Episode 77 - Lessons in Kindness and Financial Savvy: Jerry Beerman’s Journey to Success

Episode #77 | Jerry Beerman | Lessons in Kindness and Financial Savvy

In this episode of The Curious Builder, Mark Williams and guest Jerry Beerman explore the intersection of kindness, financial wisdom, and personal growth in business. They share their journeys in endurance sports, family businesses, and the importance of stepping back to work on your business, all while emphasizing the value of trusted advisors and celebrating every win, big or small.

Listen to the full episode:

About Jerry Beerman

Jerry Beerman has owned and operated Alluring Glass since 2008. Alluring Glass is committed to building up people as they execute best in class installation of shower glass and mirrors in the Greater Cincinnati Region.

Over 10 years ago, Jerry recognized that many remodeling contractors had similar struggles running their businesses as his own. Even the owners who looked like they had their act together were challenged by various leadership and business issues. Jerry set out to provide an organically formed group to encourage and help resource his friends as each navigated constraints holding back their businesses. Conduit was founded to provide a community of industry peers to be mentored, encouraged and equipped through workshops, small groups and podcasts.

Jerry also founded CAP (Conduit Apprenticeship Program) as a 501c3. CAP volunteers mentor over 200 high school students to open their eyes to careers in the trades and works to find them opportunities for internships and full-time employment in high quality businesses.

Resources:

• Visit Alluring Glass’s Website

• Transcript

  Mark Williams:

  Hey listeners, in the last couple of episodes I've talked about the benefits of CBUSA, the leading group purchasing organization in construction. We're gearing up here in Minneapolis for an annual builder event called the Summit. September 22 through September 25, it'll be in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This event, formerly known as the power 30, is CBUSA's biggest event of the year. CBUSA members from across the country will come together to learn and engage in networking opportunities like face to face meetings with top brands and reps, interactive breakout sessions with fellow builders, and an exclusive vendor expo showcasing the latest materials. I'm excited to attend and I'm excited to be recording a podcast episode in front of a live audience. Fellow home Builders, if you want to be a part of this too, then head over to CBUSA us learn. Additionally, if you want to hear the backstory about CBUSA, you can listen to curious Builder episode number 26 with Ryan Lipchek.

  Mark Williams [00:00:53]:

  This episode is brought to you by Pella Northland for 19 and a half years I've been building homes and 95% of all my homes have used pella windows. I couldn't be happier to call them a partner in our builds and our remodels. Whether you're an architect, a designer, or a remodeler, I'd highly recommend Pella windows. They can fit old homes, new homes, reclaimed, commercial and really everything in between. Pella is a company that we trust and that we recommend to our clients. Additionally, in management, Peter and Ed have just been absolutely fantastic people to work with as well as mentors to me personally. So when it comes time to look for a window, I'd highly recommend Pella windows. Find more@pellinorthland.com dot also, if you're interested, you can hear episode one where I interview Peter and Ed together for a great lesson on business and Pella windows.

  Mark Williams [00:01:40]:

  Today in the curious Builder podcast we had Jerry Beerman out of Ohio and what a treat. This ended up being one of our longest podcasts, but for good reason. Jerry has infinite amount of wisdom, charm, compassion. We talk a little bit about his luring glass company and kind of the evolution of it, but we spend most of the time really talking about interpersonal communication. Jerry has a really deep background in coaching and he has this program that he has called conduit and you're going to be really interested to hear what he has to say, how he trains people into the workforce, how he really empowers people in the community to take their next steps. They're leveling up in their business and at the end, we talk about our love for all things sports and ultra trail running. So if you're into that, you can always fast forward to the end. But this is a doozy of an episode.

  Mark Williams [00:02:22]:

  Without further ado, here's Jerry Beerman. Welcome to the Curious Builder podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host. Today I'm joined with Jerry Beerman out of Cincinnati, Ohio, with alluring glass and conduit. Welcome, Jerry.

  Jerry Beerman [00:02:40]:

  Hey, Mark. Thanks for having me. Good to be here.

  Mark Williams [00:02:42]:

  Excited to have you on. I thought we'd talk a little bit about alluring glass, since that's one of your main companies, but probably spend most of it talking about conduits since it's very similar to what we're doing here locally with the curious builder collective. And there's just a lot of things that'll be interesting to hear about how you're doing it compared to how we're doing it. So why don't you give us a brief intro of who you are and tell us a little bit about alluring glass and conduit, and then we'll kind of just dive into it.

  Jerry Beerman [00:03:07]:

  Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Mark. So my name is Jerry Beerman. I own alluring glass. I was telling you offline a few minutes ago, you know, somewhere in the 16 to 18 year range from when I started it. I'm entrepreneurial in all the limited number of positive attributes that come with a pure entrepreneur. And I've got all the kryptonite tied to my entrepreneurial visionary mindset as well that I'm sure you and I will talk about quite a bit.

  Jerry Beerman [00:03:37]:

  So, yeah, I got into the trades. I'm not a trades person. So what your listeners might find interesting is that in the trades, many of the trades owners were trades people, right? That the technicians that were at it and ended up launching their own business and built it to whatever level they currently have it. But many of them, the vast majority in Cincinnati, anyway, Mark, are tradespeople. And I'm not. I'm an entrepreneur that stumbled in. I feel like Mister Magoo, if you remember the cartoon character that is. I've been on my entrepreneur journey over the years, Mark.

  Jerry Beerman [00:04:16]:

  I've stumbled in and out of a lot of challenges and some opportunities, and alluring glasses has proven to be a great opportunity for myself, my family. And so that was launched as an entrepreneur, somebody that never, I've never installed custom shower glass or mirrors, which is what our company offers in the greater Cincinnati area and in the Dayton, Ohio market. And so we do really high end custom shower glass and mirrors. And I initially, in the first few years, Mark, it was kind of a badge of honor to say, I'm going to run the company and build the company, and I'm going to hire master craftsman to do the craft. And a lot of times the craftsman would say, well, Jerry, don't you want to learn how to install this stuff? And I was like, you know what? I'm, you stay, you know, you be an expert in your lane, and I'll be an expert in my lane. And so since then, for 18 years, I've never installed one piece of glass.

  Mark Williams [00:05:14]:

  What did you, before we get into learning glass, you know, because just based on, I assume you're not 46 years old or 36 years old, I should say, if you started in your twenties, what did you do before you started learning glass?

  Jerry Beerman [00:05:28]:

  Yeah. So I just turned 58, which I know you and I are going to talk about ultra running towards the end of this, but I just had my 58th birthday. And so prior to this, I taught tennis for 14 years. I've worked in a church for seven to ten years. So I was, I oversaw children's and youth ministry in a, in a church. The denomination, it's not a denominational, but it's called the Vineyard church. So I worked there for quite a few years, and then I, I started nonprofits and started for profit businesses in between all of those jobs. So always, always have had an entrepreneurial spirit and just never, never really stuck with a business.

  Jerry Beerman [00:06:15]:

  So learn glass is the longest business that I launched that I've stuck with.

  Mark Williams [00:06:20]:

  Of course, that's funny. Now, hearing that, it sort of reaffirms what I could sort of feel. And just doing a little research about you and hearing you speak, watching some of your keynote speeches ahead, ahead of time, you do have a very sort of approachable coaching nature. I used to coach cross country running, and I was a tennis player as well. And so the fact that you are a tennis coach on top of that, it's funny because you have this very, I could see. We'll talk a little bit later about conduit. I can see how the coaching aspect, in terms of business, is such a natural avenue for you to explore. Well, let's go back to alluring glass.

  Mark Williams [00:06:56]:

  You know, I love to always hear the origin, origin stories, like, why glass? Like, why did you pick that? It seems like you could have done a number of things. What made you start it?

  Jerry Beerman [00:07:05]:

  So in 2000, around 2008, when the market melted, I actually came across a couple guys that were, they call them glazers in the glass business, Mark. And so I came across a couple of glazers that were laid off. And the short version is, I befriended these guys. I'm always interested in business in the marketplace. And as I got to know these guys, I'm like, what does a glazer do? And through lots of conversation, I discovered that one of the things they did was they did custom shower glass. And so from a business standpoint, I was thinking, okay, if I was going to sell custom shower glass on a recurring basis, if I could hitch my wagon to everybody that was selling tile, I figured tile would be either installed in a kitchen or bathroom. And so if it was installed in a bathroom, it was likely that the glass, you know, the big box stores, would have a limited right sizes that they'd be able to offer. So I figured, Mark, if I hitched my wagon to glazers that knew how to execute the glass, and I hitched my wagon to the tile people that sold the material, if I could follow the material, I could create a recurring opportunity of business.

  Jerry Beerman [00:08:22]:

  And so that's the way I started. And from there, obviously, that led me to tile installers, which led me to general contractors, remodeling contractors, and custom home builders, etcetera. So it started to create a ripple effect. I'm a b, two b, two c business. About 80% of our business goes through a contractor before we end up in your bathroom. So what I was looking for is recurring. I've always been fascinated with business, of course, but I was really fascinated with the recurring nature of business. And so with custom shower glass, again, if I could launch in and around 2008 and actually grow through that, when the market melted, I thought, men, obviously, through Covid, we exploded.

  Jerry Beerman [00:09:09]:

  And we've never been seasonal. We've never had. We have some ebbs and flows throughout the year, Mark, but we just don't have the big dips, and we don't have the highs and we don't have the lows. So it's just a great little niche business.

  Mark Williams [00:09:27]:

  Interesting. And I noticed, looking@your.org chart, I'm guessing you have, what, 1525 people? How many people? Okay. And I noticed there's a couple other beermans. You have a Dakota and an Ellie. Son? Daughter. Are they relatives, or. How are they?

  Jerry Beerman [00:09:42]:

  Yeah, I've got four children. I used to, I used to brag they're all off the payroll, as my wife and I became empty nesters, which was the best season of my life by far. Maybe surpassed by grandkids, Mark. But empty nesting was a home run for sure. So I got them all off the payroll, and then two of them have actually come back and got on the payroll. But they're not leeches. They're not sucking the life out of me. They're actually contributors.

