The Strategy that Beats Bigger Contractors

Compartmentalizing a project is a great way to give yourself an advantage as a contractor over other contractors. All right. So, what I'm actually talking about is today's video is a great example of that. We've actually worked on and off on this project for 3 years. And when you compartmentalize a project, what you do is you work intricately with the customer to come up with a grand scheme and maybe they can't afford it all at once or who knows? Whatever reason it just can't be done all at once, but if you as a contractor are flexible enough to work within the parameters that help the customer get the most value out of their project, that goes a long way in helping you become their go-to contractor for that job and gives you that edge over other contractors that don't have the vision and can't see the potential clearly. So, in today's video is a great example. We did years back we did built a retaining wall and everybody was like, "Oh, you built a retaining wall to nowhere." Nowhere yet. At that time, we knew that down the pipeline coming up, we were going to be rebuilding a patio that another contractor had built and had failed. And we were going to be doing all of these separate things on this property to eventually tie everything together. You see, when you operate your business as a marathon and not a sprint, it doesn't make a difference if you get the job done in 1 year or you get it done in 3 years because the way I look at it, I'm still going to be in business in 3 years. I'm still going to want a job in 3 years. And if it's a good customer, I'm still going to want to visit with that customer in 3 years and see how things are progressing and become a part of the team. And that's a big thing. It goes a long way. So, you contractors want that strategic advantage that other contractors just don't see or don't utilize, don't worry about getting a job done all at once. You may even want to offer, "Hey, you know what? If you can't afford it this year, we can break this up." And here's how we would do it strategically, but you got to be strategic. You can't paint yourself into a corner and you can't put one part of the project before another part of the project if it doesn't logically make sense. So, this is the wrap-up to 3 years worth of work. And you're going to see we we like to leave sweat equity. That's another great strategy, too. Sweat equity, what is the customer willing to wait for? What does the customer have to do right now? What can a customer do on their own? And what part of the job can I do to take the extraneous labor off from the customer's plate, put it on to us who we're willing to do it and to help make this project a dream come true for a customer. So, let's dive into this. You're going to see a bunch of different stuff happening all at once in today's video and I'll start breaking some stuff down for you. Now, in an example like this, a great way [music] to eliminate some excess cost is to prep the subgrade and allow the customer the choice whether they want seed or sod. Sod is extra if we end up doing it ourselves, but the customer could do the sod while we get everything prepped for them. Seed can also be done if the customer's patient enough to wait for it. [music] >> Here's something else to think about. A lot of times the money that we're able to save a customer over here just gets reused somewhere else. And in this case, we're prepping the pad for some custom artwork that the customer wanted. >> [music] >> So, although we were able to compartmentalize the project, >> [music] >> we really weren't hurting ourselves in any way, shape, or form uh from a financial standpoint. And even if we were, it wouldn't make any single difference at all because the overall, what we're really trying to do is meet the [music] end vision of the customer. And when we can say, "Hey, look, you know, do you want seed or sod? We can get this ready for you to this point." A lot of times, they have other things that we're not even aware of that they want done. And in this case, this is a great one, and that allows them the freedom to tackle other things and to have us do things that their skill set doesn't allow them to do. [music] And that's exactly what you're seeing right here. They were able to invest the money that we saved them on other parts of the project into getting something very custom [music] for the very front of their house. And it's a matter of pride. It is so cool to be part of that. I absolutely freaking love that. When I see that happening and I realize that we've empowered them to make their dream come true even more, it's just [music] absolutely exciting to me. I don't know. I just like that. >> I ain't got a clue. Huh? All right, everybody. We are wrapping up. Got the structure or the decorative thing in. And uh Got all this black dirted, straw blanketed. This is all seeded. Some erosion over there and there. Here. Can't have to walk on the ground cuz it's all mud. the uh patio. That's all done. And And then uh Take you to the other side, but it's a long walk, so All right, we're back. Okay, we got this. We had to make a little access in here, so we're recovered all of all of our stuff back up. Sorry. It is raining if no one can tell. All right. But we're getting it wrapped up. [music] Then we have had to make access back over here. Then we built this little wall right here. Here. So. That That's all good there, and then that patio's done. And seeded all that other stuff. Yep. But yeah, that's it for this one. We're on to the next one. And So, all right. >> A project like this is why I quit commercial work. So, years ago, we were probably one of the five largest commercial retaining wall contractors in the entire Midwest. We were doing commercial excavation, commercial demolition, and uh specializing in commercial retaining walls. And our job satisfaction level for us was zero, zip, zilch. Everything was about profit on paper and there was no no pride that went with it unless we were making profit and it really you you start to realize there's way more to what we do than just about numbers on a piece of paper. And that was the way we were treated as well. When you're a commercial contractor, you don't mean anything [music] to the GCs. You mean less than nothing and