← Dirt Talk by BuildWitt
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Foreign. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Building Build Wit. This is number 48. We've been doing this for a while now. I've titled this one strategy and last call for Dirt World. Very exciting stuff. Before I get into it, to reiterate the why for anybody new to the program, if you're listening, or just to reinforce why the heck you're listening, what we're doing here first, I've said this many times. Transparency wins has been a core value for BuildWit. It's been a cornerstone of our culture since day one. I'm sharing all of this one so people can hopefully learn from what the heck we're doing, learn from wins, learn from losses. I don't know whatever you're taking from this, but I hope you're taking something from it. I hope there's value here. I want to just share exactly what we're, what we're learning and why. I feel like we've done a pretty good job at transparency wins since the beginning of our business. We, you know, transparency is really tricky and it sounds really good for a company, an organization, a team. But I caution people, I have learned that if you are not 100% transparent, it will work against you. And so if you're not prepared to be 100% transparent, I probably wouldn't lean into it. I would be a little bit more closed off, which is a weird thing to say, but we have leaned into it. We've, We've, you know, made our mistakes along the way. We've. We've grown away from it. We've come back to it and we done it better over here than over there. But I, I would like to think we've been more transparent than most organizations. And it's not just be transparent as the value, it's transparency wins. Because I think it really is a winning strategy. I think that is one of the biggest things that we've done to build our culture, to retain great people, to recruit great people, to bring customers on board, to keep customers, to keep the dirt world following along, to get you here. After all, if we didn't have transparency wins, we wouldn't even be here. You wouldn't even be listening to this. So I'm a huge believer in it if you are going to dedicate yourself to it. And I think that's the future of business. I think the future of business is transparent. It is no longer these big cold corporations. You couldn't pay me enough to work for some of these big blue chip companies. Absolutely not. It's just not the world that I've operated in during my professional life, and I want nothing to do with it. So we're trying to create or mirror what I think the new model of business is, and that is is a open, honest form of business. I will also say that it's rare. A lot of people in business, they won't say what they're thinking. They won't talk about their mistakes. But, you know, while I don't know what the heck we're doing, I don't have all the answers in business, I can at least share again, wins, losses, here's where we are. Even if it's neutral, here's just what's going on to hopefully be a. An example for others. So that's one second. Bill Wit's why, which I'll elaborate on in coming weeks, is to build the dirt world's next generation. And that's not just building the next generation, recruiting the next generation of workforce that is furthering and creating the next generation of company project and the next generation of dirt world, of the industry that keeps the entirety of our society, of America, of the world moving. It's a really big deal. It's a really exciting thing to dedicate ourselves to. It's. I am forever grateful to have found the thing to dedicate my life to so early. And that is honestly why I work so much, because I know most people don't have that. It's a really big deal. But I share all of this information and I publish online, and our leadership publishes online. You haven't noticed, it's not just me, It's Randy, it's Jason, it's Dan, it's our, our sales team, it's others within the business. Everybody shares online. We believe in sharing online because we want you all involved in what we're building. We're not building, build with. We're not building this giant castle with this big wall to protect us, keep everybody else out. A rising tide lifts all ships. And I think to build the dirt world's next generation requires a collaborative effort. We're a very small piece of the puzzle. We don't actually do the building. It's the next generation of contractors that are just starting out now that want to do things differently. And it is the contractors that might have been around for a while but have leadership saying, wait a minute, there's a better way to do this. The world has changed. We've got to change with it. Let's get on with it. And then it's all the outside companies and people and associations and all sorts of things that will also help the industry get there. So I share because transparency wins and because I want you to feel like you're part of what we're building because you are. The self made thing is bullshit. There's no such thing as self made. There's no self made company. I'm not the one doing this. We're not the one doing this. We're the ones that for whatever reason have been trusted to be in this position to help carry the industry forward. But we can't do it alone, we can't do it without the industry, we can't do it without you. And so I hope that this draws you in and makes you feel like you are a part of what we're doing. Because you are. You are. I'll talk more about mission later, but to get into this week's happenings, I guess this first point stems to what I just explained. Survival mode is where we've been for quite a few years, since I would say 20, 23. So we spent 23, 24 and 25 in survival mode. And I, I wouldn't trade it for anything as it's taught us some really valuable lessons and has got us to where we are today, which I'm, I'm forever grateful for. However, it's not a sustainable place to live. It's not sustainable to have a gun to your head because all that you're focused on, you can't think about the future. You can't think about next month, next year. You can only think about today, tomorrow, maybe