Latest / The Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast / 027 - Scott McFarland
Transcript
- Paul: And welcome in to the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast. On our way to being the world's number one concrete podcast. And the way you get to be number one is you have right along partners. Welcome in, Joey Bell, who's gonna join us for the first half of the program. Thank you for joining, Joey. Joey Bell: What's up, buddy? Good to be here again. Paul: you're the man. You're the most requested guest on here. You're the most requested p I I can't go anywhere, it feels like, without people going, How's Joey doing? Joey Bell: I can't help it. That's I don't even have a comment that that's I'm not gonna even gonna not I'll take that. Paul: Absolutely. And this month, it is the month of November, the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast is brought to you by Vince Hagen. Wonderful friends over at Vince Hagen. It is a wonderful time to be friends with Vince Hagen because we're celebrating their seventieth anniversary, seventy years of building batch plants. Joey, do you know the story of how they got started? Joey Bell: I do not. I would love to hear it. Paul: Mr. Hagen, Vince is his name, was a soldier overseas, World War II. Dude is helping rebuild the devastation, the rebuilding bridges over there. And they're doing it from concrete plants. But the bridges aren't in one spot. They're all over the place. The rebuilding's happening all over the place. And he thought, Well, why can't I just move this concrete plant with me? Why can't it be portable? When came back to the United States, he researched it, realized nobody made portable plants. He applied for a patent, and we have our very first portable plant from our friends at Vince Hagen. Do a lot more than that now. It's not just the portables, do the stationaries. they got low profile stuff, high profile stuff. Today, right now, coming out, there's patent pending on some new plants. And the VH 10 has got upgrades on the mixing blades, upgrades on the liner, it's new materials, stronger materials. Like literally the drums are lasting two times longer, two and a half times longer on the drums for these central mix plants. So if you're out there and you're doing these airport paving and you're beating the ever-living crap out of your mixer and you need it to last longer and you don't need to be wearing it out. Well, they've got the solution for that. Also, they've got a new program where if you do wear it out eventually and you got to have it replaced, they're gonna minimize the downtime because when you're ready to get that one refinished, they're gonna put another one in there for you temporarily. So you can just keep on rocking and rolling while they refurbish that one and send it back out to you. Vince Hagen, you're you're talking to a guy here as our guest, Joey Bell, who has lived that. He's lived that. So you see the smile on his face as we're reading that ad. He's like, Yeah, that actually sounds like like a great idea. And I hope that if you're listening to this, that you'll reach out to Vince Hagen. Vince Hagen.com, V-I-N-C-E, H A G A N dot com. Vince Hagen.com to learn more. You can reach out on to LinkedIn, the Vince Hagen Company on LinkedIn. Celebrate their 70th anniversary with us here at the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast. Speaking of Vince Hagen sponsoring things, they also sponsor the college football pick'em. Slump Monkey's college football pick'em is being hosted on ESPN. You're talking to two of the participants here, Joey and myself. And I'm looking at the rankings. Joey, what happened, buddy? Joey Bell: I don't even think I'd made picks for a couple of weeks, so there's no telling where I'm at. Paul: at. Yeah, you're behind me. And that's not good because I had two weeks where the system didn't accept my picks for some reason. Joey Bell: Mm. Paul: Don't know why. I'm gonna complain about it on every episode and because I need everyone to know I'm playing under protest of my own event, protesting my own college pick'em because the week of concrete works, I literally let Chris Davenport make my picks for me and it didn't didn't accept them. So what does it say about Chris? I mean that's really what you know. But I have witness that I made those picks, but the system didn't accept it. Another week I made the picks. It didn't accept it that week. It actually created a second profile for me. So in the slump monkeys, you'll find Paul's second submittal or whatever. I didn't do that. it did it for me. It didn't accept those picks either. So I don't know what's going on, dude. The whole thing's a mess. I made picks for real on that on that account last week just for fun, though, just to see what would do. My second entry entry did better than my actual entry. So who Who knows anymore, man? If you if you think you know what's going on this college football season, you're a liar. Joey Bell: Yeah. It is a it's a mess out there. Paul: But that's all right. We're still gonna have fun with college football pick Right now, the leader is Russell's second entry. I d I mean, his first entry must be incredible if his second entry is doing this well. Backdoor cover, I see you, buddy. I see you. Second place. Got you actually a little bit behind. Joe Buck yourself, you are tied with them, though. And then right behind them is J T's crystal ball. That's Uno, by the way. Joey Bell: Good old Uno. Paul: Good old Uno. His brother is also a good friend of mine. their family lives in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. It was just the other side of Philadelphia. And so his brother had come up with his wife and kids to stay at the in-laws. So we were gonna play golf. And Uno didn't want to miss out. So he said, I'll get on a plane, I'll come play. we would love that. Come on. Well, it was his wife's birthday. He said, And he said, What she's got a birthday every year. Like I only get to see you guys. Like every once in a while. What's she gonna do? Divorce me for seeing my friends? Joey Bell: Golly. Paul: I said, I said, Uno, is that your barometer? Is that your barometer for w what's a good decision and a bad decision in a marriage is what she gonna do? Divorce me? Joey Bell: That sounds about right. That checks out. It's like all or nothing with Uno and everything. So s Paul: Wait. Joey Bell: divorce or n or I mean, you just let me do it or you can divorce me. That that checks out. Paul: Ev even better, he said that she was they were struggling and she was like, Man, she feels like we don't spend enough time together. but you know, that's her fault. Joey Bell: Ha ha. Paul: How is that her fault? And he said, he said, Well, I play golf like three times a week and I told her she can come ride in the golf cart with me anytime she wants, and she chooses not to. So It's her fault that we're not spending time together. Could could you Joey Bell: Wow. Paul: could you imagine being like I'm going hunting all week and all the time and if you don't want to come sit in the deer stand or whatever, then that's your fault. Joey Bell: Yeah, that's yeah, that'd go over a lead balloon around here. Paul: That's what I said. I said, That's crazy that you would say that. And the third quote, my favorite one ever, was We were all in college together. Just so give you an idea, Joey and and Uno and myself, we're all in college together. And we were broke college students. And when I say broke, I mean dead broke college students. And there was one point where we was all having a good time one night and everybody looked around and said, Where's Uno? And I don't know. Went up to his room and Knocked on the door and there he was. He was he was sleeping in a jacket and under the covers in his bed. I said, Hey man, what's going on? Where why don't you why don't you come down with us? And he says, Man, I'm just I'm just so hungry, but I'm broke. And if I sleep, then I won't be hungry. Joey Bell: The saddest thing ever. We can laugh about that now, twenty years later. Paul: Yeah, it was it was horrible and I was like, my god, it's terrible. He rolled over and went back to sleep and I came downstairs and told everybody, I was like, Bro, he said he has no money and he had seventy-seven cents in his bank account. And then Charlie Sowers, you know, who worked at a restaurant, would bring him food home every night at like two AM. So Uno's hours like that he operated changed so that he would be awake at two o'clock. So when Charlie came home at two thirty, Charlie would bring him food and Charlie kept him alive for the rest. Joey Bell: Hmm. yeah. Uno owes his life to Charlie Sowers. Charlie Sowers fed him daily Paul: Ha ha ha. Joey Bell: like a pet. he stopped by stopped by the AGR house when he got off ship. He'd feed Uno and then he'd go home. Paul: Yeah, that's right. Uno hadn't forgotten. He'll tell you if you ask him today, he's like, I owe my my life to Char to Charlie Sowers. Didn't have Joey Bell: Yeah. Paul: didn't have anything he didn't have anything. He didn't have the gas to get home, even if he wanted to go home. He couldn't get there. Joey Bell: Yeah. It w it s it was that was some fun times. Couldn't live like that now, but it made for some good memories for sure. Paul: Yep, good memories. speaking of things that are gonna be memorable, the first college football pick it's getting closer to coming to an end. So the winner will get this trophy. If you're on YouTube, all five of you. You can see here the mock-up of the trophy. We got this thing painted up, looking good. It'll go on a little marble base like a real trophy. this will be the first one. We'll send that out along with the five hundred