Latest / The Mobilization Mindset / Episode 167 | Field Tested: Best Stories & Biggest Lessons from Scott & Herb

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Episode 167 | Field Tested: Best Stories & Biggest Lessons from Scott & Herb · The Mobilization Mindset

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: In my world, you know, we've got 650 employees, and if every family is roughly four people, there's 2,600 souls that we're impacting.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that's, you know, when when you approach me about doing this project, that's that's what hit me is is I want to help these people be more impactful to more people.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome everybody to the next episode of the Mobilization Mindset.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Scott Pieper, CEO and founder of Mobilization Funding.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And today I have a very special guest on.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to be talking about a project that I just am so endeared to.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Herb Sargent is my guest.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: He's also my co-author.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: He's also my friend.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And today he and I are going to talk about our book.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: The book called Field Tested, the one we wanted to write and we wanted to put down the real stories of construction, the pain points, the struggles, the things that went wrong, the things that he and I have both done wrong, the things we have seen go wrong, how bad we made mistakes at them, but also how we fixed them.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the best part of the book.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: You being able to see those mistakes, seeing yourself make those same ones, but also knowing you're not alone and that we know that we know how to make those same mistakes, but we also know how to get out of them and be better off for it.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Herb, welcome back, brother.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, thank you, Scott.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a while.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it has.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm excited since you got me on this crazy project.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: It it's really uh a lot of fun.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think this this originated you and I, uh, you invited me to do a podcast, and then after that, you said, Man, there's a lot to talk about here.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what happened.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was over, I mean, listen, it was it was over 18 months ago, closer to 20.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: We did our first podcast, which is live.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what episode it is, but we can put it in the show notes.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then after that, I remember saying to you, Herb, I got an idea, man.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: If what if we shared all of these stories?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And at the time I was reading this Patrick Lencioni book, and it had like these, it was like a fable, and then it tells you the lessons at the end.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Herb, we just told so many stories that if we just captured these chapter by chapter and the lessons that we learned and the ways we got out of them and fixed it, it would be so helpful to the world that we love, all these construction companies, business owners.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: So some of these stories, you know, you you you live through them, and uh in some of them you just survive them at the moment, but um you know, you end up thriving after the fact.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's it's um James Clear says it kind of like this uh the events of your past are fixed, but the meaning of them are not.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: So assign a different meaning to that past, and you can make more useful use of that past.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what this is, really.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's you know, all these things from my world that I survived in some ways.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's not a lot of winning stories in that in this book.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: There's not like this only goes up into the right.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's a there's a lot of there's a lot of heartache and pain and and uh you know failures, but I think that's what helps us grow.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and one of the things I think you and I both did really bad is make the mistakes, right?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the things you and I both did really bad is suffer from them and play poor me and boo-hoo.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the things we did great was learn from that.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time we're telling the next story, it's the lessons we learned from it, how we impacted people, how we got out of it.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, like you said, sometimes just not quitting and surviving it is literally the best strategy and the only one you have, and it'll work.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: But what you learn along the way is what we talk about in that book.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so the goal is for anyone reading this book, you could get that same story.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: You'll immediately resonate with this happening.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if it hasn't happened to you yet, it'll definitely happen in your construction or business journey.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: But if you could go back and say, oh, I remember reading this book, and these are the three or four things I need to pay attention to, and the two or three things that Scott or Herb uh in the story they're telling could what they would have done or what they did do to get out of it, you could save yourself years of pain and even a quicker solution to the same problem.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, one of the things I love, Scott, about the way you handled the conversations that we did.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: And and then, you know, you kind of lay out the principles at the end.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's really the most important thing is the principles that that can survive one set of circumstances but still be applicable to a hundred others in a in a business life.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: And and I really appreciate the way you boiled it all down to those principles.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I appreciate that.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's it's gonna be taking your words and our conversation and and using those storylines and the and the hundreds upon hundreds of clients that we've had at mobilization funding telling those same stories.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was so easy to resonate with knowing one, you're not alone.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, two, hey, the the way that this person got out of it and this other business is the same way you described it as well.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: The same mistake they made to get into it was also very similar to that.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it was really easy to lean on those um those storylines to tell a better story.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then funny enough, what I really learned and what made it easy is although I'm not in the construction trade business, we're in the lending business.