Latest / The Mobilization Mindset / Episode 146 | Standing Your Ground to Grow Your Construction Business with Tim Wakefield

Transcript

Episode 146 | Standing Your Ground to Grow Your Construction Business with Tim Wakefield · The Mobilization Mindset

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: When I decided to go on that journey, it it clicked in my head that there is no plan B.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's this or nothing.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's this, this or death.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I think you have to not have a a backup plan.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Burn the boats.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, exactly.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't if I if I didn't do that, if I didn't say that to myself and go in all on it, like I wouldn't be sitting here today.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no doubt.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_03: Having to have to make it work is one of the greatest motivations you could possibly have.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_03: I love that, man.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome everybody to the next episode of the mobilization mindset.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: My name is Scott Pieper, CEO and founder of mobilization funding, and today we're going to be talking about how to stand your ground on a construction site.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_03: Taking care of your business, performance, doing great work, and most importantly, making sure you get paid for it.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_03: Growing your business is hard enough in construction, but not getting paid while you're trying to grow and all those expenses going out is the key to mastering success.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_03: When you do that, your business has a great chance.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_03: And today we have a great guest here, back on the show again for the first time in a long time.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_03: Tim Wakefield, he's the CEO and founder of Deadcom C's.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_03: They are a marine contractor working in some of the toughest environments under some of the toughest conditions with some of the toughest GCs and primes to work for.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_03: How he manages and how he's navigated these environments to be very successful and grow his business exponentially since 2019.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean exponentially, you are going to hear the key foundational principles that you will understand exactly how it can be done.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_03: And he's going to share those thoughts with you today.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_03: Building those foundational principles and then leveraging them so that you can do great work and grow your business, take care of your employees and their families and your families is exactly what we're going to talk about.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_03: Tim, welcome to the show.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me, Scott.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: It's an honor and a privilege to be back.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: Me too, man.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so excited to have this conversation with you because look, you hear about it in your own friend groups, your peer groups, train associations.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_03: We hear about it with clients, potential clients.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: Construction stuff.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, well, we all know that.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_03: But it's also kudos to the construction world.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_03: It's tougher than your average industry.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely goes down.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_03: The cash flow cycle is difficult, relationships are difficult, project sites difficult.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_03: But managing that doesn't have to be difficult.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_03: And what we do often in construction is make it harder for ourselves in an environment that's already hard.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_03: I think you've done such a good job navigating around that.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, why we've called why we're calling this episode, you know, grow standing your ground to grow your construction business is a thing you've done really well.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_03: I've watched you from you know a brand new business and less than a million dollars a year in revenue to now, you know, 30 times that.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: So talk a little bit about how you go about being so direct and handling your yourself on a site such that you can make sure you're getting paid, but yet you're doing great work too.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's uh definitely a hard subject to navigate for a lot of people.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And really honestly, and you're probably gonna hear me say this a few times, it's you need to be honest and just operate with a set of morals and values.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: So if you operate consistently all the time, you know, you're not having to lie or, you know, be deceitful about stuff.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot easier to come from a place of standing to these people, especially when you know your contract.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: But you say all these things in a way like, I'm not here to like persecute you, I'm just saying the facts as the facts.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not coming at you as a person, I'm not coming at your company, but I'm just here.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just Tim, a service-disabled, veteran-owned, small business owner.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And here's how I know the contract, and here's what I've done for you, but this is what I need in return.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can't just shove me down the road and say, we'll figure it out later, right?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's just tough to navigate that.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: So one of the things I think you do really well is you make sure that you perform the work well.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: Clean sight, expectations are met.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_03: The expectations are laid out first and then delivered on.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_03: Talk a little bit about how you go about doing that so that you can build the foundation to stand on strongly when times are tough and you do need to push back.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's part of the why we are who we are as a business and why we started, right?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Is you know, how are you different than every other construction company, you know, specifically us for commercial diving?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay, we pay our guys better than industry standards.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we retain the 10% of the industry everybody wants, but can't touch because I pay them better, I treat them better.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when you start taking care of the guys, they start taking care of everything else.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: So your safety gets better, your client interactions get better, and they're very detail oriented.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: They're not worried about, oh, how am I getting effed over this time, or you know, where is my money coming from?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: That type of thing.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: When you take that distraction away and put them in an environment where they're appreciated and you tell them and you treat them like they're your equal, because at the end of the day, we're all equals.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: We all have something to learn from each other.