies out there.

[Chris]

Yeah. I don't know. It's.

[Mike]

It's blows my mind. And you're like, really? You just want to do it the hard way just because you did, you know, not even five years ago? Like, we're talking 40 years ago.

[John]

Yes.

[Mike]

There are other. I don't. I don't get that.

[Chris]

Well, there's just. Yeah. I mean, the. The evidence is there. It's been proven. The quality goes up, the rework is down all the way across the board.

[John]

Sure.

[Chris]

Working without it is silly. Like owning machines that don't have grade control now. They're just. It's like, you know, you have smart machines and you have dumb machines.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

How do you want your workers to, you know, how are you equipping your guys? The smart way or the dumb way? The dumb way is like, we just guess. Right. You get really good at guessing, but you're still guessing.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Like you, that you're in the right place at the right grade or you can be dead on first pass. And that's where, you know, where I think for us it's exciting because they're, you're utilizing young guys that want to be here, like the guys that want to be in this industry, and you're expediting that training process to getting them to doing high. They know that they're performing at a high level and utilizing a tool. But in today's age, like, that's where young people want to do. They want to be productive, they want to make money. And people are blurring that lines and saying, like, well, young people don't want to work. No, they want a reason to work. Yeah, they give them a reason to work and a valuable contribution and they'll show up every single day and work hard. And you know, it's a different. But that the tools are changing that because they feel good about accomplishing like the, you know, they're a professional at a young age, early twenties, like a, you know, a very good operator because the tool gave them the confidence. They weren't worrying if they were in the right place. And you can kind of leave them alone. You can put them on a stockpile loading trucks for months and they're not messing up the grades below because, you know, grade control keeps them from doing that. So it gives them the confidence to keep going. And you just shorten that training span to, you know.

[John]

Yeah, I just. The resistance to stuff like that. Just to me it's, I get, I get like, you need to still know the fundamentals of how to make grade, how to, you know, do what you need to do in a machine without technology. I appreciate that. But like the resistance to it, like, well, what, what if the Internet goes out?

[Chris]

It's like, who's, who's resisting? Because I don't find that it's always the ownership or leadership that's resisting. It is typically some.

[John]

Right.

[Chris]

But these are people that are like phasing out and not, you know, they just don't want to. They're in that last 10 of their career or their business and they're just riding it out.

[John]

Let's just, to me, it's, it's super silly because they'll be like, oh, it's, you know, this technology is stupid. And then they'll go get into a brand new truck.

[Chris]

Yes.

[John]

And it's like, well, where's your 1980 single cab?

[Chris]

I always love that. Like, you know, the trolls on. The trolls on social media are holding on to a smartphone and texting like, you don't need all that. And I'm like, what's with the phone? Why don't you just write me a letter? Like, you know.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

It's just so silly.

[John]

Oh, so you single pane windows in your house, like, it's just, it crack. It really cracks me up sometimes. Like, do you not. I, I, I. You can, you can have whatever belief you want.

[Chris]

I think the majority of the people in that group, though, are, you know, the crusty old guys that are afraid of being replaced by a young guy that's, like, quick with technology and can actually do what they're doing faster.

[John]

Sure.

[Chris]

So the. And in their defense, they've spent an entire lifetime building skills to take a D8 that you cannot see the cutting edge. And great, you know, like, really push dirt. That's not easy to do. It takes a long time.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

But if the machine can. Has all these sensors that can actually carry the maximum amount without, you know, and keep traction and all those things that it's factoring in, you're getting the same dirt moved. So that's where, you know, who wants to sit in a, you know, autonomous trucks, like, who wants to go in a coal mine and do 76 trips up and down out of the mine all day for years when the truck can drive itself, like, go do something else.

[John]

Yeah, that and that.

[Chris]

But the guy that did that feels bad that, you know, it's like you.

[John]

Just had to do well.

[Chris]

He felt really well. Yeah. And he dedicated his life to showing up whether he felt good or not. Good days, bad days, whatever was going on, he was dedicated to that job, and he found value in that. And so it's hard, you know, it's hard to, to say, like, oh, we didn't actually need you to do that. The machine could do it itself. So I get that side of it. But here we are with the technology now, like, do you want your kids to go and just drive in that truck all day every day? Or can they go manage 50 trucks doing that, you know, and have that job where, like, there's just different. You know, there's a, there's a side there that gets sensitive where it's like. But I put my whole life into learning how to run that dozer. You know, it's.

[John]

And it's odd because especially when you look at, like, a parent and child Like I've seen, I've started to notice this more and more. Like as a parent, I feel like the ideal situation is your child doing much better than you've done.

[Chris]

Yes.

[John]

But I feel like when that happens, it can actually hurt your ego. And like while you. That's your intention, it can then materialize in this totally different way.

[Chris]

Insecurity.

[John]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like you want, you should want the next generation to do better. Like that isn't that the goal of humanity? Like that isn't that why we're all here? We're trying to improve. We're trying to get humanity.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

To a better place.

[Chris]

And it's the same with the crusty old operator.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

You can't be better than me on day one. Like you're 18 years old and yet that doser just, you know, actually don't even need a person in the dozer like that. That's frustrating. So that's getting past that is like educate people to say, like, here's what we can do. Like on our little company, dollar wise, this is what we can do. We invest in this thing. We're not getting rid of you. You can stay here. Yeah, you can actually make more money because look at the volume that we can do and the level that we can do. And we're not wasting money on fuel, we're not wasting money on rework. We're just out there like being productive every day, providing a high quality service for our customers. But we don't have to necessarily get in the ditch and dig it by hand, you know, like we can do it with these other tools. And that's where, you know, that's just a education process. And it takes time to educate people once you get them on board. We've got guys that weren't huge fans of it day one and now absolutely love it. Because the same guy that's insecure about that is insecure about being left alone reading prints or, you know, worried if he's on grade. So now you put a screen in his, in his machine and he can dig right to grade. He's confident there. So it's just, to me, it's just bringing it all together, talking with your guys, explaining the value. Why are you doing it? You're not doing it to replace people, you're not doing it to eliminate people. You're doing it to make their life better, specifically their world better, which makes the whole company better.

[John]

Well, it makes the company more money. And if you make more money, you can buy better equipment. Pay people more, get nicer trucks, like across the board.

[Chris]

It's a better process. And that's why you're there. Right. To provide a quality service and to have good equipment and be. To be better. I mean, at least for us, that's like a big drive of what we're about, you know.

[John]

When did you guys take over?

[Chris]

It was a long, slow process of taking over.

[John]

Yeah, I know.

[Chris]

It was probably like over 20 years. Our father started, you know, kind of just backing off of the field work. He had some medical issues that kind of pushed him out of machines. He, he fell like as a. When he was seven years old out of the Haymau and, and had scarring on his brain and all kinds of neck issues. He's always had stuff and like had a kind of restart life at 7 years old so that, that those issues never went away. So when he's in like a dozer for hours, he would like get all lightheaded and so kind of as soon as we could take machine, you know, get in the machines and stuff, he was always allowing us, not directly because of that, but it definitely, as we, you know, later, you're just like, let me do it. And so then that allowed us to be on the job site more. He was more in the office and then the less he was on the job, the more pride we had in doing the work. And we felt like we were running the jobs at pretty young ages.

[Mike]

Sure, yeah, I would say like early 20s. He was like letting us run stuff, I mean mostly residential stuff. But yeah, you know, we got that pride out of it and figured out that we could do it, you know, and so that was, it was a great way to learn. Which I actually look now having kids, like how do you build that confidence in them is, you know, because I don't think everyone does a great job at that always. You know, some parents do, some parents don't. Especially when it comes to business.

[John]

Well, and especially when you make more money and your lifestyle is nicer and your kids think that's normal. Like that's how I grew up. You know, you're different, got a nice ass lifestyle. But you as a kid, you don't know any better. You just think that's average. Like you think that's the state of affairs.

[Chris]

Yeah, I think that's the struggle right between second and third generation. First generation, it's just like hard, hard.

[John]

They're just dogs. Like first generation, you're basically doing it.

[Chris]

Dog with a goal of making it better. But every day is hard. Yeah, second generation. You're like, glad I'm not first gener generation. Right. So you're like, we couldn't be here without Gen1. So now how do we capitalize on that and turn it into something? Third generation comes along and it's like, well, we kind of have everything, right. So do you have to work hard or can this just kind of run itself? And that's where the fear is. Like, how is it lost in that generation? So, yeah, that's where like my son, we started him. He's a couple days a week in the shop.

[John]

Nice.

[Chris]

Working for our shop foreman. And he gives them all kinds of stuff. And he's learning how machines work and what. How do you know, how do you fix it? And I wouldn't say that's his career path, but it's a great foundation of, like, understanding. You can see the value of maintenance. You can see the value of, you know, taking care of things or early intervention on where. And that's what, you know, those little things. I think we can teach them, put kids in machines at a young age in a safe environment, you know, and get them excited about the industry. But not, you know, there's just no way, like, life is not as hard as it was for Generation one. So they just not growing up. You know, we grew up. It was. There was no money. There was no, you know, you. We. A lot of the reason why our machines are so shiny today is because we only had a couple machines and we really took care of them.

[John]

Sure.

[Chris]

Because that. It needed to be of good value when you went to replace it. So, yeah, it's. That carries over the kids thing too.

[John]

Is quite interesting because you can't. If you don't have parents in it, with machines legally, you can't really get a job in it until you're 18 in most cases. Yeah, there's some gray area between 16 and 18, but like, I couldn't end up in it until I was 18, legal working age. And at that point, it's kind of too late for most everybody because the pull of the education system, it's just designed to pull you in a different direction. So you have gravity saying, we're going over here. And unless you get them early or you somehow manage to escape that gravitational pull that is higher education, corporate America, finance, whatever it is, it's hard to get out of that world. And it's just. It's like, how do you get to those younger people? I mean, so when you can't legally put them in a machine anymore for Us.

[Chris]

I mean, that's why we like our. We do a demo day every year. Started off as an encon. Demo day, and it's kind of grown into just a bigger space. And I wish more people would do that across the country.

[John]

It's pretty huge. How many people did you guys have?

[Chris]

We had like 700 people show up at our shop. You know, it's pretty cool. We had 21 different dealers bring equipment out and support it. And the amount of people that bring their kids and you see the kids, I think that's the best part is you see kids getting on machines and just getting excited about machines. And that's the feeling that that's why we do this. That's why everybody in this industry is because you get excited about the machines and then you figure out how to do the work and then you get a passion for accomplishing things and high quality, and then it grows from there. But the machines is the draw to this industry. Like, if you like machines, that's why you're here. So if you can get a kid on a machine early, get them around, especially if it can be an annual thing, you know, we've only done it three years now, but it's. You see, we had a mom who messaged me on Instagram and said, hey, you know, we're way down and forget where it was, like down below Delaware, maybe even Virginia. And she's like, we want to come up. I want to bring my kids. Can anybody just show up? And I was like, yeah, of course. Make sure you let me know you're coming. You know, but like, that's pretty cool. Like, people just want their kids to be around machines and it's a safe environment where they can come and, you know, walk around them. And it's not a free for all at all. Everything's, you know, controlled.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

But just to get that passion to get excited about being around equipment, that event is great for that. And I wish, I really do wish people would just take that model and, and do it, because if we, if, if every town had one once a year or every state had one, you would just bring more people into the industry. We have a. A guy that used to be a competitor, ours on a small level for a little bit, went into business. And the story was that when our father was doing his work at his father's house, he took the kid, put him on his lap and. And they ran a dozer for a little bit. And he grew up and wanted to own dozers. And, and, you know, from that, you know, probably a 15 minute encounter with an experience there that just, you know, kind of pulled him in that direction. So the more we can get kids on machines around machines is just a cool opportunity.

