Episode 124 -What Most Builders Get Wrong About Pre-Construction (And How KA Builders Nailed It)

#124 | Kevin and Abbie Arnold | KA Builders | What Most Builders Get Wrong About Pre-Construction

In this episode of The Curious Builder, Kevin and Abbie Arnold of KA Builders share their journey as a husband-and-wife team building their business in Ohio. They chat with host Mark Williams about their start in the industry, how their different backgrounds and skillsets complement each other, lessons learned from industry events, and their plans for growth—including moving markets and focusing more on project management over self-performing work. It’s an inspiring and down-to-earth conversation about teamwork, adapting, and growing as young builders in a changing industry.

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About Kevin and Abbie Arnold

Kevin Arnold, owner of KA Builders, grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, where his passion for craftsmanship was sparked by working alongside his grandfather. By age 14, he was already gaining hands-on experience, spending weekends and school breaks learning the trade. Kevin pursued his passion academically at The Ohio State University, studying Construction Managementy. With over 10 years of remodeling experience, Kevin founded KA Builders, a company that specializes in high-end residential building and remodeling. As a hands-on leader, Kevin is committed to delivering exceptional quality, mentoring others in the industry, and actively participating in community and industry initiatives like Build My Future, BIA, Workforce Development Committee, and NARI.

Resources:

Visit KA Builders Website

Vist KA Builders Instagram

  • Kevin Arnold  00:00

    We're drawing the line in the sand here. We're no more self performing, but I think changing markets, that's a pretty simple way to do that, because we can really focus on our sales process and use that to make sure that we're hitting the right jobs and not taking on a project just because we want to fill space in the schedule today,

    Mark D. Williams  00:31

    in the curious builder podcast, we had Kevin and Abby Arnold in from K builders, out of Ohio, and it's amazing. They have such a growth mindset, young husband and wife team. And it's just really interesting to hear how they're growing their business, and how they're observing from other builders and really just investing in themselves. And so you're going to find that this is a really encouraging episode. So without further ado, here's Kevin and Abby. Welcome to curious bird Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host today. We've got some special guests. We've got Kevin and Abby Arnold from Ka builders out of Columbus, Ohio. Hey guys. Hey, well, it's great to see you. You guys have actually been frequent podcasters, because we had you on for the 75 hard recap. We had you on a month ago for the boot camp recap. So I thought, man, we better get your origin story. Here you guys are. Everyone's gonna wonder like, who is Kevin and Abby. They're on like every of these recap episodes. So here we are.

    01:24

    Yeah, thank you for having us. Yeah. Well, why don't you

    Mark D. Williams  01:27

    tell us a little bit you guys are a couple out of Ohio. It's the two of you running ka builders. Let's talk a little bit about basically your origin story, where you guys started, was it before, while you were dating, while you were married? Like, I'd love to hear I actually don't know this, even though I've met with you guys like five or six times. I don't know this part of the story, so I'm kind of anxious to hear how you guys actually first started. And I guess let's go there.

    Kevin Arnold  01:49

    Yeah. So the original company started before I even met Abby. I was in school at Ohio State for construction systems management. Thought I was gonna go work for either another builder a commercial GC. Quickly found out that I like residential. I grew up doing that. I worked with my grandpa. He was an electrician, always doing side jobs whenever he didn't have to work. And then my grandma's cousin had a remodeling company and learned everything. So I originally decided to make that switch. I was going to school down in Dayton for financial services, and I was miserable, and I came home for Christmas break, and I was in his shop building cabinets for him. I would come up every weekend and do that, and I was like, Wow, this feels so good just spending an entire week in here. And I knew about the Construction Management Program, so I was like, All right, we're done with finance, and we're going to transfer. Out

    Mark D. Williams  02:51

    of curiosity, did that? Did later, as you've operated your business now for how many years have you had K builders?

    Kevin Arnold  02:57

    I went full time with it in fall of 2021, but I started the company about a year before that, when I was in school.

    Mark D. Williams  03:06

    Okay, so four or five years my question is, is, have you found that any of the finance information that you had is, was any of it applicable or usable for building, or did you not go far enough down the road that was helpful?

    Kevin Arnold  03:18

    Yeah, I would have paid a little bit more attention in class, it might have

    Mark D. Williams  03:22

    helped. That's fair. Hey, I'm there, right there with you, buddy.

    Kevin Arnold  03:25

    That's definitely our weakness. We're hoping soon to bring somebody in to help with

    Mark D. Williams  03:31

    that. Oh, that's great. Yeah, no, that was one of the biggest things. I mean, early on in my career, I was 23 similar to yours, where I had gone to school for business and for communication, which, oddly enough, with the podcast, actually lines up with communication. But anyway, had no idea that I was going to do this 20 years later. But anyway, long story short was, you know, you don't know what you don't know. And so at the time, you're not if you can't use the knowledge and apply it to what you're doing it sometimes you don't listen the same. And now, if you went back, I can imagine now if you went back to finance, it'd been totally something different to

    Kevin Arnold  03:59

    you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So to pick back up, I started doing the Construction Management Program I would I got all my tools down in Columbus there working out of my dorm room, doing side jobs for people out of your dorm room. Oh, yeah, that's amazing. I would have five gallon buckets that I'd carry in and out from my car that just had all my tools in it, and just picking up Ian and jobs down around campus, and then coming up to Cleveland on the weekends to do some work up here and

    Mark D. Williams  04:33

    back then. How did you charge like people? What did he What did people need? I'm a little surprised that a college kids were paying someone to fix stuff like, what were you fixing? It

    Kevin Arnold  04:41

    wasn't college kids. It was, I was doing work for everyone, anybody, like girls, like people's parents around there.

    Mark D. Williams  04:50

    You're like, that's awesome. You're the handyman that they went to school with, like, rather than, like, some 75 year old guy. You're like, Hey, there's this, like, 19 year old kid in my dorm room who will do handyman work. His name's dad. Seven?

    Kevin Arnold  05:01

    Yeah, pretty much. And I worked at bars and restaurants, so I do maintenance around there, because it was quick and easy to call me versus having somebody

    Mark D. Williams  05:09

    to come. What did you out of curiosity, what did you charge? Did you charge hourly? Or how did you

    Kevin Arnold  05:13

    make time and material? And honestly, that was probably when I was the most profitable. No overhead, no expenses,

    Mark D. Williams  05:22

    just wandering around. Abby, when did you when did you guys get married? Or how did you meet and come into the into the program?

