Going All Out: Scaling a Pavement Empire with Marco Menna Ep. #25

Summary

Podcast Summary: In The Mix with Marvin Joles

Episode: Going All Out: Scaling a Pavement Empire with Marco Menna (Ep. #25)
Date: March 23, 2026
Guest: Marco Menna, Co-Owner/Co-Founder of All Out Parking Lots
Host: Marvin Joles

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Episode Overview

This dynamic episode dives deep into the journey of Marco Menna and his role in scaling All Out Parking Lots into a national pavement services powerhouse. Marvin and Marco reflect on growth, the practical (and personal) realities of running a rapidly expanding asphalt business, the power of partnership, lessons from industry challenges, and the critical importance of humility and curiosity in business and life. The tone is candid, warm, and at times, humorous—filled with stories, hard-earned wisdom, and actionable advice for both newcomers and veterans of the pavement industry.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Value of Resilience, Community & Mentorship

• Early Inspiration & Industry Camaraderie

  • Marco and Marvin share the origins of their industry connection, with Marco crediting Marvin as an inspiring influencer:
    • “You're a big influencer in that virtually and in person too... You're trying to help and trying to get people to level up...” – Marco (02:21)

• The Importance of Support During Burnout

  • Marvin reveals he nearly quit podcasting but credits Marco and the All Out team for pushing him to continue as the industry needed his voice (00:51).

• Brotherhood and Memories

  • Highlights of their journey include attending national events and establishing key industry relationships, such as “the selfie on top of the Paris Tower in Vegas at ConExpo” (03:17).

2. From Buckets to Stadium Lots: The All Out Origin Story

[05:38]

• Marco’s Background:

  • Co-owner/founder, started All Out Parking Lots with childhood friend Kevin McGarvey.
  • The business transitioned from residential sealcoating with buckets in their college years to large-scale commercial and eventually national projects.

• Key Turning Point:

  • Cold-calling led to servicing major Philadelphia stadiums, including a pivotal 50,000 sq ft sealcoat job for the Flyers’ practice facility, which quickly escalated to a 500,000 sq ft contract.
    • “At the time, that was the biggest job... We went all out to try and get the job. We made videos... We got the job.” – Marco (08:49)
    • “So excited to win a project of that size, but you’re also terrified.” – Marco (09:51)
    • “It’s like being happy and sad at the same time. I don’t think humans are supposed to go through that.” – Marvin (10:08)

3. Scaling Up: Systems, Virtual Leadership & National Reach

[18:02]

• Adapting to COVID:

  • Marco describes the critical pivot to leading and managing operations remotely, inspired partly by his wife’s experience with a major hospital going fully virtual.
    • “What I found was that I was able to get way more done sitting behind my laptop, being at six places at once. It was wild.” – Marco (19:58)

• Developing Virtual Systems:

  • Building a virtual workforce, embracing Zoom and Teams for meetings, and leading remote teams allowed them to scale nationally, even handling 1,500 projects a year.

• Key Differentiator:

  • Early virtual adaptivity and professional remote meetings “separated us from everybody else” during the pandemic and facilitated rapid national growth (23:40).

4. The Reality of Leadership, Personal Life, and Growth

[24:05]

• A Day in the Life (with Timestamps):

  • [24:05] Morning routine: Wakes up, checks Basecamp and email for project/team updates.
  • 9am-5pm: Back-to-back virtual meetings with project managers, sales, clients, and team training (e.g. “Asphalt 101” workshops).
  • Evenings: Family time, gym, dinner, and, when possible, sauna time (“Amazon has everything—these infrared saunas...less than 2k”—Marco (26:13))

• Major Life Transitions:

  • From mobile/remotely working pre-parenthood, to moving back near family after their son was born for support.

• Personal Challenges:

  • He describes the seismic change of balancing remote business leadership with new fatherhood and underscores the lesson that “timing is everything” (29:03).

5. Facing and Learning from Failure

[32:49]

• Hardest Professional Moment:

  • During COVID, accepted a large-scale bollard job for Amazon via a general contractor—after installing 50, they were “a few inches off center” and had to excavate and redo them.
    • “All this hard work, you’re just banging out and then redoing it… would not wish upon anybody.” – Marco (34:01)

• Lessons Learned:

  • The importance of support (wife, business partner), humility, and having people to weather hard times and provide perspective (35:22).

6. Humility, Partnerships, and Ego Checks

[36:15]

• Marco candidly discusses being “number two” at All Out and in his marriage, and how true partnership means ego management:

  • “Can you be number two in a business? Can you be that invested and then…not have final say? That’s not for everybody. For me… I had that trust.” – Marco (35:40)

• Marvin on humility:

  • “I think that's why you and I get along so good...People who realize that and embody that are my favorite kind of people.” (36:15)

• Both credit the ability to divide, conquer, and personal compatibility as key to sustainable success.

7. The Asphalt Industry as a Vehicle for Personal Design

[42:22]

• Discussion on industry misconceptions about scale/profit, and the many paths to success within the pavement world:

  • “There’s blue collar millionaires everywhere…there’s a lot of different ways to do this depending on what you want for your life.” – Marvin (42:36)

• Importance of mentorship and learning from others’ journeys:

  • “We’re big believers at All Out in adding coaches. We have five coaches on payroll right now.” – Marco (44:22)

8. Fatherhood and Core Values

[46:56]

• Marvin asks: “If you could teach your son one thing…what would it be?”
  • Marco: “Curiosity. Be curious. In everything that’s around, try to learn...That’s the way my mind works.” (46:56)
  • He emphasizes remaining open, friendly, and interested in others as keys to opportunity and success.

9. Gratitude, Perspective & The Future

[53:22]

• Looking Forward:

  • Controlled growth at All Out, deeper client relationships, expanding nationally ("We're doing two national trade shows at once," 51:47), and enjoying fatherhood.

• Humility from Parenthood:

  • “Going and seeing everything that mothers go through…that was just like, whoa. It was a really humbling experience. And I learned. Been learning. Still learning.” – Marco (53:59)

• Recognition of Privilege:

  • Both reflect on travel (e.g. Guatemala), gratefulness for life and opportunities in the US, and the realization that many hardships are relative.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “Put yourself out there.” (02:31, Marco)
  On Marvin’s impact and approach to the community.

• “When you win something that big, like when you win your first six figure or whatever…you're just like, yes. And then you're like, oh yeah.” (10:13, Marvin)
  On the emotional rollercoaster of business wins.

• “I'm living the dream right now. My role is great. I have an awesome team, great culture…I'm still learning.” (50:48, Marco)
  On contentment alongside ambition.

• “Can you be number two in a business?...I had that trust.” (35:40, Marco)

• “Curiosity. Be curious…Try to realize and ask and learn as much possible and be curious of your day.” (46:56, Marco)

• “Sometimes you realize the most valuable things you got you didn’t even work for.” (54:52, Marvin)
  On family, parenthood, and gratitude.

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• 00:51 – Marvin recounts his near-exit from podcasting and thanks Marco for keeping him going.
• 05:38–09:42 – Marco details the All Out Parking Lots origin story, from small-time hustle to huge stadium jobs.
• 18:02–23:40 – COVID pivot: Virtualizing operations, scaling national reach, and leadership shifts.
• 24:05–26:13 – Marco’s current daily routine – balancing business, family, and self-care.
• 32:49–35:22 – The Amazon bollard job disaster and leadership lessons from failure.
• 35:40–38:18 – Partnership dynamics and being “number two.”
• 42:22–45:19 – Industry reflections, mentorship, and the unique perks of the business.
• 46:56–48:18 – Passing on the value of curiosity to his son.
• 51:43–53:22 – Controlled future growth and excitement for fatherhood.

