Latest / The Leader Mentality / Bridging Generations: Keys to Thriving Family Businesses- Fernando & Miguel Posada from International Construction Services

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Bridging Generations: Keys to Thriving Family Businesses- Fernando & Miguel Posada from International Construction Services · The Leader Mentality

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Leader Mentality Show with Rob Clemens.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Today, we're going to talk a little bit about something that anybody who's been in the business world might have experienced, and that is all about family businesses.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: If you're in a family business, you want to establish yourself, you want to maintain the culture of the business.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: You want to make your own path, though, and so how do you do that?
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: How do you keep that perfect, synchronous transition from the current ownership to the new ownership?
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: How does it work?
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Today, I have two very special fellows on the show because they're doing it right now, and doing it in an epic way.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I want to introduce to the show from International Construction Services.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: We have Fernando Posada and also Miguel.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, fellas.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having us.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Man, good to have you.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: It's a two-for-one special today.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: I don't usually get to do two, so this is going to be great.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Man Guys, I know a lot about your business because I did some research leading up to the show, and I've also heard of you before, started in 1995, when you guys were probably like negative five years old Young guys, right, but your dad started this, and he started it with a purpose and a mission.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I want to get into that a little bit and how you guys came into play.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: But before we dive into all that, what are you guys up to lately, man?
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Well, right now I'm in the middle of remodeling a BB&T Bank.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: We're actually opening up one of our first storefront offices.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: So when my parents started the business, my mom and father started the business.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: He had a neck and he was the head.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: And, by the way, before we get on from that, was mom the serious one or dad the serious one?
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Are they both serious?
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: My dad is the more serious one.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, gotcha.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Usually they both serious.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: My dad is the more serious.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, gotcha.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Usually they got to transition off of each other a little.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: It's a perfect mix.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Okay, gotcha, but she was more in the house office scheduling and he was in the field.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: But we're in the middle of remodeling a BB&T bank Fulfilling one of their dreams was to have a big storefront office.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Okay, they kind of built the office that we're in right now.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like a plan B.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: It looks like a house, okay.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, so in case business didn't work out, oh, it still can be a house.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: It still has a house, yeah.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, as you see now, since 95 businesses, you know we're still in business storefront office.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: You know big signs, big teal roof, because those are our colors.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Teal.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, nice, Sean's up.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: By the way, You're in coastal Carolina country here I see it all the time.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: But yeah, we're in the middle of remodeling that BB&T bank and we should be able to move in within the next seven to eight months.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: That's awesome, man, well done.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: So you, fernando.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: You are actually the vice president of the company, miguel, you are the operations director.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Take me on a day-to-day of what you're doing as the operations director at the company.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Day-to-day man.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: I just make sure all our cities are doing all the work is correctly, all the guys are tied off correctly, our boots on the ground are making sure the jobs are done correctly on time Quality, making sure safety is all good.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Just everything that we promise on the front end with the builders that we have.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Make sure that all gets completed.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Man, I like that.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Let's stay on this subject for a minute.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: We talk about roofing professional roofers and I want to get into a little bit about what makes you special, and I kind of feel like you're telling me that, but when you get into the roofing side, you talked about safety.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: How do you install safety in a business that's traditionally not really that many people being safe?
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, how do you get that established throughout your company?
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Well, it hasn't been easy.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: It hasn't been easy.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: It's definitely a battle that we still face, you know, 30 years later.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: It's something that every day we're having that conversation Every day.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: It's a reminder.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: That's kind of how you face it Every day.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: All our air managers will grab our roofers before they even all out on the roof and inspect all their safety equipment, mm-hmm.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Do you have the correct anchor?
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Do you have the correct harness that you have to tie up from the D ring on the back?
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Do you have the eyewear?
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Do you have?