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: I guess what I did.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: The same exact mistakes, just in a different business, the same exact problem.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: So the framework was very easy to tell because I'm in a related business myself, and I saw those same problems in the previous industries I was in prior to coming into lending into the construction space.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, you know, field tested is the name of the book.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I think that it it actually, you know, crosses industries.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just construction principles, it's just it's business principles that I think newer, younger uh business folks that are that are navigating their way through a much more rapidly changing uh society and business world than than was when I started.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there wasn't even there was no internet when I started, so I'm kind of dating myself here, but um just the idea that I think these principles and lessons apply across industries uh that that almost anybody could could read this book and read these stories and the principles that you pulled out of them and apply them in their own business no matter what it is.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: So Herb, what do you think if you if you were sitting in front of one of your peer groups and you have you you didn't write this book, but you read it, okay?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And and you're gonna talk about you know, and we've led it out, your peer group guys raise their hand and say, This is what I need, this is my problem, this is what I'm doing.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: How can you how can this book help that person in that moment?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: How would you explain it to them?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: I would just say, I mean, if if you're gonna go through business in life and just rely on your own experiences and your own failures and your own successes, it's gonna be a lot longer.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's that's kind of what this story is in my life.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's uh, you know, I I joke that I'm 99% scar tissue.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: And what I would hope is that people read this book, okay, I'm gonna avoid that scar tissue.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: I can I can not have to go through that that lesson.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: But um I think they can they can take this book and they can uh start anywhere in the book.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: They can look at a chapter that that seems to resonate with them, they can go to that chapter, read that chapter.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like a front-to-back kind of book, the way the way you've got it designed.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and just pick one and and just say, okay, yeah, I can see these principles that are are extracted from the story.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: And those principles, if I put those into play in my life, uh in my business, then I can avoid the same kind of a problem.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think really I'm not sure we've mentioned it much, but intentionality is such a key part, I think.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's what I've grown to know is is you know, we can wake up in the morning on Monday and it can be Friday night before you know it, and you didn't get all these things done you expected to get done.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that still happens to me.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: But if if we are more intentional about setting ourselves up for success, and and that's a lot of what this is, these principles, I think they can take these principles and think about how to avoid those problems or how to confront those problems or or how to deal with them if they have them.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I loved about the book, and specifically chapter, is like, you know, uh the avoid the shiny thing, you know, avoid the new idea fairy.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and what the what on paper or in your mind sounds so reasonable to do, like, for example, oh, we're in this business.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Let me be in this next tangential business.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm already here, I'm on the site, I might as well be the one collecting that revenue.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it makes perfect practical sense in your mind until you realize what you have to learn and what you don't know and the pain around it.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then it costs you four years and all your profit.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's a great story of you know, stay focused, become the best at whatever it is you do first.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Be literally, your goal should be to be the best in the world at the thing you do.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And when you do that, lots of opportunities come about.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, not only at the thing you do, but at the point you're at now.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen so many companies out there that are growing so far beyond what the systems they have.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, they'll go from 30 million to 60 million.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: So 30 million, they're at 20% margin, and 60 million, they got 10% margin.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so they're just doubling their exposure for the same margin.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, let's get, I just as I go to peer groups and and I talk to people around the country, I just say, listen, before you get before you decide to grow anymore, let's get, like you just said, let's get to be the very best in the world at what we're doing now, and then and then grow.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then maybe if you if you can if you can win at this game, then maybe you can win at the other game.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not automatic.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean, I can tell you from my experiences that are in this book.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, just because you're good at something doesn't mean you're good at something else.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: The experiences you had to become good, let alone gray or excellent, um, are real and needed.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's painful.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing that I've I've learned is that we can begin to uh to double down on something that's not necessarily successful or maybe even failing, but we don't want to admit to failure, and we double down on it.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like we it's like we're playing blackjack and we've got a 16 and the deal has got a 20, and we're gonna double down on our 16, and it just makes no sense at all.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's our ego talking.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: I that was my ego talking.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we are gonna win this game, and then 10 years into this game, you know, I'm looking my wounds and I've said, no moss, I'm out on this game.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I suffered it for 10 years.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's so true.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you didn't in the first five, you didn't even know what you were doing still, you were just suffering and you didn't know what it was for.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't even sometimes you don't even know what mistake I made to be suffering.