dollar prize for first place courtesy, that five hundred dollars courtesy. of Vince Hagen. Thank you so much for sponsoring the college football pick'em. Everybody get your picks in through this week. I went four and six on my primary and six and four on my secondary account. if you are looking for a pick of the week this week, I wanted to go Alabama. I did. I'm a homer, I'll admit it. But we're eighteen and a half point favorites over Vanderbilt. Joey Bell: Mm. Paul: Eighteen and a half. Like that seems that seems doable. That seems really, really doable. one to go Georgia. They're fourteen and a half favorites, point favorites over Missouri. I was like, you know what? Joey Bell: Mm-hmm. Paul: That seems I wanted to go Indiana. I love a lot of these lines. Indiana, seven and a half against USC. It's at home at Indiana. But boy, there's times where they look like they can't score. So there's almost all of these games make me nervous at some point. Cause it's like, ooh, I really like that line. And you're like, And so inst my instinct is if I really like it, something might must be wrong. You know what I mean? So something must be wrong. But it at the end of the day, if we're going, if we're going anything, I'm probably going pick of the week in our pick based on the the 10 that they give you. Number nine, BYU, is at home favored by seven and a half over Baylor. So I think I'm gonna take BYU there. I don't trust Baylor to score. I think about a lot of times when I think about Who I want to make in these picks. I'm I think about the quarterback. Who do I trust more? I don't trust D GJ Lagway as far as you can throw him. Give me Bear Barkmeyer, their BYU. I'll take the interceptions and and the craziness that comes with him. BYU minus seven and a half. That is your lock of the week from the slump monkeys concrete podcast. Moving into a little bit of housekeeping, I got two things. One, the ACPA. The American Concrete Paving Association. The annual meeting is here in a couple of weeks down in Florida, first week of December. Slump Monkeys will be live broadcasting from there. Come by, say hello. If you'd like to get one of the recording slots, you can email us admin at slumpmonkeys.com. That's M-O-N-K-E-Y-S dot com. Admin at slumpmonkeys.com to reserve. your spot today. also subscribe. I was told that I need to start asking people to subscribe. Apparently that's what you're supposed to do when you're a podcast person. You ask them politely. So if you're driving, I need you to pick up your phone and and while driving you still need to subscribe. I don't I don't like Excuse makers. You need to pick it up. 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It gets better and better, and it's all because of our sponsors. So thank you so much. Admin at slumpmonkeys.com. All right. Now that's done. We can move into the reason Joe Bell's here in the first place. Joey has created the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life for college football. I love it so much. I cannot stop talking about it. It's called the Bell Pole. The Bell Pole is a new way to rank college football teams from the start of the season to the end of the season. And I believe, I truly believe that when we get to the end of year, your ranking, Joey, is going to be the best ranking method, the best system, the most accurate system of anything we've ever seen. Joey Bell: Thank you very much. Now I think one important thing to reiterate is, you know, we are gonna check or we are gonna evaluate these rankings at the end of the season because the scores change so much throughout the season that you know it needs to be reiterated, you know, again, this is not a ranking of the current best football teams in the country. Now Just for an example, we've got UCLA at number one because in my poll they have the most points. Does anybody outside of LA think that UCLA is the best football team in the country? I highly doubt it. Is Paul: Highly, highly highly doubt it. And but yeah, we should probably lay out like the top five teams in in your poll and then and then we can sort of go through so so number one is UCLA. Number two Joey Bell: Yes. Paul: is Utah. And you you'd say though those two, if you saw them ranked one and two, it might surprise you. But in the bell pole, you're getting so much credit for winning football games against power four opponents. And those two are the only nine and teams. So the bell pole Joey Bell: Mm-hmm. Paul: is rewarding you for winning games on the football field. You don't get very much credit. Actually, you I don't think you get any credit for beating an FCS team. Joey Bell: Correct. Paul: you you get a little bit of credit for beating a group of six team, and you get Joey Bell: No. Paul: full credit for beating a power four football team, and UCLA and Utah have done that more than anybody else. So UCLA number one, Utah number two, Alabama number three, Notre Dame number four, and Miami. Number five. Those are the only teams with a aggregated score of 80 or better. And the way the poll works is you get more points for beating higher level of competition and higher ranking. What I love about the Bell Pole is it ignores what that team was ranked or sorry, today's ranking ignores what the team was ranked when you played them. It takes into account what that team is ranked now. So if you built if you beat A ranked Mississippi State team like Alabama did with Kamario Taylor and you feel really good about it, but now they're unranked. Well, that doesn't matter because Mississippi State today is not the team that they were. And it goes the other way too, because teams that you weren't sure that they were any good and you beat them and now holy cow, you're the only loss they have. Looking at Kentucky prior to this weekend, well, that was worth a lot. And I love that the bell pole takes all that into account. Joey, how if if people have missed a previous episode, How many years have you been sorta working this out in your head before you finally put it on paper? Joey Bell: So last year I just tinkered around with it at the end of the season and I kind of just rough calculated, you know, what the top twenty five would look like you know, with the bell pole because, you know, it was it was kind of easier to do b at that point because I had the final AP rankings or college football playoff rankings or whatever. and this year is the first year that I've kept up with it throughout the season and I did help or I did have Chat GPT help. build the spreadsheet at first and then I you know kind of just expanded it from there. So I needed its help to with the formulas for, you know, changing the scores for every single week, you know, the AP rankings for week ten. I needed it to update the scores from week two, you know, things like that. So I did have some help and I've just, you know, just expanded it. But it'll be interesting to see like what a full season looks like. with this thing. This is the first full season that I've done it. Paul: Finally a good use for AI. Thank you, Joey. Joey Bell: Yeah, there you go. Build more data centers so we can rank college football teams better. Paul: man, data centers, I I feel like that's all I ever talk about anymore. I I try not to Joey Bell: Ha ha ha. Paul: I try not to flood the zone with the data centers here on the show, but it should you know, some people know, but if this is your first time listening, one of the companies I work for is Fall Line Minerals and we manufacture calcine clay and the number one folks buying that is the data centers. So very happy. For more data centers to get built. If you're looking to use Calcin Clay in any of your projects, you can give me a call. You can email me at admin at slumpmonkeys.com and I will route you to the correct place. going back to this this bell pole ranking, six through ten is super interesting too. Wake forest at number six. They're eight and one on the year. And it it's interesting because like we would we want to like dive into like, my God, why are they how are they ahead of Georgia at number seven or ahead of Tennessee at number eight? And it all comes down to power four wins. It does your does your model take into account what they call strength of record in the college football playoff? Joey Bell: strength of strength of your record or strength of your opponent's record? Paul: Strength of record would be like your opponent's record. So it yeah. Joey Bell: No, no it doesn't. And I mean I don't I have no idea what kind of formula I'd have to enter into this thing to calculate that. But Paul: Well, see, I don't I that's the that's the funny thing, is I don't know if they're using a formula or if it's just vibes. I think about Joey Bell: Yeah. Paul: that sometimes because they'll look and they'll say, one of the reasons for putting Alabama at number five and Tennessee was not number five two weeks ago was that Alabama's strength of record was so much higher. So we had beaten Kentucky, who only had one loss, and that was to us, and Kentucky had beat a bunch of power four teams. Our only loss was to Georgia, who was arguably the best team in the country, and their strength of record is as impressive as anybody else's. And then the other wins that we did have over ranked teams, their records were also good. And you know, they're a little bit f flexible like with the Mississippi State thing. Mississippi State's not the same team today that they were four weeks ago. So they're trying to give Bama credit for that too. So it's it's half like who'd you beat and who who who did they beat that you beat. And in the other half, I I seriously think his vibes, I really I think they're just vibes. Joey Bell: Yeah. Paul: Yeah. No vibes in