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: It's a checklist that they run through.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, cool, now you have it, let me see you put it on and then you're on the roof.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Now you can get up, because we've had we've had circumstances now we don't see it as often yeah, but you, you'll check a roof, you'll check a crew and they're doing perfect.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: You drive away like let me just go back 20 minutes, I forgot my uh camera yeah, let me go 20 minutes later.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: And then there, no hard hats, no this no man guys come on, you know.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: So sometimes it feels like you know management cares more about getting these guys home.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: When you help them realize, hey, it's to get you guys home safely, it's not just because there's going to be fines.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: We also offer a reward system.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Okay okay, that's been a game changer for us.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't always ruling with an iron fist saying there's a fine if you're not doing it.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we actually say you know what We'll also give little bonus for this job, this project, If we come out surprise inspection and everything is in order.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I love it.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: That's modern management to me.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like the old school style management was hey, we're going to penalize you if you don't do this, we're going to.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: You know, we're going to write you up if you don't do that.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: But what about, like the opposite thing, which is rewarding those who are actually buying into the mission, and that's really powerful.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: One thing I know about the roofing industry and you guys know I have a little background on this too it's that the guys on that roof are a different breed.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: And when I say they're a different breed like, they'll stand up looking 40 feet down at the ground and not even sweat it.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: You know you got to be special to even do it in the first place.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: The guy's breakfast is.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Red Bull.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they eat breakfast Red Bull and then they're going home.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly yeah, it's like you're sweating out everything on the roof, you know.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: So I can feel you on that, but it does because that is part of it's in the blood a little bit.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: You do have to keep reminding them.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you one thing I did years ago and I own a construction company as well I had that I actually put a message up on the board.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: You guys ever hear of a NASCAR driver named Dale Earnhardt?
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: You've probably heard of Dale Earnhardt.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Right, you're like, okay, so the original Dale Earnhardt, he died on the track and it was like I showed this to the people because when they saw it, my staff of guys who were working out on the field.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: I said, why did I show that to you?
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: And they said, well, because life is precious.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, life is precious.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: And they're like because sometimes if you take little side cuts, maybe it can cause you problems.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, but I said, but the bigger thing I'm trying to tell you is NASCAR.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: After that happened, they got serious about safety.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: All of a sudden they're like, yeah, let's get safe about our cars, let's get safe about the way we're doing this thing.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I said don't wait until somebody dies before you get safe, and you know, sometimes you got to get that message out.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: So well, well said, man, I appreciate that you're doing that.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Now, fernando, for you, you are the vice president of the company.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: What would you say is like your number one thing you're doing on a day to day?
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: What would you say is your number one thing you're doing on?
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: a day-to-day Representing the company.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, that's my thing.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: I'm checking on, for example, just so you know how it works internally.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: I'm out selling we both sell but that's where I spend most of my time is selling business, trying to get new contracts out, networking, doing the events and all that.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Once we're able to land accounts, that's when it goes to the production team and that's kind of what he says we're ensuring that we're meeting the scope of work of all our customers.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: He looks over the scope and he's like cool, we can handle this, this is how we're going to handle it, Assigns crews and we go from there Right on.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of my job is to be the face, in that sense of representing, always shaking hands and trying to establish our footprint in new cities where we want to grow.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: It's kind of cool because I feel like, especially in construction in general not just roofing, but construction you have to establish early on that you're a professional company, because there's so many companies that are not really professional.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: So the first thing you're doing on that public face is saying, hey, check us, check us out.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: No, no, not at all, man, it's a brute.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Well, and you get it like the problem and with respect to your dad's business and your mom's business that you guys are taking over, the challenge becomes a lot of people will get good at something working with their hands and then they think I'm going to go out and start a business.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: You guys have probably had people who worked under you and then they were like oh, I'm going to go start a business, right, and the problem is is like yeah, you know how to do the process, but you don't necessarily know how to do the accounting, do the editing, do the managing, do the marketing, all the little things you're talking about.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: So To that point I think it's important to have the public face, but it's also important to back up what you're saying.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: So I want to go there next.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about that a little bit.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: You guys have a slogan, I'm sure, kind of a way that you put it out there.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: How do you keep your entire large organization?
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: How many people do you have working for you right now?
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: About 20.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of people, right, the more people you have.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: How do you keep that message consistent with them on a day-to-day?
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Is it through job site meetings, morning meetings?
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: How do?
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: you do that Right now.
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: We have meetings every Thursday and Friday with our production, with our in-house staff, and just one thing that we, as you said, our slogan would kind of be ICS is International Construction Services, I is integrity, c is consistency and S is satisfaction.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: Okay, so that's one thing we pride ourselves on.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: We kind of end it in all our meetings kind of all saying that together, kind of like a hoorah type of team effort.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a little hoorah effort.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Right, you got a little fist pumping.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: I dig that.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: The biggest challenge I think you run into is like when you have that first obstacle of the day, right, like it's like we leave, we're all feeling good, pumped up, ready for the day, and then you run into an obstacle.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: The mindset there is very important.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Do you have like foremen on the jobs?
