Episode 85 - Losers are Winners: The Job From Hell with Nick Schiffer - Failures, Red Flags, & Hard Lessons
Episode #85 | Losers Are Winners | The Job From Hell with Nick Schiffer
Nick Schiffer brings the heat in this Losers are Winners episode, sharing the messy behind-the-scenes stories that rarely make it to Instagram. From takeover projects gone wild to contracts that nearly cost big, this episode shows how failure can become the best business coach in the room. It is sharp, funny, painfully relatable, and loaded with takeaways for builders who want fewer surprises and stronger systems.
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
It's time to talk about contractor coalition summit at the beginning of May. We are going to be in Denver, Colorado for our first contractor coalition meetup. We're going to do a standalone event in the middle of September in Minneapolis. It's a one day crash court, a much less reduced fee. Tickets are available now if you want that goal here is, it's a significant investment to spend a three four days away from your business and your family, plus just the expense of attending the conference, we wanted to create an event that was just a one day Crash Course. You can find all those details at contractor coalition summit.com. We also, in November, have our three day tail end of the year, which is going to be in Charlotte, South Carolina. So if you're interested in any of those four of events, please head to contractor coalition Summit. Calm. DM me for any information or email me Mark at MD Williams, homes.com, and thanks for tuning in at
Nick Schiffer 00:55
this point like it was a 10 grand to replace the piece of glass. My glass guys. He's like, You shouldn't pay for it. I'm like, explain to me how I'm going to get my client to pay. Client to pay for this. Walk me through because like they're looking at me. They just moved in and this glass exploded on them when they're sitting at the kitchen table. I'm lucky that they don't sue me, because of all the issues that we've dealt with on this project.
Mark D. Williams 01:22
Ian, welcome to cures builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host today, I've got the OG from the modern craftsman NS builders. You know him as yo daddy. Nick Schiffer from Boston mass, what was that line you had on our last social media thing that went really well. Was it like, yeah, daddy, yeah, daddy.
Nick Schiffer 01:44
That was, yeah, yeah. Apparently, like, people were like, Oh, Nick, don't do this. Like you're you're too respected to have this kind of humor. I was like, who dubbed me the not funny guy?
Mark D. Williams 01:57
I actually thought it was really funny, because you do come off as a bit serious. So you know what haters you got to watch out. I mean, just because he wears nothing but black all the time, all the time. Out, eat your heart out. Johnny Cash nickers in town. So this will be our losers are winners. Because we I gave you an option between inside the wins, which is a new series we're starting our loser or winners. And your direct line to me was, everyone loves failure before we get into that. Buddy, that, buddy, we're only, we're only a couple weeks away from contractor coalition in Denver. I'm excited. I'm excited.
Nick Schiffer 02:29
I'm stoked. I haven't been to Denver, and I have been. I know I'm I'm probably the quietest one in your group chat, and you're definitely the loudest. But I've been quietly brewing something up to bring a little bit of heat to the next summit.
Mark D. Williams 02:42
Oh, really. Gonna do a surprise, like a different presentation, or, what do you mean by that?
Nick Schiffer 02:46
Just a stronger presentation? Okay? I want people to I want people to be like, holy like this. Can I swear on your podcast? Go for it. All right, no, I just don't want to make your mom mad.
Mark D. Williams 02:56
Nah. Mom will be okay. She'll wash your mouth out with a
Nick Schiffer 02:59
bar of Irish Springs later. Every spring. That's my favorite flavor. But I want people to I want people to be like, holy like, this is good. So I've been fine tuning our presentations that we've been doing for the last X amount of years to be more condensed and actionable.
Mark D. Williams 03:20
I think you and Tyler have such a great way of thinking about that. I think what I've really come to appreciate about our group is how each one of the five personalities is so different, and yet somehow we all sort of complement each other. It'd be fascinating to take a personality test for all of us we I think we'd be really helpful, but I think we already know, like we very much represent the full color wheel. Let's do it now.
Speaker 1 03:43
I'm curious. I'll do it today. I'll do it. I'll do it right now.