    Abbie Arnold  05:29

    We met in spring of 21 we met online classic after COVID. I was a senior in college, and I went to school about an hour north of Kevin, so he would always come and visit me. I graduated with a business and teaching degree. So my whole life, I was like, I want to teach middle school. I want to teach middle school. And that was what I thought my only path was. And about halfway through college, I just had a meltdown, and I called my parents, bawling my eyes out, and I was like, I don't want to be a teacher anymore. And my parents said, Okay, you have to finish your teaching degree. You're almost there. So I finished my teaching degree, but I actually added a business major, and they told me, You can do anything with a business major. You could, you can do, seriously, any job. So I was a business administration major, and when I graduated, I was like, I'm never going to use this degree. Like, why did I take accounting? Why did I take marketing? Like, it was such a waste of time, and I taught for three years, and I hated it. I was miserable going to my job, and I always kind of worked for Kevin on the side. I would always come on the weekends and stuff. And it was we started well, we started dating in 21 then we moved in together three months into dating, and it was, we're here. We got married about a year and a half ago, and it was a year ago. Kevin was like, hey, I need someone to do administration work, and pretty much my job is to keep him organized.

    Kevin Arnold  06:53

    That's not how it started. It was we had to let somebody go that was helping me. And it was I could go look for another person, or you could pick up the slack and labor. And we quickly found out that the labor part isn't for you, no,

    Abbie Arnold  07:10

    when we're all driving at like, the management side in the organization. And that's really where I thrive, and I love being a husband and wife team, because that's not Kevin. It's I really think we have a good dynamic where the things I'm not good at Kevin's really good at, and vice versa.

    Mark D. Williams  07:25

    You guys both thought at boot camp, we can talk about that a little bit later, but I remember remarking to Brad Robinson and to even Mike Weaver from EMS, or just how what a dynamic duo you both are, and you guys will find your own path. And I know Kevin, you and I have had a number of conversations offline about these types of things. But, you know, I think Abby joining the team. I mean, it's such a power power move, really, plus the fact that Abby enjoys it, you guys are going to find, you know, great elevation in your brand, your company, and even your experiences with your clients. I mean, these early years, as you've gone through, you know, a lot, and you know, I've obviously been on the sidelines on some of these things, understanding, you know, the new home and some of this other stuff that you guys have gone through. I think as you polish your message and go forward, that'll be the best decision you ever made, having the both of you together, because Abby, you're so good with people, and Kevin, you are too. But you know, I think, you know, Abby, you've got this great Moxie that I think people attracts, you know, 2k builders. And you know, as you polish out what you do. You guys are going to go to great heights. I've always been really impressed at how young you are, but how enthusiastic you are to be part of, you know, a larger community. Maybe we can talk a little bit about you. Came to contractor coalition in Minneapolis a year and a half ago, and you quickly, basically looked around and said, these are people I want to be around. You came to boot camp. You've been going to IBS for a while. You're part of our 75 hard group. I mean, it seems like anytime there's an opportunity to be around people, you are there immediately. However you get there, can you speak a little bit to where that hunger and that drive and just that purpose comes from? Because it's pretty remarkable. You know, I know a lot of people refer probably to your age, but to me, you guys are light years ahead of your age in that sort of commitment to collaboration.

    Kevin Arnold  09:10

    Yeah. So I got really big into podcasts when I was it was just me self performing everything, because I could just sit down there and learn as much as I could, kind of found out about the contractor coalition summit through that, and realized

    Mark D. Williams  09:27

    was that through the modern craftsman, I believe so yep, because

    Kevin Arnold  09:31

    I listened to that, I listened to the Brad Levitt podcast, and then it Vegas that year, We discovered Mark Williams, and started listening to the curious builder podcast as well, but made it out to Minneapolis and realized how great of a community that was, and how good I felt leaving there just because with us being younger, we don't have a lot of friends, our friends. That we do have don't do any of the same things that we do, and it's really hard to find people that we can relate to. So just the conversations that we have within the building community, it's amazing and how quick everybody is to help out and be able to relate to you as well.

    Abbie Arnold  10:17

    I think I remember I did not go to contractor coalition summit, but I remember Kevin going, and I remember thinking, oh my gosh, this is a huge expense. How are we going to swing this? Like I we knew that I was leaving my job. It was right in May of 24 May of 24 it was right when I was leaving my job. And I was like, well, you're spending a lot of money to go to an event for three days. And I when he left, I remember dropping off the airport, and I was like, what? Like, how is this gonna work? And hearing the updates through the summit, and just hearing Kevin talk about how beneficial it was, and just the network that he made is amazing, and it's still people we talk to to this day, and it's that we want to talk to them for years to come. But I remember thinking in that moment, I was like, Is this worth it? This is a lot of money. Like, I remember having those thoughts, but I don't regret a single thing.

    Kevin Arnold  11:16

    Yeah, we have a lot of friends in Minneapolis now.

    Mark D. Williams  11:19

    Well, you guys stayed, I forgot you guys also came to our first sauna camp. Yeah, yeah. I forgot about that because you ended up staying after Sonic camp was this last January, and we had you basically came up for the day, I think was on a Friday, but you said, hey, if we're gonna come up here, let's stay for the weekend. And I remember you guys sent me a picture, like, you guys went to Eden Prairie and went rented skates and were skating on the layers, and viewers were walking around. And I remember the post feedback, you're like, you know, maybe you could make a weekend event out of this. And I was just sort of impressed. I did not when I first created that boot camp, I knew people would be flying in for and it was much smaller, but I didn't think people would be flying in for Sonic camp. And Brad Robinson came in, you flew in, I think we had a few others come in. And it was that was that was pretty eye opening to me that this community has gotten so big and so deep that people are willing to travel for it, because it's not a common thing.

    Abbie Arnold  12:11

    No, and I sauna camp was so I've never been in a sauna before this, nor have I ever cold plunged. It was a really amazing experience. Just to, I know we've had conversations the past where health and wellness is a big factor, and it's breaking the stigmas of the industry. And I'm, I'm excited for next year, yeah, yeah. Well, we,

    Mark D. Williams  12:31

    I have, actually, after you guys gave me that feedback, I was kind of talking to Brad Robinson a little bit about it, about how we could make it a little bit different. You know, we'd still have a one day for local people, but for those that do fly in, you know, we'd have something again the following morning, probably not as intense, just because you guys know, from the 75 heart of boot camp, having some sort of activity or exercise. So maybe in the morning we'd go snowshoeing across that frozen lake, just for those that want to go some or just boot pack it, whatever. And then we would just sign a cold plunge. But then everyone could leave and have lunch on their own. So the cost would be a lot less on day two, you know, really, that first day is kind of the, you know, the main event. And so the second one is just for those that sort of, I mean, anyone could join, obviously. But anyway, try to try to make it a comedy, accommodating for those that fly from out of town.

    Kevin Arnold  13:18

    Yeah, that'd be awesome, because we spent that entire Saturday, just meeting with other builders and remodelers, walking some of their job sites. And then Sunday, we just had the entire day to kill that. I think we went and walked around the mall for maybe four hours. It's crazy. I mean,

    Mark D. Williams  13:35

    it is January. There's better places to walk, but I guess in January it was pretty

    Abbie Arnold  13:39

    cool. But that's something I do, is like, we follow. I mean, Instagram, social media, just connects people from all over. So there was people that we followed from Minneapolis, and I Instagram, DM them, and I was like, Hey, we're gonna be in town. Do you want to meet up? So they met us for coffee, and we talked shout out to a Bodhi construction. They're right around our age. I was like, I want to be friends with you. And then they were like, Hey, come to our job site later. And we saw Ben Garvin, like it was just an amazing the network that we created over there.

    Mark D. Williams  14:09

    I mean, that is the one huge benefit. I mean, we talk a lot about the negativity, let's say, whether it's trolls or just the time that it takes or that we spend on social media in general, but the positives, you know, I still think far outweigh the negatives. I mean, how we can check with how people are doing and stay connected to their lives beyond business even. But, like, I love this idea that you reached out to this local builder. I'm not actually familiar with them, Bodhi construction. You said, a Bodhi, a Bodhi construction. I just think that's amazing. And she was like, yeah, come on to our job site. And, I mean, obviously I'm good friends with Garvin, you know, he's part of our peers collective here locally, and he's, he actually was just in the contract coalition. He and his wife came down to Omaha, so it was great to spend some time with them. And I hadn't met Katie before. So that was I love, I love. Obviously, bringing on all stories are great, but I do love the husband and wife teams, because I just think it's really fun for me to get a picture of how you guys work and how it operates. It's Speaking of which. How is that going? So you're a year and a half in now. Abby, now, as I was laughing, I was trying to hold my tongue, because you said you went to school to be a teacher, and I think I joked with you before that. Welcome to adult babysitting. I think middle schoolers are probably listen better than than our trade partners sometimes on the job site. And I always laugh that there will always be a need for a person. Because, again, it's adult babysitting. I mean, it's, it's Trust, but verify. It's, you've got to be on site. And so how have you found that is there any commonalities between teaching and what you're doing now,

    Abbie Arnold  15:30

    when I left teaching, yes. I mean, as much as I despise going to my job, the lessons that I learned were so crucial. I mean, I was managing 9012 year olds, and I was like, if you can manage 12 year old boys, I would hope that you could manage adult men, but I would say, yes, it like I'm thankful for my time as a teacher, but I do see commonalities in even just communication. Communication is big in any industry, but I feel like in the remodeling building, where your communication needs to be on top of it and needing to have uncomfortable conversations that you're always not going to be I don't want to say this like you can bring bad news to a client, and I think I learned that in teaching is telling bad news to a parent, and just kind of those lessons that I've learned. I'm really thankful for

    Mark D. Williams  16:18

    that. I mean, I think you're that's so funny. You said that because I have a client right now where, and I know that, but it's like, I don't know. It's just there is something not, yeah, there's some anxiety around knowing that, hey, I until I deal with this, like it's sort of just a Festering Wound, like, until it's put to bed, it's sort of just there. I love the idea that, you know, you've been talking to parents about their children, which is a pretty personal thing. You know, ultimately, the only thing more personal than somebody's home is their family, their children. So, you know, you already had kind of a more difficult route there homes. There's, you know, slightly less emotion than your children. What specifically have you, what kind of conversations have you had with a homeowner, that sort of that you dealt with? It's, you know, and then you drew on that knowledge of a teacher.

    Abbie Arnold  17:01

    Oh, I mean, when it comes down to, like, budget and schedule things, those are, like, your two big ones that I'm always like, and we're gonna, oh, we're waiting on this and we're waiting on this. And I understand remodeling is it's an invasion of privacy. We are in someone's home. We know how your home functions. We know a lot about your home, and I would say just delivering those like budget, budget concerns and schedule concerns, those are, those are probably the two big ones off the bat.

    Kevin Arnold  17:32

    Yeah. I mean, when we're in somebody's house, we become part of their family for the duration that we're there. We have some customers that when we're over, they'll make dinner and we'll sit down and have dinner with them if we're over there late.

    Speaker 1  17:45

    That's funny, yeah, I mean home with food like we've just we have really amazing clients.

    Mark D. Williams  17:57

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    Kevin Arnold  20:13

    We're trying a little bit of everything right now, but the main driver this past year, especially as the market slowed down, has been past clients that those clients, we actually got through referrals, but we've done almost exclusively this year, repeat work. We got called back, and we're doing second and third project with people.

    Mark D. Williams  20:38

    Yeah, how often do you engage with them and ask them for either referrals, saying, Hey, we did a great kitchen remodel for your basement renovation. Is there anyone else in your network that you think would benefit from our services? Have you engaged in tactics like that?

    Kevin Arnold  20:53

    Nowhere near enough.

    Mark D. Williams  20:55

    Okay, yeah, we're

    Abbie Arnold  20:56

    not ones to I don't like to ask for things. It's there's that level of vulnerability that you are like, Hey, if you know someone looking for work, like we're hungry, we're ready. But back to the age thing. I mean, we're both 26 we're very new in this industry, and I think it's a double edged sword. We are super hungry for work, and we want we know all of the latest things that are happening. But if somebody asked us, have you done a project like this before? A lot of times, the answer is no, and I think we're in this really transition phase where we've kind of outgrown our past clients and our past projects, and the projects that are coming in are additions, Whole Home remodels, these type of bigger projects, and it's our first time tackling these. Kevin's had new construction experience and addition experience, but not for Ka builders. So I think it's and a lot of people, some people are like, hey, I want to help out your business. You're trying, you're doing all the right things. And then some people, it freaks out. So it's, it's really just kind of dependent on

    Mark D. Williams  22:01

    the client. Yeah, man, I feel like I'm having my life shown before me in a mirror. I mean, there are certain clients that I've had early on in my career where we got the job because we were the youngest, and I remember specifically his name was John. I wasn't that young at this time, maybe 12 years in, so I'd been around for a little while. But he anyway, he told me we were competing against some other builders, and he just said, I'm choosing you because I believe you deserve a chance to do something at this level. And we, you know, someone in my career gave us a chance when, you know what you know, when he was in the healthcare services and but anyway, so just kind of like paying it forward. And, you know, I think what's great about you having interacted with you guys enough is just how authentic you are. I mean, you guys are real. There's nothing fake or phony or put on about you, and I would imagine that connects with people, especially You're right. I think you touched on something earlier about how intimate a remodel is. I think that intimacy not that a new home building can't be. But I feel like if you're learning that through remodel, it seems like there's more heart there, because you have to navigate family schedules and children and all of those other kinds of things. And so that will pay off, and you'll continue to get offered bigger and bigger projects, because your your skill set and your craft and your commitment to it is going to take you, you know, your clients will take you to a different level. You already said it, Kevin, like the projects you're getting now that's where your skills and craft have taken you. It's not like you've even elected to do it. You're choosing our adventure, but your clients are choosing it for

    Abbie Arnold  23:25

    you. Well, it's you said it, and I'm gonna butcher your quote. But who do you wanna spend the next six months of your life with? And that's something I think about a lot. I love that quote of yours, because as a remodeler, as a builder, you are embedded in their home. I know the names of your pets. I know the needs of your children. I know what sports they play. We're in your house, and it it is an intimate thing, and I we try hard. We try hard to be accommodating, because at the end of the day, we are in someone's home, making a mess, disrupting their routine, and it's a change for them. So I always, we always try and be mindful that we are in someone else's space.

    Mark D. Williams  24:07

    Abby, how often? Because I 100% agree with that messaging, how often are you meeting with the clients? I know it sounds like, Kevin, you're doing a lot of the work yourself, performing quite a bit of the work, or no,

    Kevin Arnold  24:17

    we are right now. We're transitioning out of that,

    Mark D. Williams  24:20

    and that's deliberate because of scale, or what is the reasons behind that? Yeah,

    Kevin Arnold  24:25

    I feel that I've reached the furthest that I can possibly go. Right now myself, I'm not going to be able to charge any more per hour, and time wise, I'm getting less and less hours on site every week that it just doesn't make sense anymore. And again, when I first started, we were doing smaller projects. Now that we're doing bigger projects, we're doing so many different trades that it might be six months a year before I have a repeat of something that I've done that I'm just not. Efficient anymore,

    Mark D. Williams  25:02

    and so you have a trade base, or how are you getting what? How are your relationships with, you know, the different subcontractors that you're working with?

    Kevin Arnold  25:09

    Yeah, trade base and a lot of them, we actually met off of Instagram as well, just over the years, different accounts have followed us. We followed different accounts. Stayed in contact whenever somebody new follows us that I see us potentially working with. We'll reach out and grab coffee and see how we can work together in the future.

    Mark D. Williams  25:29

    And Abby, how are you interacting with the clients?

    Abbie Arnold  25:32

    I mean, that's kind of I do a lot of the client relations. I I love it. Obviously, I'm a people person. I'm a talker, so I do a lot of the sales, and I do a lot of the client stuff, and I love it. I really do. I thrive off of that, like people connection,

    Kevin Arnold  25:47

    yeah, and when I was in Minneapolis, we talked quite a bit at the contractor coalition summit about unreasonable hospitality. So I listened to that, and then Abby read it, and that's been a huge part of her role with the company as well.

    Mark D. Williams  26:04

    Yeah. I mean, I've spoken to it many times, and you guys are, you know, drinking the Kool Aid on that one too. I mean, there's just so much more we can do to service our clients through thought and through care. And that's one of the benefits of you guys being a husband and wife team, just being able to talk about it and then making sure the client is getting both of your attentions and different skill sets. How have you managed or navigated sort of the time commitments to your clients, but also your own relationship? Do you find that when you're having dinner, I mean, you're are you always talking about work? I was like to ask this question with married couples, like, how do you balance when you're working versus when you're not working?

    Abbie Arnold  26:40

    We're awful at it. I mean, I would say 90% of our conversations are about work,

    Kevin Arnold  26:52

    yeah, and the other 10% happen while we're at work.

    Mark D. Williams  26:56

    That's amazing.

    Abbie Arnold  26:58

    I mean, we are, I'll be the first to admit our work life balance is awful. And I think as a it was almost better when I was a teacher, because I we weren't doing the same thing all the time, and I would almost make Kevin turn it off. But now that this is my life and I'm now passionate about this, oh my gosh, it's awful. And I we, we don't help each other out in the situation. We just, we just keep going. But I love it, and I love that we get to do it together. But, I mean, what's the thing? Dinks, dual income, no kids like, we're the classic dinks. Like,

    Kevin Arnold  27:34

    I don't know we might be like, no income, no kids

    Abbie Arnold  27:41

    like, work is our life, and it's i One day it will pay off. But right now we are very comfortable working, like, 1012, hours a day, and then talking about it when we're at home. Well, it brings

    Mark D. Williams  27:54

    you joy. I mean, I think, you know, there's really no judgment. Obviously, in a different place of life, there aren't children on the scene at this point in time. And so, you know, you're building it, you're excited about it, but, you know, I think everyone has to balance. Everyone's balance is different, right? And I think there's this great quote that comparison is the thief of joy. You guys clearly have a lot of joy in it. So, I mean, I always, you know, I used to coach cross country running for 10 years. And you know, there'd be people would say, Oh, why do these kids run? I'm like, Well, yeah, if you don't like running, then don't run. There's other things to do. But like, you love talking about work. You love work like, there's nothing There's that's great. There's so much joy there. And you know that will continue because you couldn't do it. I mean, you'd mentioned before Abby about how much you disliked, you know, teaching and like, can you imagine if you had to do that for 1015, 2030, however, many years. Like, you are in something that you find a lot of joy in, and which is wonderful, yeah,

    Kevin Arnold  28:44

    yeah. And I also don't know how to turn it off. Like, if I'm just sitting on the couch, I'm thinking of, how can I pull off this specific detail? Like, if this gets mitered this way and tucks under here we route this out, that would be really cool. So it's

    Mark D. Williams  29:01

    out and sketch up, and that's funny. I don't usually have that particular issue because that's not my skill set. But the last night I was dealing I had something that came I shouldn't have checked my phone right before I came home. I saw an email, and so it was in my mind. So I'm having dinner with my kids, and I'm looking down at my plate, just completely staring at my broccoli, like, just like it's the most important. And my daughter looks at me, man, and goes, Dad, what are you staring at? And I'm like, and it was like, so I was like, oh, sorry. I was just thinking about something. And then I did it again later. And I think any owner can relate to this, because sometimes something gets in our mind and it's just like we're walking through scenarios like, if this, then that. And so I think that is just part of being an owner. You you it's kind of sometimes you ever done it where you dream and like, as you're coming up out of your dream, like you've been thinking about whatever is going to happen. Someone had once told me, like, your subconscious is so powerful that if you have a problem, that you're that you don't know how to handle it, that think about it right before you go to bed. Just ask yourself a question and then go to sleep. I think the trick is is, can you go. Sleep after you've asked yourself this question, because your subcontract subconscious will often answer the question for you by the time you're in the morning. I just thought that was fascinating. I sort of want to, I sort of want to try that

    Kevin Arnold  30:09

    sometime. I've definitely experienced that, not intentionally, but something's just on your mind, and wake up with the answer. One

    Abbie Arnold  30:16

    thing that we took away from boot camp was the one touch rule. I think Spencer was talking about this, where once it comes in your mind, if you can do it with a one touch, handle it right then and there, and it doesn't take up space in your brain. And that's something we've tried. We'll just be like, hey, hey, Kevin, can you do this for me? And I'll be like, one touch, let's do it now. So it's things like that, where it's I like, I try and implement that. And that was something I learned from

    Mark D. Williams  30:42

    boot camp. Yeah, no, that's, I mean, I know I've heard Brad Levitt talk about that many times. Someone asked him one time, or maybe I asked it to him at a build buzz, where I was just, you have a lot, yes, he's got like, five companies. He's dealing with tons of stuff. And he just basically said, I don't sit on anything very long. I essentially delegate it, get rid of it. It's like, think of like a hot potato. It's like, you know, you just don't hold it very long, because it's the holding it that sort of singes your hands and, like, gives you stresses you out. But especially if you have a bigger team, I think it's a little bit harder sometimes when your team is smaller, because you actually have to get into the details. And, you know, not everything is just a response to an email or forward. Obviously, there's got to be real work in the field, whatever it is, or if you're working out some coping detail or crown detail, you've got to really think about it before you get into

    Kevin Arnold  31:26

    it. So, yeah, that's one of our biggest weaknesses right now to the just trying to manage that time. We spend a lot of time in the car right now, and that's hard to do with the small team.

    Mark D. Williams  31:36

    Yeah, where do you think you'd mentioned trying to build the team, and, you know, possibly bring someone on, maybe for the finance side, is what you alluded to. What does that look like? Or how do you how did why? Now

    Kevin Arnold  31:48

    we're really bad at accounting and our finances, and we have QuickBooks. We upload all of our receipts and do everything. And then we have the now, what situation? Sure. So we really need somebody to come in and advise and just kind of point us in the right direction and tell us what we should be doing, and potentially, if it's the right fit, have them doing that for us.

    Mark D. Williams  32:16

    Do you think that'll be a full time, part time fractional? How do you see that

    Kevin Arnold  32:19

    going? See it as fractional.

    Mark D. Williams  32:23

    And are you looking at local companies, national companies, or what does that? What does that look like right now? Goal

    Kevin Arnold  32:29

    is to find somebody that somebody else works with already in the industry. The we can go, Okay, this is how this works for you, and that we can mimic that, because that's our company is basically a hash posh of a bunch of different other companies, where we've taken what we like and turn that into our own program. I think

    Mark D. Williams  32:51

    that's great. I mean, most people do that, right? That's the whole point of podcasts and sharing information is like, Oh, I like this. It's like an a la carte menu, you know, you know, think of your 10 favorite restaurants. If you get order one thing from each menu, it all have, and he'll have it delivered to one place. That's perfect,

    Kevin Arnold  33:05

    yeah, sometimes we take a little too much and get going in too many different directions. And that

    Mark D. Williams  33:11

    is, I mean, that's a challenge as it is always time. I mean, you went to contractor coalition, I bet so Abby, when he came back from Minneapolis with all these ideas. What was that? What was that first week, like, when Kevin was back with, wow, I you know, I mean, look at all these things I learned. How did you start implementing them

    Abbie Arnold  33:29

    slowly? And that's what we kind of said. I feel like, still, we're still trying to implement things. I mean, he came back and you were overwhelmed. You were extremely overwhelmed, in a good way though he was like, an excited where it's like, hey, I want to do all of these things. And I was like, pump the brakes one at a time. And it was, it was right after contractor coalition, when we really started taking our social media seriously, having a consistent posting schedule, because that was something we knew it was important. But contractor coalition, he was like, Hey, let's use this is a tool, so social media was a really big one when

    Mark D. Williams  34:09

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    Abbie Arnold  34:50

    it? I think just the connection of people, I would most of our trades have actually come through social media. Oh, wow, and that's, that's how we get to meet people. I have a really. How many want to say a bad habit? I will just fire off emails. I don't wanna say to random people, but if we follow them on Instagram, if we wanna connect with a designer or a trade partner, we'll probably connect via over Instagram. I'll find them on Instagram, and then I will email them. And I would say that has led to some jobs coming from designers where I've just fired off some emails, and I've said I'd love to see how we can connect. You want to meet your coffee, and I think social media, we talked a little bit briefly, but that's like that connection and that networking is so crucial.

    Mark D. Williams  35:32

    Well, I think, I mean, it's just business development a new age. I mean, I think what you're doing is brilliant, and obviously needs to continue to be doing. I mean, bigger companies, they have people that that's all they do. The fact that you enjoy it and you're already doing it is a huge advantage for you. How you know, what is, I don't know the Columbus market very well. You know, what is it like in terms is it builder driven design, driven architect, driven who's typically holding the first baton of the relay?

    Kevin Arnold  35:59

    It's all over the place. It's your very classic. We're gonna call three to five people and kind of go with the middle. So that's something that we've really struggled with there, because that's just not at all our business model. So the education aspects been pretty important. But our goal is to have everything already pre bedded, or we take on as many projects through a designer as we can. And if something does come into us, we want to immediately delegate that out to a designer.

    Mark D. Williams  36:33

    Ian, how often are you interacting with architects or drafts people, or is it mostly through the designer, and they're doing internal drawings

    Kevin Arnold  36:40

    mostly through designer just kind of depends on the project. If there are times that we'll send things back out for, say, talk to a client, say, hey, this really isn't within our scope, and they'll go meet with an architect and then bring us back some plans there, but not working with architects a whole lot, just with the scale of where we're at right now.

    Mark D. Williams  37:04

    How you know you had mentioned about some changes coming, and you looked at even like a new home. You had mentioned to it earlier, Abby, that you know, Kevin has obviously built new homes in the past. I don't know if that was with you know, your family, or if you'd work for someone else, but when you how are you? Because I know that was one of your goals. Kevin Right, was to, was to build the new home. Is that a track that you want to what do you think you would do remodeling and new homes at some time? Or what does that feel like? That's really

    Kevin Arnold  37:31

    the goal there. I like the predictability of new construction where it's I know this is what the schedule is going to be, and we can stick to this rather than, Oh, never mind, we have to completely change the scope because we didn't anticipate something, and just different delays on things that can really be mitigated over that longer time period.

    Mark D. Williams  37:57

    And and you've had a few, you've had a few options or a few, not a few, but you've had a few that I'm aware of where it was going to be a new home and it didn't work out for another reason or another. Did that, I think was like a big financing situation, right?

    Kevin Arnold  38:11

    Yeah. And I think the biggest issue hindsight on that was that our pre construction process, we discounted it way too much, that we essentially gave that away for free, and that didn't put us on an equal playing field with some other builders when it came to financing.

    Mark D. Williams  38:30

    What do you mean by that

    Kevin Arnold  38:33

    they didn't value our reconstruction enough because we didn't Bill accordingly for it? That when it came down to the wire, and during our selections, they just kept going up and up and their taste but they didn't want to pay for it. And at the very end, when we ended up losing the deal, they said that they want to go work with the national builder, because they're going to get a lower interest rate with them for the same price as we were going to build the house for.

    Mark D. Williams  39:04

    Yeah, you were in a kind of a tough situation. I mean, I know, you know, the pre construction agreements a big part. That was probably the single biggest thing you had mentioned, Abby about just the investment that you both made in sending Kevin to contractor coalition. I remember that phone call. I called Morgan when I went three years ago, and I looked at it the same way, like this is a big investment. And Morgan said, you're going to get that investment back in the first hour. And she was right, and it was pre construction, and I had for 15 plus years, basically given away all my pre construction time for free, and because I always credit it to the future job, because I thought that's what you're supposed to do. And so you devalued your work. Now it was great, at least you were getting the one good news about a pre construction agreement, especially if there's, you know, I don't care if it's $500 or $20,000 some money down does show you know that that they're interested in valuing your time the days and age of where people expect things for free, they're. Not your ideal clients. I think what becomes difficult is when you're trying to find your ideal client, but you also have to pay your mortgage, you have to pay your bills, it becomes really difficult to sort of stand your ground. I know. I mean, I've struggled with that my career at different times. You know, when things are great, it's pretty easy to, you know, pick and choose your clients, but when things are difficult, it's kind of like, Man, I That sounds great, but I've got it. I've got to take this deal in front of me, because I need it, you know. How have you, you know, listening to that, you know, does that sort of hit home with you? I mean, have you guys sort of been dealt with that before, where we've had to take on projects you don't really want, but you sort of feel like you have

    Abbie Arnold  40:36

    to every Yes, we have done that too many, too many times, and we've almost gone into the project knowing that there were red flags I can think of, like three off the top of my head, where guarantee you, we could have lost money on the project. I

    Kevin Arnold  40:52

    think we definitely did, and it caused us to lose money on the following project after that, that was our ideal client, because we were so far in the whole the prior project that we weren't able to dedicate full resources towards our next one. Just slow process getting started on the next project, because there were different things lingering from the project before. I

    Mark D. Williams  41:17

    mean, I think that's a really good point. You know, we talk about your ideal client, or if we don't, we definitely should all be sort of thinking about our ideal client. And I know Nick Schiffer had talked about this recently at the contractor coalition in Omaha, where basically, he has created a client profile for everyone that he would like to service, and he runs it through chatgpt, and he didn't go into details, but like, basically, like, Hey, I'm looking for a young couple. You just basically describe what you think. And he had like, several different client profiles, and basically, kind of like, help flush it out, and it's sort of interesting, so that they could sort of categorize who the right people were. But I guess the reason I'm bringing this up is the more clear you can get on your ideal client. It really brings into focus the difficult ones, like the ones you experienced. And we've all taken jobs that we wish we hadn't. And specifically, I had one where it was the first job, and I had four or five I was bidding on, but you don't know at the time if you're going to get it. And we gave it, we gave them a great deal on it, because it was the first one. Well, once you know it, this is right after COVID. We got all of them at the same time. And for a small company, that's a good problem to have, obviously, but it wasn't without its you know, the rivets were definitely bursting. And so we spent 80% of the time in that one difficult client, and our other clients didn't get as good a service as I would have liked to have given them, because so much of our time was really being given to, you know, the squeaky wheel, if you will. And so I think most business owners can certainly relate to that.

    Kevin Arnold  42:46

    Oh yeah, yeah, we had to hear those squeaky wheels at the same time. Which one? It's a lot of back and forth. And again, we couldn't deal with any of those individual clients at once, because we were in a position where we felt that we had to show face at three different places at the same time, and just never made solid progress on any of them.

    Mark D. Williams  43:10

    You know, observing you guys over the last, let's just say, a couple years. What? What if you were to compare yourself to where you were a year ago? What have you learned? And what are some of the you know, you You're, you're so open to, you know, listen to all these podcasts, going to all these events. What are you What do you Could you identify a few of these things? Or is just, there's just so many that it's hard to identify a few. But looking back, what were some big things that sort of helped elevate, maybe your awareness, your brand, compared, you know, just compare yourself where you're at today to where you were, let's say a year ago, or before you even went to your first contractor coalition Summit. If you want to use whatever your milestone is that you want to use for kind of that, hey, this is where I'm at now versus where I was. What were some of the biggest difference makers?

    Kevin Arnold  43:54

    I would say number one would be relationships with people and being able to go out and say, Hey, I'm in this position. What do I do here? And being able to get a solid answer on that and be able to move forward with it, because somebody else has always been in the same scenario that you're in. They know how to get out of it. We don't need to be the ones to invent the way to figure out a problem. I think that's been huge. And then we've a big takeaway that we had from Zion. Actually, we've had all these processes that we've been working for a year and a half, two years now, but we haven't sold ourselves on those processes being able to go into them in further depth. We really hammered down some of the details on things that we believed in our process at that point that now we can go out and sell it that much better, because sales has really never been a tactic of ours.

    Mark D. Williams  44:53

    What? What specifically are you referring to? So

    Kevin Arnold  44:57

    our pre construction, like I said, we. Really dropped the ball on that, or we gave it away for next to nothing, and we over delivered on what we gave them. We were selling way too much, and it just didn't make sense what we were doing, and we couldn't get fully behind it. So then how are we supposed to sell that to a client to get fully behind it.

    Mark D. Williams  45:20

    So basically you weren't believing what you were saying. And so it wasn't until those two things lined up that you you had essentially firm footing.

    Abbie Arnold  45:27

    And I think it was hard. Also, when we bring up pre construction in a consultation, the customers have not experienced pre construction. Well, we are being compared to people who don't value the pre construction, and a confused customer is never going to buy something. So that's, we have to be super firm in our process to be able to explain it to a customer, because the two other people that they're having out to see the project don't do the pre construction. And it's there's that level of education. Well, how do we provide an estimate? What are they basing the estimate off of? So that's really like, we had to really get behind our pre construction to sell it to people. And then, now that we know how to do it and how to explain it, people understand it, we can explain it much better. But there's we, that's pre construction was a big one where people have never heard of it. They don't see the value in a customer perspective. They see it as, oh, you're charging me an extra $5,000 for what? So just kind of going into that details and explaining it, that was a big takeaway that we've learned recently.

    Kevin Arnold  46:36

    Yeah, and as a young business, we're constantly trying to improve with that. We never had clear direction. Do something one way and be like, yeah, it didn't like that. We tried a completely different way, and we just never really had that template in place.

    Mark D. Williams  46:54

    Yeah, it's, you know, confidence is a funny thing. It's kind of like that old sales line where, like, when you're hot, you're hot, and when you're cold, you're cold. Like, basically, when things are rolling, great, you get a lot of things. And when you're cold, it's like, you can't buy a bucket. And it's just kind of funny how streaky that is. But I think confidence has a lot to do with like, when you believe your message, and I can only reflect on my journey through contractor coalition over the last three years is early on, there's some things I'm like, man, there's no way I can save that, or there's no way I can charge that, or there's no way I can show this. And then after you do it a few times, it just becomes like, No, this is how we you like, our homes. This is what we build. This is how we do it. And a homeowner like, oh, okay, that's, you know, so it's like you but you have to get to the point where you believe your own message. And it's hard to believe something until you've practiced it, and, you know, and done it. I mean, if you're going to relate it to, let's say, like, running or something like, you know, somebody might say, well, I can't run a seven mile. Well, if you train, you can eventually, let's say, get to that milestone, and then before you know it, you're like, oh, I can do that all day long, or whatever you want to use this for this analogy, but that, that iteration process to sort of perfect. It sometimes does take a little time, and you drop the ball a few times, but I think, like, that's sort of part of the maturation process. That's part of the, that's part of the, you know, the wisdom, the gray hairs that you're going to get at some point.

    Kevin Arnold  48:05

    Kevin, yeah, and something else that we've learned everybody's different. So when we were trying to do things differently because they didn't work out, that didn't necessarily mean because we were doing something wrong, it just wasn't a good fit. I mean, if we hit one out of four, that's fantastic, and that's really what it took that we did the same thing four or five times in a row. Didn't pan out for any one of them, but the last one, and we're able to sell like experts on that last one, because we had the practice in

    Mark D. Williams  48:36

    when you guys are selling to a client, I assume you guys are doing it together. How does that sales presentation work? So

    Abbie Arnold  48:42

    our first step in our process is a discovery call 15 minutes Google meet, and the idea is that we want to learn about their project, and we want to tell them a little bit about us. We'll talk about budget right off the bat, because that is important. We have to figure out if it's a good fit for us. If we decide it is a good fit, we'll do that in home consultation. Generally. I'll run our discovery calls, and then we'll both run our consultations, so we do them together. And part of the value that you get from hiring us is we are a husband and wife team, and that's something that is fun. And I think people like it, because you get both sides of the brain, I'd like to say. And then we'll go into pre construction from there. And we

    Kevin Arnold  49:22

    can also play people differently. So we'll be able to feel the room. If it's somebody that wants to be a little bit more social and just chat, I'll let Abby take the lead on that. If it's somebody that's going to be a little bit more technical, we can talk how we're going to actually execute on something and show our expertise and experience there.

    Mark D. Williams  49:46

    What you know, as we kind of come in for a landing here, what are you know, what does the rest of this year look like? And what are you guys most excited about?

    Kevin Arnold  49:55

    So right now, we're actually in the process of wrapping up. Our house down in Columbus with the intentions to move up to Cleveland and start taking out projects up here.

    Mark D. Williams  50:07

    Oh, very nice. What? What's the distance between the two cities? About two hours. Okay, so would you, will you'll be able to, obviously, go back and forth with existing work, or will you still try to maintain a presence in both markets, depending on where the work is? Or no,

    Kevin Arnold  50:21

    it really depends. We've made some pretty big strides in Columbus. We just haven't been selling as strong down there versus our close rate up in Cleveland. It's been phenomenal with a little bit smaller projects. So the goal is to kind of grow things to what we've been working at down there, trying to repeat that process up in Cleveland, and we'll kind of put if it's the right project, and we're going to get compensated accordingly, with the travel fee, we'll still go back down to Columbus to do a project.

    Mark D. Williams  50:54

    What is the why? Why are the two cities so different in terms of, like, their interest? I mean, what is the main re sounds like, there's just more work, or you're having more your close rate is much higher in Cleveland. Is there less competition? Or what do you suspect? The reasons

    Abbie Arnold  51:08

    are, we're both from up here. Okay, so people, people know Kevin, we had somebody reach out this week or last, last week, just because they knew Kevin's grandpa and they saw the KU builders truck in his driveway. So it's KU builders. It's a very small community up in Cleveland, but we've done quite a bit of good projects. And I think people really value the craftsmanship. A lot of the homes that we work on in Cleveland are old homes. How old was the bathroom that you just wrapped up? Which one, the one that we just came from,

    Kevin Arnold  51:41

    oh, 15 No, no, 1940s

    Abbie Arnold  51:45

    so those really old homes. Kevin grew up working on those old homes, and people want to be able to trust their old homes with Kevin. So for him to say, Hey, I grew up in this city. I know what it's like. I think it carries some value. And we want to be close to family. We're two hours from family right now. We just want to be closer. We're ready to come home. We've had some good opportunities, so we're excited.

    Mark D. Williams  52:09

    That's super exciting. Do you still stay in touch with your so you had mentioned on both sides of your family that there were entrepreneurs that were in the building trades. Are those businesses still operational? Are they retired now? Or what does that relationship look like?

    Kevin Arnold  52:23

    No, my grandma's cousin's retired. My grandpa's retired as well, but he feeds us all of his model business. That's why we've taken on so much work up here in the past, because we have really good referrals through him.

    Abbie Arnold  52:38

    Yeah, I think in any sales process, if it's a referral, you're going to close that more. Oh, absolutely. And we just have such a strong referral base in Cleveland that I think that's why our close rates better.

