Episode 13 - Chase Hicks of Concrete Science

May 8

Concrete Science: Decorative hard surface experts that use science and creativity to bring artistry out of concrete

Chase Hicks of Concrete Science, a 3rd generation owner walks us through all the different ways concrete can be used in residential and commercial spaces. From mircotops, polishing, and flatwork design to foundations and footings. Concrete Science is celebrating 50 years of excellence. Starting off from a more commercial focus to blending in residential jobs has now led them to be 33% commercial and 67% residential based on craftsmanship. A company of 120 people sounds large but Chase makes it a small family by treating people with kindness and interest. Keep it simple, be nice, and don't be a jerk! The rewarding aspect of working with your family is a deep blessing to spend time with people you care about and create a successful business at the same time. Using the knowledge of 5 decades of past experiences to solve today's problems the Hicks family is well-positioned to make it another 50 years through culture and caring.

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About Chase Hicks

Chase started working at Concrete Science when he was very young. Like most family companies, he began cleaning the shop, washing trucks, and equipment, and laboring on certain jobs. After graduating from the University of St. Thomas he moved into a full-time role in sales, production and now oversees a large share of our daily operations.

At Concrete Science, we pride ourselves as a company to have the ability to service a small residential project and large commercial apartment foundation. Our installation range in a non-union sector is very wide-reaching for concrete and decorative coatings. We recently traveled to Europe to install 45,000 Sq. Ft of decorative non-slip flooring in a waterpark. He jokes that whether it’s Cokato or Copenhagen we can get the job done.

Chase enjoys spending free time with his wonderful wife and son (age 2) and they currently have another boy on the way (future concrete finisher). They have 2 dogs and are usually walking around Baker Park or Wayzata on the weekends. Big sports Fan- Vikings, Wild, Wolves, Twins. He loves working outside, visiting new restaurants, and trying new food/good beer when time permits.

