Latest / Red Truck Radio / Red Truck Radio Episode 12: Contractor Stories

Transcript

Red Truck Radio Episode 12: Contractor Stories · Red Truck Radio

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone, welcome back to Red Trucked Radio.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Real stories from the road, the warehouse, and the front lines of building materials.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Brought to you by Wassaut Supply Company.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Adam Huxte, and today we're talking about Real Talk from the job site.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: The episode is all about the builders who put Wassau Supply Company products to work.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Joining me are Dustin Gruitt from Gruitt Construction and Matt Ross from Ross Construction.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: These are two guys who have seen it all from the winds, the curveballs, and everything in between.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get to it.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Good afternoon, gentlemen.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: How are you guys doing?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, doing well.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Matt Ross from Ross Construction.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Dustin Gruitt from Gruitt Construction.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Good deal.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Good deal.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Got it right.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, a little misdonciation.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: We'll go with it.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: We'll go with it.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: So um really appreciate you guys coming here.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, uh, through the Red Truck Radio, we'll get an opportunity to talk to different manufacturing partners, a lot of our internal people.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is really the first time we got to bring our ultimate customer to the table, which is our contractor.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we got a lot of proprietary products that we brought to market.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna want to talk about some of that.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: But most importantly, if we're gonna start off, we're talking about your business.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: So uh don't you can both take this question, but um what do you what do you what is your business?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Give us a little description of your business and how you got started.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead, Bessel.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm a start to finish design build general contractor, and we do, I mean, just about anything that you can imagine from small remodel projects all the way through multi-million dollar custom homes, you know, and anything in between.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Our primary focus the last five, six years, has primarily been new home construction, but there's been a fair quantity of remodels and additions, you know, typically pretty large scale, but it doesn't have to be.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so just give me give the audience a little bit uh understanding about where you're at today, maybe how many projects you do today, and how did you get started?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So how many projects do you do an annual?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: It really depends on the size and the scope of the project.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, some of the stuff we're doing right now, some of the homes are pretty big, so they can take 12 to 16 months, you know, for completion.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: But that also means that we have to have multiple projects going at all times, you know.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: So right at the minute we have three active and two more that we're for sure going to be starting and working on throughout the end of this year and in the next, and we have several under contract for next year as well.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's a dramatic change from where I started 25 25 years ago uh working out of the trunk of a Fort Taurus.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, needless to say, it's not quite the same animal that it was back then.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, nice, nice Mac.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you tell us a little bit about your business?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I got family roots.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: Dad started back in 06.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I joined in 2011 when I graduated uh high school, so joined the workforce then, and then my uh I have two other brothers that are are uh with us in the construction as well.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: We bought dad uh out two years ago, so uh he's still with us for another couple of years.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: We're hanging on to him as long as we can.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but we primarily do residential remodeling, so we specialize in full-scale remodeling, uh, more on the higher side of things.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, really, we have a good crew and capacity to handle large projects.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we really like the remodeling sector, the new home construction for us.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's um it's just kind of a shiny object out there that we'd like to tackle someday, uh, but we just we really like the remodeling market.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: So uh we we do anything from ath remodel all the way up to whole home remodel.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, anywhere land value is high.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: We we like to be there.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we do on average about 130 projects a year.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: So that's shows kind of the scale where we're at.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: The similar Dustin will do a lot of like multi-million dollar remodels, so that takes up a large chunk, but we do a lot of in in-between as well.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: We have about 20 carpenters in the crew that uh kind of tap tackle all those projects as they come.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, nice, nice.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me a little bit about we'll go back to Dustin.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of geography do you service?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then how many crews do you have offering at any given time?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: We're a little bit smaller than than that as operation is.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: We primarily have one crew, it's a larger group of people, but um, we do split up occasionally and do a couple different things at the same time.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: But I I like to I like to keep it just a little bit more close to what I used to, I guess, for sure personally.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: So um as far as geography goes, I mean we've gone as far south as south of Lake De Bay and as far north as north of Black de Flambeau.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's not our typical radius, you know.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the last several years we've been primarily focused in the tomahawk market because the demand has been extremely high for us up there.