the bell pole. Joey Bell: Yeah, and and another thing I've done, you know, we have had well, the college football, you know, we're recording this on a on a Tuesday. We'll have like the second week of the college football playoff rankings. But to keep consistent, I've used the A P poll throughout the season and I think I'm just gonna stick with it. I just one, you know, we talk about the A P voters Do they or do they not watch the games, or whatever, but there's a whole bunch more people than the CFP committee. So I would rather have the at least the opinions of a larger group of people than the committee of a sm much smaller group. And I just wanted to stay consistent. Now it probably wouldn't honestly wouldn't be hard to make another sheet, you know, just copy this sheet and just update the quote unquote AP rankings or wherever I have the AP rankings at in the sheet to reflect the C F P rankings and just see if there's a difference. honestly, I mean, there are differences between the AP and CFP polls, but there's probably not that drastic of a difference that it's really gonna make much of a difference in my poll, you know, with the calculations. Paul: Yeah. Yeah, I think you're probably right. And then y you look at the the bell pole, I I other than UCLA being number one and Utah being number two, and I think you could argue Utah, those are those are interesting. And then I think you get down the the other one that kinda stands out to me like a giant, whoa, you've got two three loss teams ahead of multiple one loss teams. And that that's very s so Ohio State six and three, Ole Miss six and three are both multiple spots ahead of Indiana. So Ohio State's twelve, Ole Miss is thirteen, you have Indiana, eight and one Indiana at sixteen. So what explains so so why are we valuing you know, Wake Forest at eight and one is ranked number six, but Indiana ranked six and one is all the way down to sixteen. Joey Bell: So that goes back to, you know, your quality of opponents and your bonus points for playing ranked opponents. The bonus points you get awarded regardless if you win or lose, you know, based on where the opponent is ranked in the top twenty five. You know, the higher they are, the more bonus points you get. You get one one through five bonus points. and then you also get a bonus point for our for winning or for being a road team. You also get one of those points regardless of winner win or lose. So in the case of Indiana, if I don't have their schedule pulled up, but I can I can usually tell at least just by looking at their scores, they don't have I don't know that they have hardly any ranked wins. would I be correct in saying that? I just not looking at their schedule, but I looking at their points from my poll, I don't know that they have any ranked wins. And if they do, it's from a you know, kind of the lower ranked team, if they have a currently ranked team that they've beat. And so you go up to Wake Forest, they've got one, two, three, four, five. They've got six power four winds. Indiana has one, two, three, four, five power four winds. So it makes a difference. And those Paul: Yeah, I'm looking I'm looking at I'm looking at Indiana's schedule. You're right. They have not beaten a ranked team all year. They've only Joey Bell: Mm-hmm. Paul: played one ranked team. That was Ohio State, and they lost that game. They've beaten North Texas and Howard. So you don't get any points for Howard. North Texas is a group of five team. They beat Western Joey Bell: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Paul: Kentucky, group of five team. And then they got points for Northwestern Rutgers and Nebraska. Not exactly Murderers Row, but they get Joey Bell: Mm-hmm. Paul: credit for all those, full credit for all those. And then they lost to Ohio State at home. so yeah, no no ranked matchups. How crazy is that? Minnesota, Michigan, not ranked when they played they have USC coming in today, ranked or sorry, this upcoming week, which it Joey Bell: Mm-hmm. Paul: will be a ranked matchup, but that's the only ranked team they face for the what an easy schedule. Good gosh. Joey Bell: Yep. Yep. So that's the difference. Wake Forest, yeah, I I think Wake Forest has played Miami. They lost against Miami as their only loss, but they also have more power for wins and you know, the bonus points, let's see, when did they lose to Miami? Was that like week three or something? Either way, you know, they got those bonus points for playing against Miami. So that was an extra five points. Paul: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Joey Bell: So those bonus points add up. And if you play a couple of top, five or top ten teams throughout the season, that's basically another victory in the point in the bell pole. So Paul: Awesome. Yeah, that's a that's a good point. Cause I was wondering how Auburn's ranked. I was like, we got a bunch of I got SEC bias in this poll, but yeah, they got a bunch of losses, but they're all the ranked teams. You know, Joey Bell: Mm-hmm. Paul: top ten Ole Miss, top ten Georgia, top fifteen LSU, top fifteen Tennessee, top twenty five Florida. They all their losses are against ranked teams, so that's gonna help them out in the poll. Joey Bell: And they well, they beat Georgia, so they got s at home, which is the the maximum Paul: yeah. That's right. Sorry, yeah, they beeped George. Joey Bell: the maximum points that you can get in my poll is sixteen. If you go on the road against the top five team and win, you get sixteen points. So that's that's a difference maker. That's six points. So I don't know how much further you'd have to scroll down. they got sixty points in my poll. So scroll down to fifty four, that's that's several spots. So a couple of points make a difference. Paul: here's here's a great here's a great thing. I love that when I was looking at the Auburn schedule, I just assumed they had lost to Georgia. No, I didn't even look at the score and realize Joey Bell: Yeah. Paul: that they won that game. So that's thing number one. Thing number two, when I went to Google their schedule, I typed in A Auburn Tigers and basketball top popped up first, not football. So that tells you the state of the program at the moment. Joey Bell: The the I think the biggest surprise, you know, I sent you the top twenty five. Paul: Mm-hmm. Joey Bell: yeah, well, Auburn's twenty fourth, but Oklahoma, you know, and I talked about this. Paul: I Yeah, I saw that. Joey Bell: Oklahoma is seventeenth and everyone listening to this that has watched or even heard about Oklahoma this season is like, why are they even remotely considered to be anywhere near the top of anything positive? They Paul: Mm-hmm. Joey Bell: are five and four. But they're seventeenth in the bell pole. One of those reasons is they played, I think, let's see, I think it's in week three. So I think it was week three that they played New Mexico, which is like, okay, that's a G six school. You should get five points. But wait, there's more. New Mexico is now ranked. So in my poll, when you play a ranked G six team, that's the same as playing any Power Four team. So you got an extra five points just from playing New Mexico because they're now ranked. And then they also beat Texas, which was for fourteen points. that was a neutral site game. then they got a couple more, you know, power four road wins. So that's eleven points each. So I mean, let's see, in week four who did they play in week four? I don't even remember. I but they got six points for that. So they went on the road. it's probably when they played Georgia, I bet. So they played Georgia on the road, I think, in week four. They got six points for that just for showing up. And so that's where that's a case where the bonus points add up and they got sixty four points with five wins. Paul: I like that about the bell pole that you're giving people credit for playing tough games. You went on the road and played a tough team. You should get you should get credit for that's worth more than staying at home and playing FCS whoever or which is worth nothing, or staying at home playing a G six team, which you beat forty to nothing. that's worth five. But going on the road and play facing a top five team is worth six. that should and losing is worth six. It should be. It should be. I think that's great. Joey Bell: Yeah. So I know when you when you see these updates, if anybody's kinda followed along throughout the season, again, you look at these and you're like, There's no way Oklahoma is seventeenth the seventeenth best college football team in the country. No, I'm not gonna argue with that, but the wins that they do have, the the opponents that they have faced and and lost still account for something in the bell pole. And these rankings won't be final until after championship weekend. I think that's where that's where I'm gonna stop them. So and my reason for that is so the folks that make it to these championship games, they get that those extra points for making it to those games. So you get you get point what you get points for going to the championship game and honestly it's getting treated like a neutral site game. But more than likely, especially in the case, SEC and the Big Ten, the Big Twelve probably, and I guess the ACC p yeah, ACC two. More than likely those are both going to be ranked teams in those championship games. So you're gonna get the bonus points for you know, playing a ranked team and potentially winning those games. So even if you don't win, you'll get whatever bonus points reflect the A P poll. right after championship weekend. So it'll be interesting to see how like everything shakes out. Yeah, I know Wake Forest is way up there. UCLA is way up there, but I've