You can never actually know how to pivot, and you're gonna get stuck in that position where it's like, I need to raise my prices because it's costing me more money, but clients won't pay me more money. It's like, well, to your point earlier, Tyler, like, maybe you don't need to raise your prices. Maybe you just need to do another job, honestly, maybe you need to do less. Yeah, maybe you're taking on more work and doing more volume, or maybe
you're reducing your team and doing less. Welcome back to the modern craftsman podcast, guys. I'm in South Carolina today, and Tyler, I'm in New Jersey. My family is in New York. We're all over the place today. No, I've set up shop. Tyler and I are chatting solo today. We know you guys like these episodes, but we start by going down a Zillow. Can we say Zillow
on that? Yeah, we will say it and seeing what our first homes, what we sold them for, what they're worth today, but more importantly, how that market is impacting us as builders, as remodelers, as contractors. What does that mean? You know, homes are getting more expensive. You know, in my area, I have clients ask me, how the hell does it cost $1,000 a square foot to build a home? Well, on one hand, I think talking in square foot prices. You're, you know, you're, I'm part of the problem
by telling them that. And the other hand, well, as we know, materials are still volatile. You know, labor is more expensive, building codes are more strict, and there's a huge difference between building a commodity product and building a custom home, and people just still seem to not realize that, yeah, but I think it also it leads to a conversation about how business and life has become so much more expensive, and how
are we offsetting that in business? Because I think that we're getting to a point where we just can't continue to raise our prices to remain competitive. So what are you doing to remain competitive, but not cut from your bottom line, and how we need to do that and what we can be implementing to help offset the increased cost of living and being in business and guys, before we get into this episode, make sure you head over
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discount. Quick note here, Nick and I are hosting a free zoom workshop next Friday, May 9, at 3pm Eastern, standard time to walk through our business vision and scaling plan worksheet, the same one that we shared with everyone on our email list will go through the entire document together, answer your questions and offer insight as to how we're using it in our own businesses. If you don't have that worksheet yet, make sure to
sign up for the newsletter. You can also grab that worksheet and register for the workshop on our Instagram profile at modern craftsman pod, just click on the story highlights and get the worksheet under the free highlight, and you can register for the workshop under the workshops highlight. Again, it's free, but you do have to pre register through that Zoom link, so hop on register today. That is next Friday, May 9, at 3pm Eastern, Standard Time. Yeah, I haven't been it's been on
Rachel's list. I don't know. I feel like we only go away once or once or twice a year. Yeah. I mean, we probably, we probably go away more than that. We because we came down here in 2021, and Meg came down for a month, and I was flying back and forth. But I'll like the visual is so clear in my mind. We went to a brewery that had, you could bring your dog, and it was all fenced in, and it was dogs and kids and people just hanging out, and just everyone was
happy. And we were just like, this does, doesn't exist in Massachusetts, and I'll never forget we were leaving, and this guy pulls in and, like, I'm just gonna call it a hoopty, like, yeah, an old, like, rusted, like, drop top, I'm not even sure, probably a Lincoln or a cattle. I don't know what it was. And I'm backing up, and he honks at me. And I was like, Dude, I didn't even, like, I didn't even see him. And I put my window down. Like, hey, sorry. He goes, it's all good,
man, it's all good. So, you know, I was there, and I look at Meg, and she goes, Why is everyone so fucking nice? Yeah, it's like, it just, it's so bizarre. And we were driving, so we drove 13 hours home, and we came home we sold, that's when we sold our house. And really, I remember, I remember that after COVID That you were, like, considering opening up something in South Carolina, yeah, and
so, and we just, so we flew here. This time we flew because we're only here for two weeks, and it's like, so fast in the air, like the plane, it's so easy to get out of CHS and, you know, right into Charleston. And it just like, it's nice. But, I mean, every day we have the conversation, and it goes back and forth. It's like, no, like we really have a good school. And like, we love New Hampshire and blah, blah, blah. And then yesterday, she, I think she, she must have rented the grocery
store or something, and she messaged me. She goes, how about we make a deal? I'm like, yeah, what deal are we? Are we talking about right now? She's like, if Marley doesn't get into the high school she wants, will move. I'm like, that's such a wild Yeah, thing to say, right? I'm like, I can't, no, I'm not having this we're not having this conversation right now and far away, it's a cost of living decent down there, less than Boston. It's
definitely less than Boston. Yeah, it's definitely less. But it was like, it spiked pretty it was like, the number one. A spot that people moved from the either New York or the Northeast or something like that, yeah. So it's, you know, I mean, we're in a pretty, I mean, it's a nice, we're in Mount Pleasant. It's a nice neighborhood. You know, the homes aren't overly, I mean,
like we're in inland right? And the homes aren't, you know, they're very average, but it's still, like, you're still 800 to a million bucks for like, a, you know, a typical, like, two maybe three bedroom ranch. So it's
insane. I was just talking to my older brother, so after college, he had owned a place in West Philly that he made a little bit of money on he bought a house in, like, a suburb to Philadelphia, and then he took out a 15 year mortgage, so he's five years older, four years older than me, and he just paid off his mortgage. And I was like, his wife was like, Oh, now
we have a bunch more money to spend. And I, like, he bought his house 15 years ago, so and like, it wasn't, it's not a crazy house or anything, just like an average suburban development type of house from the 80s. And I was like, how much more money can you have at this point you have two kids? Like, it's so expensive to live. He's like, we still have taxes and all that, and taxes are high near us. So he's like, maybe
we'll save an extra like, 1500 bucks a month. I was like, if you told somebody who is 20 to 30 years old right now that you took a consolidated 15 year mortgage and paid off a house in 15 years and your like, principal and interest was only $1,500 a month, they would probably want to kill you, because that's just insane and unheard of today. We didn't pay that much for our house when we bought it eight or so years ago.