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Who kind of take the mantle when you're not there?
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, we have a foreman in all the cities that we're in, that we're operating, and that's exactly how we operate and how we tell them.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: That's how a decision would be made on their end, yeah right.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Um integrity if you see something wrong with the roof, the homeowner might not see it the way we do, but that doesn't mean that we can't get it corrected because we know it's wrong.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you correct it when you know it's wrong.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Um consistency, we keep doing that day in, day out.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: You know we give them a good quality roof, we give them good, good service and then it's going to lead to satisfaction.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: You know, always think about the customers In construction.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: It's tough.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: It's not like a restaurant where you get a steak and send it back.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: It's tough in construction because there's different ways to go about it.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Happy customers that maybe watch the YouTube video and the YouTube video says this is how you do my roof.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: You put the end of yeah right right right, you know we see it all, but at the end of the day, they're the customers, so we would like them to walk away satisfied with what we're giving them.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: If that takes a little bit more time explaining to that homeowner that watched the YouTube video and is an expert, explain to them, kind of, why we do it differently.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Explain to them that maybe these shingles might be different manufacturer specs, whatever the case may be, we want them to walk away satisfied with the product that we're giving them.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: And those three words, those are the key words for us to continue our growth, because if we're operating from the ground up, the roofers also know this as well.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, when they're in the field, they might see a bad framing.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Hey, don't just cover up the framing issue, don't just cover it up.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: But, man, it's such a mindset thing though, because it's tough when when you guys are up at the top and you are at the top of your organization in your respective positions.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: But it's tough sometimes because these guys who are working on the roof they're thinking it's 115 degrees up here I'm nailing.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: The sooner I get done with this, the quicker I can go back to my family and get off this roof.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: So it's hard to really establish that, guys.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: It's so important to call the time out and do it the right way.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: But I respect that a lot.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Man, that's something people need to know.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: What would you say differentiates you from other roofers?
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of roofers out there.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: What would you say is the thing that makes you guys most unique?
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: I'll just answer first and then I'll go ahead.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: I would say to base it on those instances.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Like you said, it is tough, but with us, instances, right, like you said it is tough, um, but with us.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: We're hands-on with the roofers on a daily basis.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: You know, I think, I think we speak to every single crew we have.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: We have more than 25 plus, and a lot of them are checking in with us, um, just because of where we started.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: You know, my father taught us the business.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: It wasn't come sit beside me and learn what I'm doing.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Go to the field, get up on the roof right, it was go to the field, get up on the roof, hang out with the roofers, see what they go through.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: This is why they don't want to wear that hard hat after eight hours in the summer.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: So he wanted us to get a feel for that.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: Wow, so we have a different respect for them.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: They've seen us work in those conditions.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: So it's not like oh these guys, the son's owner.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: You know, that's how it works with us.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: We've been out there we've done repairs, we've been with the crews, so we established that relationship and now they've seen us grow as well.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Some of the roofers have been there since my father started the business, yeah, so they've seen us grow into our roles and they're like these guys are legit, they got respect, what we have to say.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: They understand where we're coming from, because I get what they're coming from, we get what they're coming from, but hey, we also have to abide by certain rules.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: There's a certain way to go about this business and we've been able to tweak it.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: That's kind of where our success is is that we're able to train crews and help those crews, the subcontractors.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: They grow underneath us as well.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, yeah, if you abide by the safety, abide by the quality and I have no problems with your guys you can train the next crew and put them under and work for you.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: I'm going to keep giving you jobs.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: It's one of the few businesses you can do that in.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Man Well, okay.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: So I do want to ask this because this is kind of an interesting subject that I think it applies to all businesses, though we tend to think of what you do, but really, if you went to any restaurant right now, any retail store right now, just anywhere, there's somebody that's doing and we need to make sure we understand how it feels at that level.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Right, because, as you said, fascinating People think why doesn't the guy want to wear his hard hat?
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: The homeowners who might be listening right now, why doesn't he wear the hard hat?