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: We have done a couple of things outside of that.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: We have a couple contracts next year for Rhinelander.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we have you know three different really nice projects going right now in a tomahawk area.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: We have a one coming up in Rid Mountain later this year.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's tomahawk's been real good for us lately, you know.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: So we've been sticking around to that area.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Makes sense.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Matt, how about you?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: How many crews you got going at any given time?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we we have uh usually anywhere from like two to five man crews, and we'll uh if we need to, we'll conjoin and make up other ones.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: We got about five to six crews at any given time.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: So we have uh two exterior, three interior, and we have an excavation crew as well.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: So kind of right across the market.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, go ahead.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: Range wise, yeah, we'll get to Lake De Bay.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: Again, like I said, anywhere land value is high.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: So um when doing remodeling of any sorts, you gotta have, you know, your house has got to be worth sticking money into.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: So uh if you're out of lake or anything like that, you gotta yet it's a better chance that your house is worth more money to stick more money into it.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: So uh, because a lot of times people think, hey, is remodeling worth is it worth remodeling my whole house?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: And the answer is not always yes.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: I like to say it as a salesperson of remodeling company, but it's not always yes.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of times new home construction is the way to go if you're looking to fully transform your house and your house doesn't have a lot of good bones to work with.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: So not every scenario works out for remodeling.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: We tell our our potential clients that as well that hey, every every home has its its benefits and limitations, and some are good candidates for remodels and some are not.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I'm gonna stick with you, Matt.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Todd, knowing that you have multiple crews running that at all times, um, how do you manage having those multiple crews going?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, do you have supervise?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: How do you how do you manage your yeah?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: So my brother, Peter, thankfully, runs all the scheduling of all the crews.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: So um we've been very fortunate to be able to work through the company to kind of understand a lot of the ins and outs of what the guys are dealing with out on the sites, so we kind of have a good understanding of what troubles they can run into.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, we we're we're still learning every day.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but he runs all the scheduling, so um they will coordinate between each other.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of the guys will even shift crews throughout the week just to based on need and supply.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's nice.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Dustin, uh, you know, running more of a tight ship there, uh, where you got probably a lot more oversight than having multiple crews, but I'm sure you still got to have flexibility to be going out and meet with other clients and doing some other things for business.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you how do you manage your crew?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have other people on your team that help you manage?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, some of the some of the people that have been with me have been with me for a long time.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my my lead man has been with me for 10 years already, you know.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: So obviously he's done he's seen just about anything you can imagine.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: And my oldest son um has worked with me for a little over five and a half years already, too.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: So that's uh that's been a huge, a huge blessing for a lot of different reasons.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: I know a lot of different people in this industry who have not been able to make the parent-child relationship thing.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: We're sure Matt's very fortunate to be one of the one of the ones that has, you know.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so I'm very thankful for that.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: I I never wanted to push any of my kids into coming to work in the family business, but it was always my hope that they would.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, my oldest chose that, and it's been it's been great, you know, being involved with that.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: So um, so yeah, I mean, obviously it presents some challenges for me on a time schedule.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: I prefer to be on the job with my bags on, cutting boards, nailing stuff together, doing what I have to do, but obviously I can only limit so much of my time on the site because I have to be in the office and and on doing meetings and you know, stuff like that.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: 100%, 100%.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's great that you have your son uh working in a crew.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think we had one of your sons do an internship here in uh with their engineer group this summer.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yep.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think Friday is his is his last day.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: He's got his big presentation this Friday.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Looking forward to see a little presentation.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty exceptional that uh that he was able to get that opportunity, you know.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: So very, very, very thankful for that.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um he's got his presentation Friday, and then next week, Thursday, we actually be dropping off down at Milwaukee, down at MSOE.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: So now I know he's excited about that.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: For sure, for sure.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let's talk a little bit about the broader economy and the impact, you know.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as we look, you know, throughout our footprint from coast to coast at Wawsaw Supplied, uh, there's definite impacts, a lot of headwinds uh that are facing the economy uh and really impacting people and the projects they do.