Mark D. Williams 03:47
All right, while we're doing a live personality test. Actually, the one I want to do is way more in depth than that, but I'll make it. I'll make a note to our group so that we can allocate the results before we go. You know, this wasn't meant to be a plug for contractor coalition, but why not? You know, this is its fourth year. It was four years ago that I met you for the first time. My wife, I did, I didn't even know who Nick Schiffer was, or Brad Levitt, or Margaret Morgan Mulliner. She's in my own state, and I told this story recently. But basically, my wife is like, Hey, you got to go to Nashville. And my life has forever been ruined ever since, I mean, up, leveled up since that day. And I one thing that I've noticed as being a four time attendee, and now this will be my second or third one in leadership position, if you will, is how the content continues to evolve. And a different person asked me the other day, why is that? And I said, well, our businesses keep changing. Like when I first met Brad, he had 19 employees. He went all the way up to 31 he's back to like 26 and you know, think of how much your business has changed, even the last two years with specifically 45 white oak. But all of us, none of us, are stagnant. We're so dynamic and how we change. And so I love it when alumni come back and see how much we've changed, because we do, yeah,
Nick Schiffer 04:55
no, I'm I think that is the that is. That's the cool part of doing it so often, is that you're essentially, like, we're essentially teaching as we learn, teaching as we learn, which is what the podcast has always been and, you know, and obviously the modern craftsman has evolved, and we've put together, like, you know, stuff that builders can use and like, build their business. But the Holy Grail is, you know, you come to contract a coalition, we're in the room together, and it's just three days of just, like, real actionable stuff. And truthfully, like, it's the it's being in the room. I mean, people ask all the time, like, what's the biggest value people get out of it? It's like, honestly, even for me, it's like, it's like, it's just being in the room with 30 people that are all like minded, that want to just do cool and build cool and work with great people and, you know, and and challenge one another. And I think that is like, that is ultimately what the, I think the biggest value that comes out of these summonses.
Mark D. Williams 05:59
I mean, it's, it's business boot camp for your heart, mind and soul. I always think of it like the inspiration. You can't live on inspiration because some of it has to come from within. But like, it certainly helps to you. Know, there's a verse in Proverbs, iron, sharpeneth, iron. And like when you are when you talk to other people, I mean, it's what gave birth to the curious collectives, which is, I wanted what we did at contractor coalition in local micro markets, where you could have that, you know, that table of nine people, and you could just say, Hey, this is how I do business. How do you do business? Oh, how do you contracts? Because the stories I always find, I mean, I've built whole brands. I mean Misa, who's I mean, what you've done at 45 white oak. I mean, I love storytelling. And I think one of the reasons why I love a podcast, or even this one, is people sharing their experiences in a story format. And I think you and Nick, you are Nick, you and Brad particularly, are amazing at teaching through storytelling, because you're using real life examples. And I think that's why it's so successful, and that is why it resonates with people. And Tyler does a phenomenal job of, you know, the education, and really thinking about, I think you both do a better job of thinking about the person that's receiving the information, which I think is why you guys are such great teachers. In my opinion.
Nick Schiffer 07:13
Yeah, it's funny, because I don't like necessarily consider myself a teacher where most of my communication or content. It's really just me explaining something and maybe like, that's okay, well, you're arguably like, that is what a teacher does, but your comment about that, we do a good job communicating in a way that is received. Well, I think that's just the product of reps, you know, and like content specifically, where it's like, you I watch, you know what resonates, and then I go back and do it again and refine in the way I tell that story. It's like, hey, that's cool, but like, I didn't understand this. I'm like, Oh, that's a good point. I actually skipped over that detail. Let me do it again.
Mark D. Williams 07:54
I think that's what makes you I think Morgan is good at that. Tyler's good at that, I think. And I shouldn't speak for Brad, but I know for myself, like I'm a dog at a dog park, like I'm just chasing balls. It makes me really good as a cheerleader, and I think not as good as a coach. And, you know, I think, you know, I think Morgan does designated me rightly so, as the hype man, you know. And that's fine. I'm happy to be that. It's, it's very easy for me to do. I think that's why, when we do all those mini interviews, I remember when Doug was like, thank goodness mark is doing all that. He's like, I think that one time we did, like, four did like, 40 interviews in like, I mean, it was Doug was like, I think Doug was exhausted for me, and somehow I was just, I just kept getting more and more rep. I mean, by the end, I think I started just repeating myself. Yeah, Doug was like, Mark, you gotta I think we need to do less is more with you, and we need to go a little deeper on these questions, because I was just turning into like a print press. Let's get into what this episode is supposed to be about losers, and you're one of the biggest losers. I know. What? Give me a story? What have you got for the audience as you look back on your career? What are some? And you could do one or two of them, really.
