Business Innovators Radio - Episode 26: The Blocking & Tackling of Running a Construction Company with Les O’Hara

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

The best athletes and business leaders in the world have one common denominator – a great coach! Serial entrepreneur, business & high level athletic coach and construction owner veteran Les O’Hara will share his experiences from the gridiron to the conference table! Learn about his secrets and mistakes from his experiences owning and managing 12 businesses through the years. Topics such work-life balance, time management, leadership, cash-flow management and marketing will all be discussed.Jeremy & Les will discuss how their coaching experiences are translating to the business world! You don’t want to miss this fun, in person live show!In The Zonehttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/in-the-zone/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/episode-26-the-blocking-tackling-of-running-a-construction-company-with-les-ohara

Welcome to In the Zone and Construction Executives Live, brought to you by U.S. Construction Zone, bringing you strategies for success with construction innovators and change makers, including In the Zone peer-nominated national award winners. Here's your host, Jeremy Owens. Hey there, welcome back to Construction Executives Lives. I'm your host, Jeremy Owens, owner and founder of U.S. Construction Zone and three generations improvements. As you can tell, I have a little different setup today. I have a guest all the way from Chicago. Chicago, not Illinois. Rolling Meadows. Outside of Chicago? Yeah. Okay.

And he made a trip out here. We're having a great week together. We're going to go to this SAC State football game on Saturday. Stingers up. His son plays for the team, my alma mater. So we're going to have a great week. So thank you so much for being here. It's a little different today.

So I'm not going to get into too many updates on U.S. Construction Zone. Just wanted to let you know to stay tuned because we do have a lot of cool things coming. as the last couple weeks and a couple months we've talked about our sponsor Bill 12 and he is the owner of Bill 12 and I wanted to just let you guys know build12.com slash USCZ and you're going to be able to book a time slot with less right here so do that today and he'll show you a little bit more about the app and how it works great so today we have a great show it like I said it is different it's live in person

You know, it's different when you're live and you're by yourself, you know, but live and with somebody else. It's not scary, but it's fun. It makes you feel alive. This is what we do, right? So today we're going to be talking about the blocking and tackling of running a construction company coming from two coaches. We have a real professional coach and we have a very young, an unseasoned coach here. We're going to talk a little bit about our coaching experience and how it's translated into the business world. into construction especially.

You know, obviously we talk a lot about coaching, you know, the best athletes in the world. You have sons that are really good athletes. They need good coaching. And the reason that I coached when I was a kid or I wanted to coach is that I had poor coaching when I was growing up. And I wanted to make sure that my son didn't have those experience because I quit sports because of the coaches. And so I wanted to create that environment.

So that's a lot of what we're going to talk about today is how you need a great coach and business life. So we'll talk about that in a second. So I want to talk a little bit about LES' background and then we'll get right into it. He is a serial entrepreneur. I mean, serious, business coach, short-term rental experts. One of Lest's most notable achievements was leading an HVAC restoration company from its humble beginnings to being recognized as a national franchise of the year for two. consecutive years. Currently, Les owns and manages a masonry company North Shore Brickwork, overseeing its operations in under 20 hours a week. Under his leadership, the company achieved an

impressive $4 million in revenue in 2022, a testament to his ability to drive success while maintaining an optimal work-life balance. Beyond his professional accomplishments, Les is a youth and high school football coach with a career record of 88 wins and 15 losses. you think about the wins more, the losses. The losses. I knew it. Yes, cultivated excellence on and off the field, and this is my favorite part. However, Les considers his greatest achievement to be his dream project, his loving family.

For the past 30 years, he has been blessed with an amazing wife and incredible four boys. So thank you so much, Les, for coming all the way from Illinois to Folsom, California. Please help me welcome Les O'Hare at Les. Thanks, man. I'm honored to be here. Thanks for being here. Appreciate it, Matt. This is new.

So let's get into it. Tell us a little bit about your background in construction. So my father was a former police lieutenant in Chicago. And as I was growing up playing sports, his little roofing company that he moonlighted was always the sponsor of our sports teams. So 100%. I grew up with that. And when I went to college, got married. went into financial planning and decided I couldn't make enough money to feed my family.

So I had to call dad up and say, hey, I'm coming home to work just for a year in the roofing business. And then I'm heading back out and getting on with our life. That was 30 plus years ago. And so I'm still doing it. Love it. Grew up in the family roofing business. And from there, once I cracked the coat a little bit, but I get bored and started all these other companies.

Ah, got it, got it. Yeah, I feel the same way. So tell me a little bit about your athletic career. You kind of, you took the football pretty early, and then you went to Minnesota, right? Yeah, so growing up in Chicago, didn't know any better, never took vacations. We were totally a city boy. So, a senior year of high school, they moved me to quarterback, never played quarterback since probably youth football.

And I had an incredible year. We were the city champs in Chicago. Okay. And I started getting scholarship offers. I started having some of the best coaches in the world come into my house. Tom Osborne of Nebraska. That's legit. Lou Holtz, he was at Minnesota.

