Building Your Dream Dental Practice: The Design Build Advantage to Cut Cost and Timelines

Welcome to Dental Unscripted, where Mike Dinsio and Paula Quinn break down the practice ownership journey, one episode at a time. Starting up, buying, and running a successful dental practice. All right, all right, all right, here we go. Another episode of Dental Unscripted. This is a special, special week as we are heading into Shark Week, Dental Shark Week. I haven't done a Shark Week in, I don't know, a year or so. I think we just skipped last year.

But for those of you that are old school, that followed me many years, many moons ago, I did a Shark Week. And that week is essentially a week of fantastic interviews on one particular topic. And we started from the West Coast and we would work our way across to the East Coast. And it was an interview every single day on that topic. And this year, the episodes will be dedicated to dental construction.

And in the world of startups, construction, construction, construction is what matters. And it's the one thing that chews up about seventy to eighty percent of your total budget of a startup. So these folks, these experts in the industry will have so much to give to you all throughout this week. I'm super excited about it. No shark suit this year. Maybe we put that back on for the last episode. I don't know, but Shark Week is here and let's get the party started.

Real quick, before we pivot into the episode and introduce the guests of today. I do want to remind you all, if you are listening to this on a startup unscripted channel or the dental acquisition unscripted channel, I need you to flip over to the dental unscripted channel. It's just dental unscripted. It's a turquoise and navy blue logo. We're consolidating the two programs into one.

And if you guys have been following us, we're not only talking about startups and acquisitions, but we're also giving you a lot of amazing practice management episodes. So Paula and Stefani and the whole team over at Next Level have all kinds of practice management good stuff. It's not just Mike D'Incio's show. Now it's Paula Quinn, Mike D'Incio's. And for those of you that are getting to know Paul and the rest of the team, you're in for a treat. It's a special program.

We love doing our podcast. So, all right. Without further ado, Shark Week kicks off with one of my favorite friends, a guy that I respect a ton in the industry up here in the Pacific Northwest. as we are sitting here in the Seattle Puget Sound area. And I have the pleasure to be speaking with Dustin Long with Big Sky Construction. And he's been wanting to do this program for so long. Buddy, welcome to the show. It's great to see you. Mike, you know what? This is really cool. You're right.

We have been wanting to do this. I've Very excited to be on the podcast. And while you might be sitting in the Pacific Northwest, I'm actually sitting in Dallas, Texas. Okay. Because not only is Big Sky taking over the Pacific Northwest when it comes to dental builds, we are also now taking over Texas.

Well, that makes sense because if you're watching on YouTube, Dustin's got a big... cowboy hat sitting on top of his head for the record dustin wore cowboy hats before his company was in texas so this is all part of the dustin long show dustin that's huge news uh and and super exciting for you my friend thanks it is tell us a little bit about big sky man I got to meet you uh I don't know Six years ago, maybe five years. I don't know. At least. Yeah. No. Well, you know, Big Sky.

There are two Big Skies. Big Sky Northwest. We've been building now dental offices for the last ten years. We just hit our ten year mark. uh which is fantastic I know it's it's it's awesome we've got a great team we know how to do this we walk our clients and it's just it's been a great experience um and so now it's really cool to come down to texas and take over my family's business, Big Sky. It's been building here in DFW for over forty years.

And now we're going to be expanding our book of business here into dental as well. So, you know, Big Sky I like to share, first of all, we're not just a contractor. Uh-oh. We're getting deep already. We're getting deep with this conversation. We are. We can get deeper later if I can get deep now. We are a partner to the client that assists them through not just construction, but the entire process, which I know we'll be getting into more. But Big Sky...

