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Subcontracting, Cash Flow & Culture Q&A
110 Plays1 month ago
Episode 73 of The Better Contractor Podcast introduces new co-host Alex and launches a listener-driven Q&A format that continues in Episode 74. The hosts share practical advice on contractor cash flow, including lines of credit, invoice factoring, progress payments, and tightening payment terms. They also break down how to bid complex jobs correctly, price equipment and labor to reflect true overhead, and decide when to use in-house crews versus subcontractors. The episode dives into maintaining culture across growing teams, protecting company vision, and removing toxic influences. It closes with insights for young entrepreneurs on winning bigger contracts and earning respect from more experienced employees.
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Transcript
Navigating Company Culture and Staffing Challenges
00:00:00
Speaker
really what culture comes down to, honestly, as much as anything, is cutting out the cancer. yeah So when you have the bad ones, and we've had a few of those, as every company has had over the years, but we've been very active in the last few years about removing that as we see it. Sometimes it takes a minute because it's not easy. And sometimes that's people that's been with you longer than ever, or they have the absolute most experience on your team. And it makes it difficult, especially in an environment with that where the labor shortage is very, very high. For sure.
00:00:29
Speaker
But overall, I think that's it's it's worked for us. Is it perfect? No, it's a lot better than it was better than our competition. Probably. Yeah, absolutely.
Introduction and New Co-Host: Alex Eckhart
00:00:37
Speaker
So you want to boss up your life? All you got to is get in with me.
00:00:40
Speaker
I don't even pay to get in the club. They know I'm a walking team. I'm presidential leaving the club. We ain't stopping at no lights. You want to be a boss? You got to pay the price.
00:00:51
Speaker
Welcome back to another edition of the Better Contractor Podcast. So today, I believe this is episode 73, and if you're joining on YouTube, you will notice that there is a co-host sitting next to me, kind of diagonally. So this is Alex. He'll be the co-host on the podcast, and Alex, tell us a little bit about yourself.
00:01:08
Speaker
Yeah, what's up, guys? I'm excited to be here. My name's Alex Eckhart. I'm 23 years old, and I'm now a part of the marketing team. I'm excited to work along with Brent and Noah, and I'm excited to be here.
00:01:18
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome, Alex. Glad to have you here. And so marketing team for us is Lander Corp, which is our main operating company, and then also the better contractor, obviously. So he'll be on some podcasts. So today we're going to do a little bit more of a Q&A, and actually episode 74 will be the same way.
00:01:35
Speaker
We've had some requests for those over the past. We get some questions in our DMs, questions that people ask me direct. So we just kind of put all these together and said, let's just answer these on a podcast. So this episode will be that way. And the other thing Alex will be doing as well. So if you guys are contractors and you've listened in for a while, you're like, man, I have heard this person on the podcast somewhere else. You're like, man, it would be awesome if we had him on as well or she on here.
00:02:01
Speaker
DM us that person. Alex will try to reach out to them and see if we can get some of those guests on the podcast. I want to get back to a few more podcasts that are that
Podcast Format and Content Overview
00:02:08
Speaker
way. I like the Q&A style. So if I kind of envision having three different podcast styles, one would be Q&A.
00:02:15
Speaker
The other one would be like really short, more fire based, just like you got a 10 minute drive and you a 10 minute podcast. You just need some motivation and maybe a topic to kind of get through. browse through those, like, hey, that topic hits home. I'm to listen to that on my drive to work. And then the longer style que and or a longer style format for guests. And sometimes those are an hour, hour and a half. Sometimes we try to keep them short. It's just once you get going, if you have a good guest, it is hard to narrow that to 30, 45 minutes. So but anyway, we will jump into it. Alex, give me a question.
Managing Cash Flow for Contractors
00:02:47
Speaker
Our first question, start with this one. Let's say a contractor has $80,000 out in invoices that won't be paid for 30 to 60 days. but you have payroll, fuel, insurance, equipment, and so many other expenses that hit every week.
00:03:01
Speaker
What would you do to structure their cash flow so they don't constantly feel behind on those payments? So if you're a contractor, you've probably been in this situation. You may be in it right now, actually. um So every type of contractor or entrepreneurship business is a little bit different, but most of you listening are contractors, so I'll answer the question kind of for them. So From a lending standpoint, I would do one of two types of loans. I would do one that would be like a line of credit that you can get through a traditional bank.
