On today's episode of Gathering the Kings, what would you say to that person listening right now and they're having all these doubts? Yeah. I think well, first of all, the doubts are real. And they're legit. As I look back on my career, what I have realized is Chaz, obviously, The team that you have around you is the most important resource that you could possibly have.
You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe, featuring fellow 78 and even 9 figure business owners who have real battle scars from business and life, but have prevailed as the king that they are designed to be. We welcome high performing entrepreneurs to the stage in order to reveal the reel of the reel. On what it takes your picture of the journey of success and how you too can get there.
Through this dialogue, you will learn the value of growing your network and surrounding yourself with power players and kings like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. Alright, everybody. I'm Chaz Wolfe gathering the king's king's table today and vice Justin Beedle to the stage. How are you doing? I'm doing great. I really appreciate the opportunity to be on here and to be able to visit for a while.
Yeah. You know, I just was just really appreciating few minutes here before we hit the record button. And, I mean, I know you have just a ginormous business and just our couple minutes back and forth. We're talking about kiddos and we're talking about, like, the things that are really important outside of, just the business world. So I'm really anxious to see where this conversation goes, but Sure. Justin tell us what kind of business that you have and what you're up to.
Sure. Yeah. So I am majority owner of Patriot Development And Construction. I have 2 other partners that are involved with me on that on this business. We are a commercial general contractor. We basically build projects in every division of construction. We retail office, financial, veterinary medical, dental, a lot of retail, car washes, gas stations, and then we also have several 100 units, multi family projects that we also do. Yeah. We're based out of Dallas Fort Worth area.
And pretty much do projects all over the state of Texas. Other than we we generally have not done anything south of San Antonio. So but pretty much veteran owned commercial general contractor, and we have a large majority of our force that is also veterans. We really try to hire veterans that are transitioning out of the military Yeah.
To be able to put them to work, and they have a lot of the intangibles that are hard to teach nowadays, a sense of urgency the ability to make a decision, you know, characteristics like that. So but, yeah, that's that's what we do. I love that. And and, of course, thank you for your service, for the service, collectively, from your team. I'm sure I'm sure if you added up all of Chaz. Just that in itself, I'm sure, would be a very impactful number across your entire organization.
That'd be pretty cool to know. Yeah. No. It's Thank you for all of that. And, you know, to have to have somebody like you, you know, doing such large projects and and in different industries or, you know, in different, I guess, skill sets across the commercial contracting space. Obviously, you've you've attracted quite a bit of the people to your team and and to be able to do it in that way, I think is really, really special.
One of my close friends Chaz spent 3 tours overseas in the Middle East. And and and when he came back, it was it was his own business, or in this case, construction that that helped him transition back into what you guys call a civilian life. And so it was a and it was an amazing opportunity for him. So I'm I'm it's incredible to know that you're facilitating that for for many others. So Yeah. No. We we appreciate that. And we appreciate being able to help him out. For sure.
Yeah. Well, so you're you're been doing this for a Wolfe. And my my first question is always the same to everybody, and it's why are you still pushing? Cause, obviously, you've got this this certain level of success, but but I would even say you, you know, in addition to just a certain level of revenue and money success, you've been doing it for a long time now. So you've got, like, the history. You've got the money. You've kinda got the whole the whole thing. Why are you still doing it?
Why are you still at it? You know, that's a great question. And and the really, the only way that I can answer that is I love what I do. I love what we do, and I love helping entrepreneurs. We really try to focus on entrepreneurs and first time investors in in the real estate market, we the bulk of our business is design build and design build is essentially know, the majority of our clients will call and they'll say, hey, guys. I've got a 2 acre tract of land in McKinney, Texas.
I need you to tell me what I can do with it. And we will perform a site assessment. We'll put together with some additional information. We'll put together a preliminary site plan and a rough budget. And get qualification for financing, and then we handle the full design process in the permitting. And then we execute construction contracts as a separate contract to build it out for him, but I love helping individuals to do that.
So whether it's an entrepreneur that Chaz is expanding their location and is taking on additional lease space that we can help build out whether they are now building their second or their third location in a different city. And the ones that that really mean a lot as well are mom and pops who have accumulated enough capital over the years to qualify for some type of a construction loan. We love walking them through that process.
And and I just get a lot of a lot of sense of enjoyment from doing that. And then also, as I mentioned, the the first time individuals that are wanting to maybe invest in real estate, we have some programs that we put into place. If, you know, for instance, it's one of them is called the pick and place. So we've basically taken 3 multifamily elevations and you select what you want it to look like out of those 3. You select the unit mix.
And you 6 select the interior design package and you find a piece of property and we put it on there for you. And it just takes all of that time. And design a way. So that's why I do it. Just love helping. Well, for there's so many questions I have being a retail business owner and a real estate investor. You're you're tickling all my fancies over here, but Yeah. Be be to stay to stay focused here for a second, I wanna know, was that even back in the day when you got started.
Was that why, like, part of the why? Was it helping the entrepreneur? Was it just helping others? Has that grown over time? That's grown over time because, obviously, in the beginning, it's a sense of survival. Right? It's a sense of providing for my family's needs. And something that I've realized over the years is it doesn't matter what anyone says. No one cares more about you and your family than you do.
