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WE"RE BACK
145 Plays3 months ago
Busy season tried to keep us down. We discuss when is it "too much" on big events
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Transcript
Introduction and Early Setup
00:00:03
Speaker
Well, I got up early, got a crew to leave. Sitting up, pulls and ropes, that's a lie for me. From a wedding to a fair, from the field to the town. the one you call you need a 10 up or down.
00:00:16
Speaker
I'm a 10, great old man, I'm working. All right, we're back again with another episode. That song never gets old. It never gets old. You know, we've never played the whole thing for everyone. I know, we need to play
Eventful June and Weather Challenges
00:00:27
Speaker
it.
00:00:27
Speaker
So as you guys see, I got my good pal on here, Kyle again. Kyle, how you doing? I'm alive. i think we're over the hump, Nate. Not yet. June 20th. I think I'm over the hump.
00:00:38
Speaker
I've got, a we'll dig into on this episode of Tailgate Talk here exactly what we all got going on, but it's been a month-long grind, I feel like. May hey was okay. May started it, but then June has just been, the past four weeks has been, I don't want to say miserable, but kind of miserable.
00:00:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's... a Well, in terms of our podcast, we've learned our lesson of not having any prerecorded. but Well, you know, we're doing this well as we go, and we're doing butre doing pretty well from what we're doing.
00:01:09
Speaker
Yeah, and next June will be better. Yeah, so we'll we'll have some time to recoup here in July, believe it or not. So we'll run with it then. But what have you guys had going on? What's been kind of your struggles lately?
00:01:21
Speaker
but We just had some big weddings, and you throw in that on the East Coast, the weather has sucked for three and a half weeks now. So it kind of brings me to some of the questions I want to talk about today because like last weekend, two big weddings, pouring down rain.
00:01:37
Speaker
We had attendance at both of them, but I made the judgment call to just send guys there Saturday morning. Obviously, you're not billing for that and you're just having guys stand there and go, what can I do to make this better for you?
00:01:50
Speaker
i Yeah, I currently have that situation as I'm recording live from ah my made-up studio in the bottom of Titan Stadium in
Big Wedding Preparations
00:01:59
Speaker
Tennessee. We have this big wedding here this weekend that we've been working on since last Friday.
00:02:03
Speaker
And my guys have been either working 24-hour days, two shifts, or last night we worked from about, I'd say, 9 o'clock to 4.30 this morning, and then they came back in at 1 p.m., and then I got to try and convince a couple of guys to sit on site from about three o'clock tomorrow to midnight and then come back at 7 a.m.
00:02:23
Speaker
So I'm running through that same problem where I'm trying to say, I just have them go sit in their hotel and they be on call? But what happens if they fall asleep and they don't show up? So you got a you got an air mattress you put in your office right there. Well, and that's and that's what I told him. I said, if you guys just want to go sit in the office,
00:02:37
Speaker
and that we got here right outside the door, you know, just sit in the office and take a nap. I don't care what you do, just as long as you're there. I think for me, I don't know about you, but it's more of a, just a peace of mind knowing that somebody is on site in case something happens. Although we're not supposed to have any weather here this weekend, knock on wood.
00:02:55
Speaker
It is just, I think a peace of mind for me.
Event Troubleshooting: Equipment and Expectations
00:02:59
Speaker
Much like you, I take a bunch of stuff on my bill that there's nothing to do with me, but everyone looks at you cause they're paying you to handle the air conditioning or the kitchen equipment or any of that stuff. So you're going to get the call, not the company you rented it from.
00:03:12
Speaker
Correct. And you know, this one is, I'm just going to this whole job as a perfect example for everything. We, um, I've got the woodworking on my bill, which when you guys see what this, what this event, this tent looks like when we're done, it is absolutely incredible.
