Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
50 Episodes In: How We’re Helping Contractors Build Their Business Success!
51 Plays2 months ago
It's our 50th episode! Brent Oberlink takes a step back in this episode to reflect on the mission behind The Better Contractor. With a focus on elevating the blue-collar contracting space, Brent discusses the podcast’s goals: helping contractors break into the eight-figure revenue range, building a supportive community, and tackling industry challenges together in a community. He also talks about the strategies behind Lanracorp and The Better Contractor's success, including the growth of our new private Facebook group, the value of the podcast as a learning resource, and the upcoming opportunities for business coaching and consulting. Listen in for insights that could change the trajectory of your contracting business.
#TheBetterContractor #MilestoneEpisode #BlueCollarBusiness #ContractorSuccess #IndustryInsights #BusinessCoaching #Entrepreneurship #Trades #Contractors #SkilledTrades #BuildingCommunity #Podcast #LandscapingPodcast #VegetationManagement #Contracting
Recommended
Transcript
Celebrating Milestones
00:00:00
Speaker
So welcome back to another edition of the Better Contractor. So I cannot believe it, but this our 50th episode. So we are about one year in because we drop about one per week. So on this episode, I want to kind of just take a step back.
00:00:13
Speaker
fro welcome back to another edition of the better contractor so i cannot believe it but this is our fiftieth episode so we are about one year in because we drop about one per week so on this episode i wanted to kind of just take a step back and talk a little bit about our why and our how and what we're doing and how we've pivoted a little bit. If you guys, you guys are mostly business owners that listen to this.
00:00:36
Speaker
So you get pivoting, you get, you know, looking back and say, Hey, this worked, this didn't, what is the path forward? So our main goal of this podcast is to elevate the contracting space, the blue collar space as a whole.
Personal Success Journey
00:00:49
Speaker
Um, as someone who has been in this game, gosh, 17 years as a business owner, A couple of years prior to that in the space, similar industry I'm in now. And then the entire time before that as a farm kid from central Illinois, that's all I've ever done is basically blue collar, field type work, heavy equipment.
00:01:11
Speaker
And I love it. And it's something that has provided for me well over the years. Atlanta Corp is an eight figure company. So not small, not huge right there in the middle. um But either way, that's something that a lot of business owners never make it to is that eight figure mark.
00:01:25
Speaker
We've made it there. It's been good to us. And we want to see others make it there. So kind of our whole goal with this is to help those contractors that are in that six to seven figure range, one, two, three, five million a year, which is a whole lot of contractors.
Goals for Contractors
00:01:41
Speaker
We want to help them get to that eight figure range. The other thing we want to do is to try to help everybody make more money. the one One issue in this industry that we see all the time is we're all undercutting each other, and I hate that.
00:01:54
Speaker
And you'll see us missing that a lot different podcasts. So the blue-collar industry is something that could be profitable. It's something that you can make very, very good money on. It's something you can be proud to do. So I want to take a step back, and let's just look at our why.
00:02:09
Speaker
So number one, one of the first things that we noticed is that contractors were struggling. There's a whole lot of contractors out there that they know how to do their trade, and they know how to do it really well.
00:02:21
Speaker
They left where they worked. They started their own business. The issue is they didn't know how to run a business. That's where companies like us come into play. We want to help you actually do help you to run your business in a way that is profitable, that it becomes a machine that you guys can then make a lot more money, hire two, three, four, five crews, whatever that looks like as far as your dream.
00:02:41
Speaker
We want to help you get there. So it's not a struggle for you.
Advocating Blue-Collar Careers
00:02:45
Speaker
Number two, we want you to make more profit. Like I said, in the intro, We undercut and we underbid each other all the time.
00:02:53
Speaker
That is an issue in the industry, and that's partially because there's too many newbies in the industry. And those newbies think the only way they can make money is to undercut all of us people that spend it longer.
00:03:06
Speaker
That's a flawed way of thinking, and it hurts the entire industry. So we want to bring awareness to that, teach all of you guys, ourselves included, we we battle this as well, how to price jobs in a way that you can stay in business over a long time, that you can pay your guys well, and that you can make the profit that you need to on your books.