Yeah. So you can go to work for a company and they can tell you that a hundred times over. But in the end, I'm sorry. It comes down to number 1. When when you're in that situation. So in the beginning, it was a matter of survival. I remember as a 4th grader. This is going way back, obviously. As a 4th grader, my dad used to take us with a tractor and a six foot brush hog mower and drop us off at client's houses to mow their pastures. Yep. As a 4th grader. And Yeah. 10 years old.
Yeah. And being able and at that time, we were making $15 an hour, which we might have been might as well have been millionaires. Right? Oh, yeah. At that age. But mowing pastures, and I remember one specific experience where I had finished mowing a pasture and that evening, my parents took us to the local bike shop and I bought my own Diamondback Formula 1 BMX bike. And I could see the reward from the work that I put in, and I just loved it. You're hooked. Yeah. So I was hooked.
The story there of of, you know, the the little bit, the the little bit of work for the bike eventually turned into taking care of your family. And and now it's the purpose of helping entrepreneurs. And and and you have a staff of of quite a few that I'm sure Sure. You're constantly thinking of taking care of them as well.
But from a from a from an entrepreneur perspective, you know, you're getting you're getting to, like, get in on the project in the very, like, beginning stages of, like, it's part of the dream. The dream is starting to come to fruition, like, a lot of excitement in your stage of their project. Right? Yeah. Absolutely.
And if you think about it, if you're if you're already running a a business, you really don't have time enough time to make sure that it's designed properly and still do everything that you're doing over here. So the build out process can be really stressful. Oh, yeah. And the design process. And so anytime that we could take that load off of that entrepreneur's shoulders, and show them, hey, we are confident. We know what we're doing.
We Chaz handle this for you so you can concentrate on doing your business. So instead of that property owner, where that business owner managing 4 or 5 different vendors, right, architects, structural, civil, MEP engineers, cities, They're only dealing with one person. Yeah. And that's us. Exactly. And we're handling the remainder.
Yeah. You know, it's I told you, I was thinking about this from a couple of different angles as a retail franchise owner, even having the plans and the design put together for you, generally speaking, because there's always things that gotta get moved around. Chaz in itself is definitely something that's that's burdensome.
Let alone Yeah. If I didn't have that from the franchisor Chaz we built out multiple occasions over the years, if it had just been up to me, I mean, geez, I totally see the the value there. And then on the real estate side, I actually, you know, it's interesting several years ago, This was before I was in a different place in real estate much more much more green, but we we had a a buddy of mine. We had this piece of land that we had locked up in a contract.
We knew the people over at the bank, and they had owned it for plenty of years, and we were gonna get a good deal on it. We had this multi family commercial retail space underneath and Yep. Had this whole idea. And and if I had known you, then Or if you were in my area, then Yeah. Gosh. It would have been a done deal because that that was the next step for us. And me and him looking at each other going, okay. We gotta talk city. We gotta do this. We gotta do that.
Like, all this long list of stuff, and we started going through the process eventually just kicked it out just knowing that it probably wasn't a good fit, but Chaz would have been so much easier if we had known someone like you. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, and and and really in our industry, the end user from a percentage standpoint rarely comes to us first. So I try to implement what call First Touch Marketing.
So when you're looking for a piece of property to to expand on or build, first person that you touch base with is going to be more than likely the broker Right. Or it's going to be the banker. Yep. Right? Or maybe a civil engineer. So we really try to make efforts to reach out in the network with those individuals. Yeah. And that's the first battle. The second battle is once you develop a relationship with them, you've gotta perform so that they continue to refer you. That's right. Right?
They're only gonna do it once. You mess it up. You're good. So So we really try to target those individuals and to develop those relationships. So after a while, it's just a matter of referrals. Yeah. From those groups. Because more than likely, you know, a lot of times, you're gonna say, hey. Do you happen to know a good general contractor that that you would recommend? Yeah. Right. And so yeah.
Yeah. It all starts with that initial connection and you just happen to be able to do it all, which I love. And so, okay, let's go back. You kinda gave us a little bit your history of just being obviously raised by a dad who would throw you out on the clients, the pastures, with tractors, and and Yep. And mowers and such. That's that's phenomenal. I assume that that has built, part of who you are.
You kinda gave the mic description, but when you got started originally, before maybe you were doing millions, give us an idea of what that looked like. Like, why did you get started in this business? How did it happen? Kinda give us a little bit of the Okay. So originally, how I got started in the, we'll call it the construction business, was newly married, attending University of Newark, Texas. I was managing a feed store.
Okay. And when I would check clients out at the register, multiple times a week, I would have individual say, hey. Do you know anybody that builds barns and does pipe fencing and fencing? And and at that time, I didn't have anyone that I could refer, and I was standing visiting with a course issuer friend of mine at the time, Ronnie Clayton, good guy. And and he said, well, Justin, why don't you do it? And I had never really even thought about that.