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: But then you get outside, it's 95 degrees.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: You got sweat, sweat's coming down off the hard hat.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: You know it's hot up there.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: You can't see.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: You've been wearing it for six hours Wearing those harnesses.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: They're pinching you, they're hot, you know.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: So there is an element of it.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: It's like you just got to take yourself out and understand what it feels like to be that person and they got to get the vision to why what they're doing is so important, so cool stuff.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: So, man well, guys, well done.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: I can see that you're running a really high quality business and I respect that.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: You're carrying the mantle that your dad and mom started a long time ago, so let's go into that a little bit Now again.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Operations director vice president, tell me a little bit about what the transition has been looking like for you guys.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: What's different from when your dad and mom were running it solely to what you guys have done, and how have you started to establish your value in the business?
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: A lot has changed but at the same time, not much has changed.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, we bring, we bring fresh ideas.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: You know, for, for example, just real quick off the cusp, I would have never been able to hire a full-time videographer for our company.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was, it wasn't gonna happen.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: They're like what is that?
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we, we, we met on it.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: We're like we kind of need one.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: You know it's, it's more new social media, it's the, it's the new wave.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: You know it's a way to get out.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so how do we convince pops and mom, who's a little bit more old-school, right, yeah, and we were able to get them because we needed a yard guy at the time.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're like all right, uh, part-time yard guy, part-time videos and wait, hold on a yard guy like cutting the grass.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Sorry, we call him the yard guy.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: He's the warehouse warehouse.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: I thought you're gonna get your lawnmower got it now that's thinking, all right yeah we're like a warehouse, okay, good.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Warehouse help and we were able to convince him and we knew like after about a month we're going to see the value in his videos we're going to see these videos and we know our father's more visual.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's going to love the videos too.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: He's like why don't we just make him do his full time?
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Oh, no doubt, hey, we need this position filled, but he could also do this and that's Ishmael here who's with us today?
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Shout out to.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Ishmael.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: He's off camera now, but he ended up after about a month.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Our father saw the value in making videos full time and doing this he's like no, no, no, let's bring him back in.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Find a warehouse guy.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: He's going to be full time social media All right.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: So there's one of the pro tips for those people who are listening.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: You might be like I'm in my family business how to establish it.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: First thing you have to do is you've still got to work through the channels, even though you're taking it over.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Because look, at the end of the day, if you just went in like we need to hire this full-time videographer, you might not have ever.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: You wouldn't have ever gotten there.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: So you had to kind of negotiate to help them see the value.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: And I do want to circle around, but tell me what you think.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: That's kind of good to piggyback off what you just said.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: That's how we've approached it.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: You have to respect what they've done Because, at the end of the day, we've only been here, for I've been here for coming up on seven, a year, after me was six, and they've done it for so long a certain way.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: So who are we to come in and say this is what we're doing, correct?
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: And you, you know, and and, by the way, you know he didn't we didn't get these positions or titles, the set the first day we got here.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: We had to work and you know, find our, find our place, and you know we all have the same goal.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's easy, we want to grow.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: We're all eating from this, you know, um, it's a, it's a, it's a profitable business, it's a great business.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: We've been blessed, and so we're all moving towards the same direction and it's how do we check all the boxes?
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: How can we work together with your insight, you know?
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: my father generation what we bring to the table and it's I think it's been a perfect mix, so cool, we get lucky because we can work together.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Dude, you guys did get lucky like straight up, because it doesn't always work out that seamlessly.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: But one of the things I've been trying to talk to businesses about recently is the power and understanding of how generations can work together to have a more complete business.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: And the case in point is you got certain age groups who, who, they?
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: They have that old school hard work ethic, if you imply that around the company.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: That's kind of what I feel like your mom and dad did.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: And then you get that new school level of understanding how to mass market.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I think the better at that.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: You know it's like you don't put your ad in the phone book anymore.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: That's probably what your mom and dad did early on, right, but like now, you're realizing this is all about quick impressions and as we get more into the Gen Zers becoming our number one customers, we better very much embrace quick hits.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Man, get that YouTube video.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: So, miguel, I want to ask you a little bit.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: You from the operations standpoint, I'm sure that you have a little taste in the marketing and you have to do some things.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: How has YouTube changed your business?
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: How do these videos change your business?