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: How are you seeing that impact the work here in Wausau?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Matt, we can go to you.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, economy-wise, we always say we try to look at the economy in like California or somewhere else.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: And we obviously get the to trail that a couple of years down the road.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: So if we see they're taking a downturn, uh, we can kind of predict that as in the future.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: But for us, the economy has been really good here.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you talk to just about everybody, and a lot of people are busy, um, especially a lot of the trades.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's been harder and harder to get guys to um you know work to fulfill the needs.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, yeah, there's that.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: You've seen any impact from the ink income or the economy?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, a little a little bit, you know, the what what Matt touched on is is completely accurate.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, finding um young help to replace the older people who are going into retirement uh is a challenge, you know, there's no question about it.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um demand, at least in our niche of the market, is still extremely high.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um I there's some some slowing down and some some smaller homes, you know, some specs home stuff on the one hand, but I still know an awful lot of people that are pounding a lot of them out.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it seems like there's still more demand for homes than there can be, or that that I would have expected, but that's not something I'm gonna complain about at this point.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, I definitely see the labor force like uh Delson was mentioning is just we're we're seeing a decline.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, a lot of the people that I think of as like handyman or people that do the remodeling side of things are either getting out of the market or it back when the economy really took a dip in uh the 07-08 time, a lot of those people went into different fields and just never came back.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I feel like uh, you know, a lot of our trades with you know, on and hammering nail getting the job done is just not as desirable anymore.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: And and we're trying to do things uh part of Dill Association.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: We we try to partner with local schools.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: We have a Build My Future event coming up in September, which is where we're getting kids out of the school just for a day to come out and uh interact with different um trades or different things that they can do to kind of get a different source of uh income aside from continuing down the path of education through college.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, uh Nuss and I have both been involved in that's a great program to help kind of showcase what other jobs are available out there.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's phenomenal.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to see that you're giving back.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Your giving back also then kind of feeds back into you to make sure that you got a work pool that's available.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, today with the with AI and the uncertainty of that, you know, as I talk to my kids and and I get out and and talk to others, uh it's the one thing I think that has some protection is the building material industry.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's always going to be demand.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: I see it's a long time before a robot's gonna be able to replace the craftsmanship that you guys bring to the table.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm not sure that that's something that'll ever really actually happen.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he had told.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: It'd be nice to have a robot to demo out some lath and plaster.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, as far as like all the fine detail work that gets put into some of those finishing products, I don't think that'll happen.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, no.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a consumer and a customer myself.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm done uh had a lot of work done in my home, and uh I I have high expectations and tight timelines, and I know that's got to be an issue for you guys.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: So tell me, how do you guys deal with that with the customer, um, with their expectations, uh, timelines, quality?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, how do you manage that?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Either one of you guys.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, that's a tough one.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: We we try to shoot that down as fast as we can.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: No, I mean it's just a matter of managing expectations, uh, and that's really what it is.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: I always heard overinflated expectations lead to frustration.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: So if you have this expectation that everything's gonna be perfect, there's not gonna be a drop of gust or uh noise anywhere.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: So we try to level with the homeowners as soon as we can to just kind of lay out what are what's gonna go on, who can you contact if there's an issue or if you're frustrated, because frustrations always arise, uh just based on that example of just like if you expect us to be there right at seven o'clock every morning or maybe not till 8:30, and we get there a little bit late or early, that can be just the first thing of a long day of uh, you know, just expectations that are not met.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: So we try to do our best to keep the lines of communication open between uh customers, project managers, and and us in the leadership positions as well, just to make sure that everybody's happy because ultimately at the end of the day, we want you to go through a good experience going through the remodeling because I mean a lot of people have a fear of remodeling that's just gonna be, you know, a real it's gonna be a disaster, it's gonna be a nightmare to go through, and we want to try to make that as easy and uh pleasing as possible, knowing that we're ripping apart this house that you poured a lot of time and energy into and and are spending a lot of money on to pick.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: So do most people live in their homes.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Is it depend on the the the scope of the remodel?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: But do most people stay in during the process?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, a lot it it really does depend on the scope.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: If you're if you're tearing out more than half or even a third of the house, it's nice to just have them move to a different place or location, but you can do it in phases.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it really depends on the scope of work, yeah.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, very good.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Dustin manage your customer expectations and timeline.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: How do you build it?