00:03:29
Speaker
And to me, that should be about your accounts receivable. So if your accounts receivable is $200,000, I would try to find a line of credit that is at least $200,000. And those can be where, depends on the bank, every bank does it different, but those can be set up. I would try to set those up when your books are good. So a lot of people wait and they try to set stuff up like this when they need it. And at that point, the bank's going to look at it and be a little bit shy, be like, eh, I don't know if we really want to do this.
00:03:57
Speaker
I would set those up when your books are looking good, send it to them. If you have 200,000 of receivables coming in, it would be nice to have 200,000 in that line of credit. And ah how a lot of banks work,
00:04:08
Speaker
is you tell them, I don't want my checking account to dip below 50,000. If it dips below 50,000, let's say it goes to 40, they automatically that day inject 10 to keep that 50 balance. um So you don't use the full line. If the very next day you get a deposit of 60, it automatically pays in the back that 10 and now you you're back to where you were. So I would do that. If that is not a possibility or you deal with a lot of larger clients,
00:04:35
Speaker
You could do invoice factoring, which basically means that you're basically selling your invoices usually for like a percent or two. So it's pretty cheap, but you get paid immediately from that bank. So it's invoice factoring is what it's called.
00:04:49
Speaker
And then you're paying, hopefully you're not doing much longer than net 30 for your customers. But then that customer's payment then actually goes to that bank and then it pays them back.
00:05:00
Speaker
So sometimes they'll keep a reserve, I want to say 10 to 20 percent just to kind of be safe. But that gets you some of that money immediately upon invoicing. So you could do that from a lending perspective.
00:05:11
Speaker
The other thing I would look at is shortening your terms. So most contractors, in my opinion, should not even be doing that 30. That's the max I would do. If you're doing net sixteen that 60, that 90, hopefully you're not doing that 90.
00:05:22
Speaker
But sometimes if you're working for corporations or businesses, they may dictate that to you. Sometimes you can negotiate that down in that 30. And then If you can do that, that gets you paid quicker.
00:05:34
Speaker
On the flip side of that, try to set up terms with your vendors. So what you don't want to have happen is you're getting paid next 60, but all your vendors are set up as basically due immediately upon receipt. So that puts you in a bad cash flow because then you're paying for everything. Labor expenses, everything immediately, but you're not collecting payment for 30, 60 days.
00:05:54
Speaker
So I would make those two minor adjustments. The other thing you could do in contracting if you're doing long-term jobs A lot of contractors think I can't invoice on this until the job's done. I would recommend doing 25% to 35% up front.
00:06:08
Speaker
ah So before you start the job, you're collecting a payment. That could be like almost like a down payment type of deal. But you're, number one, you're solidifying that with the customer that you you indeed have that job. It ties them in more.
00:06:20
Speaker
I would collect a little bit more midway and I would collect the balance upon completion. That way you have money rolling in throughout that job. So if you have a three week, four week project, you're not waiting until week four plus 30 days to pay to get paid.
00:06:35
Speaker
So I would make those simple tweaks. Yeah.
Effective Job Bidding and Contract Management
00:06:38
Speaker
And I think bidding the job actually can kind of help out the way you're getting paid and covering those payments as well. So on these complex jobs, how do you get, what are some ways you get creative and bid these accurately? So bidding accurately is also something a lot of people struggle with, I feel like. And I think part of the reason is a lot of contractors look at it as the going rate in the industry is x amount of dollars for this type of a project.
00:07:03
Speaker
Well, that doesn't mean you know your numbers. It doesn't mean you've went and looked at the job well. You're using a lot of assumptions and a lot of hypotheticals to give a ballpark number that you think, hey, and we see it in our industry, Atlanticorp, a lot.
00:07:16
Speaker
We do more pipeline clearing, but there's a lot of people in the space of doing, I'm going to clear for a landowner. And they all have this per acre number in their head. The reason I hate that is because every acre is different. You have different terrain. You have different sides of trees, different density of those trees.
00:07:34
Speaker
And to just give, hey, we think this is x amount per acre without looking at it is terrible. But to kind of tie the two questions together, if you are being a bank for some customers, and we've done this before as well, as you're bidding, if you know you're going to be the bank for that customer, meaning you're going to carry that debt for them for a while, build that in your bid.