I think that we overpaid when we bought it, but still like the fact that we couldn't get into a newer house without paying substantially more, and I feel like we also consolidated our mortgage some so we took a shorter term. And taxes are pretty expensive, and like our our payment is relatively high. We have a good interest rate, but it's just like expensive, and to think that we couldn't upgrade without spending more, is somewhat insane. Yeah,
it's nuts. I It's It's funny, you mentioned your first house. I looked at my I like, zillowed my first house the other day, and they sold it in November, and they sold it for 200,000 more. And I really like, I bought it for, like, one, I think I bought it for 175 and I sold it for 250 and, I mean, I put probably 15,000 into it, or something like that, which then,
and, you know, it was a 20 by 30 cape. It the 30 grand or the 15, I don't remember what I remember, I just said, but it was probably 15 or $20,000 renovation I put into it, yeah, that went, that went pretty far. And I was like, oh, man, they sold it for, you know, just over 450 I wonder what they did to it, nothing, yeah. I was like, Oh, they just planted the lawn that I never got around to doing. I'm like, Meg's like, of course, that was 10 years ago. I was like, That was 10 years ago,
yeah, and it's just, it's crazy. So then I went down a rabbit hole. I was like, looking up all my friends Homes and my childhood home. And it's just, I mean, crazy. We bought our house in our first house, let's see. I guess it was 2010, and we bought it for one years ago. Yeah, we bought it
for 176, five. It was 1000 square feet, bungalow, one bathroom, single floor, living, and I put $60,000 into it, like, of actual, like, hard equity material, not any labor, like I spent $60,000 and when we went to sell it, it was 2000 and let me see, I'm looking it up right now. I think it was like 2018 or so. 2017 and we, we, like, had to sell pretty quickly because Rachel was pregnant with our second and we needed a bigger
house. So actually, we never listed it. It sold. And when we went to sell it, it was, I think we sold it for 238, so I, like, basically, I don't even think I broke even. I probably lost money on it, but when we would labor, yeah, I mean, but just, like, just as far as finances go, like, I spent more on it than we got back. Um, so our realtor was like, it was never on the market. Somebody bought it. They wanted to buy it. And was like, Hey, I. Heard you're interested in selling your
house. They bought it. And our realtor was like, she wanted us to list it for 220 and I was like, I have way more into it than that. And this guy offered us, like, 240 or something, 238 and I was like, I talked to our realtor, and she's like, I would, I would sell it for that. Like, I don't think it'll praise for that much. And I was like, okay, whatever. So we figured she knew what she was talking about. We sold it for 238 and then, literally, a year later, the dude resold it for 299,
without doing anything. And it was 2019 so it was still before COVID, yeah. And I was like, Yo at that point, 20. We had two kids. I was 30, so I could definitely use an extra $70,000 or $60,000 I was so pissed, I texted my realtor, and she's like, how you doing was like, a lot better if I didn't think that we left 70 grand on the table when we just sold our house. And she never responded. But then, of course, dude, it,
it sold again in 2019, for 310 Yeah. And then it's listed at 467, five, right now it's 11 140 square feet, yeah, 464, 6811 140 square feet on a quarter acre lot. Yeah, dude, it's like, it's, it's the same as mine. I think I'm gonna pull mine back up. So this is so funny. So it recently. I'll give you the numbers too that you just gave me. So I bought it in 2011 for 175. Sold it for 249. In 2014 man, I had that thing for three years. It's crazy. And then in
2024 it sold for four. No, I'm sorry, it was listed for 425, and it sold for 455. Insane. So someone sold it for 30,000 over, I bought it for 30, 30,000 over, asking, it's 768 square feet, one bed. Dude, could you imagine? One bed? Two bath. Hold on, what? So what does that work out to square footage? Wise dude, I was it was 592 a square foot. That's like,
I bought it for 228, a square foot. But I'm wondering where is there that usually, oh, yeah, yeah, point four acre lot, yeah, ours, ours was 50 by 125, um, yeah, this is like $300 uh, no, that was 300 Yeah. This is about four estimated payment. $2,900 yeah, this is almost $500 a square foot. Yeah, it's fun. I always, I have, like, emails from Realtors come in. I'm always looking at real estate. Not that I ever buy any, but I'm
always looking. And I just saw some. I have friends who have been looking for houses who are younger than me, and I'm like, Oh, this one's 360 that's not bad, like, for our area, that's something affordable, and I look at it and it's one bedroom, one bath, 500 square feet. This square footage. Cost on this is insane. It is like a total turd dude. I think, I mean, let's, let's relate that to, you know,
building. I think this is, like, a huge issue that we continue to fight, like, as building and remodeling contractors, you know, everyone's like, Why does a house actually cost $1,000 a square foot? It's like, why? Like, it's, you know, it comes up constantly. It's like, I want to, you know, we talk to clients, they're like, Oh, our budget's $500 a square foot. It's like, you're not, you're not building a custom home. Like you're it's just not it. I'm talking specifically Boston, but
like, that's not obtainable. And someone that tells you that they can build you a custom home for $500 a square foot is not giving you the product that you actually want. The thing that's also crazy to me is that, like, if you look at $500 a square foot, obviously this includes the land, but it's this how that our first house was built in 1920 so it's 115
years old. It's small. You can expand from a zoning perspective, it was like, okay, but it's not a super nice house, and it's not a super nice neighborhood, and to think like, you're gonna have to invest $500 a square foot for this house, and then you you expect to be able to build something for that that same price is somewhat insane to me as well, where it's like, the most expensive option that you have is to build a house, yeah, Like when you look at, should we build and
renovate? You know, should we buy land? Like, the most expensive option is to build custom and new, and the fact that, like, Hey, you can't buy a dump for $500 a square foot or less. Like, how are people going to build for less than that? Yeah, it's, I make so many real. Differences, especially recently, I've been talking a lot about the the auto industry, and specifically, you know, the ultra premium vehicles, the
hyper cars and things like that. But it's the same thing with with homes in general, is that there's a difference between, you know, a Ferrari and a Toyota Corolla, that they both do the same thing, but, you know, one is built to a completely different spec. And I think that people, when they, when they talk about homes, they don't think about it the same way.
It's like, you're buying a Toyota Corolla. It's like, but you're asking for, you know, a Ferrari or, or you're or, even worse, like, you're asking to build a custom car from scratch, yeah, like building a car, like, if anyone's ever built a custom car, unless you're doing it yourself, and you're wrenching on that thing yourself, it you're talking multiple six figures to build a custom car ground up.
I mean, I would, I would be curious, from like, a man hour perspective, like the comparison between building a house and a custom car, because I would say that, like, there'd be more man hours into building a house, just on the amount of hands that it takes to do that work. Oh, yeah. Well, I think that also has to do with scale. Yeah, you can, you can bet you can pack in 50 bodies to a vehicle. I mean, to a house, you can't do that on a vehicle, yeah? Well,
clown can. Clown car. Clown car. Yeah, you can. But, like, I think not at the same time, what happens with the auto industry? And I think this is again, like, going back to something I preach a lot of, like, off site construction and manufacturing, but you think about, when you're building a custom car, it's, you know, there it's usually a collection
of parts, you know. And usually that custom shop will have maybe sheet metal fabrication and or machine shop, and they're, they're manufacturing parts, but they're also buying a lot of parts. And sometimes they come in and they're modifying them, but they're sourcing, kind of like, let's source the best of the best, and then you flip that to, you know, again, Toyota Corolla, like their, their entire thing is, you know, sourcing the most economical parts, and then doing it at
scale, and, you know, through an assembly line. And I think that when you look at the neighborhood that is built, you know, you know, kind of on, whether it's on spec or they're building, you know, track homes. You know, all of that has been centered around, like, how do you build the most efficient way
possible? And the, I mean, obviously, the unfortunate part, like when you hear the word track home, is, you know, there's all these litigations around some of these massive home, home companies in the US that these homes are building to such sub par quality, which sucks. And, you know, I don't know. I can't sit here and say the reason is because, but I can't help but to think that, you know, homes are become the the standard for homes are continuing to rise, which they
should, but they're trying to keep the cost the same. Well, that's what I was just actually thinking. As you were saying that I almost feel as though many of us are being forced to scale in order to remain competitive. And what I mean by that is when I think of a custom home builder, or even just like a new a new home builder, it could be anyone. When the cost of living goes up, not only for our clients, but for ourselves, like insurances go up, the cost of being in business goes up.