  Jerry Beerman [00:10:08]:

  So my son Dakota is 31, and he actually is running our operations. And Ellie is 25 ish. Sorry, Elle, 24. 25. And she oversees. She works in the accounting department and social media team.

  Mark Williams [00:10:24]:

  Did you know we've had a lot of husband and wives and father and sons on. I haven't had a ton of multifamily. In this case, you've got two. How early on did you think that you'd have some family members join the business? And as a dad, I have a dad of three kids, but they're much younger. What is, what kind of excites you about having them part of your team? And is there any sort of, is there any con at all?

  Jerry Beerman [00:10:47]:

  It seems like never planned, probably, you know, gosh, we could spend hours talking about this. I never planned on them coming in. That was never the plan. And so they both. Dakota's been with me for the past three years, and Allie's been with me for the past two years, so. And it really wasn't. It was really assessing their skillset and could they be contributors? Like, could they come in and add value? And if you went to our team and you went to the marketplace and said, hey, what are they good at? They would tell you within learning glass what they're good at. They're uniquely gifted and they're uniquely gifted, and they're working in lanes that I need.

  Jerry Beerman [00:11:35]:

  I need people that have expertise in those areas. So, yeah, we're seeing it. You know, 15 years ago, we saw a decline in father sons, father daughters, you know, combinations. Mother son, mother daughter. We saw, we didn't, we didn't see an influx in families coming together in business, but we are now. I'm seeing a tremendous quantity of kids that are coming into their parents businesses right now in the trades.

  Mark Williams [00:12:09]:

  You know, it's interesting. I don't know the stats. I've spoken a little bit about it. I should probably do some research on it. You know, you hear all these stats, you know, for every seven plumbers that retire, one takes their place. And, you know, similar statistics for h vac electricians as well. And I'm sure each market is different. But one thing that I've heard is someone just recently mentioned that it was something like 10,000 baby boomers are retiring a day.

  Mark Williams [00:12:32]:

  And I don't know how long that's going to go for. But they mentioned that the percent of baby boomers that own businesses in the United States that then therefore they're up for sale. And you think as it relates to GDP, housing and construction has the largest needle in the United States to my knowledge. Anything related somehow to housing or construction has a huge, huge, huge part and it's part of the american dream and it's very much built into our fabric of our culture. But the reason I'm bringing it up is there's a lot of businesses that are available to buy. When I started my company, I never even thought, you know, I was a third generation builder. But each generation sort of stopped and then there was like a three year gap before the next generation started their own company. So in some ways, well, I'm three generations deep, each one was like its own thing.

  Mark Williams [00:13:18]:

  So in some ways they're all first generation. But I bring it up because I never even dawned on me, being a young kid at 23 when I started 24, that you could buy a company. I always thought you just had to start a company. And I feel, do you feel like right now I feel like the message is starting to get out much clearer, that there are businesses to buy. You don't actually have to start a business. Now, being a serial entrepreneur like yourself, you know, if you could go back, would you buy a company? Or. I know we can't rewrite our history, but there's, there's parts of it. And maybe it's because I'm always attracted to the thing that I didn't do.

  Mark Williams [00:13:52]:

  I'm sort of like, oh, if I could go do a redo, maybe I would buy a company and see if I could build it better versus starting one. And maybe I'm not suited for that, I guess. What's your thoughts on the opportunity in our marketplace, especially in the construction world, to buy a business versus starting one? Pros and cons?

  Jerry Beerman [00:14:09]:

  Yeah, no, it's a great question. So we also have an apprenticeship program where we go into the high schools and try to create our own talent pipeline. And one of the things I talked to high school students about, Mark, is the, you know, entrepreneurship is super sexy right now, you know, and so a lot of young people think they want to be entrepreneurs. And so I try to help them understand the difference between owning a business and being an entrepreneur. So the example, a great example is Chick fil A. Like, if you want to own a business that just prints money, a chick fil a is a great opportunity for somebody that wants to own a business, manage the systems, the processes that are put in front of you, and, you know, build good culture. And the thing just prints money. An entrepreneur or somebody like myself, id rather put a bullet in my head than own a chick fil a because I have to innovate.

  Jerry Beerman [00:15:04]:

  98. So a visionary entrepreneur, again, certainly they are not better than anybody else. Theyre not worse than anybody else either. But what visionary entrepreneurs have to do, Mark, is they have to, they have to test, they have to push the envelope. You know, I'm the guy, like curious George, if you remember, like, when I walk by and I see a wet paint sign, I always wonder how long that sign's been up, right? So I'm always, like, pushing it. And my wife's like, don't touch that. It says wet paint. I'm like, I need to verify that it's still wet.

  Jerry Beerman [00:15:37]:

  And so having that, like, that propensity for curiosity lends itself to entrepreneurship, which lends itself to building something. Now, when you talk about buying a business, there's a lot of businesses that we're looking to buy. So we also have a holding company that we're looking to buy. Some of my friends, the gray hairs and the no hairs, if anybody's watching, they can see that I clearly have no hair. But as you have an aging in place marketplace, there's a lot of these guys that don't have succession plans. They, through a herculean effort, have built a business up to three or five or $7 million, and they're making great money, but they're operating outside of their skillset. One of my friends that's a hardwood floor geek has built a tremendous hardwood floor company in the greater Cincinnati area. But he's a technician, and through a herculean effort, has built an amazing business, mark.

  Jerry Beerman [00:16:38]:

  But his gift set is wood. He's a wood geek, and I say that lovingly, like, he loves to talk about wood and the quality of wood and the type of wood that's being installed and the right way to install the wood. And he's running a multimillion dollar company that the entrepreneur hat that he wears is not very appealing to him. So guys like that that are like, hey, my kids don't want to take it over. They don't have succession plans. So people like myself are like, we need to build a holding company to help buy some of these businesses. And then people like myself get to exercise my entrepreneurial spirit by taking a three, five, $7 million company and then saying, can I double it? Can I triple it? Can I quadruple it, etcetera. So I think I'm answering your question.

  Jerry Beerman [00:17:29]:

  I think there's a massive opportunity for you to start businesses. And the benefit of me starting a business was I got to cut my teeth in lots of different areas. And so starting a business by yourself, I would argue, is not as glamorous as people think. But, man, that's where I just developed a lot of skills. A lot of relentlessness that transfers over into ultra marathons was created by the launch of a business where I'm working seven days a week. And, you know, I had four young kids, and it was, it was hand to hand combat. It was, it was hard, but all that hard, all that tension, all that pressure, Mark really helped to define, helped to develop in refine skills. So I love the idea of starting businesses to develop your skills.

  Jerry Beerman [00:18:20]:

  But as you get older, as I, as I mentioned, I'm 58. I'm looking for more partnerships as we get into conduit as well. I want to partner with other owners. Like, I don't want to be by myself, working by myself.

  Mark Williams [00:18:34]:

  I very much resonate with that. I've spoken about on the podcast before about the three phases of business. There's earn or, sorry, learn, earn, and return. And I always joke that I've missed the earning phase and I got to come in the returning phase. But I think I would very much be like you in the sense that I like the iteration of new business. I like the testing of theories. I think one of the things that drew me into building a home early on in my career was creativity. You know, when, you know, usually when you start as a new home builder, you know, you have a, if you don't have a client, you're doing spec home.

  Mark Williams [00:19:07]:

  You as the owner, you're putting in the money, you get to design whatever kind of home you want. So the creativity to freely design a house, to build a house, to bring on your partners, there is a lot of liberty of, you know, freedom to just go create something. And it's very powerful, and I even think it's very powerful at keeping people interested in it. And I think regardless of what you do for a trade, there can be creativity and excitement. I think of my, his name was Johnny and he was a framer. I had, you know, 15, 10, 15 years ago. And I remember every Friday he was a big fisherman and he would take pictures of the home. And I remember I'd show up on a job site and, you know, make sure it's clean before the clients would maybe look at it.

  Mark Williams [00:19:47]:

  Over the weekend, that kind of thing. And I'd say, johnny, what are you taking pictures of? He's like, oh, I love to see how much progress I've made in a week. And it was very validating. There's very few careers where you can see so visually progress outside of construction. I mean, it's extremely visual, and there's something deeply satisfied on top of, you know, you're building a home for someone and all these other wonderful things. But to actually see something that you're creating is very appealing, and especially if you're into that sort of instant feedback loop of, you know, or I did something wrong. I mean, you can see it pretty quickly. I mean, if you install the roof wrong and it starts leaking, like, you know, pretty quickly, that something is wrong where I have to imagine a lot of other careers, you know, it maybe, I don't know this.

  Mark Williams [00:20:30]:

  Maybe I'm speaking out of turn here, but let's say you built a car. Like, you're not going to know about this one part in the middle of the engine until you go to fire it up down there, you know, six months down the road. I assume they do tests and things like that. But anyway, I guess my point is, having constant feedback allows you to iterate and get better much faster than if you have to wait six months or a year or longer to see any sort of, you know, feedback loop.

  Jerry Beerman [00:20:50]:

  100%. Yeah, 100%. And as a third generation builder, you know, obviously I'd be remiss not saying congratulations to you, you and your, your, you know, your father and your grandfather, like, what a. What a great accomplishment. In conduit, we talk about building a legacy business, something of value that could be passed on, and your family has done that. You've built a legacy business. And so, you know, I don't know if they've said to you, hey, Mark, don't screw this up, but, you know, many of the, many of our friends that are launching businesses, or they're a decade or two into the launch of their business, we're saying to them, what does at this stage in your business, do you have vision for a legacy business? Something that you could sell, something that you could sell to your employees, something that you could pass on. Where are you at this stage in your, you know, visualizing what you could have built versus what you have built, and then for your future, what you might build in the future and getting alongside them and helping them do that.

  Mark Williams [00:22:01]:

  That'S a great question. Our personal family, sort of interesting because it's like, since we're in the Olympics. I'll use an Olympic analogy. It's like the four by 100, except nobody brought the batons. So it's like, you know, my grandpa ran and then he's like, I'm done. And then my dad's like, oh, I guess I'm going to run. So there was never a handoff, like each company, there was no continuity. There was no buying or selling mentioned.

