His MISTAKES running a Construction Company. pt2

all right you guys we're back with the listen while you work and we're gonna wrap up today's interview with Gabe from Hawaii remember this is this series is designed to let you guys slap on a set of headphones and keep working while you listen to it this is going to be the success of this series is going to utterly be in your hands and it depends on whether you hit the like button or comment down below today's word is Aloha game so without wasting more time let's get back into the video let's do something fun can we do a role playing where I'm the customer and I'm calling you up to do yeah what kind of project would you typically then screen I want to actually walk these guys through your screening process I would I would do comedy remodel okay so I'll call you up I'm the customer and I'll sew ring ring hey this is island independence gave your how are you good game hey my name's Stan jannettek I'm not really very familiar with the island I'll be quite honest with you but I'm looking at I bought a condo and we just want to do some remodeling and I can't be there so I'm looking for somebody to do that kind of work is that in your wheelhouse absolutely we do work for people all the time who do not live on the island it's a common thing most of the most of our customers don't live on the island and they have to do the remodel remotely so we do a lot of email text messaging phone calls and things like that my first question is is do you own the condo like is it are you in contract you already own it yeah well actually I'm the contract will be signed sealed and delivered in 30 days so that's when I take it over and that's when we're looking to get as much work done as fast as we possibly can so that when we come in this winter we've got a good place to stay is that okay is that does that sound like something we'd still be interested in I typically don't do estimates for people until they own the condo because things can happen from now until closing but at the same time you can give you can email me your contact information and a scope of what you think it is the condo unit the complex number and all that good stuff and I most likely have done a there and I can give you a kind of a general summary of what I think something like that would cost okay cut what I wanted to play there guys is since I didn't own it I didn't want you running out there because that's one of those things that always happen guys just fish oh I'm going to buy it so now let's go back to it I own it okay so cut back on the customer yeah game I just recently bought it so I own it okay well Sam that's great I cannot come out and I can do a quick 15-20 minute consultation with you and I will go through the condo with you and so now let's pretend I'm there with you okay now a question would you run out without getting a budget first I would screen them a little bit but what I've learned about that budget question I'm asked that budget question before and sometimes people aren't gonna always tell especially if it's a if it's a huge condo remodel it could be fifty thousand dollars it could be two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and so a lot of times people really don't know what they're getting into and I feel that sometimes they need a little bit of an expert opinion like hey just so you know in this building like the electrical is a nightmare and it's gonna cost 30 grand to redo the electrical they don't know things like that I don't really get into the budget question too much to be honest with you so I'm gonna play devil's advocate and tell you they don't know what they're getting into but they know how much money they have to spend yeah every single person knows how much money they had to spend so how I know I'm gonna be you yeah I'm gonna say so here you asked me the question I says before we know what I what I would say is before I come out there what's gonna really help me do the best job for you is if we have a budget number in mind and we have some pictures of things that you would like to accomplish this is because what I'm when I come out there what's gonna happen game is I'm an artist I'm gonna be able to look at this and I'm gonna be able to put in a comment for you that costs five dollars a square foot or a countertop that costs $25 a square foot and if I have an idea of where your budget lines I can start to give you options that fall within your budget but also we can match up to those pictures that you so much like so that we can actually create something in the end you're comfortable with the price and you're comfortable with the look so the first thing that I'm going to request from you is a budget so that we can get off to the races running like like like it's nobody's business so that's how I would approach that that may not always be right but that is literally how I saw my landscaping jobs because I there's so many options so much variety I want to hone that in because I don't want to waste my time going out knowing that they've got $30,000 an electrical repairs here and a $50,000 budget but they want to completely gut the house right yeah no I love that and one of the reasons I love it is because you can just nip it in the bud right there and not even have to waste your time going out there and that's the whole point and I read it in a book where if you have so many things in your pipeline you have so many leads and so many jobs and customers and whatnot that if somebody like that says oh no I don't really don't want to give you my budget number that kind of sounds weird oh that's okay mr. and mrs. Johnson or whatever their name is and move on to the next one and it's okay that they say no so you just said something that's really important that I want all these guys to understand is if you don't have a ton of leads in your pipeline then you don't fish for that budget number although I made that sound pretty smooth well at least I think I made it sound pretty smooth it's also a little bit off-putting so a certain percentage of customers are not going to like that question right there no matter how well or how eloquent you phrase it or how justify you are with saying it they're just gonna not like that so if you don't have a lot of job leads skip that question and meet them face-to-face and then you can start to fish for numbers a little bit more you can start to fish I call it fishing for a scope of work or where their comfort level lies of where they feel like what their perception was yeah because I always liked trying to get that because I mean I it is really I mean you know it as a general contractor you can create almost anything at any budget you can take a tight space and put a million dollars in there you can take your tight space and put $50,000 in there and it's not gonna be the same either way you know so one of the reasons I like going out there and just you know I try to vet them as much as I possibly can before I go out there but really what I'm looking for is personality like can I really work with these people for because sometimes some of these projects are months on end so I think you're in bed with