Resources

All right. Welcome to the Curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host, and today I've got Chase with concrete science. Welcome, Chase. Thank you. Nice to meet you again.
Mark
All right. Well, for those that don't know you, why don't you tell us a little bit about concrete science. I know we met probably about four years ago, we've worked on probably five or six projects now. Yep. And I do think you have, by the way, one of the coolest logos in the business, if you have not seen it, check it out at concrete science.com. And it's a really cool test to beaker with little bubbles in it. But it just really makes it makes concrete coatings and all the stuff we're gonna talk about some very cool and scientific, fun, artistic things like that.
Yeah. And we used to have an old logo in the 90s. And then it was a newer rendition of it. And like, so we still have some of our old marketing stuff. And but my dad is very, like passionate about logo and the branding and things like that colors, you know, etc. But yeah, so like we started as a concrete company, mainly doing structural foundation work in the 70s, early 2000s, late 90s, concrete science, started doing concrete cleaning and sealing. And we're just kind of doing a plethora of indoors. Still concrete, still structural, but kind of multi multifaceted, I guess you could say different different departments do different things. And so it's, it's been really good. As you know, you know, homebuilding, I mean, there's a niche for you know, high end flooring finishes. But someone's also still got to pour the foundations and the walls and the floors. And so we're lucky to be able to do kind of all the pieces involved. So now that's interesting, because when I first met you it was for micro tops, past clients home. Yep. And I think by reputation had heard of you before as well, because used at the US Bank Stadium, is that right? Or am I wrong on that? Nope. So the US Bank was union, a lot of polishing a lot of flake work. I still remember that project. But we did a polish on that one polish in the basement micro top on the upper level, right? Yeah, but not a lot of people do the microtopping. And it's just kind of the small circle of guys that have whether done the training through bomanite or RT X or whatever. But yeah, neat floors, and there's only like a few guys that do them and kind of lucky to have a guy that knows how to do it and trained our other employees up, but okay, yeah, I mean, just a lot of kind of high end decorative floor finishes. And it's kind of our specialty, especially with homes, like what you guys build. Right? Right. So I mean, a lot of its connections, because even now, five years later, let's say from our first connection point, it was only recently that I even knew that you did foundations and flatwork because I came to you looking for your specialty work, and then never really either wasn't listening or wasn't asking the right questions. Plus, that was a remodel. So there was no foundation work on that project anyway. Yep. It's very common. Yeah, I mean, it's like the apartments Foundation, the flat work the walls, it's like it's my uncle, but it's like that division is so far removed from like, the customer base from our other pieces that I'll talk to people all the time like I didn't know you did, oh, you guys do patios, you do driveways, you know, on and on. And everyone has good concrete guys. And so a lot of people will just use their people. But in the last couple of years, I know a lot of Home Builders and a lot of you know, construction companies are branching out, you know, using other companies because they're so busy or you're you're backed up or you're behind schedule. And so it's it's really been good these last five years with us just networking and you know, letting people know we do different things. So not just concrete, you know, people like you do epoxy garage floors, your concrete science, like that didn't resonate, you know, so yeah, but which is funny, because that's one of my questions later is like, everyone has a concrete coating guy. I mean, painters do it, you can do it yourself. I mean, it seems like that the barrier to entry to that particular part of the market seems pretty low, right? I mean, with the right products and obviously you need the knowledge and you would obviously be able to demonstrate you guys have a much
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deeper knowledge base than most people would say if they're just starting out. But I feel like maybe I've had a number of homeowners that are like, Oh, I've epoxy my own floor before. And yeah, yeah. So we remove a lot of them. And I always joke with the homeowner too. I'm like, Hey, like, did you do this one yourself? And they're like, yeah, like, how was it? They're like, you know, I probably wouldn't do it again, you know, so but that's, that's a lot of things do. It's like, you can paint your own walls. You could do your own trim, but you can hire someone to do it. And kind of depends on what your quality threshold is. So so so you'd mentioned was it your grandpa? Yep. So started the company. Yep. Carrie still works for us. So does he really? Yeah, it's actually our 50 year anniversary, if you will, because it was started in 1970. And so he was from Black Duck. And he told me the story like 100 times last duck in town. Yeah, it's like northern Minnesota. I think it's up by it's like, on your way to it's already weighted image Bemidji, but small town. So he started off as a mason tending block. And then he started his own company, basically just do what I think they're doing like basement, you know, foundations, like small stuff like that. And then Hicks concrete was the original name. And we do a lot of commercial block walls, we did a lot of work for Frana, were union back then, a lot of floors, a lot of footings. And that was like my grandpa's passion. But when he bought my dad and uncle aboard, it was kind of like my dad viewed it, as we're sort of capped out, as you know, you can only do so much with your your 15 Guys commercial concrete work, you wouldn't get paid for three, four months. And so it was just a grind. Yeah, you know, and commercial construction is a grind. And then so that's where my dad really wanted to branch off with the company and do a lot more residential work. Because you know, you can control your own schedule a little bit, you get down payments, you're working directly with the client or a general contractor, which is, it's a lot better than, you know, relying on all these different pieces of the job. You know, he tells you stories all the time, it's like, hey, you'd be ready to do you know, two weeks worth of footings, they call you on Monday and say we got to back you up three weeks. It's like what do you do so being able to blend that residential work in with our commercial work was his vision. And it's really taken form probably over the last five to seven years. And having that balance and balancing the down payments with the retainage on commercial jobs and just not being cash poor all the time, which most commercial concrete companies tend to struggle with. You know, it's funny, I've got like 20 questions now, I'll try to come at you one at a time.
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First of all, percentage of commercial versus residential. What's kind of your split roughly you open, I got my notes here. So 66%, residential, 33% commercial. So like, our breakdown on our budget, basically, every year is it's about 6 million in commercial concrete, five to six and residential concrete and in coatings is basically the rest. And one thing I wanted to make note on here is that we actually, so people know us for driveways, patios, things like that, but we do probably 150 concrete pool decks a year, really. So like, we are known for pouring concrete pool decks, and a lot of people know that but a lot of people don't do and so like, when a lot of people know us through purely just pool decks, which is funny, like I know you from micro tops, but I mean, at this point is like anyone listening anything do with a hard surface? decorative art surface? Right? Yeah. Foundations are not decorative. Nope, they're not. But they you know, it's, I'm in the decorative world. And I actually across the street from my son's daycare, we're doing footings and walls on a commercial apartment job. And I pop over there. And I'm just like, it's just such a different type of work. But it's you can appreciate structural natures of things because he like, this is how this whole building is built. Right? Right. You know, and so I look at pretty things but it's it's fun to look at the rough thing sometimes do. How about so you got the 6633 split between commercial and residential? What about foundation versus decorative? So let's call it let's just call it basic flat work, which obviously would then lead to a treatment over the tops. Let's keep that out of it. Yep. So let's call just flat work and foundation work. What what rough percentage would that be of the total work? I would say so our commercial division is basically kind of a three way split between your footings your walls and your floors. Now then once we get to like your your decorative or your your basic your driveways and patios, I would say
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and it hits maybe a harder answer because it's like your commercial contracts are so large, but they're such tiny margins, right? So are your decorative it's it's not necessarily these massive concrete or massive contract contracts, but your higher margin work. So because it's more decorative, a specialty, it'd be like equivalent, like cabinetry and a house. Exactly. And it's like you get the high price because it's such a high end finish. But I would say in the amount of time and jobs and hours you know, I would say it's it's pretty close to a split, you know, okay, yeah, I'd like the manpower I think on you know, your, your decorative concrete side, like your pool, your patio, your driveway. I think we're somewhere in the nature of 30 to 35. Guys, and that's it's basically what our commercial concrete division is to sort of big so you get brought in some of the guys on those two pieces. Yep. And then we're probably 30 In codings at the full season and we're about 20 in the office.
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So is about 120 That's, I mean, that's a big operation. It's fun. I know I, I like, I always like seeing new guys, but I like the guys that have been with us forever. I try to remember everyone's name because I feel like that can kind of, you know, but yeah, having 100 person company is never something I thought we would have. But it's it's allowed us to grow and it's it's allowed it to be fun and Alas, you know, did you ever read I remember this. I think back in college, the Dale Carnegie's How to win friends and influence others, where he taught me and Ian are talking about this before he came because we were talking about the business books. And I was like, what's the Carnegie book and Ian read it. And I haven't read it yet. But I asked him and he's like, let me summarize it in five seconds for you. He's like, just don't be a dick.
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pastic truth. For those listening. Ian is our producer at Studio Americana. He's sitting in the other room laughing right now. So I have and it's on my nightstand. So here's my summary of that book. Yep. The most important name in the English language is your own. Yep. To your other two other people at the point where the reason I'm even thinking about this as your comment about remembering, you know, you have 125 people, that's a lot of people, but just in general, not only clients, but you know, people you meet, I think, you know, obviously that politicians, the successful ones are ones that are very good, obviously, at remembering people's names. And it means something when somebody says your name, and for myself, I'm very good visually like, because we have prayed homes, right. So lots of people come to our pray, don't make 1000s that it's not possible for you to remember somebody's name that quickly. But faces I'm very good at recognizing faces. So when you see them, so like you've seen him once, and then it's like, okay, you see him again. So what do you say you're like, hey, I remember you from this, or how do you know it's funny? So 90% of time this conversation goes fine. I'll be like, Hey, welcome back. It's great to see you again. And they'll recognize the familiarity, that and if nothing else, like, Hey, I've seen you before, it's also kind of an intro warmline. Like, Hey, I've seen you before. Every once in a while, maybe 5% of the time, I'll get someone that'll act like well, what do you mean we've ever met before? What are you talking about? And they're like, super defensive. And I'm like, I'm sorry. You know, Mr. So and so I'm, my name is Mark. I'm the builder. You know, I've been doing this for 1819 years, I recognize a lot of people I feel like I've seen you before. And so you tried to like soft, soft balled up from a little bit and the 1%. From there, we'll just take it another step further. They're not reading the cues. They're like, they're like, are you following me? You're a stalker. Like you're weird. Get away from me. They're worried about like being served a subpoena? Yeah, I guess I don't know. I'm trying to break the ice here with these people. Yeah. So
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yeah, but anyway, the name anyway, names are really important. And for myself, you know, even on notes, actually, even on my session notes, like, I know you very personally, but you know, sometimes you get talking to someone, Have you ever talked to someone and they literally have just told you their name. And then you go and you're like, I cannot remember the name right now. Lately, they happens a lot. Because like, I'll try to really tune in because you have a two year old
