Episode 76 - Losers Are Winners: How Risky Moves and Epic Mistakes Fueled David Werschay’s Success Stories
Episode #76 | Losers are Winners | How Risky Moves and Epic Mistakes Fueled David Werschay’s Success Stories
In this episode, Mark Williams sits down with David Werschay from Werschay Homes to swap stories about the ups and downs of running a building business. They talk about tricky clients, learning the hard way through mistakes, and how "loser" moments can actually end up being big wins in disguise. It's full of laughs, real-life lessons, and a reminder that failing forward is just part of the journey.
About The Curious Builder
The host of the Curious Builder Posdast is Mark D. Williams, the founder of Mark D. Williams Custom Homes Inc. They are an award-winning Twin Cities-based home builder, creating quality custom homes and remodels — one-of-a-kind dream homes of all styles and scopes. Whether you’re looking to reimagine your current space or start fresh with a new construction, we build homes that reflect how you live your everyday life.
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Mark D. Williams 00:00
We're happy to announce that on March 20, sauna camp will be coming back to Minnesota for its second annual event. We're going to have three panelists talking about wellness. We've got a Mount Everest summiter. We've got two Iron Man athletes and the inventor of hostage tape. In addition, we're going to have, of course, two hours of sauna and cold plunge with some Himalayan chocolate. In between, we'll have themed saunas. We'll have story sauna, silent sauna, community sauna for different topics. And then we'll end with an amazing wood fired meal from fumo. All the details are on the curious builder podcast.com a lot of
David Werschay 00:39
people come in. They see our stuff, and they go, Oh, really like it. You know what we have? What? We have 120 acres over, you know, 30 miles from here. Can you build there? And we do, and we probably wouldn't get that if we didn't have the sales tool of our neighborhood in our spec home. I brought on a CFO, and he does not like it, but he's understanding my philosophy behind it.
Mark D. Williams 01:09
Welcome to curious Brewer Podcast. I'm Mark Williams host. Today we have our losers are winner series. Ian, person, we've got David. We're Shay with we're Shay homes up in St Cloud, Minnesota. What's up?
David Werschay 01:18
David, hey, I don't know what's up. Lots of things are up, but, yeah, I'm just, I'm kind of taking back that you said losers are winners, and then the loser part, then you introduced me.
Mark D. Williams 01:27
I know, right, you're welcome. Well, hey, I'm a loser. I talk about all my failures all the time. I just want to share the mic. Know that I'm not the only one. Becomes easier after a while. I know. I know. Well, it's funny because we started the series about six months ago, and it's been one of our top downloaded episodes on Thursday episodes just that I think it's so relatable in business. The reason I started it is just, I think that unless you lose, unless you stumble, unless you make mistakes. I mean, how do we really learn? Show me, anybody that's successful, they have a whole closet full of stories. And what I love about the platform of the podcast is just sharing the stories very vulnerably about what we can learn from each other. And you know, you and I got to meet in Chicago a couple months ago at the contractor coalition Summit. And you know that opening Mike night was a pretty special moment where people talked about their most difficult experiences in their lives, and it was very touching and very moving. Yeah, no,
David Werschay 02:16
it's well, it's a reality. It's a reality in life. It's a reality in business, and especially in business, if you aren't recognizing your losses, you can't get better, you know. So it's like, yeah, hey, okay, this didn't work out so well. What can we change so this doesn't happen again? Well, and
Mark D. Williams 02:31
you've been in business for 23 years, approximately, maybe a little bit more. What are some things? Or if you went back, and we were talking at lunch here about, you know, Marty McFly from, you know, back to the future. If you could go back and talk to a 30 year old David, what are some things that you would tell him about lessons that you've learned over the last two and a half decades?
David Werschay 02:49
It's a great question. Marty, starting a business. I think that there is this perceived notion that owning your business is the end all be all answer. And anybody who's a business owner, oh, he owns his own business. Oh, he owns his own business.
Mark D. Williams 03:07
Like, you've got some secret keys to the kingdom. Like, after that, you're good to go, yep.
David Werschay 03:11
And now, after 23 years, you're like, Oh, you own your own business. How often do you go to therapy? Yeah, yeah. No, that's exactly.