been waiting on UCLA to take a tumble sometime. Somebody's got to knock them off there eventually. So I don't think they're they're gonna finish at the very top of this pole. Utah will see what they do. Yeah they'll more than likely make it to the Big 12 championship. So we'll just see about those two up there. Paul: Well, speaking of Oklahoma and the SEC championship game, there is a scenario that an eight and four Oklahoma team could win the very last SEC championship game and steal a bid for the final twelve team playoff game. Oklahoma's path to Atlanta, they have to win out. So they have to go from five and four to eight and four. Georgia has to win out. LSU has to beat Texas. Texas has to win the rest of their games after losing to LSU. And then Bama, Kentucky, and Tennessee need to lose one more game. Joey Bell: Mm-hmm. Paul: If all that happens, that would put Oklahoma, Bama, Kentucky, Texas, and Tennessee in a five way tie at six and three in the SEC. And the Sooners own the tiebreaker in that scenario. Joey Bell: Wow. Paul: Which would send them to the SEC championship game. Joey Bell: That it is surprising, but not surprising at the same time considering how the season has been. we finally completed the circle of, you know, whatever it was called. You know, everybody has beaten everybody in the SEC. Paul: no, you called it two months ago, you were like, man, we're having a circular firing squad. We're all shooting at each other and I I laughed and dismissed it. And then here we are, we literally all beat each other this year. Joey Bell: Yeah, yeah, there's no there's no undefeated teams. Everybody has at least one SEC victory and you just go go all the way down through the teams, you know. Tennessee's played Alabama and Alabama played Kentucky. Well, you know, Kentucky played I don't know, just keep on going down the line. and it just makes a complete circle. So it's an insane season, especially in the SEC. and you can't I can't Well, especially as a Tennessee fan, I don't count out anybody anyway. But you can't ever just assume anything, this year. did any did anybody think Auburn was gonna roll in there and just and win it in Georgia? Not a single person. Paul: I literally I talked to one person. I try not to talk to Georgia fans anyway, even though I got a lot of them in my life. the only person was Lazmeby, Justin Lazmeby, Thomas Concrete. He goes, Yeah, we got a game against Auburn. And no, they're not very good, but it's a rivalry. And anything can happen in a rivalry. And I I dismiss that, but God, if he wasn't right. Joey Bell: That's right. Paul: If he wasn't right, man, that's crazy. I can't I've never been more shocked because I didn't get to see that game. That was the weekend of Concrete Works. So we were we were recording on the podcast. So I didn't get to see those games. And then I I'm in the middle of recording and somebody came come up and was like, Hey, did you see Auburn one? I was like, That's crazy. And but Joey Bell: Mm. Paul: as crazy as it is, Auburn should have beat Georgia last year. Cause we all forget the little games and the little inconsistencies that happen year over year. But Auburn barely lost to Georgia the year before. And they had like three touchdowns taken away from them. And two of those were on like horrible calls. Like a fumble that wasn't really a fumble Joey Bell: Mm. Paul: that they said, that is a fumble. We'll let Georgia recover it and Georgia ran it all the way back for a touchdown when Auburn was literally like diving into the end zone. So it was like plays like that. Multiple th literally three of them in one game and they all went Georgia's way. And they were all they were all bad calls and two of them took points off the board and in one case even gave points to Georgia and Georgia barely won. Joey Bell: the the rival the rivalry thing, I mean nobody expected Oklahoma to beat Texas either. Paul: Yeah. Well, that's a good point. No nobody trusts John Mateer, but nobody seems to trust Arch Manning either. What is it with those quarterbacks over there in the f the formerly the big twelve? The Texas AM quarterbacks horrible. Oklahoma's quarterback's horrible. Texas quarterback looks like an NFL prospect and then he's horrible. Doesn't make any sense. Doesn't make any sense. Joey Bell: Mm. It's it's a weird year. I think maybe earlier this year we were talking about how it was like the year of the young quarterbacks and everything else. And it's like I don't know I don't know of any like young quarterbacks that have been like break out, you know, stars or whatever. and we got two we got two freshmen in Tennessee and Kentucky's is I th I don't know if he's a freshman or a red shirt freshman or whatever, but it was the year of the young quarterbacks, but I don't think any of have lived up to super any of the hype or whatever. Paul: Well, I just think it depends on what your expectations are. So Joey Bell: Mm-hmm. Paul: when Bama throws in their five star true sophomore, Keelan Russell, or it might be his red start freshman, Keelan Russell said, What's our expectation? And the expectation we have a rebuilt offensive line. We got running backs that are but you know, we have true freshmen starting running back. And it was like, Well, our expectation is that we're probably gonna need to lean on the quarterback and he needs to be the X factor. And so Keelan Russell's legs and arm talent is gonna be the X factor. And he and I think, he had a few weeks there where you could argue that he might have been the best quarterback in the country. And then he came back to earth. Once people had time to game plan for him and game plan to disrupt our offensive line, even like the Tennessee game really comes to mind. And, you you could you could see he was making freshman mistakes. Joey Bell: Mm-hmm. Paul: So that was tough. Camario Taylor, super Camario over there, Mississippi State soft sophomore. He's not eligible for the draft yet. I think there was a couple weeks there where you could argue he was playing the best of any quarterback in the Joey Bell: Yeah. Paul: country. And he's a young guy too. So I just don't I think it's what you what are your expectations? Are you expect are your expectations Joey Bell: Yeah. Paul: that true freshman, red start freshman, true sophomore, that these guys are gonna play flawless football on flawed teams? Joey Bell: Mm-hmm. Paul: So if that's your expectation, then then yeah, nobody's lived up to the mark. But if you just realize, like, yeah, nobody's no team is perfect anymore in the NIL era. In the transfer portal era, no team is like those Georgia defenses, you know, back in the late teens, early twenties, the the Bama defenses from the mid teens, early twenties. You don't have that anymore. You don't have Alabama had four first round wide receivers on one team. Georgia would have multiple first round running backs on a single team. You just don't have that anymore. So, you Joey Bell: Mm-hmm. Paul: know. If you if there if you're one of those people that really loved parody, you wanted teams to be more equal, well, you got it. Now it's the Wild West out there. I hope I I personally couldn't imagine working in that industry trying to Joey Bell: Yeah. Paul: s sign high school kids to million dollar contracts. They've never seen a down of football. So you would you would think something's gonna come and regulate them. Joey Bell: Yeah, there's there's gotta be something coming up. It's there's gonna be too much money, lost or wasted or whatever. people are gonna eventually get tired of spending s so many millions of dollars on freshmen coming in here. Th there's gonna be a breaking point. Paul: Well, I think we're getting close to that. If the breaking point wasn't that you ran Saban out of coaching Joey Bell: Ha ha ha. Paul: then then where's the breaking point? Joey Bell: Lord. Paul: I don't know. But I tell you what, man, this has been absolutely awesome. Thank you so much for joining me for the entire the entire first half of the program. Did a full ride along. I just it's good to have you back, man. Joey Bell: it's always good to be here, especially talking college football. So I'm hoping I'll be glad to come back, in December when all this stuff is finalized after championship weekend and we'll talk about how they actually ranked at the end versus the circus that this thing is throughout the season. Ups and downs and they beat a ranked team. then that team is no longer ranked, but they're ranked again now. So I mean, everybody's just going up and down. All throughout the season. Paul: Also, we didn't bring up Joey Bell's new job. if if you're not familiar, I think most people are by now. Joey has changed jobs. He now works for master builders as a technical sales rep over there. I think I got that title right. either way, it the job he's doing is exactly the job he was meant to do. And when you come back next time, I wanna go I wanna go deep into how you're liking your new job and and all that stuff. But the question I have for you that today, are you the first person in the history of master builders to make a sale before they've even gotten their company laptop. Joey Bell: I don't know. I I kinda hope so, but that was pretty that was a pretty cool situation. Long story short, one of our old Acta Gel customers called me for something and I I just I guess I forgot to t tell him or just he he basically just didn't know that I had changed jobs and I let him know that I was I was like, Hey, I'm with Master Builders now. and he was like, cool. am I in your territory or what? And I was Yeah, yeah, you're in my territory. He's like, Cool, send me, you know, two totes of, you know, X whatever whatever additive that that he