00:07:55
Speaker
If a bank's going to charge 2% or 3% interest, you should charge 2% or 3% interest. Make some money on you being a bank. The other part of that is for the scope of work, You guys should be writing a very detailed scope of work and remove as much of the unknown as possible. What gets a lot of contractors in trouble is they go to bid a job.
00:08:15
Speaker
The person says they want a new roof. Let's just say it's that simple. You may not even have a contract. You may just say that's 30 grand, whatever it is. However, if you don't dictate, I'm doing this with the old shingles and cleaning up your yard or I'm not doing anything with it, that's on you. That price is extra. All those what ifs, if that's not defined in your contract, the landowner or the customer, whoever can come back and say later, hey, I thought you were going to do that. Well, if there's nothing written, it's really just an argument. At that point, you've made somebody mad, number one. And number two, if you give to make them happy, you're giving on your profit. So a very, very detailed scope of work, I would put in terms and conditions. I would have some sort of simple contract that eliminates that guesswork and eliminates a little of that headache. And then outside of that, I would actually make sure you do a job site visit. So a lot of people skip that part because there's money invested and showing up and doing it, but that's where you're going to be able to fine tune and actually have your bid accurate.
00:09:14
Speaker
um I would do photos before, you know, hey, this is what it looked like when I showed up and did it. Mark up things, have that as documented proof. So if you come back, something changes on that job between, let's say, let's say you bid it two months before you even start.
00:09:30
Speaker
In that two months, if something changed on that site that now actually should have changed the pricing, you can go back and say, hey, I took these photos two months ago. This is what you told me this job site was. This has changed. Now I need a change order for that specific thing.
00:09:44
Speaker
I would make those small changes. I would make sure you have a contract. a lot of people hate contracts because they think poorly of them. Like, I don't want legal stuff involved. they are to make legal easier when that time comes. So contracts are a good thing in terms of conditions are good. So you have to define what you're doing. 100%. Contracts are so important.
In-House vs. Subcontracting Decisions
00:10:03
Speaker
So jumping back to expenses, i mean, one of the biggest expense you're going to have is labor. um Whenever companies are getting started up, the question is, do you have your own crew or do you subcontract those crews um how do you do that at what point does it make sense to bring crews in-house have your own crews or what point does it make sense to sub those crews out no that's a good question and something we've battled a little bit and i know like general contractors you are probably in like the home building remodeling you probably deal with that even more
00:10:37
Speaker
How I would do that in-house, we'll divide this up. If you're a brand new entrepreneur and you're just getting started, I think you're going to want to probably do things as much in-house with a small crew.
00:10:49
Speaker
As you grow, you take on more projects and that crew becomes too busy and you're too far out, like you're taking jobs and you're four months away from even starting them. I think that's your sign to probably need to add a second crew. so that you're not bidding and saying, hey, I'm gonna do this, but I'm not gonna start until six months from now.
00:11:08
Speaker
I think that's one sign. As you grow though, and you get more and more stuff, let's say hypothetically you're a general contractor, let's say plumbing is not your skillset.
00:11:19
Speaker
I would look at then having your crew become more of the specialty crew that ties everything thing together, does the finished work, brings that stuff together. But maybe you sub plumbing, maybe you sub electric, maybe you sub all of that.
00:11:32
Speaker
um So that's how I would kind of do it at first is sub the niche or specialty stuff out. You do the more general for us. At Lander Corp, we do a lot of pipeline work. For us, we don't do subs often. A lot of our customers do not like it. But if we do subbing, it's usually because there was a project that was way outside of our geographic area and is too small to go travel to.
00:11:54
Speaker
So for those, we will find a sub. We will have them do that one job and that's normally it. And that makes sense for us to do that because that cost is cheaper. But big, big key here. If you use subs, I would 100% make sure that you have a contract in place for them.
00:12:11
Speaker
You have expectations, whatever systems and processes you have in place for your crews, you have them sign and you onboard them to do the same thing. So sometimes for us, that's difficult for a one project, one off deal.
00:12:24
Speaker
But what you don't want to have happen is a customer that uses you maybe on multiple jobs, they love you and your company. You sell one project out and they have a completely different experience because you subbed it out.