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: It's changed tremendously.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: We've actually started our YouTube channel as well A while back.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: We have about, I'd say, 100 subscribers.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: Now, Everything that we do either our trainings, our warehouse videos, our outside videos, our installation videos are all on YouTube and, just honestly, we've grown from people reaching out to us through YouTube from subscriptions, comments, reviews go to YouTube.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: So, just altogether, it's helped us tremendously Okay.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: So you guys do a lot of the how-to videos If I may chime in from those how-to videos on.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: YouTube.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: They've actually asked us to host seminars.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, we've had guys come in customers you know some of our large customers like can we send our supervisors to go learn, cause they, they know everything?
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: They kind of know everything about building, yeah Right.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Can we send them to go learn the nitty gritty about?
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: roofing with you guys Well yeah, I understand these little.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: you know these mini, actually big dog houses that we have, yep, and we're throwing up a roof showing them.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: You know the details, intricacies flashing here, ice and water, the whole nine Big dog houses like Great Dane dog houses.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you got to put a 10-12 pitch on it.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, here's the thing that I thought was kind of cool.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: You talked about the how to.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: They think they understand it.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: There's a little bit of art form to.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Here's how you do it and you make it look so complicated.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: People are like, no, no, no, I need to call Fernando and Miguel and International, but no, I feel you on that.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about you guys.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: When you were younger and growing up, Did you think when you were 7, 8 years old, 10 years old, that you were going into the roofing business?
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Tell me about your paths, man.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: We'll start with you.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: I'll be honest Growing up I never once saw myself getting into the business, even just through school.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: I was completely different, seeing it now as an adult, kind of what they were going through making sure the business is running smoothly, making sure everything was getting done.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: So as a kid I just never really saw myself.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: As a nine I see them stressed out.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: I'm not ever going to be involved, never, never, never.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: Now, being older, you know my brothers will.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: Just I see everything they went through.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: Now it's on our shoulders so I definitely respect everything they've gone through.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: I'm for sure now I love it.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: I can't say anything about it, man.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: You guys have said the word respect a number of times here and I love that, man.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: It's like such a cool thing because I feel like that one reason you guys ever hear the story about how the business is thriving, then the kids take over and the business goes down you had to have heard it.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: It's a lifelong cautionary tale, but I feel like it's because the respect wasn't there.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: They didn't understand the hard passion that the parents had when they started or whoever started it.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: They just that passionate when nobody was looking, when you're putting in the 16 hour days and just nobody even understood that.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: And then the kids take over.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: They're like, well, you know, good, but you guys are really like seriously having the respect.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: So I dig that man and I bet that's passing through your whole organization.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: So well done on that.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so all right.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: So, fernando, what about you, man?
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Were you going to be a little roofer from the age of six?
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: never.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: I was supposed to be, uh, messi and ronaldo right now playing soccer, yeah, like a million somewhere.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: You know that type of thing.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: That was.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: That was the goal, um, and I actually played a semi-professional a little bit.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: I played in australia, I played in Colombia, but, you know, after you know, pay is not what it's supposed to be.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: You know, at such an entry level, yeah, yeah, I just decided to come back and see if my father needed help at the time and he didn't really want to bring me on board because he thought I'd take a step back.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: You know, just kick back.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but that's why I say I play with the chip on my shoulder because, okay, that's, you think I'm going to come in and relax?
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, I've seen.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: To pick up on what you were saying is that we've seen the struggle?