00:03:24
Speaker
Number three, want to bring awareness and make this a career, not just a job.
Community Building Efforts
00:03:29
Speaker
For whatever reason, in the blue collar space for a long time was viewed as something, as a job, as a stepping stone, something that you did in your 20s, and then you need to go to college and do all these other things to make money. And the fact is, college is fine. I'm not dissing that.
00:03:45
Speaker
But the fact is you can make really good money here as well. And that's what we want to bring awareness to, that the trades industry as a whole can be something that you can make six, seven figure actually doing.
00:03:56
Speaker
um That it is something that you should be proud to do, doing it as a trade, as a craft, as a skill. Instead of just a job, we want to help bring awareness to that. There was like Mike Rowe has done a really good job of bringing awareness to this as well on TV and it commercials and stuff like that.
00:04:13
Speaker
of just basically elevating the blue collar trades and that's what we want to do. Number four, we want to impact this industry for the better. In anything, when you want to make impact, you need to have a voice.
00:04:26
Speaker
So one of the reasons we started the podcast was to have a voice. You cannot bring awareness, you cannot elevate issues, you cannot bring community together if you do not have a voice. So that's kind of our four whys. And of course, this will change as time goes on.
00:04:40
Speaker
But this 50th episode was a great time to kind of look back and say, hey, what are we doing? What's our goals here? What's our purpose? So next, I want to look at the how. How do we plan to elevate the contracting space?
00:04:52
Speaker
Number one, we want to build a community through a private Facebook group. That is something that has taken off a lot. we I think we started it, no, i what, five, six weeks ago?
00:05:03
Speaker
And we're at 210 members already, I believe, this morning when I looked. That's pretty good growth in a fairly short amount of time. And that's that's actual engaged members. That's not, I mean, everybody in there is a contractor.
00:05:15
Speaker
You'll answer three simple questions. We'll verify that you are actually legit. Let you in that community.
Mentorship & Networking
00:05:20
Speaker
um Inside that community, too, which is, I've done this on purpose inside that community. We've invited some finance experts, people that I trust and know. We've invited some marketing people that I trust and know.
00:05:31
Speaker
um we recently invited a guy that's more on the exit side of that. So if you're building your business and you're like hey, I'm 60 years old, my kids don't want this, I need to exit, he's someone in that group that can help you with that.
00:05:44
Speaker
So we're building that private community, not only for those people, but the other thing is, i didn't really have a mentor when I started this. And stuff like this didn't really exist 17 years ago.
00:05:56
Speaker
It was more in person, so you had to have an in-person mentor, which is awesome if you can find one of those, by all means do it. But there's so much you can learn from these private Facebook groups and online communities. But what my point with that is, I've been in the game for 17 years.
00:06:10
Speaker
There's going to be somebody on this group that's been in the game for 30 years. They've been right where I'm at. They have been in my shoes and they've dealt with something that I may be struggling with right now. So if I can get in that group and ask that question and that person will answer, that's going to be hugely beneficial to me to navigate through these waters I'm dealing with now.
Evolving Podcast Platform
00:06:30
Speaker
Flip that. If I'm the old guy and there's some new guy in here, maybe I'm struggling with social media and engagement and all this stuff. and I just like, you know what? This isn't my thing. I don't know what I'm doing.
00:06:41
Speaker
Maybe I can get in and ask a a question and maybe someone younger can actually help me. So it's a networking group, private Facebook group to help you guys connect, learn from each other, answer questions.
00:06:53
Speaker
Number two, the podcast. Obviously the podcast is free. But the goal with it, and this is something, when we first started, I'll just be honest. when we first started, it I didn't really want to do it. This is not my thing to get up here and talk.