Okay. So he offered me a scholarship, and I went and visited Nebraska, which was a farm town, you know, the tallest woman with the stadium. So, and then I went to Twin Cities, Minneapolis, and that was like a robust city. Sure. Used to that. So you know what the city boy shows, right? And, um, uh, just had a an incredible time going there. I'm the first one in my family to, uh, go to college. Okay. Get a degree. Um, and I learned so much, uh, in Minnesota from this next level of coaching. Yeah. Awesome. So that led to.

obviously family four boys. We fast forwarding quite a bit. But then you started coaching. So did you start coaching them when they were little boys? And like you always knew you wanted to coach that kind of thing. Yeah. So you brought up a interesting thing. Yeah.

The main reason that I wanted to coach my boys at the beginning was I didn't want them to lose their passion for a sport. Like you quit because you had a bad coach. Totally. And the first couple of years, as I was getting involved with youth sports and seeing there's a bunch of Yahoo's out that are coaching. It's incredible my yos.

Oh, my goodness. Yeah, yeah. So I just said, every one of my boys, I'm going to coach them in almost every sport. Sure, we could. Sure. That began my quest of coaching and then falling in love with, you know, mentoring and, you know, designing. Yeah, it's a strange. a strange world, that coaching world. It is kind of a fraternity a little bit. You start to get to

know each other. There's camaraderie. You're like, you almost feel like you're playing the sport a little bit, you know. It kind of got rid of some of my competitive juices that I needed to get rid of, right? I needed to still have an outlet for me. It was coaching. So I wasn't getting pissed at the Monopoly game because I was getting pissed out in the field a little bit, you know? So I think a lot of guys do need that outlet. So it's, it was important for me. But like you said, it's about kind of. customizing your kids' experience and making sure they have a good one. And doesn't necessarily mean you're the best coach in the world. It just means that you have a positive outlook and they're like wanting to play because it's fun.

And it is fun. It is. Right? You can make it fun. Yeah. No matter how hard you. I was a really hard coach, but I made it fun too. Sure.

Sure. You have that balance. Sure. Yeah. No doubt. So how do you think that coaching experience, you know, as you started entering the workforce, and you had kids, you're like, okay, I need to start kind of figuring out all these businesses you're going to create. How do you think that really translated to the business world for you?

So what I think translated for me was even though I was raised in athletics and then went to some of the highest level, got coached by some of the highest level coaching, when I started in business, I didn't have a coach. So I was really flailing. Sure. I was making every mistake in the book because I didn't really have a playbook to follow. Right. So one thing that really helped me was early in my career, two main milestones. One is I read the book, the e-myth, and specifically how to build systems and processes into your business. Right. So that's really a playbook.

Sure. So I got mentored by a coach, Tom Bardeen from the E-Mith. He's no longer with us, but he's from California. Okay. And he taught me the building blocks of how to run a business. Nice. So that was definitely the first step. And then the second is I was now starting to realize,

there is a formula for running the business that matched up with what I learned in college athletics, which was every practice was detailed down to the minute. Oh, yeah. And what you're going to do. So that had to be applied now into the business life. And so once I cracked a couple of those things and started learning the plays, things got a lot easier in running business. So do you, did you do that?

Do you still do that today? Do you block your time to that level of degree where you're like, you know, these first two hours, I'm going to be doing this? And with multiple business, I imagine you kind of have to, right? Yeah, I think that's where I blow away a lot of my friends and people I coach when they see my calendar. Because I am not very analytical and I'm not, what's the word? I'm loose. I'm adaptable. One of my sentences, things change. You're not rigid.

Not rigid. Okay. But you look at my calendar. It's rigid as hell. It's rigid because if what you learn from high-level athletics is that they detail every five minutes. What are we working at? And where are we going after that? And then what are we trying to do?

So a lot of my success. coaching was building this structure of how what are we going to get accomplished today in practice and um i do that in my business world is like what do i need to get accomplished it's the big rocks you know those two or three things you got to get done but if you don't schedule them in there you're you're never going to get them done your phone's going to ring um you know your field superintendent's going to tell you you got to get out you know there's a problem i i definitely have that issue. Construction does in general, right?

Where it's just like you have your plan, you have your to do list, and then, you know, that call happens and that fire you need to put out. And before you know, your day is hijacked. And then at the end of the day, you don't feel like you've accomplished. Even if, even though you did things, it just felt like busy work. And then you're, you're right back to the next day and you're like, shit, my to do list looks exactly the same as yesterday. And you're like, so yeah, I mean, it's everything just got to move.

Just yeah. And then a year goes bypassed. And then your yearly goals, you're like, next year, you may get to those. So how do you book those kind of loft your goals, whether they're yearly goals or whatever, how do you make sure those kind of make it in the calendar so that you're just not, you know, forgetting about that whole thing? Super great question. I'll tell you on an individual basis and what you should be doing on the business basis.

So on the individual basis, every day I make it a point to actually put what happened that day. So I have my plan going into the day, but then it changes. You had to take a call, you had to do this. And so I edit it, so I have the actuals. So now I'm able to, at the end of the day, see what I was planning on doing versus what actually happened. It really gets powerful when you use Google Calendar and you can look at the week view. And so I use color codes.

Sure. Me too. Yeah. So right now, you know whatever code you should be doing, you can look real quickly how much time did you do that. And so when I coach my clients, I want to look at your calendar. Yeah. And I want to tell you, we're going to find out real quick what's the top priority. Right.