Nick Schiffer 08:59
But I know I've been thinking, I've been thinking about a lot, and I've been sitting here still contemplating which one I want to share, because there's some I've shared publicly, and there's obviously plenty I have not but I'm going to share two that I have not shared publicly, and one is probably a smaller a smaller one. So we'll start with that one, and then we'll get to the juicier one. So juicier one. But had a client come to us, and I ignored a ton of the red flags, like right off the bat, but seemingly good interior designer, I actually have no qualms against her, even to this day, really affluent address in the neighborhood that we really wanted to be part of. Client. Look them up, affluent, prominent figure like Man, this would be a really good project to get involved with. But the crux of it is the house was 97% complete, and we were asked to come in and. Investigate some of the issues that they were having. And long story short, the building was never intended to be what they basically was never intended to be a single family, and it was converted into one, and they were dealing with a ton of issues from the previous contractor. And ultimately, like let go of that contractor. Now mind you, in in considering this project, I had specifically stated, like, hey, is there a lawsuit pending? Like, are you going after legal action? No, no, no, we're not okay. I just want to be very clear, like, I don't want to get involved. If there's, like, legal I'm happy to come in and help through this last 3% you know, it sounds like we'll do the 3% and there's going to be another whole, like, phase two of all this. Let me stop
Mark D. Williams 10:44
you there for a second. 3% seems that seems like kind of a crazy thing to get involved with. Only 3% like, what kind of dollar amount are we talking here? A million. Oh, wow. Okay, never mind. That changes. Okay, all right. I get it. Got it.
Nick Schiffer 10:58
And then there was all this other scope, like 3% meaning to complete. But we ended up have what we deemed was, like we ended we were probably going to go backwards 10 to 20% because of the stuff that just wasn't installed appropriately, failing. Like, pretty, pretty, pretty big issues, like really big issues. And so we started trying to develop a plan, and then the clients expectations were like, were becoming increasingly more like, detailed. Like, hey, we want a detailed report. Like, we want your electrician to come in and take apart every single device and write up a report. So, like, open the outlet and say, outlet number 47 was not wired correctly. And we were like, What? No, like, we're, we're not doing that. And then it just kept, we kept trying to make progress, and then getting these, like, pretty insane expectation asks, and come to find out, they were going to be going after the previous contractor legally. And, you know, we had invested all of this time, like there was a dis like, during this time they were they had communicated like, hey, we want to do all this additional work. Like we were pricing all these different projects out. Like, hey, let's do this immediately. Let's put a price to this. And we were just like, grabbing on and trying to make this work. And ultimately, you know, my team was like, Nick, like, this is turning into a nightmare. We have not done any of the work. Like, we've only been retained for pre construction at this point, I think we need to walk away and call it what it is. And I would, I was like, I feel like, this could be good. Like, I feel like, and I'm always like that, like, I'm like, we can work through this. Like, it's gonna be fine.
Mark D. Williams 12:37
You eat hard for breakfast, yeah.
Nick Schiffer 12:39
And I was like, What's the big deal? And so ultimately I, you know, at that point in my career, like I I really lean on my my team, and if they don't feel it's a good fit, I trust them, because ultimately they're the ones that need to do it. And I wrote this very clear, like email stating that we were going to be parting ways because they were in breach of contract, because it was like, clearly say that we were not getting involved in legal and we were asking to do things that were well, well beyond our scope. And and they were like, We want to hop on a call. And I'm like, and they were like, actually, really nice about it. And they're like, hey, you know, sorry to hear this. Like I thought we were a line like, can you just, you know, kind of elaborate on why you're not a good fit we did. And they're like, Okay, we appreciate you being honest. And I was like, hey, and we're just gonna refund, like, the retainer, like, there's no reason for us to keep it. We exhausted very little of it and gave them their money back. So, you know, that's not a biggest loser situation, but it was one that you know, from a legal perspective, if we did not, if we did not handle that appropriately, we could have been in breach of contract on our side, where we didn't have the right to cancel our contract for the sake of convenience.