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: You made a great point, though.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what I hope people pull out of this book is again, for the folks that are really trying to grow and you know you got a 30, 40-year career ahead in front of you.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: If if we could, my wish for you is if if Herb and I, by writing this book, telling these stories and giving these lessons that we learned, help you avoid either pain of five or 10 years within that 30 or 40 year period, or we help you shrink that 30 or 40 year period down so that you can retire earlier or hire the right people earlier to spend time with your family and your kids.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't have to make some of the sacrifices that we had had to make due to our own um circumstances or the folks that we know about and we're telling the stories.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like for you, for you, if you're that 30-year-old with a couple kids at home and you're and and your new wife or husband, and you're sitting there and you're like, man, I just can't get home for those games.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: I just can't do this, and and read this book, and you realize, you know what, I have to hire people to, I'm limited by my capacity.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: I need to hire people before I actually am where I want to be.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And just knowing that one lesson will give you so much freedom and so avoid so much stress and probably two or three years of having to learn that lesson.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of my favorite things from that book, and it really hits home for me because I it was one of my biggest problems that I wish I could have done.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: It would have given me five really good years when my kids were probably, you know, eight, ten, and twelve.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: A really important time, that age, those ages for your kids, you know.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, I spent the first 10 years uh in my business back in the 90s, uh, suffering through and and learning eventually that I was the bottleneck.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was the person that was holding us where we are.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, another principle is you know, a lot of things can get you here, but they're gonna keep you here.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Those things.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: And recognizing what those are and and how you can turn those into leverage points, I think, to to continue growth are are really key points that that I think a 25, 30, 35-year-old business person uh really needs to try to try to understand how to how to leverage the potential uh circumstances you have, understanding those circumstances, what's trending, and what is going to make a difference to make them trend in a better direction.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know what else, too, in that same regard is you as an owner and as a founder and as an individual must grow faster individually than your business.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you will never get farther than your own development, personally and professionally.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that that's another thing that was hard to capture.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and even if even if you do bring people in that have grown past you, there's probably likely going to be some resentment.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, I'm in uh I'm aware of a couple companies right now that the owner has become a little bit of an absentee owner, and there's beginning to be resentment.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and if I'm honest, I was I was maybe not the absentee owner because I was present at the business, but presence doesn't necessarily bring value as an owner or CEO.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: And uh in in my world at that time, I really didn't know exactly what my role was.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: And and trying to learn uh understanding what your your next role is, is in growing into that and learning it.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: And to me, the best way that I found it is to find a coach to do it.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: A coach, a book, a biography, a podcast, a peer group.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that learning expansion comes from a lot of places.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I find podcasts and books are some of the best ways to do it because you can do learn them on your own, and there's people that are much more successful and farther along than I was that I could learn from.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it helps.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then then adapt a coach into that too.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's like pouring you know, gas on a on a fire.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: You just keep going from there, especially the right coach.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not a fake coach, but a real coach.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: I uh, you know, when I first connected with you on LinkedIn, um interested in your podcast and started listening to it.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, when you think about the resources that are available to business owners now compared to in 1995, like I said, there was, I think the internet was maybe just coming into play in 1995, but email wasn't really a thing, podcasts weren't a thing, um, you know, YouTube wasn't a thing.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much more right now, but you have to access it.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I didn't see people writing books in the 1990s on how to avoid all the Burmese tiger tiger traps that I've fallen into, right?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I I I just hope that's what this comes out to be is a resource for people.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: And if I'm if I go one step further with it, I hope it's a resource for for business owners to get better, but to get better for the benefit of the people that are working for them.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's it's important for business owners to know, you know, people might say, Well, I got a I got a hundred guys uh depending on me.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: And in my world, you know, we've got 650 employees, and if every family is roughly four people, there's 2,600 souls that we're impacting.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that's, you know, when when you approach me about doing this project, that's that's what hit me is is I want to help these people be more impactful to more people.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you want these folks, you have to grow and expand.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope this book and telling these stories allows them the ability to find a way into some education that they didn't have before.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because every business owner has a responsibility too.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: What you just mentioned, your employees, your own family, yes, but your employees too.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: They're part of your work responsibilities.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: They have families that they're caring for and they've attached themselves to you and your beliefs and your dreams, and you have a fulfillment to live those.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: And not only do you have to live them, but you have to show them and teach them and educate them how to be more successful in life, how they can make more money here at this this company, how they can take on the next promotion, the next job, which makes their family better.