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buddy, you're trying to tune into the conversation and be like really engaged in what they're talking about. And then that's like, the first thing that when you introduce yourself as a name, it's just like, then I've tried to kind of follow up with the get again and not be rude been like, you know, apologize for like, your name again was, you know, and then from there, and like, if I forget it, then now I'm the dick. You know, I've done that before what I for me, I actually write it down smart. I always write it down on my calendar invites that first name. I mean, I've even been in meetings where I'll pretend to check my phone. Because I've literally forgotten their name. And at this point, I'm talking to them. It's like I can't not remembering names are just hard for me to remember until I've had like a serious interaction. Or like, we've had either a meaningful conversation or something. Or I can like almost like I've done little word tricks in my mind to like, remember, like little limericks or little rhymes? Yeah. And then it's after that point. It's like, it's softlocked. Like, it's a lock in. Are you good at remembering customers names like in past projects, almost like where you're like, oh, yeah, that's where I'm, like, good at, like, we do a job for someone like, I had a furnace guy over the other day. And he's like, Oh, you poured my parents drive. I was like, Well, what's their last name? And he rattled it off as a guy, I remember that one. You know, like, that's like, I'm good at that. But then like, you know, it's sort of different when you're working intimately on a project. So you're like, oh, remember this person forever. You know, and I think, you know, you can talk now a little bit about the duration of some of your projects, obviously, you have a relationship with an commercial program, even with us as a residence. Like you're often a partner of ours, you'll usually especially the decorative finishes would meet our clients but like our we have a different foundation company than concrete science. But I'm, I don't think my clients I've ever met any of my concrete guys out in the field, so they won't have that relationship. Which I think is kind of nice. I think you're very personable. You're great with the clients. And so I think there's got to be some satisfaction in Oh, it's fun, you know, being with actual clients. And that said, the guy that we just worked with, I'll never forget him. So he was so cool and eclectic and like unique. Oh, John. Yeah, John was amazing. I know. So it's like I always it's fun meeting people like that and like, even like my guys, I'm just like, you guys have such a cool job like our installers and like you guys get to meet all these people. We get in these cool houses, you get, you know, whether we're fixing stuff or doing stuff. It's like, it's just you never in any other industry. And it's like, the uniqueness and the difference and type of people that we meet. And that's like I always wanted my weird thing is like, what does that guy do? You know? Oh, totally. Yeah. And so like, Yeah, John, I remember talking to him, and he told me
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professionals like it really caught me off guard. But I was like, kind of makes sense now, right? He's maybe one of the most interesting people I've ever met in my life. It's and he actually wants to come on the podcast, he's a huge fan of the podcast John, if you're listening to this, which I know you will, I will find a way to get you on because you own number of businesses, your past client, you're in a very interesting person. So he would be an amazing person to have on and even his wife Leah like she was amazing person like her passion for like me and her like she came into the office pick up color. And we talked for like an hour about horses. And it was just like, it just kind of the luxury of in our industry, you meet really fun, unique, cool people that have like, cool passions, and in projects they're doing, you know, and it's also cool when they I mean, it doesn't take much for them to talk about it. Sometimes you have to know someone for a long time for you understand what their passion is, like, it's on their sleeve. I know, I feel like Yeah, cuz you're, you're in their home, you're working on a huge, important thing for them, they kind of unravel a little bit more than just like meeting someone would. Yep, I agree. You know, I think going back to the name and remember them, you know, obviously in a build for us anyway, you know, our relationship might be as short as, let's call it a year, 234 years, I mean, John Lee, at this point, I've known them for three years. So it's a year of design and two years to build. And so I mean, you're, of course, never gonna forget someone that you spend on a weekly basis, you know, especially time with especially YouTube, because it's like, those are your clients, your projects, you guys, how many homes do you do a year, not very many, I'd say two to four, we'd like to do maybe one or two more. It partly depends on the scope, too. Like those were, you know, $4 million homes. And so in the detail, you know, if that was a different, more traditional home or cottage home, I mean, you could do it half the time properly. But that was such a detail, unique, detailed modern home, that everything took a much, much longer, which is interesting, its pros and cons, right? It was neat, because it was a huge boost in like what we can produce. And you know, they trusted us and we had the chops to do it. It wasn't that but it's just those homes also take I mean, the word was coming from Africa. Plus, by the way, we built this in the beginning, middle and end of COVID just like every other builder, of course to but on top of the complexities. You know, you'd already it was just it was a lot Yeah, I remember you know, things taking time and then all the glass to I remember we were like in my guys were talking about to like where the glass is coming from it. I didn't know what was Africa, but we were up in the kitchen. And I remember grabbing one of the guys and just looking around and just being like, this is just one of those houses, like this thing must be taken forever, you know, but well, and things kept changing. Right? So even the floor I mean, you were part of that. And so, you know we knew early on I think that's you know kind of an explosion I would imagine with the micro tops and your concrete finishes. We like to talk about that a little bit but I feel like the just I feel like our market Minnesota is is much more prone to go with cottage as a general rule, but I do feel like there is a subset of homes the modern that contemporary that is quickly taking over market share. I mean Russ around the country, it's a very dominant form, especially in all the magazines now whether the average person does that or not as undetermined, I guess, but it is really cool to see what you guys can do. And so having that home I mean that entire basement you guys did your did your product, because what was it that was it? That was not a micro top? No, that wasn't metallic, but I remember Josh took a picture of it when it was done. And I was like, I don't know if you're supposed to do that. But I was like Mark's cool guy but I remember looking at the picture and being like Dude, that's a badass basement. Like, I mean the stairs like everything about it the bar like the glass windows and I was like this stuff you see in magazines is like weird have the luxury of being a part of a cool project like that. You know? I don't even see the upstairs but I was like This plays off so we'll talk to you can check it out on the website. Okay, good. That's upstairs is amazing. But the I mean, the downstairs to me, it reminds me a little bit of Tony Stark's house on the I'm the Iron Man I know, in the glass and like looking out in the lake, but it's like, that's all I knew. I was like, John has got taste, man, because this place is awesome. You know, I was it was fun. And I mean, seeing it from the beginning the digital renderings with that interior designer. Yeah. Randy Buffy, who's the architect? The designer. Yeah. And then you see, like, you know, they're like, it looks like a video game. Like here, this is gonna look like and then seen in the animals. It was cool. So we did some, there's a company called Dream trace. And I think Roseville Rosemont. Not Rosemont anywhere in the east side of the cities. And just a neat concept, you can actually send in your files and SketchUp or 3d. And you can actually put on like a headset and a backpack and you can walk through a room it's like, I don't know, 2000 feet by I don't know what the dimensions are was pretty big. Yeah. And you just walk around, you're actually in the model. So as a thank you to that gift. We are to that client to John and Leah we actually we after we're at this at this point, usually you use that modeling to show a client before you build the house. But this technology come on onboard after we'd already started building the house. So we actually took them through when their house was getting close to being done like or exiting at the framing stage. And you know, here's what your house will look like. And John was like wow, this would have been really neat to do it. Before we even started it's called like a just a tool just the technology has changed something moving forward to you can use to get another super high end client like that you're like alright, like checking us out. We actually pre bought some hours to just use up there that's also have gaming there. So if we don't use it up, we'll do a guy's night and we'll just go you know, play Halo in a 3d environment, I guess. I guess it's pretty cool. That is neat. What on back to that to the concrete world. Yeah, duck, a little bit of
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The family structure of your company. So you've got obviously your grandpa, you've got your dad, you've got your uncle. Yeah, I really think it's really unique. And I think a lot of people listening and other businesses, a lot of people do stem from family run businesses, walk us a little bit through the hierarchy there. Your grandpa's still working there, which is amazing. You know, the transition, sometimes working with family is hard. Sometimes it's easy. We had Mark shear on and you know, the, you know, on Episode Five, or episode six, I think it was at the podcast, and he was talking just about the different brothers and responsibilities and how have you guys kind of foster that? Is that something you knew at an early age that you wanted to be a part of? Or walk me through that evolution? Yeah, no, absolutely. So I mean, so we've been in the same office for a long time. So like, even when I was young, that's in Corcoran. Yep, and gorkon. And so I used to work in the back, like, when I was like, 12, and 13, just like cleaning or whatever. And like, I remember telling my dad, like, you know, I want to work here when I grew up, or whatever, because everyone emulates their father, you know, and I remember him telling me like, no, like, because it was commercial concrete. And he's just like, this is a horrible job, but you know, it, you know, pay the bills, and, you know, we had a good life. But, you know, I really, you know, I think I found out that I wanted to work there probably, you know, more in college, when it kind of got more decorative. And I really kind of it took a passion and construction, but like, the dynamic itself, I think is great, because, you know, you only have so much time, I guess, with whether it's your grandpa, your uncle, your dad, or whatever, and it's really allowed me is me personally, and everyone maybe has a different perspective. But it's allowed me to spend so much time and energy working with my dad working with my grandpa seen my uncle every day. And I just feel kind of blessed in that aspect where, you know, we get to, you know, work, be successful, do cool projects, but then collaborate. And I just kind of feel lucky to have that opportunity where I went to college out of state, and I didn't see my dad for like, three or four years. And it was like, you know, it's like, it was what it was. But you know, now, you know, even having kids or whatever you just realize how important in your life family is, especially in Minnesota, it's like, everyone's seemed very tight knit, and everyone's very family oriented. So it's like, working with your family, it's like, definitely has its pros and cons. But I talked to my dad, you know, five times a day, whether it's about work, or it's about kid or whatever. But it's like, I felt that work has really brought us all super close together. And I could never, I could never discredit that and I could never, you know, be bummed about that. And so
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that is great. And then the hierarchy pieces is is fun, too, because it's like, No grandpa has been doing it forever. And he's seen everything, and he knows everything. So it's like, we had a project that, you know, we had an issue with the other day. And I was like, if you ever seen this before, and he's like, oh, yeah, he's like, you know, down on so and so's Street. And you know, West St. Paul, he's like, me, and he started rattling off these names, this is what happened. And this is how we took care of it and whatever. So it's like, alright, so like, that's how they did it back then then I'll talk to my dad and you know, ask the same question like, you know, what would you do in the situation? Or, like, how have you troubleshot this and so, from a growth standpoint, it's like, you're, you just have so much so many resources available to you, right? So it's allowed me to really grow into my role faster, maybe then people that maybe have mentors or bosses or things like that, where you have to tread lightly, you can't call them on seven o'clock on a Friday night, you know, when a project isn't going good and things like that. And yeah, and honestly, my dad, he's, we're very similar. So like, it helps like he's a driver. He's really goal oriented, a big thinker.
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You know, my grandpa, he's just hard nosed just like worker you. Like, he's never not worked a day in his life, like, he started doing block and then into concrete. And everyone knows commercial concrete block guys are always kind of, you know, tough and kind of, you know, Rusty and and that's him like to a tee. And so, just being surrounding yourself with people like that, I think is allowed me to just kind of get on a fast track to figuring out how this industry works. And, you know, knowing what to do, what not to do, what not to say, you know, because I think sometimes people II kind of have to fall on your face with those things multiple multiple times over and over to, to, to get to a position where you're, you feel comfortable doing it and I feel like I've been able to skip some of those steps. I'd like to take a minute to thank our sponsors, and then we'll be right back to the curious builder podcast.