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Core Takeaways

• Success doesn’t happen alone. Partnership, openness to learning, and community are key.
• Adaptability fuels growth. Embracing virtual leadership and systems allowed All Out to flourish nationwide during the pandemic.
• Humility wins. Growth in business (and life) is accelerated by humility, willingness to learn, and the ability to divide responsibility.
• Personal life and business are intertwined. True satisfaction and resilience are found by aligning business with family needs, personal growth, and values.
• Curiosity is golden. Remaining open to learning, people, and new ideas creates unseen opportunities.
• There are many paths to success in pavement. “No shortcuts,” strong work ethic, learning from others, and knowing your goals are essential.
• Gratitude and perspective matter. Both hosts stress gratitude for their journey, their families, and the privilege of working in a resilient, opportunity-rich industry.

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Where to Find Marco & All Out

• LinkedIn: Marco Menna
• All Out Parking Lots: Website (URL not specified)
• Open to conversation and best-practices sharing

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This episode offers a masterclass in entrepreneurial growth, humility, and real-life leadership for anyone in the asphalt business or blue-collar industries—layered with friendship and big-picture wisdom.

Transcript

[Marvin Joelz]

Today's episode of in the Mix is powered by Jobber.

[Podcast Narrator]

Welcome to in the Mix, paving the way to insight, education and entertainment in the asphalt industry. Your host, Marvin Joelz, a best of Web Pavement award winner, knows the blacktop community and what it takes to win in this industry. Each episode you'll hear real stories, expert insights and road tested strategies from the people who make up the asphalt world and beyond. Whether you're paving parking lots, ceiling driveways, striping lines, or innovating asphalt tech, this is the podcast for pros who keep the industry rolling. Now here's Marvin.

[Marvin Joelz]

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode and we're glad to have you in the mix with us. This is a repeat guest if we're going to try to bring over from Blacktop Banner. And I'm going to be honest with you, like, at one point I was done with podcasting. I was like, hey, this isn't going to happen. I'm not doing social media stuff, doing whatever. And we've talked about this before, but Marco at All out and Kevin were just like, I can't remember where we were, Marco. I think we were at Pavex maybe, or National. National Pavement Charlotte. Yeah. And I had kind of stopped for like six months, maybe four or five months, and you two came up and you're like, no way. Like, you can't stop. Like, you, there's. You can't do that. We need this. The industry needs this. We need to do. I think I realized, like, how looking back now I know why I took a break. Because it was a lot, right? And then I knew the potential of what it could grow into was a lot. And it grew into a lot, right? And of course that came to fruition of me being like, yeah, this is bigger than I wanted it to be. I don't want to have to deal with it. I don't want to have to handle it. And I've talked about that quite a bit, especially on the last episodes of Blacktop Banner as we started to wind down and whatnot. But now that we've kind of been able to regroup and I have some great support, there's a great vision for what we're doing. There's a purpose for these podcasts and what we're doing, and they're not all about what we're going to talk about today, but they have been a group of them, a group of these podcasts have been about these same questions that we're asking contractors across the country. And I appreciate you joining me today, man, and being Able to share with me.

[Marco Mena]

Always great to jump on with you if you're one of the greatest people I've met in the industry. Honestly, it's. It's like a, it's a really tight knit family out there.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yep.

[Marco Mena]

And you're a big influencer in that virtually and in person too, so. And just always putting the vibes out. You're trying to help and trying to get people to level up and trying to be. You're. You got that vibe where it's just like, you're just so happy to be a part of. Trying to encourage people to push forward and prove. So always from day one. And even though I. First time I remember seeing you was seeing your YouTube videos and you're just putting yourself out there. Like, look at this guy. He's just putting himself out there. He's just throwing it all out there. It's awesome.

[Marvin Joelz]

I still have no, I still have no clue what I'm doing. Dude,

[Marco Mena]

you're getting better, man. You're getting better. You come a long way, dude.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah, I'll get the hang of it someday soon.

[Marco Mena]

I hope you've got a few sponsorships along the way, so that's cool.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah, we got some views, we got some sponsorships, we have some cool opportunities. We found ourselves in some really cool situations sometimes where we. I, I was just looking back, dude, World of Basketball came up and you know how like Facebook will do like memories and stuff and they're like, bring up old stuff. I have a picture of you and I on top of the Paris Tower in Vegas at Con Expo, right? And we were just looking over the Bellagio and we got a selfie up there. And I'm like, at the same, at that moment, I was thinking just before I clicked that picture, like, dude, I'm. I'm about to do go to St. Louis for World of Asphalt. I live a pretty cool life. Open that up. Boom. There's our memory of us up there. And I was like, well, St. Louis ain't about to be as cool as

[Marco Mena]

that, but we were meeting with some big wigs for you on, you know, for some really important, just like next steps in life and professional stuff going on at that show.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah.

[Marco Mena]

So I was happy to tag along and it was, it was great to see it all.

[Marvin Joelz]

Crazy. Yeah. Thanks to adm, man. They've like, since then, they've always been supportive since the, you know, I think World of Asphalt Pre Con Expo. AM's been like, hey, how can we get you here? How can we help you? How can we support you. And Con Expo was a huge one. Then they're like, hey, come out. We're building a hole podcast studio. We're doing all this stuff you can do all you want to do right here. This is your playground here in Vegas. And, yeah, we met some. We had some big meetings out there with some really cool stuff. Dude, we did the Yokohama deal with Blacktop banner out there, Yokohama Tire. And I just were like. I remember walking away being like, whose life am I living right now? Because we literally just get on here and we talk about. We do every day the good stuff and the bad stuff, and we tell stories about how we got here, which to us are just fucking tragedies sometimes and just brute, like, outworking our ignorance. But people resonate with that. And we've found ourselves. You and I, we found ourselves in Cleveland in some snowstorms, and we found ourselves in the top of Paris Tower in Vegas watching the Bellagio fountain show. So to say that we went from the bottom to the top and now somewhere in between is a little bit of an understatement, probably. So give everybody a little bit of background. You know, last time you were on, you and Kev were on, I think on bb, but give us a little bit of background real quick. Just kind of where y' all located, what service area you cover, and what you all do.

[Marco Mena]

Right behind me. This is one of our favorite jobs right here. This is one of our favorite accounts. It's down to South Philly. That's the link of. Link of financial field to the left, to my left, and then Wells Fargo Center, Scissors bank park, so where the Phillies Flyers Sixers play.

[Marvin Joelz]

So couple good teams down there.

[Marco Mena]

What's that?

[Marvin Joelz]

There's a couple good teams down there.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah, not bad. So, yeah, we've been servicing them since 2017. One of our clients, I'm the co owner. Co founder of All Parking Lots, started it with grade school best friend Kevin McGarvey. We were buddies throughout high school. Always, like, kind of enjoyed hustling, you know, landscaping, shelling, snow, selling T shirts. Stayed in contact while we were in college, while I went to Temple University in Philly. Ken went to Westchester in the suburbs and kind of just stayed in touch. And I was doing internships at the time and kind of realizing, hey, this corporate thing wasn't really something I was interested in getting in. And Kev was. He did college works, painting, which was a program where they helped college kids kind of run their own painting business in the summers. So I actually helped him out with some door to door marketing. I would go door to door and trying to, like, knock up, get him painting jobs. And then we kind of just like realized, hey, let's turn this into, like, the asphalt side of things. And we knew people that were doing seal coating in the industry, so we were like, let's do sealcoating. So we did it. Our junior summers, we just went around and seal coated some driveways in Delaware county and Chester county with an E250 van, some buckets started with our family driveways, and then started, you know, doing a little bit more. We realized, hey, when we both graduate and get our diplomas, let's do this for real. Let's like actually establish an llc and let's take out, you know, loans to get a nice big box truck. And people thought we were crazy out of our minds. Yeah, it's just sealcoaters. I mean, I did have support from family and, and his family, but, you know, looking back, it was definitely not a path that most college graduates take.