00:12:36
Speaker
And now you lose that customer because that one project you had someone else do and you didn't have them on board with your systems and processes. That's probably the number one thing I would say with subbing out to be aware of is just like you have an employee and you onboard, you do all that stuff with them, you you do the same thing with your sub as well.
00:12:53
Speaker
Yep. that That's still under your name. It's a completely different company, but yeah their work is under whatever your company's name is. So that's that's super important. um What
Maintaining Company Culture in Dispersed Teams
00:13:04
Speaker
about for your company? How do you make sure everyone understands a vision and goals from office staff to field employees? How do you ensure that the guys in the field understand the big picture and just onboard them as maybe some of the same values as office staff? Yeah.
00:13:19
Speaker
So that is something, one of our struggle points, I believe, just being transparent and real on the podcast. We don't have everything together. That is one thing I think we're very actively working on. So for us, because we're so spread out, so Lander Corp is very spread out all across the country. So we have some employees that maybe live in Illinois, some in Michigan, some live in Virginia, some live in Oklahoma. So having where you are all together very often is extremely difficult, which makes it more and more important that your team, leadership team, has the culture, and they very much are aware that we need to transfer that down to the next level. The next level needs to keep doing that. Yeah.
00:13:58
Speaker
So for us, what we've started doing, I felt like we always had it really, really good – from myself to the leadership management staff, and it kind of started to fall apart a little bit as it went into the field. So what we've started doing since COVID actually, so COVID kind of forced the virtual meetings for a lot of people.
00:14:16
Speaker
So what we started doing is we do a weekly safety call with everyone. Now we do a right after after after that call, the foreman stay on, we do another call with them. There's just a lot more virtual stuff.
00:14:27
Speaker
To me, it's not ideal, but when you work in multiple states, it just simply can't be in person. There's no customer. That would pay me enough to have all of my people come in and meet at a central location. now So from a dollar standpoint, it's just not practical. So we have to use the virtual.
00:14:42
Speaker
Actually, one of the reasons we kind of came up with the podcast and all this video stuff, too, is it allowed another avenue for them to see the owner. to see some of the stuff we stand for, what we preach, what we want. So I think putting yourself out there as much as possible on social, all these other things, especially the new generation, I think they're on there more, and I think they're paying attention to it.
00:15:04
Speaker
They're getting – is it the same as being in person? It's not the same as being a person, but it's better than nothing, and that's what a lot of companies are doing is nothing. So for us, it's taking that time, and it sucks to be – honestly, to do it, to say on – I think ours is on – Tuesdays or Wednesdays? I've drawn a blank. Tuesdays. Tuesdays, yes. It was yesterday. Yes. And so for us, it's hard to say, hey in the middle of your workday, we need you to clock out of the customer's project so now you're non-billable.
00:15:33
Speaker
You need to sit on this 30 to 45-minute safety call. And then foreman, you need now to sit this 30 to 45-minute safety call and then you have lunch yeah so that part i don't love and and most owners won't but that is what keeps the culture going and i will say since we started doing that more heavily three or four years ago a little bit after covid um i've seen a ah great improvement but really what culture comes down to honestly as much as anything is cutting out the cancer yeah So when you have the bad ones, and we've had a few of those, as every company has had over the years, but we've been very active in the last few years about removing that as we see it.
00:16:11
Speaker
Sometimes it takes a minute because it's not easy, and sometimes those people have been with you longer than ever, or they have the absolute most experience on your team. And it makes it difficult, especially in an environment with that where the labor shortage is very, very high. For sure.
00:16:25
Speaker
But overall, I think that's, it's worked for us. Is it perfect? No. It's a lot better than it was, better than our competition probably. Yeah, absolutely. so I was actually on that safety call yesterday. It was yeah that first one. And I really enjoyed how Dan, the guy that led it, it wasn't just safety. He brought in all the guys and specifically would ask the guys questions that were maybe about the culture or maybe about themselves. yeah So he really focused on the personal aspect to bring in that culture yeah instead of just making it a safety call. Yeah, and that's a good point. So that's one thing. i'm glad you brought that up. That's one thing I've noticed with us is a lot of companies safety for so safety is huge in our industry.