00:07:06
Speaker
um I still don't necessarily love that part, but what I have loved is having industry experts on and the networking that it has provided. So the goal, and I think you'll probably see if you've listened to the last several, the podcast are doing kind of two different things. One, they may be very to the point, bullet-pointed,
00:07:25
Speaker
Almost kind of like, hey, this is, a specific you know, if you're scrolling through there, you're like, I need to find a topic of this that I'm struggling with. Hopefully, you know, especially as we get closer to episode 100, you're going to be able to scroll through there and be like, bam, right there or something I'm struggling with right now.
00:07:40
Speaker
I got a 20-minute drive to work. I'm listening to this on my way to work. And hopefully that gives me some nuggets of wisdom to implement once I get there. There's going to be those type. I personally love those type. The second type will be more of a Q&A interview style, probably 45 minutes to an hour.
00:07:56
Speaker
I've grown to love those a lot too, especially that we've really gotten some great guests. um The past few we filmed, we actually filmed one this morning with someone I thought was phenomenal in the safety field.
00:08:08
Speaker
So those podcast episodes are something that gives you access to someone. Like I've had a couple that speak on national stages, so you would normally have to pay to attend ah speaking event from them.
00:08:22
Speaker
And the podcast is free. So there's so much opportunity there for you guys to get knowledge, to listen to these industry experts that normally would pay that you had to pay to see.
00:08:34
Speaker
So the podcast is something that for me has been hugely beneficial. There's so much learning I've done prior to starting TBC back when it was just Landon Corp only that helped me through like COVID and all the other stuff, finding podcasts that dealt with specific topics for me to navigate through those waters.
Introducing Paid Services
00:08:51
Speaker
Number three, Offering solutions for contractors. So obviously we see issues in the industry. We don't want to just be doing stuff for free. yeah You guys all know that that is not a long term business model. So we had to do some stuff that is paid.
00:09:04
Speaker
So kind of one of the first things we did was marketing. We saw that there was a lot of you out there that do a great job ah doing what you do, but you kind of suck at telling your story.
00:09:15
Speaker
So the video stuff was something that immediately we thought, hey, we're actually really good at that. We've got a great video team here. um So we wanted to offer that to you guys first. So one of the first things we did was actually offer marketing.
00:09:27
Speaker
And for the clients that have picked up on that, like to me, there's a huge difference in the appearance, their storytelling and all of that through their social. Second part of that was one-on-one business coaching.
00:09:38
Speaker
That is something that I love because I'm more in depth and I like that one-on-one stuff. that it is still very fairly new to us. So like I said in the beginning, line of corp is eight figure.
00:09:51
Speaker
There's a whole lot of you listening that are not at eight figure. I'm someone who will be offering some coaching and in the near future to help you get to that
Consulting & Training Focus
00:10:00
Speaker
stage. So again, I'm thinking from like looking at our listenership, 80 to 90% is probably in that seven figure range. And even some still in the six figure.
00:10:11
Speaker
So the eight figure is a huge goal that a whole lot of you want to get to. And I want to see you get to. So I've loved entrepreneurship since I was a tiny guy.
00:10:22
Speaker
um Literally tried to sell stuff from a young age. Involved with a local CEO program that helps high school seniors basically learn the business world, get involved in a community, speak in front front of people.
00:10:37
Speaker
There's so much opportunity. freedom to be had with entrepreneurship. I want to see you guys grow your business. I love watching it. I love helping with it. I've done it for free for a long time, but I can't keep doing for free.
00:10:49
Speaker
So one-on-one business coaching will be something you'll see from us in the future. Consulting for organizations, that's something that's still pretty new, but we do plan to offer it. So if there's an organization that's struggling with something very specific, so maybe their internal team is like, we have been trying to build an employee culture. We've been trying to fix our marketing. We've been trying to scale, but we just have not been able to.
00:11:12
Speaker
In those moments, a lot of organizations will say, hey, it is time for us to look outside of the box, time for us to look outside of our internal people. And that is where we will come into play. If it is not something that we feel, hey, we can help you with more than what you already got, then we'll tell you no.
00:11:28
Speaker
It is something we plan to offer. We have an awesome safety team marketing team. I've got a bunch of business experience. We will help you guys grow. Last on that point is training onboarding. This was kind of the original bread and butter.