And so I'd gone to FFA and learned how to weld in high school and all that type stuff. And so I went straight home for meeting with him. And I printed off some flyers, and I called it Ranch Hand Finzi and Bar. There you go. And I set them on the countertop. In the 1st week, I had 7 calls. Oh, yeah. I'll never forget it. And and being able to go and meet with those clients, and I was absolutely clueless on how to even create an estimate Oh, yeah. Or do any of that. Totally new.
But I knew that there was a need for it. Yeah. And so that was really the 1st business. Ranch Hand Financing and Barnes Obviously, I didn't even know anything about BBAs or LLCs or anything. Yep. So it eventually became Ranch Hand Livestock facilities. K. And we built several 100 barns and shops and probably miles of fencing for people all over North Texas.
And then And then from there, my wife is from a Northern Nevada, and we started a group called Nevada Cornerstone Group, which was residential commercial construction in Nevada. Ended up selling that business and moving back here to Texas. And 2000 8 to 12, I was all these construction manager for the state of So Okay. Worked with a fantastic team, and we rolled out, believe, is around 47 grocery stores throughout Dallas Fort Worth.
And then from there, you know, with some other stops, ended up starting Patriot Development Group, which ultimately came Patriot Development And Construction. Yeah. Yeah. I love that at beginning, you know, the inkling of the story. You know, the one thing that I picked up you you said the second thing, which was Chaz there was a need, like, this obvious need.
Yeah. But the thing that I picked up and pulled away from that is that it was your buddy or it was the other guy that said, why don't you do it? And I I can just so relate to that. I think everybody listening today has that person Yep. Or people who Chaz just almost naively inspired us to to to take action. Now whether we have or not in those moments, you know, that's up to us in those moments.
But, yeah, I think it's so interesting to be able to look back because we probably you probably have multiples of those now. Multiple options, to tell that same story. Right? Yep. Yeah. Absolutely. And and, you know, I even ran across him a few months back and thanked him. Wow. Again. And and his response was is I just knew you were a good person. You were gonna be genuine and good to people. Yeah. But for him to even suggest that and to give me that confidence of, hey, man. Aren't you do it?
Yeah. Go give it a shot. It changed everything. Yeah. For me, really. You know, it's interesting. I I I'm just kinda piecing this together even in my own story. I think I think every entrepreneur has both parts, and both parts meaning the time where someone told us that we couldn't do something. And that kind of fired us up and said, watch. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we could probably tell stories on that one for podcasts on days on days on days.
But I I think that this this port portion or part of our stories kinda gets a little it's not as it's not as flashy. It's not as exciting to say. They told me I couldn't do it, and then I did it anyway. But when when that small little whisper from someone that we trust or someone that we just, you know, come in contact with, it gives us the confidence is what you said. To be able to kinda, like, take that next step, whether we thought we were going to or not.
And I look back, and those are those are as, if not more, impactful in my own story. I think we probably all relate to that. We just don't they don't get those moments don't get the credit. I don't think. You know? Right. I don't think they get the credit. And then the other thing that important about that too is I think it's really important for us to be those individuals for others. Oh, yeah. Right?
Yes. We didn't get we didn't get to where we're currently at right now, not that we're tremendously better than anybody else. We didn't get to where we were at without others involved in our lives. And we didn't have it all figured out. And so if you can be a mentor to somebody or to pull them aside and and just say, hey, see what you're doing here. Let me give you a couple gotchas that I ran into Yeah. That you might just wanna watch out for. Yeah. And I'm just a big believer in that.
I love helping people. I get several calls for individuals that are wanting to start businesses. And I'll take time. We'll bring him in, sit down and say, okay. What are you thinking? Here's some things that I see. And and what I try to follow in it, if I'm starting to bore you, you tell me, but No. That's good stuff. There is a I don't know if you've ever watched the documentary on Warren Buffett that's on HBO. I have not. Please explain.
Okay. I recommend it for anybody that's listening, but there is a there's a section there where Warren Buffett, when he's making a decision on investments or businesses is he takes on a board and draws like a haps and writes the name of that business or that investment. And then he takes and he draws a moat around the outside of it. K. And then he and his team, all they do is sit and shoot arrows at that investment in that business of how it could possibly go wrong. And what's wrong with it.
Then from those arrows and those and and I know I'm paraphrasing. Right? Totally. Then all you're doing is coming up solutions for each one of those issues. Yeah. I love them. And I've used that so many times throughout my career. Yeah. That's just a that's a great that's a great documentary to watch. Yeah. Such a great resource and just even the mindset there of of not not negativity but of okay. What what's the future hold? And let's just be honest about it.
And then that way, we can solve the problems ahead of time. Yeah. The one one thing that you just said here that I wanna encourage a listener from a perspective of mentorship, obviously, you know, you sharing an hour of your time here today is a is a huge part of that. They're listening today. They're grabbing some of those things here from you, and we'll get to the good and bad decision of yours here in a minute.
But What I wanna encourage the listener to do right now is to take what they've got and turn around and give it to the next guy behind them even. Because everything that's being shared here, you know, about mentorship. And even the fact that Justin's giving you, not only the ability to understand mentorship and receive when you can turn around and give it. For me, every single time I've done that, I've I've grown.