  Mark Williams [00:22:21]:

  Well, I'm third generation. There was no sort of continuity between the companies. You know, my dad built 40 homes a year at 300 to 500,000. I built four homes a year at, you know, two to 5 million. So totally different businesses. But I think what I've really appreciated is how much I've learned from watching my parents be entrepreneurs, watching how they treat people. You know, you're a coach not only in business coach, but also, you know, you know, a spiritual coach, by the sounds of it, as on top of a tennis coach. You know, so much of the games that we play, play in the businesses we run, we focus so much on maybe some of the technical aspects.

  Mark Williams [00:23:00]:

  And I think what really interests me the most and what I learned, but I didn't realize I was learning, was watching how my parents and people that I admire how they treated people, and I recently just did a, someone asked me a question. They'll come out on one of these Thursday Q and A's. I'm not sure the timing of this episode to that episode, but that question was asked to me, who has been the most important influence in your life? And I spent the entire episode just talking about my mom and dad. And all of it was, it's funny because my mom was an interior designer, but all the things I learned from my mother was how she treated people and how she, how her kindness. She used to have the saying that kindness is never out of style. And I can't tell you how many times that's helped me in business resolution. And I don't always get it right. I make plenty of mistakes.

  Mark Williams [00:23:43]:

  Trust me. You can't be an entrepreneur and not break some glass and then call a luring glass to fix it. But, you know, and then the rest is, you know, simple stuff, very simple stuff. You know, I, my dad used to say, hey, if you make $99 a month and you spend 100, you're going to go broke and you spend 98, you're going to make it. And, like, that's a really simple concept. I'm pretty sure my five year old could figure that one out. But yet how many entrepreneurs run into the reef of cash finance, because they get overextended. And even if you know it, it doesn't make you exempt from dashing on the reef.

  Mark Williams [00:24:17]:

  Like. Like, business is not. I think a lot of people look on and say, oh, I wish I owned a business. Or, oh, I wish, you know, people love to say when there's a multi generational thing, oh, you got handed a business. It's probably one of the biggest fallacies that I can possibly think of in terms of business. Like, in some ways, it's like you asked this question before. Like, I'm not sure even want to give my business. Or, like, you know, it's different if you coach them up to it.

  Mark Williams [00:24:37]:

  You learn them up. They have to have a passion for it. But let's just pretend that that logic isn't part of this conversation. You're like, hey, child, you know, hey, Dakota, you know, here's the business. Good luck. You're like, that's like, that's like someone giving someone an anchor while they're swimming across the Atlantic. They're like, thanks, dad. Like, unless they want to swim, unless they're training to swim, like, don't give them an anchor.

  Mark Williams [00:24:57]:

  Like, wait for them to grasp it with two hands. That. I mean, that's how I would do it anyway.

  Jerry Beerman [00:25:01]:

  But 100%. And I also like what you talked about with your. With your folks, which I think is as owners and businesses, that still more is caught than taught. Right? You know, holding, you know, from an integrity standpoint as you're leading, you know, for me, at alluring glass. Like, I never want my guys to feel like they're lab rats, and yet I want to test best practices, right? Because I'm a b, two b to c business, you know, I'm like, I want to learn how to effectively build a business. Like, build the people that build the business, right? So that's what, in terms of me talking to my staff, I'm like, hey, you guys, you guys have built the culture. Like, I've always. We currently present day, we have a great culture.

  Jerry Beerman [00:25:47]:

  And when guys comment on our culture, I always say to our staff, like, you've built. I've always wanted this culture for the past 15 or 18 years, I've always wanted the culture that we were experiencing today. And I've done my best to try to influence it. But you 25 men and women, you built the culture, right? And you're the people that are building the business. My job is to model the. Which. This is hard, right? So is to model the behavior and treat people the way that I want them to treat each other and treat our clients. So, again, that's part of the personal and professional growth and development.

  Jerry Beerman [00:26:24]:

  Like, one of the things that we know about owners is that, you know, most of us, you know, it's. But for me, shall I go? It's like, if you want to know the biggest constraint in your business, just go look in the mirror, right? You are, you know, and just. And love people enough to tell them the truth. It's like, you know, I want to be a good enough friend of you, Mark, to say that, you know, in your business, the biggest constraint is you. And so if you want to. If you want to improve that, you know, if you want to get rid of the bottleneck, then you got to get. You got to make yourself better. And so, in a lot of this is suffocating the bullshit from people, too, is to be like, hey, when you're complaining about challenges, like, as another owner, if you just want to vent to me, that's fine.

  Jerry Beerman [00:27:04]:

  Like, if you want to grab a cup of coffee and just vent and get it all out, then that's fine. If you want to vent. And then what I'm always asking my friends is like, do you want to fix it? Do you want to fix that? And if you want to fix it, I'll get alongside you and help you. And that's what birthed conduit in full transparency, is that I wanted to get alongside my friends that own businesses and help them work through constraints. And I figured, in doing so, Mark, I would learn a lot myself, right? I would learn best practices. What are some of the things that Mark does in his business that may or may not work in my business, but at least I can learn, like, what were you thinking in that? Like, when you were dealing with that issue, with that client or with that teammate, you know, how did you address it, and what were you thinking in the process? And, of course, how did it work out? And then me, as another owner, I got to decide, do I take exactly what Mark did and do I bring that back into my business, or do I bring a version of that back and do I test that and see how it worked? That was, again, that got me on the journey of man. I want to add value to the marketplace. I figured, like, if I could make custom shower glass, like, really custom, more like, you know, from the fabricators standpoint, the glass fabricators.

  Jerry Beerman [00:28:25]:

  Like, what? You know, how custom can I make this application for Mark's bathroom? And then how excellent can I make the customer service at some point you could argue, I can't make it more custom. The material, like, I'm already using the best material. I can't actually make it more custom than, right, uber custom. And you could argue, yes, we can make our service better. But you get to a point where you're like, how much better can I make the product in the service? And for us in the high end residential trades, this is the barrier to entry anyway. Like, you can't, even if you're not a great painter, you're not going to even get in the game. And so for me, it was like, all right, so from, besides a product standpoint, what value can I add to alluring glass? What can I test at alluring glass with our staff? You know, retention, training and development, train, retain people is a huge issue. Recruit, train and retain.

  Jerry Beerman [00:29:21]:

  And so how do we, how do we, how do we excel at that? And then what are we learning and how do we take that to the marketplace? So you want to share all of our findings.

  Mark Williams [00:29:32]:

  What I appreciate about a lot of what you've shared, and I, and maybe go back to our earlier part of your question. I'm 43, and you had asked a question a little bit earlier, like, and maybe it was more, you know, I guess the question was framed in such a way that at what point in your career do you start working on your business instead of in your business? And that's a pretty popular topic. Rightly so. You know, for myself, I only started thinking about it probably three, four years ago. So I'm 20 years into my career, so about 17 years in. And I wish, I wonder, though, this is what's, and maybe you have maybe more wisdom on this because you're a little bit older, hopefully. And maybe the wisdom came with you, but, like, I don't, does anyone when they start their business, immediately start, you know, I talk about all the time, like, begin with the end in mind because I did not, I did not think about building a building company that I could sell one day. I just thought I wanted to create something.

  Mark Williams [00:30:25]:

  I want to innovate. And then, you know, years down the road, you're like, oh, man. Oh, I can't sell this business. Well, that's a real bummer. I'm just, I'm going to spend, you know, at 20 years in, you're like, well, I'm not maybe going to go do a different business and am I going to really spend 40 years of my life building a business that I can't sell? And so it's only now about midstream that I'm thinking like, okay, now you start thinking about brand, you start thinking about your long term marketing, you start thinking about your past clients. You start thinking about, you know, building a team and building an infrastructure that you can sell that I am envious of, you know, let's say alluring glass or a company like that where, you know, your beginning sale point, end standpoint and the fact that you can have repeat clients because you're b, two b, whereas a custom home builder, I'm b two c. And you're obviously, you're much more subject to the whims of, you know, popularity and fads. And to be fair, you know, a built, let's say one of your custom home builders does ten to 20 projects a year.

  Mark Williams [00:31:19]:

  That's ten to 20 orders every single year. Like clockwork. Now you start building that out. That is a very attractive business where a custom home builder, you know. Yes, I think the average stat used to be somewhere like seven to eight years, something like that was the average american, you know, moving. But I'm looking, in my 20 year career, I've had, I've had a few past clients, but none of my big homes have they turned over. Now maybe when I'm 40, will I start doing stuff for their kids or whatever. Maybe that's yet to be determined.

  Mark Williams [00:31:45]:

  But you get, my point is I spend so much of my emotional capital and branding capital and sales for like a one and done, it's like I'm searching for like, you know, four Moby dicks a year. You harpoon them. You know, there's not, they don't have offspring. I don't get it. Other ones. And so at least in the business model that in the high end residential world that I'm in, what's your thoughts on that? I mean, you work with plenty of builders.

  Jerry Beerman [00:32:11]:

  Yeah. So the first thing is, and I'm happy to do this through a Zoom call or a video call or come up to Minnesota and talk to all your subs and remind them that mark actually is your sales and marketing team. So that all your subs, I don't know how many subs that you guys average for a, for a new home.

  Mark Williams [00:32:34]:

  All of them. I mean, we don't self perform anything. So everything, everything done on job is through a trade partner and subcontractor.

  Jerry Beerman [00:32:40]:

  So, you know, is there 30 plus 40 plus subs? Yeah. So, so each of those subs, if they're good, which I'm sure they are, working for you, it's that like you're giving them projects. Like, I remind our staff all the time when the phone rings and the guys are like, you know, the phone's ringing off the hook. It's like in zero eight. It didn't ring off the hook. You bite your tongue for being frustrated. The phone's ringing. Answer it.