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what they've signed up to do when they decided to come work for you.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so that responsibility is real.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, even if you just read this book and find that one thing out alone and do something about it and have that mindset attached to it, you're gonna be such a more successful business owner because you'll never get there on your own.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: You need an entire team and you need a team of very good, high skilled, high standard, charactered folks.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's what makes you succeed.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to teach and train those people.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: You don't there, you don't just go out to a good, you know, team tree and pick them.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it doesn't happen.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: You you they grow with you.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I uh for me, I hope uh I don't care why people buy the book if they want to buy it because they're into learning and self-improvement, or they want to want to buy the book because uh they're there's this little piece of ambulance chaser inside them that wants to see all the shit that Herb went through.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's fine with me too.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the takeaways are are worth it, you know.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: I agree.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, thinking about that, Herb, one of the things you and I decided to do was give people the ability to not only buy the book, but buy other books.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: As many as they would like, if they would like to pass them on to folks they know.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: If they would love to contribute and buy books for people who can't quite afford the book or don't want to buy the book, and have you and I be able to hand those out to folks, that's cool too.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many folks that are trying to figure out whether the construction world is the right world for them, um, the younger generation, the mid-tier generation, folks that are trying to grow and expand.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe they don't know about the book, but if they had the ability to get this book in their hands and you, as someone who can resonate with this, want to buy extra books that we then pass out or you give to them.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the things and goals that you and I designed this for.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I think it's important for me.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, listen, my some of these lessons are unique.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them are not unique, some of them are have been made mistakes, uh, been made a thousand times before.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, you know, I guess we could break that chain now if we wanted to, if everybody wanted to dig in.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: And and we're just, you know, my interest and yours, I believe, is just to get get in as many hands as we can, and and uh and and hopefully have people to pick out a lesson or two, and and and we're willing to to do what we got to do to get them out there.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, what was your favorite story in the book?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, but my well, my favorite story, um or I should say my favorite metaphor, uh and and this applies all across my career in different places, but it's the Trojan horse.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: And and if you if you're not familiar with the Trojan horse, it was it was back in the days of medieval times, and and this uh this uh Trojan horse was built and rolled into a city, and it was full of soldiers who then in the middle of the night uh took over the city.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: And the idea comes to me as like something you think is really like a godsend, a good thing that's uh that's that's gonna really help you out, but you don't really do all the due diligence into it.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: You don't you don't uh you don't pencil it out the way it should be penciled out, you don't look at all the potential uh downfall to it, and and so you go ahead and let this Trojan horse into your business, into your life.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, that was that was an electrical contract we bought in 2016.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it just was a really tough, it wasn't well uh really wasn't well thought out all the way through.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: It it wasn't uh well aligned in terms of how we approach business.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: The cultures weren't well aligned.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: And there's just all these different things served to, you know, it's the same effect as the Trojan horse.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: It was, you know, we let it in and then it started to tear us apart inside.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's that those types of things, if you just kind of think, if you look at different things in your life, as I said, there's been many that I would call the Trojan horse because I thought they were going to be great.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: But pencil those things out and really inspect this Trojan horse before you wheel it into your city.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, make sure you know that that um what what the risks are.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we can be in the construction world, I mean, we'd never get another job if we weren't optimistic, right?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: So so um, you know, I think I think as as contractors, entrepreneurs, we tend to overlook risk and say we we're gonna be able to overcome it or whatever.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: And and sometimes they don't.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's been some major, major companies that have failed.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, you know, my favorite story in there is around when to hire talent, you know, particularly financial talent.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like when do you hire the bookkeeper, the controller, the CFO, at what revenue level, at what stage of cycle of business, um, what knowledge and capacity do you have?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And not only that, but how to go about finding them.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of my favorite parts of that book because um I know individually having access to the right numbers in the right format allowed me to be such a better owner and principal business um leader for my team.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I I neglected sometimes to really appreciate that as much.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you were telling that story and and sharing those experiences, I was really resonating with me.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, in our world, we see that all the time.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we share that guidance as well to uh our construction businesses that we're that we're lending to or we're helping and facilitate in some manner.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so that one that's a real that was a chapter that I think will help a lot of people too.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just trying to understand when you need to bring somebody in, and I think it's earlier than most people think.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like um you may not need a CFO on day one, but you know, when and we outline different revenue levels where different things might need to kick in.