Mark D. Williams 14:00
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Nick Schiffer 14:53
Speaking of expectations, years ago, I was approached by a younger couple. To renovate their home. And there was no architect, architect involved, and they wanted to do, like, pretty insane tolerance build. I mean, like, really insane tolerances, like just perfectly flat walls. Like, at one point they talked about wanting to have the whole house spray finished so they could get like, almost a vehicle level paint surface. And I'm like, no problem, let's do it, and I'm just going after it. And so I end up, like, convincing them enough to hire an architect to basically finalize a permit set of drawings, which for this detail, like it was very contemporary, very modern, just wasn't enough. So we essentially designed, built things in place. The whole project and what could have been built in a year ended up taking three plus years, and a large part of that was just expectation and failure on hiring the right trades. And some of these trades came in, and they did a really great job, but they it was, like, insanely slow, like it was just like a snail pace slowness that was delivering such a high level of a quality, of quality that they were they had far surpassed what the client would have ever noticed, meaning like if they had done 70% of what they ended up doing, the client would not have been able to tell the difference. And it was just that way through and through that project, because they had these insane expectations, and I kept trying to plug in and find the right people to deliver this, you know, insane tolerance, and it just was never planned. We did no pre construction, we were literally figuring it out, day in, day out, and somehow I got this client to just trust me, and they were, we'd have, they'd yell at me and scream at me, and I'd remain calm, and I'm like, I'm gonna figure this out. I promised I would. I promise I would. And, you know, I just stuck through it. And we just, we faced every single challenge on that project. We had failures in product, failures in waterproof plaster to like a really, like, 18 months of trying to figure it out, demoing the whole bathroom, like down to the studs, and doing it again, and then in doing that, like damaging in the process. And this job was just like it felt like it was cursed, and the client would always say that this project is cursed. This project is cursed. And like other, I'm gonna rattle off a handful of other examples, but the stone, the project is in Boston. We had to shut down a major street, crane the stone up through the window, and get the counters in and so have all the permits, get the counters. We looking backwards. We get the shop drawings. We they have an alternate stone. They look at the alternate stone, they like it. Then they end up saying, Hey, we can actually get the original stone. Do you want that instead? Yes, we want that instead. So we get the shop drawings. We approve the shop drawings. Stone gets installed. It looks beautiful. Client stops by at night, says, hey, it looks great, but it's the wrong stone, and
Mark D. Williams 18:27
that's after you shut down the street and get
Nick Schiffer 18:29
it through the window. Yeah. So at this point, I'm like, how, like, and it's in the two different the alternate stone was very close, like it was, it was very similar, but they ultimately wanted the original spec. So I get on site, and I'm like, Dude, I call this the stone fabricator. I'm like, his name's John, John. Dude, this is the wrong stone. And I'm like, we, like, we said that they wanted you whatever the stone was. And he's like, Yeah, but on the shops, it says this stone. I'm like, I know, but we agreed on, like, the material. Here's the agreement. And then you sent me the shops, and I'm proving these for dimensions. He goes, No, that's dimension and material. I'm like, Okay. Like, fair enough, I approved it. I'm wrong. Get me a price to replace it with the right stone. And like, hopefully you can help me out here. And I don't remember the numbers exactly, but let me just, I'll try to if I remember, if I do remember correctly, I think the original piece that we had to replace was about $14,000 so I had him price it, to replace it, and he sent me a proposal for a 28 grand. I said, What is this? He goes material. Pricing went way up on this stuff. I'm like, you're double what you just charged me to install the wrong stone. And he's like, I know it's just like, it's crazy. I'm like, I feel like you're me. So I called another fabricator, and I had them price it, I explained the situation. He goes, dude, I can do that for 13 grand. I'm like, Okay, I. So I call the other stone guy. I'm like, just to be very clear, like, here is your 14 grand for the stone that's wrong on the job site. We'll never do business again. Don't, ever, don't, ever call me like, as I'm just not gonna fight it like I probably should have, but I wasn't going to.
Mark D. Williams 20:12
So what did he say? Okay, did you ever find out why he tried to do that?
Nick Schiffer 20:18
Nope. He just he that was, truthfully, that was actually the third project, like, the third strike with him. And they were, like, in like, they they were small, like, they basically worked their way up to this big $14,000 loss. So this is a project that is just like curse, like we're dealing with like issue after issue in that same realm, I end up craning up a 14 foot long piece of white oak for the 14 foot stair tread that was in the living room, and my guys installed it and covered everything up, and we're in, I think we're like in punch list, or we're starting to clean and we pull the floor protection, and There's a seam in the middle of the staircase. And I'm like, what? What's this? And they're like, Dude, we cut it wrong when you ship the 14 foot piece. So it's like, two sevens right now. I'm like, and you just installed it and decided not to tell me about it. They're like, we were hoping that you would like it. You wouldn't see the scene. I'm like, do you understand how much more expensive it is now to deal with this than if you had just told me at the time, like we could have, we could have got that material up in another crane or something, and we ripped it out, and I had to crane another piece of white oak just for that one friggin step and that, you know, I'm trying like they move in and I get a text message from them saying the glass railing exploded. So I don't know if you've ever experienced it, but I've had tempered glass explode on me.