00:03:27
Speaker
Shout out Brian Marsh from Marshmade Designs. He, um, he did a phenomenal job basically wrapping the whole garden tent in, um, blue wood, make it look like Titans blue. And, um,
00:03:41
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, so he's on my bill along with all of the AC that we have on our bill and, um, clear tops. So yeah, it's a clear top garden tent. It's supposed to be 93 degrees at, at the midday tomorrow. Luckily the wedding is around five 30, so it should be a lot cooler. But last night the guys were laying carpet in there and it was frost tops. It was so cold. So what did you um put in for tonnage on this?
00:04:04
Speaker
I can't remember exactly off top of my head. I've got five units in there, but the main thing is I have two trailers of chillers sitting back there. So the chillers are what's really, really doing it right now.
00:04:17
Speaker
So yeah, so we're we're thrilled with everything and how it's going. It's been
Managing Crew and Logistics
00:04:21
Speaker
a grind. Like I said, we we had to get in. We started on Saturday at 2 p.m., Finished up around 11 o'clock laying the frame on Saturday night.
00:04:30
Speaker
Came back in at 7 a.m. m First crew worked 7 to 7 p.m. on Sunday. Got everything in the air. Started pulling tops. Second crew started at 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Got all the tops done. Got all the glass done.
00:04:43
Speaker
By Monday morning, we were... We were finishing putting some doors in, putting flooring in. So we've been on a roll. How many guys per crew?
00:04:54
Speaker
So I actually did, think I did 13 guys per crew. All Chattanooga employees or outsourced? I had eight guys outsourced. The rest were all Chattanooga employees, just to try and mix it up a little bit.
00:05:08
Speaker
So I'd sprinkle in some guys here and there. How was bringing in the outsourced labor to work with your guys? Is there any animosity? No, because we've worked with this company long enough now that everybody gets along, believe it or not.
00:05:21
Speaker
know, I... This went so smooth because all um the guys that I had on site know each other, know each other well, and we've worked with each other so many times between the Chattanooga guys, my Nashville guys. So it's been pretty dang good. So I have been absolutely thrilled with the setup, but just going into what you're saying on when is too much, if the caterer is somehow listening to this podcast, i do apologize, but we've already talked this one out.
00:05:46
Speaker
The caterer for this event, they require a lot. And I mean, it's a, high-end caterer and everything, but they had a guy that showed up with an ice truck to drop an ice chest.
00:05:57
Speaker
And so they they wanted us to move the ice chest for them. Well, No problem, but nobody told me ahead of time. And the ice truck just shows up and I get a text, hey, are you there? Well, we had worked second shift and we were all in the hotel and it was 9 a.m. We're going to start till noon.
00:06:12
Speaker
And i was like, no, nobody's there. So I had to rush in. We had to move the ice chest all the way across the field, put it behind there. Well, the guy barely spoke any English, couldn't tell us what he needed. Then he had a whole pallet, 100 bags of ice that we needed to but to also go across the field. Well, he didn't tell us that before we took the ice chest out.
00:06:32
Speaker
So now we've got to run a pallet of ice after we could have put it in the ice chest, moved across the field after we got it in. Put the pallet, picked pallet up, started driving backwards. The two guys just walk away that were with the ice company and the pallet just breaks and 100 bags of ice are now on the ground on the field. So,
00:06:50
Speaker
Poncho and I are grabbing all the bags of ice and throwing them back up there. We finally, you know, I'm yelling at the ice guys to get their asses over there and start standing there to help us and do something because they're just looking around like they've never seen anything like this before.
00:07:03
Speaker
We finally got them over there to help us. and We got it all on, get it all the way over to the ice machine. And they tell us we can all in there. And they said oh, no. said, what's that? and they said, you're only supposed to get 75 bags.
00:07:14
Speaker
You need to take the rest back to my truck. And I said, you need to take the rest back to your truck. I'm not doing it. And you know, they then went round and rounds with the guy about it. Finally, I told him, I said, I'll drop you at your truck.