Mark D. Williams 03:22
That's so accurate. Yeah,
David Werschay 03:23
it's all in your tone so true, yeah, you know, we, man, over the years there, there's so many, so many things you trip on, that you that you learn about, you know, I go, I go back to, I go back to one project that we had, you know, and it was recession world. It might have been 2008 910, right in there. But again, a time when we didn't have a lot of business, and we had a, we had a really good, you know, we had a project, and this was going to be a good project for, you know, 910, months. And as the project went we we the level of craziness meter went up higher and higher with the client, and fast forward to finally being done with the job and this person micromanaging, I mean, just diving into every it was a fixed price job. She convinced the title company to give her the sworn so she's now comparing all of our bills with every line item. And so we get to the end, and of course, it's the it's the final payment that's going to be the issue, and well, not until these things are done in the house. And so, you know, we take care of a few things and and they're in, and then phone calls came about this and this and all the things that are wrong with the house. And this went to a crazy level that was really high. And, you know, we ended up getting in a lawsuit. It. And literally, we went to the house with some of our key vendors who there were gripes with attorneys. And we walk into this house and it is like a crime scene. This person had every installation manual out laid out on the countertop, three multiple, three ring binders The house has gotten notes all over it. Of what's wrong. I mean, it looked like a crime scene. Wow. Every tile had a piece of blue tape on it. Of some minor, minor imperfection. It was off the charts. And, you know, we're like, Wow. I mean, so far as Anderson windows had ended up having to rewrite their installation guide, because they write it for everybody in the country. And she goes, these were not installed per your installation guys were like, correct, but in Minnesota, this is the appropriate way, well, then it shouldn't be in so they ended up having to rewrite their installation guide. This thing was bananas, and it took months. And Was she a lawyer? She wasn't a lawyer, but she went to school for it, I see, and we found that out earlier on. So we're, we're kind of ready, but, you know, we went to arbitration and never ended up going to court. And, you know, insurance realized that she was crazy, and we settled out. And it was, it was, it ended up being fine, you know, but at the end of the day, once the dust settles, like we looked at and we're like, of course, we didn't make any money on this job. However, when we looked back at it, so that's the loser part. The winner part is that for 910, months, this job kept us going, and it kept us afloat. And by the time we ended up getting to a point where, you know, there was attorney fees and stuff. We had other projects, and we had other jobs, and things were really picking up. And I said, we kind of just borrowed that money for a year to get by and get us through it. And so it was, it was a great story to look back and laugh on. It was painful during the process, but then what we learned about it, you know, we learned more about how to read our customers a little bit. We learned more about how to put a few more lines in our specifications and in our contracts, and tidying those up a little bit. You go through these situations, and then you just go back and say, Okay, guys, let's sit down. What did we learn? What did we change? And you know, you update your stuff and you move on, and you use it on the next person, and you just keep marching forward, because that's what we do, because we're business owners, right?
Mark D. Williams 07:49
I mean, that's very that resonates very strongly with me in particular. But I imagine the builders listening to this all have a story similar, and it's depending on where you are in your career. I remember going through something somewhat similar, and I remember it was same time period. Actually, it's 2009 10, and I remember my dad telling me, you got your master's degree in business and half the time and quadruple the cost. So I was thought that was kind of funny, because, you know, it obviously for you, it was a bridge. Is what happened. You got a bridge the next time. Obviously, it's always painful to you didn't get paid for your worth or your work. That being said, you were still it was still an investment in your future, and how many future mistakes did you not make because of that experience? And so I mean experience, I think when you're younger, you and I were chatting again about this at lunch a little bit ago. But like, you know, when you are younger, I know it seems like I used to always be able to sell no matter what age I was in. When I was younger, it was like we got jobs because, hey, we're going to give this young builder a shot. You know, lots of energy, lots of time, not a lot of commitments, no family, no kids. You could give a lot of your time. And then as you get older, you get smarter, you're more defined, you're a there's no question I'm a better builder today than I was, but it's just funny, like, you can always sort of find a way to connect with the client for a sales proposition. Do you agree with that?
David Werschay 09:10
Like, yeah, at a different level, yeah, yeah. I'm young. I'm full of energy. I don't have a lot of stuff going on, so I'm going to be 100% on your job, and we're going to take care of you and and then, yeah, fast forward 20 years, and it's like, Listen, I got a lot of experience under my belt. My team has been trained in they're going to take care of you. And it works.