Mark D. Williams 21:59
I have, I've heard of it before, but not.
Nick Schiffer 22:01
I had a shower glass door explode, and then their railing exploded, and their railing was tempered and laminated. So thankfully, it didn't just, like, disappear. One side shattered and the lamination held it together. Does it
Mark D. Williams 22:15
usually have to have an impact? Or it's like, self explosion? Or like, what leads?
Nick Schiffer 22:19
No, it just like, allegedly, that was self explosion. I can't, I mean, I've, I know what happens, but there was no, no one can prove it. My glass guy's like, too bad it's out of warranty, like, so I'm stuck with this dude.
Mark D. Williams 22:30
I'm believing your client is right. This job is
Nick Schiffer 22:33
cursed, yeah, at this point, like it was a 10 grand to replace the piece of glass. Like they were, like, my glass guys, he's like, You shouldn't pay for it. I'm like, explain to me how I'm going to get my clients paying for this, walk me through because, like, they're looking at me. They just moved in and this glass exploded on them when they're sitting at the kitchen table. Not going to happen, like, at this point, like, I'm lucky that they don't sue me, because, like, of all the issues that we've dealt with on this project, the crux of it is, like, this was a takeover project, and they had had a friend and I priced it when it was like, me and one guy and, like, over the course of the three years it took, which was like an unreasonable amount of time, more than a year of that was attributed to one trade because of how slow they moved. But it was like, I didn't make any money. I inherited all these trades that I tried to work with that I ended up having to fire and then undo all their work, and then redo all their work, and then bring in other trades. And it was just an absolute disaster. And we have a fine relationship. The client was like, at the end of the day, like, was happy, you know, their life changed dramatically in three years, and at the end of the day, they got what they were looking for. But it was just a really frustrating process. And truthfully, that project was one of the projects that I went through, and was like, I need to figure out how to set up these projects for success. And that's what really drove me into this, like, maniacal focus on building pre construction process and like, understanding how to do, like, how to actually execute at a higher level, and to think like that project to the project that we started just shortly after that. I mean, it was just, it was literally night and day. It was like first job to job 100 so, yeah, I mean, I have plenty of loss, but losses. But I think that those two, you know, I think about those two a lot, you
Mark D. Williams 24:29
know, what's interesting, and I we don't have enough time on this podcast to do it. And I think in the future, I'm going it used to always do that on these Thursday episodes. It would just interview for 2025, minutes and call it a day. I think going forward, I'm going to do both the positive and the negative on the same interview, and then I'll split them for the Thursday. But the reason I want to do that is I think it's easier to recall our failures, and it's easy to recall in detail the things that went wrong. Do you think that's true? Then it is easier to like if I was to. I'm not saying we don't have great jobs and good positives. We do, Ian, we learn so much more from the losses.
Nick Schiffer 25:05
We do learn so much more from the losses. But Ian, share a loss that leads into a win, if you want to wrap up on that
Mark D. Williams 25:13
now, yeah, let's do it. I know, to be fair, that's the whole point. I think all of them lead to a win. Because if you're self discovering assuming, I would say this is a
Speaker 1 25:21
lucky win, okay,
Mark D. Williams 25:22
but I'm gonna, I'm gonna quote you yourself in this we don't have time to go down there, so I'll just remind you that I listened to you actually is you told me one time that if you hired someone to replace work that you could do at 60% you should hire them. I was flabbergasted when you said that, and then your next comment to me was even better. And you're like, Well, Mark, they can't stay at 60% that, you know, they have to, you know, level up from there. And but what I'm thinking about that is like, if we don't learn anything from our failure, then we've really doubled the failure. But the whole point of this series, and what you're about to do is, like, the failure that leads to success is really the fundamental thing, that is why we keep succeeding and why we keep innovating. Going back to what we talked about the beginning of the contractor coalition, and like, how our content keeps changing. Because, Hello, we're not we keep learning from both successes and failures and from our peers. I mean, I learn a lot observing you and our peers in the industry, right? I mean, that's kind of we're in this chamber of, like, feedback loop is way quicker than it was multiple decades ago. Anyway, I'll step off my soapbox. Mike is yours
Nick Schiffer 26:22