00:17:04
Speaker
It's not necessarily in all, but is in ours. And I've noticed a lot of our competitors safety is just a box. It's a form. You fill out this form once a day, you submit it, and it's a bunch of checkbox that you run through with the crew.
00:17:16
Speaker
Well, that's not necessarily a culture. You're doing that because you have to probably because working there is dependent upon it. Getting your next raise is dependent upon it. Culture is engagement. yeah So that's what Dan is doing on those calls. And that's one thing, too, that's very effective on our form of calls is getting that involvement, that engagement conversation going so they're a part of it, not just watching it. So that's good point. yeah
Engaging with the Audience and Community Building
00:17:39
Speaker
Exactly. I was really impressed with that.
00:17:42
Speaker
As you guys may know, we have a Facebook group called The Better Contractor. This is where we are able to engage with you guys, and we want you guys asking questions in that group so we can come on here and we can answer your questions. So if you have questions, go join that group. Go send them in. But we we have two questions here.
Equipment Rates and Entrepreneurial Advice
00:17:59
Speaker
The first one Hey guys, I just picked up this 2013 F750 with a 75-foot elevator boom. I'm adding a tree division to my forestry mowing clearing company.
00:18:10
Speaker
I'm hiring my dad full-time to run the tree side of the company. He has over 30 years in the industry and owned a tree company of his own for 18 years. We are currently working on some potential line clearance or storm response contracts.
00:18:24
Speaker
I have to compile a charge out list for the equipment. I'm looking for a rough idea of what should be charged an hour for the truck, chipper, and chain shells individually. And before it before it is said, I know I will need to acquire more trucks and equipment for a complete line clearance contract. We are crawling back carling before we walk.
00:18:42
Speaker
if every If everything pans out, I plan on adding another truck for six months or so. Thanks in advance. So that is a good question and probably one that a lot of people have been there and done that. So your rate sheet is huge in contracting. So with Lander Corp, we work primarily, I'm going guess 50% on rate sheet, 50% is lump sum. But obviously when you create your lump sum bids, you were using your rate sheet as part of that formula. So We went through and did a drastic, about two years ago, we had our in-house accountant go through and basically just look at every single item of overhead and make sure it was accounted for inside that rate sheet. So what a lot of people do as a mistake is they think, okay, let's say you're leasing a CAT 299 skid steer.
00:19:30
Speaker
They think, okay, my lease payment is this amount per month. It burns approximately this gallon, many gallons of fuel, fuels this much a gallon. I have some insurance costs in there. That is the cost for that item.
00:19:42
Speaker
That's not the cost. That's the cost for the item. That's not the cost for you to do business, though. They think labor. Okay, I'm paying this dude $30 an hour. i have work comp. I have other insurance.
00:19:53
Speaker
I have my portion of employment taxes. That's around this amount. I want 10%, 20% profit. I add that in. The issue is if that's all you do and that is your rate sheet and that's how you factor all of your jobs,
00:20:07
Speaker
Not everything is accounted for. Is your real estate, your buildings, is your leadership management staff, they're obviously non-billable. Are they factored in? There's so many different things that it takes to do business.
00:20:20
Speaker
that if you are not accounting for all of that in your rate sheet, when you go to do that job and you add 10% or 20% to your rate sheet, but you've missed 20% of your overhead being accounted for in that rate sheet, you basically just bid it for free.
00:20:34
Speaker
So the number one thing I would say is go through and look at, if you've been in business at all, you should be able to pull up your most recent profit and loss statement. I would pull that up and look at every expense item and make sure that it's tied back somehow to that rate sheet. The other thing on, so anyways, before I move to the next one, that is going to get you a much more accurate billable rate for those items.
00:20:57
Speaker
Anything labor related needs to be built into the labor costs. So, um, all of your taxes, your work comp. You gotta remember you got general liability insurance. Some of you may have umbrella insurance. You're gonna have potentially in the Marine, you're gonna have your vehicle, you're gonna have auto, you're gonna have all those different insurance that had to be accounted for somewhere in that rate sheet. So make sure you go through that and fine tune that. The other thing a lot of people miss is they only think about when they're doing rate sheets,
00:21:23
Speaker
You either need to build this into your rate sheet or add it as a separate line item, but your mobilization time. So many people think, ah, you know, I'll be on that job. It's 10-hour job. They use the rate sheet, they factor it, boom, they send a bid.