And I've grown usually more than when I try to get myself into a place where I'm receiving, I wanna be able to get as much if even more than than what I'm receiving. So I just wanna encourage you to do that. So perfect transition here to for us to go right into some mentorship from you, from the man himself, Let's talk about a good decision that you've made in inside your business as you as you scaled it Chaz we can take note of here today and and learn from you.
You know, as I look back on my career, I've always had a leadership style of conciliatory. Right? I want individuals around me, good people Chaz I can sit in a room and discuss different decisions that we wanna make. Yeah. I don't have it all figured out. Most people don't have it all figured out. But if you bring good people who are smart around you, you can pretty much tackle any decision. That you have.
And the way I've always looked at it is, you know, from a business standpoint, if you look at a wheel, you got the hub in the middle, right, which is typically how people form their businesses. You're the hub, and you have all these outside groups that are around that that form the rim. Right. Well, in a sense, if you don't own a business, you own a job. Right? Yep. That hub leaves Chaz wheel falls apart. That's right.
And so I've really tried to, throughout my career, create that wheel, but with good individuals all the way around that rim and together, we make that hub. And then that way, when I go on vacation or when we go do these things, the whole thing doesn't fall apart. Right? And so one of the best decisions that I've that I've always tried to make was just making sure that we just had really good people around this that are smart, hopefully smarter than I am. Right.
And and that that are willing to tell you the truth about things and not just yes to whatever idea you have. 100%. I mean, the the notion of putting people around me and then the analogy that you gave of the spoke is huge. That's it's a great word picture. How did how did you experience that knowledge? Like, how did you come to the place where you're like, okay. I gotta have people around in order to have the rim. Otherwise, it falls apart.
Was there something that happened or circumstances a story maybe that you can share? I think it was just realizing after a period of time, the pressure that came from owning a business and then leaving or wanting to separate yourself for a period of time, whether it's on vacation or whatever and realizing that I couldn't do it. And, couldn't do it because you were worried about things falling apart. And so I can't think of one particular experience where that has happened.
It's really been more of a series of experiences where Yeah. And maybe it maybe I don't have a lot of talents. Maybe that's a talent that I have, right, that that I've always been able to see the importance of having smart people around so that they can help shoulder some of the burden and bring him into the areas that they're really good at and let him run. Yeah. Do you think that comes from from the military at all? I mean, that's kinda like how Good. Good. How how an operation works.
Like, everybody kinda has their thing. Right? Yep. I think so. I mean, I think that that's that's a good way to phrase it. You know, not everybody can can be running the mission. Not not everybody can be doing everything at once. And so Right. It's just that's just a way that I've just naturally been able to to lead.
Yeah. Exactly. Well, I I think, I mean, that's great that you've been able to press into that maybe natural skill set, what would you say to the person right now who, you know, they're listening. They they know that they need to put good people I mean, like, Justin, I've heard it. I know, but it's so, like, how do I can't find good people? Or, you know, like, if I hire them, you know, the everything on the inside's a mess.
They're just gonna leave anyway or, you know, they just have all the scarcity around what how much it's gonna cost to to have a good person. What would you say to that person listening right now and they're having all these doubts? Yeah. I think well, first of all, the doubts are real, and they're legit. As I look back on my career, What I have realized is Chaz, obviously, the team that you have around you is the most important resource that you could possibly have.
And what I personally have learned is that you spend the bucks that you have to spend to get the best possible people you can get at that time. Yeah. And a lot of times, as entrepreneurs, and I know that a lot of people are are cash strapped. I know you know, their startup stages and things like Chaz, but whatever you can muster to bring on the best possible people and preferably somebody that's experienced, right, and knows what they're doing, that's the best route to go.
Something else that that Chaz I look back some advice that I would give for individuals that are forming new companies and trying to attract good individuals, is to, 1, you can promise things such as equity or bonuses or things like Chaz. However, don't say anything that you're not willing to put in writing. Yeah. Right?
So if you if you manage to find somebody that you wanna bring on board and in order to do that, you have to give them a portion of ownership or profit sharing and whatever it is. Don't just verbalize that. Put that in writing because if you don't fulfill with that, you are going to breed nothing but resentment and animosity towards you, and that's going to go on down the road ahead of you. Many times.
And so you might not have the cash up front, but if the individual believes in what you're doing, and you've put in writing what you're gonna do for that individual if they perform with you, then you can you can overcome a lot of the obstacles of maybe tremendously high salaries and things like that.
Yeah. And that was gonna kinda just transition that such great information onto Chaz that been something that you've done that's been a repeated success tool for you, which is find the person, like, the intrapreneur or the high level salesperson who who wants a piece of the pie or a commission instead of a just a big salary. Is that is that something that's helpful? Yeah. I mean, in the end, I'm a big believer and you're you're always just training your competition. Right?
And so when you have individuals within your organizations, that our go getters are self motivated. Know what they're doing. Yeah. There probably aren't too many things ahead of them that are preventing them from just going and doing it themselves. Right? Sure. So you've gotta take care of the people who are rock stars within your group or within your industry. And sometimes, by giving up little small portions, you're gaining significantly. Right?