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's that's a hundred percent the answer is managing expectations.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, timelines, it depends on what the project is, obviously, and if you have a hard deadline, you know, like we do a handful of homes through the Pareto homes every year, and there's a very hard deadline with that.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, aside from that, we try to not do real firm deadlines unless it's absolutely required, because the amount of things that can change in such a short time are are wired, you know, and especially it's a lot more prevalent in a remodel project because unless you plan to completely rip everything all the way out, you won't know what you're gonna find until you start tearing into it.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: And when you start finding problems, sometimes there's more and more that's required that you never you never anticipate.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, one of the one of the projects we're working on right now is a large-scale remodel hand in addition, and we moved the people out, and the expectation was always that they were gonna move out, but we were gonna go this far and stop.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we get this torn open, and yeah, we're not stopping here.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we go a little further, and actually, while you're here, could you also do this?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, maybe we go just a little further, and now we're at the point where you know we probably should have just knocked it down and started over, but right, you don't see that three steps ago, you know what I mean?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: So that escalation happens is in phases, and that completely changes the trajectory of your completion date, and then in turn that can also tumble your schedule for the next project.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, unless you have three, four crews where you can just pull somebody, you know, in our in our particular situation, it's like we're gonna we're gonna add on another 20%, you know, of of work, yeah, you know, and that where's that time gonna come from?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so being open with the customers on the front end that hey, if we encounter these challenges, it's gonna extend our stay here, yeah, and our relationship's gonna get a little better, we're gonna be together a little bit longer, but it's gonna take us this much longer to get you where you're happy and where you want to be, you know, just it have to understand that, you know, and the longer I do this, the easier it is to explain that on the front end for sure.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, one of the one of the ones that's coming out or that we're working on also same a similar deal, but it's a new construction.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like we went from plans that were you know 2,000 to 2400 square feet with a modest three-car garage, relatively simple a year and a half ago.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: We're three clan changes in now at this point.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, finally put the foundation in the ground, and it's almost 3,300 feet on the main floor, closer to a four-car garage, and now we want to finish the basement.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: So you have two in a row, and it's not like the ones before that didn't do the same thing, but like you have two in a row, they're like literally pushing you further back into your scheduling.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: And and it is what it is, you know, you just you have to be open with people on the front end.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I when I set timelines and stuff, it's usually kind of a little fuzzy intentionally, but I but I explained the reasoning behind it because once we get to your project and get started, you're gonna expect our full attention for sure.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: And if you want to make changes or additions or make it more expansive, you're gonna want us to be the same to you that we are to the people before or after.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna want to hear this.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we've only got to list long, so that's what you get.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody wants that, you know.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Hid and take, correct.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to explain that on the front end so that they're gonna be flexible with you if there are changes or challenges or extras that seem like almost always come up.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and that's always the thing.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: People always that's the the joke we use.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, while you're here, why don't you just add on to this?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: And and we're more than happy to do that.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of times the thing that gets overlooked is the schedule of just like, okay, well, that's gonna add on because now we can do that, but now we got to order something else, or we got to make up even just the the option to make a decision on what path to go forward on, adds time just between client and contractor.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean that just extends, and that the hard part is we we want to make sure the client's happy at the end.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: So we're more than happy to make all the changes you want.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's really hard for us to conversate and be like, okay, well, that's gonna take, are you prepared to be out of a house, you know, another month longer?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's those things we are harder for us to conversate on, just be like, okay, we can make these changes.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: We'd love to do all this for you, uh, but it's gonna extend your time.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of times it just gets extended unknowingly.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, yeah.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and then the other thing that's difficult to manage in those exact same situations is the cost.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, because we, I mean, a fair amount of these, especially remote projects, you go in with kind of a generalized idea on a budget, like, hey, we're looking to do about this.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's you know, kind of based on all the terms and what we've discussed as far as finishes, yeah, looking to be here, and then you get a month in, and it's like, well, I also want to do this, this, and this, and I'd like to upgrade this and this.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: And while you're here, could you also do that?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, yeah, we can, but what does that look like on a time standpoint?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: And what does it look like on a cost standpoint?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've been we've been very fortunate to have a lot of customers who are like okay with the flexibility to like, hey, we we don't know for sure what we want.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: We understand the costs are gonna be offset, you're gonna be different, and they're and they're good with it.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: You're right.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's all me, it all goes back to communication, transparency, those are key, and that's whether it's in the construction business on the sales side, it's it's just very open, transparent communication, I think solves a lot of problems.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: So moving into uh, you know, a big audience and and customer of Lost Off Supply is the dealer network.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: You guys rely heavily on your suppliers.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, tell us, tell me a little bit and the audience a little bit about the importance of your suppliers and what what are the what do you look for out of your suppliers to help you uh run a smooth operation?