00:07:25
Speaker
You are putting it all in there. so And so had to have a little talk to the theater. But, you know, it's one of those things where they look for it. I said to the planner yesterday, i said,
00:07:37
Speaker
I'm not mad about anything, I'm just curious. What would they do if we weren't here? Not just the catering company, but everybody, like from design to catering to everybody.
Weather Woes and Client Challenges
00:07:48
Speaker
What was your initial thoughts when you planned in this e event? what did you What was your idea? so In reality, you ordered a nice chest. How did you think you were getting it across the field?
00:07:59
Speaker
No, they just assume they assumed you were going to do it. Right, right. So you automatically assumed, which they ended up bringing me a bottle of bourbon, so I can't hate on too much after that. But my theory is, why do you but do they just assume?
00:08:11
Speaker
Like, if this needs to be talked about, what if I would have just left? What if would have been gone? What if I wouldn't have been here? And the same goes for... are know we're on the turf so we can't drive 5k out on the field we can't drive four close out on the field unless we have duramats laid down which we discussed playing a duramat roadway which we did and that's what we got out there but now we've got an eight series ox out here and a seven series ox out here and those can run on the field what do you think's happening everybody's asking to use our oxys to move all of their stuff.
00:08:42
Speaker
Because it's much easier. Right. So I didn't let some of the rental companies use them because I know the few rental companies that are doing furniture have their own oxys in the warehouse they didn't want to bring them out.
00:08:52
Speaker
So, We didn't let them use them. But with some of these other guys, we're even United. We're moving United stuff. And granted, they're on my bill. So that's what it is. But still, why didn't you tell me ahead of time?
00:09:05
Speaker
you know And so now I've got my ox running around and everything. and And it was going to be on site anyways. But it's like, what was your plan here? You'll like this one. We did a big wedding and I happened to go there that morning and the groom, no father of the groom is standing outside looking at the back of a box truck and I'm doing the everything. OK, sir. It's like, no, I could use a hand. I'm like, well, what's that?
00:09:27
Speaker
The grand piano. Oh, yeah. Me and him carried it into the tent. The guy who delivered it stood there and watched us. And after so far, was like, what, how, what was your planning? And the delivery guy goes, Oh, I just drop it on the driveway. They can figure out how to get it where it's going to go.
00:09:41
Speaker
Yeah. And I, um, we've had that before too. And it's not just this event. So I'm just using this one as an example here, but and we had another wedding earlier this week and, um,
00:09:52
Speaker
you know Going back to your rain comment, we've had more rain than we've ever had in 100 years, what they said, but I don't think it's stopped raining. We had the NASCAR race, and then I had two – had a big ball.
00:10:03
Speaker
had sprinkling three or four weddings in the middle of there, and then this job here, it's been one hell of a June, and it's just been soaking wet and raining. This wedding that I just recently did, I told them, hey, this is a floodplain. It's going to flood.
00:10:17
Speaker
It's not a good idea to put it here. He said it's never flooded before. It'll be fine. Mind you, it's 20 feet from the creek. Asked me to go over the creek with the tent for the catering tent. Told no.
00:10:28
Speaker
Said it wouldn't flood. Still refused. Well, it ended up flooding out in there. So taking the low lift in there, everything got rutted. Everybody was mad. Yada, yada, yada.
00:10:38
Speaker
I set the expectation up front. They didn't want to listen to my design, how I told them to do it. So I said, fine, I'll do what you want to do. but Just know that I'm not responsible for anything. And I'm setting the expectation up front because I've learned too many times.
Pricing and Profitability Strategies
00:10:50
Speaker
That's what you got to do set it up front. Well, then they bring in a forest that has real trees with the bulbs on the bottom, you know, the huge, like got to be planted trees.
00:11:01
Speaker
And they are about 12 foot tall, maybe 14 foot tall. And they got to get boomed into the tent. Who do you think ended up doing that? You. Yeah. Right. What was the plan? What was the plan?