And if there's things that are sidetracking you, then we have to build some things individually. But now on the business side, what I've learned. great book, I suggest, because we're going to talk about favorite books. I'm going to give you a secret. One is the e-muth. The other is rocket fuel. Rocket fuel. Yeah.

Owners like you and me, we're visionaries, but we usually need someone that is raining us back and keeping us organized. So one of the key things that we help our clients install is these things called the level 10 meeting. We call it now to level 12. So one of the big things there is what are your 90-day priorities, the big rocks. Those three or five things that is going to move the business, the biggest lever. So if you're doing that on the business level, at least once a week, saying here's what

we say is a top priority. Well, it's going to get a little crazy if every week you're meeting with your team and you're never doing those. Yeah. So it's going to get done. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, you kind of said it there, though. You need those people to rein you in. And I've also struggled to find the people to take your visions and put them into action, right? Yeah. Because, like, one of my favorite things to do is to think of the ideas. Right? Yeah. I have the great ideas.

Yeah. But to be able to have somebody, you know, as your right-hand man, And, you know, I kind of lost mine in 3G, so I'm flailing a little bit on that side. So I need people to take my ideas into action, and I've struggled with that my entire life. Sure. It's just like, I have all these places where I have my ideas, but I don't have enough time to implement them. And I really think they're great ideas. So how do you go about funding them?

And I guess, have you found them in all your businesses, or do you struggle with that, too? with a varied amount of success. So it hasn't been probably to the last four years that I've really dialed in this process of finding this person. And according to the book, Rocket Fuel, we're the visionaries, we're the idea people. We need the integrators,

which is the people that can actually get the ideas executed, but also be the ones that say, this one, hey, you said this was important. I'm still trying to get this done. Right. Because we're already, you know, down that long. So what's interesting is the formula that I found is that there's great people. They might not be in your local market, but they're out there that have business experience

that are very organized that are the antithesis of us. Yeah. That would love to work with someone like us and organize us and keep us on track and help us go. Right. So all of my businesses, I've always installed this kind of person first. I call them chief of staff. And we're really building a business model around the coaching practice of finding these people because the biggest thing for us as construction owners, we don't have this person.

Everything is coming through us. Now, if you have a office manager, that could be that person. Right. If you give them more responsibilities. Right. Usually it's a unique skill set that is called the integrator. And there's tests and things that we can dial in for you to get that. But every one of my companies, I have that person that is integrating my ideas.

So what's, yeah, it's, yeah, what's interesting, we talked about the West and Idaho and I love for that area. Sure. So my masonry company is based in Illinois and Wisconsin. my chief of staff who runs basically me in the business, she's an idol. Yeah, we don't need to be right next to each other. You don't. And so, I mean, it kind of brings up another question I had it later was, you know, how do you go about finding those people?

You know, we talked a little bit about, you know, you need to be recruiting all the time. You need to be networking. I'm huge in networking. But I'm always, I'm not always networking for myself. Sometimes I'm just creating a network because when someone asked me, I want to be able to have the person that I vet it already, like you. Like I knew we were going to be fast friends and that things are going to work out. Yeah, I have a guy for that. And that's kind of what my network has been, but I rarely kind of has molded my network for me personally.

This is what I need. So how do you go about doing that? Because I think it's so easy to, again, to kind of skip that step. But you need to be constantly doing it, right? Yeah. constantly, but if I even walked it back for a second, I would just say, operators like you and me, we need first this person that could handle all of the details for us and get some of the blocking and tackling stuff that needs to be done, but we don't.

Details. Details, yeah. Details suck. They suck. I hate the details. Luckily, my wife, she's all into the details, and I'm, she's. she handles that for Team O'Hara. But I think that's first. You find that person.

Now you're able to grow because you have someone that's kind of managing and letting you do what you can do. Then you need to, I'm a big believer on always recruiting. You're always out there looking for subcontractors, employees, and prospects. Yeah. Those three people in our business. And so how do you do that? Great people in the industry. Matt DeBara has a great recruiting service for construction owners.

I think he was on. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A couple of like six months ago. Yeah. One of my mentors, Paul Santamon, he was a business coach to contractors.

Okay. He's got a great recruiting service. A lot of them, they built these models for you to, always have a shingle out there for your need of employees on that side. Gotcha. And then lastly is just internally finding those subs and a good admin type of people. Right. That's just working your network.

Right. Right. Yeah. And so what do you call those people? I mean, you have a different kind of terms for them. You know, what kind of people are you seeking for those, you know, detail, the detail folks? So what we're operations managers. I mean, I'm talking about like the business world.

Are those usually like operations type people? Well, if you and me wanted to get into the specifics for the construction business owner, how I envision it, which is adopting this rocket fuel model, is that we have the three main components of our business, which is sales and marketing, production, and then finance admin, bookkeeping and HR and that. Right. So for me, I've always been that owner. You're on top. But the problem is when you fill these positions or if you don't have them fill, everything passes up to you.

So now you're doing all three things. So when you add this chief of staff, but now we're calling it the QBVA just to play off that because we're now the head coach. Right. So we're calling these plays. but you need the quarterback to run the plays. Right. We're used to calling the plays, and then we have to run the play. Right.