Mark D. Williams 09:27
It does. And I think it's just it's us, it's you and me, knowing who we are, the clearer we know our mission and what we believe, the clearer we can communicate that to the client. I think it's the in between, when we're transitioning, where we don't really quite know what kind of company or who we are, where that gets that messaging is really confusing to the client. I've had clients before where they didn't hire us because we actually, just recently we we don't have a director of operations, and they said, Well, if something happens to you so. Specifically what will happen, and I explained what would happen, and they went with a different company that was bigger than us, because they liked the idea that there, there was totally team, which we're team based too, but we're just a much smaller team, yeah, and I've had other people choose us specifically, especially because of that. So it's just, you can't appeal to everyone. It's just so funny. And you're like, you sometimes like to guess at what you think the client is looking for. But, I mean, they'll tell you, you just ask them.
David Werschay 10:26
Yep, you just ask them. And sometimes we profile, yeah, you've talked on some of your podcasts, you know, cost plus or fixed price. And you know, sometimes it's the complexity of the job and the size of the project. Sometimes, you know, in our world, we find sometimes it's the client. If you're an engineer, I'm going to choose a different route. If you're an accountant, we built a house for my accountant and i He knows our books, he knows everything. And I said, you're going to be fixed price. I said, because I don't want you accounting for everything. And he says, that's probably a good idea.
Mark D. Williams 11:01
That's so funny. I think that's situational, because we actually built one last year. She was an accountant, and they wanted a fixed price. And so I said, be happy to do it for you. And she's like, well, then can we see every single invoice? I'm like, that's not how that works. That's called a cost plus Exactly. And I said, but we but we could do it either way. It's a or b. You choose. Do you want me to control the end destination, or do you want to control the end destination? And she chose that. She wanted to do it great client, yeah, and it just, we're just trying to build it for you. Here's what's funny. She is the only client I have ever had in 21 years that came in under budget, ever the but however, it was hedged a little bit. They added like, 100 or $200,000 right as we signed the contract. So they kind of had a buffer, put a contingency in there. I mean, it was a little, I like to say that, though, and so she was but, I mean, every penny ever but as long as you as long and she, she loved my controller, like a lot of my clients, don't even meet my controller, sure, I think she got to know him better than me. I mean, she was here all the time looking at invoices and going, great, no problem. Here they are, you know, and she never had an issue. She was delightful to work for. But a lot of it is understanding my crypto has always been engineers. Yeah, her husband was an engineer, and he was and it was funny, because he ended up liking my project manager a lot more than me when they did a summer boat cruise. I wasn't invited. He invited the architect and the project manager, but I didn't get the invite perfect. And I was like, you know, I wasn't mad. I actually thought I was sort of humorous, because we both knew each other, right? Like, I'm sure I talked too fast, too loud, too whatever. It doesn't matter.
David Werschay 12:35
But that's super cool. I thought, like, I mean, your team did such a great job that they wanted to bring them
Mark D. Williams 12:41
that they deserve it. I'm so and I was super happy about it, but it's just more just, it's kind of fun. I think you got to be able to laugh at yourself a little bit too.
David Werschay 12:48
So, yeah, I think you know, to your your losers or winners. I think that's the biggest thing, is you have to be able to laugh at yourself and make fun of yourself. And I mean, if you could be that fly on the wall in our office, all we do is make fun of ourselves. I mean, we just, we just have so much fun in that office and and on the job sites, and that's how you get through it.
Mark D. Williams 13:07
When you you got to meet Brad Robinson from Georgia, yeah, at contractor coalition, and he had a line that I really like, and now it's been pretty popular. I don't even know if it was his. It doesn't matter. He's just the one that told it to me, but he's like, when I I'm fine with failure. In fact, I want to fail, but I want to fail fast, because the nice benefit of being a small business is that when we fail, we're small businesses, we can adjust quickly. You know, you look at like a big company like Target or United Health, or some of these, you know, the federal government, or just the bigger the company in every everyone has failures. It's just so much harder for them to switch. And they almost always have to do regime changes, right? It's like the CEO was ahead of during this period of time while they're gone. I mean, look at government, you look at whatever. It's just like the bigger the entity. It's so hard for them to change course. It's it takes years, decades, centuries, for huge, huge pivots, depending on how big the infrastructure is, where, I think one of our superpowers being small businesses, is that when we fail fast, we that that that feedback loop can be it's quite painful, but it also is quite quick, so we can change if, assuming we're listening, yeah?
David Werschay 14:12
Well, yeah, gotta have your ears open, yeah. I think it was Tony Robbins fail forward fast. That sounds right, yeah. And I love it. That's that just totally makes sense. Fail for it. I've heard that one too. Yeah, don't and don't be afraid of it. Yeah.