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All of our episodes and video are available at curious builder podcast.com. And now back to our guest
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the other other family members and your immediate family that are part of the company do you know my mom, she did payroll for our company. She was our secretary for 30 years. My uncle Bob, he's one of our decorative and commercial carpenters that does a lot of like really difficult setup.
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It's funny, like people will come into our office sometimes. My, my I don't even know. It's like my dad's second cousin Chris, we have a masonry company, and he's a salesman there. But like people come into the office and be like, Oh, I'm your third cousin. And I'm like, we stopped going to family reunions when I was 12. But it's like, yeah, it's you just you meet people, you're related to kind of oddly all the time. But, you know, my mom, she still you know, she always talks about the old days with the company, and she doesn't work there anymore. But she always tells me stories and things like that. And so it's it's fun. And I feel like it's it's your legacy a little bit, you have a little bit more pride in what you do every day. And, you know, you never turn off the phone. Because in a sense, it's your reputation. But it's, it's also it's what people know what you do, you know, whether you're, you're on spring break with your family and the phone's ringing, you just kind of have to answer it, you know, because it's just part of the deal. So right, where maybe if I worked for someone else, there's a little bit of separation between work and home, but I don't regret it at all. You know, I think it's, I think, as your family and your parents and people really get older and age, I think you'd look back on these opportunities. And you can really only think you know how much it benefited you right? 100% Yeah, no, that's, that's a beautiful story. I love how I mean, it sounds like you guys must have really good communication habits. Yes. And, you know, my uncle, and my uncle and my dad are very different. Like my dad, my brother is like my uncle. So like, my brother is like, very like math, he does all of our bidding for our commercial jobs. So it's like a lot of numbers, a lot of measurements, a lot of planning. You know, my dad, honestly reminds me of you where he's like, the ultimate like networker, like you'll go into was at a country club, and he knows everyone there and he's just like, you know, walk down the street. And why is that? He's friends everywhere. And he knows everyone. It's so cool. And I've always looked up to that and you know, always great reputation, very professional, he always dressed to the nine sharp, I advise everything at jobs, which I know is not cheap. And it's just, it's a good person to look up to. And then, you know, my grandpa crewneck, sweatshirt, penny loafers and jeans, like every day. So that generation was very frugal. I know it. It's it's funny. And yeah, I mean, we're all different. But we're all the same in a way. And I try to take little pieces from everyone. Like I was telling Ian, before he got here. I was like, I you know, there was a job we're on right now. Right? You're literally got screamed at by a guy. And it's been, I haven't gotten yelled at in a while. And it was something. It didn't require it. And it was a little bit over the top. But um, you know, my grandpa, he's like, you know, you can call me if you ever have that promise. He's, uh, you know, I don't let people talk to me that way. And then talking to my dad, he's like, yeah, sometimes you just got to take and just listen, and you know, talk them down. And so it's like, very, very differently. I know. And I think that's generational, too. Because I mean, a little bit. I mean, I've mentioned this before, I often, and you and I have been on a couple of difficult jobs. And one of the things that I often go to, before a meeting, and I definitely did it before that particular one, which is, there's a verse that I often think of what's called a soft answer, turneth away wrath, and probably more along the lines of your dad's thoughts out there, but just like, you know, sometimes going in and saying you're sorry, or just listening. I mean, it really applies to almost anything like to be heard. I mean, we talked about that a lot lately, I think and just cultural settings that, you know, this person is being heard, and are they being listened to do they feel appreciated? Oh, and you know, those tough ones, like they, a lot of times your customer just wants to talk and like they want to tell you what they don't like or what they're upset with and that kind of just want to get it out. And then it's like, without saying like, Okay, are you done, you're like, you know, I understand like, I'm hearing you, right, so then it's like, what can we do to fix it? Right? What can we do to make it right? I would say for me, the three things that initially attracted me to concrete science was, Eric said my first contact was actually with your dad. Yeah, excellent communication.
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Then he set me up with you, you have a view of improved upon that the 2.0 communication, phenomenal communicator. And as someone who loves communication, obviously you respond well to other people, but really at set called your bedside manner if you're a physician, because you are very blessed with computational clients in you know, you helped us in a very difficult situation. And there, there's really unfortunately that particular one, there was no really right way out of that one. It's like, no matter what you do, you lose no matter what. And so like, the way you handled, it was incredibly supportive, not only of us as a company, but also just impressive to watch, because sometimes it's not very easy. And in some ways, I guess you were able to come in, because you kind of came in with a Superman cape, I forgot to think about you weren't originally on the project, we brought you in to solve the problem. I remember this one. And so you got to sort of be Superman. And, you know, it's scary, though putting on the Cape, right? Yeah, you were the cape. And you were like, Mark, I'm trying to I'm trying to do the best I can. And anyway, I You did a phenomenal job. Anyone listening if you need Superman, Chase x is your guy. I don't know those are. But like, it's funny, because like eternally, like, you know, like, I'm freaking out. But like, you can't show that either. Because you're like, you basically got to hit a homerun. Otherwise, you can have one, you can also see all the tension, right? Like you're walking in, and you're just like, Whoa, I don't know, all the backstory here, you know, you have relationship with me, obviously, and you're trying to listen to the client, because they had, they had legitimate concerns, and you help fix it. So those are all legit. But, you know, you, you definitely walked a tightrope there, and you did a great job, you know, at the end of the day, and this is like for you too, it's like the end of the day, it's a we have to maintain our relationship with each other. So it's like, that's the hard part on those ones. Because it's like, the customer. And this is people that work in residential, it's like, they'll try to put you against the builder, or they'll put you against the painter or the last guy is one thing that I've taken real well from working with my families, like you'd never say anything bad about anyone else's work or any other contractors know, no matter what situation you're in, or the person you're working for, because it's like, guess what they always find out and they always hear it, you know, and you can, that's great advice, actually, you demonstrate that beautifully at that job. I think sometimes there was, you know, an issue where you could say, Well, I would have done it differently. But this was a good job. Right? So it's kind of like, you're acknowledging what the issue is. But you're also saying like, you know, I may have done it differently. But that doesn't mean that how they did it was the wrong way to do it. Yeah, cuz everyone's trained differently. And you know, in the guy that did, the last job was just like a good guy. So it's like, we remember, we talked with him on the phone, he's like, there's nothing wrong with this person. Maybe you had a bad couple of jobs or whatever, you know. So yeah, 100%, I actually bring up something that is a reoccurring topic, and you're the first person I've talked to this about on the podcast, but it's, you know, you and I are trade partners together. Right. And so we have a mutual client. And you and I, you know, hopefully, you know, I'm gonna probably do this for a couple decades, you know, human health and interest in everything lines up.
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And you know, your young age as well. So if as long as you're staying in it, you know, we'll likely work together for multiple years, multiple decades, potentially. And, you know, sometimes I've had clients to your point, you know, it's this balance, because I understand where the client is coming from, they'll come to me, and they'll say, Mark, you know, I want you to go at Chase, and I want you to get a lower price. It's usually price is almost always ends up being about money.
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Because if it's quality, if there was a bad job, like then I would be aligned with it with the client, right? I would say, Okay, this isn't satisfactory. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, it's the right thing to do. And that's also why we work with valuable people like yourselves, because you would say, I agree, because you're also very self critical. You'd say, yep, that's not up to our standard. How can we help? Yep, that's who can argue with that response. I mean, that we all make mistakes. The problem is, is when a client comes to us and say, Hey, we've asked you to get us the lowest price. I mean, usually, I'll say, first of all, you're not coming to me, because I'm the lowest price number what I was gonna say, I mean, your nurses not, I mean, we are very good value. And we do a phenomenal job for what we do. So in that context, yes. But if you're going to the lowest price, I mean, we're not the Walmart builders, and that's fine. There's nothing wrong with Walmart, Walmart crushes me. And you know, there are national builders that can help, you know, I'll produce me 1000 to one, that's just not what I'm good at. And kudos to them. They're amazing at that. They also can't do what I do. And so everyone kind of stays in their lane that way. But going back to the client kind of asking us to do is I you know, I'm very clear, like, I even tell the client, like, you know, they are my family extension that, you know, like any family, you there are some family members that depending on who they marry, and how that all works, like you're navigating that relationship, but they're still your family, our trade partners, we've been with some of our guys for, you know, 30 years, 4050 years between my dad's company and my grandpa's company. And now a lot of them are starting to retire, obviously. And so we're kind of the good ones are getting old. They are I mean, our plumbers, luckily, their kids are in it now. And so it's like, we're good to go there. And so you know, you're a third generation. So you know, you had a nice fit there. But I guess walk me through from your point of view. For those listening that get this question asked by a homeowner, you know, it's not a right thing to ask, but what would be your response? I mean, do you deal with this in a different way? Because like, well, you and I have a trade trade relationship. Do you have other trade relationships where you'd have maybe like a supplier like, I don't know Sam stone. I don't know enough about you.
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business to know like, who you partner with? Or they're saying, hey, you know, I need you to go after this person to get me a lower price, like, how do you respond to those kinds of No, absolutely. And so I'm lucky because in my position, I'm basically production. So I oversee installations, but then I do a lot of like, higher level more difficult sales, like, like working with you with like, high end clients. And so I see both sides, I have a really good relationship with our distributors, manufacturers are our supplier of epoxy, like resonance products, I call it my, like, my friend will go to hockey games we have launched. And so it's like, having those relationships. But in regards like, to the price, I've never liked to go to my suppliers on like, I guess unless it's a really big job, I don't like to beat him up on price, because I want to feel that our relationship is good enough, where I am getting the best price. And I feel like it maybe could come off as offensively. If I'm like, Hey, can I get this lower, and they're like, you know, Chase, we're giving you a really good deal here. So with that customer, a lot of times what I can do, or what I've done in the past is like, I bid it differently where our salesmen, they use a price book. So it's a book of basically prices that they're instructed to charge. Now, we have our margin built into there. But if I'm bidding a job, I like to look at it like how long is this going to take me how many guys I'll calculate my materials, you know, how many gallons are, you know, what's my coverage rate, you know, et cetera. And then I put my margin on it, you know, I look at the client, and I look at them as if it's like a headache factor, like, right, you know, like, I'm gonna keep my price because I know, I'm probably gonna go back there a couple of times for meetings, or, you know, hey, this is new construction, you know, client seems easy, like, we had really good meetings and stuff like this, I want this job, you know, then it's like, then I'll just lower my margin where if like, I was making x, you know, I'll make why, you know, they people call it sharpening your pencil. But, you know, a lot of factors are, I think it kind of relates back to who we're dealing with, right? That's a That's a great answer. Because you're right, because ultimately, if