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: When you take that and you add that into that mix, it makes it a lot easier on those interactions.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And again, transparency and being honest is key.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: So document, document, document.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: So when things happen, document it.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: You have a phone call, something changes, follow up that phone call with an email.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's not disrespectful.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're just putting the conversation into a black and white transcript.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: So everybody's honest, and that's it.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: So, how do you get past the thought process of, hey, if I call this project manager out or his superintendent, or I don't do exactly what they said they were going to do, or I follow up in this email to put it in writing, they're never gonna give me a job again, or they're gonna think I'm a pain in the ass, or I'm causing problems.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_03: How do you get over that mentality if you had it?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely did have that mentality, but at the end of the day, if I can't get paid, there's gonna be no relationship to be had because my business won't be in existence.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: So do you want to get paid or do you want to have a friendship?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: You're on a job site to do a job, not create a friendship.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, do I think you should have friendships with those people?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: But in work, it is a business relationship.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: It is not a friendship.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And people need to get that out of their minds.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: You can have a relationship outside of work, go have drinks, have dinner, form a relationship, that's important.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: But on the job site, everything's in black and white, everything's transparent.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's not disrespectful to say, hey, no, we had this conversation, I sent you this email after that, or, you know, no, this is what was in there, this is what happened, that's in the daily report.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not disrespectful.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's just okay, give people the benefit of doubt.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they misremembered, maybe something else happened.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know what's going on in everybody's lives, right?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, maybe you get that crappy person who is dishonest and trying to screw you over.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: You have that in black and white then to push back on it.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_03: You know, as I hear you explain it, I think of like it's like by putting that in an email, you're establishing the ownership of the conversation, what was said, who said it, the time it was said, and what the outcome or decisions were from it.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: And when you put everybody on the same place and basis for owning what actually occurred and what happened, I think two things occur.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: One, it's great for if there's a problem down the road, you can easily go back to it and people can't misremember.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_03: Two, if someone did misremember or they had a different opinion of the conversation they just had, you're gonna smoke that out right now, today, in the email.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_03: And then if that's the and why that's good is if there really is an issue, you can then address it, remanage it, re-make a new decision, send the email, and then move on to the same course of action.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_03: And by doing that, it keeps everybody on the up and up, it's professional, it's business oriented, and everybody can protect their own investments in the project from all aspects, whether it's you as a subcontractor, your employee, the project manager, their job, their company, and of course the owner too.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_03: So let's talk about when problems do occur.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: So you and prior to problems occurring, you mentioned something else like taking care of your team and safety, employee um pay and performance.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_03: Those are things that are foundational inside your business.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_03: And and everybody I think wants to take care of their employees, everybody wants to pay their employees, and and for the benefit of this conversation, let's just say that's true.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_03: What other aspects do you manage inside your business that give you that same foundational footprint to be able to stand strong on?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_03: And and one of them you touched on already, which was like knowing your contract.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: So, like what things do you do to know your contract in advance?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: What things do you do to make sure you're you're also covered in all aspects?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Do your research.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say know your contract, read through it.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, maybe you use a lawyer to negotiate your contract and points back and forth, but you still need to understand that contract and what are the mechanisms or what are the things that, you know, again, you're you're liable for.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like I am so more sophisticated than I was two and a half years ago, even a year ago, on my contracts.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: I have such a better understanding.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I deserve a partial legal degree if I'm being honest.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: But that's the level of effort you need to have, especially as a business owner.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you want to grow this business, because eventually you're gonna have other people going through.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to have an understanding of what all these people are looking at and the contract mechanisms.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we live in a modern age.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: You use stuff at your benefit.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, AI is a great tool.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Ask it what your submittals are, ask it what, you know, like what are run scenarios through it.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Have it go through there.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there are contracts obviously that have a no AI clause.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Those are gonna be like some of your government contracts and stuff.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: But look at you can always ask a set of questions and go through like a scrub version or something.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Use the things that are at your advantage, and time is always in your advantage.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So get to get an understanding.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Don't wait until you start the project and a month or two in, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh crap, I wasn't doing this, and now I'm behind the curve.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's it's better to be proactive than reactive in that essence.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Just read through it, spend time.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's boring, yeah.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Read it with your cup of coffee in the morning, read it at night with having a beer.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, but take the time to just read it.