  Jerry Beerman [00:33:06]:

  First of all, because Mark's calling you to give you another job. That's the whole sales and marketing bucket. So I'd love to talk to all your subs, which we'll probably come back to. The sales and marketing bucket is critical. You mentioned a minute ago, at what point in your life do you start recognizing you need to work on yourself? And I think that's a great question for your listeners. Like, and here's my question to your listeners. Who in your life that you respect is telling you the truth? Like, who in your sphere of it? And I'm not asking you this question, Mark, right now, but think about this. Who do you trust that's actually giving you some feedback, some critical feedback? Because when I started recognizing the need for me to work on me, it's when I had a relationship with some other men that I very much respected that I gave them permission to speak to me, and they started challenging me.

  Jerry Beerman [00:34:13]:

  They started saying, hey, jerry, when you said this to your staff, when you did this, when you said this about your staff, you know, when you. You said this about your family or your wife or whatever, you know, I don't think that's the best version of yourself. Like, that. That doesn't sound like, you know, the Jerry that we know and love, you know, the best version of you, that doesn't seem like that was it. And when you have people in your life that are willing to tell you the truth and you're humble enough to listen to them, I think that's a. I think those are the ingredients, Mark, is you got to have people around you, trusted advisors, people that you trust that are giving you advice, like these lone rangers, man, it is just a. It is just so detrimental. The damage, the carnage that you will cause your family in the marketplace by you being a Lone ranger is just monumental.

  Jerry Beerman [00:35:10]:

  So I started merely. I started working on myself when I had friends that loved me enough to challenge me.

  Mark Williams [00:35:18]:

  Well, I've mentioned the quote a lot, which is right in your. In your line here of your thinking, which is if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together. And, you know, this thing of partnerships, you had just mentioned it how right now you love the idea of working with people and I think that comes a little bit from the spirit of, you know, coaching. There's something very empowering. You know, you were mentioning coaching cross country or tennis, and I coach cross country running. You know, watching, you know, I coached high school. So watching these young kids come up with goals and get their prs in their times or overcoming personal obstacles, it was really empowering to me personally because you're like, as a coach, you're just trying to help them on the journey. But a lot of it has to be self motivation from within.

  Mark Williams [00:35:58]:

  But I think that's what you're referring to is like, you get, you get peers, whether it's a small group, through, you know, conduit or a collective or could be family, could be, you know, group network. And there's so many different places you can go with this. You know, it could be your church. I mean, a lot of things, it's with you personally that ends up coming out in your business, because so many entrepreneurs, they're, they identify themselves as their business, and there's pros and cons to that. I think people need to be a little careful that their identity, in my opinion anyway, isn't so tied up into their company, because then if their company suffers or, you know, if you. If you. If you are your company and you go out of business, does that mean, like, your life is over? No. I've spoken before that, actually, one of the most freeing things that ever happened to my career was in 2008.

  Mark Williams [00:36:41]:

  I was only, was it three, four years into my building career? And I remember I asked, I asked, I asked my dad for some money, and he said no. And I remember being completely relieved that he said no because I didn't want to borrow money from him, but I didn't know what else to do. And he said, if you fail, that's okay. And I remember the safety net being taken away like a trapeze artist. And that's when I, that's when I took off, and that really, really empowered me. And so to your point, having people around you that say no now, being married, speaking of being told no, I mean, having some checks and balances, it has helped me so much. It doesn't make it easy, but I think if you're not doing the work on yourself. And I remember someone telling me good parenting advice and the advice that they gave another parent, and this was before I had children, but I've taken it to heart, was they were talking about their children and they were correcting their children, and they said, if I don't correct you the world will, and I'm going to be a much gentler corrector than the world.

  Mark Williams [00:37:44]:

  But one way or another, you will learn this lesson. That's always had a huge impact on me. And, you know how we sort of coach other people or encourage other people, but it is pretty hard. You cannot unless people around you are willing to so it be coached or ask for help. It ends up sort of falling on deaf ears.

  Jerry Beerman [00:38:01]:

  Yep, that's good. And again, depending on the, the self performing of your listeners, you know, you were mentioning that, that your company, you don't self perform, you subs. And so whether it's, whether they're employees or subs, because a lot of times people are like, it's different, Jerry. I have all subs. It's like, actually, it's not that much different. Like my, none of my employees and none of your subs woke up this morning and thought to themselves, I'm going to go do terrible work today. Like, no, nobody wakes up and thinks I'm going to be like, this is going to be, I'm going to perform terribly. So something happens.

  Jerry Beerman [00:38:44]:

  By the time, from the time they wake up, they brush their teeth, they go to the bathroom, they drink coffee, they, you know, whatever, they get to the job site, something happens. And so, so I'm curious from a leadership standpoint is what are some of the things that I can do to help? Again, I want to personally and professionally develop my staff and my subs, and so what can I do? And some guys might say there's nothing you can do. And I would argue that absolutely. There absolutely is. There's lots of things. There's so many ingredients that you can actually help them be the best version of themselves. And then, and if you play this forward, you know, Mark, in your business, if all of your subs are well trained, supported, however, you could do that, or we could do that to help them be the best version of themselves. What happens to your jobs? What happens to your, what's the experience your customers are going to have and what's going to happen to your brand? Like, it, it is a rising tide, lifts all ships.

  Jerry Beerman [00:39:45]:

  And I think, you know, maybe it sounds idealistic, but there's a lot of us that are like, by God, we're going to do it. Like, we're going to, we're going to invest the money and the time to help people be the best version of themselves. And so in my company and in the marketplace, we talk about your personal, your personal growth and your professional growth. And my wife is, is working remotely, in a couple rooms over. And she works in HR and she's always like, jerry, you can't, you can't, you can't. I'm like, I do, I do, I do. I'm just, you know, as a small business owner, I always tell my staff, like, you know, you would say, I don't have permission to ask about your personal life, but I know that you bring yourself with you everywhere you go. And so if your personal life is a shit show, then I know that you're going to struggle at the job.

  Jerry Beerman [00:40:32]:

  And so I care enough to have hard conversations with people and I love people enough to do whatever I can. I'm not an expert in the. And any of these things, but I can get them resources. And I think that's where the. I love the word conduit, because conduit isn't the source, it's just a resource. And so for me, you know, my tank gets filled when I help connect somebody with a resource that's going to help them. And so I think it's the same thing that you do with your staff, the same thing that, mark, you can do with your subs. And again, we build people that build businesses is kind of the.

  Jerry Beerman [00:41:13]:

  That's my.

  Mark Williams [00:41:15]:

  Let's talk about conduit. So you'd mentioned that you've had it for quite a while, but it was kind of one man band, and now it's become something much, much more. Why don't you tell us? You know, we've got about 22 minutes. I want to save at least ten for ultra running conversation. So for the next 15 minutes, let's talk about what conduit is, what your hopes and aspirations for is. It is. And how they've, I imagine, have completely exploded here over the last couple of years. Based on what I've seen from some of your website portals, this episode is.

  Mark Williams [00:41:44]:

  Brought to you by adaptive, the software for builders that automates draws budgets and bookkeeping with AI. For over a year now, I've been partnered with Adaptive and they've just been an amazing game changer in terms of efficiency in our time, in all our bookkeeping. When from the time we get an invoice, we import it into their system, the AI codes it, cost, codes it, job codes it, all we have to do is review it, pass it through the people internally in the office, all digitally, and then it gets approved and paid all by Ach. It's becoming extremely fast and saving us countless hours a day and a week when it comes to draws, all of our budgets. Now, are set in adaptive as well. So now when we cost code against the draws, we can do our change orders and then with a click of a button, we can submit these draws to our title companies or to our homeowners for faster payment. If you're looking to save time, and if you're looking to be accurate, I highly recommend adaptive. Additionally, if you'd like to listen to one of their founders share the story of adaptive, you can listen to episode number 15 on the Curious Builder podcast.

  Mark Williams [00:42:42]:

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  Jerry Beerman [00:43:37]:

  Yeah, so conduit was, Conduit was again launched 1214 years ago where I was looking at the market, I was looking at my customer. It was a total selfish play is I was looking at my customers and I was like, what value could I add? So I looked at you, Mark, and it was like, hey, I'm serving you with shower glass. What value could I add to you beyond shower glass? And as I got to know you, I found out that through conversation that we were all struggling with the exact same business issues. Like, oh my gosh, we're all struggling. Client acquisition, client fulfillment, job costing, profitability. Anyway, we're all struggling with the exact, you know, exact same things. And I was like, wow, there's really, there's not an organization addressing, like in corporate America. There is, like with vistage and like in Cincinnati, there's all kinds of organizations that corporate America has access to that if you want to grow people personally and professionally, there's dozens of organizations.

  Jerry Beerman [00:44:35]:

  But within the trades back then, there was nothing. There was the home Builders association, and obviously there's value there, but they really weren't focused solely on growing people personally and professionally. And so the launch of conduit was myself and some people like yourself, you know, Mark, some thought leaders in Cincinnati that said, look, we're all struggling with the same thing. Let's once a quarter do free workshops. We'll get an expert on the topic and we'll invite all our friends that own businesses and we'll provide these free workshops and we'll just try to help get them trained up. And so prior to Covid, we did that every quarter. And then that actually led to some small groups that were like, hey, you know how many of you guys would like to get together on a monthly basis, on a bi monthly basis? One of the groups that I still have a breakfast group on Wednesday mornings, we've been meeting for twelve plus years. Not the same guys either.

  Jerry Beerman [00:45:38]:

  So condo, it's always been this loosey goosey. Come when you can, we're all busy. If it fits into your schedule. I wanted the barrier to answer you to be as low as humanly possible, Mark. So there's never been, we never charged anything. I flipped the bill for everything and just again, just made it real loosey goosey all the way up into Covid, which when we had to work remotely, then we started doing the meetings remotely. And so that changed for obviously the following year. But that's the way it was launched.