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, in 10 years, those revenue levels are going to be different due to inflation or whatever.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: And businesses are different, you know, one might be a materials-intensive business versus a labor-intensive business.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it's there's not like an absolute, but I think when you start uh when you start getting to the point when you when you can start to feel a little discomfort, that's when you really need to start to think about it.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um in and I'm I'm a pilot, so I think about uh, you know, in terms of planes, and when they when you when they put you in training and they put you in a stall, they may make you really climb fast, and then all of a sudden you can kind of feel the plane shake a little bit and then it stalls.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: And is that the kind of feeling like when you start to feel the business just kind of bog down a little bit and then shake, it's it's maybe it's too late at the shake.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: You can recover from the stall, but uh you know, when you start to feel it kind of bogged down on the way up, is is the time to really start thinking hard about that.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Is there one story or lesson that you hope sticks with people after they've read field tested more than any other?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I I think like I said, that the the concept of of the Trojan horse and and looking at things, if you if you just looked at everything with a little bit more skepticism, uh every opportunity with a little bit more skepticism, and and kind of filter the decisions through, I don't think you'll end up with a Trojan horse, but if you look at everything like it's a Trojan horse, it almost like whether it's a new hire, a new contract, a new opportunity to buy another business, uh uh an opportunity to buy a fleet of equipment, uh, whatever it is, just just be a little bit more diligent about what that is.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: And one example is uh, you know, we bought a bunch of equipment when when uh when the bonus depreciation came along, and that that kicked us in the butt about four years later.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: But we you know we we want to save taxes.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we bought this equipment, and then four years later our depreciation was gone.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so instead of even though we lost money from an economic standpoint, from an IR stand IRS standpoint, we made money and we had to pay taxes on money we didn't make.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I would just say, you know, my lesson from that is buy equipment when you need it, not when the tax man tells you to take some depreciation.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: My favorite story is probably around hiring the right people and when to do it.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and really understanding that you you can be enough, but you've got to expand and grow.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: And like how that relates to all aspects of your business.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: I would say that's probably one of my biggest takeaways.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the feeling that I think when you read field tested, you'll you'll get a comfort inside you knowing, man, I'm really not alone.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like as much as you you are, it's a very alonely feeling, and you feel like you're the only one in the world that makes these mistakes, you're gonna learn in this book that you're not alone and you're also not making mistakes that you are the only person in the world that's made.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And um, it's a it gives you great peace when you know something like that that gives you the courage to keep moving and doing what doing your thing.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're not you're not doing as bad as you think you are.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: May not make you sleep better, but you might get some peace from it.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: That is true.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: So the book is gonna launch in October.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: We have a cash flow workshop coming out in October.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Our book launches one week before.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Estimated date right now is October 12th.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: We will be doing a pre-launch and a pre-sale throughout September timeframe where you can pre-order the books, which will do nothing for Herb and I more than to help us get it in front of more people by making sure it is loaded and in stock on Amazon and all your favorite book places come uh October.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: So look out for a lot of different options here as we're pushing through this.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you're listening to this now, you'll have the links in the show notes.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: You'll hear where to go get it.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: You can pre-order it, you can order it um direct, you can order through us.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: All the options are right here in the show notes.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Please do us a solid.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get this book in front of as many people as we possibly can.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um I'm looking forward to it.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I really appreciate the opportunity, Scott, and and the nudge from the beginning.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: To I never would have thought this could be a book.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I just appreciate the nudge uh from you, uh, kind of based on that first podcast we did.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh, you know, it for me, my I think my LinkedIn presence is telling about my failures.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's if I if I think about what I post on LinkedIn, it's like this is what I suffer through.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I think you can avoid it.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really what this book is.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: It is, it captures that tremendously.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think you've done it, you've done a great job, not only on LinkedIn, but you've done a great job telling those same stories, even in more detail that you already do in the book.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be awesome.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: It really is.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: All right, everybody.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed this little pretease to our book.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there are going to be lots of ways for you to help support it.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Also, listen to it in advance, find it in advance.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: Herb and I will continue sharing more and more information.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: You can follow us both on LinkedIn individually.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: You can also find this information at our mobilizationfunding.com website and also the YouTube channel at Mobilization Funding.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: You can see Herb and I's previous podcasts that we're mentioning in here.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: We'll put a little link of that in the show notes here as well.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: And until next time, you all have a great week and may God bless you.