00:11:13
Speaker
How are you going to get them in the tent? Well, can you build me a ramp? No, I'm not building you a ramp on site right now. I don't have just the material to go bust out a ramp at this moment. And one, do you know what it goes into building a ramp to haul something like that up of that size?
00:11:27
Speaker
You know, and it's great. At the end of the day, we always get the text messages. Like I got a wonderful text last night from the florist just thanking us and how great and of our guys were and how great way we're helping them and i really appreciate that you know give the guys a pat on the backboard but it's that's not their job and now they're out there at nine o'clock at night when they should have left at seven o'clock because they're trying to help everybody else get in the tank and say no because they don't want to piss them off they don't want piss me off but i'm not gonna be pissed well that's the thing is know i'm the same as you i have expectations set all my guys heads you do whatever you have to do to make sure the client's happy
00:11:59
Speaker
Right. At what expense? So, well, that's issue is they don't know where to draw the line. But you know what? I don't know where to draw the line sometimes. I'm on site. What I've been doing is, and I know you and I have had this conversation before, you know, on some of these bigger jobs, I have literally been adding a line item for labor at the bottom.
00:12:15
Speaker
I call it extra labor. So whether it be $6,000 or be $40,000 for this job, it was a lot higher for this wedding that I did. it was a lot lower. I've been putting line item for labor, excuse me, been putting a line item for labor just because I'm nervous and I'm going to lose my butt on this labor stuff.
00:12:33
Speaker
And then that accounts for anything extra. If I have to bring guys in to help out because it's busy time and I know i'm gonna have to bring in added labor or I have to do extra stuff. Now, you know, like I had the a comment from somebody who's like, well, know, we didn't do this or that. I'm not going to get that money back.
00:12:47
Speaker
And I said, absolutely. I will refund you the money, but I need to make sure it's all sales 101. You can always go down on your prices. You can't go up. If you show them a price, you set the expectation up front.
00:13:01
Speaker
You're saying this is what the price is going to be. This is the worst case scenario. It could go down. But there's nothing worse than having to go back to a customer and say, hey, you owe me 20 grand after the event's over and trying to fight with them to get that back. Because God knows you might only, if you see any of it,
00:13:15
Speaker
You might see five grand, might see two grand, or you might not see any. yeah Somehow they forget that they authorized all this stuff the week of their party. Right. And it's the problem is it's in the scramble of things. You you know, you're you got like right now, I'm on the Friday before and we just added turf, six rolls of turf that have shipped up from Dalton, Georgia.
00:13:34
Speaker
and to Tennessee here. I mean, that wasn't cheap. That's a $34,000 charge at the last minute. um So, you know, I had to have that okayed, signed off on, say, hey, you're adding this, sign off on it, and, you know, we're good to go.
00:13:47
Speaker
So, you know, it's just little things like that. But I think that you have to start putting these charges in. And that's where, that's where these, us, at least us, but a lot of the tech companies lose money. I mean, you look at it.
00:14:00
Speaker
But you you don't notice it. That's the thing. No, but you you don't realize you're bleeding. You don't notice until you're, let's say you're in the 50s and you know you're over 50% on labor for the month, quarter, year, whatever you want.
00:14:15
Speaker
Once you get to that number, it's pretty scary. And then you go back and you do, if you really want to break down your job cost after the job and look at everything and see how much money you made or lost, know it's If you look at it, then you can know what you need to do for the future. But it's also like, you know, at the end of the day, we're not going to say no.
00:14:33
Speaker
That's the problem. We treat everything like it's our own. That's half the problem. Yep. Like the one I'm doing that the guy started today, the events next weekend. I've been bamboozled by the guy once already.
00:14:46
Speaker
And I'm going back for more. So everyone stay tuned to see if I get bamboozled twice. I think I got him this time. We'll see. But he's one of those guys who he added a bunch of stuff. And then after it was over, was like, I don't remember any of this.