  Jerry Beerman [00:46:11]:

  At the same time in Cincinnati, there's an accelerator. Back then it was called unpolished. Now its called ocean. If some of your listeners want to google that, its an accelerator and almost exclusively has been in the tech world. But when I got exposed to that again 1214 years ago, I was like, but theres nothing for blue collar. Theres a huge, we started talking about the labor gap over ten years ago and I was like, man, theres going to be a huge problem. And as an entrepreneur, Im like, we got to fix this problem. And so with ocean as an accelerator, I started meeting people that were jumping into the tech world and I stayed in relationship with them.

  Jerry Beerman [00:46:51]:

  Fast forward twelve years. One of my partners in conduit is a very good friend of mine that she built and exited three businesses in the tech world. And so I'm seeing an influx of my friends that were in the tech world that are now coming into the trades. And I've heard people talking about the trades as being the new tech. Like as you're looking at booms of industry, the trades is a huge boom. And so as more professionals, more sorry, you and I talk about this offline as more resources are coming into the trades, I'm like, and people started challenging me to say, hey, Jerry, what conduits done is really cool, but, like, have you ever thought about professionalizing it? Like, one of the things that I talk to your listeners about other trades owners is, let's professionalize the industry. Let's continue to professionalize the industry. Well, some people started challenging me, Mark, and they're like, why don't you professionalize conduit? Like, what do you mean? It's like, well, what if you made it a membership based, like, and where the.

  Jerry Beerman [00:47:56]:

  Where people were, were joining and the offerings were more consistent and more high level and more predictable and more excellent. And I said to them, like, put your money where your mouth is. You want to roll up your sleeves and get to work with me, then let's do it. And so three of my friends, sorry, myself and two other friends, partnered and created a conduit LLC, and we launched formally June 6. And so all my friends that were conduit members but not, you know, there was no fee. Then we worked on the infrastructure. You saw the website and the offerings, and we launched June 6. So the plan.

  Jerry Beerman [00:48:42]:

  Yeah, go ahead.

  Mark Williams [00:48:43]:

  Well, what kind of, what kind of memberships do you have right now? I mean, it's only two months old, but you would have been able to pull from all those kind of the, let's call the, you know, not fly by the seizure pants, but the, you know, the looser structure. You obviously had a big pool of people that probably had been to one or two a year or more. How many are signing up for the actual membership now?

  Jerry Beerman [00:49:02]:

  Yeah, so, and again, it was, I don't take that as any disrespect, because I was, I was self funding it and then self running it, and so it was, you know, doing the best I can, which, again, people gave me a lot of grace. People gave me a lot of grace with that because they weren't paying for anything. And so the plan was by September 1 to have 50 members, and by January 1, I'm very ambitious. So the leadership team's like, if we could have 100 members by January 1, and I'm like, maybe 150. Right? So I want to push the envelope, but to date, I think we have 64 members. So we're.

  Mark Williams [00:49:40]:

  That's outstanding. And is that cross all. I mean, is really focused on business, and so is it cross all sort of disciplines? I mean, it's not obviously just builders or remodelers or architects. It's really anyone related to home building that wants to be a part of a business culture.

  Jerry Beerman [00:49:56]:

  Yeah. Yeah. So residential architects, new home construction, remodeling contractors, and then all the service providers, all the, all the subs and then the service providers as well. So people that, you know, the lumber companies for instance, they can be sponsors as well? Yes. The, the entire network that you would see in, within, like the Home Builders association in, in Minnesota, you would see the same, you would see the same representation.

  Mark Williams [00:50:26]:

  The same representation. How do you structure your actual meetings? I know, I was looking on your website, you've got a monthly speaker series. They speak for 1 hour. You've got a quarterly planning session, which is a half day. And then you have an annual planning, which is one, you know, one full day. But then you have additional offerings, you have this, you know, peer engagement like these, I assume small groups, you have social events, you have one to one consulting, professional services. So it's a robust offering. What are you seeing? I guess speak to the terms of numbers of people.

  Mark Williams [00:50:54]:

  Is it more participation or is it more learning and like an education? Like if you have a speaker, I imagine the room is full of what, 60 people and one speaker is just speaking for an hour on whatever topic you're bringing in.

  Jerry Beerman [00:51:05]:

  Yep. So the language would be. It's a, it's a private membership based peer to peer learning community. And the plan is to be national. We do have membership now in Dayton, Ohio, Columbus, Ohio, and Wilmington, North Carolina. So the plan is to take it. Right, take it nationally. As much as it can help the market is to expand it.

  Jerry Beerman [00:51:30]:

  But to your point, there's a monthly speaker series that is people can join via Zoom, and any of your guests that want to just join via Zoom and just get a taste of any of this, they're welcome to. I'll give you a link to all of it. But yeah, the monthly speaker series is the second Wednesday of the month. It's 1 hour of content that we believe will be universal to the membership base. So this next Wednesday, the 14th, is on operational excellence. And so again, the topics are to designed to be universally impactful. The content that's delivered on Wednesday at the speaker series will also then be pushed down into the mastermind group. So currently there's eight mastermind groups.

  Jerry Beerman [00:52:15]:

  One of them is remote. And the mastermind groups meet once a month currently for 2 hours, and trying to provide a good balance of invitation and challenge there. I think the secret sauce will be in the peer to peer part, which is in the mastermind groups quarterly half day workshops. Again, content that is universal, how big.

  Mark Williams [00:52:39]:

  Are these mastermind groups?

  Jerry Beerman [00:52:41]:

  So typically there'll be six to ten people. Again, we just launched those this past month, but six to ten seems to be the sweet spot with one. One. If it's a very well trained facilitator, there's one. If there's, if they're, if we're questioning their level of training as a facilitator, we put two in there and we do monthly facilitator training as well. A lot of those guys are owners that their next stage of their business, they may want to be professional coaches, they may sell their business or let their team run their business, and they may want to be coaches. And so we've said to them, our facilitator training will prepare you to be a coach.

  Mark Williams [00:53:27]:

  That's, yeah, that was. My next question is, where are you finding these facilitators? Are they their existing coaches? It sounds like you're actually training people to be facilitators. I assume they're being paid then the.

  Jerry Beerman [00:53:37]:

  Facilitators are not being paid. They're paying to play.

  Mark Williams [00:53:40]:

  Yeah, I see. So they're. I see. I got you. So that'd be in terms, the only way into it is either to be a member, to partake, or to be a sponsor, to be in the room. Is that kind of the model?

  Jerry Beerman [00:53:52]:

  That is the model, yes. Yeah. And then go ahead.

  Mark Williams [00:53:56]:

  Well, it's very similar. We have, I don't have quite as robust. We started the curious collective, well, eight months ago, and so we did a pilot program. We just put it out there. I've gotten so much help from other people. I've done, I've talked a lot about the contractor coalition, which is twice a year, it's a three day event where it's just really in depth, depth information, best practices. It's a little bit, you know, you're familiar with builder twenties.

  Jerry Beerman [00:54:22]:

  Yep.

  Mark Williams [00:54:22]:

  And so it's sort of like that, except no NDA's. And it's just, you know, builders from all over the country get together and there's sort of a set dialogue. I wanted kind of a, there's always like a new space for this iteration. We talked about being creative. For me, it was. I just love people. I don't, I can't have to say that while I was a fairly decent student, I don't love sitting down and just listening to people talk for an hour. I need to, I need to ask the questions.

  Mark Williams [00:54:45]:

  I was, this is a funny memory. I haven't shared this before. I was voted my senior year of high school the most talkative person, but it was because I asked the most questions. I remember one time, just a funny memory now, coming to me was, remember, we had a math test on a Friday, and none of the kids in the class wanted to take the test. And you were presenting, and this was fifth grade, actually. And so I had, early on, I was a curious person. And they in, the teacher said, well, Mark is the last person. After Mark is done, we'll take this test.

  Mark Williams [00:55:14]:

  And I remember going around the room and saying, if you guys all keep asking questions, I'll talk for the whole 45 minutes. And I did. And it's funny because I'm sure the teacher was a little surprised that some fifth grade kid could talk the whole time. But anyway, it's only coming back to me now about filibusting. But anyway, where I'm going with this, I need to interact. And so I'm in another small group called Coalition nine. And the gentleman who started is fascinated with the number nine. It's actually what squads of the military are based on, you know, small enough that it can get stuff done or big enough that it can get stuff done, but small enough that it's nimble.

  Mark Williams [00:55:45]:

  And so I've sort of adopted from different peer groups. And the curious collective was born. We had 30 people show up. So I thought, okay, we'll cap it at 30. But I want. I've always felt that I wanted. I didn't want it to be free for two reasons. One is, if I'm going to put this much time and effort into it, I need to be compensated for my time, and I'm not going to apologize for that.

  Mark Williams [00:56:05]:

  We're doing a very valuable service. Colleges don't, you know, serve. You know, it's not free to go to college. And so. But the idea was, I want we learn so much from each other. And so the goal was just to get nine people per group. So, you know, let's call it three groups of 927 people, plus a few sponsors. And the only way into the room is to be a member, to be a sponsor.

  Mark Williams [00:56:23]:

  And really, we're just talking. We'll have set topics with, you know, addressing, you know, talking points, because not everyone is good off the cuff. And so you want to give some people maybe some stuff to spur conversation, but honestly, it's just, you know, it's like us talking. Hey, what, what do you, how do you, how do you hire and fire people? And then the whole hour could just be talking about, well, hey, this is what happened to me. And we learned so much from each other, so that's really what's given me wings. And so we've started a designer one. And we're actually launching an architect one. And so we'll see what the future iterations.

  Mark Williams [00:56:51]:

  And I'm not gonna spend the whole time, you know, I want to hear more about you, but there's so much what you're talking about that I'm also sort of iterating on right now that I find really appealing, you know, kind of seeing what works for you.

  Jerry Beerman [00:57:03]:

  Yeah. So as you're saying that, a couple things that hit me. One is the we also, one of our mastermind group is actually, two of them now are for operators. So one of the. One of the needs that we all have in our businesses is to raise up and develop operators. Many of the people that are running, operate, that are running operations. If it's not the owner of the company is somebody that's been fiercely loyal to the company, and they've been promoted to operations, but they've really not been trained to run operations. So two of the mastermind groups are designed for Mark and Jerry to take your operator and put them in a group for continuing education as well.