For today's purposes, for the listeners out there, we're the best dental builders in the Pacific Northwest and now moving down to the South as well. And yeah, I think that's high level of who we are. I'm going to let you help us dig deeper.

that's great dustin I I love I love kind of where your head's at right now guys we don't prepare for this episode at all it's totally unscripted hence the title so um if it's choppy and raw and uncut that's the way it's supposed to be this is just two dudes talking I happen to be in the studio but um the the truth is is there's all there's so much stuff in dustin's brain that I need to pull out for the program And the goal here is just to educate you guys all on what you're all getting

into as you pursue a startup or even if it's established doctor looking to relocate and build your dream office. We're starting to build our community of listeners, of practice owners, current practice owners. So it's not just startups, but startups.

In typical Shark Week fashion, let's start digging into some of the things that's in my mind, my brain, that I would love the audience to hear.

And so the first thing that I just want to go to, Dustin, is exactly where you were heading, is how does a contractor partner with my clients, with dentists, earlier on and I'm going to preface that is like look everybody wants to talk to the client talk to the doctor super early on they're all kind of jockeying for position to try to gain the the the attention of the doctor because there's a sale involved and I'm doing air quotes a sale yep but part of my job as a consultant

is just to kind of like let's put all that other stuff kind of on hold because the first thing we really need to do is we need to get a space. We need to negotiate that space. And I did a shark week, real estate week, uh, years ago. But once we kind of get through the meat and potatoes of that space, now we need to begin due diligence on that space. And I think the contractor has a huge role to play in, in that due diligence process, Dustin, am I smoking something here or am I on the right path?

No, you're absolutely right. And you know, the, the air quotes of people trying to get a position into the project, you've got, you've got your contractors who are client might have bid on the job. Yeah. Then you've got big sky.

Our focal point early on is building the project on paper that entails the space and understanding the challenges that come with the space that the doctor is looking at, understanding that the doctor now needs to establish a fiscal budget to start talking to the bank about. We've got to start talking to the client about design, making sure that we understand that the budget and the design need to coincide together. Yeah, they do.

Way too often when a client kind of steps out of the bounds of what we would consider to be norm, you end up getting a project that is designed with all their heart's content, their dreams, their thoughts, these ideas. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh man, we never thought about the budget during this process. Now we're twenty, thirty, forty percent over budget. What do we do? Stepping back, taking the proper steps through the what we call the design build model.

We are working with the client and every just like next level. You're also there part of the table making sure because we all have these special skill sets, we've got the knowledge. And so now we're taking this client from this conceptual idea of, I want to start a practice. And it could take six, nine months of building this project on paper before we're actually building it. You know, it's funny that you say that, Dustin, because I had my admin track this just the other day.

If you guys know Abby, shout out to Abby McCoy, the best assistant of all time. and I asked abby I'm like look go back five years and tell me how long from when a client signed my contract to work with me in next level to the time that they signed the lease so this is like concept to lease nine months was the average Isn't that crazy?

So nine months from the time that they're like, hey, I think I want to do a startup to the time that they sign the lease, which folks, to give you a timeline, by the time you sign the lease, you need the contractor on your team signed, committed, ready to go. You need the equipment reps ready to roll. You need the architects, space planners, if they're involved, ready to roll.

All these people got to be ready to roll when you sign the lease so that Dustin and his team, architects, and we're going to get into that, can submit for permits immediately. Immediately. And so to your point, yeah, you, Dustin, could be involved a solid six months before the doctor even signs the lease, before you're even swinging hammers. Right. Let's walk through that due diligence checklist that Dustin goes through.

When you're looking at a space, what should your contractor be looking at and helping the real estate guy or gal negotiate a better space? What are the things that are really important for a dentist to think about when you're looking at a space to rent and build out for yourself? What do you look at? Totally. Great questions. First, we start with some requirements of What are the goals of the client? Are they a specialist? How many operatories?

Because we can walk into a space, they found a great a retail location that's fifteen hundred feet and they want eight ops. OK, Doc, we need to step back and rethink the size of space. So we need to understand a little bit of the business model of the client before even approaching a space. Once we've got that established, we start looking at some spaces. First thing we're doing broker Big Sky. We're starting to talk about the space and the challenges that are brought from that space.