00:14:59
Speaker
I don't think this all happened. So do you just, I'm almost to the point on some of these ones where it's like, Hey, this is my price. It is what it is. If you don't want to go with me, I totally understand.
00:15:09
Speaker
go with the next guy. i feel like that's almost the way you have to start going. Yeah. Do I want to lose business? I'm not saying that at all. I don't want to lose business. But, you know, and I think there's some there's some stuff here and there that you could go down on it. But I mean, at prime times right now, May and June, we can't be getting shafted on on the money because there's other jobs you're turning down.
00:15:30
Speaker
There's lots of stuff that we're turning down that we can say, hey, we can do this job. But because now I've spent three extra days out on a job set that I shouldn't have had to. you know, the flip side is you might be taking the job and we're guilty of this. And that's, what's throwing you into the additional labor.
00:15:45
Speaker
Like we shouldn't have taken the job in the first place. So if we're going to take it, we should charge enough to do it. So do you have a lot of those jobs? Cause we've been looking at some of that stuff and we tried, we've cut out a couple on this past year. And then every year I feel like we cut one or two jobs out that we have either been doing for years and we haven't gone up on pricing because we,
00:16:05
Speaker
wanted the business or, you know, is there yearly jobs, reoccurring jobs that you guys do that you've gone up on pricing that you're losing or that you're saying no to? Yes. Every year we we weed out two or three of them. And it's to the point where... But have you felt the effects of it?
00:16:21
Speaker
Not really because you're... One, you're either raising the price and you're actually making a profit on the job, which you weren't. Some of ours came from when we acquired another company. So it does take time to get, you can't go from the low baller to ah the expensive guy over in one year. So there's a five year differential it takes, it seems like to get you to where you're on pricing.
00:16:42
Speaker
But it's to the point where we've just decided we want to be profitable on every job. So you have to make sure you're making money. And if you're not, well, Someone out there is either going to do the work or they're going to realize that no one else can do the job and they have to hire you.
00:16:55
Speaker
Which is a lot of these bigger companies that will then swoop in because they don't look at the bottom line for the year versus the bottom line on a job. That's kind of my theory is you you cut out a $100,000 job that you probably weren't even making.
00:17:08
Speaker
20% on, you know, at the end of the day, and you take a maybe, let's say a $30,000 job, and you're making 40% on that job, it might be smaller.
Job Selection and Project Focus
00:17:19
Speaker
But is it how far away is it?
00:17:20
Speaker
How much labor is it? And so i mean, if you really want to look at it that way, some of these jobs are not as nearly as profitable, even though it's big, it's not nearly as profitable because of how much labor you have.
00:17:32
Speaker
Well, I fight with my office all the time. I'm a can't freaking stand the $2,500 party. I know you guys don't do that stuff. We still dabble in it. And it drives me nuts. Cause I'm like, there's, they go up on Fridays. They come down on Mondays on Friday by Thursday at noon, everyone's on overtime.
00:17:51
Speaker
So you're losing your ass from the start, no matter what. And those clients are the biggest pain in the ass compared to the guy who's going to spend 200 grand. Well, yeah, that has been, that's been an Achilles heel for me is, you know, I don't mind taking some of those $2,500 jobs. We don't have anything going on the month of July or, but the problem is during a busy time, like you see a day or an opening for like one or two days you're like, I can just fill it with this about 30, you know, whatever, $2,000 job just to,
00:18:24
Speaker
pay for payroll that day right and you take it but what happens now that child that should have taken three hours either takes all day or a day and a half because they complain something's got moved something doesn't look right it's messed up it always always comes back to bite me yep that's the one where the guys forget the fitting and they're 30 minutes away i've just i told my father this the day we were talking i was like it's inevitable brian by the middle of june loads are going to start getting messed up. We are all tired.
00:18:52
Speaker
We can't think anymore. but like it's We're just in go mode all the time. It's constant chaos here. And those are the jobs where you end up losing your ass because those are the ones that get messed up the most.