  Jerry Beerman [00:57:40]:

  And another piece that we've added to this, that this will roll out in September, is professional services. We're vetting professional services that we're saying, okay, what potentially would help Mark's business? So we're vetting fractional multimedia services, of course, bookkeeping services, HR services, fractional. We use EOS. So, like, fractional integrators, fractional operators, what fractional services could really help bolt onto your company, even to the point where we're like, man, could we do get group race for healthcare? What benefits? What service providers could we provide the network to help Mark's business get better? So those wouldn't be a part of the membership. It would be an addition to membership. But we're like, man, if we. If we could provide some of those resources, that would really help as well. And you also mentioned fee based.

  Jerry Beerman [00:58:35]:

  One of the things that we've learned about charging is that it forces accountability for us. So we've got it currently, and ours is a pilot program as well. It's like you're writing a check which holds us, like, we want to be held accountable to producing excellent results for you. Right. The speaker series, we want that to be excellent to make sure that there's. There's an abundance of value that we're offering you through the mastermind groups, through the professional services, excuse me, through the accelerator toolkits, which the accelerator toolkits, a lot of times, are resources that your business has already built. My business has already built. And it's a, it's a turnkey resource that we can just give to other members to say, hey, you know, like for my cash flow forecast example, plug and play.

  Jerry Beerman [00:59:24]:

  Here it is. You just plug your numbers in. It will show you what your burn rate is for cash for the next three months, six months, etcetera. So tools that you and I have already built that could be beneficial to the membership base as well.

  Mark Williams [00:59:40]:

  And I agree on the inverse. While it keeps us accountable, I want people to show up. The thing I don't, the hardest thing, I mean, you know, this too, now, having done this for a while, is that, that planning events, I have so much more respect today than I did three years ago for like wedding planners. Of anyone who does event planning, my hat is off to you because it is a slog, because we're all busy and we live in a world where we're so distracted and it's harder and harder to carve out time, and yet we all want someone else's time. And it's not that we don't want, I can tell you, and I know you're the same way, like, I don't want people to show up just to show up up. I know that if they will, that they'll get value. So I'm confident that it won't be in vain. But I want the experience to be better and better and better.

  Mark Williams [01:00:27]:

  I mean, even this podcast, like, you know, obviously you're putting it out in the, you know, in the ether and you hope people find it valuable. But at the end of the day, like, if I find it, I guess the litmus test for me is if I find it valuable, I'm. I think other people will be, too. And if nothing else, if I'm being educated and it's leveling me up, then I'm assuming that it probably. And I'm just sharing experiences because some people are more comfortable sharing what they're thinking, sharing what they're going through. And, you know, think of how much we've learned from listening to other people and asking questions. And it's like, that's all I really want to do, whether it's the podcast or the collective is just, I want everyone to do better than they did yesterday, both personally, financially, family, faith, everything. Because, you know, we're here, we're here for a short time in terms of life.

  Mark Williams [01:01:13]:

  And it sure would be nice to, you know, for us to encourage each other because as you're, as you said earlier, you know, when you go together, when you have partnerships. It is very invigorating being someone who's been a sole proprietor for 20 years. Just recently, I was asked to come in with another builder for development, and I told them, I said, thank you. I said I didn't realize how much I was sort of starving for kind of another builder to run with. And it's so much more enjoyable, even though, let's say it's a six slot development. They get three. I get three. Honestly, I'm so happy that I don't have the whole thing because it's very lonely to do it all yourself.

  Mark Williams [01:01:46]:

  It's so much more invigorating to have a partner. And, you know, sometimes you can create that inside your own company, but it is also possible to create it outside your company.

  Jerry Beerman [01:01:55]:

  Yep. 100%. Yeah. I love it. No, the young people, younger people. The allure, no pun intended, the allure of being in business for yourself, by yourself. I mean, it is just a. It's lonely.

  Jerry Beerman [01:02:09]:

  Like, you know, one of the things that, again, we talk to owners about is, like, you're not better than anybody else, but you're clearly different. The weight, the burden that you can handle is just substantial. There's so many times that I was in public settings, you know, with family and friends, and I felt totally isolated. Like, you know, I. The other thing that owners, we learn to do is we learn to wear a mask. Right? So, like, when. When I'm, you know, years ago, I'd be at, you know, whether it's Thanksgiving or Christmas, whatever, family gathering, and I could blend in with the family, but inside I was just tormented. You know, I just.

  Jerry Beerman [01:02:46]:

  The weight and burden that I felt to just. Again, it's a herculean effort. I always tell guys that are starting businesses, Mark, I always say, hey, here's the mindset you need to have. It's almost impossible to do what you want to do. It's. It's not impossible. It's just almost impossible. Like, you.

  Jerry Beerman [01:03:04]:

  You need to get the mindset that what you're about to embark on is going to take everything that you have. And to your point earlier, it's like, you know, one of the. One of the. One of the biggest challenges is you won't. You don't even know how to get prepared for the journey until you're already in the frickin journey. Like, you're navigating minefields, and you're like, holy smokes, I am not prepared for this. But you're already in the minefield. That's why I'm telling these guys, you got to get trusted advisors around you.

  Jerry Beerman [01:03:34]:

  You got to get. There's so many of us, like, as a new friend to you, mark, and your listeners, like, you know, I'll give you my cell phone number. I'll give you my email. You can contact me. I will make every attempt to accommodate your schedule. I will make myself available to be a resource to provide insight based on my experience. I can't tell you what to do, but I can tell you how I navigated minefields. And what we know about the trades is it's salt of the earth owners.

  Jerry Beerman [01:04:03]:

  I mean, these are it. These are people that, like, they are willing to give you their experience. And what's a shame is many of them aren't even asked. They're not even asked. And they would gladly tell you the things they did to navigate the minefield. And so your job as an owner is just to have the courage to reach out and ask these guys and gals.

  Mark Williams [01:04:26]:

  I 100% agree. It's funny because, you know, so much of this stuff ends up being good personal advice. I remember, you know, being someone who's very extroverted and not shy with my opinion. I don't know when I learned this, but fairly. I'm very close to my sister, and I remember she was complaining about something, and I finally got to the point where I was listening, and I said it was a family issue. And I said, do you want my opinion, or would you just like me to listen right now? And she paused for a good 510 seconds. She goes, I just want you to listen. But I'm embarrassed to say that I only did that when I was 40.

  Mark Williams [01:04:57]:

  Like, how much of a better brother or person would I have been if I had realized listening sometimes you started off, and somewhere in the middle of this conversation that sometimes if someone just wants to vent, that's okay, overcome, but, like, kind of, like, let me know. And I think, guys, maybe it's because we're a little bit more obtuse. Like, I know, like, a lot of times we famously, as husbands, at least I can say for myself, fail this miserably. My wife will tell me what her problem is, and I'm like, well, she must want me to solve it. Here comes the superhero husband. And 99.9% of the time, she does not want me to solve this problem. She just wants me to listen. Even though I know this answer, I guarantee tonight I'll make the mistake again.

  Mark Williams [01:05:33]:

  Maybe that's the. The black hole that all husbands somehow deal with, but I know, at least with my sister, and at some point, how easier with business owners where, like, a business owner will call me and they'll say this, and I'm like, I mean, do you want some feedback? I mean, and they'll be like, yeah, well, why else am I calling you? And they're like, okay, well, that makes sense to me, too. And so I don't know if any of this sort of rings true with you or not.

  Jerry Beerman [01:05:53]:

  The two things that are hitting me right now is that in your, in your entrepreneurial journey and your business journey, you get to a phase where you have decision fatigue, right? So you're like, your business. This happens, like, in the, in the early stages of so many businesses where, like, you're the answer man for everything. And so you just get decision fatigue. You're just like, man, I'm just worn out answering questions. And that's typically the, that's typically the tipping point, that you start building systems and processes, that you start referring people to core values and systems and processes and say, hey, Bob, you know, go, go evaluate the situation, come up with three solutions that do not compromise our core values and let me know what those three solutions are. And inevitably, Bob comes back with two or three of them that you're like, you know, those are two of those. Like, I'd go with either one of those. Either one of those are good.

  Jerry Beerman [01:06:51]:

  It. And so you got to train people to make decisions based on your core values and your systems and processes. But as I was saying that, I was thinking that might be one of the reasons why some of our friends don't ask for help, because they think the owners that are longer in the tooth that we also have decision, like, if they're living in decision fatigue themselves, then they assume we are as well. I'm not going to ask Jerry because he's probably exhausted answering questions. And the reality is I'm in a different season of my life, right. I don't spend much time at all in any of the day to day operations for alluring glass. So I have, I'm in a season where I have capacity. And so.

  Jerry Beerman [01:07:35]:

  But if you're an owner and you're in the midst of decision fatigue, you assume that other owners are in that same season, and that's just not true. So, again, going back to my, my encouragement to your listeners to, like, ask for help, right, from, from trusted advisors that are in a season. The other thing that you mentioned that resonates with me, that I say to a lot of my friends, you know, I always, I always check in with some of my dear friends, the first of the year, and I'm like, hey, what went well? What are you celebrating and what do you need to forgive yourself for? Like, so as an owner, as we recalibrate for the first of the year, it's like, man, let's celebrate. Like, there's some. And, like, during COVID it's like, well, our revenue grew, but it's like, hey, we survived. Like, we. We. We made it through a year of, like, the world just melted and we actually are still in business.

  Jerry Beerman [01:08:27]:

  Let's celebrate that. And what do you need to forgive yourself for? Like, there were things that you set out to do this year that you didn't do, and it might be you didn't do it. Again, Bob. Again, you set the goal to do this in your business, and once again, you didn't do it, Bob. But I love you enough to tell you forgive. Give yourself, forgive yourself, and then let's recalibrate and go again. Like, I'll go with. Like, we'll do it together.

  Jerry Beerman [01:08:55]:

  I'll go with you. Like, I'll go with you.