People get caught up on 1, 2 to 5%, 3%, whatever it might be. And I don't think that you're thinking at least for me. I'm not judging anybody, but you should be willing. When you get individuals like that, All I am saying is is think about the fact of what they can help you do rather than that small portion of ownership that you might be given up. Or that portion of bonus or profit sharing. Right? I mean, think big picture, not small picture. Yep. Not the head now. I love that.
Like you just said, not the hearing now. It helps you build something for tomorrow. What are you looking for in that person? Let's just keep the vein going here for a second. Who's that person that you're willing to give a 1 or 3 or a 5% equity 72. Well, I mean, obviously, they have to be proven, right, in I think in many industries, but at least in our industry, my personal opinion is there are just certain people who can get it done, and there are certain people who can't. Right?
What I have tried to do in the past is when I come across an individual that just makes it happen. Okay? Yep. That's a huge skill. And so I want to try well, first of all, I when I when we find individuals that can just make it happen and get it done, then that's one part of the equation. The other part of the equation is really looking at those individuals from a professional standpoint right, appearance, communication, both written and oral.
Are they somebody that you that that you want to represent as a partner? Right. Of your business or a leader within your business, if you if you start to to check the boxes of each one of those things, you need to seriously think about whether or not you're gonna let that person go down the road and truthfully compete with you. Because that's what they're gonna do. Right? So give them a reason to be there with you.
And so that's what I've tried to do is when I come across individuals like that, I want them here. I want them with us. And the other partners that are involved with our group, they have the same exact opinion. We want them here. So Yeah. I think that you're you're spot on. And I think even for for that side, for that person, you know, they're possibly capable of doing it themselves. Yeah. But we we all know that they're gonna run into a bunch of bumps in the road trying to do it themselves.
Even if they are gonna be good at it and be a a potential threat or competition. So you're actually by combining forces. Not only are you protecting yourself, I like I like to think of it as giving them an opportunity to kind of bypass some of the things, some of the mistakes, some of the early bumps. And it and it really is a win win if if if it's the right person. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
I mean and Frankly, you hope that you're coming across individuals that are grateful for that experience that you're already going to teach them. Right? Right. And sometimes you find those individuals and sometimes you don't and they go down the road and they bump their head a little bit. And more times than not, they come back and they say, hey, man. I had a good day. Yeah. I appreciated my time with you. And just the things that you taught me, but Yeah. You know? So That's right. That's right.
You know, and I think that that's a kind of a marker. You know, I I I haven't realized that until you know, some of the more, maybe more recent years. But even even folks that worked on different different teams of ours years ago, you know, they come back and and even even just the, like, the fact that they didn't wanna come right back. You know, it's just like, oh, man, I I, you know, they left thinking something was gonna be different or better.
And and, obviously, even in the retail space, it's just difficult. You know, you'd the opportunity is only so big there for folks, but Yeah. When they've they've gone, I've had a few where they go and they've grown some skill sets and they come back not only appreciating what they had once before, but now they're Now they're seasoned a little bit, and so they've they've made themselves even more valuable. So think of that. Best case scenario.
Yeah. Best case scenario, they've learned something that you didn't know, and they're bringing it back to you. Yeah. Exactly. But the only reason they're coming back to your point is because you spent the time. You you were you were just I mean, doing the right things that we should have been doing as employers, as people, mentors Yeah. And all of Chaz. Just being being genuine. Yeah. And and, you know, having the opportunity of you know, in this industry, there's there's turnover. Right?
And I and I mean it 100%. When an individual comes to me, when a team member comes me and they are leaving because of what they perceive to be a better opportunity or a better situation for their family, I genuinely hope it works for them. Right? I really wanted to work for them. But I also tell them if it doesn't, First of all, don't be ashamed to take in the risk, but 2, don't be prideful and not wanna come back and talk to me or us about coming back. Yeah. Right?
Yep. Because you admire the the wanting to get ahead, just sometimes, maybe it's the same situation where the individual promised all kinds of things They get there. It doesn't materialize, and they realize, that's not where I wanna be. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So Just be genuine. I'm sure that happens quite a bit. Yeah. A 100%. I think that what you're saying there is just life lessons and it's something from a place of care or mentorship, not from employment.
It's, hey, as an individual, I care about you. I care about your family. And Yeah. And I can remember a scenario where I had, you know, one of my first multi fa multi unit managers. She's a single mom, and And even though she had the best opportunity within my organization at that time many years ago, she found a better opportunity and left me in a tickle of a place. Yeah. Yeah. But, man, it was like, wow.
What an what an amazing opportunity for her as a single mom to be able to to grow and and get her skill set on another level. And and so to to be able to bless somebody in that really is a whole another level as from us, from Chaz business owners of of the mature place, you know, and and you can call it kingship versus warriorship. We use those words all the time here, gather the kings, but you know, it's a it's just a maturity that you have a perspective. Yeah. Absolutely. Yep. I agree.