Have you like over I know COVID, post COVID was super hot, and the Mark was hot, and everyone could start increasing their
rates, and they were busy. But as things now settle down, and the stock market's taking a huge dump, so people don't have as much equity and investments, you know, they're kind of tied into their houses and their mortgages, or if they're buying a new house, they're over investing, like people aren't willing to pay more for the work, and I would, I feel like it's a hard you would have a harder time right now just saying I'm gonna raise my prices, or I'm going to increase
my margins, because it's becoming overly competitive. Yeah. So, so what are the what are the options like, you put more work in place, hire people who are able to perform the work at a lower cost and do more of that work to offset that. Like, what you can't just say, Oh, I'm just gonna raise my prices. No, I think that comes back to, I mean, I feel like we're just dropping buzzwords here, but it's all the systems and
processes, right? I want to address something you said, I do not think the answer is finding people that are willing to put the same work in place for cheaper. I think that that is just, I think that's always been a huge issue, and it's, you know, and I think that that is taking advantage. Advantage of a trade base or an individual that is willing to do it for little to no margin. And I've said it before, is like, that's fine, while the market's great, but the moment the market's not
great, that person doesn't survive. They don't have a nest like, and sure, the argument can be like, well, shame on them for not charging me more. Like, if they don't want to charge me more, I'll do it. I'll hire them. That's, you know, we have guys that are inexpensive, and we've had conversations with them, they're like, No, we're good. Like, I'm I'm making the margins I want. Like, I'm just, you know, all right, then they have a system in place that they're hitting their margins
and doing it inexpensively. But I that's all fine and good, but like, when it gets to a point where customer you can't raise your prices more, you need to make more money to offset the cost of you being in business, like my insurance right now, for a van and a truck with me as being the only drivers, is $10,000 a year just for a single van, that's a 2015 and a truck that's a 2021 like it was Never when I first went into business, it was like $3,000 yeah, it's,
it's getting incredibly expensive to be in business. So, like, and you can't raise prices anymore. There's people out there who are hungry. I don't think the answer is to go do that, but it's inevitable for people to go, like you, unless you're just going to work for less money, you have to find ways to cut costs. You can shop around on insurances. You can try and squeeze every bit out of each client, or possibly increase your margins a little time. But like what up people
could start slamming people with change orders. What else are you able to do in a hyper competitive industry, other than try and reduce your costs in one way or another, like I don't think it's the answer, but I do think that that's probably what's going to happen here shortly, even more than it already has.
Well, I think so. We've been in that position, and frankly, there's some truth to what you're saying that we're in that position now, where we have gotten we're in a hyper competitive market because we're basically going after projects that, you know, the the quote, unquote market thinks that we're not, you know, prepped for we haven't been around long enough, right? Like I've talked about before, I lose projects to guys
I've been doing for 4050, years. Can't control that, you know, I've been in business for the amount of years I've been in business, right? So we, we've done all that. We've looked at all right, let's, let's look at, I mean, we've looked at every single transaction that went in, out of the business and said, Let's just get super lean and cut anything that we don't need. Let's just find a way to be super competitive on our on our
overhead so we can shrink that overhead. And it's not like, at the end of the day, it's like, okay, you know, we shaved 3% big deal. Like, it's not, it's like, Well, okay, well, do we shave marketing? It's like, Absolutely not. Like, if we, if we kill marketing, then then the momentum is gone, yeah. Like, so that that doesn't go away. So for us, it really got to a point where we just kept looking at, you know, all right, we, we're
in a competitive market. How do we position ourselves to be different, and how do we get considered for these projects and ultimately win these projects? And that's where it's, you know. We, we started building out, hey, what our client? I'm just going to dub it our client experience would look like that was all well and good, but what happened was that we had, we were putting so much effort into that where it's like, we cool, we have the whole client experience. We've got our
communication down. We've got our document control down. Anyone that's working with us sees it, understands it, appreciates it, values it, everything and and, but we're also trying to get new clients to understand it. And that's a that's a huge learning curve to teach someone really quickly, like, here's the difference between that guy and us, and not every client values it. And what the what I realized was, is that the biggest mistake I was making is that I was trying to force
that into clients that just would never value it. Yeah. So, you know, we were, we got to a point where we were, you know, we were taking on projects because we needed to take on projects in order to continue to keep the revenue where we needed to hit our gross profit. Blah, blah, blah, blah, or so, I thought. And that led to us really looking at all, right, why don't we, why don't we project all this out? Why don't
we sit here and understand? Like, you know, it's one thing to say we need to sell, you know, we want to do ten million this year. Okay, well, what is that, based on how many projects is that? What's the gross profit on those projects? You know, what's your team look like? Does that mean you need to hire people? And if you hire people, are they fully burdened, or are they going to add to your your overhead? Now you need to do $11 million like, where's the you know, how do you, how do you
actually understand how to scale? And that's where it all came back to, like, first things first, we need to understand exactly where the business is today. We need to understand, you know, what levers we pull and what happens when we do pull that lever. And. You know, and most recently, we built out this kind of cash flow forecast of what our projects look like and and where they trend, like, where that project starts and finishes, and the projected amount of cash that we'll
collect for that job. And you do that for all of the active projects, and then you look at it in a year, what your target is for the revenue in a court, in your quarter, in your month, and then you'll clearly see it's like, wow, that that month is really light and and I know it sounds super Elementary in some ways, but that like until you have that in front of you, looking at it every single day, and understanding exactly like what cash is coming in versus the cash that you are required
to spend regardless of the project. Like you're a true overhead. You're you can never actually know how to pivot, and you're going to get stuck in that position where it's like, I need to raise my prices because it's costing me more money, but clients won't pay me more money. It's like, well, to your point earlier, Tyler, like, maybe you don't need to raise your prices. Maybe you just need to do another job. Or, honestly, maybe you need to do less or
less, reduce that. Can I Can I just make Sorry, I'm gonna interrupt you just for one second because I talked about