That's hard to do. Right. So now you could step back and you could call the play. They're running it. They're coming back to you and saying, hey, coach, this play isn't running very well. Right. And now you can fix the play. Yeah.

You can see it real time. Now that person, they deal with those three main people in your business. Whoever's head of production, head of sales, head of book. keeping and they're talking and making everything integrated. That's what I mean. And I think even to add to that, they could tell you when the plan sucks. Like that place sucks. Like you need someone to be able to say that to you.

Like don't even try that. That's the best quarterback you can get. Right. It's not that quarterback that comes over and, you know, no, he's in your face saying, hey, this play isn't working. Right. That's what you need. Yeah.

Okay. But I think you have to teach your people. come back to me and if you don't think something is right. You have to have that honest working relationship. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. So, I mean, I think the other thing that we have very similar is we have a remodeling business that we rely on for our daily needs, our family's needs, and we're both very blessed to have them minds three generations improvements.

And yours is North Shore brickwork. North Shore brickwork, which is outside of Chicago. And you guys service Wisconsin as well. Yeah. Okay. So tell me a little bit about that business and what's been your secret. Obviously, you've been able to implement a lot of what we're talked about already into that one, kind of try some things out. Yeah. How does that work for you? So when I owned the roofing business, a longtime subcontractor of ours, he did all the masonry for the, for the roofing business.

And he retired and thought, he saw what I was doing with this, all these roofing companies and serial entrepreneurs. Sure. I want to sell the business to you. So I bought the business. It was doing about 400,000 at the time. Okay. And so today we're doing 4 million.

And the secret to that success is, I'd have to say a couple of things. One is branding. That's what I'm real good at. Okay. Is if you could speak the message and look like a million, bucks before you're a million bucks you're going to grow right so what i've been uh able to do many times over is look the part look like you're the major player right and you'll figure out yeah yeah yeah yeah so that's a lot of the things that would work on first with clients okay how's your

brand your message and stuff the uh next uh key was what's interesting for us construction guys is we use 100% subcontractors. And this blows away a lot of my clients. They're like, how can you do that? Well, how do you do it is that subcontractors are just many businesses that you are now helping mentor and grow. But you're doing the hard work. Right. Bring them the leads.

Right. They just have to do it. You do a great job. So where a lot of owner struggle is they don't have a bench depth. If you use a sports analogy. of great subs. Right. So they might have one painting.

One of crew. That guy gets busy. Now he's limited on what he can do. Right. Right. So over the years, my strategy was when I'm out in the field, I'm meeting people, I stop at every job site that I can see that they're doing masonry. And I would give my card. And sometimes it would be the owner.

Right. He's working on the job. Yeah. That's what he's doing. Right. Shaking hands and start that relationship. Right. And so now, you know,

so many years later in that business, I have such a bench depth of 10 solid owners of masonry companies that I get a job. I could then go to the perfect sub that I think this would be great. And it's a win-win. Right. It's funny. We're the same way in three generations. We set it up the exact same.

Yeah. And a lot of that has to do with our climate here in California. You know, workers' comp costs are through the roof. Like, too higher is very difficult. But the roofing, industry, siding, windows, decking, you know, they come with a very high insurance cost. And that's not the only reason. It's not like we're hiding from it. It's like you said, we have so many different types of projects.

And to say that we have one crew to do hardy board and one crew to do cedar siding or even stonework, like that's not even fair for them to be a jack of all of those traits. Yeah. So we have crews that do better at other things. So when homeowners have that objection, it's like, you know, hey, look, they're licensed, they're insured, they're bonded, you're protected. It's not an employee that had a bad day. It's going to quit that day.

Yeah. You know, so you're more protected as a homeowner this way, but also we're thinking about a crew for your project. And so we're placing you with what we think is going to perform best. And so usually that helps, but you have those other people who are like, hey, we have all the employees, we have, which most of the time they're lying, but they say that. Like, we have a whole stable, they have this picture.

all these people. And maybe it makes some homeowner feel comfortable, but it's really not doing them and good. Yeah, we have to educate our consumers.

Because they ask are these employees or self contractors. Right. And we tell that story that some of these that are been working with us for 10 years.

Right. You know, you have to tell that why that is that advantage. Right. But it's a great way to build a business, but I wanted to ask you,

don't you feel like it would be important for your business specifically, because I hear this from a lot of my remodeling clients, that when you have subcontractors closing out the job sometimes, there's a little paint touch-up and cocking. Do you feel like having a one or a two-man, you know, do it all crew? Clean up. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it could be helpful. I think we've always wanted to have like a true floating foreman that you can send to the jobs at the right time, right? Make sure they're there in the beginning of the job. You were usually doing that.

Setting up the job, making sure it's all, everyone's on the same page. But also to have them check in, like if they need a couple extra panels of sight, someone that could come down and bring it to them. And in the end, like you said, walking around the job, close up, talking about,

all these things, show them how the windows operate, all those little tiny things that are very detailed, but also they're like, oh, we made some cocking there. You guys need to clean up. Here's your magnet. Let's go. I've always wanted that. I think it would be super helpful. Yeah, I do too. I think that is a good model. Even if it's a one-man crew, one guy, and he's just your jacket all. And you can do service. Service. Yeah. There's a little repair, but, you know, to take one of your other guys off. a job to go do it. I mean, there's always going to be service in remodeling.