We can build a dental office anywhere. I can stick a chair up on a roof of a high rise. So now it's understanding the challenges that this particular space is going to bring to us, how it's going to impact our budget, how it's going to impact our timing, what city or entity is reviewing for permits, because some could take four weeks, some could take twenty weeks.

So now we need to make sure the broker understands this because they're using a lot of that information to leverage to the client to negotiate the deal. That's right. Lots of things there. Timing. Exactly. So like the, the big things that I'm thinking of is no one really knows the mechanicals like a contractor, right?

The real estate guy doesn't gal guy doesn't, definitely not the consultant equipment people meh not really like attorneys definitely don't so like all the people that are putting these deals together on paper as far as legal and negotiation someone's got to look at the mechanicals can you explain what the mechanicals are when I'm you know what I'm talking about what are you looking at specifically yeah We walk into a space, you know, a dental office infrastructure is quite

different than an insurance office. So when we walk in there, we're looking at the electrical capacities that are there in the space. If those aren't adequate, we might have to upgrade those. That could be six, ten thousand dollars. You need to know that. Exactly. Exactly. You need to know that.

HVAC there's so much heat gain and or loss depending on the time of year with the equipment all the you know the chairs the sterilization the mechanical room reception everyone's looking for a different the same comfort zone but it's going to differentiate between different sides of the office so understanding the hvac what kind of challenges can we deal with the existing do we need to upgrade do we need to add same for the plumbing you know your average retail center is going to have one

restroom and maybe a staff lounge dental offices we could add twelve to fifteen plumbing fixtures within that space do we have the adequate water supply and the adequate sanitary see you don't know this walking into it all of a sudden you might be hit with twenty thirty thousand dollars worth of upgrades you had no idea about and those are not good surprises and it's happened look like uh I don't want to get into this too much but if you watch some of the old episodes go to dental unscripted.com

and then go to um archived episodes go back five years we're talking about the same crap go to shark week, real estate week. There's seven episodes. And I interviewed all these real estate people. I don't want to go into this, but like, The landlord wants a dentist in their space because you're an anchor tenant. You're bringing all these amazing patients in. You're a safe business. You're probably not going to default. Odds are ninety ninety nine percent.

Ninety eight percent of you will not default. Very safe. You're also going to improve their space because Dustin's going to build a beautiful office. You're doing all these wonderful things for the landlord. The landlord, again, is gonna give you some stuff like tenant improvements and free rent. Again, go back to that episode. But Dustin's the one that's gonna say, Hey, what you have here, Mr. Landlord is not adequate for a dentist and you need to help us make it adequate.

And that's a negotiating point. And by the way, it has nothing to do with Dustin's construction contract. Any of these contractors that we interviewed this week, that is all high value ad. That's why it's a relationship in the front end. So, yeah, I think this is really important because the contractor that you choose to partner with can save you a lot of money.

They're going to cost you a lot of money just by the nature of the business that they're in, but they're also going to save you a lot of money too. Absolutely. Right? And that goes all the way to the negotiations of the space. So would you say that's where the beginning of your relationship begins then, Doc, or Doc, Dustin, is helping the doc look at the space, And unfold the vision there and try to help the real estate professional negotiate.

That's probably the biggest piece in this first start. That's exactly right. It's understanding that real estate to help the broker leverage to the landlord. But then that information is also utilized to now transfer to the designer. Yeah. So this is... I'm glad you're transitioning to this because we're going to go there. Go ahead. The foundation continues to build on paper.

We're now using that information to transfer to the designer and say, hey, listen, this is where the existing infrastructure is. These are how tall the windows are. Here's where the beams are located.

That way, when we're doing our initial concept designs, we don't have to completely change them or make major modifications because we weren't aware of what challenges the shell might have presented to us we don't want to stick a mechanical room all the way across uh the other side of the space when the main water line is on the opposite side yeah now we have to extend the main water all the way so we're looking at all these you know hey Maybe that's only a few

thousand dollar increase, but still, that's a few thousand dollar that we can save from day one just knowing that information. That's a sensor, guys. That's a sensor, right? Absolutely. So I think that's really good. I think that's really good. So we covered due diligence and where the partnership begins. You kind of alluded to where I'm heading with the program, and that is our relationship, our relationship from a client and a contractor and a space planner slash architect.