this. I think I've mentioned in one of our emails recently, but someone drilled in my head years ago that if you ever reduce your company, like if you reduce the man, the the people on in your business, and you start scaling down, that you were doomed to go out of business if you scale down, yeah, yeah, and I'll never, I don't know who it was, and I, and I wish I did, because I would call them and curse them because ever like I heard that one time, and it fucking like it irresponsible
for all of my sorry, I can't fire them if I reduce I go out of business. But it like it has stuck in my head because, you know, I, you know, we shrunk like we shrunk our revenue because we were in a position where we just weren't being profitable as we grew and we and that's, I mean, what led us to restructuring our
processes and ultimately scaling our business correctly? But yeah, like, to your point, yeah, maybe you're taking on more work and doing more volume, or maybe you're reducing your team and
doing less well. The what you were just describing about understanding how much work you need to put in in place and why is amazing, but that constantly needs to be monitored, and from year to year, like, what you don't what a lot of people don't understand is okay, like, this year, we need to make more money, so we need to put ten million into work in place, where we are previously doing 8 million. You have to know what it cost you to
put that additional amount of work in place. And like, even if, even if you plan to put the same amount of work in place, from like, a labor perspective and a man hour perspective, from year to year, it's going to cost you considerably more, especially in today's day and age. Like my insurances have
gone up 1000s and 1000s of dollars. So if you're somebody who has a dozen employees, two dozen employees, and you want to put the same amount of work in place like you're going to make less money if you sell and sell the same amount of man hours, if you don't account for what costs have changed from year to year. So like, not only do you have to understand what's going into
that, but you have to understand how that's changing. And there's there's times where it makes more sense to do less, and that you will actually make more money doing less work. And I think that a lot of I have the conversation with people all the time, because most people who resonate with me, or want to hop on a consulting call with me, or look for advice from your people who are looking to have a more lean business style and
approach. So I have this conversation with people all the time where, like, the answer isn't just doing more revenue or selling more because a lot of times again, without proper systems, without understanding the consequences of selling more work, you don't know if that's going to make you any more money. So, like, you're assuming all of this liability, all this risk, and also just spending time chasing more work and selling more work when it's not actually beneficial to you and
your business. And I think you know, understanding that, understanding those numbers specifically, like, if you do this, what does it do to my business? That was something I struggled with for a long time, because I, you know, truthfully, we have built this. We'll call it a Financial Dashboard for our business. And
it and it was so complex, like I was trying to under. Stand everything, deposits, you know, line of credit, debt, you know, income per month, you know, it just it got to a point where, like, it got so complicated that I remember going in there one time and I had tried to update something, and it was just like, screwed. Like, way too much going on. And we for years, like, I remember, you know, my previous CFO that I would work with couldn't get there, and Tim, who's with me now, you
know, has a controller. Like, have put this on him and and to date, now we have something. Now we look, now we can look at something and really understand. And they're, it's simple. It's just understanding what happens when you do when you add a project or you don't get a project, and and gives everyone include, like Julian is head of operations, like he needs to understand, you know? And now he does, like, Okay, this is how much work I need to get in place per month. These are the
projects that we have. In order for us to hit our target, I need to complete this much work, and it's in and we've simplified it to a point where, you know, we all look at it, we know what we have to plug in, and we understand what it does. And we and we are collectively moving that, you know, moving towards that goal, and I'm just, I'm sharing that forever. It was just it felt so complicated, and I felt as though I just was never gonna get there. So I just kept throwing shit at it and
just, grow, grow, grow, hire, hire, hire. People, put them there. We have the work. It's like, sure, you have the work. But do you really need that person to actually do that work? Or could you get by being a more lean operation? Or would, or would that award you to be more profitable as a business? I speak with so many people, and they're like, I'm at this point right. I'm doing kitchens and bathrooms. We want to get into additions, and the goal is to start doing new construction and
building homes. And I look back at my career and when I first started and why I wanted to do bigger jobs. And there was, there was two reasons. One, I thought it was going to be more lucrative and more profitable, like the bigger the bigger
number just seemed as though I'd make more money. And I realized, not even quickly, but I realized that that wasn't always the case, because I didn't have the experience to do that, and not from like a practicality perspective, but from a numbers perspective, and I didn't how to operate a business on that scale. And I also like from a job security when you have employees, the bigger work keeps people busy for longer. So it
seemed like there was less liability and less risk. And it it kind of all culminated to this aha moment for me, where I was like, I'm putting so much work into place. I'm constantly selling more each and every year, and my life is just getting more chaotic, and I'm just spending more money, and my bottom line really isn't changing that much. And I had the realization where it's like the market that I'm in makes it very difficult for what I'm trying to do with my business to
perform at scale. And it it if you want to make the margins that I want to make. So you're either forced to downsize or you're forced to scale to a point where you can lower essentially the unit cost of the work that you're putting in place, where it's like, I can sell more and perform more work, and it's costing me less. And I just wasn't really willing to do
that because it wasn't the lifestyle that I wanted. But that led me, like, years of banging my head against the wall, where everyone was getting paid and nothing was really changing on my end, except for I was getting more stressed out. Led me to realize, like, really take a deep dive into my business, the numbers of my business, tracking my costs,
tracking what I was making, tracking my time. And as soon as I did that, I was able to to really determine a sweet spot as far as work goes, to make sure that I'm not putting too much work into place, that it ends up costing me more money than it's worth. And it's super simple with me. I just as you grow, you don't, you don't realize how chaotic it could get. And like, I think that most people grow because they need more money.
And it's like, you have to ask yourself, why the money isn't enough at your current scale, like with the systems that you have. In place in the amount of people that you have. It's not a profitable business model. Is there something wrong with your system? Is there something wrong with your business? Like you need more money? It's not just that life got more expensive.