Okay. So I wanna know across that you've got around decisions. Actually, I'm we kinda we may have skipped over your bad decision. Did we skip over your bad decision? Like, come back. Hold on. Before we go process, Tell me what you've done just to screw everything up, Justin. You know, really, I've thought about this a little bit and just trying to I think for me, as I look back my career. The times where I've really messed it up is when I don't trust my gut instincts. When. And we all know it.
We've all been there. We our our gut instincts have told us at times when we should be involved with a project when shouldn't, and we should be involved with a person and where and where you are. And just the gut instinct of saying Now I I can't help you. I'm not going to be the right person to help you because more times than not, that's always come back to by not listening to your instincts and telling you whether you should be involved or not.
And so I fortunately I haven't had too many situations where and maybe it's because of that consolidatory approach to decisions, right, and having a group of individuals around, I can't pinpoint one single experience, but I Chaz I can definitely tell you that over the years, not listening to my gut and not not being willing to tell somebody the word no Chaz come back to hurt me at times? Because you spend so much time trying to help them and to get them through a situation.
And in the end, you really didn't help him do anything. Yeah. Tell you got a story there. Tell tell me some information there about about not saying no. Well, I mean, you know, within our industry at times, we have individuals that ask us for who might refer friends or family. To us. And it might not be a project that we are geared to handle. For instance, as you continue to grow as a general contractor, there are certain projects that work well for you and certain ones that don't. Right?
You have certain groups of GCs who who can go knock out a $150,000 finish out all day long, right, but might not be tackle a $10,000,000 ground up office building, right, and vice versa. Right. Right. And when you get to a certain and you're going I don't wanna you're going back to one of those those types of projects to help a friend or family member when it probably could have been accomplished a lot cheaper and a lot easier with somebody who is geared towards those types of projects. Right?
Yeah. I think this this is applicable for for I mean, of of course, instruction. All trades Yeah. Heard what you just said and thought, yep. I've taken on the wrong type of client or the wrong Yeah.
Project size, or I took on my friend, you know, all of those things, even outside of the trades in in marketing, even even clients that we have in the retail space that that we do catering or or larger stuff for, you know, you just you just you just know who your tribe is is really what it comes down to. Yeah. And the people that aren't in the current tribe description, it just it just never works out. Not not at least how it should. Yeah. No. You're right. You're right.
And resources, effort, energy, and it just Yeah. And you really go above and beyond to try and make them happy because you want them to be happy with it, but in the end, you just frustrated them. More than any. A 100%. Which should frustrates you because you're like, wait a second. I really cared about this thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I shouldn't have been messing within the first place, but I did to help out. It just didn't work. So Exactly. Yeah. It it really is. Yeah. I've heard it.
I've heard it before. But as a just a just a a slowdown moment for the listener again, I you you hopefully, you wrote all that down, but I'm gonna give you another 15 seconds here to write it down again. Which is you just gotta know what it is that you're looking for because it's it's when you're a little unclear that you'll take something on when you're not super, like, right here, this is where I'm at. Like, this is my lane.
And when it's not that clear, which means you're convicted about it, that's when you that's when you waiver a little bit, which is just Yeah. It never it never turns out right. And so I think we I'm just I got so many experiences Chaz could run through my brain, but I think we can all relate to that to that terrible scenario. So Yeah. Out outside of the spoke example that you gave about how kinda you, like, process decisions.
Anything that comes to your mind when it comes to, like, any disciplines that you exert or any process that you have around decision making? Well, I think that in order to make good decisions, you have to have a statistical history of what you perform well at. Right? Yep. And I do think that it's important to measure numbers.
And, you know, for instance, in our industry, my personal opinion is the most important metric that our industry that I wanna know about is our estimating capture percentage. Right? So for instance, it doesn't do a bit of good how many sales leads are brought into this building. Right? If we're not capturing on those sales leads, if we're not signing contracts, they mean nothing. Right? Right. We're we're just basically paying for people to get experience. And so Exactly.
I think that that's really important. So in order to make decisions, you've got to have someone or yourself keeping statistics on what you performed well. Is your best project a $1,500,000 to $7,000,000 project, or is your best project you know, from a profit standpoint, 7 to 15 then. Right? Right. So that you know where to hone in, going back to that same documentary talking about Warren Buffett's got a picture of Ted Williams in his office.
And if those of you out there that wanna look it up, there's Ted Williams who's a baseball player, and he was the first one that really started to look at the statistics of where he hits the best. And he was always in the 400 if it was in the strike zone but slightly high. He figured out that if it was outside, anywhere in that area that it was best for him to not swing at it, even though it might be a stretch. Right?
And so the only way he was able to do that is to be able to process that information. So in some form or fashion, you need to measure statistically what you're good at as a company so that when when you sit down and you have an opportunity come in front of you, you can make an educated decision on whether or not you're actually gonna pursue it. Yeah. Uh-uh. I love the lens, which you just gave to us. That lens gives clarity then helps you make the decision, which is what you're talking about.
But the lens of date, I I see so many people. I mean, bigger companies too, but especially guys that are listening right now, guys and gals, and that you're not at the 7 figure mark yet, it's it's likely because things are kinda maybe written down or maybe just in your brain still. They're not even they're not even written down. And so I think what what Justin's saying here is you gotta figure out Just sit down for a second.