one of my best clients called me today, I'm thinking of who this person is. And he's like, I need this or this happened, it wouldn't even be a question like, I'll either take care of it, or like, I just want them to be happy, because they're, they're the best. And they're also the ones that don't, don't ask for it. So if they ever did, absolutely, and then the ones that ask for all the time, it's a constant battle, to your point you You're smarter than I am, because you saw it right away. Like, you know, this is a PA fee, right? I'm like, and we don't have a line like that in there. Maybe somebody does out there. But you know, but you understand that like, this is a hard business. And I'm sure, you know, I relate a little bit to real estate sales, right? Like sometimes the real estate agent, you know, gets beat up because they have an easy sale, but they have some that they've searched for homes for a couple of years and don't get paid at all. Yeah, and that is all getting kind of ironed out in the wash. And I feel like, you know, we don't have that many super difficult clients, I think you end up talking about it, because it's kind of like therapy, frankly, no. And it's a bonding, like how I was also a way of problem solving. Like, I'll often ask other builders, hey, I'm having this situation, you know, how do you deal with it? Where if I'm gonna go around saying I have the best client ever? And like, well, then how do you feel good for you? I'm really glad you have a great client. And I sincerely mean that. But it's like, where's the learning in that? Yeah, like, and I feel like when you talk about the issues you have, as long as it's an and you can help leave that sometimes do. But I do feel like if you call someone like, Hey, I'm dealing with this situation, even other business owners, you and I think that's what's that I love about this podcast, frankly, is like you get to understand what what are the pinch points of other people's businesses, and then you can apply that to your own business we have kind of none of it's a funny story. It's a little bit broad, but like, customers professions, so And it's funny, because it's a coincidence. I'm like four jobs, like two driveways, two pool decks, we've struggled with den dentists, like as a subgroup like dentists are difficult, they're the customer. And it's like, not even a coincidence anymore, right? So we've done to perfect pool decks and to perfect driveways. And you'll get like, a hairline crack, a bladder cup, or in the corner of the driveway. And he's like, demanding, it needs to be torn out. And so like full circle, kind of the reason for this story is like, I try to remember, you know, a why people are difficult, but you really tried and I think you're obviously probably good at this, but you you probably successful because you can read people a little bit, right? And like sometimes they'll just miss right, but like, you can feel when it's gonna be tough. You know, the problem is as an optimist, yeah. And I always say this, what makes me really good at remodeling. It also makes me bad at spec home building, if you will, because like, I can go into a really bad home and be like, I can make this amazing. Yeah, but just because I can make an amazing doesn't mean I should make an amazed doesn't mean it's gonna be easy, or easy, right? And so I feel like sometimes with a person we ignore aren't like everyone would say, hey, if it's a red flag, like, you know, if somebody hits somebody, or we had someone on the podcast that the client actually yelled at their spouse in front of them. And the builder is like, I'm out. I'm done. If you talk, if you talk to that way to your wife, I'm done. And my point is, if somebody's got a big red flag like that, you'd be like, okay, but it's like how many little orange flags because you know, not everyone's perfect. Nobody's your dream client or not everyone's your dream client. But so it's like you do have to still run a business and not every client
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He's going to be your best friend. And that's okay. Because there's only so much time in your day, because you're thinking about to like, you have to get paid at the end, right? And you don't want to end up in court and like, you don't want to give them massive discount at the end. So it's like, you're trying to, like, vet them to some degree, but like, also, like you have a reputation and a brand. So it's like, you can't just turn someone down on a whim, you know? No, of course, I'd say that's probably the hardest part of our job is just, you know, the customers, but also, you know, the good and bad, it's like, so, I have a note here. So last year, we did 1400 jobs. 1400. Yeah. And so like, we joke all the time. So it's like, we don't run a background check. We don't run a credit check. You know, basically, you call and you give your downpayment, some most home, but like you know, downpayment. But if we're working directly with clients, everyone's half down, but it's like you're not doing any homework at all on these people. So it's like 1400, you know, husbands and wives. And it's like, you're gonna get a few kind of odd ones. Yeah. And we remember them all. And like, I actually have, I have this green notebook on my desk. And it's like, it's like a construction note manual. And so it's like, pages and pages. And I'll write notes about when I have a really bad customer. And I'm like, kind of note bullet points on the experience. What did we end up doing, we give him a full discounted full refund. And like, every winter, when we have downtime, we'll kind of go through the notebook. And I'll be like, Oh, my God, I remember that job. And like, in my head, I'm like, I know, like, if I had the opportunity to do this, again, I could do a few of these things better. And I think when you're in this residential market, like working with, I say, husbands and wives, husbands, Husbands, husbands, Husbands, wives or wives, you kind of have to kind of have to be built for dealing with residential customers versus on a commercial job site. Like my uncle. It's like, he's got one GC. And then he's got a bunch of subs working next to him. And then he's got, you know, the the person that puts the funding in for the project. But you know, you don't have you know, the wife coming in here looking at it and being like, oh, like, it's that color gray and the husband's like, yeah, what do you mean? Like, that's what we know. Yes, I've seen that happen. Oh, my gosh, and like it? Yeah, just you have to be built differently for the residential work. And it makes it fun. But it's like, it's not for everyone, for sure. Because it's like, you have to kind of bend and you have to cater to these people, and they're paying you and you have to be really, really nice and respectful. Even if they're saying, you know, some weird things sometimes. But yeah, it's like, I think that's probably what makes you good at your job. I think it takes a large emotional bandwidth, right? Because it's very emotional. We talked about that a lot about how I mean, you know, a wedding is very emotional, right? Building a home is actually one of the things I want to do. I want to have a wedding planner on and a project manager and do a three week conversation where I would ask a question, and then who the audience would have to guess who I'm talking to? Because I have a feeling that a wedding planner, and a project manager would have very similar stories if you've left out some of the details. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I would have met I know, like the wedding is such a big deal. These days, people are spending crazy amounts, but like, the home is the same way. Because it's like, you're most of the time building people's dream homes. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of your niche. And so what's involved, and frankly, even I think there's a connotation with price point. But I will say this, just to pause you there for a second that, regardless of where you're at, when you're building your home, most people think that's their dream home. Now, I think sometimes the other people might like, well, that's not my dream, dream home, right and air quoted, but any home is emotional to your point. But yes, as the dollars creep up, or at least at the dollars creep up in proportion to what the person can afford, you know, that dream home status inflates expectations, as well. Yeah, no, absolutely. Like, I like John and Leah, like, that's their dream home, right. And you could tell they're super passionate about it. And it's like, they live next door, and they're homeless, beautiful, but you could tell this was like, for them, it was like, it was like a piece of art, right. And like, everything was custom, like to the nine. So it's like, and I sort of envisioned myself in these people's positions sometimes because it's like, at breakfast, they're talking about it before bed, they're talking about at dinner, they're talking about it, you know, so it's like, it's just consuming their lives. So it's like, you kind of pressed in this position of, you know, having to kind of be perfect, you know, right. And the thing that was unique about that situation is they were so proud of their house. Excuse me, you know, with him living next door. I mean, he honestly was at the house probably four or five times a week. We know. Yeah, you know, you probably helped you. And which was I mean, that's there's pros and cons, right? I mean, I'm sure John will listen to this, the House would go faster. But that's okay. Because he his blood and his passion would be in it. And I actually love that about him. Because it made it so rewarding. Because, you know, you'd be gone I'd come into it. Let's say I was out of town or whatever, I'd come into the house, he would show me things about the house that you know, I usually would already know about sometimes he'd be able to change something earlier in the day that I didn't know about, but he was so excited to share it and that kind of enthusiasm as a trades person as someone who's wanting to like build this for you like how can you not get energized by that like for me I was like yes, this is amazing. He loved like tradesmen to write I loved everyone that worked on his house. I think that's so cool for people to really appreciate those people because it's like a they're building this like for you and
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then it's like, you know, in your business too, it's like the homeowner almost is like, it's like they're, they're a part of it in the sense that like, they are designing this with you and they're seeing it through to the end. So it's like they have these visions, and these dreams and color scheme and design coming together. And it's like, and it's it's your world these high these high end homes because in my mind, I think, you know, Mark D Williams homes, I think, you know, high end homes right here, it looks like our marketing is working. Yeah, no, I think you know, for that customer, it's like they are like one to one in that process with you. And I think that's, you know, back full circle to our customer conversation. I think that's what makes your job my job. It makes it fun.
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I'd like to take a minute to thank our sponsors, and then we'll be right back to the curious builder podcast.
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This episode is brought to you by adaptive adaptive is a technology company that basically processes all your invoicing. It communicates with QuickBooks, it communicates with builder trend, it basically takes everything that you have puts it into their system cost codes it you vet it, you send it around the office, you can avoid those days of having 18 People stamp their approval on a piece of paper before a subcontractor gets paid. Go give them a look. Give them a like, give them a follow adaptive dot built. This episode is brought to you by middlemen resign timbers, find them at Mr. timbers.com, Sarah Monroeville and her team over in Hugo, Minnesota do an amazing job getting you the barnwood that you need for your projects, whether you're an architect, a designer, a builder, whether you're doing residential or commercial, I highly recommend Sara and her team, I've worked with her for over a decade, their commitment to excellence on time delivery, and just their American made can do attitude is really inspiring. They have a small team of 20 employees, and whether they're doing stuff in New York for Ralph Lauren, or whether they're doing your local bar in Wisconsin, Sara and her team are just amazing people, the only thing better is their product. So if you're looking for barnwood, please visit them at Mr. timbers.com all of our episodes and video are available at curious builder podcast.com. And now back to our guest
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think like any relationship and you know, any marriage, I mean, often. I mean, it's it's been commonly said, right that, that it's like a marriage or like a long term relationship building a home, right? Yeah. And, you know, you, you get a more a deeper relationship for sure. I mean, you know, their kids, his names, they know your kids, and I often will start a lot conversation just because, you know, I've got, you know, little kids, I'm constantly showing pictures to my clients. And so like,