Your business isn't making the margins that you need to. And I would suggest to people to understand that, and that's going to be the key to being able to grow in a sustainable way, rather than just, like, hey, we need more money. I'm going to add on more work. Because if the work wasn't profitable, the size that you are now, why do you think that adding more to it is going to be more profitable? Like, it's just, it's going to be less profitable, if anything. Yeah,
yeah. I, you know, going back to a comment earlier, I think it's the same idea that everyone thinks that home building and remodeling, it's all the same, like, and it's not, and it's, you know, our our industry is so fragmented in so many ways, but it's also filled with guys that think that there's this, you know, ultimate goal of, like, Hey, I have to build new construction. Like, that's when I quote, unquote, make it or,
like, even my own, my own, you know, thought processes. Like, I want to get to a point where we're just building ten million plus projects, not because I think that they're going to be more profitable, though I hope they are. It's more because it's the product that I want to be building. It's, it's the 45 white oaks. It's, it's something where it's, you go into it and
you build completely uncompromised. But you know, if, if that project doesn't like, we sell it and it's not as profitable as I thought, and we and we go and do or we go and build a custom one, and it's, it's really difficult to get to that threshold, and we make, you know, a tiny gross profit on it. It's, you know, I have to have the realization or the understanding that, hey, like, this isn't a profitable business, yeah. And, and I guess in one way, it's like, Am I okay
with that, or do I have to pivot? It's like, do I have other things in my life that award me the opportunity to do something that is not as profitable as it could be or as the business should be. And I think the other thing I pair this with is your your team or my team, yeah, where, you know, there's the on one hand, it's, I'm the owner. Everyone could
just get up and leave. And you know, through the years, plenty of people have but while they're here, you know, how much, how much, how much am I relying on them to ultimately make a collective decision. It's also, is it fair to them? Right? If you could be providing a better work environment, a better work experience, a more
lucrative career path for them. How fair is it for you to continue to chase this dream that you have and bring people into that system for a business model that is less than ideal? Well, right? And I think I feel as though I've done a pretty good job about explaining where I want the business to go and where I want to be year after year. And you know, I'll never forget this one kid, you know, I had said in the meeting is like, hey, I really want us to be focusing on new construction. I
want to move towards more modern projects, you know. And I know that, you know, every year I kind of change what our goals are, but that's where my head's at today. And if anyone doesn't want to be part of that, feel free to grab me and we can chat. And one and one kid took me up on that. He's like, it's just not what I want to do. And I was like, Hey, I appreciate that, and I'm happy to support you. And, you know, be a reference.
And he went on to do great things in a field that he, you know, was more attracted to, and it was only last year, is the first time I started talking about it from a more business perspective, of like, hey, this just so you guys know, like, this is where we're at financially, you know, kind of showing them under the hood, a little bit of like, Hey, this is, this is what I'm going through, and these are the risks
I'm taking. But the reason I'm taking these risks is because I see this as a stepping stone to get to where we ultimately want to be. And I'm hoping that everyone here is, you know, of, you know, like minded and wants that same goal. But again, like, if they're not, you know, hey, that's fine. Like, I'm here to support people like, you know, I want to be open and transparent with my goals. And I know everyone has individual goals,
and if they're not aligned, it's that's okay. And I think, for, you know, for a lot of years, I made decisions based on the based on what I thought they wanted and that like that, I think was something that I struggled with. And frankly, I had to, you know, get to a point where it's like, listen, like, you know, I respect them, but at the end of the day, this is my business, and if I'm trying to accomplish something and I'm
taking, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm. Scared that if I, if I go after what I want, because it's going to impact, you know, an employee, then, you know that's that it's a wrong way to look at it, and I'm going to be in a position where I'm just, I'm not, I'm not doing what I want to be doing for someone that very well might get up and leave. So you, you mentioned that you gave your employees, peek under
the hood at what what's going on with you financially. And it got me thinking quickly, where struggles I've had with employees and capturing the cost of employees, understanding what those employees cost me, and then understanding, like as an owner wearing a tool belt, what I can max out with what I'm charging. And when I have employees on the job with me, because I'm, I'm gonna max out at what I can charge, like, just from a day rate perspective. But I I always, like, my employees
were never privy to what I was charging for them. And I wonder if I would have, like, if there's a way to have that conversation with them in our industry, or how much we should open the hood to show them what we're charging for them and and what we're actually making on them, and what type of productivity we need, and What I think like, if it right, say you're paying somebody $25 an hour, and you have to charge 2x so it's $50 an hour just to break even with them, and then
you want to make a profit on them, whatever your profits going to be on them. So say you're charging $60 an hour, and you're making 10 bucks an hour on that employee after you cover all of your costs, and they just see that number, and they're like, Nick's charging $60 an hour for us, and he's only paying us $25 an hour. And they don't understand that you're
actually only making $10 an hour. And there's a lot of risk associated with having the people on lining up the work, structuring the business, just the anxiety of creating and building a business to support those employees. Like, how much should they know about that? How do we have that conversation?
Should we just be fully transparent with them? Because for me, like, I look at it like, even from what my wife does for work and what her salary is, and I don't know, like, if there's a way to equate that, the same way that you can in our industry where, like, my wife makes a salary, but what they sell from a business perspective, and the numbers that she's seeing In the financials, it's like, hundreds of millions of dollars that it's not like, oh well, they're paying me X amount, and then
they're making this amount. It's not, it's not like, it doesn't translate. There's not really a direct correlation or parallel to my wife's salary, to what their business earnings are or what they're charging for her. It's not as transparent as with our industry, where, like, it's a it's a labor, a direct unit cost that you're charging for an employee, and they can see that, yeah, but I would argue that that your wife's company does
have that data. Where, oh, they do, but it's they're not privy to it, and there's no way,
really of them. Like, you can't just look up what's market rate of like, you know, furniture, whatever, you know, what my wife does, like, as far as construction, but I bet, like, it's, you know, she goes away, and they have some sort of, like multiplier where it's like, All right, we lose her, and we're gonna lose, you know, 1% revenue, you know, or Whatever the case is like, because she's responsible for getting the rep, you know, that product from point A to point B,
and if that goes away, then we can't get it from A to B, or whatever the case is, to to your your original question is like, how much you know, I don't know if, if it's necessarily important. I think it really depends on the way your team is structured, and you know, your the culture within the business. Because, you know, there's certainly people, regardless of how much you show them, they're not going to necessarily understand it, and you're also going to get the people that
don't agree with what you spend money on. And, you know, and I am careful with how much we share. It's like, you know, to reference a car, it's like, Sure, I'll pop the hood. Take a look. Like, you don't necessarily know what's going
on. But like, you see that there's going on, you know, you don't necessarily know, you know what size the engine is, or you know how much fuel it takes, like it you know that those are the things that I think upper leadership, I found have been really it's been really important to be transparent there where it's like, Hey, this is what it takes to run the business. Here's what I'm spending on marketing. Here's
what we're spending on rent. Here's the investments that we've made outside of the business, like, because and get them. Buy into it. I've had pushback. And, you know, you know, Hey, are you sure that there's an ROI here? And I'm, you know, I'm more of a, you know, a feel type of guy where it's like, Hey, I think we should spend more here, because
I think, well, this will pay off. And so that doesn't always, like that conversation doesn't always go, quote, unquote, well, in the sense of, like, I don't have a ton of feet, like, you know, weight to shove around saying, Hey, this is, this is the ROI on that and that. I think going back to marketing and social media, like, that's a hard one to measure, though.