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I saw them start.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: You know, in a rental apartment with you know the little TV, dinner boxes writing on a little yellow notepad the schedule, the roofing schedule.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: I've seen them take late night phone calls, early mornings, my father driving, commuting, every single day.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: I saw that grind and that's still with us today.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's still with us today and that's kind of where the biggest mesh that I see is.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Maybe my generation doesn't know about that work ethic.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: That's needed.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: You know to really get you.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: You know to to really get you.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: You know to have nothing.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, create something.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: Luckily we didn't have to do that, cause I look at them, I don't know if I would be able to.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: That's real Nothing.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: No.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: I started from a with a headstart we and it would be almost disrespectful if we were to let it fall.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: So that's why we play with that chip on our shoulder and we only want to keep growing, because if you're not growing, you're dying.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: So that's kind of where we come and we approach it every single day.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: That work ethic that we saw back when we were growing up.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: We remember that and it's still with us today and that's why we approach it just with our own twist.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Very real man.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that If you look up on the board the people off screen can't see it.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: But I talk about.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: That's my brand of leadership learning continuously and enthusiasm for what you do.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: But one of the things that you said that hit me in the leadership is guys there's a beautiful thing that happens.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: You're young guys I'm less young nowadays, but anyway you know.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: But I know what it was like man, you start off as a little kid and it's all about what I need to survive.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: As you get older it's a little less what you need and a little less and a little less to the point where now you can give it back, you can help others grow.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: So the way I see you guys is your parents set you up for success.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Now you get the blessing of setting everybody else up for success.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: So that's really cool, man.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about that sports thing a little bit.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: You know I use a lot of sports analogies in business.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Like a lot, like anybody who listens to the show.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: I'll go out, I'll do a public speaking event to a room full of people.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: I'll be like any sports fans and if no hands raised, I'm like oh boy you get ready for some stories you're
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: not going to understand.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: But you know the deal is it's so synonymous with business.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Man, how did you practice?
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: What was your mindset going in?
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: You know, when the defense did something the offense wasn't expecting, how did you adapt to it?
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: That's the marketing side, right.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: What have you brought from your sports career into the business that you feel like helps you succeed?
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Playing like you're a professional.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what do professionals do?
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: Their bodies, their tempo, they eat, right, you know.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: They study the game film.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: They train every day.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: Yep, that's what we have to do as business owners to watch it grow.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: To read the market yeah, market's slow, market's fast.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: When is it time to, you know, make a good investment?
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: When is it good to make a good play?
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Um, see, see what's out there.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: See what's working for other companies, see where marketing is going to take us.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, and again, consistently hone on your craft, my sales craft.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: My, when I go to these meetings it's not perfect, but I'm consistently tweaking see what I can do.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: Why didn't, why don't I get this account?
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: How do I get this next one?
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: I got this one.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: What I do?
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: well, you know, that's the thing yeah, always tweaking what you can do and just approach it like you're a professional athlete.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Every day, try to work on your craft and get better every day.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Man, that's fire right there.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you why I love what he just said.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: The thing is, if we approached everybody loves sports.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: It amazes me.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: After the Super Bowl is over, we'll all sit down and be like, oh, did you see what they did in that game?
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: I can't believe they did that.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: We are breaking down things that really don't matter.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: In the big scope of things, it doesn't matter who won the Super Bowl.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, it makes us excited, but it really doesn't matter on your day-to-day.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: It's not going to help you feed your family, but why don't we put more of that time and passion into what we do for a living?
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: So when you talked about it, you know some people just take the oh woe with me approach.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Oh man, it's, it's a shame, business is slow.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: I wish we had the marketing money, these other people, and I'm like if you were a sports team, you wouldn't just lay down you go all right, we got to change the strategy.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: And what are they doing?
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: That's working.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: How do we adapt?
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: So, um, you on the operations side, I'm sure you have a lot of that.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: What would you say is the biggest challenge that you see coming in the roofing industry, and how are you guys adapting to it?
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: Technology.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: Honestly, Right now we're doing drones all over All our air managers have drones and kind of just keeping up with the market of mainly just how fast technology is coming.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: There's machines already roofing.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: Obviously there's astronomical prices.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: But just keeping up with that market technology-wise, honestly, that's to make that it's coming pretty quickly that we don't really see, yeah, and it's like staying ahead of that, and that's where you guys come in handy.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: That's a cool story, guys.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: It's really neat to hear about how you've gotten to where you are and what you're doing with the business.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: So now, as we get towards that last few minutes of the show I want to talk a little bit about for the people who are in a family business whether you're taking it over, whether you're just working in it, whether you're the parent or the kid.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about a tip you might have that you would give to somebody who's in that situation how they can thrive.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: One tip I would say is as a family, we can always get on each other's nerves, but no business is business and family is family, and maybe it's how we were raised as well.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: Our bond as brothers can never be broken.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: No, matter what it is and that's one thing that we take, you know, pride that we can go head to head about something, a problem.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: At the end of the day, you know hey bro, love you bro, we're good, like that's business Kind of.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: That approach is that business is business and family is always going to be family and kind of we always take care of each other.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Dude, you know what I love that answer so much.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: The reason I say that is when we're in life, man, you want to know that you can get into a disagreement with somebody who really has your best interest at heart.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Isn't that a beautiful thing, man?