Mark D. Williams 14:32
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David Werschay 15:28
I think if you're afraid of failure, you're not going to make decisions, you know. And I think as business owners, you know, we have to be able to make decisions. We have to do them fast sometime, and we fail fast, and we change and we do it again.
Mark D. Williams 15:43
So let me ask you a question. Do you guys do spec homes at all? Yes, okay. Have you always done spec homes
David Werschay 15:48
that has been a part of the belief of our business? Okay, so we've always had, not always, but within the first three years of our business, we've had a neighborhood or two neighborhoods that we are the sole builder in. And my philosophy has always been, you can't sell cars on an empty lot. So if you're a car dealer and you get an empty lot, you just have your sign up. Nobody's going to come in. And that's the same thing with our neighborhood. So we always have a spec home out there to get people to drive that traffic come into the neighborhood. Oh, I didn't know this neighborhood is here. It's a super cool neighborhood. It's very unique. Let's check out this house. It's a great house. Let's buy Oh, it's a great house. It's not for us, but we like that lot over there by the park, and so we have always had 123, spec homes in in play. Wow.
Mark D. Williams 16:41
Where I'm going with this question, from when you start in 2003 to where we're at now, did is your risk tolerance changed as you've gotten older? Like, for instance, I feel like I was, I probably took more chances when I was younger. But now having, like, I give a lot of courage or a lot of credit, I should say to people that start a business, you know, they have, they have grown kids and like they take a big leap into that where both you and I were pretty young. Both of us didn't have kids when we started, so we didn't have sort of that pressure, if you will. But if you were to look back, do you feel like you have more tolerance towards risk or less tolerance as you've gone through your career?
David Werschay 17:16
That's a great question, because you're right at the beginning. What'd you have to lose?
Mark D. Williams 17:22
Did you know what here? But did you know you had nothing to lose? I was not aware of it till someone told me,
David Werschay 17:28
yeah, I I have always felt that it's easier to take the risk if you don't have the money to lose. And once you, once you're building, your business matures, and you start to see, you know, the growth and reserves, and you're like, I don't know. I don't want to risk this little nest egg, and it's definitely in the back of my mind. But because, from the beginning, I've always said, we'll just take spec homes, or we'll take, you know, developments, because I have to buy more land and develop it, and it's super painful and super expensive, but it's just been part of who we are. And a really, really growth of our business is having that development in that neighborhood. Because a lot of people come in and they see our stuff and they go, Oh, really like it. You know what? We have 120 acres over, you know, 30 miles from here. Can you build there? And we do, and we probably wouldn't get that if we didn't have the sales tool of our neighborhood in our spec home. So is it harder? I don't think it's harder, because it's always been what we do and who we are now, having said that, five years ago, I brought on a CFO, and he does not like it.
Mark D. Williams 18:41
This is why you brought him on. It was to help regulate risk. But he, too
David Werschay 18:45
has seen in over the years, he's understanding my philosophy behind it.
Mark D. Williams 18:51
And the reason I say that twofold is one, I think competence and our confidence is a byproduct of skill. So like, think of a rock climber. You know, when you first rock climb, let's say on a rocky mountain, or skiing on a the more you do it, the more comfortable you are with the exposure. It doesn't decrease the risk. There's the risk is always there, but you are confident in your ability to, let's say, ski this shoot, or, you know, rock climb along the spine. But I think if we lose sight of the risk completely, that can be very dangerous, you know, I would just when we were sitting down, we were just talking about this great quote from Warren Buffett, yeah, it comes up right now. It's, you know, you only find out who's swimming naked when the tide goes out, you know? And it's such a great quote. I love it. But that's true of risk. And so I like to ask other people, like, I've always kind of felt that I'm building a spec home. My risk on one, let's say, and it's a one off lot, my reward isn't as good because I can't sell into a neighborhood, but my risk isn't as great either, because I don't, I don't have a take down schedule, a bunch of other lots. So risk, reward a development especially. Are you developing your own developments? Yeah. So I mean, and I always love this whole another podcast. I love you. Hear more about that. But in terms of, like, I've always been told, like, you got to buy the dirt right. Like, you buy the dirt right, and the whole project works. If you get burned on the dirt, it can, really, I mean, can tank the whole thing right? It could, yeah. And so I'm curious, like, it takes me about anywhere from six months, like, if I want to right now, to start a spec home, I could probably start one in about six, seven months, by the time I figure out financial partners, architecture partners, spin up a concept, whatever, and then it's gonna take me. So let's just call it a two year cycle from like today, if I want to start a new spec, but to do a land development, what? Three years, five years like, what? Because you've got to go find the land, you got to find the financing. You got to go through city council, you got to divide it. I mean, what? What what would be the maturity life cycle of that where I'm where I'm trying to go with this question, this is why I'll paint it really solid, so you can kind of navigate this for the audience and for me too, is like building a custom home. Is like a two year window. What would you say a window of a 10 lot subdivision, or 15 lots of normal subdivision lots?