[Marvin Joelz]

You know,

[Marco Mena]

you're not really, you know, me kept getting sprayed with sealer trying to figure out, you ain't going to temple, dude.

[Marvin Joelz]

To seal coat driveways. Like, that's not the path. Like, ah, I graduated. Now I can seal coat.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah, man. I mean, we started from the bottom, literally just buckets and just sealing driveways. And then, you know, had a vision to just grow and from with hard work, dedication, a ton of sacrifice, support from family and friends, you know, started to really build something special and got a couple big breaks along the way. You know, started getting into a little bit of commercial work and started making our shift from residential to commercial about three or four years in. And then just off a cold call, we had a vision board. We wanted to get in with the Phillies flowers and Sixers and the Eagles. We were trying to call the stadiums, trying to call on just making calls. And Kev got lucky, got a hold of somebody, so happened to be a temple graduate that was in the program I was in. So that was kind of cool. Little connection.

[Marvin Joelz]

There we go.

[Marco Mena]

And they just had a bad experience with who they worked with. So they were interested in trying out new vendors. And they gave us an opportunity to seal code the flyer skate zone in Voorhees, New Jersey. It was like a 50,000 square foot sealcoat job. And at the time, that was the biggest job you'd ever done, you were ever taken on. So you have a company called all out. So we went all out to try and get the job. So we made videos. Like, we're out there, hey, we're going to do this. You know, we're going to prep the lot. You know, we put together like a three minute like promo video for them. Yeah. We're really aggressive with our pricing. Just like almost like doing it for as low as possible just to get the job. Get it. We got the job. It was Easter. It was Easter weekend back in 2017 and knocked job out of the park. And right when we were done, they were like, you guys did great. Would you like to participate in a half a million square foot project? So 10x what? We just.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah, baby.

[Marco Mena]

We were like, yeah, of course. Yeah, we can figure it out when

[Marvin Joelz]

you're going to get us off this small stuff.

[Marco Mena]

And you know, it's like we went through the bidding process, we were able to win the job. And I remember like that feeling of you're so excited to win a project of that size, but you're also terrified.

[Marvin Joelz]

Oh yeah. Scared you to death.

[Marco Mena]

Really.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yes.

[Marco Mena]

It's a really interesting dynamic that business owners.

[Marvin Joelz]

That's an emotional. I tell people it's like being happy and sad at the same time.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah.

[Marvin Joelz]

Like, and I don't think humans are supposed to go through that. But you do. When you win something that big, like when you win your first six figure or whatever and you're just like, yes. And then you're like, oh yeah, yeah.

[Sponsor Voice]

If you're a subcontractor in the asphalt

[Marvin Joelz]

industry, you already know the deal. Slow pay, no communication, scopes that change and getting squeezed on price after the job's done. Paveco national is different because they didn't start as a national company.

[Sponsor Voice]

They used to self perform.

[Marvin Joelz]

They've been in the field, they've run

[Sponsor Voice]

crews, they dealt with the exact frustrations

[Marvin Joelz]

you deal with when working for other nationals.

[Sponsor Voice]

They built Papeco to be the company they wish they could have worked with. That means clear communication, fair contracts and no games. They don't treat subs like placeholders. They treat them like partners because they've been on your side of the contract before.

[Marvin Joelz]

If you're ready to work with a

[Sponsor Voice]

national contractor that actually understands and respects your business, reach out to Paveco national. Email [e-mail] or call 866Pavement Paveco National.

[Marvin Joelz]

Making your life smoother.

[Marco Mena]

You want to talk about pressure and just intensity. And this is pre Covid time. Right. So the job market and the people that were available to kind of help us, you know, they're not. You're not getting first, second round draft picks. You're getting free agents that are either fresh out of jail or on their way. Or on the way, you got people that are just don't really have a lot of direction. And, you know, it's a second chance industry, the asphalt concrete world. So you're taking a lot of chances on people and you're working with, you know, it's. It's tough to kind of round up cruise when you can't offer the benefits and you can't offer top a. And there's only so much. And, you know, I was, at this point, I was out there. I'm working every day with the cruise, for sure. You know, I'm leading by example. And it was a very difficult test in life to get through those stages up to, you know, when we were just mainly focused on doing maintenance, but got through it.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah, I was gonna say that's a game changer. Yep. You guys did really good. We've talked about marketing that job before when you've been on previously and just how you guys used that as a marquee job in order to open up yourselves to a different type of clientele. You know, a lot of people say, well, residential, commercial. There's a clientele level in commercial that's above when you say commercial. I think that job was a really marquee one that started to send you guys there. That was. We talked about that job 2018 Cleveland NP. Like, that's a lot of people. Look at that one. They're like, oh, it's the worst one. I was talking with our buddy Dustin Natanka over at Michigan Marking, and he was telling me how that Cleveland show, us being at that Irish pub. Yeah. Every night changed his life. Right. I think there's a few of us at that table that was sitting there. Landon Escobal, I think his life changed after that. And if I would have listened to him about bitcoin, my life probably would have changed a little more drastically, a little sooner.

[Marco Mena]

Right.

[Marvin Joelz]

But I think you guys did a really good job. And that's when the story that everybody knows about you and I of you saying, hey, man, you could do a lot better with your videos doing this or that. I think the reason why, you know, that sticks out so much is because you guys use that to make great videos. That propelled you into a category that few, I think few people strive to go there because they know how big the lift is in their mind. They. They think, yeah, I'd love to be that big or do those types of jobs or spread that wide, but they don't really know what they're saying when they say that. And then there are people who dive into that realm and go into that realm, and they're few and far between sometimes. What do you think that was, do you think? Do you. Did you guys know what you were getting into or did you just read? It's like, yeah, we're just gonna. Thought you did. And then realized, yeah, I gotta give

[Marco Mena]

a lot of credit to. To Kevin, my business partner. Best friend, about just investing in the education and going to the. Going to the shows from day one. I mean, just, hey, we're not reinventing the wheel here. You know, there's just. In our area, there's three or four companies that had very similar starts.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah.

[Marco Mena]

You know, so start with Sealcoat and start on driveways, and then you build up to run the paving division and then doing concrete, and then you're doing the whole Mid Atlantic region, and then you're doing national. It's not really.

[Marvin Joelz]

Y' all are just Hawaii.

[Marco Mena]

Yep. We're doing projects almost all 50 states, and we've done work in Hawaii. Yeah, we. We actually sent our own crew out there to execute on a concrete project.

[Marvin Joelz]

Steve out there. Steve was out there or something, wasn't he?

[Marco Mena]

Yeah.

[Marvin Joelz]

That's crazy, bro. It's crazy for me to think about and to see your guys's path. I feel I used to get. I don't know what I. How I would feel. I'm a unique in our industry. I know that. I know my path is really unique. And there's part of, like, my. There's part of a part of me that's like. I've been an observationist of all of our friends and all their businesses and all this and been kind of been able. Good enough for people to bring me along. Right. Because of my character and how I am. But there's part of me that's like, dang, I'd love to go there. I'd love to be at that level. And then there's part of me that knows what it takes to get there. And I'm like, dude, I don't want any part of that. Like, that's not. That is not the realm I want to go in. It's not my path. But the business side of me, I see that. So I know that there are other people who think that they may not check themselves, and it leads to some. Some things right later on in. In life, I think. But, you know, the. The amount that you guys took on, I just can't imagine that, like, I I have four podcasts a day, plus I got some quotes to get out. I'm at my max, right? And I think about your guys's projects and how big they are and having to know who to hire, who to put in place, what type of person you need, what type of character traits they have to have, what type of training they need to have, and then encountering things that are just random stuff, Right? You were telling me about one where there was a lot of culverts or something at some point that turned into a nightmare that you guys had to redo, rethink the whole entire thing and save the project and help the clients out and do all this stuff. And for me, I'm like, dude, just let me get to my one parking lot today and get it striped and done. Like, I'm good. I'm pretty sure I'm good. But that has to come with a certain amount of time. A lot. I know Kev's. Kev's the bomb. We know that. But you all make a really good dynamic. And we know, we know some, some business partners throughout the industry and throughout time within our industry in the decades now that we've been in it, which is stupid to say that we've been in it for decades that have made it work. And you guys seem to make it work. I know that that isn't easy, but you guys make it work. But I, I kind of want to know, like, now that you're to this point, you know, doing work in all those states, doing asphalt and concrete, and you all do some crazy projects. I see a scene. The guys are going to a conference. Is it Connex Sus. You guys are going to that one connection.

[Marco Mena]

We got Hotel Point.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I see the guys there going out and I'm like, I know Steve. I don't know the other guys, right? And then I see a group picture and I'm like, I don't know. I know four people in the all out picture and there's a lot of people in that picture, right? So I'm like, I'm like, dude, this thing is getting wild. I know that I'm. I don't have the capacity to handle that. But what does your day look like, Marco? Like, because our days look very different, but like from get up to go to bed on an average day, maybe not the weekends, if you're going to take those off and spend some time with the fam and whatnot. But like, what does your average day look like? Are you all the time behind a Computer. Do you get time to go to the gym? Are you on the phone? Are you doing site visits? Like, what's your average day look like? Family and business.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah, it's changed dramatically through the years. Obviously, I was in the field doing projects, doing the work myself, then leading crews. I think Covid kind of changed a lot. We went through a big paradigm shift, and just in. Everybody did. Right. But we and myself, Kevin, we were living. And I, at the time, I was living in Philadelphia in. Basically, it was a city that was taking it very serious. Covid was being there was shut down, shutdowns, and the. The political landscape was very aggressive to be.

[Marvin Joelz]

That's an understatement.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah, very aggressive. So. And at the time, my wife was a nurse at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital. And having to go into that dynamic and be in that environment and then being told things, coming down from the top doctors in the world, you know, she was basically like, hey, you know, you have to make a shift, because either you move out and we kind of just like, you do your thing and you don't care about exposing yourself, don't care about, you know, getting, you know, getting Covid, and you just want to go and do your business.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah.

[Marco Mena]

Or we have to just wait this out, and you have to figure out virtual. And at the time her company went and put them Virtual. Yeah, of course, virtual. So I had this decision to make. I had to, like, hey, do I stay in my marriage and figure this out?

[Marvin Joelz]

And.

[Marco Mena]

And what do I, you know, still try and be married, but, like, be separated?

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Marco Mena]

So. So through a lot of prayer, thought, and just ideas, I. My brain's always wired to think of, how can I make things work? Even if it's really hard, just, how can I make things work? So what I ended up finding out

[Marvin Joelz]

was, it's a good fit for the asphalt industry.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah. Virtually, how can I do what I'm doing?

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah.

[Marco Mena]

How can I lead an organization virtually? And what I found was that I was able to get way more done sitting behind my laptop, being at six places at once. It was wild. It was a wild realization. Now I had to build a virtual workforce. I had to hire team members that were willing to work virtually. I had to lead in a way and do sales in a way that was virtually.

[Marvin Joelz]

She had a big shift.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah.

[Marvin Joelz]

From your mindset.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah. We had to do, you know, our meetings that we used to do in person. We did them.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah.

[Marco Mena]

You know, now we're doing them on zoom. We're doing too. We're Doing them teams.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yep.

[Marco Mena]

And I was also very fortunate because Kev, business partner, he was still going into the office, so he was like, dude, I'm doing my thing. I'm like, God bless you, bro. Like, you know, do your thing. So, like, he was still able to, like, handle the office and do a lot of things that to do in person, but I went like, completely virtual.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah.

[Marco Mena]

And that's when the national stuff started taking off. So how do you handle that? Right.

[Sponsor Voice]

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[Marco Mena]

give away all my secrets right on this podcast, but you know what, if you have all that experience a decade in and then you're able to kind of just formulate a way of like, how can I.

[Marvin Joelz]

You had a system and process that you developed because of COVID you developed a system and process that you're able to kind of parlay over into national work.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah. And then I, you know, in the meantime, you know, my wife's working at one of the largest employers in the United States and Philly area, you know, UPenn. So they forced everyone to go virtual.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah.

[Marco Mena]

So it's kind of like shadowing and learning how they were handling it, this multi billion dollar corporation.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah.

[Marco Mena]

And then I'm. I'm putting that towards our cute little asphalt business.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah.

[Marco Mena]

You know, at that time, like 15 employees or whatever and able to figure it out, man. I mean, through, through a lot of hard work, dedication, sacrifice. I mean, anything is possible. Right. If you really put the energy in there.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah.

[Marco Mena]

And you put the good vibes out and you really align yourself with the right people around you, you end up figuring out a lot of things. And we were able to figure that out. And next thing you know, we're getting opportunities all over the country because how fast we were able to like, respond and have these meetings. And then a lot of these other clients, they were, they were ecstatic to do these virtual meetings because now they don't have to, you know, everyone's had all these prep. I mean, I feel. It feels like Covid was forever ago. But man, when we were in the thick of it, man, like it was last. People that, you know, people didn't want to, no one wanted to really meet inside. Yeah. That were masks, the whole thing. So when you're like being one of the first companies to offer those virtual experiences and those virtual meetings and be very professional about it and still execute, like, that was a huge differentiator. So.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah. Separate from everybody else.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah. So that was one of the biggest decisions I had to make in my life, professionally and personally.

[Marvin Joelz]

So how did that change your day to day though? Like, I'm at like, what does your average look like now?

[Marco Mena]

Right now? I mean, you get up, first thing I'm looking at is my updates on base camp.

[Marvin Joelz]

Okay.

[Marco Mena]

So I got a whole team.

[Marvin Joelz]

What do you get up right away and do? Like, what's your morning routine look like, Marcos?

[Marco Mena]

First thing I'm doing and I'm waking up, I'm looking at, looking at the updates for base camp.

[Marvin Joelz]

Okay, you grab your phone right away and check that out and see what's up.

[Marco Mena]

Check out my phone. Right. Going base camp. Look at my email.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah.

[Marco Mena]

First, first and foremost, make sure there's no fires that I need to put out.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah. Welcome to the default world.

[Marco Mena]

Yep.

[Marvin Joelz]

And then you get coffee then or what?

[Marco Mena]

Yeah, I'll go downstairs. I usually make a nice omelette for nice. Me and my wife and she's, you know, we have a one year old, a little over a year now. And we kind of start our day like that. And then I usually start my meetings around 9am virtually and they go anywhere between 9 to typically 5. And I have. Those are meetings that are check ins with our project managers. Check ins with our sales team. We have client check ins. We do workshops as well where we have everybody logging in. And we're doing, you know, today we're going to cover Asphalt 101. So the whole team's on the same page with asphalt.

[Marvin Joelz]

Really?

[Marco Mena]

Yep. Cool. We're doing, we're doing team building as well on, on those meetings. And then. Yeah, I mean there's, there's projects. I mean we did 1500 projects last year as a company, so that's wild. There's a lot of moving parts. There's a lot of things that we have to work together through and I oversee a majority of it on the national side. So we looking at 1200, 1300 projects a year. Like just for my kind of like.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah, you Know, top of down view. Yeah. When you're done at five, then what do you do? Like, what does mark you do you actually ever check out?

[Marco Mena]

It's hard to check out, but I'll get to the gym. I'll get to the gym. You know, I'm lucky enough to be able to go and get to the gym. I'll try and get there on the way home. I don't really leave the house. And then I'll go to the gym. That'll be like, I need to get out of the house for an hour and a half or so and then come back, make dinner and then, you know, do the dad thing. And then. And then once they go to bed, I have a sauna. Sauna in.

[Marvin Joelz]

I know you took a call from me one time in the sauna. I was working.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah, I got. Hey, man, it was. Amazon has everything. There's these, like, saunas you can. Infrared saunas you can order that are like less than 2k. And then you can, you know, my dad and I put it together. No bolts, nothing. It was. Been great.

[Marvin Joelz]

They got one at the gym there, and my place is outside Nashville now between Wisconsin here, you know, or Wisconsin there. And they got one at the gym that's a sauna. And at first I was kind of hesitant because it's like, in the area where, like, you're working out, like, you just gotta just like, get in there. But then once I was in there, it was so effing hot in there that I didn't care what was going on outside. I just was like. And it's got. It's got Bluetooth speaker in there too. So, like. Yeah, you know, you can take a call if you want to or do whatever in there, but I enjoy it.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah. So, I mean, that's, you know, we. We have. Our son is not the best sleeper. You know, it's kind of a wild card at night, man. What's going on? Sometimes, you know, you get a window that's, you know, a little longer than others.

[Marvin Joelz]

Sometimes you don't. Yeah, yeah. That is. I went through it twice. Liz slept so good that I thought it'd be a great idea to have another one right away. Bro. I was like a zombie. Like, it was. It was awful because Eli would not sleep even now. Now he sleeps a ton. You can't. You gotta kick him. He's making him for lost time, I think.

[Marco Mena]

But now my. My wife is a rock star with me and mom, and she took that. She took that role.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah.

[Marco Mena]

100 so super blessed to have that dynamic here.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah. So that's really good. What's been. The. What's been. So if we think back, right. We talk. We think back farther, most of the time when you and I talk. But in the past year or so, what's been the biggest challenge that you've had that Marco's had? And it can be work, or it could not be work, but what's been the biggest challenge? I know Christian's coming up on a year here, right?

[Marco Mena]

Yeah, we. So my wife was working virtual, and I was working basically virtual. We were living in Florida last year in April.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah. You said, come on down. I was like, dude, I'm waiting.

[Marco Mena]

We moved. We moved. And, you know, the years before that, we were kind of, like, traveling. We were able to do, like, kind of take road trips. I mean, we didn't have a kid. Right.

[Marvin Joelz]

Came to the show sometimes.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah.

[Marvin Joelz]

We all get to hang out. Yeah.

[Marco Mena]

So, you know, we were just, you know, there was one three years ago, we. We lived in every corner of Florida in the winter, which we stayed a month in the panhandle. We stayed like, three weeks in basically, like, the Naples area. We stayed. Did a whole week in Key west, and then we stayed in Fort Lauderdale for. For a month.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah.

[Marco Mena]

You know, so we stayed in the. We stayed. We did that. And, you know, we were both at our. Our laptop set up, and we were working remote, and it was, you know, a lot of life.

[Marvin Joelz]

You guys should. You guys should have had a kid that way.

[Marco Mena]

Well, so you do all that. You do all that, and, you know, some things are, you know, out of your hands. It's God's plan. Right. So I'm happy that we.

[Marvin Joelz]

It was a cool experience you guys got to have, man.

[Marco Mena]

Not.

[Marvin Joelz]

Not a lot of people get to experience that in their life. So now you're experiencing something for real. You gotta sleep.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah. So, I mean, biggest challenge, like, has been, you know, that transition, because we found out that it's important to be close to family and support and very much and that. So we thought, you know, we had to kind of learn that. But, you know, again, we're going through new parents going through it. So. Yeah, we were able to find a really nice place here in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Conshohocken. Yeah. And moved up here and went from living in the condo. Condo living and got like, an acre to deal with,

[Marvin Joelz]

Like, that.

[Marco Mena]

All the fun to deal with, with the house. So.

[Marvin Joelz]

So that was the biggest challenge then, was getting. Making the change, going back to moving back and that.

[Marco Mena]

I Mean, personally. And then obviously, when things were going on through Coveted, man. And then just.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah, but in the past year. But in the past year. Yeah. And it's been that change. I think it's pretty common. Like, a lot of people, you know, they'll go through that, something will come up, and then they got to go back. Like, I'm in the middle.

[Marco Mena]

It happened at this stage, though, and it wasn't because if I was. If it was back when I was, you know, 60, 70s, that's 80 hours of manual labor a week.

[Marvin Joelz]

Tough, dude. And that's pretty common. Like, that's pretty common. I think it's important, like, to say that, like, you know, timing is everything. Like, we all know how. Listen, dude, we all know how babies get made.

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[Marvin Joelz]

Cementech.com you know, it's important to. To take the precautions to. For your life, please. Elizabeth and Elijah, I hope you're listening. It's important to take the precautions in your life and make sure that timing is right for what you want to do when you do it in order to hopefully get into the life you want to live. And you're in good. I think the best part of it, like, the timing was good. You guys were really successful, you know, as far as figuring out how to make this thing work. And, you know, it's been. It's been really neat to see you guys have been able to overcome that, too, by being around family, too. That helps out a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what about. And I know you. You reiterated to this already, and you kind of covered it during your intro and whatnot, but I'm gonna guess anyway. But what's the single hardest thing you've ever went through? And if it has to be something business and something personal, that's fine. Just something personal and you want to share that, that's great. If it's more business side and you want to do that, I know the dynamic about that. Question is that most of us, there's a really thin line between our business life and our personal life. Like they bleed over so much and we embody our businesses so much that usually that's the same thing. But if you could think back, what would be the hardest thing that you've ever went through in general as Marco

[Marco Mena]

One of the lowest points I can think of that comes off the top of my head is. Yeah, during that year in Covid, we didn't really have a lot of work. Everybody was going through this shift. So we try to always avoid going through general contractors and not being in the prime position. But at that time we had to, we had crews and we had to figure out basically what to do. Right?

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah.

[Marco Mena]

Huge pressure because I mean at that point we're coming up. We're at 10 years in. You have 30 employees.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yep.

[Marco Mena]

What do you do when you don't have work lined up? That is a pressure I don't wish upon anybody. When you have people depending and families. And so we were, we opened ourselves up to be able to work through a general contractor at a Amazon facility that was being constructed. And it was a bollard project. Like 300 bollards.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah, there's a lot, as I say, there's a lot at those facilities.

[Marco Mena]

And we did bollards, but never at the scale of mass scale like that. Trying to get 300 done. We went about it wrong and the superintendent on the job was a real prick about it.

[Marvin Joelz]

And we were the way you went.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah, we installed them a little off center, a little bit. We're talking like inches off center. And this guy. You gotta rip them out, you gotta redone. You gotta rip them out. You gotta redone. You know, we're putting in these, these bottle. It's full depth and you know, sitting there, all this hard work.

[Marvin Joelz]

And how deep were you when. When you had to.

[Marco Mena]

They were. They were seven foot Ballards. So three and no, I mean like,

[Marvin Joelz]

like how many have you had. You had done before you had to

[Marco Mena]

pull probably this is going back, but I think it was like 50 or so we did wrong.

[Marvin Joelz]

Oh, God bless.

[Marco Mena]

And then we had, you know, basically like rent the biggest excavator we could possibly get to bang him out. And now you're just. All this hard work, you're just banging out and then redoing it. And now it was such a test of just like just trying to. But things pass. Covid passed. We got through it. That was really difficult, man. And I wouldn't have made. I wouldn't I wouldn't be where I'm at professionally and personally without my wife and business partner. Yeah. It's just. This is what it is. I'm not. Not gonna. You know, you got to surround yourself, people that are going to support you and keep you even when you're super down and.

[Marvin Joelz]

Well, that's. That's the next question, though, is like, what has life taught you? And is that. Is that. Is that really what life thought you is the people.

[Marco Mena]

I mean, hey, my. My path to success and happiness is going to be different for it. Like, it's different. You know, not everybody.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah, you and I talk about that a lot.

[Marco Mena]

Well, I'm the vice president of all out. I'm one of the co. Owners, co founders. But Kev's got a little bit higher stake in it, and he's got final say, and I'm okay with that.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah, you know, it's pretty close. Yeah. Put it on him.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah.

[Marvin Joelz]

Like I put it on Kev.

[Marco Mena]

Can you, you know, can you be number two in a business? Can. Do you have that type of personality to be that invested? And then. No, you don't have final say. That's not for everybody. For me, you know, I. I had that trust. I still have that trust with Kevin. No. And then in a marriage, too, man. You know, living in a marriage.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah. We know who's got the final say.

[Marco Mena]

So. Yeah. So I'm number two.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah. Smith number 22.

[Marco Mena]

So.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah. You know what that is, though? That's being humble. That's learning to be humble. That's also an ego thing. Right. Where you got to ego kill a little bit. And I don't. I just think we're surrounded, Marco, in a. A society, especially on social media, where, like, everybody's supposed to be number one, everybody thinks that they have to be number one. They have to be the best. Like, they have to be it. And I don't know, man. When I look at the world champion Philadelphia Eagles, it looks like there's a lot of number twos and a lot of guys that are playing their role, and all of a sudden they're the best.

[Sponsor Voice]

Right.

[Marvin Joelz]

And it's like you have to let that kill a little bit and understand that without the offensive line, the quarterback's getting hurts. Is getting hurt, you know, like, it's. I think that those are my favorite. I think that's why you and I get along so good. People who realize that and embody that are my favorite kind of people, because they're the funnest to be around. There's not a hey, it's this way or no way. They understand that there's many ways to skin a cat. The biggest thing is that we get the cash skinned, and then we can just go into another one, into another one. And to know that you all have been able to do that and work that dynamic out, I think is a really big attribution of your success. Because you all do national work. I know national companies besides yours, of course, And I know that there are partnerships within that dynamic. And I also know that there's yin and yang. Right. And there's people who have the say, final say, but I don't know that they necessarily ever need to use it because they learn to work together so well like you and Kev have.

[Marco Mena]

It's worked. We have a lot of success and where we've gotten to and, you know, it's. It's not easy. But whenever I do speak to small business owners or people that want to start a business, I let them know, I say, you know, I don't know how the people that have done it by themselves can do it. Like a guy. Like, you do not have that business partner to not have that person who you can divide and conquer.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah.

[Marco Mena]

That is the ultimate, ultimate. Like, you're.

[Marvin Joelz]

Well, you just keep it small enough, you can fit it in your pocket is all you do. Yeah, don't try to get a backpack. You know, I just keep it small enough, you fit in your pocket. You know, there. There are. We know guys. We've shared stories about guys who've built big ones. Dude, they're not. I. I would venture to say that most of the guys that I talk to that build some big stuff in our industry solo are a lot less happier than I am. And I. And I. And there's been. When I've been pretty, not happy, but what. Everybody tends to let me in, thank God. And I've learned a lot from it. And they'll. A lot of those guys will tell you flat out, like, a lot of years, it was not good. And. And I'm like, dude, I'm smart enough and zen enough. Everybody knows that about me. I'm kind of monk, sage, kind of leaning. I know that tomorrow's not promised. I know that a year from now could be all over with. So I'm trying to, like, make sure that I enjoy my time here right now. And unfortunately, in business, I feel like when you take time to do that, it slows down your business growth, possibly for the most part. So you kind of gotta be humble. About that too, and realize that you're taking time away from building this up. But I feel like if I would have built something really big, I probably would have looked back with regret and been like, I didn't take the time to do what I really wanted to do, and I didn't really enjoy all those years. I think that's different with me than it is with some other people. And sometimes when you have a business partnership like you guys have, you're able to take some of that weight and divide and conquer, spend some time, you know, with your family and do those types of things. I think it's just important. Like you were saying earlier, like, our personal path is literally our personal path. It literally is about what you. What your capacity is, what you like, what you don't like, how you're trying to build your business for and what your goals are in life. Right? Like, my goal, and Nikki knows this, is to have a cabin up in the woods somewhere where you came and see it from the road and just leave it alone at the end. Like, dude, let me just chill. I want to read some. I want to read some books. I want to read some Thoreau. Put my fireplace. I'll maybe go down, catch a trout out of the creek, come back up and cook it, go to bed, wake up, read some more Thoreau. That's what I want to do. Most people in our industry, like, hey, I want. I want the. The big truck, the Denali. Give me a big bedroom, three levels. I won't be able to ride my horses out my pasture, whatever the heck it is. We put my boat, get on my boat and go out in the lake, whatever it is. And unfortunately, I think that we're lucky, me and you and everybody else in our industry, because the asphalt industry, pavement industry, allows people, if they understand it correctly, to create whatever lifestyle they want to create for themselves. If you know what you're doing within this industry, you can do that. But to lean into what you're talking about, about what life's taught you, I don't think any of that comes to fruition. If you don't have really good people in your corner, your wife, your partner, your friends, all that stuff for the

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[Marvin Joelz]

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[Marvin Joelz]

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[Marco Mena]

In this industry too. Like, you go to paybacks and you talk to guys that have been in the history 10, 15, 20 years. There's millionaires everywhere. There's blue collar millionaires walking around. There's Rolexes all over the place. And you would never, yeah, you would

[Marvin Joelz]

never think, well, man, you never think that, bro. Like, there's times where, okay, there's. I, I want to make sure I put this right. We go to some of these conferences, right? And I'll have conversations with guys who have three locations. They got 50 guys working for them. You know, they're working in three different states. They're balls to the wall all the time. All this overhead, all this stuff. And they're like, yeah, man, I'm. I'm bringing home X amount each year and I'm tucked away here in the corner, right? And I'm like, that's how, that's, that's pretty close to what I bring in. Like, I'm, I think I'm just gonna sit still. I think I'm gonna chill a little bit, right? But then you'll go have another conversation with somebody who's even bigger and maybe they're making less than that guy, maybe they're making more than that guy. It's all about the systems and operations of what they do and what they learn. I think that's why you and I talking about going to these conferences and talking to people that have walked all the different paths is super important because it allows you to see there's not just one set way to do this. There's a lot of different ways to do this depending on what you want for your life. And sometimes one little minor adjustment can make it like it'll, it'll make your business, make your life, do whatever you need to do.

[Sponsor Voice]

After years of like I did, like

[Marvin Joelz]

a decade before I came to NP 2017, I pounded my head for a decade not knowing that I need a system and processes that other people can step into so that I can delegate some work, right? And Free up my life and allow us to scale a little bit. Yeah, dude, you wouldn't know it. You go to the shows, you wouldn't know it. But that's what the asphalt industry does.

[Marco Mena]

It's a recession resistant industry. It's a service industry that's going to be relevant. People need to get the work done and, and less and less of the generations that are younger are doing the work. If, if you get into it and you learn it and you know how to execute it and you work hard, this is the best country in the world for that. Yeah, you're going to be successful if you do it. If you, if you just execute the fundamentals. So anybody's out there is thinking about doing it, know that there's no shortcuts. And like you're saying you got to be humble, you got to really put in the time to learn. You got to have these conversations with people that have done it with you before, done before, than you, you know, you don't. You're not reinventing the wheel, man. Yeah, we're big believers at all adding coaches. So we have five coaches on payroll right now for us. So it's just coaching is important and then always trying to learn and level up and then, you know, do right.

[Marvin Joelz]

We're getting Tesla robots, bro. We're gonna get those Tesla robots, go out and pay crack fill.

[Marco Mena]

That could happen.

[Marvin Joelz]

My brother Jesse just sent me one. He's like, if you can get this thing to loot, you're made, bro. It's 30, 30 grand. He's like, I don't even care what the downtime is. He's like, it'd be worth it. I was like, cool, dude. Yeah, I'd be in. I want, I want to go back to the family thing a little bit because we share a lot. Before your son was born, you seen me with Eli and you were just like, man, that's the coolest ever. Like, Eli's been with us in the asphalt industry for a long time. You all have known him for a long time. He's got a huge family in the asphalt community, asphalt industry. Like anybody at any moment would do anything for him. And I'm grateful for that. But you gotta. You got a young man now and your, your dynamic. When you're a father and you're looking at your changes a little bit after everything you've learned and all you've experienced in life, if you can teach your guys something, your little man, as he gets older and starts becoming a man, like, Eli's 14 now, he's got armpit hair, bro. So I'm having to teach him like the legit stuff now. And he can almost take me at this point because he's built like a brick house being a wrestler. So I gotta watch myself almost, almost take it.

[Marco Mena]

Almost.

[Marvin Joelz]

I still got the dad strength. He tried me. He tried me not last night, but the night before. And he didn't try last night because he, he was eating his kneecap the other night. But if there's something that you could teach your son that you know, would stick with him after you're gone, that he, that he would apply to his life and, you know, that it would take. What would that be? What would that one thing be, you think?

[Marco Mena]

Curiosity. Be curious. In everything that's around. Try to learn. Try to realize and ask and learn as much possible and be curious of, of your day. Be curious. If this, that's the way my mind works. I'm always. It doesn't matter if it's someone who's talking about hunting or someone's talking about computers. It could be I'm curious. I'm curious to learn. And I, I think that's been a big. That's opened me up to a lot of different kinds of life and people and, and then obviously when it gets into like, the business side of things being well rounded and being able to like, genuinely be curious of whoever I'm meeting, that's important that that actually ends up. So for him to, you know, to, to not be close minded, to be open minded, be curious.

[Marvin Joelz]

That's a good.

[Marco Mena]

So that's, that's what's sticking out.

[Marvin Joelz]

How'd you learn that?

[Marco Mena]

Just been there, man. I don't know. It's just been there. I just been like that since I was a little kid, you know, I don't care if it was a. If it's the coolest kid in the school or, you know, someone was getting picked on. I was just trying to hear about their story and, you know, just kind of like, you know, I just, I always try to be friendly with everybody.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah.

[Marco Mena]

And you know, learn different, different. Different backgrounds, different walks of life.

[Marvin Joelz]

You know, the opportunities are too. That's where the opportunities for success are. I tell that to Eli a lot. Right. I was like, you have to talk to people. Like, even if you don't want to and they don't want to, you still should try to talk to people. And if they won't talk to you, talk to somebody else and talk to somebody else. And he's, he's totally wide Open Liz isn't so much, but I say that to him because the best opportunities in my life have come from people that I've developed a relationship with just talking, right? And it's like we go to these shows and there's so many booths and so much new technology and there's so much going on. We're, we're living at like the most technologically advanced time, I think, in the world. We're on the cusp of something really drastically changing humanity. And if you don't talk to somebody and you don't know what's going on, you're going to be on the back side of that. And I don't necessarily know that I want to be on the forefront of it for my success, but I, I want to be on the forefront of it because it's exciting. Like, I want to be excited about my day to day and if all I'm doing is grinding for dollars, that doesn't excite me, man. It never really has. But knowing that we're doing something cool or that we get to hang out with people or we develop this relationship. Some of my, some of my best memories in the last couple years have been when I've landed sponsorship deals for bb and they're nothing compared to what we get for asphalt contracts. But I'll jump up off the table and just being like, holy, I made something out of nothing. Like, we had a Japanese tire company sponsor the podcast. I'm like, how in the world did this happen from where we are? And none of it would have happened if I wouldn't have been open, put myself out there. Like you were talking about being curious and having these conversations. So what's in the future for Marco Mena? I mean, you're gonna be raising a boy. You got a lot in that realm.

[Marco Mena]

But.

[Marvin Joelz]

But what's in the future?

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[Marco Mena]

You know, growing all out, continuing to have that controlled growth. I'm living the dream right now. Like My role is great. I can. I have an awesome team. We have such a great culture. We have great, great people that we're working with. We have awesome clients that I've had now years of relationships with. So I really. I'm still learning. I'm still learning a lot, but I really understand. Yeah, I really understand. Like, I like being able to provide the solutions and getting creative on how to really save people a lot of money and just, like, you know, that's. That's awesome to be able to, like, just provide those. Those services and provide a great service. I'm going to be probably getting more back out. I'm going to a second trade show this year on Sunday, so I'm going down to Hotel Point. So that's going to be. That's going to be an interesting kind of presentation. We're, like, in, like, these boardrooms and presenting in front of 20 or so hotel executives.

[Marvin Joelz]

I'm a long way from heel coat buckets in the van. Yeah, yeah.

[Marco Mena]

But in the same. In the same week, you know, we have. We have a whole separate team that's going to be out at doing connects in Denver. So, like, yeah, we're doing two national trade shows at once, so to be able to grow and.

[Marvin Joelz]

Congratulations. I don't know if I've ever said that to y', all, but I know some people are like, oh, if you only knew. But I really am like, congratulations to y', all because to know you and Kev and just to see all. There's a tenacity that's humble and steady about you guys, where it's not real loud, but it's enough that it's going to push some stuff over. And I've just been really in awe of that, of y' all over the last year. So, you know when you say that you're in two different places because we're friends, man. To hear you all say that we're in two different places with two different teams doing two different national shows, and that you're happy and you're in a good place makes me feel good. But also, I think, shows people in our industry, people that want to be in our industry, that that is a path that can happen. Right? So there's people. There's a saying that, as one man does, so can another. To hear you say that, it's like, okay, Marco did it. I can do it, right? And Eli might not be like me. He might not be, you know, so Zen as I am. He might want to take on the world. He might want to Walk your path. And I'm fortunate to know people and have conversations and record conversations where, if that's what he wants to do, we have a blueprint. We're not. He doesn't have to reinvent the wheel either, right? We're pretty fortunate for that. Yeah.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah. And then on the personal side, you know, just looking forward to, like, being able to talk to my son, you know, that's gonna be, like, right now, he can't. We can't really talk, like, doing the whole, like, you know, just being interested in, like, what he's going to be interested in doing. Like, is he gonna like, playing sports? Is he gonna like playing piano? You know, is he gonna, like, that's gonna be awesome.

[Marvin Joelz]

You never know, bro. I had listened, and they're completely different. It's. It's preposterous. They were both raised. They both had my same influence. We had the same two parents, raised them up, and they're completely two different people. They're. Boy, yeah. Which is different, of course, but this way.

[Marco Mena]

So no, that's. And then another thing, too. Going through this whole experience the last year, I really got humbled big time to think that I kind of had a good grasp on a lot of challenges and hard things in life. And then going and seeing everything that mothers go through, that was just like, whoa. And then looking at other, you know, really, like, looking at other professionals and other employees and people that I work with that have a lot of kids and have kids and like, being like, okay, this is what. This is next level. Because it's totally different if you don't have kids. It just is. Especially. I don't know. I'm seeing it right now. So it was a really humbling experience. And I learned. Been learning. Still learning. Yeah.

[Marvin Joelz]

Sometimes you realize the most valuable things you got you didn't even work for. Yeah. And it's like, oh, okay. And that just happens. That comes with age. That comes with time. I used to feel bad because I didn't feel that way when people told me that, you know, I'd be like, I have no idea what you mean. And then later on, as you get older, you become a father. Right. You realize what it means. And then we were fortunate enough, I was able to go to Guatemala again this last summer, and I took Liz this time. Right. So a lot of the stuff that I would come back and tell them, Right. I would see, like, let's throw a plate of food away, and I would have a problem with it. They would be crying over their TV show, not Being on or whatever. And I'd have a hard time with it because I went to Guatemala and seen people with a lot less, doing a lot less and making. Trying to make it with a lot less. But then I was able to take Liz back this time, fortunately. And to see her look at me while we were in some of these villages and seeing what some of these girls that are her age were going through, and to hear them say things made me just feel really, really, really good about what I have built at West Coat. And maybe before that, I didn't feel so good because I was comparing myself to other people in my industry and whatnot. But to know that it provides what we have here and that that's so much more than what a lot of people don't have or even hard things that they deal with. We have. We have. We have medical care. Something happens to Eli, he's wrestling. He breaks his arm. We're gonna go over here, and it's gonna get taken care of over there. It was a week. Somebody was waiting in line at a hospital for a week with a broken arm.

[Marco Mena]

Right.

[Marvin Joelz]

And I'm just like, dude, we have it so good. And. And I love sharing stories about what you all have done, what we do, what all our friends do, our industry, because we just. We have it so good in America and in the household industry. And I'm really, really thankful to have friends like you and like Kev. Yeah. It makes the whole world in perspective. So.

[Marco Mena]

And I'll double down that. We're lucky to be in 2025, because if we were in 1876 or. Yeah, 1575 or what, I don't know,

[Marvin Joelz]

we probably would have been like, isn't this great? We got the whole country. We can do whatever we want.

[Marco Mena]

We are super blessed to be in the United States at this stage.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah.

[Marco Mena]

You know, it's just an incredible time to be alive, so.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're getting to see some cool stuff. And we got great kids, we're a great family, got people who love us, so we can't complain very much when we're. We picked the right industry. So that was good. I'm glad y' all ain't painting and. Or mowing lawns or anything like that. I'm glad you all stuck with the blacktop stuff so we can hang out and have something to talk to. So if people want to keep up. I think the best spot to keep up with Marco is probably on LinkedIn.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah, LinkedIn. You guys check us out on LinkedIn. You can hop on our website. You know, I'm always open to, you know, combo.

[Marvin Joelz]

You've always done a combo?

[Marco Mena]

Yeah. Always down for opening combo. You know, we're. We're still learning, man, so. And always loving the, you know, trade, best business practices, and I think we're

[Marvin Joelz]

always going to be learning, bro. I've already chalked it up to that. We're always going to be learning.

[Marco Mena]

I'm turning 30, turning 36 here in about a month, so.

[Marvin Joelz]

I was there already.

[Marco Mena]

Still pretty. Still pretty young in the game, man, considering, so.

[Marvin Joelz]

I was there already. I was dumb. I was dumb at 36. I'm 39 now. I'm not saying you're dumb at 36. I'm just saying I was there and I was dumb. I'm gonna look back in 10 years, probably, bro, and just be like, dude, I was so stupid at 39, 40. I thought I knew what the hell I was doing. Again, I'm so stupid. And then I tell Eli right now, I'm like, do you think you're so smart? He's like, yeah. And he's like, yeah, I do.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah. So I. It's so fun to see. I, I. We're so blessed, dude, to live these lives where we're able to reflect and go back. We go through hard times, and we realize it wasn't that hard or good things can come out of them. To me, that's the biggest thing, is that I think people think that those. Those hard things that really, really hurt are going to last forever, and they don't. You just keep making positive choices, you know, talk about it, get it off your chest, get it out from under your skin. Develop a game plan. One day at a time. Just like eating an elephant, one bite at a time. A little bit here, a little bit there. Next thing you know, you're doing jobs in Hawaii, or you're speaking at World of Asphalt, or you're winning fifth place at the state wrestling championship, or. God only knows what this kid is going to do, you know, but, yeah, it's. It's really cool. It's really cool to see you guys journey. I appreciate you joining us today, man, a lot.

[Marco Mena]

Yeah. Anybody out there who's struggling and trying to, you know, power through, just, you know, know that it's not the end of the world. Things will be all right, and there's people that you can reach out to. There's these resources you can do and always continue to learn. There's always a. There's always. If there's a will, there's a way, don't want to get too into, you know, religion, but religion plays key factor too. And just being able to meditate and pray during your tough times and always trying to do the right thing. Yeah, man, it's not rock science out there.

[Marvin Joelz]

Just believe. Just believe. You can do a lot, dude, if you just believe. Okay.

[Marco Mena]

Just keep moving. Keep believing.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah, I've been, I've been believing that one of those cars was going to move behind you forever. You've been on that parking lot there in Philly for a long time. Really loads the earth there. What they say, Indian style, crisscross applesauce or whatever it is there in the parking lot that y' all did.

[Marco Mena]

But anyone's ever down South Philly, man, check out, check out our work. We've done, I think over 5 million square feet of seal coating down there and, you know, hundreds of thousands of square feet of paving and, and striping and yeah, it's, it's a, it's a great account and you know, also blessed to have that, you know, been there, been there quite a while now.

[Marvin Joelz]

Yeah. Yeah, man, I appreciate you joining us again today and as always, man, it's always, it's always a pleasure. Good to spend time with you and talk to you.

[Marco Mena]

Sounds good, Marv. Right back at you, man.

[Marvin Joelz]

Alrighty. So for myself here in the studio in beautiful rural southwest corner of Wisconsin and for Marco at the as for now world championship Philadelphia Eagles parking lot. Thanks for joining us. We'll talk to y' all soon. Peace.

[Podcast Narrator]

Thanks for hanging out with us on in the Mix.

[Marco Mena]

For more on the world world of

[Podcast Narrator]

Blacktop, head over to marvinjols.com and don't forget to follow Marvin on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube for extra content, behind the scenes looks and industry insights. Be sure to follow the podcast so you never miss an episode. And if you got value from today's show, leave us a well worded five star review. It really helps more asphalt pros find us. Catch you next time on in the Mix.