And it's a pain in the ass. It's part of business. But it's a losing proposition almost every time. Unless, you know, you can turn it into some leads sometimes. Like, hey, we got here. You guys got here within a week of that. That's shocking. Because for most contractors, they're used to picking up the phone,

texting multiple times to get them to even answer. Yeah. And then multiple times to get them to come. So we usually wow them with that. Like, wow, you guys really got out here quickly. Yeah. That's such a small secret of success. Yeah.

Just answer the call and get out there and be responsive. Right. And you're always going to have the phone ring. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny how that works. I think it's a tendency for contractors. And that's why they're typically not great business owners is that when they're busy,

they see their calendar and they're going like, hey, I'm booked for three or four months. they stopped picking up the phone. They stopped answering the phone. They don't even call people back because they see their short term as busy, but they don't think of the long-term call. Yeah. That's a relationship. That's an email.

That's a phone number for future work. Right. Just give a referral out. I'm super busy, but here's my friend call him up. Yeah. It's strange how that is just it's never really, you hear that a lot from homeowners like, hey, I'm glad you picked up the phone.

You're like, oh, I'm sorry. You're not, yeah, people aren't picking up the phone for you. But it typically is when we're busy. Yeah, I always notice that. Like, okay, so they're feeling their calendar is busy. And so they're just not going to pick up. They don't care. Yeah.

They don't need you right now. Yeah. So, yeah, that's funny. So I like to get back since we kind of talked a little bit about it. So, yeah, the book thing, I know that you're a big reader. So I wanted to find out, besides, the e-myth and the what's the other one

the e-meth and rocket fuel is there anything else that you think is a must for us or you know curious what you think I really like there's a book called 80-20 marketing by one of the

experts in the industry and it would help any of us that are looking to do ads and Legion sure which is part of the major thing that you need to solve right for your business that's that's a super great book the sales machine um is one that i constantly uh quote for my clients and i constantly read it okay and uh the biggest chapter in there is the 80 20 rule um what i'm sorry the dream 100 right so you ask like what has been some of the reasons for the success of these companies and what i've always

done was this concept of, you know, who are those, if you had a hundred of them perfect buyers, sure, that you would, your business would be so successful. Right. And identify them. Right. And put them into a simple CRM and stay in touch with them. It's not rocket science. But if you could just identify now, yeah, you're never, you're never going to be without it. It's so strange, because that's the other thing you hear a lot. I don't know if it's COVID. I, I don't know if it's people, but it's getting harder to interface with people, right? Whether it is they just don't, you know, they're not themselves. Everyone has a life outside of your remodeling project.

Everybody has stressors. Everybody has things going on. You know, people don't like to pick up the phone. People sometimes don't like to really talk to you. They're lacking those engaging things. They text. Sometimes they'll text you at night. They don't care about your schedule.

Yeah. So I have found that it's getting harder to deal with clients and you have to do more for less. And even a referral, for example, like it's harder to get a referral. They don't talk to their neighbors like they used to. There's not that, I don't know. So I guess like, what's your secret there? Because I hear this a lot that not only is it harder to deal with people, but, you know, they have the power of reviews. They have these other things in their lives that they kind of hold over your head.

you know, a little bit. So it's becoming a little bit harder to deal with them, but also you have to find those clients that you don't want to work with and you have to stop it right at the beginning. Right away. I think that comes to a time is knowing if someone's going to be a problem person. We pretty much know no. Yeah. Right.

When you're talking to someone. But at the early stage, you don't know that. And you're like, oh, no, I'm optimistic. I'm not turning this one around. Right. But the secret, I think, is that there is a. no secret, meaning you really have to do a lot of the fundamentals of job signs and, you know, that right?

Right. Sure. You know, texting, emailing, cold phone calling, email, cold emails, jumping on LinkedIn. It's like, you don't know where this person nowadays wants to be communicated before. It was just phone. It was like, they didn't even have email when you were going. And I was like, okay, you need an estimate and you talked on the phone and you met in person. Now they don't want to meet us.

It's so strange. I mean, I tell this story often. I mean, I grew up in the industry. So I remember when I was probably five years old, I'd go on sales calls with my dad. And they didn't have cell phones then. No. And so we had a freaking map. Yeah.

That was the map guy, right? So he's like, this is where we're gone. So the map, but then there's something happened. He needed to call somebody. He had a whole thing of quarters. and you have to go find the phone booth. And it's just like to think of that's your upbringing to where we are now, where we have a computer in our pockets.

And, you know, the car is basically telling you where to go or sometimes driving you, whatever. So it's just, it's so hard to see how it was then. But if you grew up in that time, you have more skills to call people. You know what it look like to grind. And that grind was a different look. It was like, I'm lost. I'm in the woods.

I have a map that doesn't go that far. Like, it is just like people don't even recognize what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. So true. And I think it helped us, like you said, to come from that. Right. I started in the insurance business, financial planning.

What do they do? They gave you a list of numbers and you just dialed. Right. You know, that nowadays doesn't apply to owners of construction companies. They don't understand that. But really, if you do that, call property managers of, facility management. managers, they're not getting barrage by that kind of legion. Yeah.

So it can't work. Yeah. Yeah. It is, I think it's a unique generation we grew up in to have that. We didn't have cell phones. We didn't have technology. And then now we figure out how to go off. It just kind of gives us, I think, another tool that a lot of new folks don't have.

Yeah. That's why you have to use all of it. Yeah. Yeah. No doubt. So besides the, besides the book, obviously, your upbringing and athletics, those are a real good starting point. Obviously, you had an internal desire to have businesses, build businesses.

That's maybe you're born with that. I'm not sure if that's something that you take out of a book and want to go. I think for the most part, that's inside you. Was there a person to, or mentor, is there somebody in your life that to help get you to that point of realizing you can do that? Yeah. You know, who is that for you? That's a great point. as I was thinking about it, so the roofing business, you know, my dad being a policeman

didn't really know the technical side of the roofing. He was just a great person and knew how to deal with people. That's what you learned. So what I learned when I jumped in the business is I was just learning people skills. Right. Didn't have the technical business skills. And so unfortunately, my dad didn't have that either. So I am now trying to run this family roofing business, and I'm a liberal arts major.

So I'm not a business guy. Right, right. So I'm trying to read ink magazine and Crane's business and figure out business. So luckily our supplier, Lakefront Supply, his name is Tim Bach, and he became an incredible mentor to me. So he was the general manager. but they were involved with many businesses because their organization was Jesus People USA. And so they were like from the hippie generation. They all lived together, but they all lived together to communally make a difference in the community.

So they did all these businesses, so painting, roofing, and then all of a sudden they got into the roofing supply business. And so when we were growing, we were becoming one of the best customers. and I'm flailing and not knowing what to do. He invited me to a lunch. And that began a relationship that spans even to this day. Nice. We just had dinner, me and my wife, with him and his wife, that he took me under his wing and taught me of everything he knew about running a ruffinized

years. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. So I think a lot of that, that blessing of mentoring, a business owner is now on my heart that I get to mentor other owners of construction businesses with everything he's talking about and you get to pass it on. That paid forth thing is huge. I think that is a missing ingredient for a lot of folks that are exiting the industry now

is that they haven't had a chance to really teach us what they've learned. And it's kind of all in their head. Sometimes you're on a job site, you're like, go learn from him. stop trying to figure out yourself. He's been doing it for, you know, 40 years. Yeah. So, like, they just, they tend to get it. They keep it in their heads.

They don't necessarily want to share. You know, they don't really, it's not really, you don't really care, but they have so much in them that it's always nice to see people, like, want to, like, share that knowledge. I'm the same way. I'm third generation in this industry. So it's like, I have a lot that is very old school, but a lot that's very new school. And I love talking about it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's no better feeling to make a difference to someone. Yeah. That is really powerful. Yeah. No. And that brings another point to mine. Like, so obviously as you're building these businesses, you know, you do want to pay it forward and talk about what you've learned. But is there a legacy component to this? Like, what do you want to leave behind? What is it for you? Man, it's a powerful question.

I wanted to teach the next generation. So I at least wanted to, everything that I've learned, be able to have my four boys and now their kids to at least have a nice story. I love reading books and it's autobiographies. For me, it's like, hey, the trials and tribulations of running, you know, these type of businesses is what you need to know. Right. Because I really feel like such a low barrier of entry and so easy to have success in this business to take care of your family. Right. If you just learn some of the blocking you attack.

Right. So why not pass that on at least of my kids? And that's where I kind of came up with the playbook was, hey, the things that I learned, like these key 80, 20 things that if you just do these, you're going to have success in your business. Yeah. And that's a good point. I mean, like I said before, you have a. remodeling business. I have a remodeling business that's provided so well. But it also allows us to think like a contractor, like you said before, you're in the grind just like everybody else is.

So it allows you a unique perspective when you build these other businesses because you go, that's what I need. So, and I can't find it. So let's go build it. And so let's talk about a couple of those. The first one is contractor huddle? So that's your coaching, coaching side. Yep. So that's where you're mentoring somebody. That's who you are going to be for me because I totally need that. So it's like, so what do you do on that and what, why did you start that? And kind of how's it going now? Great question. So I love the story because it started in failure a little bit. So I was doing the coaching of the youth sports. And in our area, there was no sports training facility high end. in the Northwest Suburb, which was, you know, ridiculous to me. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to make a sports training facility. So I went out and went to dads like you and me and said, hey, we should have this by our area instead of driving, you know, 30 minutes to another area.

So I activated this idea. So we found it 20, it took me two years, but I raised the money, found a 22,000 square foot, facility, you know, indoor turf, the best equipment, speed tracks, baseball, basketball court. Yeah, it was, it was, it was, it was really fun. Yeah. And so I said, I'm going to make it in the sports training business. Forget this construction stuff. Okay.

That's too hard. Yeah. This is going to be easy. Yeah. And did that for five years. And it was a great place. My kids loved it. One of the success.

Sure. I ended up, they got all. got scholarships, but I actually paid for it from this thing. It didn't make any money. I could not figure out how to make money in that. So, but what I did come out of that was I realized, because I was doing some coaching there, and I loved mentoring this caliber of people, okay, special, though. When you're an athlete and you want, our model was chasing greatness, you're a different

breed when you're going to go and sacrifice and do this training that your cars aren't going to do. Right. So that person, I was like, is there people that are chasing greatness in the construction business? Because, you know, I woke up. What do I got experiencing? Right. I'm running construction companies.

Right. And doing that kind of good. Right. So it was about seven years ago, I bought someone's playbook, how to get into the coaching business. And it's play by play. Here's what you do. And I put a Facebook.

ads out there. And I started getting clients and having success, coaching them on what I learned. So I'm like, okay, that's how the contractor huddle started. So we have a Facebook group. People could join it. It's on Facebook. The contractor huddle. It's a good. We put in good information in there. And then I became a coach to guys that were chasing greatness in their construction company. Right. So that's what we're doing to this day. Okay.

But I think that was going to be your question on Bill 12. Yeah. I mean, that's a, that was going to be the next question for sure is I recently got hooked up with Bill 12. I'm through you. We knew each other first, but when you said, hey, you should check this out. This is such a cool platform for someone like me, smaller business. you're kind of like like you described earlier you're the boss but everything flows up there

and you're just constantly getting hit up with tasks that you really don't have time for and so I'm as I add things to my business technology is coming at me fast and furious I'm trying to figure out what can I add that will actually be more efficient I'm not looking to add just to be have the cool of shit which is such a tendency now I don't I don't need the newest phone I've never been like that. So I don't want to plug it in for that reason. I want to plug it in because it's going to take X amount of hours of my day away. Or it's going to make some automation that I don't have possible.

And I think the automation component of Bill 12 is really where it can blow your mind. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about it. So back to our talk about when we first started in the business. What I brought from that insurance experience was these multi-billion dollar insurance companies, they were using technology from the start. Right. So they had databases where you knew everything about this person,

we can call them. So when I got into the roofing business, no one was doing this, but I was one of the first early adopters of having a CRM and plugging every customer in there and doing proposals out of that. Right. And that probably led to our rocket ship of success right away

because of that organizational component. Everyone was doing handwritten, And we had it online. Okay. So now, what, 25 years, 30 years of running these businesses, what I realized, I was always chasing that's shiny ball syndrome too that you and the visionaries can have. Yeah. This idea, I'm going to go do this.

This does this. This does this. So all these years of trying and then now coaching people and what's the best text act. I've been exposed to all of these great companies and what they use. And so in my journey, it was one of my clients that had access to this software platform that I said, wow, this is really great. I started playing around with it. And I realize you can customize it for guys like us that are owners to really kill it in the construction space.

So Bill 12 is a software that's customized by contractors for you to save you time on doing all of these things that will take someone, you specifically, you know, hours and hours to do. Right. Now it can be automated where it's being done by itself without you really having to do it. Right. I mean, the fact that you can put leads in these categories, you know, texting for me has always been a huge issue. I've always wanted to get into the space. I just didn't want to use my own phone and get blown up at all hours. I already get enough of that already.

So having that text option, being able to put leads in categories and let some automations take over for you. Again, save me time and energy. Like, you guys got to check it out. Bill12.com slash USCZ. Get a demo from him. And you guys just take a look at it. I'm still in the learning process and he's going to help me through kind of how to get there. but the bottom line is make sure that your technology is actually making you more efficient.

And it's not just the newest, Chinese thing. It has to be something that will work for you. And, you know, I'm looking forward to it kind of, you know, really speeding up my business a little bit and helping replace some of my time because that's my biggest issue right now. Yeah. Time and it's going to make you more money. Yeah.

It's proven. It's adopted for all of my business. businesses. And it truly, when I'm low on work, I could just go in there, press a couple buttons, and I'm getting opportunities to go out and, you know, estimates. That's what it's all about. That's what it's all about. Yeah, yeah. Being more organized. No doubt about it. Well, I wanted to talk a couple more about, you know, the personal side. You know, I always like this side of our industry. I think we fail a lot as owners and managers to be open about. We have real lives.

We talk about our coaching experiences, but we have kids, we have families, we have struggles. There's always things that are going on in life, but to be talking about and talking to other employees about their lives. And, you know, you need to know that they have kids and they play baseball. And we struggle with like opening up and being vulnerable and all those things that you really need to be a successful, I think, person, but also help your business as well. And I think growing up as third generation back when my grandpa was working in the 50s, you don't talk about their lives. It's always head down, work hard, shut up.

And that's kind of what they were used to, right? Yes. You know, but as we've gotten a little bit older and wiser, it's not the best approach when trying to deal with people. Yeah, people. And let's even talk about your immediate family. Right. So we're taught to be that tough, you know, we're the owner. Yeah.

You know. But the best thing is to, if you want to teach the next generation, be vulnerable. So to me, I've really had to work on sharing the frustrations and the weaknesses that I have and the failures. And letting them all see that has made it so much richer. I don't have to be this tough guy, this successful all the time. They have been around with all the failures and they're learning from. Right. You know, you can have a losing season and learn a lot from it and go back.

And so you have to lose a little bit in life. I think the best thing that you can do is acknowledge the failure, try to learn from it. What did you learn? My problem is I very rarely am remembering what I've learned. on the failure, you know, not repeat those mistakes. That's where you need a coach. And then you're saying, hey, oh, by the way, you're doing this again. My wife kind of plays that role for me because no one knows you better than that.