this was pushed into my brain so many times. And at that time when we were doing the commercial work, we were also probably 75-80% commercial and 20% residential. Our job satisfaction level on the on the residential side of things was so insanely high, it made everything worthwhile. The customers appreciated you. You felt like you were part of the team. You felt like >> [music] >> you were working I mean cuz when we guys when we get on a project, we're there for weeks, sometimes even longer at a time and you really get to know the people you're working with. You can really >> [music] >> see the impact that your work has on their life and there's something to be said about that that is absolutely absent [music] in commercial work. And although commercial jobs like my our smallest commercial job for a while there was I don't know, somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 dollars. I wouldn't touch it unless we were over 100 100 grand, right? Cuz we were just so busy, it wasn't even worthwhile to mobilize, to get out there, to get blueprints set up, to get engineering designs drawn, to get all X, Y, and Z in line before you went out there and did it. To to do a job for somebody that didn't care about what happened to you at all. But on the flip side of the coin, when you go to work with a residential customer and they're excited when you show up and they come out every day and they're bringing you lemonade and they're taking you out to lunch and you just wake up and you know how their kids are doing at their soccer game and it's it's it's a it's a completely different mindset. It really it's an amazingly different mindset and the job satisfaction level is so much higher >> [music] >> working for residential car and you know, there's some psychoness. You know, sometimes you get a psycho customer and that's fine. I mean a psycho customer is fine. You got to deal with it, but I'm going to tell you right now there's psycho contractors as well. I'm going to tell you that straight up. Uh I did the um River Falls City Hall. I think it was the City Hall. Built all the retaining walls, did this, that, and the other thing. And the general contractor that job site, uh was working and we were, you know, out there doing what we were doing on the job site and the job site trailer was there and I had to go check the blueprints that uh make sure some of the elevations we had to confirm elevations and I walk into the job site trailer and here's the GC with his computer and he looks up at me like a deer in headlights. [clears throat] And I'm like, what the In my head I'm like, what is what's going on here? And so I walk over and I just take a peek at what he's doing on his computer. Do you know what the guy's doing? He's Googling my house. He's got my personal house up on his Google Earth Platform profile and he's looking at pictures of my property while I walk in. So yeah, there can be you can have psycho customers, but you can have just as likely to have a psycho contractor and there's nothing worse than working with some psycho contractor that you're stuck with [music] for uh 3 weeks, 4 weeks, maybe even 3 months. I've heck, I did one project. It was uh it it was a 6- [music] or 9-month project. It was snow when we started, then we went through the entire summer, and then when we wrapped it up it started to snow again. That was >> [music] >> That was a long project. So overall, if I was going to pick between a commercial site or a residential site, I would work on a residential In fact, we don't work on commercial sites. I refuse. You know what? [music] We don't work on residential site or commercial sites. And we don't work in Minneapolis. I refuse. [music] I won't go into Minneapolis. I I'll drive around Minnea- I won't go anywhere near Minneapolis just because of the red tape inside of that city. Not because the customers aren't good, but because my mental health doesn't have to I don't have to compromise my mental health or my sanity [music] to go into a city to deal with their red tape and their their malarkey. Because when you try to deal with anything in Minneapolis, it's complete and utter malarkey. Uh to the point where tornadoes came through Minneapolis, tore apart homes. I was working in Minneapolis. I was demolishing a home and it happened to drop a tree right on the house I was working on. But, it dropped [music] trees on cars, and it dropped trees on other houses, and it dropped trees at the tornado went through and just devastated an entire street. All these trees were flopped down on cars. And the community came together to [music] try to get people out of their homes. They were trapped in their homes. They couldn't get their cars out. So, guys with [music] chainsaws were coming out and just helping remove all the debris off from the homes. And you know what the city Minneapolis did? They came in and put a stop to it because the people with chainsaws >> [music] >> weren't properly licensed to use those chainsaws within the city of Minneapolis. I can't make this stuff up. So, pick and choose who you work for. Find job satisfaction. [music] Find Cuz you know what? This is a marathon, not a sprint. You might as well go home smiling every single day [music] than being frustrated. That's why I quit doing commercial work. I started to work on residential jobs, and I learned how the best way to work with residential customers and sometimes to make a residential customer's dream come true, you can't do it all at once and you have to compartmentalize it. You have to work with them. But it's also sheer joy to be able to to see [music] the finished project and to see what you've accomplished for the that the customer and how you've actually helped them bring their dream to life. There's just something so epic about it and I hope whatever you guys are doing you [music] find sheer joy in your work. We spend too many hours at work and there's no reason why every single moment of that can't be a blessing to yourself and a blessing on to somebody else. And I hope videos like this are a blessing on to you, maybe give you a little education, some entertainment and I just make you a better person on. But that's it for this one. I hope you guys have a great uh great everything. God bless and we'll get them you guys. We'll see you on another one.