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, for us, um we use a local supplier that's uh treats us really, really good.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: I would say they're on the premium side of costs, but the service we get from them is just uh outstanding.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we're I can call them right now, our sales guy, pick up the phone, answer any questions to us.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: He's often uh, you know, if we got quantities figured out, we're out on the site, we're getting to the end, and we find out we're a couple pieces short, they can order it, but you know, truck's not getting there till Tuesday or whatever it is.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: He'll run out, grab us some extra supplies, whatever he needs to help get the job done.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, that speaks volumes on our side of things as far as what they uh can offer us.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: And they also they they try to only service products or sell products that they can service.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean Diamond Coat and WASP supply is a good uh contributor to that as far as like being able to stand behind their product and stand behind uh what they say they're gonna do, they will do.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, really appreciate it.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Dust, tell us about suppliers and your IKEA.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Everything that Matt just said, that's exactly the case for us as well.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, using a using a local supply house with high-quality products that are geared towards builder applications that we're using over and over and over again, having reliable delivery systems and an incredible local rep who at any given time will jump in his truck and run material to you if you need it, or run over here and grab something from the warehouse and bring it to us.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Or I mean, uh, I've been working with my current rep for several years now, and he's without a doubt the best I've had in the entire time that I've been doing this, which is pushing 25 years.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: And he'll grace up to his house, deliver it to my job sites in the morning, he'll bring it to my shop or to my house in the evening on his way home.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, full disclosure, here he's retiring a little early here at the end of the year and coming on to work for me part-time.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, it's assassin, the side deal there, you know, which which is amazing.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's got it's gonna help ease some of my client office uh stuff, you know, under and for from my situation directly.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: But Hoody's a wonderful guy and he's been he's been very, very good to all my customers for a lot of years.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I a lot of again an opportunity to do a lot of traveling, and you know, it seems like in in many markets there's not a a lot of loyalty between the contractor and the supplier, but sounds like to me that you guys have some.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: pretty deep relationships and loyalty to your ki to your suppliers.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: They do they they're bringing you materials no matter where you're working with in your footprint.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: So the other absolutely like that.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe, maybe this, you know, maybe this isn't the best thing to say out loud, but I don't price shop though.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean like I'll occasionally check one thing here or there, but I'm not I'm not the guy to run to the big box store.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like if I can get uh you know a bunch of plywood for 50 cents a sheet less if I spend my day going and getting it or whatever, you know, it's just it's just it's not my deal.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like the local supply house, the delivery people, the sales people have been very good to me.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: They they take good care of us.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so that little bit of premium cost, like Matt mentioned, to me is is a worthwhile expense because what is my time worth for sure you know for me to take a vehicle or a trailer or send a guy with a vehicle or trailer to go buy these things.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like there there's a trade-off there.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Quality, consistency, ease of install, reliability what's the what's the most important factor when you're looking and evaluating new products?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah all the yes the answer would be yes.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah yeah I mean all those things are relevant obviously.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah I mean hit having a history or a standing product that's been tested and proven I mean we all want to put on new stuff that looks cool.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: I will do that a time or two but it's it's nice to have a a product that's been tested and true we know that it'll stay stay odd and won't give us grief or callbacks uh because that's a huge thing for us as we really do stand behind our work and um just it's not only just like the tail light guarantee like some contractors will offer or even a one year workmanship or anything like that.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: If our client from five years ago calls us and says hey we got some fault in our whatever it is our doors and closing right we'll go over there and fix it just because we want to be in good standings with with our client base and we we sell and provide doors and uh siding anything that we want to service.