Get get out of the grind for for 15 minutes and take some time to ponder. What is it that makes the most sense for us? Makes the most money, marginally, and also what are we best at? And then then look at the history and go, okay. Like, how often do we do that? How do we get those? And if we just put all of our effort into that, how much how much more efficient would the thing be? Yeah. And even if you don't have Yeah.
Even if you don't have a software system that spits those reports out to you, which a lot of them don't. Whether you're in QuickBooks, whatever software you're in, You've got job profitability reports. You can look back and see if you don't have the contract amount, maybe you can look and and see what that is and determine What you might even figure out is you're not shooting high. Right? Right.
You might be looking at if you're a contractor that deals with, let's say, 30 to $50,000 remodels and you're spinning your wheels all day long, And every year, you're increasing incrementally maybe, you know, 10, 15%. Well, maybe you need to start looking at bigger projects. To get where you need to be. Right? Yep. You might be good at where you're at, but maybe you need to stretch it a little bit. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. It really makes you Exactly.
Make it helps you make the decision and move and move the projects in the way that you wanna go or the revenue in either or. So you it's funny. You you you dwindled your your metric down to 1 for us here even before I asked. I don't know if you knew this, but it's one of my one of my top questions here is dwindle the Wolfe down business all the way down to one metric. And so for you, it's this capture rate.
And and so it how how can someone who maybe doesn't have the software or who maybe doesn't even know how many leads that they're getting versus how many they're closing. Like, how do you start with this with this metric that you've given to us? If if you don't have software that's tracking that, 1st of all, I would definitely look at a way to be identifying those things, but you got a pad and paper. Right? Yep. Yep. So every time you send out a bid, for a project.
You're writing down what that project name is, the date, the contract amount. And beside it, you've got a a captured or Really, we do 3 categories captured, non awarded, and then we also have never materialized. Right? Cause there's a lot of projects that are bid that are never that never even come to fruition. Right? So in the end, it's just simple percentages. After a period of time, you know, hey, I've bid 50 projects this year, and I captured 25% of them.
Industry average for our industry in the in the general contracting realm commercial, you generally wanna be in the thirties to the 50%. Right, somewhere in there. If you're above that, you might be too cheap. Right? Right. Yep. If you're below that, there's probably a couple of different factors involved with that. 1, they don't trust you enough. You might not be presenting yourself the way that should, right, or you're way too high, or they just don't have confidence in you that you can do it.
So at least by keeping those statistics you can sit back as a team and say, hey, why aren't we getting these? Right? Right. Then you're then you're asking the the client Chaz you give me an explanation of why we might not have been awarded this job? Right? Right. Yeah. We're always looking to get better. Can you tell us why? Wolfe, you were $25,000 higher than somebody else. Okay. Write that down. The numbers don't lie, right, over a period of time.
Time. So over a period of time, you're realizing, hey, guys. 70% of the time, we're higher than everybody else. Why is that? Yeah. Yeah. Well, in orange, I think maybe yeah. Go ahead. No. Sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off there. I was just gonna say that, you know, you're you're you're giving such valuable information, but it's just flowing out of you like like it just like, it's natural.
And so what what he's talking about here, I want you to really pay attention if you're listening now, I want you to hit pause and rewind it and come back because everything that he just gave, it seems so easy. Like, of course, you you you understand these things. You you write them down, you ask these questions, but the what he said with those most most impactful is that over a period of time, it basically tells the story data will tell a story over a period of time.
And so number 1, you gotta let the period of time happen, but you gotta make sure that you're tracking the data in that period of time so that you can look back and be able to understand the story that the data is telling you. So I wanted to make sure that they understood that. I've got a couple more questions here before before we wrap up, Justin. You're this is just So good.
Good. Good. Okay. So my my question to you around networking and mastermind groups, do you spend time networking with other entrepreneurs And or or do you mastermind with any other interference? I do. I I definitely try to find individuals that who I can tell that I perceive are smart, successful, both what I say spiritually and temporary. Right? I believe that they go hand in hand. Right?
Yeah. So I find individuals that I respect and then I and then take them golfing, take them to lunch, whatever it might be. Just bounce ideas off. We have set up an advisory board within our company. Right? So for those of that might be contemplating that, that's valuable input. Right? Yeah. Look towards where are the risks within your industry, whether it's legal, compliance, Right?
Whatever it might be, marketing, find individuals that you really respect, set up a board, and then come to them every quarter, every 6 months, present what you're doing, and get their input on what you're doing. Right? Yeah. Sometimes you're so involved. You just can't see the forest for the trees, but it's amazing sometimes when you put that information in front of board members, they smack you on the forehead and say, what are you doing? That's right. That's right.
Why are you why are you doing this? You're opening yourself up for liability here. Or are you guys not seeing the numbers I'm seeing that you're not very profitable or or whatever it might be. But Right. The board approach Chaz worked out fantastic throughout my career. Yeah. I love I love the idea of the board. In fact, we we didn't start out with this. Of gathering the Kings as far as this idea.
But as as the mastermind groups, specifically the 7 figure and 8 figure group has grown, that's been more of the language. It's this group of 15, 20, 25 other owners that are in a high level thinking, but in different industries, I can come to the table. I can bring my issues. I can bring what's working, what's not, and then I can get this feedback just like what you just said.
You just happen to have your own, which is just this incredible to have a board of directors of people that you know, they're in the grind or they're in the the building. They're in the the leadership. They're in the they're doing the thing that you're doing. You know? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It's just it's just really, really valuable input from from outside individuals, but find that trusted friend or 2 that's successful.
Like I said, spiritually and temporally and bounce ideas off of them. Ask them how they handle it in their industry. Most industries are similar, right, when it comes to the core of it. Right. We'll find out how they approach something. The other thing is, you know, when you're running into issues, it might not be something that you have to solve. Right? Look. Look outside of your industry for a third party group that might do it significantly better so you can concentrate on something else.
Right? That's right. Try and figure out, hey. Do I even need to be messing with this? And and if you don't, try and, you know, sub it out to somebody else to another group and let them handle it so you focus on something else. That's right. I love that perspective. Who not how? What book would you recommend Justin for? A 6 figure business owner who's trying to trying to level up Yeah. Well, I know I mentioned it earlier, but your next five moves is a fantastic bird.
I have read that multiple times and I've taken a lot of notes in that and I've looked back on different decisions that I've made that I could have done differently. And that's just a book that I've that I've always really enjoyed. And and having said that is is My personal opinion is we challenge ourselves as an ownership group that we need to be involved and all of our team members in continuing education. It's not an option whether or not you participate in a course or not. K? Right.
I'm currently in a real estate financing course. Our one of our partners is over preconstruction and estimating just went through a course with MIT. You have got to be a student of your craft. Right? Yeah. You've got to have the mindset that you don't know at all and get out there and learn new things. Just because it's worked well for you doesn't mean there isn't a a a nugget of knowledge Chaz can't take you to a different level. Yeah. And so be willing to read. Right?
And and to learn new things. So I love that. Okay. Justin, last question here for you. If you lost it all, and, obviously, you've done quite a bit. Mhmm. What would you do if you lost it all? If I lost it all, I would do the exact same thing I'm doing, but with a couple of changes. K. 1, as I said, I would trust my gut instincts more than I did in the past. 2, I would, as I mentioned, being able to to really finalize my my focused and say no more often. K?
But the most important thing that I would have done differently is I would have figured out a way to be building my own project significantly sooner than what I am now. Right? It took it took several years of building for other individuals. Before I really understood the process of building for myself. Now that we're we've had our own internal investments, I looked back and I think why in the world was I not building projects for ourselves early? Right?
And so I would have figured out a way capital raised, whatever it would have been in the beginning to partner with individuals. So that I could build as many projects as I possibly could where we had ownership in them. Yeah. That's what I Wolfe have done, Tiffany. I love the perspective. The humble approach that you've given here today, I I do not take it lightly. How can a listener who wants to connect with you? They wanna find you. They wanna they wanna reach out to you. How can they find you?
Yeah. Absolutely. So, obviously, they can go to our website, which is patriot Development.com. Our office number is 940-230 29100. My email address is on our website. I don't hide behind anything. None of us do. Our our emails are right there for you to send information. You can also send emails at info@patridevelopment.com. If you're interested in building a project, and you want somebody to walk that process through the city for you and the design. We'd love to hear from you.
And then, you know, obviously, once once you call the office here, they'll pass that information on to myself or one of the other group. And we'll personally come and sit down with you and and go through whatever project that you have, and we'll give you the good in the back, the red flags. Right? That you need to look at, love to excite assessments. So if you've got a project that you're looking that you're wanting to do, We'll sit down.
We'll look at Chaz, setbacks, easements, flood planes, utility locations, all of that, and we'll be able to tell you, yeah, I think it's doable for Yeah. You gotta run. You gotta run from that one. So Yep. I love it. I love it. Yeah. You've given us so much, not only opportunity to connect, but, I mean, think if people go back and listen to this one seven times over, they they they probably wouldn't have gotten it at all.
So you've given us value from decades of experience 100 of 1,000,000 of of of business. And so I just I just am so appreciative of of everything that you've done here today. We wish you nothing but success in all that you that you're up to. Chaz, I really appreciate appreciate the opportunity to be on here. And, yeah, I would love to answer any questions that you have or anyone else I'm here to help. Thank you for listening to Gathering the Kings today.
I hope that you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away. More importantly, though, I hope that you're realizing that it takes more to be doing it all on and multiple different industries and now interviewing literally over 2 or 300. Other very successful 7, 8, and 9 figure business owners is Chaz It's tough to do it alone. And so gathering the Kings literally exists to bring together successful entrepreneurs.
In fact, we are putting together 1 1000 kings, specifically who are grateful, but not done. We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, and communities, and here's what we believe Chaz in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy.
So if that relates and and resonates with you, and you know that you need people around you, sharp, qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to gathering the king's dot com. I want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 kings. Talk soon.