00:21:35
Speaker
Your people have to get there, and your truck has to arrive there. So you have fuel, labor, everything else in order to get it there. So if that if you're a contractor that kind of stays within an hour of your radius, you can build it in your rate sheet and it's super simple cut and dry.
00:21:49
Speaker
If you're like us where you may have a job that's 30 minutes away or you may literally have one that's 13 hours away and you're doing different crew rotations, for us it makes sense. We use that rate sheet, but then we do mobilization and demobilization fees specific to that contract that are line items separately.
00:22:06
Speaker
That way we always have that accounted for as well because lot of people miss that part. But if you're a local contractor and you're staying within your home base, I would just add it to your rate sheet as a as whatever, five bucks an hour, whatever equates to for you.
00:22:18
Speaker
Yep. Awesome. Our last question. I'm only 18 and I just started my company in the middle of last year. First of all, it props to you. You're young. That's awesome. Good for you. I got my equipment on a steal of a deal. I'm just fine i'm just finishing up my first contract with a local power company, clearing for a new power line to go in.
00:22:37
Speaker
In all honesty, I'm not sure how I'll be able to sell myself to this guy to get the contract. I'm only 18, but look much younger, so it is extremely hard to get my knowledge through to the customers.
00:22:48
Speaker
I'm wanting to grow my business more specifically in the direction of clearing for the utility companies. It is one thing to sell a job to a property owner for $5,000 to $20,000. It's much harder to sell myself to a large corporation for $100,000 plus contracts.
00:23:03
Speaker
How do I position myself to land these bigger projects bigger projects at such a young age? Good question. I got give kudos to you for starting the business at 18. For sure. So I started LanterCorp at 24, so six years older but still young.
00:23:19
Speaker
um And I can remember when I started it. being in a room with, and I deal with like major corporations as you are too with power companies. but I remember sitting in a room trying to sell a contract to people who were at least my dad's age, but could have possibly also been my grandparents age and being this young guy. So to be honest, what I did, i was always someone who's acted a little bit older, especially in those situations than I was.
00:23:45
Speaker
At that time, I looked a little bit older too, still do. yeah um But that actually was to my advantage. But if I had to give one, piece of advice, it would be at the end of the day know what your customer wants and market and deliver that. So at the end of the day, I don't really care if I'm doing business. I don't really care what your age is.
00:24:06
Speaker
In some ways, I almost prefer younger because there's more hunger and drive there to get stuff done, sometimes a little quicker response. So you have that little bit of fire, and actually that's going to be your advantage. I would use that as your advantage.
00:24:18
Speaker
Use that fire, that passion, that grit that you're trying to really get this business going, make a name for yourself. Use that. People going to love that. This older generation like myself, we love seeing that in you guys.
00:24:29
Speaker
I'm going to probably want to give you a chance. That leads me to my next point.
Gaining Respect as a Young Leader
00:24:33
Speaker
One of the people that first gave us a chance was exactly that. He's never specifically said it, but i know one of our first major contracts was exactly that. It was a dude who was old enough to probably be my granddad, but definitely a father.
00:24:45
Speaker
And he ended up being someone who kind of mentored quietly in the background. Yeah. who was rough on me throughout, but someone who pushed and pushed and pushed and I think gave me the chance in the beginning because of that hunger that he saw.
00:25:01
Speaker
And I presented myself well and I think he's just like, you know what, this dude, I'm not going to give this guy shot. We did it for him. We probably saved him some money because we were cheap in the beginning, but that ended up being a really good relationship. He has since retired. We still talk, still a mentor. But anyway, I sell it to say most people don't care that much about your age.
00:25:20
Speaker
They're going to want to know that you at least have some experience and ability to to do the job safely and to do it well, especially in the power industry. They want to know that... you when you come upon a hazard tree or a tree with a power line near it that you're not going to get electrocuted that you know what equipment to use in your power lines that you have some sort of safety process in place they're going to to know that stuff so you got to make them feel confident yeah that you are able to bring that to the table even though you do not have experience and that's the other side of that coin age brings experience and i can tell you at 43
00:25:55
Speaker
I hope I still have the balance of the two. I still get that passion and drive, but now I have a lot more experience than I had before. So that is what you're going to have to realize you don't have yet, but hopefully you can make up for it in your passion and drive. um I had another note I wrote down on that one as well.
00:26:13
Speaker
Oh, back to the first point. So with everything in business, the main thing you've got to is learn what the customer wants. So if this customer just wants their power line cleared,
00:26:24
Speaker
It's hard to differentiate yourself on that front. yeah But if you can look at it and say, hey, or find out and dig a little deeper and find out they had these issues with these contractors in the past. Contractor A didn't finish the job on time.
00:26:37
Speaker
Contractor B, maybe they ruined the contract and maybe they walked away from the contract. Contractor C, maybe they brought in a bunch of unskilled, you know,
00:26:48
Speaker
poor labor that just didn't get the job done, or maybe they made a bunch of landowners mad as they went through these different properties clearing right of way. know what their spots and issues have been in the past and then specifically fix them at the end of the day that's really what customers want is someone to fix the issues that they have and if you can position yourself as the hungry young dude that's going to fix it for them to me that's really what's going to matter if it was me in their shoes as long as you meet the basic requirements on safety and knowledge which they're probably going to vet you on that if they haven't already that's going to be my next sell is and why i would do business with you is because like man
00:27:25
Speaker
He's recognized these issues. He's addressing them. I'm going to give this guy a shot because he's the first one walked in that door and actually said, hey, I hear you on these. Those are fixable. Here's what I would do to fix them. If you could do that, I think you'll end business. Yeah.
00:27:37
Speaker
So he didn't ask this, but I have another question that goes along with it. So every young entrepreneur struggles with this. It goes along with being too young for the customer. You're not too young. But what about with employees?
00:27:50
Speaker
For the most part, you are going to hire people that are older than you, that are more knowledgeable in whatever they're hired to do. how do you Going back to the culture, how do you get those older employees to respect you as an 18-year-old leading the company?
00:28:03
Speaker
So for me, I did two things. I used humor. So I referred to some of them as dad and grandpa. i Might as well just call out what it is. yep So we had some fun with that. We would joke around, like, you know, so they would come in, like, hey, dad, hey, grandpa. You know, so we just kind of, you know, so there was that kind of mutual understanding, like, yeah, I'm young. You guys are twice my age.
00:28:21
Speaker
It is what it is. Let's just poke fun at it. So I did that. But then the other thing I did... was I made a huge point to be the absolute best boss I could be. So for me, especially in those first years, they had worked for bosses who kind of view them as a number, who said, I'll get back to you and never did, who's acted like they cared about them, but didn't seem to.
00:28:45
Speaker
So I made a huge effort. Every single time they called or texted, I would respond or I would answer. I would get them what they needed. Um,
00:28:55
Speaker
If I had the opportunity to take them food or donuts or something on the crew visits, I would try to do that. I tried to make them feel like family and I tried to make sure they were heard and understood.
00:29:07
Speaker
And then lastly, I tried to make sure when I call boss, boss answers, boss deals with it. And if and if I didn't know, let's just honest, I don't know, give me an hour and I will find out. yep I was very available and I was very on it. And I think that's what grew their respect was knowing that, Hey, this dude may be younger.
00:29:24
Speaker
But dude, he called me back. He answered my call. He got right back to me within an hour. And that respect is built through that over time. So that's what I did. And i was to me, that works. As someone now who's older, if I had to work for someone younger, you have to build a respect, period. yep So whatever it takes for you to build that respect and trust, that's what you got to do. So...
00:29:46
Speaker
So guys, those are the two questions we pulled
Call to Action and Community Involvement
00:29:48
Speaker
for today. But like I said, the better contractor on Facebook, it's a group. Go request to join. If you have a question you want on this podcast, send it in there.
00:29:57
Speaker
It's also a way for you guys to engage with us. We want you in there. We want to engage with you. And we want to answer your questions. So send those in. Yeah, awesome. Alex, it was a pleasure having you on your first TBC podcast. so and Awesome. But guys, like Alex said, join that TBC Facebook group. If you know of someone who is not in there that needs to be, please invite them and tell them about it.
00:30:17
Speaker
And if this episode was valuable to you, all we ask is that you share it. So guys, until next time, see ya.