I really want to get into this because Dustin, you're really good. I've worked with you for many years now. We've built a lot of Beautiful offices. Our clients have really benefited from working with Big Sky, which is why you're on the program. You do a great job. Thank you. One of the things that I really like about you is how you truly hold my client's hand through the permitting process.

And I have to say, this is one of the more complicated conversations that I have with my clients because they all want to bid they want to bid because they don't want to take be taken advantage by construction knowing that construction is going to be seventy plus percent of their entire budget they want to make sure that that's a good number right absolutely I get that you would too ever anybody would especially if it's that big of a ticket item yeah right for sure for sure construction's your

biggest one that you have to manage otherwise you're you're in trouble with with lending But at the same time, we need your help so much to get through the planning. So I would love for you to just describe the process. whether it's you by yourself or you in partnership with somebody and how you get a client from concept floor plan and, and a floor plan is just chicken scratch. It's oftentimes the equipment guys are putting a floor plan together. Next level oftentimes provides a floor plan.

I outsource that service, but it's just like kind of like a rudimentary floor plan. It's not the final floor plan. Someone's got to take that floor plan, that concept and, and get it to permits that the city will approve and there's a lot to say about that so dustin how do you

how are you going to approach that question that's a tough question it's a loaded question how do you get it from concept to permit go well Hey, I think we need to educate the audience in this process. It's weird. And we got to talk about it. Totally. A lot goes into that. So at concept, we've got the basic flow of the practice. We've got the basic requirements set of what the doctor wants in that moment. Now we need to dig deep into the nuts and bolts of the actual practice.

Is this, you know, what is the now and what does the future look like for this business? Are you going to add another doc at some point? Are you going to have associates? What's the hygiene versus restorative? Or if you're a specialist, you know, what does that look like? Now, then we start talking about equipment needs as well. You know, delivery units. Are they at the twelve? Are they at the chair? X-rays, TVs on the ceiling.

Are you educating and wanting entertainment for patients while in a restorative case? You know, all these questions go into finalizing the details of that practice. That's right. Now, once we've got that, then we have to understand, okay, what is the city now going to be looking for from us to approve a permit? I love it. So there's this kind of like step one, step two. There's like, what do you need to do what you're trying to do? Right. And then there's what is the city need? Correct.

And every city is different. That's the that's the complexity of this freaking conversation is I might have a client in Tallahassee and a client in Tacoma, Washington, and a client in the East Bay, California. And my answer is not the same for all of them. Because I don't know what Tacoma is going to say compared to Tallahassee, compared to East Bay. Right. Because all those cities are different. So, Dustin, help us out with the city. And do we need partners?

It's an option to get a partner involved. But do we need partners? And how does that work with contractors and all that? Well, Mike, I'm going to step back just one step real quick. Beautiful. In my design-build model… I've had the conversation with the client that says, listen, I understand this idea. We are the biggest part of the budget. Um, six to nine months of my upfront time is going to be given to you for free, regardless of whether you use big sky or not, just because that's who we are.

And I want my knowledge given to every client to set them up for success. That's right. That's part of that due diligence that we talked about earlier. It is.

Now there is a point though, where I tell the doc, okay, listen, give me the benefit of the doubt let me get you all the way through this process let me get you to the budgeting stage once I budgeted if I'm hitting your budget let's keep going because that next step you're right if we get into permits and they're not design building this uh practice you do have to bring in outside partners that are going to cost a lot more going to take quite a bit more time and they're going

to they're going to design and engineer systems that the city will approve but traditionally are way over engineered than what is actually needed we are the dental specialist we design build in-house in-house engineers we know exactly what is needed yes I love that you said that. So you're using this word called design build. Yes. And from plans to permit and this topic, this is very important. You've got two paths.

you got one path to get an architect, like Dustin said, space planner slash architect to drive it from plans for plan, basic rudimentary, basic plans to permitting without the contractor. Right. And then the contractor will pick it up from there and bid it or another, another route is design build. And he used the word design build. And that's a very important thing because some contractors are, don't need architects and too much help from space planners.

And they can take it from that floor plan all the way into permitting. And there are some benefits to design build. So let's talk about that. Staying within this plans to permit topic, let's talk about design build. So what are the benefits? I know I'm, I want you to say it. Yeah, absolutely. What are the benefits? You said it fast. I want you to slow down and describe what you mean there of design build totally where, where the builder takes you from floor plan to permit. Go ahead.

Yes. The design build model is a collaboration of the contractor, They're still a designer, whether they're in-house or a separate vendor and the client. We are building this project on paper together, making sure that the needs and requirements plus the budget are all hit prior to submitting for permit. We are giving the city exactly what is needed in order to approve this dental office. Beautiful. Now, what that does is it's saving you time.

Because in the other model where you have an architect and engineers, the engineers I can a hundred percent guarantee to you are over-engineering because they're not building. Yeah, exactly. They're not building these systems or warranty this system. So they're going to over-engineer to make sure that they're meeting the need, but traditionally they're way more. Contractors stepping in after all these systems are built, Or designed, not built, designed. Designed, excuse me, yes.

Over budget, we're now having to value engineer the... the mental enjoyment of the experience is going down because now the client's looking at, what do I cut? How do I delete? And you're usually the bad guy. The contractor's usually the bad guy. Let's take a step back. So I like what you're saying. And do I think... Having an architect involved is a terrible idea. The answer is no. And I think even Dustin will say it's a no also.

However, this design build model is you're truly partnering with the contractor and they're trying to be as fast as possible to get you into permits.

with budget in mind and and the reason I say that that's really cool because I was an ex-banker you all know that if you've been following the program for a while I was an ex-banker and I'm gonna tell you right now this is a true story I'm not exaggerating I tend to sometimes exaggerate to prove a point I am not on this on this comment in the in all the years that I have worked as a lender and a con a consultant Not one architect would call me on one of my client's projects as a banker and

consultant and ask what the budget was. They never asked me. So an architect sometimes just, well, not sometimes, pretty much just designs it and gets it prepared for the city, which is very important. But they're just kind of designing it. And then we throw it at the contractor. This is the bid, right? The bid route, we're not talking about design build, the bid route. And we throw it to the contractor and say, hey, we just designed this thing. Can you quote it?

And no one up to that point has even discussed budget yet. And the funny thing is, is most of my, the very first thing that the designers, architects say to my client is get a Pinterest account and start giving me your ideas. Well, what do you think everybody's interested in, in Pinterest? It's the nicest stuff. It's most beautiful finishes. And that's what you're pinning and sending into the architect and the architects creating that.

And giving it to Dustin and more than fifty percent of the time, the budget is blown and then we have to go backwards. And that's exactly what Dustin was saying is it's not a very pleasant experience when you tell me the client, hey, you can have this beautiful office. let's design it and have the contractor bid it. And then all the contractors come in way overpriced.

And now my client, now the client's like, man, I was kind of bummed because I saw a lot of glass and great lighting and amazing wall covers. And now they got to strip all that out because you're the bad guy, Dustin. Exactly. Something different. I want to add to that real quick. So when you have found yourself in that position, yeah. We now need to figure out how to delete, reduce, cut, and then redesign. And then redesign. And then rebid.

Which time? You're talking about eight, ten, twelve weeks. What does that twelve weeks equate to seeing patients? In business, yeah. I could tell you what it equates to as a startup. The first two months of a startup are somewhere around five months depending on how busy you get right out of the gate with some of our marketing efforts and stuff, for the first month, somewhere between five and ten thousand dollars.

And then the next month, usually somewhere between ten to fifteen thousand dollars.

So you might be looking at first two months is twenty five thousand dollars of sales that you're you're not getting and then you're also spending it on the front end so it does add up um so thank you dustin for that so so when a contractor um does bring up this idea of design build what are some great questions to ask them to kind of get out the inner in the interview process, what are some good questions that the audience should be asking you, Dustin, about, Hey, what's the process like?

And, um, how do you guys help me through this and how to, you know, what are the right questions asked? I guess. Are you with me on this? Uh, yeah, no, totally. You know, when a client, uh, here's what a client should be asking their contractor. Um, and, and I would expect to be asked is, you know, Or to be told, Dr. Smith, listen, we've done this hundreds of times.

Not only, and this is a big point that I want to press upon is, you know, a lot of contractors are going to tell you there's three things in the industry you can have, but you can only get two of the three. It's price, it's schedule, it's quality. Pick two of the three. With Big Sky and with your contractor, you should actually be getting all three but a fourth. You should get the competitive pricing. You should get the quality work.

You should get within schedule and you should get the experience. That is one of the biggest parts of the design build is the experience for the client. They should not be stressing out on a day-to-day basis while seeing patients. How am I going to get this built? How am I going to get it paid? How am I going to get it done? They need a team like Next Level and Big Sky that is working behind the scenes, getting this done for them.

and letting them enjoy this experience as much or little as they want to.

So a couple questions should be, listen, are you coordinating everything for me?

absolutely the contractor hey are you coordinating this yeah exactly uh you know how much engagement uh do you need of me during this process throughout do you have all the resources necessary to make this happen a lot of contractors don't know the next levels they don't know the uh it uh and tech reps they don't know the best equipment reps out there they don't know the best designers there's designers out there giving startups a fifty thousand dollar proposal and they're thinking that's

the norm it's not the norm that's not making sure that your general contractor has the resources to design build your project yeah um because design build might not be that big sky is handling all of that stuff to get you from correct floor plan to permitting but they're going to partner with folks to make it happen is what you're saying exactly they'll either have it in-house or not and that's okay Exactly. Yes. Okay. That's great. All right. That's awesome.

The last question that a client and most critical question is, how are you going to hit my budget? Yes. Let me show you. Yes. That's a critical one. Yeah. I often find to put an end cap on the question is timelines. Did sometimes I get contractors on my projects and the projects just keep going and going and going and they give me a date. I even send you texts all the time. I'm like, Hey, when is the ETA to open? Like I'm always asking like, what's the opening?

Because a startup and, and established practices too, they really need to know that date because then that's when the marketing launches, they need to hire their team. All of this expensive stuff needs to get deployed. Right. And if you're not open and we got to push everything back a week, that's a whole week of payroll, right?

that I didn't want to have so so having your contractor dialed on timelines um is so important and give us some um I always heard debunk it or agree with it that on average by the time drywall gets completed how far out are you from opening day typically From opening day? Well, we're about six weeks from finishing getting final occupancy and we're about eight weeks from seeing patients. Okay. Six to eight weeks. I've always said six. Okay. Perfect.

Yeah. And I liked your response for the one that we're building together right now and rent. And Mike asked me, Hey, what's, what's our ETA on, on opening day? And I gave him the date and he thought I was full of shit. He was like, no way. It's going to take you way longer than that. I was like, no, we're halfway there. You guys are, you guys are fast. And that matters.

Another question is, is on average, great question to ask your contractor on average, how, how quickly could you build out this office? You know, um, On average, your typical startup, we will be ready for equipment after twelve weeks. We say fourteen weeks until you're ready to see your first patient. Twelve to build, two to equip, stock, supply, and start seeing your first patient. I'll ask that question the rest of this week. So your answer on record is how many weeks from start to finish?

If you had permit in hand. Fourteen weeks. Fourteen weeks is Dustin Long and Big Sky's answer. I like it. We'll ask that question the whole week. My portion, twelve. A lot of contractors won't give you the added time at the very end to move and equip. Got it. Yes. Well then let's get, let's put the, let's land this bird. It's been a great conversation. It's exactly what I wanted to get out of it.

The last question I'll say is, is why my, why in, so you're in Texas and you're also in Seattle and Puget Sound.

when when folks are listening to podcasts just like this or online trolling and sleuthing all over the internet and they see construction costs per square foot yes I work with a contractor in florida it's the same contractor and he services jacksonville and he services um tampa those are pretty far away from each other He quotes a cost per square foot for Tampa, and then he quotes a dramatically different cost per square foot in Jacksonville.

I would argue that Texas and Seattle are two different markets as well. I'm not asking you to tell me what those costs are. What I'm asking you is why is it so different across the country? Do you know the answer to that?

You know, I've actually had recent conversations on this because you're right. Texas is damn near half the cost per square foot. It's wild. I know it is. I wasn't going to say it on air, but same metal studs. It's the same drywall builder, same builder, same probability model. What is it? Labor? It's labor, right? A lot of, a lot of it is labor. Yeah. Yeah. The, the, The unions a long, long time ago set a baseline, and it continues to rise.

The cost of living in the Pacific Northwest, we're so constrained space-wise. Land values are just so much more expensive. What about material in a world where Donald Trump gets into office? And actually, I'm not even going to say Donald Trump. Biden put a stamp timestamp. You know, Biden had some crazy inflation in his term. Trump's seeing some with the tariffs. I don't care about the politics. I'm just saying we have seen a crazy amount of fluctuation.

as it relates to tariff stuff tax stuff in just just inflation loaf loaf of bread eggs is that an issue with construction uh differences between seattle and texas absolutely yeah yeah think about the warehouse storage rental fees in seattle compared to somewhere here in texas Okay. But the materials themselves, like wood and steel for the framing and just material. Same material, but you don't know. It's absolutely more expensive.

Yeah. In different markets, in different markets, potentially twenty five to thirty percent different. Is it an access or a lack of access to materials in different parts of the country? Think about all the ports we have in Seattle. There's no ports in Texas. I know that I'm just trying to figure it out, like why a metal stud would cost double here in the northwest than it would in Texas. And it has nothing to do with labor. Other than, well, it kind of does because the labors of the steel stud.

So, yeah. I tell you what, when you figure that out, let's strategize because there's got to be some leverage we can take advantage to build our businesses. But for the time being, I don't know what the answer is.

No, no. I think that's I think that's really good because these are the questions that my clients ask and it's just sometimes it's just a great mystery and they think you mr contractor are the guy that's screwing them over like why is dustin two fifty or whatever plus in the northwest and he's one fifty plus in texas he must be trying to screw me here in seattle and that's not the answer that's not like an electrician here in texas journeyman electrician fifty five to sixty five an hour seattle

One hundred and thirty to one hundred and fifty an hour. There it is. Same guy, same skill set, same certification. Yeah. Different locations. Wild. Unreal. Well, with that being said, I think we debunked and had a fantastic conversation today. I think our clients and prospective clients and folks looking to do startups, they're going to get a lot of information out of this episode. That's what Shark Week's all about. We're going to get more information this whole week. All construction.

Great contractors, just like Dustin Long and Big Sky. I thank you, my friend, for being part of the program. Dude, it's been how many years you've been trying to get on this podcast? Years, right? Years. I don't know why it took so long, but you are one of my favorites and I appreciate you being on the show, buddy. Absolutely, Mark. I appreciate you and all the listeners here that are listening now and gonna listen. If you need to get a hold of Dustin, I want to ask him some questions.

Links below, contact information below. If you're in the Northwest or if you're in Texas, you definitely need to consider him to build your project. Absolutely. Call my cell, text me. I work a twenty, twenty hours a day, seven days a week. Let's go. This is true. With that being said, thank you, sir, for your time. Appreciate it. See ya. Let us know how you like the show. Rate us on Apple and Spotify. Subscribe and follow for more.