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and even if you don't read it, you can get one, you can get AI to give you a summary of it.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_03: But I don't think anything, and I I heard you say get your talk to your attorney, have them negotiate it.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think you should use AI in lieu of your attorney.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_03: No, not at all.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_03: And and you didn't say that, but what I was where I was going is have your attorney tell you where your risks are.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, like you're I the way I like to use an attorney, and I think the folks that I've listened to in construction, tell me how they use them.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_03: They ask their attorney, where are my risks?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, when I want to get paid, what do I need to make sure I do to get paid?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_03: What if I do these certain things, what can prevent me from being paid?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_03: And if you can at least understand those things or what the trigger mechanisms are and where your risks are.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_03: And if this happens, think it think in practical terms of what happens on a construction site all the time.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_03: And then ask your attorney, hey, if this scenario happens, what happens to me?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_03: What do I need to know?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_03: And let them read the legalese and illustrate that to you.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_03: That's a good use of an attorney.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I think that protects you, and then keep notes of that.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then even to that degree, too, if you still don't fully understand it, obviously lawyers can be expensive.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Take those things that that lawyer says, most of the time they'll type it up in an email or something for you, put it into AI and say, hey, break this down for me of like a high school level, what does this mean and how does it affect me?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Type of deal.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Just to get a better, again, use your use tools that are at your dispense and figure those things out.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or again, just brush up Google, use Google even.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Shoot, Google some of those laws, some of the laws that pertain to your contract, and even look.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you're a small business state, what you know, you're doing business in the state of Florida, right?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: What what small business laws are there that protect me from the prime contractors and GCs and like what are they allowed to do and not allowed to do?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm sure probably 80% of your small businesses or newer businesses have no idea about any of those protections that are in place.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, 100%.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, that's those are easy, easy things to find out and also easy misses.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_03: So let's talk about.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_03: Do you have any good story or an example of a time where knowing your contract and doing some of these things that you've done in advance has really come to help you in a situation that normal construction, there's a problem and you how you navigated through it?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, there's there's a couple.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's one recently, like where we just signed the contract, and you know, you guys are doing some funding for us on it, where we've already had to make a change order.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's because, you know, just conditions and stuff have changed.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: But having a good understanding of the contract and laying it out in a way, A, your change orders aren't always going to be just, oh, I have this template and I'm gonna use this.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: You need to make it into the fashion of the contract and what what needs to happen there, right?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we have an instance there and we just laid everything out plain English, as honest, and said, Hey, here's the scenario.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've already discussed this in a meeting, you know, they were already on board with it, but we said, hey, we see some inconsistencies here and we need to sort this out before we start the project, you know, in a month or two, whenever we start the project.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that was well received.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, okay, hey, give us a day for, oh, hey, Tim, all these things are great, we're in complete agreement with it.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Easy day.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's a perfect scenario of like, hey, you see a problem, you raise it and say, we need to address this now.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Another example of that not being the most ideal situation is you know, we're running a long-term project.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: We have a mandate in our contract that we still have to progress work regardless of if a change order is signed.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: There are certain protocols we have to submit a change order within a certain amount of time, but there's it sucks for us because again, this is me negotiating contracts two, two and a half years ago, not as sophisticated as Tim now.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um and there's no cap on when they they can sign and stuff, which sucks.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: But you got also have to have an understanding for the law of what course of performances and course of action is, because those things.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: So now if that contractor per se doesn't sign these change orders and they just leave them sitting there and floating out, but now you're six to ten change orders in, but they've been paying you, but now all of a sudden they want to stop paying you for these change orders.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Legally, they can't do it because they've shown a course of performance that says we submit a change order, they start paying us for the change order and never send us a signed change order back.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: So guess what?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's course of dealing now, too, especially when you get post-contract.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's course of dealing, course of performances during the contract.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: So understand that legally you are then protected.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now there are certain states where there's some wording about this and stuff.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And again, this is where you need to know where you're operating and that, but you need to know these mechanisms that help you because Joe Blow off the street isn't gonna know all these things.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: But again, like I love to say it, my 3 a.m.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: thoughts are thinking about these things and and how to go about it.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: And now you need to do these things and set them in a light where you're not coming at you as a blatant like F you, but hey, this is how you've been doing it this the entire entirety of this contract, and you can't just go back on your word now.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, you and your team have done a great job not giving an inch on things that you're owed.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_03: They were reasonably owed.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_03: And following the process that you just outlined, was there a moment when you realized that you had to make this change and how you handled adding this payment discipline to your business?