David Werschay 20:57
We just did one four years ago at 22 lots. Okay, so 22 lots.
Mark D. Williams 21:01
What is that time horizon from the idea that from the time that you say, I want to do it, identify it, find the capital to do it, actually create the development, to the time that you, you, you, you exit the last home. How many years are we talking here?
David Werschay 21:17
Oh, till the all 22 are sold from beginning to end, oh, that's a market question on selling the lots. You know, I would say from Hey, found the land, let's let's buy it. So typically, found the land, let's buy it. Enter into a purchase agreement with the landowner, and have some level of due diligence. And now you grind and you do some engineering, and you see if this thing actually can cancel out, yeah, until we can start digging our first house
Mark D. Williams 21:46
12 months. But it's pretty fast, honestly, that's
David Werschay 21:49
fast, that it's fast. And again, it's market driven. I think if you know that's in central Minnesota, if you take that and you put it down in a different city, it takes longer, and the process takes longer and but again, that's probably the fastest. And if you have to go back and forth with city council and Planning Commission, you know those things only happen once a month. Take some time. So, you know, I can be ready on the next day, but I don't get to present it for another month. So yeah, it does take some time.
Mark D. Williams 22:17
But so to So, let's just say it's a year. Let's say be generous, a year, two year to find it, develop it, get it ready to go. Now, 22 and again, market driven, but you're probably looking at what four years of inventory, five years will take you to get through 22 probably six years, six years where I'm going with this, I had a two year window of exposure. You've got six. How do you navigate the ups and downs of a market where it ebbs and flows. Now, obviously, we've had some huge corrections in our careers. The biggest one, obviously being the second half of eight, 910, 11. Other than that, I guess in our careers, that's been the lowest. Big one for land, in particular, like, you know, business record decisions, covid. Actually, we didn't know what was going to happen. We had a one month where everyone like, was like, Is this the end of us? And then it was like, Oh, nope, this is a supercharged This is building community. Holy smokes. Didn't see that one coming either. That was a different stress. Yeah, in your career, how do you look at that risk, knowing that when you go in development, you've got a six year window that you have to mitigate risk
David Werschay 23:15
on, right? I mean, a lot of it is pro formas, and just figuring out, you know, how many lots I have to sell by what time, and then during the development stage, before we're ready for putting in foundations, it's heavy marketing. So we try to make our neighborhoods unique in some level, you know, buying the right land, and then what are you doing with that land? And what is, what's your story? What's unique about this neighborhood, this particular one, it's a 22 lot cul de sac on a golf course with a pond on the other side, if you're not on the golf course. It's funny, you mentioned, you know, during the recession, there was a time where there were opportunities. And, you know, we we bought two neighborhoods that, you know, one builder just wanted to get out of. You know, we strapped together some financial partners and talked with some banks, and we bought that neighborhood at a discount. Then there was another neighborhood that went back to the bank, went back to the county, went to a county auction, and, you know, we bought those lots fully developed for $15,000 granted, we just, you know, just finished them. There were 35 of them, but great way to get into that. And so I think the recession created some opportunities, because our area just got over developed. So there were some opportunities, depending on what market you were building in. That's funny.
Mark D. Williams 24:39
That's your this is my next one. Get another Warren. Warren. Warren Buffett said this be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful. So you were, quote, greedy in that recession, like, hey, there's an opportunity to buy these lots at pennies on the dollar. Yeah, I'm gonna go get them somehow. You either had the cash or you had the wherewithal. I was kind of say, I'm curious. We'll wrap it up with this. But, like. Yeah, I started two years after I was in 2005 I I've often said that, like I wasn't big enough because I hadn't been in business very long enough to lose anything. I didn't have anything to lose. Like I wasn't I didn't have developments. I had one home. So for me, it was a lot. I had a spec home at the, you know, the fall of 2008 great timing. Perfect. And I similar situation to your bridge story. I was able to rent it to somebody, and just stayed neutral, covered my bank payment for a year and a half. Yep, and that year and a half just got me out of that. It just bridged me to another so many people went out of business. I didn't make any money. I remember, you know, I rented out my bed and slept on a couch. That's how poor I was and but my point being is that I didn't have much to lose. Did you find that, like, what are some lessons that you learned during the recession looking back? I mean, were you not, were you over leveraged at that time as well, or kind of the same story that we you didn't have enough big play, because a lot of the middle sized developers went out. Because if Ian went from here to here you again. Back to the home analogy. If my home analogy is only a year or two to pivot a development is six, you're out, you're done, right? You can't, you can't change that.