[John]

And it's like from a workforce development standpoint, it's a bunch of adults trying to figure it out with adult perspectives on it and, and they're trying to like rationalize it. Well, you can make a great, you know, living and. And so like they'll get. Give all the rational adult reasons for why. But it's like, I don't know. My, my desire to be in the industry was not big picture motivated. It was I. There was a 385 work in my neighborhood.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen in my life. Like that for sure. I could not like.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

The size of that machine when the style big the cylinders were and what the. The smell of the dirt, you know, and the. And the sound of. I think it was a model. So it was just roaring and the decent smell of the diesel and the grease and like this.

[Chris]

Nothing better.

[John]

Dude, it's. It is intoxicating. Like it just. It's like this is what I want.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

That's like. It's not. And I know there's parents and I know there's other stuff involved. It is more complicated, but it's not more complicated in a lot of ways.

[Chris]

No, that's the draw. Whether people admit it or not, that's the draw to this industry is the equipment being around it. And it's cool. It's just exciting. As a, as a young person, that is an exciting thing to be around. So, you know, I mean we grew up, our grandfather had tractors and all kinds, you know, and you're just like riding on the fender or jumping in the back.

[Mike]

But I think that's, you know, years ago, like a lot of kids grew out, grew up in the country or on a farm. So they go around equipment more. But I think one of the biggest things is like seeing a cool piece of equipment and then being able to accomplish a task with it.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And once you do that, you get that self. It kind of self motivating because you feel like you accomplish something. And I think that's something that the industry at a young age. When you say 18. At 18, they've kind of moved on to finding other accomplishments. And when you can get them, which I don't know how to do it, but if you get them on equipment younger.

[Chris]

Sure.

[Mike]

Just now they're getting that accomplishment from the equipment.

[Chris]

Just. Just get your kid a lawnmower and have them mow the lawn. They'll get excited about machines just right there. I mean, mowing a lawn, then you, like, you know, you're cleaning the mower and then you're striping the lawn and you just get a. It's an exciting thing to do, but everybody just has a lawn service. Like, nobody has time for that.

[John]

Like, you have to be intentional about it, though.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

Like, you have to be deliberate about, hey, I'm going to tell the lawn service to not do the lawn.

[Chris]

Yeah. Well, it's easier. It's easier to hire the lawn service. It's cheap way it's done. It looks great, right?

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Your lawn looks. Your lawn will look like crap, but your kid will grow. So what do you, you know, what matters more? So that's where, you know, I think that there's just. There are ways for just about everybody to get kids on machines. And a lawnmower is, like, great. I mean, that's where we grew up. Lawnmower. And the challenge. We had this little cart behind a lawnmower and backing that thing up was like, you know, it's all four feet long. It was terrible. But you learned. Then we went from that to, like, tractors with, like, this old manure spreader that we would drag around as kids, and four wheelers with carts. And like, you just played until you figured out that you can accomplish tasks that were meaningless. We're just moving stuff. But you. You've got a passion for, like, doing something.

[John]

Sure.

[Chris]

And that's like, I mean, if people want to be in this industry, there are ways to get kids excited. It just, you know, I also think even.

[Mike]

Even at 18, 19, you know, and 20s, like, getting that sense of accomplishment, like, going out and doing something like. And that's where going back to, like, great control. If you can put a kid on a dozer and he's only run a dozer a few times and he's actually. You give him a pathway to success. At the end of the day, he's like, I graded that. He's going to want to come back tomorrow.

[John]

Yeah.

[Mike]

You know, or. Or other. Whatever tool it is that he's using. And I, I think as an industry, we. That should motivate us to adopt some of these newer practices because it's.

[Chris]

It.

[Mike]

It actually sets them up to win and it will draw young people to. To the industry, you know, more. More than what we've done in the past where it's just like, well, you're going to shovel this ditch until you get good at that and then you'll go to the next. You know, you'll learn how to run grade and then prep concrete and you know, so it just keeps. But it's years of hard work. Like you can set them up day one to win and then, then they're going to want to come back.

[John]

Yeah, I think. Oh, and everybody wins. Like they win, crew wins, company wins. Like what? Why don't we want that? Why don't. And maybe they're quote unquote soft compared to the previous generation that kicked rocks for five years before they did anything else. But if that, if that's soft, I'm fine with it. Like I'm pretty soft, but I don't know, I'm doing fine.

[Chris]

We're running softer machines today. We've got massaging seats and machines and heated and cooled and climate control. I mean and you push a button and it cuts grade. Like it's a softer world. Right. So. And technology has put us there, but still like you need people that want to be there. You want people to provide that service and it's, I don't know that that fun. If you get excited about it ever, if you ever get excited about equipment, I believe you can always find that excitement again in the industry. So like if it, if it excites you and you get into it, it doesn't fade.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Like if you like cars and you get into cars and you get into racing, like it never goes away. You chase that thrill the same as like chasing thrill of a quarter mile. You chase the thrill of like pushing a big blade of dirt or grabbing a big bucket of you know, with the excavator or whatever. Like that, that feeling just comes back over and over and it, you know, yeah, this, I mean and that can be in any industry. Just specifically in this industry since we like moving dirt. That's a, you know, I think if you can get kids involved at an early age and maybe that's something for you would build with to create a channel for kids that like educates and teaches at a younger level, you know. Yeah, but like even for our, our guys across all age groups, your platform with the training just changes things. It opens up like we don't always have the conversations about simple things and sometimes you missed learning about those simple things, changing topics a little bit. But then you know that that's where that, that drip method of a little video every day coming in and just it helps people to grow and appreciate or understand what they're doing a little bit more.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

So you know any. I think if you can get younger guys on that, we can push out videos to people without having to explain almost like simple tasks that might be discouraging for them. Like, really, you're going to teach me how to sweep a floor? I don't need to. I can just send these videos. Sure. And they learn those things and it seems like simple, like everybody can sweep a floor. Not everybody can sweep a floor.

[John]

No, no, no, they certainly can't.

[Chris]

I would say the majority of the time people can't sweep a floor. Like, it doesn't actually go easy. And it's because no one ever educated people how to sweep the floor. Sure. So those same simple things across the whole industry. That platform's been huge for us just in creating that culture of learning and getting people excited.

[Mike]

Yeah. That's what I, I think what the most exciting thing for us is just the culture, the culture of learning and the loss of fear of mistakes.

[John]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Because once you realize like you're learning and there's benefits to learning, you lose, you lose that fear of like, I'm gonna. Somewhere I read the other day was like, the only way to never make a mistake is never do anything.

[Chris]

And it's so true.

[Mike]

Like, every time you do something new, you make a mistake.

[John]

Yeah.

[Mike]

But who cares right now you learned it. And I think young people, same thing, once they've learned it, they check that box off and they're like, okay, now I know how to run a dozer. And they move on to the next thing, you know. And I think that becomes a source of inspiration that keeps you going.

[John]

Well, I think the earlier you can learn how to learn, the better because, like, the further you get in life, the more hardened you become and risk adverse you become and less prone to experimentation and learning, et cetera. And so it's a lot harder than to teach somebody who's further in life. On average, you're a lot more afraid of failure because. Yeah, because that, yeah, there's just a higher cost or they've closed their mind or, well, I already know how to do it. I don't need to learn how to do it, even though they're maybe doing it wrong. But the younger minds are just typically more malleable. And so if you can teach them even how to learn, like I've, I'm like, that is even something that I've realized how to learn how to learn.

[Mike]

I feel like I'm just learning how to learn. Yeah, it's kind of crazy because, yeah, at my age, I feel like I should have learned a lot, and I have. But, like, a lot of my. I was just talking to you this morning. That's. I forget what it was. The. There's something about learning the.

[Chris]

Just like the.

[Mike]

Sorry, I forget. But it was funny because you, you know, you come across things in books and it sends you down in directions that you never thought of before. And I think that, well, once you.

[Chris]

Learn, like, I don't know how to put it in words, but once. Once you learn that, you can learn anything.

[John]

Sure.

[Chris]

The sky's the limit, right? So, like, in this industry or any other industry, any hobby, anything, like, once you realize that you can learn how to do something. And that's where young people, like, they're still learning everything in life, right? So they show up, you teach them how to run a backhoe, you teach them how to run an excavator, teach them how to, you know, shoot grades, whatever they're learning. So it's very easy for them to also learn how to build a skyscraper because it's just the next step. But you get to a point where you're like, I know everything on this site. I know how to do it all. I don't want to learn anymore. You don't even, like, consciously do that. You just. You don't feel like it's an option for you because you're good at this and you're just going to stay in your safe space. So you don't. You're not trying to learn. But at that younger age, the quicker you can kind of keep that ball rolling of learning and teach people, there's no fear on that level.

[John]

Yeah, that's. Yeah. I feel like when there's momentum, like, it's. It's harder. Yeah, it's like forward. As long as you keep it going, like, you've got to nurse it. You get. You got to be intentional about it. But once you have momentum, it's so much easier. And once you start to learn, too, that while learning about stuff I enjoy is actually fun. I like this. Then you can. Like, we're conditioned. Growing up, learning sucks for most everybody.

[Chris]

Like, because the school system doesn't make learning fun.

[John]

It's brutal. It's.

[Chris]

It's like, memorize this stuff so you can. That's basically your experience in school.

[John]

And you do that for. Yeah, through your most formative years, for two decades.

[Chris]

And so you take young people today, they're like, I don't need to learn history. I can just ask Siri and I know it immediately and probably. And you know, like a current answer, not something from a book that was published 25 years ago. Sure. So some of that is like, do you actually need to learn that stuff? Do you need to know it? Like, now, can you just look it up? Up?

[John]

Like, reading was not fun for me growing up. I read every day. Now I only read books I want to read.

[Chris]

But why? Because you found the value reading, right?

[John]

Yeah. Yes.

[Chris]

That's where, like, you show the value. Like, you, you. A young person wants to learn something on a site, they don't know the value. You're just, you're just force feeding them information. As soon as they understand that they can run the job or they can make more money or have a, you know, kind of choose their own path by. Through learning. Well, now it's exciting, right? Like, that's why you read, because you, you are benefiting from what you're reading. You're not inventing the wheel. You're taking what someone else has proven, you know, through a lot of hard work. And so, and you can just take the nuggets from that and apply it in your life and better your life. Same thing with, with learning. It's like you just have to show that value to young people. And soon as you, soon as you show that value and you kind of create that process. Well, now they're all in on. We've got guys watching hundreds of videos on their own and from other platforms too. I mean, there's a ton of stuff.

[John]

I mean, even Instagram now is just loaded with good stuff. Yeah, yeah.

[Chris]

It's incredible how much you can learn just by wanting to and looking for it.

[John]

But showing, showing the value, I think is key. Like, I try to be really diligent about that. Like, listen, I'm not being a prick about you being organized just to be a prick about you being organized. Like, I'm being, I'm, I'm being a stickler on this because if you're not organized, that's like the foundation of your whole life. Like, nothing else works if you can't keep up with very simple. Nothing else works. Like, you don't really work very well as a spouse, as a parent, as a member in the community, as a person at this company.

[Chris]

A train wreck.

[John]

Yeah, yeah. And, and no one wants that. And no one's clearly taught you.

[Chris]

Full of anxiety and full of stress.

[John]

You're stressing out all the time.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah, but you get organized and all of a sudden everything gets easy.

[John]

Yeah, but it's, but it's not like more, hey, just get organized. It's like, get organized because it's going to take stress off you. It's going to allow you to be more effective. You're going to have more time to then dedicate yourself to other stuff. Like you're going to be better as a result. And if you're better, I'm better, team's better, company's better, we all win here. Like it's not a lose, lose.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Mike]

So that's a crazy thing like in our business to realize that and then how do you implement it? And I think that's our biggest goal the last few years is like, okay, now I'm excited because I see like when you start seeing things come together, like if you start organizing all of a sudden you're like, oh, if we could organize the next guy down and the next guy down and you know, so how to implement that stuff, which is just, it's super interesting and sometimes hard, sometimes easy. But it's, it's been fun to watch in our own business.