next week. It's just survival. Just keep your head above water. If you're breathing tomorrow, you've won again. It's a necessary place to be. I feel like everybody in business has been there. Most people don't talk about it, but everybody that I know has been there in some ways. There's different ways they've been there. But everybody has their stories. We certainly have ours. Fortunately though, we, this year we've turned a new page. We spent last year in survival mode, but for, in, in a deliberate way, we, we somewhat, we got out of survival mode and then deliberately put ourselves back in it to get ourselves to where we are today, to position the company a year down the road. We didn't think it was going to take a year, but it ended up taking 12 months down the road to be in a much better focused, more disciplined place, which we are. And because we're in that position, we have the right team, the people, our people are in the right places. We have the Right. Leadership systems, product strategy, market distribution. We have all these core pieces we're now just able to execute and we've executed for our first quarter starting in December, December, January, February. We're now executing into Q2. And honestly, this year is pretty boring, pretty mundane. It's just execution. Just hit the numbers. Just spend what we said we were going to spend according to our budget and earn what we said we were going to earn according to our, our revenue goal. We do those things. We are in a completely different world in 12 months and we're headed in that direction. It's a really good feeling and it's thanks to our team, the industry support, our customers, everybody. Now, because we're there, myself, Randy and our other leaders, we can spend less time on survival, on what the heck's going on today, this week, this, this next month and more. So where are we going six months? Where are we going in 12 months? What does 27 look like? What does 28 look like? What are the threats? It's a really cool place to be. And this past week, Randy and I, we spent a few hours walking. I love walking meetings. If you don't walk while you have your meetings, I think you're missing out in a big way. We had a walking meeting to talk vision for the business where we're going this year, next year, talk about mission, talk about the big picture stuff because we're the big picture leaders within our business. And that's why I started business in the first place, so started build it to make a difference in the world, not to just survive. And it's really cool to be back in that place, that, that thought process for even just a little bit, even just a few hours because there's been years in the past where we haven't had the luxury of doing so. It's really cool. And again, I'm excited to talk more about it as time goes on and I have a lot more to say on mission very soon. I just want to get my thoughts on paper and really think it through before I approach talking about it. The next point. This is really big. Last call for 2026 Area Dirt World Summit. When I wrote this this weekend, it was 83 tickets remaining of 1,250. That has since changed to 80. This morning I checked the dashboard again. So we have 80 tickets remaining of 1,250 with a hard cap. So. So once we're sold out, that's it. We'll transition to a waiting list. It is what it is. People are like, well, you need to make it bigger. Well, what if we don't want to make it bigger? What if we don't need to make it bigger? I believe one, making it bigger starts to logistically make it a lot more complex. If you go beyond 1500, 2000 people now, the only two places you can go are Orlando and Vegas. And frankly, I don't like either one. And they're just not really suitable for the kind of event we're building. I feel like we could make it happen, but so logistically it makes it more difficult. It gives the event a different feel. I want to be able to hopefully see most everybody at the event. And with sponsors, ours ends up being about 1500 now this year, similar to last year, but still at that level, I can kind of get to everybody, which I think is a good feeling. And I think our people attending can build real relationships, see those that they've seen in the past. That's what we're really after. Again, if we just wanted to make more money and put some big names up on a stage, yeah, we'd keep growing it. But that's not really what makes this so unique, so special. It's the audience that makes it special. And we want to maintain that unique feeling to this event. And so that's the second reason. And the third reason is we don't want to sell this event anymore. We don't want to sell it anymore. Our priority, the reason our business exists, is to build People first software, which we're doing with our Billboard Improve product. Secondarily, it's to grow leadership within the dirt world through events. Starting with the Area Dirt World Summit, we have a few other events in the works, which is very exciting. Just some small stuff. We might not even talk about it. We've got some tricks up our sleeve, don't you worry. But it starts. The cornerstone of our leadership events is obviously the Area Dirt World Summit, and it will remain that way. I want to just focus on the leaders and companies that want to get better, that want to be the future. And I don't think we have to go convince people anymore. We've done it for three years. We know who is within this mindset. Who wants to get better, who wants to be the future. Let's just continue feeding them, let's just continue furthering them. Let's just continue building that stage to make them the stars, another build with value. We're the stage hands, not the stars. And let's sell out as fast as possible. Because if we sell out as fast as possible now, we can take all of the time and energy we would have spent till selling to make it a better and better and better and better event. Where we're at now is the beginning, man. I don't just want the best event in the dirt world. I want one of the most world class events, professional events in the United States, in the world. That's where we're going and we've