needed. And so I I called my boss up. I was like, just I just want you to know I just made a sale on like my second day here and my laptop hasn't come in yet. so I'm just putting that out there. And he just laughed. So that was just hilarious for my first week here. Paul: That's so good, man. It's so funny. There's no way you even knew what that product was that he wanted. Because I never heard of it. Joey Bell: Absolutely not. No. Absolutely not. Paul: Yeah, man, I got that. I'll c call you back. Well, how much is it? Like nobody knows. Like you just made a sale on your second day. So absolutely. Joey Bell: That's one of them one of those Jeff Carr's I just showed up moments. If Paul: Well, you just took this from a nice conversation. Yeah, you took this from a pleasant conversation to not pleasant. Thank you for that. but yes, that's incredible. You're doing the job you're meant to do. All those years of flying around and optimizing mixes and solving people's problems and and getting to just do what you do now. So I'm excited when you come back in December. we'll talk more about the bell pole. We also want to get into your job, things that you've seen, craziness, good things, and how how life's different. and the master builders team from from the Act to Gel team. Those are all be fantastic things to talk about. So we'll make a point. When is do you have the date on championship weekend? It's usually the first Saturday in December is normal. Joey Bell: Yeah, I don't have the exact date, but that sounds right. So mid December, right before Christmas, we'll have to get together. Paul: Yeah, I think it's the first Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's I think it's the fifth or the sixth. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I think it's the fifth because my daughter's birthday is the fourth, which is a Friday. So yeah, so it'll be Joey Bell: Mm. Paul: December fifth. So we'll have you on hopefully that week, the week after that we'll we'll record and have you on. So we'll we'll have some good stories from Master Builders as well. Joey Bell: Sounds good, brother. Appreciate you having me. Paul: All right. Yeah, absolutely, man. And that concludes this portion of the Slump Monkeys Conger podcast. We are gonna send it to the interview portion of the show. Today we have Scott McFarlane, president of Allegiance Merchant Services. And if you're saying, Paul, why in the world do you have a payment processing company on your show? Well, you guys know we don't do infomercials here. You can't just come on, hawk your product or hawk your company or whatever. And shove an an ad down somebody's throat for 30 minutes to an hour. We don't do that here. We come here to say I have a product that solved a problem. It's an innovation. I'm doing good things for the industry. Here's what I saw happening. And I love it because it's things that I didn't know existed. And Scott did that. I'm gonna let you hear it straight from him on the interview portion of the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast. And welcome into the interview portion of the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast. We have the one, the only Scott McFarland, President of Allegiance Merchant Services. Thank you, Scott, for joining program. Scott McFarland: Thank you, Paul. I appreciate being here. Yeah. Paul: Yeah, not a problem. So we've had a couple of guests in the last couple months that they reached out to the show, said, Hey, we'd like to come on. And we get those every once in a while. And we feel them out, and a lot of times you realize it's just some slimy sales guy wanting to pitch his product on our on our show. And you know, you you kindly thank them for their interest and y you whisk them away. But yours was different. And I very much enjoyed our chat. So before we get into the main reason why you're here, would you mind Scott McFarland: Yeah. Paul: taking the first sixty seconds and just let folks know a little bit o about your background and where you're coming from, what perspective you have of this industry? Scott McFarland: Yeah, so As you said, Scott McFarland, president of Allegiance Merchant Services, and I've been in payment processing for the last 30 years of my life. Now, when people hear that, they think, here's a guy that sells credit card processing. And what I really probably twenty years ago of that 30, I began to really figure out that there are other issues under below just cost savings, right? Because that's what everybody pitches. Paul: Mm. Mm-hmm. Scott McFarland: And so it was that problem solving piece that really led me to expand in my career and get to the point where I am today. And in our industry, we, you know, one of those underlying pins is that nobody has a cost benefit. We all pay Visa, MasterCard, American Express Discover the same costs. And so That's why the traditional guy in my position will just go to cost savings and give away margin. And what we found and I found personally is that with commercial payments, and that means, you know, those commercial cards, corporate cards, and then business cards, that you can optimize those costs for companies and pass that through to them. And now you're not talking about a quarter of a percent, you're talking about one percent, one and a half percent. So my perspective is really looking and approaching this less from, hey, let me just pitch my product, right? It's really about finding what are those problems that that an industry is experiencing, because I like to be industry focused as opposed to shotgun out to everybody. And from there, learn about that industry and what problems they're trying to solve, and then see if the payment space has the different components that we could build and piece together. to address that problem. Paul: If if anybody's been to any of these trade shows lately with concrete shows, the amount of payment processing companies is just ballooned. It's unbelievable. It's like they all discovered that concrete accepts payments Scott McFarland: Yeah. Paul: in the last five years and now they're all showing up. I I just don't know that anybody comes out of the womb thinking that you know what I'm gonna be when I grow up? I'm gonna be a payment processor. So Scott, I'd love for you to tell me like how do you find yourself at the helm of an of a company inside that industry? Scott McFarland: Yeah, I it's going way back, I I don't know if you can see it behind my shoulder, but spent about eight years in the Air Force and when I got out of the Air Force I landed in Santa Barbara, California of all places, and somehow found myself selling. And first it was tel telecommunications and then I got into everybody's probably seen back in the day, hey, get your free t shirt out on a campus near the student union, right? So I owned Paul: Yeah. Yeah. Scott McFarland: I owned that industry at one point, me and another guy, and then Kmart, Walmart, Kmart's gone, I helped do that. But Kmart Walmart Target We had the people at the front front of the store. And and I joke about Kmart, but it was really Kmart that pushed me into merchant services because I had 150 Kmart stores going every week where we were putting Paul: Mm-hmm. Scott McFarland: plastic in the people's pockets, and I felt really good about that as I roll my eyes. And so Paul: Mm-hmm. Scott McFarland: so we were on the issuing side, and then suddenly I had a hundred and fifty times two, so I had three. 300 people who were out of work, and I had to find something Paul: Mm. Scott McFarland: for them to do. And I tripped across a company called Card Service International. And overnight I went from zero to about thirty-five thousand accounts a month. And if I only knew how to spell residual income back then, we probably wouldn't be talking right now. But but you know, but it was good. It was good it was a good entree into into that, which was very much in the cost savings piece. But like I said, it wasn't until I was with a a large company for about 17 years and then we ended up selling it to Brinks. and so it was during that period that my CEO came to me and said, Hey, look, I want you to go try to close this account. And I looked at the email thread and I'm going, my gosh. Two other senior VPs have been working on this for two years. What am I gonna do with it? And they were processing probably around twelve, twelve to fourteen million a month. And I ended up saving them through interchange optimization about a hundred and twenty five thousand a year, which that just doesn't happen. And that's when I discovered this that we can solve a solution of maybe even it's even cost savings, but it's not in the traditional sense of cost savings. So no, I didn't dream of, being I I I think I dreamt of being a rock star, but you know, hence that back there. But no, never never woke up one day and said, gosh, I'm gonna go move money around. Paul: Yeah, yeah, well so th most people listening to this are audio only, so back behind you you have have a guitar. so I'm I'm guessing you are a guitar player and you you said you wanted to be a a rock star. That's awesome. Scott McFarland: Yeah. Yeah, that's that's what I I dreamt of being as growing up and playing out at bars and the whole bit. But yeah, sixty three nineteen sixty three ES Gibson ES three thirty five sitting back there that was my grandfather, so beautiful, beautiful piece. Paul: That's killer, man. Grandparents passing down instruments is freaking awesome. My wife has her grandfather's violin from Albania and it's upstairs underneath our bed. You know, Scott McFarland: Right. And it'll it'll never leave the family, I'm sure. Paul: that there's no amount of money you could offer. I don't even