Side note, like, we've actually found a pretty good way to measure that, over the last couple months, and we've seen, you know, we've actually been able to look and say, Wow, that money in has, you know, kind of turned around and given, given
us this money. How my, my point is, you know, the guys in the field that are that are being billed out at $75 an hour, that get paid 35 $40 an hour, you know, I'd be happy to sit down and walk through, you know, hey, here's, here's how this, how this rate is calculated, and here's the profit that we're
making for every hour at the end of the day. I don't, you know, I would rather, I'd rather them be in a position where it's like they just understand that they're in in a role that is supportive, and they have the tools and the means necessary to be, you know, successful at their career and but most importantly that they have kind of the autonomy to grow in the
business. And, you know, in that, you know, I have talked about it before, and I'm going to mention it now, and I know you guys are going to email me for this, so I'm going to have to get this document cleaned up to share with you. But about a year ago, I put together that career that career path document, and I shared it with you, Tyler, and it's like, took me two days to draft up, and it was like, Hey, you start out as an apprentice. Here's what you're responsible for. Here's
what you're going to be paid. And if you can accomplish these X amount of things, you will be promoted to a carpenter. And it walks through, literally like you can follow a line from apprentice all the way to the Director of Operations, which you know is not an open position in the company. But it walks you through how you you grow within the business. And the the the first interview we had where we shared that with a potential candidate, and every, every candidate since then has said
the same thing, whole, like, wow. Like, this is really, really helpful for me to understand that, that I have the opportunity to grow here. So it's completely unrelated to, like, showing the behind the or underneath the hood of, like,
what goes into a labor rate. But what it's doing is it's giving them the autonomy to make as much money as they want, or take take the whatever career path that they want, if you're creating the structure for them to be able to grow and basically control their own destiny and, like the trajectory of their career. How on your end, are you ensuring that you have the business set up to support that growth from, like a
financial perspective? Because realistically, not everyone can come in as an entry level carpenter and then become, you know, like your your job site superintendent or your project manager, or are you willing to create whatever business is necessary to support that? Like you're saying someone comes in as an apprentice and kicks ass and is ready to be a super Yeah, like, so you you have this. If there's not a role for it, there's not like, we're not like, if there's no role, there's no role.
But what I mean is like, hey, we want to give you enough opportunity to grow. How are you ensuring that your business is able to support that growth for anyone that you're hiring or is, hey, I just want to give people a path if they want to grow the opportunities there. For me, it's like, Hey, okay, I want to give people a path to come in as an apprentice or an entry level Carpenter, and I want to give everyone the opportunity to move
towards a site superintendent or a project manager. LIKE, Would you be willing to scale the business to that size to be able to support how do I say this? This isn't about building a business to collect people and give them, you know, and and the sole reason being to to put people in the roles that they want to be in. And I want to be careful in the way I say that. I'm not saying that I don't want to do that, but what I'm saying is I'm not building a
business solely to do that. Yeah, and the business has to be, you know, the my goal, like the business owner like my goal, and then the leadership team has to also feel as though they share that same goal, and the people that are with it within
the business, you know, the. The leadership, the employees, the guys in the field, everyone you know, hopefully is aligned with that in terms of the individual growth of everyone you know, yes, the intent is for them, for us, to support that growth and allow them to grow and be more successful and financially rewarded, as long as the business allows it to happen.
Sure, and you know, I think when you do take the other approach, where it's like you're allowing the employees to essentially scale the business, I think when you prioritize that, you get into trouble. Because you know what happens is, then, well, you know, my business is my my team is outpacing the workload. And then you get into a point where it's like, now you're taking on
work, as they say, to feed the machine. Yeah, and, you know, I think your exam, I think your question, is the extreme example, because I do think that naturally, as as your your team grows and becomes, you know better at their job. I think there's this natural, again, scaling of the business of you know whether it's the the complexity of projects, whether it's the amount, the the quantity of projects, or just simply, you know how much work you're you're you're doing
internally, something is changing. And that doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, the business is necessarily growing from a numbers perspective, yeah. And I also think, if you look at other businesses and what that that ladder looks like, Not everyone who comes in wants that. And not everyone who comes in wants to go from the
bottom rung to the top rung. But I think even if somebody wants to come in and wants to go to the third rung, and that's all they want, and that's all they need, at least it maps that out for them so they understand what needs to happen to get from rung one to rung three, and what that path may look like, rather than
just wondering or questioning. And I think that that helps structure your business, as well as give your employees some sort of ideal as to idea, as to what they can expect with that growth. Ultimately, it's, it's about providing the map, right? You
know, like the cash. It's like, give me the data. So I know that month after month, quarter after quarter, like I'm trending down the path that I want to be like, if you want to do X amount of millions per year, and at a, at a, you know, hopefully it's not a revenue number. You know, revenue is vanity, but it's like, I, you know, let's back up. Hey, I want to produce 20% net profit every year. It's like, All right, back into that.
Like, how much revenue Do you think you need to do that? And then figure out per job, per per quarter, per quarter, per month. And when you map that out, you have a clear path to get there. Same thing with an employee. It's like, you know, hey, you're going to come in as an apprentice. Here are the things that you're going to do, you know, because we've hired, you know, we've hired carpenters. And they come in, they're like,
Oh, I'm a lead carpenter. It's like, okay, well, before we, you know, classify you as lead Carpenter, take a look at what we define a lead carpenter as, because I can tell you right now, every company is names, you know, their their carpenters, lead carpenters. And they're not, like, we've hired some guys that have had quote, unquote, lead carpenter status, and they come in and they, they've never trimmed a house before, or they they've never framed before, or they don't, they've never done a
lumber takeoff. And it's like, well, you know, that's, that's a whole separate issue in this industry of the, you know, the I don't know if the term is correct, but like the nomenclature behind, you know roles, but you know, for us, that's why we have it written out. Is read through this and you tell me what you think you are, because that's what a lead carpenter is to us. If you're more of a carpenter, that's
fine. We'll hire you as a carpenter, and then you'll understand how you get to lead carpenter status. I think that we're getting to a point in the industry and the economy that we are all questioning the way that we're operating our businesses. Oh yeah, just you know, everything that's going on with with the financial market, with the housing market, with the cost of living, and it's continuing, I
think, to become more complicated. And I look back at the past five years from COVID on where everything was hot and we almost there wasn't a reason for so many there wasn't a reason for many of us to look into our business and our model and our numbers and how much easier this transition would be, or how much more clarity we would have if over the past five
years, we were just constantly maintaining our businesses. And checking in on the pulse of what was going on, rather than what it seems to be right now, where everyone's in a bit of a panic, because it feels as though things are dropping off so considerably, so quickly. And we often don't find flaws within ourselves or within our business, when things are great,
we don't question anything. It's not until there's an issue or the phone rings a little bit less that we start questioning what's going on and how important it is to just constantly be monitoring things, rather than trying to put out fires once they exist, where it's like, Hey, if you could have taken small bites of this over the past five years, it would be far less painful than just really the ups and downs and surges of our industry, where it's like, just look for a
Little bit more consistency, rather than, hey, things are great, I'm gonna ride this out, and then things are bad. I'm gonna have to hunker down and, you know, tighten everything up. I think it's what I appreciate so much about when it's difficult, is that when it is hard, it forces you to fix things. It's like, you're, you're in your back's against the wall, and you
need to fix something because you don't have an option. And, you know, I've had that, this exact thought recently, where it's like, you know, am I getting to a point where I'm so comfortable having my back against the wall that I'm always going to have my back against the wall. It is, I think, I think that the problem is, I think that a lot of the way that we operate as business owners and in life in general is we're focused on the results rather than the process.