  Mark Williams [01:08:58]:

  Those are great advice. Well, as we kind of near the end, I know you and I have a feeling could talk for days on end. This will be a multi part series of podcasts you had mentioned before we chatted. You know, we're both training for ultra marathons. Tell me a little bit about how you got into ultra marathon running and what race you've got coming up. And. Yeah, that sounds like that. I'm guessing that's how you recharge and sort of keep.

  Mark Williams [01:09:20]:

  Keep things between the lines.

  Jerry Beerman [01:09:22]:

  Yep, 100%. So the. It's really interesting because it's the. The parallels for business is that my. My superpower is relentlessness, like patience and relentlessness, which my personality, my proclivity isn't, to be patient because I'm a world class quick starter. But what you learn at 58, I'm like, okay, so, like, impetuous, like, giving people whiplash. Like, those are all things that cause me problems. So you start developing self disciplines to overcome your shortcomings, right.

  Jerry Beerman [01:09:52]:

  As you get older, if you're trying to be a better version of yourself year after year, you're going to have to overcome your constraints. And one of my constraints was, like, self discipline. And so. So I thought, gosh, what are some of the things that I do in my personal life that if I did them better in my personal life, it might have a positive influence on my professional life. And one of them is endurance sports. So I just love. I love I swim, bike, run. So I just, I love that.

  Jerry Beerman [01:10:24]:

  I train seven days a week. It's a tank filler for me. I don't work out with people. I work out by myself because I'm with people all day long. I don't listen to music. It's a place for me to, like to marinate on issues and clear my head. And my body is being. And the other thing is, you got to know yourself.

  Jerry Beerman [01:10:43]:

  So, like, for me, I can't sit still. Like, I, you know, sitting here is enjoyable because it's really mentally engaging. And, you know, a lot of your questions are very disruptive to my thought process, which I find very helpful. But, like, for me, I gotta be in. I gotta be in motion. And so if I get my body in motion, which I'll run after this podcast, I'll go run, and my body will be in motion and my mind will be just in this, like, rejuvenation state, right? So sometimes I'm processing specific challenges. Sometimes I'm just kind of vegging or thinking about vacation or thinking about how beautiful it is or whatever, whatever, whatever. My mind wants to wonder.

  Jerry Beerman [01:11:28]:

  I kind of let it wonder.

  Mark Williams [01:11:29]:

  So with that background, I assume you have done triathlons or how long you been in the endurance game?

  Jerry Beerman [01:11:35]:

  Yeah. Yeah. So I've been. So, again, I played and taught tennis. So I played all through high school and college and taught for 14 years and so always been around sports. But as I started a family, I was like, tennis is, like, really time consuming to get a workout. So I started, I was like, you know, I can get a pair of running shoes. And, like, anytime I have 20 or 30 minutes, I can go get a workout.

  Jerry Beerman [01:11:56]:

  So I started that in my early twenties, and then when I was. So, I've always, I've always gone to the gym, and it's just been a part of my routine. When I was 50, a buddy of mine posted on social media that he signed up for an ironman, a 70.3. And so I looked at that and I didn't post it in social media, but I sent my buddy Chuck. I'm like, I'll do it, too. I've been a marathon runner for a lot of years, and I thought, how hard can it be to learn to swim and bike? It's hard. It's fricking hard. It's really hard.

  Jerry Beerman [01:12:33]:

  And so. And what's interesting when you're 50 is like, you don't try new things a lot. So I got in the pool and I sucked. I was just like, I could swim to stay alive, but I couldn't swim directionally for any length of time. And, you know, it's. It's just. It was so hard. It was just so.

  Jerry Beerman [01:12:49]:

  It was physically hard at first, then it was just so mentally hard. And, you know, I read. I binged a book called Atomic Habits. Like, probably read it 50 times, and it was talking about, you know, that you can actually take things that you hate doing, and actually, your. Your mind is powerful enough that you can actually teach yourself to love something. And that might sound ridiculous, but if you read atomic habits, you'll see what I'm talking about. I went from hating swimming. So I swim Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you know, the night.

  Jerry Beerman [01:13:22]:

  So Sunday night, I'm like, frick, I got to swim tomorrow. But I literally took all the content in that book and I literally started brainwashing myself to love swimming, to the point where I would get in the pool and swim for 45 minutes or an hour, and I would tell myself I'm becoming the type of person that loves to swim. And I know it sounds ridiculous, but after a year of telling myself I'm becoming the type of person that love to swim, I actually found myself after a year loving.

  Mark Williams [01:13:48]:

  And that book was big on habit stacking. So if you have a good habit, add to it. I always thought about it from a spiritual standpoint. If you're good at reading, could you add praying? Or if you're good at praying, you add reading in the mornings. Or obviously in the workout scenarios, if you loved swimming, could you then add a 20 minutes bike? And then before you know it, the thing becomes a habit? I think what's amazing about what you just said is that I need so when I train, because right now I'm signed up for a 50 just as you are trail race is, to me, a big part of his community. I, again, this is the extreme extrovert part of me. I could benefit from more alone time. And I always, whenever I do it, I get thousands of thoughts.

  Mark Williams [01:14:26]:

  In fact, most of my business ideas come when I am having that alone time, which is very beneficial. But I do find a, you know that getting up at 05:00 a.m. and going running with a group of seven, eight people. You know, you're talking about business, you're talking about life, you're talking about family, you're talking about every. And it ends up becoming like a community. And honestly, before you know it, you've run an hour and you're like, oh, I guess I'm done now. And so I actually kudos to you. I mean, I think it's sort of impressive if you're doing all three of those disciplines alone.

  Mark Williams [01:14:56]:

  I mean, granted, you're in your head, so that's obviously different. I know a lot of people do it. My wife hates running with people because that's her alone time.

  Jerry Beerman [01:15:02]:

  Yeah.

  Mark Williams [01:15:02]:

  So I think you've got to find a way to make it a habit so it's repeatable.

  Jerry Beerman [01:15:07]:

  And I think you just hit on a point that your listeners, I think will benefit from is, like, you got to find out what works best for you. Like, you're pulling. As you get older, you're pulling levers to see how much, you know, what do I need coming in to energize me? Because I'm giving, like, people like yourself, I'm certain, like, you give. Like, you're giving. I love to give. Like, I just. I, you know, I just love it. If I can give.

  Jerry Beerman [01:15:31]:

  If I can give money, I love to give money. I let. If I can give time, I love to give time. If I've got any wisdom, any insight, I just love to give. I got to receive. Like, you got to receive. And so where do you receive? And so for me, like, again, I always hate when people say, you should do this, you should do that. It's like, you should have all over the place.

  Jerry Beerman [01:15:52]:

  Like, just like, here's what I want to know what you do. But what. What works for me is I go run by myself because that gives me invigoration for you. You go run with a group, and it gives you invigoration. The point is the same. You got to recharge, and so you're pulling levers of, like, leaders are giving, giving, giving. You have got to receive. You know, it is.

  Jerry Beerman [01:16:17]:

  It is a foolish statement to say, I don't have time to work out. I don't have time. Now when I say it's a foolish statement, like, it's a. It's a B's statement, right? So I don't have time to go on vacation. I don't have time to work out. I don't have time to blah, blah, blah. It's like, you know, as your friend. As your friend, it's B's.

  Jerry Beerman [01:16:34]:

  That's just not. That is just not true. What is true is that you're struggling with time management. That's what's true, right? So now, as your friend, if you just want to bitch about this for the rest of your life, I'll be your friend, and you can just vent to me. But if you want to fix that, then you need to get after your time management issues as well. And you got to figure out going back to endurance sports, like, what gives you. So for my wife, it's give her a book, put her on the front porch, give her an hour, and she's getting invigorated through that process. That's what works for her.

  Jerry Beerman [01:17:11]:

  And I think that's to your point, that's what you got to find for yourself. The other piece from an endurance standpoint is, you know, what are you, like, what's the point that, you know, that stops you in your tracks, right? So one of the reasons that I love endurance sports is that it allows you to see your. The point that you can't go further. Right. One of the things that we always wonder, especially as you get older, is, like, at what point can I. Can I not go further?

  Mark Williams [01:17:40]:

  See, that's what's so interesting because. Cause, you know, every day is different. You know, I just. I was talking to you beforehand. I was just out in Tahoe, and I wanted to. I'm kind of at the apex part of my training with, I'm five weeks away, and I wanted to see how far, you know, I could go. And the problem is, is that it's a little bit like swimming out in the ocean. I know I'm not gonna swim to France, but I'm like, once you get to the middle of the ocean, you're like, well, man, it's almost closer to keep going than it is to go back.

  Mark Williams [01:18:03]:

  And so I was on the western straits 100 trail, which I wasn't gonna run 100 miles, but I was out 15 miles out. I'm like, well. And I was restarting. I was feeling good. The trail was finally. I was, you know, I had climbed some ridiculous, you know, altitude, and now I'm like, I could actually run. I don't have to power hike. So now I'm enjoying the running.

  Mark Williams [01:18:19]:

  I'm like, well, for every mile I go away, I've got to come back. And my energy, at some point, you've got to know kind of your limits. And anyway, it worked out, and I went 29. But you look, to your point is, like, you, I imagine, not only entrepreneurs, I think that's why we love ultra running, or that's why I do. Or honestly, any sport I can find these internal challenges, I think that's what you'll. I bet you would if you would find people that start businesses or people that challenge themselves. Because you already mentioned, like, someone said, that owning a business is a no. Parenting is a contract with failure.

  Mark Williams [01:18:50]:

  Well, honestly, so is. So is owning a business as a kind. Like, you are going to fail. So many times my wife told me the other night on the way home from dinner, she's like, how? You know, like, how many times do you think you fail? I'm like, I bet you we failed the majority of the time, but, yeah, but people celebrate the small little wins, and I think you get kind of conditioned running sports, basketball. It doesn't matter what sport, frankly. It's. You're playing these internal games with your head, and so you make these challenges, and, you know, I love it when people. It's almost like fuel to your fire, right? Whether they say, you know, hey, Jerry, you're crazy.