these people for three months and the phone text messaging and the emailing and so another reason why the riches are in the niches and to keep those small projects a little bit smaller because you can get in and out in a week or two you know but if it is a longer project it's more of like can I work with this person this customer and they should be asking the same question of you know can I work with this contractor for three months absolutely absolute because personalities when you have a conflict at a guy it's three months of shear oh my goodness I mean it can be really bad so so yeah vetting the personality of the customer is one of those things that I hope these guys also take into consider I didn't even think about it because I don't work any longer on those big massive drives because of that reason I've gotten in bed with a customer and been miserable for months and had the phone ringing at 5:00 in the morning and the phone ringing at 10:00 at night because that's when it's convenient for them right well yeah that sucks for me but you've got it and then you've got to deal with that person and let me guess the job was just going just fine well for us it was so so all great stuff one last question for you any words of advice for these guys when they're looking at what do they want to do how do they want to do it what path would you give them okay everybody well you know one of the one of my favorite books is prophet prophet and Mark prophet and mark up from Michael stone okay and in his book he talks about 96% of contractors don't make it to year 10 only four percent do so I just made it to year 10 in Hawaii and I am in an elite group and so all the all the knowledge and stuff that I have didn't just happen overnight like it took 10 years he's one of them did he say that book how many contractors make it to year 30 no but it's probably like is that what you're in yeah okay so you're in an elite group of your own so so that's why you have all your YouTube channels and all your your books and everything because I mean not a lot of people can do that man especially at your age you're so still you have so young but my advice would be you know you got it you got it just you got to go out there and fail you know you got to go out there and try things and fail and what works for me might not work for for someone else and that's okay you know so find your own estimating process in your vetting process but at the same time you know like have a mentor learn from these guys who have been around the block you know so for a core group of momentos I saw absolutely yeah because when I started out I didn't have any of that it was probably available somewhere but I just didn't search that out so and the other advice would be just go slow you know start if you if you're working for somebody and you want to go and work on your own just start working on your own by yourself you know you don't need to hire a bunch of guys like learn how to work by yourself and then hire the first guy and so on and so forth but okay you know my base is bigger is not necessarily better though it's not for some people it is that's phenomenal but you've got it I mean in that group of contractors out of a hundred contractors maybe only five or ten have a you have a mind frame to grow a large firm efficiently any contractor can grow a large firm taking on work it's easy because inside of our industry it is so easy to get child after job after job it's easy to book up but you know you could keep yourself busy seven days a week working for free and that's almost what these guys are doing is they're growing they're losing their efficiency they're losing their profits and they're getting to the point where they're working for they're doing more and more work for less and less for themselves yeah and you know like in one of your videos years ago you talked about the you know the company with all the trucks with the logos and the this and that and it's like I almost was at that point 2016-2017 which isn't necessarily bad I mean I'm sure people are doing just great but for me what I found was I was spending less and less time on the job site and the truth of the matter is like what what I really enjoy at the end of the day is I like construction I like being on the job I like all the different phases of it I like being with the guys like that's that's that's the cool part of it you know sitting at my desk doing book work is like I mean I do it because you have to but I'd rather be on the jobsite and so the bigger my company gets with all the logos on the trucks and all the different commercial auto policies and all that stuff that comes along with getting bigger is the less time I spend on the job site so a lot of guys ask me why don't you have more logos on your trucks and you guys have all t-shirts and all this stuff eight for one that doesn't improve the quality beat it creates a bigger a bigger visual bullseye outside of the spectrum I've had I've been doing this long enough to know that if I can get into a job do a job the most important thing when I do a job is my with the customer there is nothing as there's nothing more important the work that I do is not more important it's highly connect with that customer nothing it takes precedence over that and that when I'm connecting with my customer they don't give a crap if my guys all have the same t-shirt on or not right okay so what we're able to actually fly a little bit under the radar to the people around us that works in our favor because I've had I've had a lawsuit where my guy driving on somebody else's drive over the skid loader and pulled out that was it and that's a that's against our company policy but I had to replace that entire driver because look at the crack I made and I'm looking at the crowd going when did he do this and he's like he did it this morning Isis in these weeds I grew this talk after that it's what I call the business of pre-existing condition yes so it wasn't possible yeah so I've noticed time and time again all of those bull's-eyes and ways to eliminate those bull's-eyes because the only reason I can be in business this long is because I try to run a stress-free business right and the bigger you get the more stress the more hurdles the more fires you're putting out and that's why it's for a limited amount of people that are willing to tackle that stuff all right you guys well that's all we got for you for today let me know what you think of this video down below and as you snow this is the listen while you work and so the overall success really depends on you guys just doing a few interactions hit the like button hit the share button comment down below say Aloha Gabe it goes a long way and that's all we've got we've got a lot more videos coming at you but I hope you guys enjoy videos like this because I really want you guys to be able to get the most out of this content possible god bless you guys go get them and while you're here do me a favor check out the video no more pop up here and the other one that I'm gonna pop up over here that's it for today guys hit the bell notification and we will be able to see you on the next one