got to put our energy into that to make that a reality. Selling it doesn't get that and we don't have to anymore. Thank goodness. Thank God because we have some brilliant people that have bought into it, that have supported us now for three years that are all in on year four and I think will continue to be with us as long as we uphold our end of the bargain which is non stop value. And that's what we're focused on. So we will sell out. I've told the industry now we are going to sell out. People have waited. If you've waited, it is what it is. We're doing this very deliberately. We have a strategy. We do have thought behind some of the stuff we've, we, we're doing. We don't know everything but we've been doing this long enough now to know what the heck's going on. And I'm really, really, really grateful for all of those that have bought tickets and that will be attending this year because it'll be the best one yet. So thank you. And I won't be talking about ticket sales anymore, which is a privileged place to be, I recognize. Next up, time to close. Time from closed bill would improve sale to implementation is continuing to shrink, which is awesome. One recent 250 user deal, for example, closed this month on the 9th. We then held a kickoff call on the 11th and their training begins this week on the 18th with rollout in the coming weeks to their team which is incredible. The faster we can go from companies potentially interested in Bill Witten prove to better their people, to develop their people not just as workers but as human beings, as leaders. From interest to conversation to closed sale to then rolling the platform out to those end users, the faster that process can happen the better because that means we're delivering more value which then furthers our business, our customers and ultimately the dirt world. So it's really cool to see our CS team continuing to shrink that window. We've invested in the customer success team over the past few months. I've talked about the hires we've made. We'll continue to invest in that team over the coming years because it's key to our success. You know, just getting it into companies hands is not enough. We have to aggressively implement and support it. We're learning more and more by the day and it's exciting to see our team get better and help our customers ultimately get better. Next up on the sales front, our BDR team hit 23 booked meetings this week which is really exciting. I think it's the first time we've beat Our goal of 20 booked meetings for a week. 20 quality booked meetings for a week. And this is the result of our new BDR tool that we've implemented plus a full BDR team, plus some marketing strategies that we've also begun to implement. It's all come together to pay off. And as this year, as the months go on in 26, our sales goal grows. It's not the same every month. It only grows deliberately because we have to grow as a business. That's how you become a software company. You have to grow and we think we have the product to grow and the value to add to the industry to grow to substantiate those numbers. But to, to, to get to those numbers you have to be booking a certain amount of meetings because that is the, the best leading indicator of sales. The more meetings you are holding with curious good buyers of the software product, primarily civil construction companies in America, the more sales you will close, the more training you will implement, the more users you'll have, the more value you'll create. And on and on we go. So it's really cool to see the hard work for the sales team paying off. It's taken us many months of retooling that team. We started the journey to retool sales back last summer and here we are in spring. It takes a long time to actually make some of these changes a reality and it is awesome to see the changes paying off. And finally speaking of additional events, we have confirmed a small meeting this summer with industry training and development leaders to discuss best practices and provide feedback for Bill Witten. Prove this will be an invite only opportunity. Very exciting stuff. It'll be limited, I don't know, maybe 2025 leaders from 2025 companies. One per person. One, one per company. And it'll be awesome to facilitate a conversation on best training and development practices for civil construction in general. And then it'll be awesome to have this group provide feedback on not just where the Bill Whit improve product sits today but where it's going. We'll be able to show them a little bit of the future and ask, what do you think? Where are we right? Where are we wrong? Where should we adjust this? What aren't we even considering? It'll be awesome. And I think this is a key for us going forward is remaining as close to the industry as possible. And if we want to train and develop the next generation, we need to be as in line as possible with the leaders in, in industry training and development. And that's where we intend to be. So it's really cool to be able to bring these leaders together, host an event like this. And again, I think this is a, a small taste of, of what is to come with smaller, more specialty events that we'll be able to facilitate as the time goes on, when it, when it makes sense for our business. We don't want to overdo it. We've overdone a lot of things in the past. Just because it's working doesn't mean we need to go send it. But it is a foray into some other event opportunities and it's really cool to see that that come together. So that is a little bit on this past week. As always, there's plenty else, plenty of other stuff going on. I just report some of the key highlights. There's a million things happening now. We've got a team of over 40. They're all just hammering. It's awesome. But hopefully that gives you a another look into what the heck's going on here at buildwit. I really appreciate you listening. I appreciate you being here. I appreciate you working to make the dirt world a better place as well. If you have questions, comments, reach out to me anytime. Aaron A a R o n@billwhit.com and we'll see you on the next one. Everybody stay dirty.