know if it's worth anything. I didn't even ask. I didn't even ask, like, is this a nice model violin? Because it doesn't matter, it's not what it's about. Scott McFarland: Yeah, yeah. We're good. Paul: So we we get people on here that all have different views of the concrete industry. And I loved when you reached out to Slump Monkeys. You said, I f see a problem. People know it's a problem. People that are running the businesses know it's a problem. We thought we solved it as an industry I should say. Thought we solved it by making people jump through a bunch of hoops. But that it really didn't, it just shifted the burden and now you're saying Hey, not only have we found a way to solve the problem, but it also shifted the liability for if there's ever a situation where the problem's not solved. So we're being super vague here. but I wanted people to understand that Scott came into this as someone who cares about the concrete industry, someone who saw a problem, found a way to solve that problem, and is now doing that for some of the largest concrete customers out there. Scott, I just want to give you the four. I want you to lay out for us what was happening on the payment side, the fraud that was being committed. committed at an unbelievable scale and it just seemed like there was no hope and there is hope. There's light at the end of that tunnel. Would you take that away from me? Scott McFarland: Yeah, absolutely. So where this where my ready mix concrete aggregate focus began was early twenty twenty three that I was talking to a very large producer down here in the southeast, numerous, numerous plants. And so I was on the phone with the credit manager, ended up getting to the credit manager, and I'm pitching, you know, 'cause they were doing millions of in credit processing each month. So I got to the credit manager and I was going to make this pitch of B2B payments and optimization. And she said to me, Scott, look, this all sounds great, but if you can help me with one thing, this would be what I would love for you to help me with. Why can't I stop credit card fraud? Why can't I stop somebody who's got stolen card data? And I take even a copy of the card, which I, plug my ears when I hear that, but a copy of the card, driver's Paul: Mm-hmm. Scott McFarland: license, you know, a a credit card authorization form. I get all of this, we deliver the concrete, we l pour it, then two days later, two weeks later, whatever it is, we get a charge back for that full amount and we have no recourse. Yep. Paul: And so so explain chargebacks real quick for because 'cause our audience here is two things primarily. It's quality control folks from the Redimix Concrete industry, and number two is small business owners. So explain chargebacks real quick and then why and why that's such a big deal for these Red Mix operations to have to deal with Scott McFarland: Yeah, there's two types of chargebacks, and one of those is hey, I really didn't like the product and Paul, you need to do something about this, and then you don't do anything about it, and then I dispute that with my card issuer. And in this business, you're guilty until proven innocent. And so that I issue or the card issuer issues a chargeback to your company, and they pull that money back right away until you, Paul, as the business owner, come back and say, Well, this is Why I should win this dispute. But that's more of a product type of thing. When somebody's got stolen card data, and let's face it, all the all the most everything in the concrete industry is taken over the phone. You're not showing up. That buyer is not showing up at the plant saying, hey, deliver and pour my driveway, let's say. Paul: No, they're not going on a website and selecting from a menu, yeah, I'll take four thousand PSIs many yards, no, they're they're making a phone call. Scott McFarland: Yeah. Exactly. They're making that phone call. So in that case of When it's stolen card data and you're doing everything you can as the business to try to mitigate and prove that that's the real card holder. Because you maybe you even heard that this is a problem, right? That people are using stolen card data. When that happens, and now me as the real card holder looks at my online bank statement and I see three thousand dollars to XYZ concrete, I call my issuer and issue a chargeback. And I will win that and those card holders will win that 100% of the time. The ReadyMix company could have all the proof that they could have. They could have the homeowner waving in the background of a photo with their new driveway and they're not gonna win because it was stolen card data. So it wasn't that homeowner, it was somebody else's card. Paul: So I it doesn't it doesn't always make sense to me. So if the homeowner the homeowner wanted the concrete, Scott McFarland: Mm-hmm. Paul: the homeowner got the concrete and they got their thing, but the homeowner didn't use their card, so are they being fraudulent or is there a third party involved Scott McFarland: Yeah. Third party. Paul: here? Scott McFarland: So what's happening specifically again, and it's happening across the building supplies industries all over. But but as it relates to ReadyMake, let's say concrete, is that somebody's got a Facebook marketplace ad. And as soon as I say that to a credit manager, to an owner, they're like, yep, that's that that's what it was. So somebody sets up a fake Facebook marketplace ad. I'm selling concrete at 120 a square. Square yard, whatever it is. They got it discounted. So unsuspecting homeowner says, Well, yes, I'm gonna go get that from this guy versus over here from the real legitimate concrete supplier because it's gonna cost me more. Now, this guy on Facebook Marketplace, he's got a phone number, he's got an email, he's got everything you need. You end up contacting that guy as the homeowner, and you say, Hey, I want to pay you. Well, to keep my costs down, I don't accept credit cards. How much those cost, right? So I want you to sell me or Venmo me the money. Well, I'm not gonna sell you until I see the truck show up. So now bad guy calls the real concrete company, uses stolen card data to send that truck out there, sends a truck. Moment the truck shows up, he's got that customer selling him the money. So customer got their concrete, they think that they paid legitimately, right? Crooks got their money and real legitimate concrete company is out of the product, they're out of the time, they're out of the money, and kinda irritates them quite a bit that they just got taken, right? Paul: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Just gotta take advantage of. So the bag bad guy uses the stolen card data to send legitimate concrete to a legitimate project as the middleman and the concrete company can't do anything about it. So is that when when these credit card companies on the you said there were two different types of chargeback, one was on the product side and they just automatically give it back you're guilty until prove it innocent, is that because it costs more to investigate and customer satisfaction if you don't just return that customer's money to them. is that the reason they're just like automatically giving the money back? Scott McFarland: Yeah, and it's it's been this way forever in the card industry. The the card issuers, primarily those four big brands of these mass card American Express and Discover, and then they have all their little we'll call them their franchisees, right? All these banks that issue their particular brand of cards, they're protecting their card holders one hundred percent. And in the fine print of any merchant application, it's got the details on chargebacks and it's Basically, we're gonna take that until you have the chance to dispute it. Paul: Interesting. I've only ever called one time and said hey this is fraudulent and it was. So it wasn't a I I was a hundred percent in the right and I didn't have any Scott McFarland: Mm-hmm. Paul: issue. They were like, Yep, sounds good and I was like, What? Scott McFarland: Done. Right. Paul: it was seven hundred and thirty dollars. Like what if I had really bought this T V from Walmart, and somebody hadn't used my card fraudulently. He's just like, Yeah, no problem, here's your money back and cancelled the card and sent me a new one. It was just Scott McFarland: And if you and if you were if you did that over the phone, you were not in person, even even e-commerce, but if you're not in person where they could get a chip read and EMV read or a tap to pay. they really have no recourse. You could be the just a bad person that goes and does a chargeback and gets that gets that back. Not what's happening in the industry. It truly is bigger business than that. It's not some, you know, guy that rolled out of bed one day and said, I'm gonna go rip off A B C concrete. Paul: yeah, yeah. So this this is organized, this is coordinated. Y tell the audience the number you told me, how much money a month, just to like one company is getting Scott McFarland: Well, that that where that one credit manager, I don't know if I mentioned the number, but in Q one of that year I called right after Q one and of twenty twenty three, they had lost right about two hundred thousand in fraud losses at that point. And you know, and my jaw did the same thing yours did the other day when I told you that, it hit the table and I thought, okay, wait, back up. What's going on? And then they explained this whole Facebook marketplace and blah blah blah. So I got that and that's when I kicked in the gear to say, There's gotta be a way to stop that because what would stop somebody with a bunch of stolen card data to go to Amazon, let's say, and buy everything