[John]

I think, I think it's, it's hard for construction because there is this almost immediate gratification to like you move a pile of dirt, I mean, you move, you can move it a few hours. It was here, now it's over here. It's spread out. We cut the grade. Like you get that immediate sense of gratification, whereas the people. Sometimes it takes six months a year. I mean, especially you guys have seen it when you're trying to change culture. That's a multi year endeavor.

[Chris]

And it doesn't work for everybody.

[John]

And it doesn't work for everybody.

[Chris]

We lost two guys last year that were new, came to the company, both like tractor trailer drivers. We're using them to, you know, move equipment around and jump between trailers, different, you know, hauling gravel and hauling machines. And our processes have changed tremendously from what our competition is doing. The competition is like, there's the truck, there's the machine. Move it.

[John]

Yeah, figure it out.

[Chris]

Ours is like pretty detailed in how we're going to move the machine and why we're going to move the machine and the whole processes of like how we, you know, they don't want to watch training videos as a truck driver. They don't get it. And so they don't want to. They're like, I'm going to go back to what I was doing. I'm going to go back over the road or I'm going to go work for this guy who's kind of phasing out of life. And the reason they, they left for the same, like the same reason that they came here. They came here because they were excited about doing more and then they realized they don't want to do more and they want to go back to that. So that's fine. Like, we encourage people, if this isn't for you, it's okay. But we're trying to build a team that is an A player. Right. At a. Performing at a high level. And there's something I read about teams and they're like the difference between having a, you know, the culture of your business, being a family versus a team. Like family, you accept like inabilities and dysfunction essentially.

[John]

Yes.

[Chris]

You accept like, you know, this guy, he's all right, you know, but he's my, he's my brother, he's my cousin or whatever. Like that's your thing. And so, but really, like, if you look at a high performing sports team, that's not a basis of why they're on the team. If they, if they're not good, if they're not performing at the peak of their, if their, you know, competition, they're not on the team and it's okay, they can be on a different team. There are plenty of teams to play on, but not on this team. So when you go to that, you know, that concept, it kind of changes things. So I mean, one of the things we try and do is bring people in for a week or two to work with us before they just quit their job. Or, you know, like, if you want to come over here, talk with your employer, you know, communicate that, hey, I'm thinking about a move. But don't give up what you have to come over here and find out this isn't really for you. Because if it's not for you, or if we don't feel like you're a good fit or you don't feel like you're generally. Yeah.

[Mike]

If you don't like it, we don't like it either.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

So like just come work for a day if that's all you've got. See if it's a good fit for you. And if so, well, now we're on a team that's performing at a high level because if, if you don't really want to grow, if you don't wanna be trained and, and figure out how to learn how to learn, it's okay. Yeah, like there's plenty of people that are doing work, that they do good work, but it's just not the style that we're striving for, you know.

[John]

Yeah, there's no right way to do it. Like, you can still be that. Yeah, we're the family business, you know, we're, you know, the longer you're here, the more you're valued and we, you know, some guys have been here for 30 plus years and that is what we celebrate and we're gonna keep on down that path.

[Chris]

Well, we're trying to build a team that sticks around. Like this is a career. So.

[John]

Sure, yeah.

[Chris]

Come here with the idea of like this is for a long time, not like it' temp job for, you know, get me through a year, but I'll take those guys.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Like if you're, if you explain like, hey, I'm going to be moving. This is what I want to do. This is my experience. If you're willing to work hard, no problem. We'll work with you. We'll help you to grow to wherever you're going. I have no problem with that. Like that's a. Paying it forward to the community. That's no problem with that. Understanding. But I don't want to bring people that don't want to be here and that becomes a little bit of a cancer for other people because it's just the negativity and the, you know, the undertone of like undermining what we're trying to do.

[John]

I just think it's like it's, I just had this conversation the other day. It's, it's, it's not unconditional. It's conditional. Like me as an employer, I have certain conditions I have to meet for people to be here. Like one is paying them. That's a pretty simple condition. But there's other conditions I must meet for them to stick around.

[Chris]

Sure.

[John]

And then for me to keep them here and meet my conditions, they have to be meeting their conditions and it doesn't really matter how long they've been around. Like they might have a little bit more leeway down the road, but those high performing teams, if you're not performing, you don't stick around. Like they, they still have turnover as well. Like everybody has turnover. I feel like, or not everybody. Sometimes you don't have turnover, which I think is its own problem. It creates this.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

This, like stagnant.

[Chris]

Stagnant. Yeah.

[John]

Whatever it is. But there's existing high turnover. That's dysfunctional. That you're just, man, we can't, we just can't keep people this and that. And I hear that fight a dollar. Every time I heard that, I'd, I'D be really good to go. But then there's the other side of things where it's like, there's almost the forced turnover. It's. It's instead, instead of driven by the person. Typically, like at the other side, it's typically driven at the employee level. People turning over. Either they're leaving for a dollar, not one, I was lied to and I want to go elsewhere, so on and so forth. And then the other side, it's like, I feel like it's the team, the employer driving the turnover in a sense. Like, you're constantly trying to elevate your people based on where you need to go. And sometimes people just don't want to come along and that's. It's not their fault at all. And like, if you just want to drive a truck, I don't blame you at all. Like, you don't. I mean, a truck driver is a great example. You're kind of a lone wolf. Like, you're, you're, you like traditionally eat what you kill.

[Chris]

They're in their truck because they're kind of. They don't want to be.

[John]

Yeah, you're, you're now good with like.

[Chris]

I'm gonna go out for the day. I'm gonna drive nine times from there to there.

[John]

Yes.

[Chris]

And I'm gonna come back.

[John]

Yeah. I don't want to be part of it.

[Chris]

Not everybody has that mentality or that like the drive to go and be high performing in that space. It does take a special person to do that.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Yeah. But it's the, how do you take that guy? And that's why I like the truck driver examples, because it is. They're not, they're, you know, kind of self regulated. And the drive has to be from within to go and be a high performer in there. But then take that guy and want him to improve his process or join your quest of like, high performance in care of. You know, we bought this little quarry and it's on a pretty quiet part of town and it was opened in the 60s and it's not, not a big quarry where people are just like banging trucks. And so people have lived there.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Not expecting it to be a live quarry. And here it is. Now it's opening.

[John]

Ripping down with your Jake.

[Chris]

So that's the whole thing. It's like, how do you go in there? How do you go in there and be cool about, like, being a good neighbor?

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Like, yes, we happen to be blasting and crushing and calling rock out of there, but how do you do that in a way that you're as low impact as possible. Right. So how do you train that? Like, even just as a learning thing, like, how do we go in there and be courteous as, you know, a steady stream of trucks for the next who knows how many years?

[John]

Yeah. The truck driver thing too is. I've always found it odd how it's like an adversarial relationship between the truck drivers and the people on the side. Because it's like, interesting. I understand the frustration on both sides. But listen, you can't do on a job site without truck drivers.

[Chris]

Oh, it's a. It's a very important part of the job.

[John]

Like nothing. Even if you don't have materials on the job, how'd your equipment get there?

[Chris]

Everything that happens on that job is because a truck brought it or taking it away.

[John]

It's like, why. So why are we all. Why is everybody up, up in arms over one another like this? Really, it is a team effort because without those truck drivers, nothing happens.

[Chris]

Historically, you know, the site is waiting on whatever the trucks are coming. So that's the truck driver's fault. The truck driver has a lot of time to get on the radio and talk with the collaborators.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

They don't know the drivers about what's happening on the side and why they had to wait so long. So, you know, there's.

[Mike]

It's.

[Chris]

But again, build that team. Build that where they're supporting and the. And the field understands that they're relying on the truck. So, like, how can you guys work together to be one team? Team, not trucks versus pipe crew. You know, like, how do you bring them together?

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And that is part of the education process of like building a team that, you know, can you have time where they actually spend time together?

[John]

Sure.

[Chris]

You know, create spaces for that or opportunities and recognize people. Like one. One thing we do is we have a team meeting every Tuesday morning with the whole company. 20, 30 minutes, just on zoom. So wherever anybody is, trucks, wherever. Pull over in the quarry. Oh, log in on your phone. Everybody's out at the whole company.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

It doesn't matter. Every level. And when it's just a 20 minutes for us to take time. And sometimes we have. We'll assign different guys in the company to or ask them to, you know, give a little 10 minute thing. We just had a guy talk about nutrition, exercise, you know, the importance of that. Sweet. All different things, but sometimes like, like.

[Mike]

Being a good neighbor, you know, like, what does that mean? Does that mean you're working at one parking lot and you're just parking our trucks on the neighbor's property or, you know, or you're driving to the quarry, are you are turning the jake brake. You know, that kind of.

[Chris]

You roll up first thing in the morning and you know you're going to start a development next to people in the day one, you interrupt the school bus and mom training and the mailman and like, yeah, like, how can you be a better part of the community? And so when you talk to the whole company that way, it also gives you opportunity to recognize certain people. Like, hey, the other day we got a call about such and such. That was pretty awesome, you know, and you share that with the company, makes people, you know, but it, you're building that, that team spirit because you're bringing everybody together and talking about, like, here's where we're at. These are the jobs we're working on. You know, you get a good eight minutes worth of motivational something you read in a book and to kind of explain the value of that to us and then go through some safety things and that that platform isn't used ever for anything negative. It's 100 positive space. So like you go into that meeting with, you know, some training stuff, but for the most part, it's. That's about just putting everybody on the same page. And I think if people take more time to do that, put your team together, there's less opportunity for division and competition and everything else.

[John]

Yeah, I'm surprised why more people don't do that, especially with how easy it is now. And like the remote thing is now that's a mute point. Like you can, like you said, you just have everybody do it wherever they are and it doesn't really slow down production or anything.

[Chris]

20 minutes. The value of that, everybody understanding. Like, you can go to sites, right? You go to a site for a year and maybe you never, like you're not connecting with another crew over here, but every week you see them, you're together and you know what they're doing and they know what you're doing. You feel like a team. You're accomplishing the same thing.

[Mike]

That's another thing. Even like the way we do our dailies, they can go any, any. I believe all the foremen and most of the guys can go on any job and see all the pictures from the other job sites, which is kind of cool because you take pride. You're like, oh, look at that. Because we talk about it on Tuesday and say other jobs are doing, but like they can actually go look at their pictures. And be like, oh, look at that, they got that building's up or that, you know, that slabs prepped or whatever road, you know, driveways in. So it's kind of cool because it brings a company feels accomplishment together, which does, you know, do something.

[John]

People just want to know what the hell's going on.

[Mike]

Yeah, like, wow, that's what. Who. I forget who told us that. Or read it somewhere. It was like, what team? Only the owners know the score.

[Chris]

Right.

[Mike]

If the team was playing a game and only the owners know and no one else knows only what's going on.

[John]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

Like you would, you would leave the game, you wouldn't share more numbers, you wouldn't be there.

[John]

Sure.

[Mike]

So like how the players going to know if they don't even know what you're doing?

[Chris]

Well, if you don't know you're down one run in the ninth.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Like if you know you're down one run, you know you can make it up. Right. So you're going to do everything you can to win. If, if the coach just out there screaming and you don't know if you're winning or losing, that's, you know, so communicate that.

[John]

Like that's typically happens now you're all pissed off because it's like they don't get it. Like, why are we even doing one run? We've got a photo.