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the there there was.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was the instance where I realized that this is a business and not a friendship.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to relay that to my superintendents and my supervisors that says, hey, these guys might be friendly with you, but they're not our friends and work.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: It is a work environment, and you can't do them favors.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Everything needs to be in writing, and explaining to these guys and getting these guys who are blue-collar guys and go, they're trustworthy people, and they're going off of their word, and that's how they've been raised to dealing with people who haven't been raised like that and who you can't trust their word.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's a big culture shift that you need to implement.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: But it's yes, I can specifically recall back two years to a specific instance with a specific person and contractor are I was like, this is it.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: I need to get better so they can't ever come at me.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it's being above board, it's being transparent and it's being honest.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And when you operate transparently and honestly, it's hard for people to say otherwise.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: They look pretty stupid when they start coming at you and throwing, oh, well, this and that.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, sir.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is where the buck stops.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_03: What systems and processes have you put in place or implemented to make sure that you learned, like you learned that lesson two years ago, but now you talked about your guys in the field.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: Like, is there is there steps you put in place, things you've done specifically system-wise to make sure that the way you want it done is going to be done now?
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: So each job that goes out, whoever is gonna be the project manager, superintendent, supervisor, each one gets a project briefing.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Each one signs a piece of paper.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: We go through that project in detail.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: It says, these are the submittals, these are the expectations.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, you have a phone conversation about additional work, follows up with an email.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Any phone call that's pertinent to the job, followed up with an email within six hours minimum.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh then same thing, anything that happens, text message, all if they send you a text, save it, send it to a WhatsApp group, we'll put it on a folder on a drive, you save all the interactions and everything gets backed up.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: And again, document, document, document.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: So refine your documentation.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's it if they're causing delays, you need to say that.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's again, it's not a disrespectful thing because maybe their PM doesn't realize that their guys in the field aren't giving you priority for something that you should be getting priority for, and it's now caused you 10 to 12 hours in a delay.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Why should you eat that cost?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not your fault.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, again, transparency and honesty, and just brief those guys on what the submittals are, what the expectations are, what the contract says.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's no reason to hide what the contract is from your supervisor, superintendent, project managers.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't want them to, those guys should, even the money side, they should know okay, this is our production values, this is where we're at, this is where we're making money.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you go past this, we're not if you're on TNM, great, then you don't have to worry about that, but still.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you still want to be the best you can.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, exactly.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, exactly.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: You want to be efficient and you want to get the job done right and well and then uh blow it out of the water.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because even if you blow out a TNM budget, they're not no one's gonna feel good about that.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, exactly.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: And your prime's probably gonna be pissed and they're not gonna want to use you again.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_03: A hundred percent.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_03: Still good in practice.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_03: So, what advice would you give contractors who are afraid to push back because they think they might lose either their relationship in total with the customer or the next job?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Can you have a relationship or a next job if you don't have a business?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that would be my my point is if you don't have a business, all those things are very inconsequential.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: They don't matter.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: So do what's right for you and for your people and take care of that first, and then mind those relationships afterwards.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, you can go have dinner and be friends with these guys outside of work.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: But in in the job setting, it needs to be a very black and white.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Again, don't be disrespectful, don't blatantly just say F you all the time.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Just be honest and transparent and say, Hey, this is what's going on.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you have a problem or something comes up and maybe you made a mistake, the best thing you can do is just tell them you made a mistake and say, Hey, how can we fix this?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: What can we do?