    Mark D. Williams  52:51

    That's interesting. How are you tracking it? Or is it just a general feeling, general feeling. Yeah,

    Kevin Arnold  52:57

    we have way less meetings up here and a lot more work up here.

    Mark D. Williams  53:02

    That's good. That's That's funny, yeah. I mean, when people know your household name, or they know the reputation, or was that was your grandpa's company called gay builders as well? No,

    Kevin Arnold  53:13

    so my grandpa was actually a union electric, and then my grandma's cousin, he had his was Conrad's home improvement. His last name's Conrad, and he's self performed everything. He has a cabinet shop with the CNC machine in there that towards the end we were cutting cabinet boxes on that and outsourcing doors and drawers and doing that. So I kind of mimicked that. We did our cabinets for a while, and we're just finally putting that to bed now, because we want to work with other cabinet builders that are local.

    Mark D. Williams  53:49

    What's the in terms of like, population, Columbus is bigger than

    Kevin Arnold  53:54

    Cleveland? Yeah, Columbus is a really big city. Cleveland, it's tough to say overall population. They're probably pretty similar, but the actual metro area is much bigger in Columbus.

    Mark D. Williams  54:09

    And where do you think you know, if you were to look out a year from now, what are some things that you're they're really excited about because this move will take place over the next couple of months? Or how far? How fast will this move take place?

    Speaker 1  54:20

    September, October, November. Okay, so later this fall, later

    Kevin Arnold  54:24

    this fall. Wick is we can get the projects that we started three years ago at our house done and get it in the market.

    Mark D. Williams  54:30

    Yep, yeah, that's always kind of the trick. Isn't that funny? It's like, what is that old What's that old adage about? Like, the cobblers sons shoes? Like, basically, they run barefoot because, you know, we're so busy working for our clients that we need to collect things. We need to do on our own home, yeah,

    Abbie Arnold  54:47

    finish our own home, and then move two of ours with all of our pets and everything. So it'll be an adjustment, but I think we're excited. But for the next year, I think not many companies. Companies get to hit restart on themselves over the next couple months, we really want to sit down and say, Okay, what's not working for us, what's going well, and adapt and change for what's not working for us. Because we I think we both looking at this as a fresh start what hasn't worked for us in Columbus. What can we change? How can we be better and not only finish our house sell projects two hours away, but really uses time for a strong business development. Yeah,

    Kevin Arnold  55:31

    we're drawing the line in the sand here. We're no more self performing. We've made this decision multiple times in the past. Haven't followed through with it, but I think changing markets, it's a pretty simple way to do that, because we can really focus on our sales process and use that to make sure that we're hitting the right jobs and not taking on a project just because we want to fill space in the schedule.

    Mark D. Williams  55:58

    Let me think it's really wise and self reflective, that you can see that that drawing that line is what you need to do to level up and kind of go to the next step that you want to take. Because, you know, and I can't speak to it, because I really was intelligent enough to do any of the work myself anyway, so unfortunately, I never had to deal with that issue, because I could never actually do any of the work. So I had, I had to figure it out. It's funny, because my wife had, she's had several people at her at the hospital, because she works there. People ask her and say, like, Oh, you're so lucky. Your husband's a builder. And she's like, he's not handy. He can't really help with anything. And like, you know, I think although for a successful marriage, I think maybe the best thing is to say you can't do it anyway. I remember this poor electrician we had one time for our lights over our center island, we must have had to move them up and down, like, five times. And I'm just looking at the electrician, like, I gotta go. Like, you know, you might have to readjust these seven more times. Like, I think the biggest fight I ever had in my life with my wife was overhanging pictures in our first house. Then it was like, because I'm somebody that's just like, I can eye it, I can see it's level, it's a good spot. Let's go here. And it was up, it was down. You'd hang it. You'd have to hang it three more times. I'm like, this is not going to end well. So now, so now, whenever we move or do something, I just have my trimmer come over, art person, and just be like, this is for the sake of my marriage. I am not hanging a single picture in my home. You learn you're down. That's so funny. I appreciate you guys time coming on, and it's always great to see you. I'm trying to think of where we might see each other next, but I suppose IBS would be coming up next spring. So depending on boot camp, oh, yeah, depending on boot camp. Yeah, we haven't announced it yet. Actually, by the time this airs, we probably will, yeah, we're going, I think it's going to be January. I did a I did a post out. I think it'll be the last week of January. We'll do curious boot camp in Costa Rica. So we'll be putting that out, we'll give first crack at those that have been there before, and then we'll open it up to other attendees. And then I think we'll have to probably modify where Sonic camp is. So rather than Sonic camp being end of July, January, we'll probably move Sonic camp to, I'm thinking March, because that way you've got, you know, the IBS is, I think, end of February this year. So I was thinking, probably, but then, I don't know, it feels like there's never a right time to set a date, because there's spring breaks and there's holidays and there's this and that, and there's always something. So it's like you just got to pick a date and go, yeah,

    Kevin Arnold  58:15

    yeah, the fall would be cool, but I don't think the lakes will be frozen yet. Yeah.

    Mark D. Williams  58:19

    And I'm not even sure what time they open. They open. They probably don't open till October, November. I'll actually have to reach out to them. They run such a cool operation. So we'll go back there again. The food was just incredible.

    Kevin Arnold  58:29

    Oh, good. Yeah, whatever those little sausages were, they were really good.

    Mark D. Williams  58:33

    Yeah, they were everything there was good when you're that, when you've been, when you've been sweating in the sauna for two hours. It turns out anything was salt on. It tastes amazing. Yeah. Well, very good guys. Appreciate you coming on the podcast, and we'll have everything in the show notes. Thanks for the audience for tuning in to another episode of The Curious builder, and we'll see you next week.

    58:51

    Thank you.

    Mark D. Williams  58:54

    We've had the podcast now for two and a half, almost three years now, and we have a consulting page, one to one consulting. You can book my time for one hour. Perhaps you've heard a guest where you like one of the topics. Maybe you want an introduction to some of the guests that I've had on. Perhaps you want to talk about branding or marketing, or anything that we've covered on the podcast over the last two and a half years. You can book a time at curious builder podcast.com thanks for tuning in to curious builder podcast. If you liked this episode, do us a favor. Share it with three other business owners. The best way that we can spread what we're doing is by word of mouth, and with your help, we can continue to help other curious builders expand their business. Please share it with your friends. Like and review online, and thanks again for tuning in.

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Episode 123 - CCS Omaha Build Buzz - Building for the Future: How Contractors Stay Relevant and Resilient in Uncertain Times