[Chris]

Yeah, maybe tell them. So, like share some numbers, share some of where you're at and, and what's going on and what the challenges are and, and all of those, which is not typical.

[Mike]

Like even we've found, even with our competition, the more we talk with our competition, like, I mean, just yesterday we got a job and we actually gave a competitor. We gave a reference of our competitor on a job. The guy called our competitor, the competitor called me and was like, hey, I talked to this guy, seems good, whatever. And gave information that I had on the job. And then 20 minutes later I got an email that said we got the job. And I was like, oh, that is crazy.

[Chris]

Used our direct competitor to get us the job. Because you share information.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Talk about it. Like if you see someone else's machine on a job and you've got a bid, you know, invitation to bid. Call him. What's going on over there?

[John]

Sure.

[Chris]

You know, I got this invite to bid. Can we, can we, you know, like. And he's like, yeah, I wouldn't work for those people. Or yeah, I think I've got the job job. Or. But can you do the trucking or like you're just collaborating and you're building your team now, that's actually another resource for your team to be successful. And then all of a sudden, you're doing trucking together and you're doing. You know, there's opportunity for growth. But I think people are so afraid, as they're afraid of communication, that it's.

[Mike]

Their own guys with their own company.

[Chris]

That they're losing ground by sharing information with their guys. Well, it's a silly concept.

[John]

It's that. That defensive mindset. But it's also hard. Like you. It does require a lot of education because people. They've never been taught even what to do with the information. Because. Because they've never had it at any other employer.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

So you can't just talk about certain things and expect them to understand, like, how money flows through a project. Right. Like, you have to teach them the basic. Like, you have to explain, hey, all right, we got this contract, $1.7 million. That doesn't mean Brian and Tony just got $1.7 million. Like, they just wrote us a check. Like, that's. That's not. But they.

[Chris]

But, but.

[John]

But to. Yeah, that. It's just like. Even, like, finances, I think, is the biggest thing. Like, the way money flows through a business is totally different than the way money flows through an individual. Like, if you're running a deficit as an individual, it's a problem. Like, there's. There's certain things you can do in business that you can't get away with in your personal life. But they just don't know. People just don't know that they've never had that information. And if you don't teach them that, they're gonna. Sometimes they're gonna go take that information, do wild things.

[Chris]

And I think it's often easy. I find myself, when something breaks or something goes wrong or something goes over time, to only show the dollar of the expense in that time. Time that cost us $5,000. That cost a hundred grand. Right. We had to redo that because we didn't read the prints. And so it's $50,000. That's what we have invested in that. And you're kind of like scolding people with that number. And it's like you're trying to shock them into, like.

[John]

And the number is meaningless.

[Chris]

They don't know what that number means. But how about sharing the win? Hey, because we screened that material and we did this, and we. Whatever, you guys saved the company this amount. Now, in the big picture, that means we're able to do this, right? And now they see the value of, like, thinking and growing. Like, share the positive side, not just, you know, you broke that and it cost 50 bucks. Like, sure, great. Oh, you mean you're just using it to make them feel better?

[Mike]

Yeah, you need to use your team because you have. You have really smart individuals. Most businesses, you know, like, one. I remember one of our, like, a newer foreman came to one of our meetings, and he's like, why don't you guys get the foreman involved in the bidding process? And I'm like, like, that's a cool idea. It seems very expensive to me to have you ride around and look at jobs. Like, now I have several people going to a job to estimate the job on a job that we're not going to get probably, you know, but we've come out with some pretty good ideas from that same guy and from other foremen where it's like, okay, we're a little slow. It's raining today. Take these plans and look at them, and they're like, well, how are we going to do this? And they come up with a way to do it. And you're like, oh, all right. We changed the way we bid it. You know, so you see the benefits of.

[Chris]

They just look at it of a different perspective, and you end up value engineering a job that maybe wasn't even, you know, gonna happen because. Yeah.

[Mike]

Or he. The foreman calls his friend and he's got some dump site for us right around the corner, you know, that you wouldn't have had access to. So now when you're bidding it, you lower your numbers down because, you know, so it's just using. Utilizing your team. Because sometimes they have the great ideas. It's not always you, you know, but you have to put that information out there and be willing to trust them to. To get. To get to the end goal. But they can help you.

[Chris]

But at the end of the day, who's got more passion for that job now? That foreman?

[John]

Right.

[Chris]

I mean, you're only helping by bringing people in. And I think that's one of the biggest struggles in our industry is mom and pop start the. Start the job, start the company. They keep everything from the kids. Then all of a sudden, the kids are involved one day and they know things, and then the kids, like, you know, they move into that office space and keep everyone else out. And it's like they put the wall up. They went from being, like, very much on this side of the wall with all the guys. Now they're over here. So then there's a weirdness and it's a struggle and then they don't know how to share it. So I think like just having those conversations and maybe collaborate, ask some people that are older than you that are doing well, how do you do it? Yeah, I mean for us that's the biggest resource we have is make friends with guys that have been in the industry longer than us and ask them some of the simple questions, how do you do this? How do you get.

[Mike]

I feel like they're all so willing to share. I don't know if that was always been that way, but I mean that's helpful. Few years for us. It's amazing the amount of people both, you know, just locally and through social media and other events where you just meet guys and they're like, you ever think of this? And you're like, that's a really good idea, you know, and you didn't really.

[Chris]

Think having conversations, not being afraid to like identify the pain points and talk about them because that's where you come up with solutions. Just keeping it in. You're never going to get a solution.

[John]

Well, just struggle. It just. And it takes just a little bit of vulnerability. I don't. I agreed. I've thought a lot about even just trusting people and I haven't had very much, very, very, A lot of problems with people being untrusting in business, in our business. And I think it's genuinely because I'm just, I'm very trusting of people and that's got me bit plenty of times and will only get me bit more going forward. But not really like because you're bet.

[Mike]

You'Re better off for the, for the.

[John]

Few mistakes you've had, just way better off.

[Chris]

You're moving quicker because you trust people now they're on the team and you're working together as opposed to waiting years to trust them with anything and they're just present. Well, not really.

[John]

It's always like, especially from a business standpoint, it's always you're expecting them to be trusting before you give them trust. It's like, no, that's not how it works. That's not at all how it works.

[Chris]

Like you, that's the other way. Yeah, yeah.

[John]

You go first and if you don't go first, you're just going to attract more and more untrustworthy people. And because you don't trust them, they're not going to, they're.

[Chris]

They don't trust you.

[John]

No, they're not trusting you. So they're not just like invested it just then perpetuate and so many people are stuck.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

In this. I see it all the time. They're just stuck. And they're so negative and bitter. And I don't blame them because they're getting left and right. But it's like. But from the outside, you can also see, like, you've almost created this reality. Like. Like you're the architect of the world in which you live.

[Chris]

Yeah. Well, that's why you're the boss. Right. So you're driving the ship.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

So it's your plan. So when things are failing or going well. Well, it's because of your direction now. The more you allow other peoples to have influence on that, now you have a team. Otherwise it's just a dictatorship where everyone's stuck under your. You know.

[Mike]

But what's funny is people don't see that.

[John]

No.

[Mike]

Right. You would think that would be blatantly obvious. Like, if I make all the decisions, if I orchestrate this whole discussion right now and it's just a total train wreck, whose fault is it?

[John]

Yeah, mine. Yeah.

[Mike]

But people then, oh, well, he didn't want to talk enough, and you want to talk too much, and it's like, like it's, well, you did it. But they, they don't. And you would think when they're in that position, they'd open themselves up and read. Read how others do it, call up other businesses and say, how come. How come you seem to be smooth at this? Or how come you get. Win all the bids? What am I doing wrong? And I feel like almost 100% of the time that people just, they'll just tell you, like, how to get better and then, you know, it's up to you whether you want to apply it or not. But that's a. I think a great thing for us is every time we talk to people, you just get information.

[Chris]

You're like, oh, yeah, social media has just opened that page. So far. You can. Oh, reach is unbelievable.

[John]

That again, that's another horse that's out.

[Chris]

Of the barn now. It's wild.

[John]

Yeah, but that. But, but, but then you, you still see these, especially some of these big companies, like, almost ignoring that social media exists or still trying to, like, like, like shove it into a. Like. No, no, we don't, we don't. We don't do that. It's just like, you guys have no clue what's happening here.

[Chris]

It open. I'm glad that we got it in. I wouldn't say we were early to the game, but earlier it was a good time. Yeah, that we got in and you.

[John]

Guys did come in at a good time. When was that?

[Chris]

Maybe maybe 2017 or something like that.

[John]

You know, roughly when I was me and when like Dane was getting into.

[Chris]

It, not a lot of people were doing it.

[John]

Not many. No.

[Chris]

You know, I mean, people were. But it was quickly we just started getting friends everywhere and we saw it working for us.

[Mike]

I mean, going back to that, like get you. When you, you. You learn something. When you see wins, it motivates you more. It was like we talk to people about stuff and they're like, oh yeah, you gotta buy this or don't buy that, buy this. And you're like. All of a sudden you're like, oh, this is great. It's like, sure. You know, it was.

[Chris]

You saw stuff working people like Ryan and Dane. There was so many people that. Because like how you're gonna. Your salesman. I mean, for us, the salesman didn't even know what an incon was. Right. So here, this guy's put, you know, Ryan's making videos like pretty early on YouTube and different things, like putting stuff out there.

[John]

Yeah. He is Mr. Godfather of the whole.

[Chris]

I mean, he kind of pioneered construction social media.

[Mike]

Like he was doing influencers control.

[John]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chris]

Still. I mean, he's still kind of out in front finding things and you know. Yeah. Unfortunately, now we get to travel with him and do stuff, you know, kind of right there along with him and. And mentor our little group of people, you know, it's amazing how many people call and ask and trust you.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

With their decisions. Like, like, help me figure this out. This machine or this machine. Or how do I. You get a photo of a project or how do I get a dig next to this? Can I. You know, and they trust you and that's what, you know, you need those resources. It's just pretty. It's such a cool thing. To anyone that thinks that that's gonna either one be a waste of time or it's gonna negatively impact their business. I don't. I can't understand. No, I can't understand it because it's been. I would say social media and grade control have been two of the biggest things in our world that just propelled us to the next level and just opened up doors. I mean, nobody knows who you are.

[John]

No.

[Chris]

You're just working in this one little town forever. Social media makes you like, oh, people. I mean, people come from out of town and they want to work with us. And you're like, how do they even know who we can be hours Away. Like, it's, it's kind of fun to wear a DEET shirt around places when you're traveling or an airport. People just come up and like, hey, I know. You know, like, that's, it's pretty crazy.

[Mike]

The reach is insane.

[John]

Yeah.

[Mike]

I mean, like, we go into quarries in towns we've never been, and they're like, they extend us credit, like they know us. And you're like, you don't really know me. I mean, we do pay our bills, and we're very good and proud about that. But, like, we know who. You don't really know me, but they do. They trust you.

[Chris]

I mean, but you create that value, right? Yeah. It's your brand.

[John]

That's trust.

[Chris]

Yeah. Otherwise is. It's such a slow road to do it. The old way of just like, one customer at a time.

[John]

Well, we, like I was saying, we sold part of the business not too long ago. And I've been talking with a bunch of people, and everybody I've been talking to pretty much knows about it.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

But in business, and I just saw this this morning. I see it every day. When you make a big business move, what do you do? Press release. Press release. That's the. Press, the press release button, Whatever the hell press release is. I still don't even really know what they are because they don't say anything. Like, it's just a bunch of words on a piece of paper that's completely meaningless. And then it gets picked up by these other whoever. And I don't know, like, I, I, maybe there's value to it, but we've never done any of that ever. And it's like, everybody I'm talking to, I'm like, how's that going? Going? Oh, yeah, saw that. And these are people I haven't spoken with. And sometimes a year, two years, everybody knows. Everybody knows. And it's like, it's. We only put it on social media. Only did it on social media. That was it. That was it.