they wanted that's gonna be delivered at three PM today and the legitimate cardholders a day from now, two days from now. I'm I got my flat screen TV, they're never getting that back, right? And so so that same card brand product that Amazon uses and all the big e retailers use, that's what we built into our gateway to shift that liability over to the issuing bank. Paul: Okay, so the so the solution wasn't so much like reinventing the wheel. You said, Hey, this already exists elsewhere. Why is nobody protecting the concrete companies? And you looked and you said, Well, I don't have it in my product offering for the concrete company. So that's what we're gonna do. And you built it in. Could you go into some more detail? Because we have a very smart audience, even if we're not credit card processing gurus, but we have a we have a really smart audience. So feel free to go kind of deep on this. I wanna know like what was the solution exactly why wasn't it there before and Scott McFarland: Mm-hmm. Paul: when how do you implement Scott McFarland: And th the why wasn't it there before, it's because it was really built for e-commerce. So back to, you know, name any any biggie retailer. We don't need to go through all their names, but it was built so that somebody couldn't s have stolen card data, which that exists out there. You can go on the whatever black market, whatever and get it. And So when you would buy online, there needed to be something that would authenticate that that was the true cardholder before they're going to release, or at least do its best to authenticate it. And so the way that that works is that with any credit card transaction that happens, credit or debit. It's gonna fire out through the let's say credit rails. And let's say I'm using a Visa card. It's gonna go through Visa, it's gonna route it over to my particular issuer, let's say that's truist bank, and Truis is gonna say, does Scott have three thousand dollars open to buy on this card? Yes. That's the authorization it fires back and we all experience that as consumers. It happens instantaneously, right? It gets to that issue or fires Paul: Mm-hmm. Scott McFarland: back with that authorization. What Payer authentication does is it goes one step further. It says, Do I recognize? And not me, it's the issuer that says, Do I recognize this card number with this particular IP address? And there's the key. I mean, it's as simple as that. So it's going to say, if I recognize this IP address with that card, then I'm going to let it go through frictionlessly, but I'm going to authenticate and shift liability off of that company. If they don't Recognize it, they're going to challenge and they're going to send the real cardholder, the person that they have on file, a text or an email, Paul: Mm. Scott McFarland: right? So bad guy can't say, yeah, go ahead and send that to my phone, right? No, the issuer is authenticating it. They don't know who who this is. All they know is this 16-digit card number. And they're gonna send it off Paul: Yeah. Scott McFarland: to the real card holder. Here's your text, here's your six digit, eight digit, whatever it is code. You enter that into the transaction screen. Now it's authenticated. Paul: Yeah, we get that all the time. yeah, we say e commerce. That's a super normal, super normal process and that just hadn't been brought to like B to B space where orders are made over the phone and now it is. Scott McFarland: Exactly. And it and it really cause back to I keep saying it e-commerce, so what I had to do was kind of unwind this and say, well, wait a minute. If if concrete company is sending out a payment link, not taking it over the phone and key entering it into we call it a virtual terminal or a lot of people key into a you know traditional countertop terminal, which is even worse yet. But If I send a link out to somebody and they click on that link, well, wait a minute, isn't that that opens up a payment page, a host of payment pages, we call it? And that looks a lot like an e-commerce transaction, right? It's just e-comm. So it was as simple as that, figuring that this is an e-commerce transaction. I can build payer authentication into our software and have it act just like you were buying from any biggie retailer and shift that liability off of you, concrete company, over to the issuer because the issuer said, I'm good with this. Paul: Yeah, that's a good point. So because the issuer is authenticating it on their side, then if there is a chargeback, s concrete company gets to keep their money. And the card it's the card issuer that has to eat it. Scott McFarland: Absolutely. Paul: yeah. That's yeah, my gosh. So when you so when you implement this So this example company that w the case study that we're talking about, who had Scott McFarland: Mm-hmm. Yep. Paul: two hundred thousand dollars in chargebacks in the first quarter of that year, d did that just go to zero? Is that what we were looking at zero? Holy crap. Scott McFarland: goes zero. it's yeah, and and it's funny because, I think we all use AI at this point and, AI will ingest all my sales guys' calls and then, coach and the whole bit. And it says, you know, you can't say it's gonna work a hundred percent of the time. It actually works a hundred percent of the time. When it's authenticated, right? And and there's Paul: Yeah. Scott McFarland: and there's, you know, details to this. You don't just flip the switch for payer authentication and it works. There can be false positives and everything. So we, you know, we learned a lot in the first six months and we stumbled over our ourselves. But but at that you can dial it in so that it works a hundred percent of the time. And so we've processed well over half a billion. million in transactions and building supply at this point and zero fraudulent chargebacks. Paul: Incredible. When I was in business school, AI had j the the chat GPT revolution had just like it was happening while I was in business school. And the case studies we had some AI classes and and one of the only case studies that made any sense at the time. Again, this was, you know, twenty twenty two, so GPT three had just launched. Everybody is like, wow, this is crazy. The only one that seemed like it made any sense was actually credit card fraud because Wells Fargo implemented it on to into their end. we're using AI to catch fraud. It was pattern detection. W but it were having five hundred and fifty million transactions a day. And Scott McFarland: Yeah. Paul: there was no way you could r review there's no system that can review that. But they put a lar a a machine learning algorithm on it and it can just go in and recognize everything and say, hey, here's fraud and fraud detection, and they actually reduce their fraud tremendously. so it's really interesting now to hear that as the trickle-down effects of technology, you know, g bleed through from the digital space into physical reality, which is what I always love about concrete, is it's physical and get our hands on it. Scott McFarland: Yeah. Paul: We're we're protecting those folks too with this fraud protection. It's just incredible that that that company was losing a million dollars a year. It's down to zero. It's it's absolutely insane. Scott McFarland: Yeah, and it's and you know, big company and you know, they had the you know, the wherewithal and the spend to be able to go figure this out and you know, I definitely helped them figure it out. But But it's it's those let's say just the mid size to lower or smaller, we should say, concrete providers. You know, they don't look you you wanna you wanna produce ready mix, you wanna produce concrete, you wanna go out and pour it, you're good at all those things, but you don't have a big IT department. You don't have somebody who's watching even the cost side of it, like, you know, a hawk. But These chargebacks happen, these fraudulent chargebacks, and and it's not even like they're running rampant with them, but it's happening and it's a five thousand dollar here, it's a fifteen thousand dollar there. And that's impactful for a small a small Paul: Mm-hmm. Scott McFarland: business. And so why do that? And here's you know, something you and I talked about is what ends up happening, because they don't know any way around it. They just think Well, I am gonna make come down to the plant, right? Paul: Okay. Scott McFarland: I'm not taking a credit card over a phone from somebody I don't know. If it's an account customer, Paul, you buy from me all the time, of course I'll take your credit card over the phone. But it's these people they don't know, that COD order that they're making Paul: Mm-hmm. Scott McFarland: them come in or they just stop taking it altogether. And so they're creating operational friction. they're creating a terrible customer experience. They might think that those people were coming in to pay but they're losing revenue. And so Paul: Mm-hmm. Scott McFarland: that's that's a problem and we don't think that that should be a problem. Paul: Yeah, I don't know any contractor out there who is gonna be like, Yeah, I'll absolutely drive over to your plant order no, they're just gonna call the other guy. Scott McFarland: Right. Paul: And it's gonna take the credit card. Yeah. Absolutely. Scott McFarland: Absolutely. And and and that guy's gonna go send your you know, send a copy of your credit card, your ID and and so the bad guy's gonna th and that's what he's gonna do. He's just gonna keep calling around because somebody is gonna take it. And it doesn't matter, he doesn't need to be in, you know, Charlotte, North Carolina where I am. He could be in Char he could be in Charlotte and calling on a provider in Philly. Who cares? He's