David Werschay 26:04
Yeah, I think I've, I've always there's a couple things you know. Can't sell cars on an empty lot, and know what you don't know, and partner with people you know. So we'll take the county auction, for instance. I went there and I was gonna buy all these lots, and they had sold them in bulk, so not just buying one lot, they said, We're not going to try to auction off 35 lots. We're going to auction off one that has 35 lots in it. And I looked at the room, and I saw a guy there, and I knew why he was there, so I pulled him outside, and I said, Why are you here? And he goes, I think the same reason, reason you're here. And I said, Let's not bid this thing to the sky. So one of us wins. I said, let me buy it, and you join me. And that's what we did. And so there's only two of us that wanted it. I bought it at bidding price, and then afterwards we connected, we partnered, and we split the deal. Yeah, I could have got it all for twice as much. Didn't make sense. And so, you know, that's one way of leveraging, if you will, and bringing in that
Mark D. Williams 27:09
reminds me of that old adage of pigs get fed and Hogs get slaughtered. I mean, maybe you know smart for you to recognize that opportunity, and smarten for him too, to be humble enough to realize that, like a you had to make work out a deal on a handshake and trust each other exactly. You know, you and I were talking about different topic earlier. But like, our reputations and are really important, or they are to me, I've actually found that sometimes I've had a this has only happened once. I had a client one time that used my desire to have a good reputation as a weapon against me. And so I don't know if this ever happened to you, but basically, like, I care about what people say, and not so much that I'm gonna, like, change my life for but like, yeah, I would like to think I'm a good person. I try to do good things. And like, nobody wants someone walking around bad mouthing or anything like that, right, correct? And so, and then when you have someone that does that, you don't really know. I didn't, at that time in my life, I didn't really know what to do with that. I'd never really had anyone in my life that has sort of acted like that. And so they sort of the fear of it was fear I had to get rid of that. So for me, it was I, the fear I had of this fictitious boogeyman or whoever I thought that they could tell, which is stupid now in hindsight, right? But at the time, I thought it was like, well, like, well, I can't let them walk around this town, so I let them walk all over me, because I was more afraid of my reputation being tarnished than I was about standing up to these people. And again, that's a learning thing. I was a losers or lessons learned, yeah, definitely, definitely paid for that lesson. Very, very harmful. And is like, now I realize, like, there is the benefit of drawing a clear boundary. I'm like, I'm sorry. That's not, that's not and it's okay. Like my dad used to have this old saying, sure he got from somewhere else, that the people that care don't matter and the people that matter don't care. Yep. And so I think, I think understanding that, and understand that your self worth comes from yourself and from those that love you and deeply care about you. Then, therefore, if other people outside of that envelope are throwing in arrows at you, you're like, Well, yeah, I've got a shield here. I'm going to be just fine.
David Werschay 29:10
And I think at some level, you know, especially in today's world of social media, you know, I fear for our kids growing up. But you know, it's, it's, I'm being judged, you know? And I think you always have that at some level and being judged, but at some point, when you, like you said, when you stand your ground, you so, no, this is, this is how we do it, and this is why there's a level of respect that comes with that. And I think customers appreciate that too, versus being able to say, oh, yeah, that can work. That can work. No, this is how we do it, and this is why. Oh, okay, that makes sense.
Mark D. Williams 29:43
Clear, click. Clear communication. I think it's Bernie Brown is famous for it, but clear is kind of comment. You don't have to agree with the person, but at least they're clear at what their Yeah, what their expectations are. I want to respect your time in the audience as well. Thanks for coming in. Thanks for having me. This is great. Do it again. All right, let's do it. Right on. Thanks. See you, buddy. Bye. Thanks for tuning in. The curious builder podcast. If you like this episode, do us a favor. Share it with three other business owners. The best way that we can spread what we're doing is by word of mouth, and with your help, we can continue to help other curious builders expand their business. Please share it with your friends. Like and review online, and thanks again for tuning in.
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