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you need to eat some costs, eat some fun, eat some costs at the end of the day.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Again, transparency.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_03: So many contractors chase bigger and bigger jobs, especially as they're trying to grow.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_03: But they do it necessarily without strengthening their financial infrastructure.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_03: So what have you learned about building the back end of your business prior to scaling the front end?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Great question.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Great question.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my 3 a.m.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: thoughts back at work here is uh you always need to be looking to, okay, so you get this$10 million contract or you get a$20 million or$30 million contract.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: How do you facilitate that?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Where what's your backside back end look like?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: And even, you know, you talked about our rapid growth, right?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: I have been more frustrated with accounting than I have with anything pertaining to this business, whether it's being getting paid by people or just my own systems.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've constantly had to graduate.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it was you that went.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: That told me it's like, you know, accounting's like you get here, and then all of a sudden someone tells you, well, now you're graduating to like from middle school to high school and then to, you know, college to minor leagues to the major leagues.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like you're hitting these evolutions.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's frustrating because once you think you got a handle on it, guess what?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: You don't, you're on to the next thing.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got to constantly be evolving.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to go after these government contracts, there's a certain amount of accounting, and you have to go back.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like we just went through it.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, I thought I was going to have to go back a year.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: We went back three years to get my books in line, and they're asking me for stuff that I'm like, Tim three years ago, four years ago, was not thinking about this.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't keeping these receipts or these job costings.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: We weren't, I Tim was wearing 20 different hats, like, and trying to keep all of his people in place.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And God bless, like, I had great people and they were doing the thing.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's you'll always hear me say the only reason we've been so successful is all the people we have in the business because we're a family, and like I'm just standing on the shoulders of giants, but these systems and stuff are they're no joke.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to grow and you want to get those bigger contracts, you have to think about those things in advance.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Start working on them slowly in the background.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, if you're a five million dollar contractor and you want to be a$15 million contractor in the next couple years, start working on your systems and processes on the backside.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: You as the business owner should start working like on the business, not in the business.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's a great segue to the next point.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: So you you were you started out as a a diver, right?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_03: You were a diver yourself.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: You were on the jobs diving in the water when you first started.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_03: And now we've just talked about all these business scenarios.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_03: So as you grow and move, when when do you become a business owner and not a diver anymore?
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good question.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Always be a diver at heart, but uh I've grown out of that.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't think I've been in the water or been on working a job in a couple years now, a few.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh no, selfishly, I've taken some cool ones here and there just because like it was like the first time and you gotta you gotta take advantage where you can, right?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: But like right now, I can safely say, like, I there's no one will let me near a job site.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: Not because I'm not qualified, but I have more important things to do.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we've been blessed enough to hire more people and things.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think you gotta take that mental switch, and even from the beginning, you should be thinking about it as one day you're not gonna be involved in the day-to-day, and how does that look?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that is going back to those systems and processes and just getting those things into place and knowing that people are gonna operate in the manner that you want or need them to operate.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's building that culture so foundational.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you what, for the longest time I had a hard time hiring people for the back office, and it took years to hire the right people.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I made some bad hires, but then it made me rethink about how I was doing my hiring and maybe this will help in the sense of switching to from working in the business to working on the businesses.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: How do you get those people that align well with your culture?
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And really, you need to make sure your culture is the foundation.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, MOBE funding's done a great job of that.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: DCS has done a great job of that, and I think all the people I just hired would attest to that.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Is I completely looked at the way we're doing because we had some bad people slip in, and it's like, what's so detrimental to our team and our projects?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: How do I get rid of that?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so now we have a 10 question, multiple choice, morals and ethics quiz Google Doc that gives it's a weighted thing.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it tells us, hey, are you in line with our core values and company values?
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're family and we operate by a set of principles and values, right?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Next thing is we got big into the predictive index.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: So the personality traits in the workplace, right?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's like, oh, we're doing personality tests.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's crazy.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we took 15 or 20 of our really good employees, like our hammers, we'll call them, and then we made a curve of like our ideal person based on that.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: So now we have people do that.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: If they fall on that curve, that's another green flag.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Boom, two green flags.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Then they do a little cognitive testing depending on the role they're in.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then they have to do a series of three interviews.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: So one with our professional development person.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: So that's something we started investing in, is our people.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we have someone that does professional development with all of our supervisors and up.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: So they get one to two hours a week, and that's for both personal and professional growth.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like she's there, and then she's also, I like to call her my cat herder.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: She's running the department heads and weekly meetings and stuff and making sure everybody's aligned and hitting their uh targets and what they need to do.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next is a technical interview, and then the final one's me.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you got to be green lights across the board.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: If there's one red flag, sorry, you're gone.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't go work.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now you we might keep you to the side and say, okay, hey, here's our 90 to 100% ideal candidate.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Here's like someone we can work with and maybe get them to where we need them to be.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: But ideally, we want to hire all these people first, then move on down to this.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it's completely changed.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: People are like, this is the most intricate hiring process I've ever gone through.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: But everybody that's hired on has instantly been clicked into the family, and they all said, I don't know how you figured this out, but this is the greatest thing.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like they mesh so well together, and it is just like a frustrating light ding.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh my god, why didn't I think about this before?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I think get it to the point where you're comfortable with the people you're bringing in and you know they're gonna follow the the culture of the company and not change it.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_03: Man, I love that.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_03: That's really impact that's impactful because as you start to implement your culture and bringing new people on and bringing them into that culture, but creating the same core value and principles that everybody has and bringing the surface in the business environment, it's really the key to the success of a business.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think uh you would be able to scale at all in any capacity if you didn't scale and evolve yourself personally?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, not at all.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: I I think again, the the Tim that started this business in 2019 is a completely different human.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh not that he was a a bad person.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: He just I wasn't who I am today.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: And there's been so many life experiences and business experiences that I've had to go through to get here.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: As we kind of talked about, you know, before this all started, was it isn't just this linear path up, right?