not there, y you know. Paul: Yeah. Yeah, to him and it makes no difference. Yeah, his Facebook marketplace ad, he can set it nationwide and or set it to Scott McFarland: And back to AI, I can I could create an ID that looks like me with a Philly address, right? So Paul: I just wish I wish these criminal folks would take that ingenuity and put it into something positive. Scott McFarland: Yeah. Paul: Like that's so that's so smart. Why can't they Scott McFarland: Yeah, we hear. Paul: do that and be a positive a positive burden on society instead of a negative burden on society? Scott McFarland: Yeah, yeah, we hear that all the time. Paul: Jesus cra my my brother in law, he he's got a nice little property, they got a the beautiful house and they've got a big yard. you know, it's not like it's not like this like many, many, many acres type of thing out in the country. They're they're in Bucks County and it's but it's a nice property and it's a big backyard. And he wants to build a new barn back there. And he got hi all of his helpers are on Facebook Marketplace. So so as you're talking about this, I'm just like, my gosh. Yeah, it's just getting squeamish, he got he got screwed out of some guys that just like totally like you know ran him around and and he's real sharp my brother in law's a very very sharp guy so Scott McFarland: Yeah. Paul: as he's getting you know run around he he he got on top of it and he got it he got it all done but it's just Facebook Marketplace scares the crap out of me and I would never have even thought like ever in my life to be like yeah you know I'm gonna go build something on my house or on my property. Let me let me go to Facebook Marketplace but my brother in law does it and and he's a sharp Scott McFarland: Yeah. Paul: cat. So I guess other people are doing it too. Scott McFarland: Well i and you figure these guys are very opportunistic obviously where it's like, okay, well let me pick let me go pick on an industry that they can't come pick up the product. Right. So, Paul: Mm. Scott McFarland: you know, yeah, I've I've spoken to guys in metal supply and, you know, metal roofing and they'll go chase it down and you know, at half the time you get the police involved and they're they got bigger things to do than chase down five thousand dollars worth of your product. But I've seen where people have gone and recovered product. What are you gonna do? You can't can't go back out there and rip up the driveway. Right. And then it comes down to then Paul: Yeah, yeah. Scott McFarland: sometimes I s I hear and see that now the you know, they're going to the homeowner, you got ripped off, I got ripped off, you owe me X, and now they're putting a lien on the house, and just it just creates such a bad, a bad experience for everybody. Paul: Alright, so I have another question. it's kind of a broader like market question. I don't it hope hopefully you can give me some insight because I don't I don't really understand. So every time we swipe our card, credit or debit at any merchant or buy something on Amazon or whatever, every time a transaction is is is held, if I'm using a Visa card, then Visa makes a percentage of that sale. Is that correct? Or is it a Scott McFarland: Yep. Paul: flat fee? what is the how d how are they making money? Yeah, how's Visa making money? How's America Express making money? Scott McFarland: How they make money. Yeah, so right. So there's really there's like three players in the in the process. The the Visa Mashcard American Express Discover, so the four major card brands, and we'll just say Visa for a minute, that They make right around twenty one twenty basis points to twenty-five base points. So basis points, a hundred basis points is one percent. So they're making one fifth to one fourth of a percent of the volume, right? So hey, they sponsor things like the Olympics and everything else in the NFL because there's a lot of volume at a quarter of a percent that they're that they're getting. Paul: Just not every transaction. It's two tenths of a penny of every dollar. Scott McFarland: Every dollar, right? So they're they're getting that part. Then the card issuer, the person that actually, that bank that actually issued the card gets what's called interchange. And interchange is about 85% of the total cost of transacting. And so interchange has all these different levels. There's not just one where I go, it's it's 20 basis points. No, it it might be 3%, it might be 3.15%, it might might be 1.65%. So there's all these different percentages, but on the whole, it's about 85%, even upwards of 90% of the total card cost to the merchant goes to the issuing bank. And then there's me. and my processing partner, since I'm not the bank, I have to have an acquiring bank behind me. so I've got my acquiring bank, I've got to pay, and then we take our margin out of that. So we'll call us and the acquire is the one entity, the card brand and their card issuer. But the card brand makes about we'll call it one quarter of a percent. Paul: And is there a situation where the bank could be person number two and person number three? Like they okay. So they could Scott McFarland: Yes. Yep. So s some banks process directly themselves. and you know, and those type of those types of situations I I think they they can do well. But I think people like us exist out of the out of the reason and I say people like us is the not the bank processor. The that's all we do is we focus on this and solve those problems versus the bank if you go to them, even though they should understand what you and I are talking about, they don't and you never even get access to it. Paul: Interesting. Okay, so what I so that that sets up the question that that I I ultimately have about the the Visa, the MasterCard, the Discover and the American Express folks. How on earth Did they get this it's not a duopoly, it's like a quadopoly to be the people how that it's a money money printing machine that if you wanna make a payment there they get a piece of it. I d I don't understand like how did they get the railroad of payment. Like it's like they own the railroad, but it's in payments. And I j it's just Scott McFarland: Yeah. Paul: it it just doesn't make like how did they how did they finagle that? How come we don't have like how how there like a thousand of these players? Why is it only how did they do that? Scott McFarland: Yeah. Boy, that's all it's even say outside my pay grade of how how did all that happen, right? But Paul: Yeah, yeah. Scott McFarland: b but you know, and that's where, you know, all the the digital the digital currency and everybody trying to come up with something besides these four card brands, primarily. But i it's Paul: Yeah. Scott McFarland: it's never gonna go away. Paul: Yeah. Yeah, I don't think that's gonna go away either. I'm just it's just so interesting. And I'm not a crypto person, so I don't I think all almost all of that is a scam. But it's just yeah, it doesn't make sense to me, like how how can you not have a s a startup come along and just do the exact same thing? And Scott McFarland: Yeah. Paul: and just plug right in and and say, like, I'll only take a tenth of a man of ten basis points instead of twenty. It'd be half. I mean that God, it's just so so much money as long you've got the volume and the velocity to keep up, you know, to pay your overhead and I don't know what that overhead looks like. Did these guys have boatloads of data centers out there to process all these transactions. Scott McFarland: Yeah. Paul: And it's just I don't know, what a what a business. I just wish I wish I could go back in time and be the guy that creates that. Like what an incredible business model. Scott McFarland: Yeah, yeah. I just wish I could go back in time and redo my deal when I first got into the into the business. Would have been different. Paul: Well, you know, hindsight's always twenty twenty and I tell my daughter all the time, 'cause we she constantly like does exactly what I do. I say, Honey, in this family we only learn our lessons the hard way. So we're not gonna do that again, are we? We're gonna do Scott McFarland: Yeah. Right. Paul: do things differently the next time. Scott McFarland: Yeah. Paul: Well Scott This has been fantastic, man. I really appreciate that you reached out. You came on the program. There is a problem out there with fraud. And there is now a solution. You can verify the payments and concrete the same way you can get verification and protection if you're an e-commerce business. We gotta get this technology to everybody. If anybody wants to get a hold of you, connect with you, learn more about it, how can they reach you? Scott McFarland: Yeah, for me, you can always just give me a call at 704-370-7804. So 704-370-7804. If that doesn't get me here, it'll ring right through to my cell phone. Yeah, and then email. You got my name up on the screen there. Put a dot between Scott and McFarland at A-L-G-M-S dot com. Paul: Fantastic. If you are a brave man putting your cell phone out on the internet, through the through this show. I Scott McFarland: Yeah. Paul: I haven't I haven't gone there yet. But I I do hope that if anybody heard this that they will reach out and they can solve these problems for the same Scott, just thank you so much, man, for coming on here. Scott McFarland: Yeah. Thank you for having me and really appreciate the time. Paul: Absolutely. And that's been another episode of the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast. If you would like to reach out to us directly at the show, you can email us admin at slumpmonkeys.com. That's M-O-N-K-E-Y-S.com. Admin at slumpmonkeys.com. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode.