On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. That's why I didn't call this Brandon Cook Construction. I wanted it to be something homeland was home and land, obviously, but I wanted it to be something that you could be proud to go home and tell your wife and kids, heck, work for homeland, or I got a job with it, or he wouldn't believe what we did, or look at our billboard. I wanted it to be something you could grab on 2.
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 real of the real on what it takes to build a successful business today.
We dissect the good and bad decisions they've made along the way that give a true accurate 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 keys like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. What's up, everybody? Chaz Wolfe Gathering the Kings. I've got another king for you here on today's stage, Brandon Cook.
Welcome, my brother. How are you? I'm doing fantastic. If I was any better, I'd need a twin brother to share all this glory with. Haven't heard that one before. I think for a half second, that would be really cool to have 2 of me because then we could get a lot of stuff done. But then I think don't know if the world could handle the crazy. Do you do you feel similar to that? Yeah. No. I understand that completely. I'm always saying I need somebody I need another one of me.
I need another one of me, but then I started thinking, like, maybe I don't. Maybe not too much. Maybe Exactly. Yeah. I think we were made just the way we are for a reason. So Brandon, I'm so excited to have you here. Excited for the conversation. Tell us what kind of businesses that you have. I've got a couple of irons in the fire. Of course, my my main thing. My main company is Homeland Construction LLC.
So we do custom homes, land development, commercial restaurants, more on the custom side of restaurants as far as I used to do a lot of franchises Chaz now we do more niche stuff, like specific, crazy things stuff. That's cool. I do. We train road courses, stuff like that. It's called performance horse. It's another business of mine. I got a few little tricks in my sleep. 1st to 5. And I'm a go getter, man.
So if it if I can do it right, make a buck, make people happy, then those are my three coins of success. Man, if you can make money, people like it and you're happy, you're good. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Well, obviously, we can talk a lot about the construction space. But, yeah, man, even with the training and the horses and stuff, I think Chaz it's super applicable as far as, like, decisions making and how you're going about that business.
I think that you could pull in some of that here to the conversation as I wanna know before we get rolling. Obviously, you've done some pretty big projects, especially if you're in the commercial, a restaurant space, and custom homes, stuff like that. You've obviously had a certain level of success. My question's always the same at the beginning. Why have you done Why do you still do it? I would say the best answer for that is I'm just driven, man.
I've got other people's lives that that depend on me to be successful, and I was raised not very lucrative cash wise. We all worked really hard, and I just I got to a point to where, yeah, I can do the physical part. I'm strong. And I know how to do I can frame a house. I can do every trade on the job, but, you know, what was more applicable long term for your health and for your disability in life is the business part. So you can take all those things you know how to do.
And if you can learn the business side of it, then you can say driven. You can wake up every morning with a new goal and want to be able to provide all the things you didn't have. So I was driven by the fact that I have responsibilities And I love building. I love seeing a look on people's faces. It drives me to wanna get that next big home or that next restaurant or whatever it is. It pushes me when I hand on the keys and they're ecstatic and they've had a great experience.
It makes me wanna do it again and replicate it. Just get better every time. So I stayed driven, and I'm I will literally get up at 4 o'clock in the morning if I need to. And work till 3 o'clock in the morning, nap, and go do it again. I'm just I have a long battery on me. I'm thirty six years old, so getting a little bit shorter of a fuse, like, as far as start to finish goes. But Yeah. I'm just I'm a go getter man. I don't wanna look up and be fifty five years old and still have the same goals.
I wanna be able to not only elevate my family, but for all the people who dedicated their time and their loyalty and their desires and dreams along beside me. I wanna be able to elevate them. I'm a billionaire. I want them to be millionaires. And that's just my mentality. Yeah. I want everyone around may be successful. That's why I have been successful because I care about the people that stayed with me. And I know Chaz, and I value that. Yeah. 100%. There's a lot a lot going on in there.
I hear that you're driven. I hear that you care for people. Obviously, all those that are are major drivers it's funny that he said something in there where, you know, you are doing it almost subconsciously because you're just driven. And that you don't want different goal or you you want different goals of 55. You don't want the same goals. That made me think of a a moment in time when I was expanding my franchises and I had 3. And I was trying to open up 45.
And I was almost going to potentially start the next year in the same count or same space that I had ended the previous year or started the previous year, and it ate me up for a good couple of weeks. I'm, like, setting targets for the year. And it was just just a signature on a piece of paper by another franchise, but I had to get it done because that started the next year in a in growth or in a in another level. So haven't told that story to a lot of people, but that's what it made me think of.
Well, you're just like, no. I don't wanna have the same goals. That would just eat me alive. I don't procrastinate, man. I I've got something in front of me. I will figure out a way to to knock it down and get it out of the way and go on to the next thing. And it's something that could be a good and bad thing. You have to be careful with that kind of mentality because sometimes you get ahead of yourself, but 100%.
But in today's market, I feel like it's made for guys like me who worry and have anxiety, but not even in such a bad way. So there's there's ways to twist that and and make it good for you to not be full of worry, but be full of just discernment and knowledge and be able to apply that as you go and it helps you avoid the safe and make good decisions as you're moving and shaking. Yeah. I love what you said there because that's really what the show's about.
Obviously, we all make bad decisions we try to highlight those things so we can all learn from each other's struggles because we all have them. They're not gonna go away. But the reality of it is that success is it comes from not only just those failures of learning in the moments, but it's all the other Chaz good decisions, the discernment that you're talking about, They're not just making things out of Wolfe nilly. Let me just go for it. Let me shoot from the hip.
Yes. There's a lot of Chaz, but if you can have discernment, not necessarily worry. Love the language there because that's really what it is. It gives you a confidence to be able to move forward. It makes the unknown known in circumstances. Pretty light. Yep. That's right. Good. Okay. So how did you get started? Was it this business? Was it another business beforehand? How did you become an entrepreneur? So I've always had something going on even since I was a teenager.
He always had a kind of a huddle. I started out welding more than anything, but my dad, quite a bit, and a automotive man by trade, but he built houses here and there, did rock masonry, stuff like that. So I learned the trades young, and we would do it yourselfers. I think my first, like, actual business. I had a bar grill that a friend of mine wanted to get into. I had the remodeling skills. I went in there toward the place. I made it look really cool. The big place.
I did that for several years. And I got to a point where I started having kids was my main thing. I met my Wolfe. I had my first child. And I was like, okay. I can't do the 2 o'clock in the morning stuff. I can't do the tossing, fighting with drunk people, stuff like that. I Wolfe just want that lifestyle anymore. Was a successful business, but I was always doing, like, kitchen remodels or, like, building fences for people on the side anyways, because I could have a $1,000,000 in my pocket.
Cash, and I still wanna go make another 1,000,000, you know, just because of where I am, always hungry. I'm I I don't have a poverty mindset, but I have a I don't know what you would call it. I have a mindset of it. It's it doesn't have to be enough if you can get more kind of thing, but it's not just financially. It's just relationships and everything, but Yeah. So I had the bar and grill with a buddy of mine.
And then when I started my family, like, this is just not gonna fit the kind of data I wanna be the kind of person I want people to remember me at. So Yeah. I jumped both feet in and I started homeland construction in 2011. I think that 1st year, I was on every single job site single day for the 1st couple of years. I just kept getting better at the business part, building relationships, subcontractors. So I did what I said I was gonna do, and people knew Chaz. Knew I was gonna pay them.
They knew I was gonna show up. They knew I was gonna be a man of my word, and it just snowballed from there and just became bigger and bigger. And here I am today, it was We do. I think we did 25 Custom Homes last year. Probably 5 investment homes. Yeah. Spec homes. We call them here. I know what y'all call them there. Spec homes. For sale, a Land Development restaurant last year. I always set those goals. My 1st year in business, I was doing, like, remodels and pipe fencing and pool decks.
We can literally cover the whole index of construction projects. And I said, okay. Next year, I wanna build 2 custom homes, and I wanna get into My first commercial job was at a restaurant building dumpster gates and handrails outside. I got over there and got in good with the owners I showed up. I did what I said was gonna do. I invoiced what we agreed on, and so then they just started calling me directly.
So it just really launched me into that space, which was really good for me because it gave the big business side of construction. Yeah. They gave me the high dollar contract side Chaz I wasn't even ready for the time, but I had to make it so I could make 3, $4,000,000 projects, not even 2 years in in San Antonio and Hobbs, New Mexico and all these places for these massive franchises. Right. And, Matt, it's always my trick.
The business always project yourself with who you want people to look at us. And that doesn't mean being fake. That just means I see myself as the best builder and the best guy to do business with, and that's how I'm gonna project myself. Even if I'm not there yet, you know, even when I was smaller, I always it's always a let me get with my office. And, really, my office is in my shop, and it's a 6 by 10 rectangle that I frame and stuck a computer in.
But you always want to check your smaller to be a bigger business, I I think. So Yeah. I think it it what you're doing is you're playing into an unfortunately, what perception is it it's not you making a false impression playing off of what people's perception is of what success looks like. If you or I drove up in a Lamborghini, certain people would think certain things of us would call it what you want. I don't own a Lamborghini. I could buy one cash if I wanted to, though.
But, well, I don't need Chaz. But if I drove up in it, you would think a certain level of me, or maybe even negatively, because there's some negative connotation that goes along with that. But There is. Reality of it is is that there's perception. And so what I'm hearing you say, even in your journey, I wanna pull out a couple of things for the listener that I thought were just super applicable, is each year, you just took some time and said, okay. Like, here's what we did.
Here's what I wanna do now. And it wasn't this unbelievable, hey. We're gonna do 25 custom homes next year. It was, hey. I wanna get into this space. So I'm gonna I'm gonna make a couple moves. This year to get in that space. I'm gonna do a couple homes. I wanna get it made a couple connections.
And, of course, just even taking that time to then even Think about those things, let alone set those targets is really what propelled you even into the relationship side, which then led you into the contracts, which then, you know, before you were even ready, like you said, Anything to add there from the main I'm in here? So I would say you don't always hit every goal. Not anybody in business or any kind of sport or anything. No. No. Ashley. Is gonna hit every goal they ever set.
But I think without goals, without and I'm not talking about you have to, like, hold yourself accountable to the date I think that you get done as soon as you can, but I think setting goals was my biggest vision board up here to know, like, I hold myself responsible for that. It's like trying to be impressive for my lord and savior. He's never gonna be disappointed in me. But I still wanna impress me, and I wanna impress myself. I wanna look back and say, I did this, and I'm proud of myself.
And I think setting those goals and having those line out achievements of, okay, I wanna do this. I wanna do this. It really helps you groom in and consolidate those goals to an achievable point to where you can say, how do I get there? And you can go one at a time. And for me, I just I'm never you know, have to be disappointed in yourself as long as you're trying, but, damn, that's the way I'm wired. If I don't hit that goal, it'll drive me insane.
It'll just eat at me and eat at me and eat at me. So whatever I gotta do to get there, as long as you're keeping integrity and you're not manipulating, man, I say, do whatever you gotta do to get your goals Yeah. Yeah. With you a few minutes ago mentioned that you did what you said you were gonna do and people started to recognize that.
It's unfortunate that those things are so easily recognized in an environment where most people just don't, but even now knowing maybe even the source of why you wanna be excellent with your faith being involved in Chaz, for me, being excellent isn't necessarily always about being the best or the achievement. Yes. We're obviously high achievers, and we want to reach for the next thing in fill our potential, all that. That's how we're wired. That's how the lord made us.
But there's this likeness, like, what you're talking about as far as, like, I wanna impress. I wanna be excellent. Why why would I I wanna not be excellent? Is that a good representation? I'm no. I I'm only one thing truly in common, Chaz, and that's this, that every single man, woman, and child on this planet has the same amount of time in a day, you know, and I just don't believe in squandering my time. I won't do it. I'm not a sit down, veg out, watch TV all day kinda guy.
Honestly, I've gotten away from a lot of professional sports because I'm like, it's not nothing bad about him. I could I love baseball. I love the Texas Rangers fan. That's my thing. They're not paying my bills. You know, they're not gonna kiss my kids a good night. So why would I be glued to a TV when I out beyond getting it. Improving myself. If it's not in business and improving who I am as a man and learning, reading my Bible, soaking in advice from people who are wiser things like that.
So I I don't wanna, like, I don't wanna miss those opportunities because the TV is on or whatever it is. And that's just a general example, but Sure. If I'm up, I'm getting after it one way or the other personally or in in business space or whatever it is. Yeah. On the same vein that I've used the language, especially when I younger working in corporate America and in a sales environment. People come in Monday talking about the game and this, that, and the other. And did you get to see the game?
And I'd say I didn't. Oh my gosh. It was the fill in the blank, the Super Bowl, the NFL, or the the final 4. It was the whatever big game. Like Yeah. Bro. I don't last time I checked Wolfe wasn't on the back any of those jerseys. Exactly. It is on the back of my jersey, though. And what I was doing this weekend was rooting for Wolf. He wasn't at the game, though. So I had to, you know? I'll catch the highlight. Fine. I I love sports. I coach baseball every single year.
I'm on the board for the for our little league here in Weatherford and I love it, ma'am. I love promoting kids sports. Sports are very important for children. Team work ethic, all that stuff. I play them a whole lot at a high level. But at the end of the day, my favorite, you know, Texas ranger is not coming to my house to take care of me. So he's not supposed to. I'm taking care of me.
So I just fall a lot on that stuff to where entertainment is entertainment, and when it's time to get after, it's time to get. So I'm I don't like I said, I don't wanna look up and be 55 and still trying to get to the point I wanna be at because I've had 40. Yeah. Exactly. I appreciate the perspective, man. We're coming from Samcloth. I wanna know along the way here, specifically if you can go back to where maybe before 7 figures, because that's where the listener is. Right?
They're they haven't hit the $1,000,000 mark yet in revenue. I wanna know what was the biggest struggle for you in trying to get to that mark? I would say there were two things that kinda were not biggest hindrance. I would say that the number one thing was this confidence in the bid process. Whenever you've got somebody's home restaurant, their dream in your hands, you know, they're trusting you, you wanna do it Yeah.
And when you're first getting into that bigger project, Mark, it's it's really hard to bid with confidence that you're relying on some contractors on materials on time lines to make sure that these those plans. I'd say that on the business side of things, I would say that's the biggest thing is having confidence in your bid, willing to do the research. So you get a commercial set of plans, man. You're talking 70, 80 pages of spec books and phone calls for every one of them.
And and when you're unknown, when you're coming up, you just get you have to forecast yourself as bigger because of these people in New York or LA or wherever these materials are coming from, you don't have an account with them. We never bought with them. They're not invested in you. You're not they're not getting commissions off So you have to forecast yourself as, hey. Look, this is my first one with you guys, but look at all this other stuff.
We're looking I've got so many things going on, and I'll bring them to you. And I did do those things. You did get me right. But that was hard to get over that earmark. Even on the custom home side, you're going through and you're building secret passages into a library that they want out of white pine and they're they want a wine cellar or whatever it is, whatever astronomical thing Chaz just seems really big. And I remember my very first one was a rotating TV around a 365 place. On a motor.
And I was and I'm liking Wolfe anything, and I'm making a lot of track up. I researched this thing for 90 days, but I never showed the lack of confidence to the customer. Right. And I said, yeah. I got it. No problem. And, really, I was freaking out because back then, those TVs were $4 and the Fireplaces worth 30, you know, so I can't screw this up. And so there's things like Chaz. Challenging those challenges like that, having to bid confident on the business side.
I would say on the personal side of that to where the most difficult thing to get to that next earmark. I think you're building $200,000 starter homes or which does don't exist anymore. But, you know, or whatever it was stepping your game up and you start getting into that bigger structure, it's just being real because you're looking at a grown man and a woman in their eyes and they're trusting you to put a roof over their head. That's a big deal. To me, huge deal.
Your kids are gonna sleep in there. You guys are gonna raise the family there. That's a big deal to me. It may not be to everybody, but that is massive in my world. And so just being honest, And I think not being scared, to be honest, when something goes wrong, not sure how to accomplish something. That was my biggest jump. And difficulty to get over is having the confidence to just be incredibly real and transparent all the time.
I'm a trans parent guy with my customers because I want them to know, we're all human. We're gonna make mistakes, whatever it is, but just knowing that it's gonna be okay in business Chaz you're not gonna lose everything because you have one ticked off lady or man or whoever it is and knowing that, like, tomorrow will come and you will get another opportunity to be excellent.
Getting that those couple of humps right there is what propelled me from the the smaller tier, that 6 figure tier, and then that 7 figure tier and beyond. Yeah. Just being able to be called Yeah. So I was gonna I was gonna highlight a couple things. I heard, obviously, the confidence piece, and that was a mindset shift.
It sounds like it was also a knowledge base, like, getting the relationships with the materials understanding the customer journey and how to communicate that customer journey to to the client. So that way, they had confidence in you, but then also knew that it was a it's not perfect. You're gonna take good care of them, and then you're gonna be vulnerable.
I think some of those things, if you can put them all into whether it be your estimating sales process and getting all that kind of lined up knowledge and understanding, confidence. And then even the same thing, the knowledge, understanding confidence in your back end, which is your, really, your customer experience, but those are huge. And, obviously, a front end and in the back end of a business, and I relate to that. What would you say?
I wanna kinda get into your brain around decisions that you've made. Would you say is a good decision that you've made, especially maybe back then, the same time frame before you hit the 7 figure mark? What was it clear that you looked back, boom? That was something I I could do again. I would say on the just on a strictly business level of that, I would say allocating some responsibility.
When I started backing off the range a little bit, let's be honest, you know, nobody's gonna take care of your baby like you do. And this is just the the reality, and I'm okay with it. At the end of the day, there's very few people who are gonna ride it till the wheels fall off with you. If something goes wrong or something goes right, there's some things are going right. Everybody wants to be a part of it.
When things aren't going super smooth and money's tight, when mistakes happen, when jobs get whatever it is, whatever you could possibly go through in the business world, you're you really find out who's there to cut for you is the way I would put it. But I would say backing off of some of the control was my biggest jumping point of saying, okay. Because originally, I estimated I invoiced. I contracted I budgeted, I purchased, oversaw, everything.
Everything that this company did, I was involved with, and almost a 100% in control with just employees. Guys more like partners, more like, you're investing in this. And I and that's why I didn't call this Brandon Cook Construction. I wanted it to be something.
The homeland was home and land, obviously, but I wanted it to be something that you could be proud to go home and tell your wife and kids, heck, I work for homeland, or I got a job with it, or you wouldn't believe what we did, or look at our billboard. I wanted it to be something you could grab on to.
And I think having that mind shift, if it's just not me, it's gotta be the people around me and backing off of that control a little bit and allowing those guys that I gave control to to make some mistakes because they're human too. And we all live by that grace. So being able to say, hey. You handle invoicing. And giving someone control of the finances.
And that's really where the biggest jump in my career has been outside of the 6 to 7 figure, but just that and beyond was you know, just having a guy there that I trusted wholeheartedly, that I knew had smart financial sense, and being able to go, if you do this, I'll go do the stuff that I know. And that was huge. And it was an absolute game changer. That's when all the land development started.
The the investment properties, just really the super tall end of this game, which there's still multiple more levels than where I'm even close to. I could be out all over state to state, but control liquishing some control and having faith that you're it's gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay because you're doing the right things. Yeah. That's the hardest thing. Any business owner, anybody who is invested, because those guys can walk away. At the end of the day, they can look at a job at Walmart.
You're not giving your dream up like that. You know what I mean? At the end of the day, we're in this. I've got pools and trucks advertising in my name on the line, and I'm not a failure. So at the end of the day, everybody else can walk away and go start over, but it's not as easy for the guy with money on the line, but the name on it. That's right. That's right. Okay. Yeah. So good. I wanna I gotta follow-up question for you in that.
I wanna know in that good decision of relinquishing, how did you get to that place? Like, you're telling the listener right now to go relinquish, right, that he needs to let go of control. But what is the thing that he needs to experience that you experience? To tip him over the edge where he's, I don't have any other options to then but to give away control. So I can only look at it from my perspective Chaz, like, a family man ride because I have a Wolfe kids that I would absolutely die for.
I wanna spend every moment with them. And for the family man's perspective, what do you value more? What do you think your kids will remember? The fact that dad bought him a new bike or the fact that dad made it for football game or baseball game or whatever they're into. On the younger man side, maybe the single man side, I would say, do you ever wanna have that life?
Because if you don't give up control of some of these facets of your business, it's almost impossible to either, a, get it, or, b, keep it. Because nobody wants to be at home alone, raising your family without you. No no woman that I've ever met besides maybe a a special couple my wife is an amazing person, but Yeah. Worn out with me being gone all the time back in the day. So I was traveling, and so we had a sit down. I was like, look. I'm gonna I'm gonna take a pay cut.
I literally took a pay cut to back then to be able to hire more people, and you can't put a price on your time. And that's the thing is that you will not be able to price on the 6th birthday party. You won't be able to put a price on your first ballet recital. So defining that balance and figuring out. If you're driven to be a single guy or a single woman and you're okay with that, then go do you.
But I think that was my biggest motivator and my biggest head change was I would rather be an excellent businessman and also be an involved father. And so to do that, you absolutely have to find someone who you can trust to, at least to a certain level, to be able to allocate some of those responsibilities to.
Because if you don't, you will do them all And the further you get down the rabbit hole of that, the more business you have, the harder it is and the harder it is and the harder it is to relinquish some control because then all your eggs are in your basket. And if I could go back and do it again, I would have done it a year earlier. I would have sought out some people to come alongside me and treat them as equals instead of employees and be able to take some of that responsibility off my back.
But that's the thing is you have to decide what kind of man or woman you wanna be, and you have to do it you're young because you it's hard to hit that reset by when you're fifty. And at that point, potentially you've missed. It doesn't mean that you can't start over. You just said it's just a little bit more difficult. Yep. What about a bad decision? Take us to the dark place. So I would say, man, there's so many now.
I would say I got I won't name names, but I got into a what I thought was gonna be a golden opportunity years ago. It was right when I was kind of breaking that cusp of I'm a commercial and residential builder because there's not a lot of There's not a lot of guys can go out and build a $2,000,000 custom home and then turn around and be remodeling a restaurant or building a ground up restaurant the next week. There's just not a lot of companies do both. Yeah. But that was my goal.
So I would say in that space, trying to get that space, I took on a project that I knew here in in South Texas, it was a massive build and I knew that the budget was tight. I knew that wasn't a good fit for me. And, really, I wouldn't take it back because it changed who I was as a businessman and a man, honestly. I let my boundaries get pushed, and I let someone with a flyer. Sorry. I let someone treat me. I wanna use a nice word for it, but I let someone treat me like I less than who I was.
And I got into this big commercial project, and I knew the money was tight. I knew I didn't bid it high enough, and I went forward anyways. And I wanna say that after it was all said and done, I lost about $50,000 on that project. Yeah. But I learned a valuable lesson, a, If the numbers aren't there and I'm bidding at the wells as well as I can, I'm not gonna manipulate a number to get a job. I won't do it because if you have them manipulated to get it, you gotta manipulate to keep Right.
Yeah. And then I also learned to have my own boundaries and values. I will not let people talk to me, especially. Yes. Maybe your builder and technically, we're under contract, but I'm not your employee. And you have to draw that line. Now you can be friendly. You can treat people as equals. You can care about their story, their journey, their wants, their desires. But their problems or their stress cannot be yours. And this one job in particular just ran me at the flagpole it made me miserable.
I was gone 5 days a week. I've come home on the weekend. I miss everything. I think my daughter was probably 32. I would say too. This is probably, like, 2013. It was, like, my 3rd year end, something like that. And I was missing everything and I was just I was miserable and Yeah. To learn so many lessons off of that that I've implemented on every single job ever since.
And it it it was it hurt because if you wanna lessen the remember, let it hit your wallet because those are the lessons when it breaks you and you can't pay your bills and you're worried about how you're gonna play your employees. You will not forget that. If you make a mistake, but you figure it out and you move forward, you could maybe make that one again. But when it involves massive income loss like Chaz, you will never forget that level. Yeah. You're right.
We can we all know what that kick in the face feels like financially or just overwork wise, whether it's a project that takes us too long or whatever that burnout feeling, we've all felt that. The decision making process that you've got now, you you touched on a few minutes ago, but I wanna give you to be able to maybe just explain it when something comes across your desk now, whether it's a project, whether it's deciding what to do on your calendar with the family or not, or hiring.
Like, we got all these types of decisions. So what's the discipline or process that you fall in? Honestly, as simple as it sounds, 90% of everything that I do is just in deep prayer, ma'am. It really is. If I don't feel peace about it, I'll move forward. And there's been times where maybe I overthought something or a under thought something, and I might have shot myself in the foot, but I'm very confident in my face. And I feel like I lean on something bigger than me. And that's god.
And, I pray about things. And if I feel peace, usually, I'll I'll go to the next step. If I don't, then I'll I'll just say, hey, this isn't for me or I don't think we're a good fit or whatever. And I'm not scared to say that to people. I've turned a lot of them down, and it wasn't. You look on Facebook 6 months later, and the guys there's a horror story up or something like that because, you know, it's like, oh, talk Chaz book.
But my wife, my sounding board, and I trust her opinion, and I trust her level of discernment and faith. And just good hardness to to be able to say, hey. You're not you don't seem at peace with this, and that's important. Not everybody has it. So I would say and I know not everybody's Christian.
And so I in the business world, I feel like you you have to find some kind of sounding board to bounce those things off of that is maybe not directly involved, but they can go that doesn't sound right, or that doesn't have a good decision. I mean, the people you can trust, but that's usually my process, man. So you call me and say I wanna go to custom home. So there's obviously, like, a general list of questions we ask. How big is it? Do you have plan?
Yeah. Financing secured value blah blah blah. But, ultimately, it comes down to, I don't charge people for that first meeting because I may walk away, or maybe you will. Or maybe we meet each other or managers is not my guy. And that's okay. Yeah. I'm okay with Chaz, and you have to be okay with that because if you believe that you're putting out a good product that you're good at your job. And you have to also believe that not every project you can build.
And you gotta believe that if you pass on 1, there'll be another one I wanna And that's generally how I break it down. I try to get to I try to dig in with the people and go to customer, and then I just spend some time and prayer about it. Man, at times, I will say this. I've walked away from one home in my entire career. So one commercial job at one home is my only earmarked for walking away from them in a in a amicable way, contractually, but to a point where I was like, this isn't gonna work.
And it was the two rules that I broke that I have now Chaz I'll never break again, which was if I had to manipulate my numbers or myself, I'll have them manipulate it to finish it or keep it. Yep. And boundary. And then I'm not and then not spending that time in deep thought and prayer. I'm just jumping into something because we wanted it. And every time I've ever done that and not went through my problem, like, rigorously, I've felt, you know, a lot more stress or whatever you wanna call it.
Just a lot more anxiety about it. So I won't do it again, but I'm glad I'm fortunate for those lessons because now I don't have to go through that again. Because Exactly. Hopefully, the Yeah. Pop me upside the head once. I got it. Yeah. Yep. I'm not forgetting that. If it hits you in the pocketbook, especially, Yeah. That's when you really remember because now your hustle has to increase tenfold to get that back and then still take care of what's coming next. So Exactly.
Be incredibly overwhelming, man. And in today's market, people tell me all the time they're like, oh, I'm thinking about doing this and Chaz. I'm like, hey. Go get it, man. Go get it, but just know that this is a pretty hard market right now. It really is. And people are freaking out, even the people with 1,000,000 of dollars in their bank account are freaking out, because everybody's relying on my income from somewhere to oil and gas or Wall Street or investment properties or whatever it is.
And the taxes are up and the gas is up and the stock market and all this craziness on COVID and, oh my gosh, it's just been a whirlwind of Everybody's freaking out for, you know, what, 3 years something. Yes. You probably have your head on strength to do anything in the business space and do it well. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Hey, Kings and Queens. Chaz Wolf. I wanna talk to you about something that's super important to me. We put a lot of time and effort.
We, meaning myself and my team, into this podcast, into the content that goes out every single day. And if you have been getting any sort of value or insight from this, we want it to be able to reach other business owners too. So we would love if you would like, comment, share, leave a review, post, share again, all of the things. On social media, on all the different platforms, or even on the podcast mediums of Apple and Spotify.
We would love to be able to get our content into more hands more entrepreneurs so they can grow their business as quick as possible. Together, we are building a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses to new heights. So Let's do this. Let's help each other. Let's help each other grow. Chaz simple as that sounds, I wanna just echo that that Keep your head on straight.
And, really, what that means is that you've got a calmness about you in amongst the storm, whether it's prayer, whether it's a sounding board like you talked about, but there's that place of quiet where you that brings a confidence, a calmness of confidence to be able to see through the craziness.
And I think that it's spot on, especially for, the market that we're in right now, whether it's building, whether it's real estate, whether it's marketing, you name it, things are changing faster than they ever have before. So it's it's a it can be fun, but it it there can be a challenge, a big challenge. I wanna switch over our attention just to, I call them speed round questions, but it's a little bit different line of questioning.
Want you to take your entire business, and I want you to dwindle it down into one trackable metric. What is it? I would say customer service. Customer experience. We've done astronomically well with experience, and I think that's the main thing. That's the thing that I look at the most. It's not spending. It's not really time. It's yeah. At the end of the day, are these people happy? Are they giving us a positive review?
Would they refer us to their friends, their family, their cousins, their chance, whoever it is, can we because the whole point of business is to be able to repeat it. I don't want them to call somebody else when they build their next house or their next restaurant on my phone ring. Yeah. So customer experience, customer service is the number one most important thing in my world as far as business goes. Love it. What book would you recommend that a 6 figure business owner read?
Ma'am, I'll be honest with you. I don't really read books. I've never read any self motivating books. The only book I've ever really read, obviously, read books in my life. But Sure. I read the Bible. That's pretty much it. It's a pretty good one. There is not a question on earth or a situation you can get into that you can't find the answer for. There's just not. I'm a Bible guy. And if I read anything, that's what I'm reading in some scripture.
It motivates me, makes me feel peace, and you gotta have that calmness to to make it today, I think. So I love it. Love it. K. And do you network or mastermind intentionally with other entrepreneurs? I do. I'm always looking to build relationships. I'm I'm always looking to either, a, outside of the vendor's prospect of any suppliers, stuff like Chaz. I always try to my subcontractors really well. I always try to make new friends. If I'm at Home Depot, I just met him.
I was at Home Depot 30 minutes ago getting stuff for these guys. And walked into an electrician. Hey. I'm looking for an electrician. Oh, man. He had a he looks had a nice shirt on. He had 2 guys with him. They weren't cursing in the aisle. They were talking Lee. I like that. And I'm like, this is the kind of guy. Because the guy that's in Home Depot, the Builderton Home Depot that's frustrated that's spending money, is that's who the real guy is. That's usually the his purest form.
He's not in on a job. There's not a customer there. He can just do what he wants to do. I always pay attention to people. In places like that, like at Home Depot or, like, anywhere that mostly Home Depot, but Chaz you can walk into in a public place and you can really see the cashier. I just always pay attention to that, but I'm constantly now. I'm always trying to make that next connection and we'll get that that next company on the book if I can make sure that I have plenty of resources.
If my guy's busy, I can call somebody else, but, yeah, we're doing stuff. We actually started a builder's association Parker County that I chair. And I haven't gotten it super off the ground yet. I'm selecting board members right now, but I wanna do that because there's like these greater Fort Worth and, like, Dallas and all this stuff. And we don't have one here, but we have we have just researchers, but there's a lot of people moving here. And we're not a small place by any means.
We're not a big place by any there's a lot of people moving. Sure. So don't create your network. Yeah. Try to create and honestly be able to maintain that network and bring my vendors in, my Windows supplier, my plumbers, something like Chaz, elevate those guys as Wolfe, who have been good to me, who have been there, done their job well, helped elevate my business, put them in front of some other people to work. They can grow. They can buy another truck and put a crew in, whatever it is.
Like I said, in the very beginning of this chat, I want if I'm doing really well, then I need them to at least be doing really, really, really well right underneath me, if not at the same measure. You know what I mean? Because Yeah. That makes me you're surrounded by successful people. You don't have a choice but to be successful. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. You're, influenced greatly by the people that you spend time with, for sure. Alright. Last question here.
Brandon, if you lost it all today, what would you do tomorrow? Go do it again. Same thing. Same industry. Same service. Would probably make the same mistakes, honestly. No. I would do it again, but say something catastrophic happened, and I wasn't able to be on a job site or use a computer or whatever it was. I would go do it again. I have a passion for handing people the keys, man. I love it. I love it when your kids walk into their room. Like, oh my gosh. My closet's so big.
Or look at this game room or whatever it is or, you know, look at our pool or whatever measure that they're excited about in their new home or whatever it is, especially in the restaurant part, because then if I build a restaurant, I get to bring my family back to there. That's right. But And you get to tell your kids about it. Yeah. Like, we took a trip to San Antonio recently. I built this massive restaurant, and I called the Rustig. It's huge. And it's so very custom, incredibly custom.
My my wife and kids have never seen it. And we went down there to go to I don't even remember what we're doing down there. We went there for a couple of days. I don't even know what we're gonna do. However, no, it's the world. Gotta go to rest. Yeah. And they're like, and my wife actually was like, hey. Let's go to that restaurant. You go down here. I was Okay. And I walk in and people are like, oh, hey, Brandon or whatever.
And, they see all this crazy stuff that we did, and it's just something you can hang like, dad built that. I not only built that, but a lot of that I designed. Yeah. And I think great price. So I would 100% build it again. If I lost it today, maybe a different business name. I don't know. But I would build it again, and I do. It's been hard to enjoy it in in recent last couple of years because it's so stressful.
Yeah. But at the end of the day, man, you had a family of keys at their luxury home and Right. It is a feeling like you're in control of Chaz. And there's just nothing better. Yeah. I don't think. No. I told you before we hit the record button here Chaz I had just got done building a home. And so everything that you've res it's said, I've been on the other side of it the last 19 months.
And our builder had the mindset that you have of that moment of handing me the keys and being prepared for that and ready for that and journeying me or journeying even with me to that moment of here you go. I think things would have been very different. And not that we had this god awful experience, but it was this struggle. And I think a lot of it would have been solved by the things that you've mentioned, the customer journey, the experience, caring.
I don't think he didn't care, but it's a matter of that moment. It's the moments. And that's what that's really what I've taken away from this entire thing. If I could summarize everything that that you're big on the moments. In the business, with your family, this, Chaz, like, you're creating moments, memories from the moments even, but you've gotta create the moment of handing in the keys is everything.
And so then there's gotta all these other things that line up for this moment to take place. And I think that it's something that, gets missed a lot. In business. So I hope that listener takes that away. It does. And if you're in my space and my space, if you're in the construction world, especially, haven't heard that praise. Yeah. You guys won't they'll be like, what? My spell. What are you talking about?
Well, if you're in the custom business of anything, whether it's making custom cakes, building a custom home, custom this, custom that that the show will go on. You will you cannot make everybody happy. You you can try, but you cannot drive yourself crazy. You cannot forfeit all of your mental fortitude, your piece, to accomplish gold that may never be possible.
So being able to realize that be okay with that is big way to make yourself successful, I think, is just knowing that you're not gonna hit a home under a time, but I can get on Yeah. That's right. Brandon, you've been incredible. How can the listener connect with you? Maybe they have a project that they want you to build. They got a big old restaurant in Texas or something. How can I find you? So, obviously, we have a Facebook page. It's Homeland Construction. Mine is pretty recognizable.
It's, stars and stripes. H logo, you'll see it around the the Greater Fort Worth Area, Homeland, Build, BY LDS.com Chaz our website. All my information's on there. It's Brandon at homelandbills.com. If you got any questions or wanna reach out for a project, you can go to info at homelandbills.com. Yeah. I'm around. I'm not hard to find, so I'm not shy. So if you call me, I'll we'll probably have a great talk and go from there. Yeah. We'd love to hear from anybody. Sitting.
Maybe you got a question. I'm never afraid to help somebody else. Another builder, whatever. I put it for a minute, and people call me all the time, like, okay. You gotta do this. Go back over there. FaceTime me. I'll show you how to fix it. Yeah. I'm not a I don't hold all my cards close to my vest. I'll put it out there, man. I want everybody to be successful. Yeah. That's the other thing that I didn't say it earlier, but since you brought it up again, we just had a natural conversation.
The other thing I got from you here today was just the abundance mindset that you operate in. Abundance for yourself, abundance for others, even in this case here, wanting to help other people across the country. I think it's incredible. Dude, we have we wish you nothing but success. Blessing on your business, your family, your horse business, all the other side gigs, your family, your your children, all of it, dude.
I'm just so thankful that I got to have you here and get to know you, and we'll you the conversation as well. Thank you for being here. I'm thankful too. I appreciate it very much. 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 successful than just being by yourself doing it all on your own, carrying the weight all by yourself. What I have realized, not only in my own journey from multiple businesses and multiple different industries and now interviewing literally over 2 or 300. Other very successful 789 figure business owners is that 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 gatheringthekings.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, talks in.