And I think being so result driven and understanding bottom line, and I mean, even just from a lifestyle perspective, right? What place did you take in the competition? How do you fit in your social network? Like we're so focused on the result and not the process and not the day to day, that I think that's that's really the result that we get, where we're only addressing
things when they take a turn for the worst. And I think that if we were just to focus on the day to day, and focus on operation and and training and making sure that we are in the best place as we can be as as business owners, in our relationships, in our life, in whatever extracurriculars we have, I
think that it would be a little bit different. But I do think that we're just we're so driven by results that it often positions us like the case that you're in, where it's like when my when I face that adversity, when my back's against the wall, then I'll put a proper plan in place to fix things, but until then, I'm just going to ride this out and everything's good.
When I think that, when things are great, it gives you an even better opportunity to address and refine your business, to make it as great as it can be, because you're not up against the wall. Yeah, I mean, it's for it's so common for me. I feel like in the, I mean, not even even in business, I feel like everything thinking back to school, right? Like thinking about that, you
know, I always worked far better under pressure. And it wasn't until, you know, like I said earlier, until I started really involving more of my team and leaning on us, you know, kind of moving together, that I started realizing the power of, you know, being in a better position. That sounds so foolish, because it's like, why wouldn't you want to be in a better position? Be in a better position? Nick Of course, like, you know, it's not, it's not about, not about being in a bad
position. It's just that, you know, for me, that's how I operate. It's like, when you're when there's pressure, I'm going to operate to to my my highest, peak efficiency. But when there's other people involved, and not everyone operates that way. You really start kind of spreading that weight out, and,
you know, finding the momentum. And, you know, and to look, you know, at the last two years specifically, it's like the momentum that we've built and the progress that we have made has been really foundational for for what the business will be in a year from now. And you know, and we as like anyone, like we don't oftentimes reflect back and look at what we've done and
how it's really set that foundation. But you know, when we stop and think about what we were doing 2418, even 12 months ago, you know how different it. It was and what those decisions then have led to today, and just seeing that consistent progress, you know, kind of forces me to find other things that paint me in the corner and tackle those as more of individual tasks, rather than these monstrosity or monster tasks of like, you know, the entire business, it's like, no, you we're moving forward.
Let's now hyper focus on this one thing here and find momentum there, while the team continues to move the big picture forward. I also think, like, there are a lot of people who don't work
well under pressure. And I could even, like, look at my kids like it's a shame that wanting to work under pressure isn't necessarily related to the preparation, but more so in the event itself, where I feel that, like you said throughout school, throughout my career, I do, I perform well under adversity and under pressure, but it's typically as the event is happening, and not the preparation for the event where I would be far better suited, as if that anxiety and that stress
that feeds me and and really I thrive under was more so during the preparation stages of what's going on, rather than, like, when the event is actually happening. Because it always seems that, even if it was a test, right, it's like, I'm going to stay up the entire night before and just cram all of this in and, like, that's the stress and the pressure that really, I thrive under and I do well with. But why couldn't I really shape that and use that more so in the preparation of
that, rather than, like, when it's actually happening? It's like, closing out jobs, right where you're a maniac closing out the job, and it's like, Well, why didn't I have this intensity throughout the entire first part of the job? And just like for the preparation of this job and lining everything up, it always seems as though, like we're addicted to that absolute chaos and trying to work our way out of that. Like my wife, she
does. She handles pressure, but like, if she had the choice, or Selby, like, it would be preparing beforehand and then not having a mad dash. And like, I say that I hate the mad dash of things, but it seems as though a lot of times that's what drives me, like it's a love, hate, Oh, yeah. Like, I say I hate it, and I hate the stress of work and I hate the stress of business, but at the same time, like, I kind of need that, right? It's like, it's not that you hate it. It's like you hate,
yeah, you hate the feeling of potential failure. Yeah, I hate and then when you stressed out, but then everything I do in my life is, like, intentionally putting more stress on myself, right? Like, how much do you really hate it? Not enough, apparently. Yeah, I think
that a lot of business owners do that. I think it's just a personality type, you know, like you said, you I think that a lot of us are addicted to the chaos and the stress and the anxiety, and that was something that, like I said, I hated, but I know we talk, or I just recorded a podcast On really having hobbies and finding a flow. And for a long time that flow for me was work and just go, go, go, and being completely immersed in it
and thriving on the chaos of business. And it wound up just not being super healthy for me. I think that there's better ways of I guess, channeling that energy or fulfilling that need for some chaos in my life, and finding that flow. It doesn't have to be like closing a job out while you don't have enough money on it and there's not enough labor to finish it and it's just on you, which that was what I relied on for a long time to, like, fulfill those, those emotional needs for myself. Yeah?
But like you, you know, like we said earlier, until you, until you really sit down and understand what that takes, you'll never do it, yeah? In hindsight, it's like, there's a lot more clarity there, but I can, like, absolutely still relate to those jobs and those feelings. And like, I can, I can place myself in every one of those jobs and every one of those situations, and I, like,
absolutely hated it as much as I loved it. At the same time, and I can put myself there years later, and I'm probably looking at it in a bit of a healthier light right now, where I'm like, it wasn't that bad, but it was chaos in the like, while it was happening.
Oh yeah. I mean, I I posted something like last year, and I remember I related running to running, running to, you know, difficulties in business, where, you know when you're out for the run, you or at least for me, like, I hate, like, I don't want to be there. I just want to be home. And then the moment you stop running, it's, you know, oh, I could keep doing that. It's like, that wasn't that bad. It's like, three minutes ago you were dying, yeah? Like, I mean, anything to make it stop, right?