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when they want to enter into because a lot of them, you know, they either have kids, or they remember what that was like, or they're have grandkids. And so, you know, they're just, they also see it through the lens of, you know, they're more mature in life. And so they're like, here's a younger person that has a business, we're really excited. I mean, so it becomes it, the emotion goes both ways, like you can feel the care that they have for you as well. Yeah, I think it's something that's reciprocated, that makes building very special and very rewarding. It's the human aspect of it too. And like, I'm sure there's many times where you're going to look at a project on a Saturday, and this was me growing up, and it's like, I'm in the car with my dad, we're going to look at jobs, we're walking around, I have no idea what I'm looking at at that age, but it's like he's meeting with the client. It's like, Oh, who is that? It's like, oh, this is my son, you know, he's six years old, or whatever. And it's like, that's how I grew up. And that's something that I want to kind of pay it forward. You know, as my kids get older, but I'm sure you're kind of in the same boat. It's like the work never stops. So it's like, having a family kind of involved in it is fun, but it allows the people to you work with see that you're just a normal person just like them, right? You have soccer at 930. But you have to go look at this job at eight, right? So no, it's a constant balance as a as an owner. And really, for anybody, especially when you're trying to make sure you're, you know, pleasing the clients, I found for myself that my wife has helped with this a lot. But you know, time blocking, we talked a little bit about yet, you know, setting some parameters on your day. I also think the generation that we're in, while we're more everyone's a little bit more flexible, I feel like people are more understanding. I could be wrong in that because I feel like your grandpa's generation, like they work 24/7 man. Like if someone wants me to meet on a Saturday, like, that's not going to happen. I make it very clear with them. Like it was an isolated thing. Someone flew and out of town and they need to be sure I'd make arrangements. But as a general rule, and we're going to be working with you for two and a half years. It can wait till Monday. Yeah. And you know, the whole texting thing. I feel like our generation texts too much. I'm fine with like, hey, text me if you're running late, like I was or, you know, something happens. But ultimately, it's a phone call. It's an email, you know, give us a way to respond to this in a business boundaries about some boundaries. And I think I think part of it is is when it's a house again, it's emotional again. And so people let their emotion go like would you be emailing your doctor at night? 10 o'clock at night? No, never? No. Would you be would you be texting your doctor at you know, one o'clock in the morning? No, I mean, you get these email stamps from some of your clients, and they're these crazy hours, you know, and that's fine. It's fine. If it's an email, right? I can respond to it in a business day, so I'm okay with that. But like the texting thing we really try to it's for their health too. Like I don't want clients with
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Think it's self serving, although I don't think there's anything wrong with putting some protections like I can come to the job site, Monday, much more of mentally prepared, you can get the best version of me, right? Whether it's your health and exercise your family time, people need that in order to be the best artist of whatever, whatever you're going to do. That's what you need. And I feel like that comes with, like, obviously, your experience, but that's something I've learned in the last couple of years. I didn't know that right away. Oh, my God, I remember my first three years and I was with my wife, I, we were just dating at the time, but like, I would answer phone calls at nine o'clock 10 o'clock. 8:30pm. And it's like, she was like, Is this gonna be like this forever? I was like, I don't know, like right now. But then as you get older, in you create structure, and you create boundaries. And I think just professionalism, you know, is is more, if you're able to control it more, right? You know, and so now it's like, my phone will ring after 530. And it's like, you know, we can handle this tomorrow, lift in the void, listen to voicemail, unless it's like a pressing emergency, you know, but
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I feel like that definitely comes with experience, because I remember in the beginning, it was like, I was just trying to be a pleaser, like, I think anyone that is early on in their career, and hopefully, I mean, you're right, I wish you could know now, obviously, you knew then what you know now because man, the maturity, I think to, you know, talking a little bit about even like Pricing and Value, I think something that, you know, growing up the industry, I don't think people can totally appreciate, like all the wisdom and the knowledge that you specifically can tap into with three generations at your fingertips. And sometimes it just takes time and knowledge. Like I think of what I know now, even the last couple of years, while there's been some difficult situations we've had to overcome, like my knowledge set that you pay for that I remember during the first recession, and, you know, 910 and 11, I remember, someone told me that I got my master's degree in business and half the time and quadrupled the expense.
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And I was like, you don't have your MBA, but you survived the recession. So that's like worth a couple, it's not so true. Like I look at problematic jobs, and not referencing anything specifically about jobs that like didn't go well, but like you got through them. And it's like, whether you've lost money or whatever, but it's like, you got to take something away from them. And otherwise, you're, you're not doing your job, right. However, just keep me know, I've got 10,000 questions, but we only have not that much time left, I guess looking at the clock, how from a business structure, you had 130 People now? How did it kind of organically grow? Did you see kind of big surges? Or do you kind of, do you continually add like a couple of people a year or walk me a little bit through? I'm always fascinated, because we're kind of at a growth stage in our our own building company. It's like, do I hire a few more like, what does that look like? So I'm most interested in people's systems, like, walk me through the evolution of how you've hired, you know, how do you hire? Do you do personality assessments? Do you? How do you fire like, walk me through a little bit about how you've grown this business to this large the size as well as like, you know, how do you maintain company culture? Yeah, absolutely. So long story short, so housing, housing market crash, we were union company, we went non union got sued by the unions had to pay that off. But we basically went from 100 people to 10. And whoa, and they made you pay? Oh, my gosh, it was like, what it was a crazy amount of money. I don't know anything about I should know more about union. And maybe this isn't the place to talk about that. But really, that's shocking to me. So you went from 100 to 10? And the like, and we're penalizing you as well. Yep. Because basically, we knew that we couldn't afford to pay the union wages for, you know, what we were getting after the housing market collapse and the type of work we were doing. And so kind of got rid of everyone found guys that we had to let go jobs. 10 of them stayed with us one of our main demo, guys, Jeff, he's still with us, or Mechanicville. And they've been there for like 30 years. But then moving forward, you know, moving in this residential market, slowly hiring. But how we were able to grow really fast in the last five years was it my dad was basically like, you can't hire any good people on the concrete industry. Because if they're good, either, there's a reason why they're not working, or they're doing well on their own right. And so we were able to buy up three or four small companies, were able to buy up a wall company, were able to buy up a pool company, when I say pool at pool deck installation is kind of what they specialized in. And we went from 2030 to 100, by basic acquiring smaller companies. Yep. And it were those people actively looking to sell or did your dad go and have relationships with with them and say, Hey, this is a segment of business that I would like to have under a concrete science. How does it have those conversations happen? Yeah, and I was lucky to be a part of a lot of the conversations early in my career, but they kind of went like this, like the owner of that company was so tired of going working, going home, having to enter time doing payroll paying bills, you know, then you know, customers not paying then you don't have the money to pay the bill. So it's kind of this grind of being a small company, and being an owner operator, right. So they're like, I would much rather be employed by someone else, you know, have my salary, make sure my guys have a place to work, make sure they get an hour's you know, working in the winter. And because their guys are their family, especially in a small company. So it's like, okay, Steve, you know, my dad, you can do that for us. So it's
55:00
Like you buy out the equipment, you give them some money for the company, you bring them on as is a, like a higher level role, whether they're, you know, managing that group still, or they're, you know, being elevated kind of, not to, you know, like executive, but like they're running that group, you know, not having to dig holes and pour concrete every day. And that's what a lot of them watch, just get off their hands and knees. But that allowed us in those four or five acquisitions to grow a lot, because any people that are in concrete that are listening to this, no, it's like, you can't hire good guy. So it's like, how do you do it? So we were able to train them in? I mean, what's the? So that's essentially how do you get new people then you will? Yeah, so So now getting this kind of large group of people, it allows us to have laborers and stuff learn underneath a larger group, where if there's just 20 of us, and you're trying to train in guys, it's hard, because it's like, every guy kind of has to be good, you know. So, you know, being a larger number, we're allowed to train more,
55:55
kind of have guys take longer to train in my group, specifically, on the coding side. And I'm really blessed and getting really, you know, four or five really good guys. And then, you know, having them want to train younger people, because they are younger, themselves, coatings, concrete or different, you don't need to be, you know, 35 or 40. And be like a really good finisher to get into coatings, you can kind of learn it quick, and so a different type of industries. But um, I think it's impossible to grow in our industry without having some sort of mergers or acquisitions just because the talent is hard to attract. And then also, there's not a lot of young kids signing up to do this type of work, have you done, I've done a little bit of outreach with Minnetonka High School to bring on their kids to do this called the Vantage Plus program where they come in to do a project over a semester, but they're looking at it from a business standpoint, which is obviously still very valuable. And I believe they have a segment. I don't know if it's in the state, or just in that district, where they have more carpentry outreach and stuff like that. Have you reached out to any high schools? Or are there any programs like that, where you can essentially have, I mean, I don't corporate where they have interns and you know, work for train, like how does that work to educate the younger people, because you know, people might be very interested in this in the business, especially for me, I would be interested in the micro tops, and like all these dual finishes, I think that's super interesting. The decorative stuff is cool. And I think we have a shot at kind of my focus was more of the coatings. But we and I don't want to sound like I'm narrowing to a specific area. But we found that, you know, some of the schools out west are more open to doing more trade oriented discussions with some of their kids than maybe some of the more suburban schools or things like that. And so there's a few that I've kind of
57:39
picked that I'd like to go into, and maybe talk to that part of the school, whether it's a group of kids that are interested in trade school, maybe just give my experience, but then just say like a, and this is I went to college, like I have student loans, like I, I was actually a journalism major, which doesn't apply to anything now. But I remember my dad told me, you can't work for the family company if you don't go to school. And I was like, oh, that's fair, you know, but a lot of kids now these days, it's like, they don't have to go to a four year university. A lot of you know, plumbers, electricians, I'm sure many people you talk to, there's very valuable positions in trade, and they can make $55 An hour and really good wages. Yeah. And it's not like one of my best friends is electrician, he does extremely well. And it's not backbreaking work. He enjoys it, you know, and it's just like, I think that that model of you know, forcing kids to go to four and six year universities is, is kind of not the norm as much as it used to be, which I think is great. I mean, I think I think just understanding, I think there's a lot more conversations, especially as education has gotten so expensive. Yes. And I think also as it's, I mean, unless we have a large surge of immigration, I mean, this the US population based on numbers is not going to support the needs that we have. And especially in construction, but frankly, every so now we're all I mean, you talked about buying companies, I mean, essentially, you're gonna have to buy employees one way or another and now you're now you're paying for unskilled labor. That's it just becomes a very spiraling. And we're certainly not the only industry that has to deal with this. But because I feel like we have a low barrier of entry. You know, I mean, if you're going to be a scientist, I don't think you can just go be a scientist, you need some you need education. That's fine. I'm not saying you don't need education. I certainly there's things I certainly believe in education, but I just wish it was more celebrated. Craftsmanship. I was listening to the modern craftsman, and they were talking about Nick Schiffer was over in Europe, and he was in Switzerland and he was just talking about how in the school, the trade schools over there that they celebrate, it's really an all white collar, blue collar like everyone has the same collar. And that really, that
59:42
it's the craftsmanship. It's the love of what they do, and they can all earn a good living. And whether you're a biochemist, I guess you're in Switzerland, you're building Rolexes or you are a carpenter, you can make similar incomes and now that's I understand that that's not going to be the US model. I'm not naive enough to think that that's going to happen but the
1:00:00