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: And in a family business, hopefully, if your family culture is good, you have that opportunity.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: I can't always know if I don't truly know what's in your heart, if I don't know if you're in it with me, I can't know when you're necessarily have my best interest at heart.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, I'm going to wear my bathing suit to work today.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's a great idea, rob.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: But like you guys, you know you can disagree.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: You know you can probably say something that like some constructive criticism, but through that friction you're going to come out with something better at the end of the day.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Man, that's powerful.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, cool.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: So to piggyback off of kind of what he said and what you were saying about the bathing suit.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Mine is honesty.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: You have to just be fully transparent with everybody in the business we all.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: At the end of the day, we're looking for the same goal.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: We want to grow the company.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: All want to make money, you know, but at the end of the day we are family.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: It's good to be brutally honest.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: That way, there's never a misunderstanding.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: You know exactly where we stand on certain subjects.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: This is where I'm standing.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: That's where you stand, cool, mm-hmm, we were room.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: There's room to disagreements, but as long as you're brutally honest yeah that's my, that's my biggest takeaway and that's why, you know, felt there's been success here, because what you may not like, what we have to say now, there's ways to say it, but at least you said it, man, and it's hard because you don't want to hurt people's feelings, especially people you care about.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: But you talk about the communication style.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: I like what you said and this is a tip I have for all managers Look, you can't go through life just oh.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Hey man, good job today.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: And I was making a joke, I never tried to wear a bathing suit to work, but the record show, but no.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: But if you did, it's not easy to maybe hurt somebody's feelings, but if you communicate it properly, you know.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Here's one that I have, and we talked about this in the past.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Some of the best advice I ever heard was from one of my mentors in business and he said you know, there's people who like the fashion statement.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: They'll go to.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: You know, work with earrings on, okay.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: And it's hard to have that conversation.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Hey man, I, you know, I don't know if the earrings are your way, but he said listen, here here's a way of looking at it.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: A guy am wearing earrings.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: I'm never going to sell a job because they're like man, I like your earrings, I'm going to give you the contract, but they might not do business with me for it.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: So I'm not saying, change who you are, but if I could maximize my success, if I could guarantee I'm going to sell a job.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: I'm going to listen, man, and sometimes it's not easy to hear what you got to hear, but you know what, if I know the person's really looking out for me, like your family business, then it all works out right.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Cool stuff, man, awesome dude.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Well, hey you guys, man, I appreciate everything you brought to the show today.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: A couple of good-looking guys here working in the construction industry.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Man, I definitely think you guys got a long way to go and you're going to take your business to new levels.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: With that being said, tell me a little bit about how people can find out more about you and your company.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: Follow us on Instagram.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: A-i-n-t-l.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: What is it?
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: Ics underscore, inc.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: On all social medias Instagram, tiktok, youtube, x.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: Now that it's called Everything All the social medias.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: Ics underscore, inc.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: Underscore.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Man see that's the operations manager taking over right there.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Stay tuned.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: You know it's for people also to learn.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: Our content is based around trying to teach you something.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: So if you want to learn something about roofing before you, you can be in Colorado.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: You're shopping around for roofers.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: You can look at our content just to see you know anything that you might learn to be able to speak to that roofing contractor coming to your house Nice man.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to tell you one thing that I really appreciate about what you guys did today.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: I got a vibe from you that you're not looking like you got to go get every job in town.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: You want to be the best contractor option for the people who are picking you, but you're not looking at this like hey, look, I must crush all competition.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: It sounds like to me you've been invested in making a better brand of business better roofing brand of business for everybody.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: So well done, man.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: I appreciate having you guys on the show.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: All right, fernando Miguel and you guys check out International Construction Services.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: They've got a lot to offer Wherever you are.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: They're all over the place.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Check them out online and, for those who are listening, we hope you got something good today.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: If you're in a family business, just know there's a right way to do it.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: There's also wrong ways to do it, so make sure you always live with respect.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: I like that a lot and just knowing that sometimes the brutal honesty is the best thing when you know you're all in it together.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: So we'll leave you off with that.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: We want to thank everybody for listening, thanks to our sponsors, and make sure to like and share us on social media.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: And with that I'll say we're signing out with the Leader Mentality Show and Rob Clements.