And then you, when you it's like, when you hit that accomplishment and realize, Oh, I did it. That wasn't so bad, you become like, you know, completely numb to the fact that it sucked. I wonder if, I guess everyone doesn't push themselves that far. I think that that no idea. I don't, I don't consider myself to be type A. I don't know. I guess I'd have to look up with Type A. I've always considered myself like to be the opposite of type A. No, I don't think I,
you know, that's a longer conversation. I find it very weird, just in like, human nature, how there's so many people that just are completely fine not doing or accomplishing things like, I find it wasteful, I guess would be the Yeah, it's like you're on this planet, you have all these opportunities and like you're here for, you know, for all intents and purposes, a pretty short amount of time, like, you know, whether that's 70 years, like 70 years or more or less, like it's, it's still a
short amount of time, you know, considering all things, and you're choosing to live this life of nothing, and that I find weird, yeah, and I don't even think, like, it doesn't have to be that much. Like, you know, you don't have to cure cancer. You don't have to, like, make millions and millions and millions of dollars. I think it's just fulfilling your life and having substance to it. I just was thinking about this with my dad.
He's now 70. He'll be 72 this year in December, and he worked like a dog his entire life, not in a what I would consider to be like the smartest way. It was more, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, really, I feel like it was more of a bulldog mentality, or I'm just gonna will it into place and I'll outwork everyone. And I didn't like it, didn't seem growing up, that it was the best mentality to have. But I see him now at 7172 and around other
people his age, and he's in far better shape. He has way more energy, like he's still living that lifestyle, and obviously it's toned down a bit. He's not 40 anymore, but he's still going out like and I look at the juxtaposition between him and my mom, and my mom always seemed to be in like, better shape, physically, just from like, she ate well, she handled her stress well. And I don't think that my dad did that, but I look at the two of them now, and my mom doesn't do all that much, like
she she is a pretty peaceful lifestyle. She doesn't travel like she doesn't do anything crazy. And my dad goes from like, I'm in Belize, then I'm going diving in Mexico, and then I'm going to Japan to go skiing, and then I'm out west going skiing, and he's like, just absolutely non stop right now. And I'm like, wow, him working so hard and having that mentality and creating that lifestyle and those habits over
the past. You know, 4050, years are actually suiting him very well right now, because, as most people, are becoming less active and and less engaged with life, he's now 70, like living his life like he never has. Yeah, it's insane to see. And like, I mean, I've had him over at my property, so I'm helping clean up, and I swear he, like, outworks me. I'm like, Dude, you need to slow down some. Like, I always I call him dude, that would, that would like, oh man, I'd kill myself. Like, I'd be like,
All right. Like, no one's working harder than me. Dude. Drive me bananas. If my dad was, you know, out working me on anything, it's insane. And like, he's just, he's like a beast with stuff like that. He'll, he eats whatever he wants. Like, stays relatively fit because he's always working. I call him the. Raccoon, because, like, I just feel like he's never gonna die. He could go eat, like leftover food out of the garbage can and then just
survive. He reminds me he's like a raccoon, yeah? But it's, it's funny how the lifestyles change, and how you know a mentality or habits that you've developed at a at an earlier point in your life do carry over to later on in life, and how that's affecting him now, and what I why? What I saw is a bit of intensity that didn't really fit him in the lifestyle when I was growing up. It was just a bit too intense as it's toned down a
little bit as he's older. It's suiting him very well, comparatively speaking to other people his age, like you know, a lot of my friends family, they're fine going down the shore or taking their vacations and just not doing much with life right now, and he's out there, like getting after it. It's insane. I don't know how he is not like more exhausted than he is, but maybe that's just the stage of life that we're in, because I feel like I'm always tired right now.
Well, I doubt your dad filled it out, but Tyler, you and I put together a business vision and scaling plan worksheet. And I think after today's conversation. I want to, I want to give this to anyone that's listening, and I think the easiest way to do that is on Instagram, if they go comment under the post for this episode, you know, scaling worksheet.
We'll just make that. We'll just make it simple, and we'll send you this, the spreadsheet or not, spreadsheet worksheet, we, shared it with a bunch of you guys already, and it's part of something bigger that we're working on. But what it does is kind of what we chat about today. It really helps you look at, you know, what success looks like for you and for your
company. And you know, really questions the things that you need to question in terms of how you scale, what you scale, what your what your true vision is in like, you know, Tyler said earlier, like that might be making that might be doing less work, or it could be doing more work, or it could be doing different work. But I think until you answer some of these questions, it's going to be really difficult to actually set a path forward for, you know, the next one, three or even five
years? Yeah, I think a lot of times we end up putting the cart before the horse in life and in business. And I think sometimes you need to step back, take a breather, create a plan, understand the motives behind what you're doing, and then start driving forward, rather than just, like, holding down on the gas pedal and then looking up trying to figure out where you're going. Yeah. So if you guys want that, head over to our Instagram comment under one of the reels for this episode. You know,
scaling worksheet. Or you can do one better, and make sure you're signed up for a newsletter. Modern craftsman.co, sign up for the newsletter. We just need your name and email and you will get some behind the scenes content, not only just for these
episodes, but I've been doing this Monday. I don't know what I'm gonna call it Tyler, but I gotta it's like a Monday brain dump, but it's just kind of what's on my mind, more transparent stuff I don't feel comfortable sharing on social media, but doing so in an email format, but this is where we're going to give you guys a lot more content and more value is
going to be in the emails. So make sure you do sign up for that newsletter, and if you can do one favor, because I know a lot of you guys already are signed up, please forward the email to someone that should be reading these you know you guys have been amazing, replying to them and engaging with us, but it would mean the world to both of us if you could forward this to someone that you think would benefit from it, because the more people that we reach, The bigger the impact we can make on
this industry, and the more willing I'll be, you know, the more willing I'll be to sharing more of my struggles. It's neat. I think I've done the midweek thing for a really long time and remain pretty consistent with that. And I think that you over the years, have just found it more difficult, like, what platform to maintain that consistency on?
And, you know, over the past six, eight weeks, to see, every Monday an email coming out that's like, not super long, but very powerful, very insightful, distilled down to just like, what, what I feel is very powerful information. I feel like you found your rhythm and like the platform that works for you. And it's been sick to see all the response that we've been getting and how it's been speaking to everyone. It's been
it's been neat. And I think that I. You know, you've, you've definitely found your flow there. I appreciate that. Yeah, there's been one or two I've written. I'm like, Am I sure I want to share all this? And then I just, I see the number go out, and it's, it's gone, it's in the Ethernet. And I await my the retaliation. Now, it's been, it's been good. And, you know, there's a lot of vulnerability there, and it's it's not anything that you're
going to find outside of that email list. So if you want to see it, check it out. Sign up for the newsletter. See you guys next week.