to frame this. It's the beginning of covid, and we get a call from a potential client. I'm sorry, an email from a potential client wants to build a house. I jump at it. Absolutely. We're your guy. Whatever you need. What's the price? Let's go. They don't want to meet in person because of covid. They have a high profile job that they can't afford to get risk, risk getting sick. Blah, blah, blah. We so we zoom. We FaceTime. I go on site. They're in their office. We walk the site. We walk through the project. We put together a budget. We iterate that budget, go back and forth. We meet with the architect, back forth, back forth. Husband and wife and us like we're meeting constantly, and sign a contract. We're ready to go. Great. They're on the same page. We've helped them value engineer some stuff. We've got the price to exactly where they want to. We're starting to we get through permitting. We get the permit. We're setting up trades. We get a nice, hefty deposit. You know where we are in motion, my site. Guys driving to the job site. I'm stoked chatting with him. Hey, site works. Gonna take this long. Awesome. I'll see you there in a couple hours. I'm gonna head there myself. My phone rings. Husband calls, Hey, Nick, what's going on? Like, how much headed to the site with the trades today, we're getting started with site work. Okay, you might can you give them a call and just tell them to hold off for a minute. I'm like, sure what's going on? He goes, I am going to have to cancel the contract. I was like, okay, hold on one second. So I call my psych guy. I'm like, Hey, surprise, we're not doing that today. And he's like, and he was very upset, thankfully, like, side story, I was able to divert him. Like, a friend of mine literally needed a psych guy, like, ASAP, so got him over there, and so I call him back. I'm like, what you know? What's going on? He goes, to be honest, I know I was in those meetings. I don't know if I was ever listening. And I was like, what? He's like, Well, I just, this is way too much money, man. I'm like, interesting. I mean, we, we had multiple meetings at this and like, you're, you signed the contract. I know, I know. But I was really, like, leaning on my wife to, like, focus on that, and I just didn't really pay attention. And this is I just, there's no way I can spend this much money. So I'm, I'm like, at a loss for words, and so I'm freaking out. I'm like, this is 14 months of my schedule. My team's not that very, very big, like we were prepped and ready, and this is a huge hit to our schedule. So I I say, Okay, I understand. I will follow up an email and we will go from there. And that was it. And we never spoke again. And so I went back, and I'm reading through my contract at this time. I'm like, how do we cancel this? Like, what do I do with the deposit? There's nothing in the contract that states, like, what I do with the deposit? So I'm asking my attorney. I'm like, How do I handle this? And he's like, you don't have anything in here that protects it. And so I was, he's like, you're kind like, you kind of have to give it back. And I was like, Well, I'm not doing that. And so I sat down and I basically did all the math out of how much we've had into the project, plus our potential profit. Fit. And I don't remember how I calculated, but basically, like, my lost profit for like, a certain amount of runway where I know I could basically, like, backfill, and it was a lot of money, like it was a six figure number, and I just wrote the remaining balance with, like, an ex, like, basically an explanation of that, and just sent them the check back. And that was it. No call, no email, no follow up. Just like, put it in the bank and, like, we just moved on. Wow. And so my point is, like, that was a terrible situation. I learned a lot. I fixed the contract. Sense, like we've had people cancel contracts and and it's a lot of money that they they are putting on their line if they cancel for convenience, especially at the last minute. But I got lucky in the sense that the they, you know, they didn't fight for it, because, on one hand, like they knew they owed me that money, and on the other hand, it's like, contractually, they owed me nothing.
Mark D. Williams 31:02
I mean, it's such a great area. It's funny, there's also what you can do legally. Just because you can do something legally doesn't mean you should do it legally, you know, right? I mean, there are times where your contract is right, but you're kind of like, especially, I try to make it a habit of not fighting with millionaire and billionaires a lot more money than I do. And, you know, I don't know if you've ever been faced with, you know, their guns are a lot bigger. You know, you're in a zodiac and they're in the USS Boston. You're like, yeah, I don't think I'm gonna win this battle. That's a that's us. That's the next podcast. Talk about that one. Well, I want to respect your time. I appreciate you coming on. I'm excited to see in a couple of weeks, if anyone's listening, wants to head to Denver, go to contractor coalition Summit, calm. All the details are there. We're also heading to Minneapolis for a one day event in September, and then in Charlotte, North Carolina, early November. Yeah, lots of time. Appreciate you, buddy. Yeah. Appreciate you, man, see in a couple
Speaker 1 31:58
of weeks, all right, I'll see you then. Thanks for
Mark D. Williams 32:01
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Mark D. Williams 32:07
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