00:19:04
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, I know. I know. And that's why i like the bigger jobs because you have a little bit more leeway, longer timeframe.
Tent Setups and Supplier Coordination
00:19:11
Speaker
Although this one, everybody was on our heels to get done.
00:19:15
Speaker
um know you called me in a frantic panic. Oh, yeah, I know. Well, one of the reasons were I weighted a sailcloth tent on a Fred's sailcloth tent. And let's just say that that and just had me a little nervous.
00:19:30
Speaker
I did, for all you guys out there listening that want to ridicule me for this, I did deal with the engineer and we did put the correct amount of weight on every pole. It was engineered for 70 mile an hour wind gusts.
00:19:44
Speaker
So we put enough weight on it right around 60, 65 mile an hour wind gusts. And we had right at on, I think it was Thursday, we had 60 mile an hour wind gusts come through the field and whip around.
00:19:59
Speaker
I was sitting on the floor in the tunnel by myself, just praying and watching and praying and watching and shout out Ramsey. Cause I was on the phone with him also praying and watching. And that thing did not move, did not flinch.
00:20:11
Speaker
um The only thing that it did was blew two of the flags off the top of the poles, but Shout out Fred and everybody over at Fred's for sticking with me on the engineering for that, making that happen.
Current Updates and Time Zone Anecdote
00:20:23
Speaker
And yeah, it just made me feel really good. did you put the flags back on? You know, they really want me to. And I got to find them because they're somewhere on the field after they blew away.
00:20:33
Speaker
And I have not gone back to find them yet. And I've been I have looked around, but I haven't found them yet. but It hasn't been a big priority on your checklist. No, it hasn't. a But the guys, we started laying carpet last night. Like I said, nine o'clock got off at 430 this morning and everybody started at 1 p.m. today. So we, I was in here about nine o'clock and so we're on the struggle bus a little bit.
00:20:55
Speaker
We just got, and we're not doing much today. Just finishing up some stage, walkways, carpet stuff on some walkways, but yeah. That is at the priority more than yeah out of the flags right now. So I'm hoping that they just forget about it. Yeah, we'll see.
00:21:10
Speaker
But all in all, everything went well with that. two days ago i didn't realize what time zone i was in and kyle's on eastern and i've been on central and i um been checking in i left him for an hour on red but uh i guess i was sitting here ready to record by myself if it makes you feel better i've been in nashville since last thursday wednesday thursday and i'm leaving sunday or monday and um luckily my wife is just Amazing.
00:21:38
Speaker
And she brought, you know, our youngest one up last weekend for Father's Day so that she can be with us this weekend just so they can hang with me. But she was trying to, she f flew to Ohio yesterday and then flew back from Ohio yesterday and then brought our daughter up here.
00:21:55
Speaker
Then I had to navigate the the dogs, put them at doggy daycare. Well, all that to say, what I'm going with the timeframe on this is, I forgot that I also scheduled the dog groomer to come in at five o'clock. Then the dogs had to be to the doggy daycare by six o'clock while i was looking at my watch. And I was like, oh, it's only 4.30, five o'clock.
00:22:11
Speaker
And They're two hours early. And she was like, yeah, okay, we'll get it done. And so the dog daycare calls me and is like, hey, are they coming? I was like, yeah, I got an hour left. She's like, no, it's six o'clock. Holy shit. I've been on central time the whole time.
00:22:24
Speaker
So I didn't just do it to you. I've done it to the dog groomer. I've done it to the babysitters. I've done it to my wife. So I need to go back in normal time zone and in my own bed and I'm ready to go home.
00:22:35
Speaker
So... With that, hopefully we'll be recording from ah back in Chattanooga where I can take a breath next week after this is done. We only have four days to get this out. All right. Well, good luck. Talk to you soon, man.
00:22:46
Speaker
talking