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's this, this, this, this, this, then you're here, and this, and then God willing, you just go like this because you finally figured it out.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: But that's also in personal and professional.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: It goes hand in hand because there's a lot of things.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: And again, the transparency, I like to call it naked transparency.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same in the business.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if there's stuff going on in my life, everybody knows.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, it's no, I'm not ashamed of it.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and I think that also opens up an era of like humanness and just bringing that in is huge.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_03: So, what grew first, Tim or the business?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was simultaneous.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was like tit for tat on some things.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Some there was like what before we, you know, I hit a slump.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was like right before right when we used you the first.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I were going through all the life things, like, and then we hit this like nine-month dry spell, and it was like, oh my gosh, now we got this like two million dollar project.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: How am I gonna cash flow this, right?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: But at the simultaneously, okay, we just had this slump, and then I had, you know, I separated from my ex-fiance, you know, I had my dog who got me through PTSD.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I had to put him down, and then I, you know, I had a trainer unfortunately kill one of my other dogs.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this all happened in a three-week period, along with getting this contract.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it's all simultaneous.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I say that just as a sense of I'm a human, you know, like I'm doing great things in business, but I'm also a human, and shit happens both in business and personal, and you gotta mesh it both together and realize, again, don't be too proud, just to say it out loud and ask for help or ask somebody.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_03: 100%.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_03: All right, so the show's called the mobilization mindset.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_03: So looking back when you started, where you looking back where you started, what mindset shift made the biggest difference in getting you where you were to where you wanted to go?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when I started the business, and you know the story well, but I'll give a brief summary is I started this because one of my good friends was killed on a project, and I was the medic who treated him for two hours until he was pronounced dead.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: And why we started the business was because we wanted to make the industry better.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I always like to say we're trying to make the industry and the world a better place with through our interactions, and I truly think we're doing that, and I can see the impact we're making.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: So when I decided to do that again, it was how do we be different?
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a treat and pay our guys better, prioritize safety, prioritize how we deal with clients and the quality of the work we're doing.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's how we're different, right?
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Is just taking care of the people is the priority there because we're treated as expendable commodities in my my industry.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: And when I decided to go on that journey, it it clicked in my head that there is no plan B.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's this or nothing, it's this, this or death.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I think you have to not have a backup plan.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: Burn the boats.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, exactly.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean, I don't if I if I didn't do that, if I didn't say that to myself and go in all on it, like I wouldn't be sitting here today.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no doubt.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: No plan B is one of having to have to make it work is one of the greatest motivations you could possibly have.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_03: I love that, man.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_03: Well, everybody, make sure you look at check out Tim's company, Deadcom C's.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: You can find Tim in the best places where we're on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: We have a great social media guy ourselves, puts out a lot of great videos and pictures.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to see what's happening underneath the water, give us a give us a follow.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_03: And there's some cool stuff going on in the world, too.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_03: Some stuff, a lot of stuff.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you of course you can find us at mobilizationfunding.com.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_03: I'm also on LinkedIn, Scott Pieper, our team, mobilization funding, our YouTube channel, where you can find Tim and I on live video.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_03: If you're listening and to this podcast, you can see us live there or maybe not live, I'm sorry, recorded, but in person there.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_03: Our YouTube channel, Mobilization Funding.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_03: Until next time, have a great week and may God bless you.