00:11:43
Speaker
So when TBC started, it goes back. I don't know if I even explained this in the first episode, but the reason we originally started, it was more podcasts and the training onboarding. But back during COVID, Lanocorp, my contracting company, we realized that there's a lot of time spent simply in just doing the very, very, very basic training and onboarding.
00:12:05
Speaker
And it didn't allow for us to do as much advanced training as I would prefer to do. So was like, you know what, all this basic stuff, we should create videos. We originally, we actually tried to find that online from someone else who already had it.
00:12:19
Speaker
The issue being most of those are 45 minutes to an hour for each specific topic. Super, super boring. And to be honest, most of my guys didn't watch it. I think it just set in the background why they watch TV.
00:12:31
Speaker
The test are easy the end. They did the test and moved on. Our goal with this was to create something that is literally 7 to 15 minutes max. Engaging. It's out in the field. It's shot by people who are out in the field as well.
00:12:46
Speaker
And create content that you actually want to listen to. you actually don't mind watching it. That's actually engaging. And you actually learn from it. So that's what we started with that still exists. And we will continue to grow that out as that, as that as needed.
00:13:02
Speaker
Uh, right now that's mostly lawn landscape tree, a little bit of basic stuff for any contractor that we do plan to build that one out. And that is something huge. You know, we've preached and on some of the podcasts, but the nice thing about that employees want training and they want to continue to grow and they want a path up the ladder.
00:13:22
Speaker
Training onboarding, whether you buy it from us or you do it in house or you buy it from somewhere else, it is actually critical to that because it allows you to onboard a brand new employee to a standard of some kind.
00:13:34
Speaker
A lot of companies will just bring people on, they put them out the workforce and they wonder why crew A is so much different than B, different than C. It's because there was no standard set in the very beginning. The ongoing training, hopefully if you do this right,
00:13:48
Speaker
You will go in and allow and give your employees like, hey, if you complete these different trainings, that will allow you for this amount of pay bump. So you're giving them a ladder to go up. So that's where the training onboarding comes in. And hopefully that will also help retain.
00:14:02
Speaker
You know, if they feel like you're engaged in investing in them, employees are more likely to stay. And at the end of the day training onboarding hopefully lowers workplace safety incidents, which any of you who pay your work comp bills, you know how important that is.
Networking Advantages
00:14:18
Speaker
Number four, networking with industry pros and titans. Basically, the whole thing here, it goes back to the podcast. It goes back to the community. It is so, so important for networking.
00:14:29
Speaker
um I can't tell you how much in just the past year having this has allowed for my networking to be so much better, even inside of Lanocorp. We've switched marketing firms. We've switched who we do our financing with.
00:14:41
Speaker
We may switch who we do our insurance with. All because of the network inside of this group already. And we're just getting started. With that, we want to bring awareness to issues that face all of us.
00:14:53
Speaker
Ways to fix it. Who to work with. How to navigate those waters together. So guys, as I kind of wrap this episode up, The whole goal of TBC is to elevate the contracting space as a whole so that you can make more money. You can scale your business. You can grow your business.
Community Engagement Call
00:15:09
Speaker
You can fix whatever issues you got going on. This is something that I hope you guys find value in. If you are a contractor, most likely you have other contractor friends. Please ask them to join the Facebook group. Listen to podcast.
00:15:23
Speaker
The last point here is we ah oftentimes on our stories will ask for questions for the podcast. Jump in there, direct messages, whatever it is. If you guys have someone you're like, man, he needs to interview this guy, the podcast, it'd be a huge benefit for him and other people listening.
00:15:39
Speaker
Send us that person's name, tell us what they do, tell us their expertise. Or if you guys have a question for me or a question for our guests, definitely let us know that so we can jump on and actually answer stuff that you guys want to hear.
00:15:51
Speaker
So guys, please, please, please share the podcast, jump on that Facebook group, get involved. Let's help each other. Let's elevate the contract to space and help everybody grow.