doesn't mean that some of that can't trickle down in like when I was a kid we had shop class. Like we did all the things now I check in with some of the teachers like didn't even have shop class in the school. They have college prep instead of shop. Yeah. And so I feel like we're missing out on educating some of these just amazing trades in these incredible jobs that are out there for people that it also that guess what they would love it? Oh, they would. It was I have a cool story too. So we worked on a project Denmark last winter, it was Did you really three months? Yep. And so we worked on a waterpark, and we're working next to the Masons and all the Masons were in their low 20s to mid 20s. And we kind of asked them, they're like, how did you guys learn this? And they went to like, they graduated from high school, and they went to school for like two and a half or three years to be masons, and there's like, 20 of them. And my joke was like, okay, like, what do we have to do to get you to the US? Like, do I tell them how much Masons make or like, like, I don't like maybe just gotta come over and visit or whatever. But I just thought it was so cool that like, they basically segwayed into a trade right out of high school, and they're proud of it, they're good at it, they made good money. Like, it was just very exactly what I'm talking, I think just appreciation. I think also getting rid of the social stigma on certain things would be helpful. There's, there's a negative stigma with some construction. And obviously, the stuff that we do, and you do is like, awesome, like the homes and stuff, but even like commercial construction, and like tough stuff, right? I mean, whether you're doing like welding or like iron work, it's just like, I think sometimes, I don't know if it's social media, where it's like, people joke about it. And there's some like negative connotations with it, but it's like you meet those people and the very normal down to earth are doing well, they're taking care of their family. So it's like, I think the sort of the vision needs to change about how we look at those people to your point on 100%. If you by the way, if you ever do something with schools and you want to co host I would be happy to go talk to actually that makes me want to go reach out to some schools, and I don't know what he's talking about. But you know, what I'd be I would love to get in front of kids and tell them to look into it. You bring your your finished trim carpenter, you could bring me and then you bring, you know, one of your, you know, your other, maybe your painter or something. But, I mean, you can show kids just pictures of these homes, too. And I personally think carpentry is like the coolest thing ever. Because I don't do it. And I'm not good at it. But like, I interviewed a kid, it was probably two weeks ago, and his name was Val. And he's 24. You're 44 years old. He's making $30 An hour finished trim carpenter, and he wanted to get into, you know, our trade like concrete. I'm like, Dude, why don't you go work for like, you know, like a mark, you know, because I'm like, what you do is so cool. And he's like, what I think what you do is cool. And I'm just like, wow, you know, but I just the cool part about is the kid was 23 years old, and he was a stud and like, he was a hockey player. And he's like, I want to do stuff with my hands, you know? And I was just like, there's just nothing that's special that he knows that at that age. I know. Because I you know, I think that this is something that I wish someone had told me do earlier. But like, I feel like in your 20s like for you know, I went to college as well. And I'm not sure what I learned. I feel like it was just a time to mature. I think it's like it's a giant hurdle that they want you to jump over to see if you can do it. Yeah, right. Yeah. And it's like you got over a hurdle. And I remember one teacher, a physics teacher actually said that we're teaching you how to learn. We don't expect you to remember but can you remember how to learn? That was I didn't do very well in physics. But
1:03:03
that was that was really cool, though. By the way, math and science man. It's like, we're what are we doing with algebra now? You know, very little. But yeah, yeah. No, I agree on the college thing, you know, and it's like, you went to college, I went to college, like, I have no regrets about it. But it's like, I love meeting kids that want to be in construction. I just think it's so cool. And it's like, a hot like, maybe it's your parents, like, how did you get that thought, but it's just like, there just needs to be more of that. And like, however, we can do it. I think it's just, it's gonna benefit everyone. You know, it'd be kind of neat if they had like an apprenticeship program in high school, or even, like, get off class early. But yeah, good. I mean, yeah.
1:03:38
Come work for us. Yeah. But it would almost be kind of neat to do. Like, in a one year, you have to work with like, six businesses or five business and it doesn't even have to be construction. You could pick a, let's say, a construction route. Yep. You could pick like, you know, heavy, heavy construction or machine operations. You know, I mean, manufacturing, I think that we're gonna see a huge influx of manufacturing in the United States. It's just my personal guess. I mean, the one thing I think that COVID did was expose the number of manufacturing holes we have in the United States. Oh, it was horrible. It was terrible, but from every industry, and obviously, then there's some net national security stuff too, right. It's like, Well, hey, if we're relying on XYZ Comm, you know, country to get us this, you know, they realize that wow, after 30 days of not being able to get it had massive ripple effects through the economy. Oh, I'm sure you will. It was it. It was like garage doors. And what else? I mean, things came to a screeching halt. Right. Well, I mean, obviously, the microchips or any computer related stuff was not very, you know, is originated here. So we ended up running into issues there. And so, yeah, anyway, going back to it, I think would like I'd be fascinated, I would love to sign up for that class. That'd be an awesome class, like intro to business in like five businesses would volunteer their time. And you shadow each one for like, one week, you know, for like, two hours. See what you like, what you're like, Hey, that looks really cool, man. I never want to do that. I know. Well, yeah. No, because it's like, you know, if all the trades which would you wouldn't want to do because you can watch them that I you know, I actually I want to have I'll have Randy just now from Minnesota.
1:05:00
Got some drywall on? I saw him I saw him the other day. Well, I see even your reaction tells you the answer. And it was like, my joke is is that even drywallers pay other drywallers to drywall their house, like it is considered like it is a rough industry. I follow some like meme pages on Instagram. And it's always like the drywallers isn't like the tapers and the mothers like the button to the joke. And I feel bad because it's so important. But like, I also get the jokes, right? Oh, for sure. I come out. And they're just like, well, you know, we'll have Randy on, because I would love to hear how he got into drywall and how he's stayed in drywall, because it's sort of a thankless job. And then you have talked momos employees, too, because they're always very interesting people, you know? Oh, very, yep. For sure. So, let's firm your let's finish up here a little bit more about the company. I know, we had about 20 More questions that want to ask you, but we're gonna run out of time. How the structure of your company now? Yeah, I mean, you're a big enough company now, like HR culture. Walk me through? How do you how do you maintain a company of that size? I mean, I'm a company of five. And I always get blown away. You know, like I said, Mark shear was on the other day, and you know, he had 300 employees. And it's just kind of mind boggling when you're small company, you look at a big company, like, wow, how does? How do you? How do you navigate that many people know, what systems do you have in place to do that? I thought a lot about this question. And and so it's like, you hate to call it like separations. But it's like there's the office in the field. And there's always kind of a little bit of combativeness between that but it's like, basically, it's like, all your divisions are kind of groups. But like, you all commingle I think a lot of is just from the start. It's just like hiring good people. Like when we interviewed Josh, who's our CFO, we interviewed another gentleman, and he worked on all the funding for the US Bank, and like he had a glowing resume. And then Josh came from really good company, but we just viewed him as a better fit, because like, I don't need me to be stereotypical, but it's like, he liked to hunt, he liked to fish, you know, he just seemed like a regular guy. He's from Montsegur offices in Corcoran. And so it's like, my dad always taught me it's like, sometimes it's about hiring, the better fit than the better applicant. You know, that's a really wise advice. Yeah. And so it's like, and we have a good culture in the office, as far as I do. I get along with everyone every day, like, no, do I butt heads with certain people? Like, absolutely, but, you know, it's like, you all have to coexist, you have to work together. But find people that are, you know, similar in some way, you know, I think people that are sort of extroverted, you know, is obviously good, like, you can have an office full of extroverts in construction. And then if you hire an introvert, like, they probably aren't going to last long, because it's just not there. Right? You know, it's not their job to be somebody they're not correct. It's fatiguing. Just like for an extrovert, to be an introvert, it's difficult to and in the field, you know, I think in the field, in oldest, we can use my group as a as an example. So in our field, like our epoxy garage floor, guys,
1:07:44
mostly Latino, Latino, Hispanic workers, and I speak Spanish, I get along with all of them great, like I consider them my family. And then on our resurfacing side, your micro chop your polishing guys that travel out of town, and I'll travel with for, you know, two to three weeks to a month on end. They're all Caucasian guys. And my favorite part about big jobs is I get to get them all together. And then I just cracked jokes the whole time, because you really got to break the ice, but it's like seeing them commingle. It's just like, you know, you can have a group of 20 guys from very different backgrounds. But when we're all passionate about the same work, we all have families will have kids. And so it's like, I love that part of construction, where you can get all these people together and just kind of, you know, make them get along, you know, like, we never have any jobs where there's fights, issues and negativity. We don't have any problem employees if we do. And this is a lot of people that I've learned from too, if you have any cancer in the company, you got to cut it out because it can spread and it's difficult. So, you know, people that we find that aren't good fits, they don't last long, just because it you know, and even Luis, my main foreman on my garage side, will hire a guy and he'll come to me and he'll say, like, I don't think this guy is going to be a good fit. And you know, as far as I know, it's like, you have to lean on your guys for things like that, you know, and you're like, you know, hey, if Louis sees me get rid of that guy in two weeks, he knows that I trust him to help me. Right. It validates the relationship and the fact that you know, a lot of people say you have an open door policy, but your actions say it's closed. Yeah, yeah. That's good. You gotta lean on your people, man. It'd be like, if you hire a temp tomorrow, and then, you know, he's working with Mike and Mike comes in. He's like, you know, you're like, Alright, give him a couple of weeks. Right? You know, but it's like, it's about the commerce guy on the planet. You'd have to give that guy you know, you have to put a pause hard on him and and be like, hey, if your pulse moves, one beat, we'll know something's up. He's very calm. But yeah, I mean, it's like it when you have good people in the office. Good. People can read people and you can kind of see through some of the BS and if you know if someone's disingenuous, or if you feel like they're not really who they are. You know, I think that's, that's part of, you know, being an owner of a company is like you don't like for you. I think if you if you knew, if you didn't know how to hire good people, you probably don't last very long, right? I think what your dad said was interesting that you hire, the right fit, not the best candidate for your job. I think that's really interesting. I feel like right now I'm in a position
1:10:00
Where I would like to do more interviewing, without the need to hire so that when it comes to hire, then I could actually get who I wanted. It's good, because I feel like well, I haven't done that.
1:10:11
I've been doing the wrong practice for a long time. Because, you know, typically I'm like, I need to hire someone. And they always say, like, when you know, you need to hire someone, you've already passed the time of needing them. Yeah. And so I, that's, you know, as a small company, I'm very sensitive to overhead. And so I'm like, Man, I, I don't know. And I don't really have any aspirations to be, you know, a large company, but maybe, I don't know, that'd be interesting thing. Like, did your dad want to be 130 person company? Or is that did it kind of just happen organically? I know, he had a revenue number in his mind where he's like, basically, this number of guys has to give us gives us to this revenue point. And then, you know, you lean on your subordinates that's like, how many guys do they need in their crews, you kind of have to fill those slots. Like, you know, right now, we're doing a lot of hiring. But, you know, one thing that I've learned too, is like right now, I know I have enough guys, I don't need to hire. But when you get complacent like that, it's like all of a sudden, March you got three guys quit. And you're like, Man, I should have been going through resumes I should have been looking at you guys kind of keep an open door policy to continually interview people. Yep.
1:11:05