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah that's amazing so um kind of changing subjects a little bit you know as you guys you you got a wealth of experience and and time in the industry as you see and I know there's not as many new new builders and contractors coming in but as you look out there and you see uh new contractors what do you see the biggest mistakes they make when they start getting into the to the industry yeah I mean that's for us when we started um I would say just doing too many things that they didn't know what they should do.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I only say that from speaking from experience as far as like we did stuff that we probably shouldn't have done earlier on.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: And we really right now are just trying to focus in on what we are good at, which is remodeling in our sector and really that's why I said like new home construction for us is a shiny object out there that we might tackle someday but for right now we're just really honing in on remodeling.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd say the biggest thing and just focus in on what you're doing uh good at and just keep doing that.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: Just just it might be tempting to say oh let's go do X, Y, and Z over here because I think we could make a buck at that but honestly if you can master your craft at what you're doing and just perfect that hone in on it you create a niche in the market and I think you'll you'll be successful in whatever you do.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: 100% if you have anything to add those n yeah so I mean that there's a lot of things for for newer people trying to get going and doing what they're wanting to do and what he's talking about is trying to stay relevant or or focused in an area of your strong suit is is certainly a great idea.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Trying to get too big too quick is also something to be mindful of trying to get away from if you can not borrowing a ton of money putting yourself into a bad financial leverage position where you're like up against the wall we have to do this to make these things work um you know and something that I did for a lot of years is renting equipment before we buy it.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know I mean I've been doing this for a long time I have a lot of equipment at this point that there was a lot of years of renting equipment on the front end where I just it just wasn't an option for yeah you know so trying to trying to stay focused on that I mean um marketing I think is something that you know it's not really big in my business.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like we we do the parade ohms events and you know we're involved with the Build My Future like he said you know kind of low key in that respect.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean aside from that I don't do any marketing anywhere of any kind you know I've been doing this for a long time and so it's a word of mouth reputation based business but there's a lot of people out there that do a lot of marketing and it does benefit them.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not telling you not to do that but you have to you have to manage what you're spending versus what you're gonna get and are you going to be able to perform the way that you should at the level if suddenly your marketing blows up and things go well like how are we now going to lead that demand if we don't have the staff or we don't have the systems in place to be able to do it.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know it's it's easy to say from a position of somebody who's been doing it for 25 years, you know, like don't outpunt your coverage where is probably the best way to put it perfect you know what I mean.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah well as we wrap up guys I think you know listening to the story of your business uh the importance of your suppliers uh quality products I think it's a testament to why you guys are successful very well known within the Wisconsin market and uh you know we're we're happy at Lost Hall Supply to be a part of your business and um you know if anybody's looking to have work out there I don't know what you guys are looking for but we got an audience out there got two great contractors here.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna throw a couple little quick questions at you.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: So one tool you can't live without oh man I mean right now I'd say it's just the computer but yeah I mean I love design and all that stuff.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: So but uh yeah I mean the multi-tool that thing I own the Holly did carpentry without that thing 20 years ago so where are you at?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean unfortunately it's probably my cell phone I mean I was I hate that stupid thing like I just I can't get away from that but it's it's an integral part of of everything we do.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: I just I'm on it all the time between interactions with customers with subcontractors with with suppliers with everything you know what I mean it's just it's all the time for sure that's probably it's probably the most used thing that I use yeah I mean aside from aside from my tool belt for sure.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well thank you guys both for joining us uh best of luck to you guys it in your business and thanks for joining us and appreciate that's a wrap on this episode of Red Truck Radio thanks to Dustin Gruitt from Gruitt Construction and Matt Ross from Ross Construction for pulling back the curtain on what it really takes to run a job site.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: If there's one thing this conversation proves it's that success in this industry comes down to the people the crews the partnerships and the builders who show up every day ready to solve the next problem thanks for tuning into Red Truck Radio.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Subscribe share this one with your crew and we'll see you next time.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Keep building smarter together