Right, right, right. But being vulnerable to your wife, your kids, and your employees. Right. That's the next step. It's really tough to do, but it really opens you up to have a lot more success. Yeah. And I think the coaching thing, you know, it's such an important. important component because like you said it's a low barrier of entry our industry is is unlike any

other right we didn't even need to agree you know yeah we won't get into that but you know you you enter this business usually you know if it's not your families you've got it from a friend or you're working with a friend before you're noa you have this business in front of you and you know jack shit like i went to business school in marketing which is a perfect fit for me i i haven't plugged anything i've learned there so it's just a watch wild industry and unless you are feeding your brain and figuring things out as you go, you won't figure it out and you will be failing constantly. This is the thing I see the most thing with contractors is that knowing your numbers,

they don't know their numbers. They just go year to year and they don't even know if they made a money on a job. You know, it's like, so you don't know your margins, you don't know your numbers. You're making a living, but at the end you don't have anything to show for it. not only as a business, but for your family, for your legacy, you're kind of just like, I guess I'm done. Here are the keys. Yeah.

I don't know what. You know what I mean? So talk a little bit about that. I mean, that not only the knowing the numbers, but the legacy piece and making sure that you're constantly learning as you go. Yeah. What I find is that you can go out of business so fast in the construction business. Right.

You know, you think you're growing and things are great, but people don't realize that, the faster you grow, you're burning all this cash. And you get a little bit of a stick with the accounts receivable. You're out of business. So really the first thing that we work with, other than the personal time management, now we dig into your numbers and specifically cash flow forecasting. I think that's such an underrated topic for owners of construction companies. Barring, you know, knowing how to structure.

your profit and loss and balance sheet being able to look at that, which is big, big. But the second is knowing how much money you have and where it's going, you know, in the next dry weeks. Right. So it took me years and years of working with CPAs and consultants and making, you know, 16 tab, you know, spreadsheets and all of us to finally, you know, coming up with one that was dialed in to tell me and my clients, here's what you have right now and here's what's going to be happening the next 12 weeks so that you can figure out

okay we got some trouble over here in about four weeks from now if something doesn't happen and it gives you time to start working on this line of credit or loans from friends but truly knowing your numbers and where the cash is is

live and die. You've got to live and die by that. Yeah, I think that's a struggle. I would say that would be my advice as well. If you're a new business owner is take some classes or get a mentor or learn from somebody so that you stop those mistakes at the beginning. And then you start to learn, hey, here's my real margin. Here's my break-even point. Like, I mean, I think probably 20% margin if you're under there for a remodeling company, you're probably breaking even-ish, like especially in California with our insurance costs and things like people cost. There's a lot of costs, like I tell homers this all the time. There's a cost just to getting here, just to being on your job. So there's a bunch of cash right here. So I'm just

understanding those numbers and all that. So it looks like we're running a little bit short of time here. So I wanted to leave with, you know, a little bit about talking about your family. You, you always mention that. And in all of your businesses, you have something that you, you talk about. And one of those is, you know, that piece that you talk about, you know, your lifetime goal of honoring God and becoming a football coach, you know, full time. So how are you doing on those last two components of your lives? Well, I hope that I'm honoring God. I try my best to what he's instilled in me was this concept of, And I saw it at a great men's event many, many years ago was I wanted to change the world.

But I realized that if you just change one person's life and their legacy, you've done an incredible life. So for me, it's been really simple. Just make a difference to one person. And then that gets into the family. Sure. component is like, hey, if you can't get your family, dive in. then everything else after that is not going to Right.

So you really got to work hard. And that's where coaching my kids and being involved with them, even though I was head down all business for a lot of the early years because that's what it takes. Right. But I complimented that with being at, I never missed the game. Right. And if I wasn't coaching or they were on a different team, I was there at the game. Right.

Me and Julie did a great job of that. Yeah. But it just resonated with me. that Denzel Washington said his ultimate dream project was his four kids and his wife. And to me, you know, that's what you need. Yeah, I have that up in my office. Right. To just remind me at the end of the day, you know, it just got to try your hardest to get that right.

And that's ultimately who we're working for. We're working for our loved ones. I think there's a component, this money component that tends to cloud everything. but obviously you want to make a living for your family, but ultimately that you want to make your family proud. And then you have that legacy and that thing when you're done. They see that you've made your mark in the industry. They've seen that you busted your ass, which my kids see me do.

They've seen modeling of what that looks like. They've seen you open and closed businesses. They've seen you fail. All of those things. But you're out there and you're grinding. And it's a great industry. And I just appreciate you being here and giving us all your investments. insight. It's been a great time and we're going to continue having a good time with the

sex theater football game. Love it. Stingers up. Go Stingers. All right, man. See you. Thank you. Yeah, thanks. All right. Thanks again, guys, for being here. Another great episode. Next, next month, we're going to get into even more of the time management piece, which I think we all struggle with. So thanks again for being here on Construction Executives Live. I'm your host, Jeremy Owens. Thank you so much. Bye. You've been listening to In The Zone and Construction Executives live with Jeremy Owens. Be sure to subscribe to In The Zone and stay in the know with the best minds in the construction industry. To nominate an innovator or change maker in the construction industry, connect with your management peers and stay up to date with construction industry news.

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