Indeed, it works great. We try to use that billboard we have in I think it's like Albertville for hiring. But we were always hiring because I feel like if you become complacent and not hiring, it can really hurt you when guys leave. In You know, I mean yourselves in our industry. I mean, sometimes you lose one guy, he'll take three guys with them. I mean, it's just it's construction. It's tough. So it's like, I have to remind myself and I thought of this today, because I saw Woody in our concrete production office, he had four interviews yesterday and I haven't done an interview in like a year. I'm like, I gotta get back on this because guys leave in March, they'll stay through the winter, because it's like, you know, it's tough. But March comes, there's more opportunities to leave, like go work for a different company, they'll go do their own thing. And then you're down a crew, and sometimes a crew is, you know, it's a quarter million dollars revenue a year. So it's like, you gotta be diligent, diligent, at least about meeting people, seeing resumes, having guys in your back pocket, things like that. Do you touch base with them? Like, you know, knowing that, hey, if March as things like right now, would you be doing extra touches or like extra reach out to the company with kind of that mindset like, hey, just a chase. It's great to see. I mean, what do you is that? No, my best guys, it took me three years to get Mario Mario worked for a competitor's company, and I text him it was like April 1 Every year, like, hey, Mario, like, can I take you out for lunch? Like, you're gonna grab a beer? Like, what do I got to do to get you over here? No, no, third year, he's fine. Like, you know what? He's like, I think this is the year and so it's like, I save people in my phone. Specifically, it's like new hire candidate. I'll touch base them that carpenter kid I was telling you about earlier. He's gonna help me do the trim at my house. And I'm just totally gonna pump them up the whole time about coming to work for us. I mean, it's like, you got to be savvy, right? That's funny. I had a drum cover and guy just called me actually, yesterday, I was gonna call you and be like, who do you know? Oh, that's why I got I just called the guy back today. He called me You know, I was in sales was stolen. But you know, right. I college. I sold copiers for a year and you know, I'd make 100 calls a day. So even to this day, if people call me I do my best to call him back. Because even if I have to tell him no, it's I think a lot of people get ghosted, and I hate that. Even if I just say, you know, we're not hiring right now. And, you know, you talk with them. And sometimes it's even a trial trial, like, hey, how easily they're gonna give up. You know, like, Okay, see you later. But I like the guys that have like, kind of follow up with you in a quarter. Yeah. Okay. Like that. In when they when they do follow up, you're like, Okay, this guy is serious. Like,
1:13:23
we had a guy on us. He's played minor league baseball, he's taken a year off or whatever. And he told me, he wasn't gonna work for us this year. And he texts me other day. He's like, hey, is there any work boss? I was like, No, he texts me every Friday. And I get I promise you the day that I have worked from, he'll be the first person I call. So it's like, you know, if guys want the job, yeah. And you know, if they'll be dedicated to you, and there'll be good employees, because, you know, say you interviewed a guy. And you know, hey, we're not hiring right now. And you never hear from him again. Like, what do you think you probably went to work somewhere else? He wasn't that interested. But if they're pushing on you, you're like, you know, maybe you give this guy chain painting guy that's been after me for about three years. Okay. very persistent. Yeah, he just texted me last night. And I had not last night, but yesterday afternoon, just all these beautiful photos. And it's like, you know, I also think like, you only have so many horses in the barn, you can raise like, the Kentucky Derby was like 20 horses. And it's like, you know, you might have 15 horses, but you only racing to at that race. And it's like, are you gonna give them a shot? Yeah, I don't know. No, because I'm, I'm really the problem is I'm really loyal to my people. So it's like I have to, and right now. But you know, if we had a painting issue, that would have happened to text me right when that happened? Yep. I'd probably be like, Hey, why don't we have it? Why don't we take a look at this. And that's where it's like, you kind of have to keep those relationships in our world, because it's just like, you just never know right now. Especially it's like, and then that situation does come about and you hire him and he does a good job. And you're like, hey, everything happens for a reason. So as we wrap up here with a few questions, one is what is the next couple of years look like? I mean, what are you guys seeing in terms of people always ask me the question all the time, like, what's coming down the pipeline, you know, what's happening and, you know, any technology changes that is happening, you know, within your industry, so we were on like, our fifth software in five years because my dad, he just is like, you know, there's always something better new. So I think we're
1:15:00
On the last software, which I'm excited about scheduling financial like what it's all in one yet scheduling it's buildertrend. Do we use builder trend two years ago? And then we were at service Titan now and then the new one. I asked our CFO, if I could say the name and he was like, No, but I'll tell Mark.
1:15:17
That's fine. I could care less. And so it's a lot of customization that went into it. And it was expensive. But yeah, new software and honestly, I was telling Ian, but the last three years, we've been renovating Great Wolf Lodge waterpark flooring, really so honest kids like to go there. Like once a year I'll you know, my sister coming to town will go there. And it was a it was one job a year and it was like, you know, 500,000 and I think this year we'll do three or four of them and then we do overnight renovations all over the US so there's multiple locations or just the one by the Mall of America of 20 No, swear to god Wani. So we've built, we've worked on the flooring, so it's like, it's like usually 40,000 square feet is our scope what we've done. In the last six consecutive years, we've done four new builds. And then last year, we did like 10 renovations where you remove old flooring and install new flooring. It's all decorative non slip, but it's it's fun because we get to travel. It's six of us guys, you know, we'll rent Airbnb house and we have you know, whether it's two weeks a week or a month, it's kind of our scope, but it's turned into a huge piece of our company. And I've kind of been in charge of that. And so my wife gets mad at me but we're balancing that but it's been a really cool part of our our company because it's allowed us to retain guys and keep us working in the winter. Big summer warm and bring your wife and your two year old with you. The next one. So it's 2024. Naples, Florida. Okay, and hear that, Mr. Six? You're going to Florida. Yeah, it'll be three. Okay, what? I guess we're gonna try this for the first time. I've never done rapid fire questions, but it kind of like um, so it kind of fun. So let's go with favorite business book favorite business book. Honestly, Mark and I feel bad saying this. Like I haven't read any yet. And I know the Carnegie book is good about the Six Sigma book, but like, I haven't actually read them yet. So that's a fair answer. What how do you how do you self educate? I mean, you seem like a very motivated guy. You've got this amazing music, podcast, audible like what do you do that I do a lot of like, just like article reading. And people like, you know, me, it's like a lot of googling stuff. I like you know, when when you and your wife you get in bed at night and you pop on like a Netflix show. I'm pretty bad about sitting there on my phone for like 45 minutes, just like reading stuff. Okay, you know, and it's like, it's not a book, but it's like, you know, general articles, things like that. I'm not super tapped into like our industry where a lot of guys are on Facebook, you know, posting stuff or reading blogs.
1:17:33
Not so much that but I think just a lot of like business stuff like I read recently. It's like what happens when one of your high level executives tries to get poached from another company? And I'm just like, Well, what do other companies do? How do you prevent that some guys? So it's more organic research not to get an answer. And it's like you try to apply it to your field. Yep. No, that makes sense. Yeah. Okay, what your favorite source of information improving honestly, it's it's been podcasts lately, and me and Ian are talking about this, but like he told me one of your favorite podcasts. I listened a lot in the car. But yeah, I think listen to someone talk for three hours, you can learn a lot, right? Yeah. And you can tune in and you could tune out and you can grab a little pieces. And had I just think it's great what people are doing with it now using their platform to educate people. Favorite quote, I think you're gonna laugh at me. So for those that who aren't watching on the YouTube channel, he just pulled out like a out of his pocket. It looks like a fortune cookie inside so you know, because your company is growing but so it's so what's the word everyone's heard this but it's like Rome was not built in a day be patient. So it's like, you know, a lot of times you're young, you're hungry, you're up and coming you have a family you feel like you're like you have to make all this money, you have to be successful. But a lot of really good companies take time to just grow organically, you know, have good people integrated but like there's no fast track to success so I feel like you know, having good relationships working with people one day at a time we look at projects like that where it's like man see me bad it's like take one day one week at a time you know, that's a really healthy outlook especially in today's world where there seems to be you know, you want this overnight success. What's your superpower? I think we talked about this a lot. I think I can read people like pretty good like I get a pretty good gauge on people whether if they're a good person if they're you know, they're difficult sometimes I'll totally just miss but I feel like you know, you don't have to be the smartest guy in the room but if you can be a good people person communicate defuse situations and just be realistic. I think people really trust people like that in our world. That's really a lot of how you can be successful I would agree.
1:19:39
Best advice you've ever been given
1:19:43
you know when you when you get a bad nasty email and you're like typing up the response and then you're like sleep on it. Yeah, that's that is solid about solid marriage advice do Oh my god. It's real man. Like I had one it was like a month ago and like I called my wife and I ran into a situation and I was like, I showed her the email. She's
1:20:00
Like don't send it she's like sleep on it. The next day I woke up deleted it. I was like, I'll let this ride out. The guy called and apologized. I was like, you know, thank God, but it's like that is real applicable advice. Yeah. Especially in our world man. Like, you know, you get those emails, sometimes they're snarky, and you're like, Well hold on your natural reaction. I think that's another thing with like, such a personal thing that people often respond. They, you know, they don't realize that you're a person to them, they view you as the business and a business should be able to take anything. Yeah. And they try to, you know, take the human out of it, but you know, your feelings to, you know, we care about what we do. And so especially, I mean, like on big projects, it's like stuff you work at these homes like you get your feelings hurt. Sometimes it's like you keep keep it business, keep professional. Don't ever let your emotions I guess, convoluted, you know, the job and you know, the, I guess the purpose of why you're there. So yeah. Well, thanks very much for coming on work and our listeners. Tap into yourself. And yeah, concrete science. Absolutely. Yeah. No, it's pleasure to be on here. Yep. It's a concrete hyphen. science.com. Yeah, we're office in Minneapolis office in Fort Myers for everyone that goes to Minnesota South and in the winter. So this sounds good. Any social platforms? You guys on LinkedIn or Instagram or any of those? Yep. So we're on Instagram. We don't get a lot of likes. I probably am only one liking our photos. But not after this one. Yeah. But yeah, I think we're on our Facebook followings pretty good. And then we're all on LinkedIn, I made my production manager or my superintendent get on LinkedIn. And he's like, in this rabbit hole, because it's, everyone's on LinkedIn. And it's cool, you know, so that's fine. Yeah. But any platforms? And again, I just, if you have a question, and I'm pretty notorious. If you just want to talk or have ideas about things, I can sit and talk and we're not always looking for business, if you just want questions about our trade, or what we do, or hey, I'm gonna try this at home. You know, what do you think you yeah, we're just regular people like everyone else in the industry, you know, it's awesome. Well, thanks for coming on Chase. And thanks for everyone for listening. If you like what you've heard, please give us a five star rating and a review. Please share this episode or the show with anyone that you think might be interested in concrete or concrete science directly. We really appreciate it and special shout out to concrete science are one of our sponsors, and this season. So thanks again for the support there as well. Yep, appreciate it. Thanks, Jason.
1:22:15
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Episode 13 - Chase Hicks of Concrete Science

Concrete Science: Decorative hard surface experts that use science and creativity to bring artistry out of concrete

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Episode 13 - Chase Hicks of Concrete Science

Concrete Science: Decorative hard surface experts that use science and creativity to bring artistry out of concrete

Listen to the full episode:

About Chase Hicks

Resources

Transcript

This episode is sponsored by:

Episode 14 - Mercedes Austin of Mercury Mosaics

Episode 12 - Eric Robertson of NRD Landscape Design Build

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