  Mark Williams [01:19:21]:

  You're running 50 miles. But if that's fuel, it is for me. It's like, yeah, I don't mind being called a little crazy. And it's like, when you're out on that trail, you're like, yeah, this is kind of crazy. But you know what? I kind of want to know what my body can handle. And so regardless of what it is, I think finding these little things that not only recharge you, but also challenge you, you show up in your. In your business life and in your personal life in a better place. In my.

  Jerry Beerman [01:19:44]:

  Yeah, when. When you say crazy. Because I used to use that word all the time. And people, to be clear, I don't.

  Mark Williams [01:19:51]:

  You. I don't use it. People say that.

  Jerry Beerman [01:19:53]:

  Well, in some. I used to say that about myself. I'm a little cray cray. And some of my friends, my trusted advisors, again, set, would say, jerry, stop saying that. Your passion.

  Mark Williams [01:20:03]:

  Yeah. Like you, I 100% agree with that.

  Jerry Beerman [01:20:06]:

  You are passionate. You are not crazy. That is not crazy. That is passion. Stop saying that. The other thing. The other thing is, my buddy's my doctor, my GP, and I do endurance sports to my heart rate. And so I don't.

  Jerry Beerman [01:20:21]:

  At 58, I don't take. I always tell my wife, I do not take any physical. I do not. I do not push my body to the point where I'm gonna cause myself substantial physical harm. So I watch my heart rate. My heart rate.

  Mark Williams [01:20:36]:

  Doing what? Zone you're staying in zone two, then 100%.

  Jerry Beerman [01:20:39]:

  And if it get. My heart rates gets out of balance, I walk right if I. If I need, honestly.

  Mark Williams [01:20:45]:

  But seriously, though, isn't that what is so, so beneficial to me about ultra running is like. And I like trails because I can't stand roads, because it's so much easier on your body. To be on dirt. But when you and I was never a very competitive runner, I had some bit of a running background, but compared to others I was, you know, a diesel truck. But the point of is like, you know, it was sort of you kind of thought in your mind if you raced, let's say, five k or, you know, even a marathon, you're like, walking is failure. That is not correct. That is your ego. And you're like, I love this quote.

  Mark Williams [01:21:13]:

  Your ego is not your amigo. And like in trail running, what I think they have in such a bed, much a better benefit over other disciplines is that when you go up a big hill, if you were using your heart rate, it not only are you more efficient at a lower heart rate to power hike that hill than run it, but it's kind of like you give your permission, yourself permission, so it becomes a much healthier mental place to be in. I think this is so relatable to business because not every moment in business business are you going to be running a pr in your business. Not every year is your best year ever. I mean, you can't have every year best year ever.

  Jerry Beerman [01:21:45]:

  Yeah.

  Mark Williams [01:21:45]:

  And to your point, like maybe celebrating the fact that like, hey, we survived this year in business, I think in running. Hey, like I, you know, I told you that on day two I did a 20 and the last 5 miles I had to walk it in like I was done. There was no tread on the tires, there was no gas in the tanks. I'm like, man, if there was a helicopter out here, I'd sure would be nice to get a ride home. But you know what? I guess I just got to walk it in. And the point of it is it's like you don't end up feeling bad about that because you now have adjusted your mind to a healthier place.

  Jerry Beerman [01:22:12]:

  Yeah. And I think again for your listeners, you know, it's, I'm 58, I'm working on my 47 year plan now that has me tapping out at 105.

  Mark Williams [01:22:21]:

  That's awesome.

  Jerry Beerman [01:22:22]:

  I understand that man makes plan and God laughs at our plans. But I say that again, this is important for your listeners is that we're in a process, we're on a journey. So one of my friends that signed up for that, iron man, he was a half mile from the finish line and he dropped a half mile, half mile. I'll send him this podcast because he'll, I think he'll appreciate this. And he medical guys came and said, hey, got him. He's like, I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm fine. He got up, they're like, no, you're not okay.

  Jerry Beerman [01:22:59]:

  He's like, I'm fine. And he convinced them to let him go on. He took a couple steps and he dropped again, and they pulled him. It was a DNF. He ended up getting two bags of fluids before they released him from the medical tent. And some people might say he failed. He didn't fail. He got a DNF.

  Jerry Beerman [01:23:17]:

  He went back the next year and he completed it. Right? So it's like, you know that again, giving yourself permit even if you fail. To your point. Sorry I use that word. If you shut your business down, right, you go bankrupt and you have to start over. You know, the. Again, the mindset, I would encourage you, like, you didn't fail. You just learned a bunch of stuff that you're going to take with you to your next venture.

  Mark Williams [01:23:39]:

  Whether you fail, you didn't fail. You fell.

  Jerry Beerman [01:23:42]:

  You did 100%. And I think that's. I don't think it's like in business. I don't think it's winning and losing. I think it's a journey. Again, going back to the endurance sports, one of the things I love about endurance sports is nobody's ridiculing you. Like, all the. Anybody watching the events, nobody's like, hey, slowpoke.

  Jerry Beerman [01:23:58]:

  Hey, fat guy. Hey. What? Like, it's always like, hey, you can do it. You look great. I'm like, you're lying to me. So.

  Mark Williams [01:24:05]:

  That's so funny you said that, because one thing I noticed, so, um, you know, I played tennis and you coached. It is like, there is a winner and a loser. And so you cheer for your team. The one thing I noticed about being a cross country coach, you'd have 500 kids running a race, or whatever it was, didn't matter the number. And of course, we celebrate the kids that are in the front. But here's what was cool. You would see parents, because these kids suffer. Like I always say, I don't care if you can run a five minute mile or a 20 minutes mile.

  Mark Williams [01:24:31]:

  Like, if you're out there sweating and trying, like, I'm clapping for you, and it's a journey of life. I think running does something that is very visual, that most other sports can't convey in such a clear concept, at least not to me, is that everybody cheers for that person who is suffering. And I've seen people cheer way louder for people in the back half of the race than they do on the front half of the race. And yes, as a culture, I get we celebrate the winners and, you know, whatever. But honestly, what's so cool about it is that even a competitor, if I'm on a different team or their kids are on a different team, as a coach, I am cheering for that kid because I don't know the journey he's been on. And to your point about, you know, you show up to a marathon, you've got Humpty Dumpty, you've got slim racer. You've got lightning McQueen, you've got Usain Bolt. I mean, there's so many different body types running.

  Mark Williams [01:25:16]:

  It actually is inspiring because you're like, wow.

  Jerry Beerman [01:25:19]:

  Yeah.

  Mark Williams [01:25:19]:

  Anyone didn't think they could run a marathon, I'm telling you right now, you can run a marathon. Yeah, you can. And it's so empowering to see people achieve their goals. It's super inspiring. I think that's why people gravitate to the marathon. And it's a great, you know, it's a great. I think it's a great galvanic. Galvanic force for good.

  Mark Williams [01:25:38]:

  Because I think it just. It levels a lot of the ego out of it and people can just do it. And I think the biggest challenge you have is just yourself. And then once you do it, you kind of get past it. But it's good, man, so.

  Jerry Beerman [01:25:49]:

  Love it. Yeah.

  Mark Williams [01:25:50]:

  Well, dude, we could talk seriously. We. This is by far the longest podcast I've ever recorded because I tried to keep it at an hour, but I couldn't stop where we got into running. So I appreciate it very much. We'll have all your contact in the show notes, and I have a feeling we'll be seeing each other soon. I didn't. We're not gonna talk about it. I'll leave you with this teaser is we are doing a sauna camp health fitness thing through the curious builder in January that I'd love to see if you could come up for it.

  Mark Williams [01:26:13]:

  And then we're actually doing a curious builder boot camp out in Zion National park in middle of May. It's three days. You get off your. Off the airplane, there's no phone, no alcohol, and it's three days of hiking, trail running, canyoneering. But it's really together. Get business owners in the building field or commercial or, you know, just construction field to get out in nature and be together in a small group setting. So to me, you're my. You're my.

  Mark Williams [01:26:37]:

  You're my prototype.

  Jerry Beerman [01:26:38]:

  Let's see if we can collaborate on some of that.

  Mark Williams [01:26:40]:

  Mark, that sounds awesome, buddy. Appreciate your time and we'll see you soon.

  Jerry Beerman [01:26:45]:

  All the best.

  Mark Williams [01:26:45]:

  All right. We are happy to announce that we have a one to one coaching session that can be found on our curious builder podcast platform. So you can book a time with me and it'll be 1 hour to ask any sort of questions that you want. Talk about business, talk about life. Maybe you're dealing with a difficult client and you just want to maybe shop with another builder and say, hey, how do I handle this? Or maybe you're looking to rebrand your company, whatever it might be. You can head to our website and book a time, and I'd be happy to sit down and give you that hour and we can talk about whatever's on your mind. The podcast has now been running for the last two years, and it's because of people like you that are listening to the podcast, spreading the word that our audience continues to grow. One of the ways that you as listeners can help support the show is head to our merch page, our shop page on thecuriousbuilderpodcast.com.

  Mark Williams [01:27:31]:

  you'll see that we have three different offerings now. We have a shirt that we partnered with harnish on. We have a hat from Bogo that I use for ultra running. It's also just incredibly sweat resistant. So for any of you guys are outside in the sun working, the hat looks great, but it's also extremely resilient to sweat. And then, of course, our hive notebooks. These notebooks are amazing. I was given one a couple years ago and I've fallen in love with it.

  Mark Williams [01:27:51]:

  The paper is made out of stone. It's waterproof, it's tear proof. It's amazing. So if you like what you listen to, if you appreciate the show and the content that we're producing, please head to the shop page. You know, buy a notebook, buy two. Give some to your employees, give some to the guys in the field. We'd really appreciate it. Thanks for listening to the Curious Builder podcast.

  Mark Williams [01:28:09]:

  If you like what you listen to, please give us a five star rating and write us a review. It really means a lot. It's a great way for us to just understand what you like about the podcast and what we can keep doing. So like and review. And please share with your friends and family. Find out more@curiousbuilderpodcast.com. dot.

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