[Chris]

And it's just, it's pretty cool.

[John]

It's incredible. It blows me. It, it, it.

[Chris]

To this day, the opportunities we've had to attend different events, to be a part of different programs.

[John]

Are you guys going to Germany next month?

[Chris]

Yeah. I mean, all the time we're traveling and going social media, but, you know, and that's the other thing. A lot of people think, like, that's just a big waste of time. Like, oh, you know, must. Either must be nice. Or like, you're not working. You're like, you don't Understand the value of what that brings back to the team, the pride in the team. You know, they'll watch this podcast and get excited because our little company is a part of something bigger. You know, like you're. You're. It validates what they're doing every day, you know, or we are all doing collectively. Yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

It also changes your processes. Like what we were talking about before, where, you know, it might just see a different way of putting a barricade around a job site, but also, like.

[Chris]

Like, if.

[Mike]

I think it was the first time I went to Sweden, they. We came back with. There, they kind of choose a career path, and it was like, you know, in the. In the States, you kind of. You start as a laborer. You work up to maybe an operator, foreman, super, Maybe project manager. You know, you're working this career path. Whereas in Sweden, it was like, if you're going to be an operator, you're going to be an operator. You could choose to be an operator forever. Yeah. And it was like, which is kind of crazy because you take this operator, it's really good. And then you're gonna make him a foreman, and he's not that great of a people person.

[Chris]

Well, he's been alone his whole life in that machine. Right?

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And now it's like, well, you know how to do that really well. So here, go lead a team and do it. And you're like, wait a minute.

[John]

But we're gonna take different skills. The only skill that you have away from you, which is running a machine, you can't do that.

[Chris]

And then here, watch a bunch of people that aren't as good as you and see if you can get. Then try and form him as good as you. Right. It's kind of a. But. But here, all we know is what is local. Right. So our culture here does that.

[John]

Sure.

[Chris]

And everybody struggles through it. So the thing that makes you unique is the same as Shea going and finding other technology and stuff. You go and find different processes. We came back and took her. Yeah.

[Mike]

We went to Sweden for a few days, but we came back and it was like we had one of those Tuesday meetings. We said, hey, so the career path that we see and all of us know is not necessarily one that we want to implement anymore. We want, like, at 20 years old, choose you want to be. Be a foreman or choose you want to be an operator. And you don't have to stick with that forever, but don't think you have to be a laborer to be an operator to be a foreman. Like you know, and you see, which is funny because right away we saw a distinction in where guys were kind of liking the operator path. And guys were like, I want to get involved in layout more or I want to, you know. And they were being drawn more to the foreman position.

[Chris]

Well, the foreman actually the, the better career path for a foreman is a shovel to a grade stick to a pipe crew to a layout to, you know, site super. Right. So like that's your. Because you're implementing the actual thing. Operator is kind of a different path.

[John]

Sure.

[Chris]

That's like hand eye coordination and using machinery to accomplish the task. Total different skill set. So it kind of motivates young guys to stay in the ditch because that's where leadership is going to. That's the direct path to leadership in our eyes at least. Right now it's a different path than operating truck driving. Here you're running machinery and this path is like performing the work and then overseeing that work. So you understand that it's just get to go from the ditch into a machine to an office. That's kind of a funny path with leadership too.

[John]

There's also a bias is because I'm in leadership. Everybody wants to be in leadership.

[Chris]

Yes.

[John]

And that's not the case.

[Chris]

No. Everybody wants more money.

[John]

Well, everybody wants. Everybody. Yeah, everybody wants more money. You have to take care of their family and make more money and it takes the pressure off them as well. Like, like, all right, I don't have to have to be a foreman. Like no, you, you can be a world class operator for your career. Have a good living.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

Have a nice family, do what you want. Like it goes on both sides. Like there's. And that's what I think is a little irrational from the whole. There's a lot of. I've realized with the whole workforce development movement a lot of bullshit right now. And I've been guilty of perpetuating some of it. But like the whole. Oh yeah, there's a career path for everybody and everybody can just keep moving up the ladder. It's like mathematically, no, that's not possible.

[Chris]

Okay.

[John]

You have a 500 person company. How many presidents are at that company? One.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

Maybe two if there's a co president. Otherwise like. No, A majority of the company is still out in the field. A minority of that field workforce is in leadership is in the crew leaders is in the superintendent. A majority is in trucks and equipment in the ditch doing the work because there's still work to do. Like I love that we're talking about all this Rah, rah.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[John]

And that's great. Like you can.

[Chris]

Heavy. Yeah.

[John]

You can go from a ditch to running kiwit if you want to do that. That's, that's possible in this world, which is rare. You can't do that in banking. I'm. Yeah, I'm not going to do that at J.P. morgan, you know, or Apple or whatever it is, but I can do that in construction. So you can do that, but that's not the best path for a majority of people, I would say. And not what majority of people want. Want.

[Chris]

Right.

[Mike]

Yeah. Well, something that blew my mind, I think it was last week. I read it was like, what's wrong with empowerment classes is all of them basically say, I am going to empower you. And so therefore it's like fundamentally they're flawed because as a leader, I'm going to lead you to be a leader. And it's like it doesn't really work.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Mike]

You know, you're like, I'm empowering you. Like, well, no, you have to empower yourself. So it's like you're kind of talking in this circle and I find, find in a lot of stuff that we've done is like you can do that very easily. Just, I'm going to teach you this stuff because I read it and it's, it's a, it's a struggle to actually pull off getting people to empower themselves.

[John]

Well, that.

[Mike]

Realize that that option's there if they choose it and not just say, I'm going to teach you this or I'm going to open the door for you.

[John]

Saying, I'm going to empower you is like some of the dumbest you could.

[Chris]

Ever say, doesn't even make sense.

[John]

Arrogant. That is one. But that. But there's also this leadership class. Management class.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[John]

They've only been managers their entire life. Like they, they, they haven't actually done the work. Like, they don't. And this, that's my problem with general contractors. Like, it's a lot of, it's a lot of chiefs that have never actually put a sheet of drywall on a wall or have never been in a ditch or have never done what they're leading.

[Chris]

Well, I know for our industry, like just site. Most GCs don't have a clue. They can't do what you do. Like you might, they may have been framers, they might have been whatever, you know, like they've done some general construction, but most of them have no idea.

[John]

But they, they don't need to know. They just have to have a genuine sense of appreciation, which is oftentimes absent because they've been so far removed from it.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

You know, and I'm. It's typically not the smaller GCs because they're closer to the work. I'm talking, like, oftentimes I see this, like, the mega GCs, they've just. They've just gone to school and they got an internship. They counted fucking sheets of drywall for three months. Check the box. Went to go work for this company. Have a degree, walk the job. You know, I'm in construction. Yeah. It looks good with my iPad. And that's. That's important. Like, we need. We need. We need leadership.

[Mike]

But it's like, that's what's crazy for us because we see it from. From our perspective, you know, from the site side is like. Like you're actually teaching this guy that you're kind of your boss on a. On a site. You know, we're working for the gc and you're like, kind of teaching them what site work should look like.

[John]

Sure.

[Mike]

The advantage for us is if that guy stays in the position of, you know, whatever. He is site super.

[Chris]

He can't work without you.

[Mike]

Is he falls in love with you.

[Chris]

Yeah. If you. If you're.

[Mike]

If you actually take the time to teach him what it's supposed to look like, he won't. I mean, every site he goes to forever, he'll say, these guys are great. So it's. We've used it to our advantage a little bit, but it does. You're, like, always fighting that battle of educating.

[John]

But it requires humility on both sides. You have to have humility to not say, fuck this guy. He doesn't know what we do. He doesn't appreciate what we do. This like, oh, he asked us to do this stupidest thing ever.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

That happens all the time.

[Mike]

And then when they're making your schedule and you're like, that's my money you're playing.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

Yeah. And then from his perspective, it's like he at least has to be.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[John]

Have the desire. Because an understanding that, like, hey, I can't build this project without you guys. You're the expert.

[Chris]

That's where a lot of that, like, lead up the chain jocko's mentality and stuff that, like, we approached every meeting that way, like, you walk in, you know what you want, you know what needs to be done, you make them look good and it's their idea, and then they're excited. Over time, they can trust you, and then you end up the driving force of their schedule because you apply all the logic to their schedule and allow things to be done in a proper sequence, and it changes there. But then again, they can't work without you because they're. Nobody else is doing that.

[John]

Sure.

[Chris]

Less people are doing that, you know, and so you. You just approach that with. Not only. I'm not walking into this meeting to argue with them or tell them how they screwed everything up. You're approaching the media of like, here's our situation. Here's our solution. Here's what we propose. And they're like, well, I mean, this is great. Well.

[John]

And they might tell you some information that you don't have access to. Like, listen, I've got somebody else up my ass over here and I have to get concrete in. And I know it's right in your. Like, I know now instead of just laying the pipe across, you've got to go around now. I get it. But it just has to happen this way for the money to flow. And it's like.

[Chris]

But now you have a team with your gc.

[John]

Yes.

[Chris]

Like, another problem solved. So now it's a great, you know, the. The whole team thing. If they don't communicate that budgets are what they are, you're frustrated because you're like, why is this concrete guy here? He's the worst one in the county, and that's the guy you're using. Well, we screwed up our budget. We forgot about insulation, and so now we have to use this concrete guy. Okay, tell me that, and I will support the concrete guy so that we can win. Yeah, right. I will go and I'll lay out with him. I'll work with him. We'll. We'll. Whatever. But if you don't have that information, you don't have that team. And so I think a lot of that, like, what he's saying is, like, sit with them, talk with them. It's another investment. But it's just everything you invest in, you get a return for. So, yeah, some of that might be less profitable because in the beginning, because you're wasting time with a site. Super educating him. But long term, you've built another partnership for success.

[John]

Sure. And then even if he goes elsewhere now, he's still.

[Chris]

He brings you with him.

[John]

Yeah.

[Mike]

You always run.

[Chris]

Or at least he's saying good things about you.

[John]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Chris]

Right. I mean, it's.

[John]

You don't just lose.

[Chris]

Yeah. You're not losing. It's definitely worth some. Some time.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

So how the. How did the contractor. The year thing Come about, how does it even work? Do you just. Do I say, oh, these guys are great, and I write in and submit a ticket or do you submit yourself or both.

[Chris]

You can do both. So I think it starts with you can nominate somebody. So you can fill out. It's kind of like part of the application. You can nominate somebody. So we got nominated by somebody. And then once you get nominated, then they ask you to apply. So like, hey, somebody thinks that. Okay. You know, then you can also just apply. I, I didn't, I didn't want to just apply. So we were told we were nominated, so then I applied. And you fill out a bunch of pretty detailed info about your background. You got to turn in your safety ratings, you know, so you have to qualify in that way. Like, you got to be pretty legit. I see pretty tight tolerances on safety, which is important. I mean, that's kind of a pretty clear defining factor.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And then, and then you gotta, you gotta do references. So we turn in some references. They do b bunch of background. And then they come out and interview you and get to see like firsthand who you really are. Really visit your office, visit your sites, talk to your guys.

[Mike]

They talk to GCs, they talk to references. It's pretty thorough.

[John]

Pretty thorough.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Mike]

The amount of stuff that they look through, I surprised.

[Chris]

Yeah. And it's cool because I think, you know, when you say like a national award of contractor of the year, you're like, okay, there's a lot of contractors out there. But I think the, the value is there's a certain space that, that, you know, dollar amount that, that categorizes you eligible to. To apply for that contractor of the year. So you know, when you hit that number and then you go out of that number, the guys that are smaller than that number, which I think is $4 million. It's like before between 4 and 20 million.

[John]

Okay.

[Mike]

That's kind of a growth be in business first.

[Chris]

You got to be 10 years in business and a minimum of five machines. Yeah.

[Mike]

Because not all are necessarily dirt. 100 dirt. They were all dirt contractors. But not.

[Chris]

Yeah, relatively.

[Mike]

Somewhere a little bit more gc.

[Chris]

I think it's, it's kind of based around equipment. Right. So like you're utilizing machines and you year.

[Mike]

But that's why I got as low as five.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

But then when you, when you win, then they do a pretty in depth story and all that on y'all. Like it's. I remember like I was telling you, I was reading them in college and they were. I Mean, pretty in depth, like, I got. That's why I was so interested in them, because it was the only glimpse into how construction companies, site work, companies actually work. Like, what goes on within these companies, who runs them.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

Et cetera, which I thought was pretty fascinating.

[Chris]

It's a pretty cool thing. I mean, I think the guys are super proud. We definitely were proud. I know the first gen, our parents who, like, started this whole thing and put so much of their life into this business. That's a huge thing.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Like, to see it, you know, you pass it on to the next generation, give them the reins, and then they're continuing that legacy and building something that's pretty cool. And then to get a national recognition, that's, you know, know, it's a good feeling. But for the guys, it legitimizes a lot of the efforts that they put into every day. You know, it's. There's a lot of struggles that you go through to even just keeping up with, like, you know, we've got these new initiatives. We're trying to do training and learning and, you know, utilize technology and build teams and crews and tier different layers of management.

[Mike]

Go to, like, you know, you go to the summit and you come back with this great idea that, you know, you're all impressed with. But, like, how do you sell it to everybody else that. Does it actually work? You know, like, yeah, some guys are all wound up.

[Chris]

See their eyes lays over there. Like, what are you talking about?

[John]

Another dumb idea.

[Chris]

Yeah. Like, here we go. But I think in a lot of ways, they, you know, so to me, for the company, it's like, yeah, this is working. Like, we're. We're not. Yeah, we're not blazing our own trail, but we're definitely on the trail with. With fewer people, you know, so. So.

[Mike]

Well, it goes back to the same thing. If you implement processes or equipment or whatever, that makes their life better. Like, at the end of the day, they're like, all right, all right, this is working. I'll buy in.

[John]

Sure. You know, yeah, it's. It's. And. And you're not doing it for the validation, but the validation doesn't. Like, genuine validation doesn't hurt. Especially like, like you said for your people, like, hey, this isn't just nonsense. We're really making a difference here. We're headed in the right direction.

[Chris]

I know when they first reached out and asked. Asked us to, you know, to apply, I. My reaction was like, us. You know, like, I don't. I didn't think we fit in the Category, obviously you think you're trying, working really hard. When you talk about a national thing, you're like, there's a lot of guys out there doing some impressive stuff. Yeah. But you guys look really impressive, really good.

[John]

You guys look bigger too. Like from an equipment brand standpoint.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

Especially you guys look bigger than you really are.

[Chris]

Yes.

[John]

Like, and you've grown a lot over the past few years too. But it's like, like you do you have a. And then the social media and everything that your stuff like.

[Chris]

But isn't that kind of the concept? Right. That's build confidence in people.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Right. So if, whether you're demoing a machine or renting a machine or whatever, you're leasing it for a year, that thing's going to be in your content. And it's, it's. I would say there's nothing in our content that is fake, but it all, you know, it's, you know, the same as marketing in any way. Like you want to, to. You want to legitimize what you're doing. And so utilizing those different machines, sometimes it's only there for a couple months, but that machine's in your, you know, you're not out, like, look at what we bought. That's not necessarily the storyline, but the storyline is like, here's another machine that's amazing that helps us to accomplish what we do and be, you know, build what we're doing. And then what's cool is over the last, I would say four to six years, we've seen more. You know, being partnership with Deere is huge. So you get access to a lot more events and you know, beyond customer kegs and a part of developing the next machines that are coming out and field follows and all kinds of just, just cool stuff. But like, having access to that has solidified our growth because now we know the value. Like, you sit in a room full of 100 engineers and they explain why, how awesome this machine is and all the value and all the benef. It's. We're like, how do we buy that machine? And you got to figure out how to come up with 600 grand so you can buy that machine and you can keep going. But now we're like, over those few years, like, those machines are now in our fleet. Like, so although it looked like we were bigger, we're getting there. Like, it's, it's, it's scaling.

[John]

You guys have some pretty good size.

[Chris]

Yeah, we got some good stuff. Yeah.

[John]

Pretty nice stuff. Yeah.

[Chris]

Yeah. And it's, you know, I think for the guys, that's a big thing too, is just like being a part of a brand that has an awesome image. Image.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Not everybody has a great reputation or a great image. Like you might have a good paycheck, but is it like full package? Like, are you a part of something that looks good and actually is good behind the scenes? Like, you actually care about your machines. You actually keep them nice. And it's not just about a shiny machine. That's your brand. Like, like we struggle all the time with like, at what point, you know, the machines are getting a lot more hours now than when we were, you know, a small crew of people. So you wear them out. Like, you actually see the wear and you see the use on the machines more. But that also enables you to buy new machines and keep going and keep that same business model, you know, moving.

[John]

Sure.

[Chris]

But yeah, it's. I mean, the, the. To be nationally recognized for anything is pretty cool.

[John]

It's super cool.

[Chris]

Yeah. It's a motivating factor to keep pushing.

[John]

Did you just go to the John Deere thing they had in Sacatonia? Yeah, yeah. Was that pretty nice?

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

That was fun.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

That was the first time we got out to Arizona with them. But they had a lot of that is. It was all based around technology. They had the press there, the press releases on.

[John]

Yeah, yeah, sorry. Yeah.

[Chris]

850. Not a big 850X, a hybrid dozer hybrid. 744X tier loader. So electric drives on both of those machines. Pretty cool. You know, the value in that was you can reman those machines at, you know, the typical life cycle. When it kind of ends. It's not worth the hydraulics to rebuild those machines. There's nothing left.

[John]

Sure.

[Chris]

But with electric, you just swap it out.

[Mike]

Well, and I think they were putting. It was like what was a 15,000 hour warranty.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Mike]

On the dry, on the electric drives.

[John]

Wow.

[Mike]

So, I mean, they're going. Yeah, they're going all in.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Well, I forget what the years. Unlimited hours. 15. It was like 15,000 hours. What was it?

[Chris]

I'd have to check.

[Mike]

Yeah, I forget.

[Chris]

But it was.

[Mike]

It was pretty impressive.

[John]

You need to look at the press release. Yeah, yeah.

[Chris]

Got to go read equipment worlds.

[John]

Yeah. No, it looked. It looked great. I mean. Yeah.

[Mike]

And it was cool because you get to play on all kinds of stuff. So you can get on, you know, one loader, go to the next loader, go to the next loader and like, okay, here's for us. I think there's real value to that because it's stuff that you're going to buy.

[John]

Sure.

[Mike]

At some point. But you're like, okay, do I actually want a 644 or 744 loader? Do I want, you know, a 700 dozer, an 850, a 950, a 1050, like where is their place? And you know, even if you're just renting a machine, you know which machine machine you want.

[John]

Didn't you guys have a real big one for a little bit?

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

That'S a big. That's a big tractor.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've got a couple projects right now where, where there might be a 50 coming back. They're just 15 and a half foot blade.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Yeah. With a power angle tilt blade. That's a lot. It's so big and it's smart grade. So it's cutting right to grade all full autos, you know. That's pretty awesome.

[John]

Yeah, they've been, they've been great to us. They've been a great deer. Yeah. A great partner. I mean we've, we've. Arizona facility. We've used their Coal Valley facility. We'll be at their Co Valley facility for an event in May, which is exciting. Yeah. They've been just very welcoming, very helpful. Komatsu right now.

[Chris]

They're.

[John]

They're very, very welcoming, Very helpful. Yeah, it's exciting. There's another manufacturer that is. Is yellow as well. That's not at all welcoming.

[Chris]

I'll tell you. We. We've been so fortunate to have the relationship we do with Deere. I know. Never thought we could. Not in my wildest dreams. But I think that we could get in the rooms that we were invited into.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Ever like it just never to break out of your local dealership seems like a big deal. Like I think for a lot of people, meeting a territory manager or even just a branch manager or CEO of their, you know, dealership would be huge. To go to dinner with them would be like a career moment.

[John]

Especially when you're not like a Patillo.

[Chris]

Yeah, well, you know. Yeah. But again you're getting on that level. You're getting invited everywhere. So. Because they're like, you know, keep buying our stuff.

[John]

But no, I mean. Yeah. Not when you're, when you're, when you're not spending. Yeah.

[Chris]

You're not getting in that invite. Yeah. So for us to have access to that support and then our dealers just stepping up, I, I think we've got some of the best between like Jesco has just been phenomenal for Us.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Full support all the way around. United has been great too, but that just having that, it just changed your world. And when you boil that all the way back to like starting a social media page so people know who you. That you exist and that you're relevant, that's where like the struggle to think that there's no value there, it completely changed our world. It just gives you access to like, we wouldn't. You would never be contracted of the year if we didn't have a social media. I don't think. Maybe, maybe, maybe there are people that make it there. I don't know. But I feel like that's.

[John]

It's transition and yeah, it was, it was a little more unknown contractors, I would say, back in the day, like.

[Chris]

Where they had to find them.

[John]

Yeah, yeah. And if they weren't on there, I would have never seen them ever before. But now I was like you guys and then Shay and others that have like made that part of the business. Like, that's not why they're there.

[Chris]

Pavement American.

[John]

Oh, were they as well?

[Chris]

They were. They were a final list.

[John]

Okay.

[Chris]

Yeah. They've done for the paving industry.

[John]

It is, it's. It's incredible.

[Chris]

Unbelievable.

[John]

Yeah, it's like.

[Chris]

And so it's not like so much.

[John]

That's not the business. Like you still have to move dirt, lay pipe.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

Put asphalt, whatever you're doing. You still got to make money, still got to treat people well, get nice equipment, look good, etc. Deliver.

[Chris]

But we had people, we had the site you visited American. Did the paving there, all the dot work.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And our site guys were, you know, our GC was excited that America, like, they know who they are because their kids watch them on. On YouTube and stuff, you know, like, that's pretty cool. Like, it's a whole different. It just adds another layer. Sure. And for marketing, layers are good. Like the more you can have. Yeah. So I. So many people are. Are doing it now. It is a. You know, it's become very trendy and. And they're getting there.

[John]

Yeah. So many people are doing it, but a lot of people don't.

[Chris]

You are doing it well.

[John]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Chris]

So doing like what is your story? What is your image? You know, are you positive on there or do you use it as an opportunity to attack people?

[John]

So there's that. That's never a good look using social. Like every time I see somebody do that, it's just.

[Chris]

I reached out to a guy this week that I don't even know.

[John]

Don't.

[Chris]

I just saw him and he's complaining about his, a brand that we weren't going to mention. Complaining that they wouldn't give him something.

[John]

What A software.

[Chris]

Some software.

[John]

I know exactly what they're talking about. It's supposed to be cracked.

[Chris]

So I, I started messaging him. My wife is like why are you talking to this guy for an hour at 11 o'clock at night? Trying to help him.

[John]

Like he's out west.

[Chris]

Somebody needs to talk to this guy. Like what are you doing? He's got these like still waiting posts, you know, and he's, he's posting his.

[John]

Bills from the dealership online. It's hilarious.

[Chris]

I was like, I could probably find you somebody to talk to. This is not the right deal. I want to help you.

[John]

But also, also in that case I'm, I'm, I'm also kind of for it because it's like that's dog and, and the software stuff drives me nuts. Like we won't allow you to fix your own machine.

[Chris]

So my struggle is it is, I personally don't feel like that is how you get what you want.

[John]

No, it's not gonna, it's not.

[Chris]

So but no matter what, I don't feel like going public with your dirty laundry or someone else's dirty laundry.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Is the way to foster. It's not a single good result or a long term good result. Right.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

I know if my customers go on social media and post all this stuff that we're, you know, deets isn't even here and, and now it's raining and now we're going to like I don't want to go, I want to distance myself from them as quick as possible. Right. I don't want to work with them, I don't want to know them. I don't want anything to do with them. So that's how you think you're going to get your dealer or the manufacturer to resolve a, a industry wide struggle? Badmouthing everybody and just like making all these dramatic videos. I don't think that that's the solution. There's a, I, I guess I get catch more flies with honey. Right. So I, I, our style is to find a route to the right person. You're just not talking to the right person yet.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And I believe that there's a right person for every situation or for every solution. So just keep finding, keep finding that. And that's through, through being a nice guy who outlines and describes what your struggle is. Identify what your real struggle is. Don't just be selfish. Like this would make me more money or this would make me more efficient or whatever. Like what is your real struggle? And if you, and if you really need a solution, I think that there is a way to foster that conversation and find that person. But I think so many people just go to badmouthing a dealer and there's typically only one side of the story because being shown they don't really explain both sides. So that's my whole point to that guy was, you know, what's the, what's the real, what's the real struggle? What's the what, you know, how do you find the solution and lead up the chain? Go to them with the solution. You're asking them to solve an impossible situation because it's across all these manufacturers. It's not like this is just a one off thing or like, oh, this one company won't do it. It, no, find the solution. If you're that smart and it's so simple, you present the solution and if you can come up with a good one, they'll do it. Yeah, right. But he's not putting an effort into it. He's just saying, solve my problem, give it to me.

[John]

It's, I'm, I'm enjoying it just from the outside. I think it's hilarious because he's being creative about it too. I, I know.

[Chris]

I'm not saying his videos aren't great.

[John]

No, his video, he's doing a great job. Yeah, I just think I'm all for it. But yes, it's not the best strategy. However, I am definitely petty and I don't air anything on social media, but I have a long memory and I only intend at this point to be more and more and more and more and more influential in this world. And I will not fucking forget certain things that have happened. Or even. It was funny the other day. Like, man, there was a guy who was just a, and, and I was being, I was being a turd, but he was, he was a, a pretty enormous prick back in the day. Like this was years ago. I know, I know. And so, but then this, this and, and I give, I give Caterpillar all kinds of grief. But the dealers, I could not say nicer things about the dealership. Dealers are phenomenal. They have supported us in so many ways since day one. So somebody had a dealer was, he messaged me, hey, what do you think about this guy? And I'm just like, I just smiled. I'm like, ah, what's going on here? And it was, they were thinking, they wanted to know if, if he was, you know, as a potential hire and I was like, like, how, you know, well about, you know, how about that? This is a curious position I'm in.

[Chris]

I know the tables have turned and.

[John]

I wasn't like, I didn't like I had the influence to wheel, but I didn't want to do that. Like, he's still, I think, a very talented individual. He's in the position he's in for a reason. He's done very good things where he's at. So I like, I had a bad experience with him, but said nice things about him. I'm like, he'd be a great hire, I'd hire him. Yeah. But it's just like little stuff like that starting to happen and it's like, all right, another five to ten years, let's go.

[Chris]

That is. Yeah. I just feel, I guess from my side, I think the manufacturers can have that same memory and that same long term.

[John]

Oh, totally.

[Chris]

Right. So. I know, I know. Like just our whole relationship with deer, there's been times where like different things come up where somebody's complaining about something, something and you know, they got ripped off or something broke or whatever it was, you know, then that's their opinion of their viewpoint of the situation. And you're like, when you look at all the facts, you're like, I don't see it the same. But while they're running to find a solution, they will also. And I'm not saying deer, I'm saying in general, anybody is going to run from just a barking dog. You know, you're just making noise. That's not good for anybody. So the person, like just find the solution. Like go after the solution. That's where like opportunities like Con Expo, like sometimes if you're at a roadblock, find another path. Like go to Con Expo, talk to the people in the booth, say, hey, this is what I'm struggling with. Yeah, I've got this and this going on. I bought this or that. And you know, this is what I'm struggling with. What's the solution? And just brainstorm with people and you can come up with bigger solutions. There's, I feel like it's very narrow minded to just go and put it out there to the general population and complain about your struggle that they're not. In no way can any of those people help you. You know, like, go find the. They're hoping that some high up somewhere on social media. They're likely not on there. No, you know, it's just us on there going like, I don't really want to hear about your struggles anymore.

[John]

You know it's usually middle management's usually the problem. Yeah, they, yeah, they're not usually the problem. They're usually the gatekeeper.

[Mike]

They're not the solution.

[Chris]

That might be the roadblock.

[John]

They can, they can, they can gum stuff up because at the executive level like they've got other going on. Like they've got more important stuff happening.

[Chris]

They might task it to somebody.

[John]

Yeah, yeah. They're not rarely are they getting involved and stuff. Like it's usually somebody somewhere in the middle who has substantial power that can either be your friend or really get in your way. And I, and I've in the past I've gone around people. People which is very rarely worked out for me. I will sometimes I will if I've exhausted, if it's like that's like the last, last case scenario.

[Chris]

But it doesn't usually go well.

[John]

Going around people is also really, really bad. Yeah, about just a short sighted move because then now even if you get what you need done from the higher up who just overrode memory. Well not.

[Chris]

Or you're getting labeled as like, like the guy.

[John]

They will not forget that. Nope.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

Nope, nope, nope. Yeah.

[Mike]

I think also when it comes to solutions like working with your dealership, I think it is a relationship thing and I think a lot of people are very selfish. You know, you want the cheapest price when you buy the machine, you want the best service, you want the cheapest parts and you want it now. You know, and sometimes that's the reality is you want it right now. And you know, I don't want to overpay but I think if you, you, if you spend the time developing the relationships as far as like talk to them, ask them, you know, it's from a small contractor standpoint, sometimes you can't, it's hard to develop that. But I feel like for us like you know, just spend time with the sales department. So spend time with the rental.

[Chris]

Well, take your salesman to lunch.

[Mike]

Like talk.

[Chris]

How many people take, invite their salesman, come have lunch with me and pay for it.

[John]

Sure, sure.

[Chris]

That everybody wants a free hat and a free burger from their salesman. Like that's a bad approach to the relationship. Like if you want something, you create that avenue. You create the relationship. Invite them out to your site like hey, come view my stuff. Hey, come to my office. Meet my guys. Let me talk about what we're doing for the next year. This is what we've got on our workload. This is what we're trying to do. I'd love your suggestions on what the gaps are in our equipment or how do you feel about like, do you think we should replace this machine? Like you do that. Everybody's like, my, my salesman never comes and sees me. You go see him. Like, if you think of your relationship the same as like you treat your marriage, if you just walk in and you demand all those things, you know, I want the cheapest price and the fastest service and all that stuff. Like treat your wife that way and see how that relationship goes. It won't go anywhere. Right? You will not have a wife. She will leave you because you're an idiot. If you treat your salesman well, if you like view them as part of your team team, maybe it's not all their fault. Maybe they're now going to be drawn to you because you're the only customer that they have that does that. So now you may get be the best customer that they have. You may get all their attention. So it's, you know, put something into it. And I feel like so many people just, it's so easy to blame your salesman, blame the dealership and demand things and be like, they don't ever help me. Okay, well what are you doing to help them? They're a business. They're not owned. Most of them are not owned by corporate. They're owned.

[Mike]

None of them are family business.

[Chris]

All of them need money to survive. So when you're just demanding everything for free and expecting free service and free travel with the trucks to come, fix your stuff, like it's great. I mean we all need, I mean not that any. We need them. No, we need them to cooperate. We need fair pricing and stuff and, and sometimes there is room for things for a discount or whatever. But, but just what are you investing into that relationship? And I think if people try that it will change their world.

[John]

But with equipment, it's funny because you can again, it's, it's short sighted to like over here chase the discount, not develop the relationship. And then your machine's down over here and you can't really get the parts for it or something like that.

[Chris]

Like it's not sustainable when you take all the money away from the dealership and then expect them to provide a good service for you.

[John]

It you lose more money money with your machine broken for five days or whatever it is. That discount, like it's, it's so like you're trying to get the deal. Everyone wants to deal. I got, oh, I got the best of them. I got, I got them but yeah.

[Chris]

Such a small percentage of.

[Mike]

Yeah, I think the best deal, I mean, not that everyone doesn't want the best deal, but the best deal works great. When you're 25 and buying a car, it doesn't work with a relationship in business where you're buying multiple machines every year and you're going to buy from this guy for years.

[Chris]

Sure.

[Mike]

You know, a lot of sales salesman stay in the role for years. So you want, you know, if you're just like a pain in the neck to him every time he sees your name come up on his phone, it's not great.

[Chris]

But that's where I feel like the value, you may pay a couple dollars more in a single purchase, but the value of his opinion and his like support. Right. In choosing the right model, not setting it up with options you don't need. You know, you got the wrong set of tracks on a dozer. That's a big, big deal.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Poor salesman, he's going to let you do that. A good salesman isn't going to let you do that. It may cost more for the right tracks, but those, that relationship, that support that you get from him, you're not going to get. If we're, if we're going for the best, the best brand with the best salesman out of, out of a quality dealership and expect the cheapest price.

[John]

Sure.

[Chris]

Right. If you want the Mercedes, you're not going to get it for the Hyundai price. The Hyundai salesman is making, making 40 grand a year. The Mercedes salesman's making 200 grand a year. I don't know. Just guessing, you know, if he's selling a lot of cars, there's a difference there. You're going to pay more. But if you're demanding more, so many people are demanding more and yet they want it for the cheapest. You're like, it's not. You can't get that. So pay more. Like actually pay more and then go out and do the best work. And guess what? You can charge more. So you've just slid that scale up to where you're profitable. The same profit margin with better equipment, you broke down less. You've got a salesman that cares about you. He's going to make sure the service department takes care of you all the way through you. You know, that's how you become Patillo. Not by being cheap. The cheap thing, the free lunch doesn't get you to the become Patilla.

[John]

My, my. One of my favorite, not my favorite, but just one of the things that really makes me scratch my head is when they get when, when a contractor gets over and, and, and like maybe a machine broke or something like that and they wouldn't fix it or something like that. Like sometimes it's substantiated but then they're just like, like I'm never buying this brand ever again. And that's like the strongest brand in that area. The strongest dealer. And it's like, yeah, okay.

[Chris]

I, I pretty small minded. Yeah.

[John]

But they like, I don't know, is the other dealer really better? They're not. And so you're gonna go over here and get. Yeah, like that's, I see that every once in a while. I'm like, I don't know. And, and, and, and even, even it's, I think it's also small minded to just think you can do business with just one brand as well.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

As you're growing like even within the deer realm, there's some machines they don't make like that other manufacturers make that you need to get like.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

I very rarely have ever been to a job site with one brand of equipment and yet all the manufacturers act like one brand. Like we're the best, best nobody. I go to Con Expo, I'm like, I don't know. All these machines look pretty good to me. Like this excavator looks pretty good. It looks pretty good. Yeah.

[Chris]

Yes.

[Mike]

They're all good for us.

[Chris]

For us, the majority of our fleet is deer. And that is because of the relationship that's been now three generations and 50 years in dirt and I don't even know how many decades it would in ag before that.

[John]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris]

That's why we stick. The majority of our stuff is with them. And, and like the, you see to be honest, you get in one if like the, the logic of the engineers, if that works for you, the way that the cabs design, the way that they build their machines, stick with that brand because it's going to be across their fleet. Right. They're, they're going to have that theme that's going to make you feel good. Whatever brand that is. For us it's deer and that's been, you know, huge for us. But the relationship is as important or more important than, than the actual machine.

[John]

Sure.

[Chris]

Actual machine. There are a lot of good machines out there. But the relationship is like key. And that's where like the higher we've gone through just meeting people in deer, like you just meet good people all the way up. Like really solid people that care about like they sit. You know, you have the president of CNF sitting Talking with you about, like, what's your workload, what kind of stuff you do, and what kind of machines are you looking at? What's the value of this machine? Like, in Zakaton, next to you with the new machine, he's like, you know, you think that's good for you and talks through it. That's pretty cool. Yeah, I think that's. I guess I haven't been in the room with other manufacturers. I don't know. But it's. It's. For us, it's been pretty special. Just that relationship, specifically with Deer, you know, just all the way up. Good. Good people that care about, like, impacting, you know, because, like, our whole brand or our reliability for our customers is based on equipment in a large way. Like, if stuff's breaking down all the time or we can't rely on it, like, you can have the best intentions in the world if your machines are breaking all the time.

[John]

Well, they don't care about your equipment. They don't care if your equipment's broken.

[Chris]

They don't care if it's clean. They don't care what brand it's about, if you get the work done. Did you move that dirt today or not? Right. So the rest of it is for us. And for us. It's basically for us, you know, makes us feel good, and it's exciting for us. But that's what. When you. When you realize, like, you're in a room and you're trying to change a. You know, you're in a CAG and there's a hundred engineers in the room, and you. And you're talking through things, and you're like, I want to change this. And they're stubborn about not changing it. And then they tell you why it's that way and why it doesn't work your way. And they've gone down that road 50 times, you're like, okay, that's pretty cool. You know, like, there's. They're legitimately keeping you up and going.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Yeah. Pretty cool.

[John]

I'm glad we made this work. Glad I caught you guys before the main party. I wasn't invited. I don't get invited to any of that anymore. I wasn't invited to Deer. I wasn't invited to Quinoa.

[Chris]

You didn't get invited to.

[John]

No, no, no. I turned them down once. And here we go.

[Chris]

There you go. Everybody remembers.

[John]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's okay. But, yeah, I'm glad we were able to catch up.

[Chris]

Yeah. Thanks for having us shoot the.

[John]

A little bit super happy for you guys. It's been great following along. I'm one of those people following along with what you guys are doing, and hopefully I'm up in your neck of the woods one of these days soon.

[Chris]

Yeah. Come see us. Yeah. And genuinely, like, the whole Build Mode app platform, like, genuinely is impacting our process. Like, the guys are. That's super, like, seriously loving it. It's. And even for us, like, it. It's. Every time I'm like, I'll load the videos ahead for everybody. The workload.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And sitting and just kind of going through, like, what do we want to talk about? What do we want to push out to the guys? It's just cool to have that, like, didn't exist.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

So, like, totally changing our. Just on a small scale. It's just reminded all the time, learn something. Every day, learn something. And that's.

[Mike]

And it's making us talk about topics, you know, like, yes, the. The grease your machine. Every day is great. But, like, you know, we. We don't talk about suicide prevention or. It just never really comes up. But, you know, watching those videos and going through it, you're like, oh. And you see, you know, you get in conversations now because of the video, and it's. It's accomplishing, I think, no different than anything else we talked about. It's like when you set down a course and you start going down the road, you see it actually accomplishing what you wanted to. It gets excited, Exciting. So.

[Chris]

And even more than that, I would say I. I really feel like the summit, the first summit was like a turning point for us. It just hit at the perfect time for us with the need to improve our leadership and actually, like, have leadership, not just be making a daily plan. Sure. Like actually developing real skills as a leader and refining your role and defining your role and delegating and all of those. I mean, so much of what we do is based off of. I would say I would attribute a lot of it to Jocko at that first summit, like, the whole, you know, our. We have morning briefs and debriefs every crew. I mean, we tried to implement. We came home with, like, pages of, you know, just bullet points of, like, implement this.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And then we tried to implement all of it within the first year before the next summit, and we did. I mean, it changed our.

[Mike]

But it changes your hands on business that's just running on your whims to legit. You know, you start looking at how other businesses are run and how what. What you can implement and what's crazy is there's a book is called I think Built to Sell, but it. It tells you. It's kind of a funny. It's like a story about a business and they're basically redoing a business to get it to a certain point. Point. And when it becomes manageable, it actually is less. Less work and it's easier on the owner. And I think all these things that we've implemented a lot from the Summit or from Built with that, they actually make it easier and smoother and your. Your stress load, your, you know, your. Your implementation, it's like things are just. You have a process and it's running, which I think when you're running a smaller business, it gets. It's very hectic. And now it's like you're running a bigger business than it was before and it's actually easier, which is crazy.

[John]

Crazy that that's why I've no change. Like right now I'm selling Summit tickets. I don't feel bad about selling those at all because it's like, I know if you come to this, you're gonna get more than enough.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[John]

For what you're paying both.

[Mike]

Both years even.

[John]

And if you don't, like, I don't know, you're at the bar the entire time. And even at the bar, the people you're gonna meet.

[Mike]

That's what I was gonna say. The relationship.

[Chris]

With Herb Sergeant, you know, like, and Jimmy and. And Ryan. What's his name? Civil Craft. Blue Con.

[John]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Ryan from bluecon up in. Yeah. Calgary. Yeah.

[Mike]

These guys are talking about stuff and you're like, oh, that is a great idea. You know, and it could be who knows what you know, everything from.

[Chris]

But it's motivating because. Yeah. Like, I didn't know much about Aesops. You sit and talk with her for a while. You're like, that's where we're headed. Sure. Like, that's the path. It's cool. You know, like get. Figure out how to do that, you know. But yeah, the. The summit, like hands down was. Came at the perfect time for us. And I can't say enough good things of just like one. You guys putting together like a solid group of people to motivate you, you know. Oh, what's his name? Always forget names. When I go to Sam with the marketing market share, like, unbelievable. It gets you so excited.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

About marketing and you know, just keep going. And that's where you start to see like, oh, I think we are like kind of in the group that's leading the path here for, you know, on a small scale. But the, just the, the value of it, the importance of just like, keep going and like, develop your brand and share your story.

[Mike]

Sure.

[Chris]

You know, it's pretty cool. But I would say the leadership thing, things from the summit were like one of the most impactful things the, the summit and, and grade control. They're like big things in your life. You know, nice con expo. Like, they're just, it's up there with like the things that totally change your view of. I think sometimes you can hold yourself back thinking hours. We're a smaller company. We don't need all this stuff. We don't need job titles. We don't need, you know, things that, like, you do. You, like, identify that space. Now the guy knows where, like, that's his role. Yeah, this is what your role is. Now go do it. And then you can support him and he can grow and he feels confident. So. Yeah. And the reality of, like, trying to run your business on a level of a SEAL team, you're going to win. Like, I always think about Chaco saying that, like, they would develop their plan, they would have their brief, they'd go out on their mission, they would come back, and if you had a bad plan, somebody got shot in the face, like, you lost the guy. Good plan, you brought everybody back. And in business, it may take years to realize if somebody died or not physically or just like, you know, you just didn't. They didn't have a good plan.

[John]

Sure.

[Chris]

But if you attack it the same way with like, this is how we do it, and you put all that, everybody leads and oh, my goodness, you know, all the different processes in place, it just. Everybody feels good, everybody feels confident. You move forward at a totally different pace. You're winning, you set your people up to win. And. And it's just like the whole process is so much better than, like, guys, we have a lot of work to do and we got bad weather coming. Like, that's not a fun conversation for anybody. But the other way, it's like, hey, we're a battle here and we've got to figure out, identify all of the struggles, how are we going to solve all these things? And then you go do it. And that's where, like, yeah, it was a defining moment, I would say, for us.

[John]

Yeah, that's huge. No, that's. I mean, that's why we're doing it. Yeah.

[Chris]

Oh, yeah. No, it's working. And I would think that, you know, there's probably big companies that Go there. And they're like, yep, we're doing all this stuff. That's cool. But people our size that probably think they're too small to go are the ones. The ones that need to be there.

[John]

Yeah. Even the big companies need to. I think they're also the ones that need it. Like, they do. Some big companies just like, no, we already know all this. I'm like, really? Because I've talked to some of your people, and I mean, I know revenue's up. You're making billions, but let me tell you. Yeah, there are some problems.

[Chris]

Yeah. Well, there's always room for improvement. And there's like. I mean, there was a book, Everybody Matters.

[John]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Thank us.

[John]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

At the first.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

He spoke his name. Yeah.

[John]

Bob Chapman.

[Chris]

Yeah, Bob Chapman. Oh, my God. That book is, like, mind blowing. Everything that he approaches, he finds a struggle. And your mind, when you're listening to the book, goes with everyone else. Like, you know, you got to lock up all the tools and time cards. And he's like, remove all the fences from the tools and the parts. Get rid of all the time cards across the company. Give the people, like, the freedom. And you're like, it's not going to work. And it works.

[John]

He's in manufacturing blue collar.

[Chris]

He's in a whole different level of thinking for. For. For caring for people. And.

[Mike]

Well, because it's very easy to say no. It's very easy to lock up the tools and, you know, go that direction.

[John]

It's safer to lock up the tools. Now I don't have to worry about it. But is it.

[Mike]

Yeah. When you say yes, it's like, now I have to figure out what yes means and how do we change this?

[Chris]

And there's, you know, there was a thing he talked about in that book where everybody is someone's special person. Right. So that's somebody, you know, that. That's grandma's little baby. To. To grandma.

[John]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Right. Or that's, you know, somebody's aunt. And that's like, she's the most special person. Are you treating her the way that person treats her? Because if you do now you value the person and figure, like, figure that out. Like, figure out how to treat people at a level of, like, that, like, yes, performance matters. Yes. We've got to hit these goals and all these targets. But, like, how do you do that, that while treating them? And sometimes it's. You've created a crappy environment. Like, the pressure and all the struggles. You couple that with, like, extreme ownership of, like, you're at fault for everything. I mean, you just start layering those that. Thinking you can't help but win. You can't help but identify the problems and, like, see the solution because you've been empowered to do it. Like, it's up to you. Just sit around and complain about stuff, go on social media and crap, you know, just bark about everybody else. There's so many things that, like, extreme ownership. Find the solution, it works. Complaining, you've empowered everyone else. Now you're just telling them to come up with a solution. You come up with this. I mean, there's just. Yeah, I would say, like, that whole agenda of speakers, like, the way it was put together, just really well done.

[John]

Well, just wait till this year, because we've gotten hopefully better and better, and this. This year's agenda is legit. And it's just different. I mean, it's. It's just very. It's a lot more varied, a little bit less. Last year was a lot. So we've dialed it back a little bit, broken things up a little bit better. We're bringing in just completely different topics, completely different people. So it'll be just a blast.

[Chris]

When Jocko started the first time, it was intense. You're just like, what is going? But I'll tell you by day, too, you were like, this is amazing. Like, you. He had to come so hard so that you realize, like, I mean, the comparison to warfare, once he brought it all around and tied it together, you're like, holy crap. I'd like, I didn't really understand, like, why are we talking about this? You know, like, yeah, it's cool. It's intense. But I'm like, we're not at war. And then you take that leadership side and you're like, oh, right. Yeah, it started really. It made sense. It was cool.

[John]

All right, well, happy to have you. And like I said, hopefully I make it up to New York. Right on.

[Chris]

We'll figure it out. Yeah, we'll see you in Germany.