Construction Brothers Construction Brothers

00:00 - Ennui and another Tyler
We know that you come here for philosophical insight and existential explanations, so today we’re discussion ennui. Tyler shares… tries to share about this state of listlss… listsles… listlessness and dissatisfaction.

After this fun, we welcome our new vocal presence, Tyler Cook. Tyler shares about the secret to connecting with Zoomers. It’s all about tier lists and brackets. So today we’re going to do a tourney bracket.

05:23 - The bracket
Today we’re exploring niches. We don’t want to share any spoilers here in the notes, but here are some opinions that are shared as we process this competition. 
Concrete is tough.Drywall corners are hard.Flooring is not comfortable work.Spending your day staring upward will do a number on your neck.We don’t want to fall off a roof.Dooky’s not fun.OSHA keeps telling us not to touch a live wire.Demolition is fun for 30 minutes.Eddie is confident that he’s done with roofing.Welding sometimes happens in really dangerous places.If you're interested in jumping straight to some specific first-round debates:

6:06 - Carpentry vs. masonry
7:40 - Drywall vs. concrete 
10:20 - Ceiling vs. flooring
16:01 - Roofing vs. HVAC
23:37 - Landscaping vs. painting
24:48 - Electrical vs. excavation 
30:44 - Glass installation vs. demolition
33:21 - Semifinals
39:15 - Finals

The takeaway from this process? Man, tradespeople do some tough stuff. 

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Tyler’s struggling today, but Eddie’s bringing the wisdom. Actually, he’s passing along wisdom from John F. Kennedy.

Here’s what JFK had to say: “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.”

Eddie shares about lessons Dad passed along about how to use down time. If things are slow but you know the time is coming when they won’t be… Then use that time to do the things that you know will need to be done.

Tyler recounts examples of times when he’s experienced this phenomenon. The bros talk through the questions you should ask yourself when you have the time to examine your process. These questions will help you to identify areas of weakness that you can fix before harm comes to you and your team.

See the future. Fix the problem before it arrives. 

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He brought us coffee.

00:00 - Introduction
Today we welcome Jay Jenkins. Jay is Principal in charge of Higher Education and Operations at May Architecture. We invited him to the studio to learn about building a team that’s equipped to handle the unique challenges of college and university construction.

Jay points out that colleges and universities are little cities unto themselves. Eddie brings up the fact that Jay’s teams have worked on projects at the University of Georgia and at Georgia Tech. Jay explains that each educational institution has its own culture.

Jay says his job is making sure his team of architects and designers have the tools they need. Then he just stays out of their way.

06:46 - Principles of success
Tyler asks Jay to share what owners and their teams do to position Jay and his people for success. Jay says that honesty is frankly the most helpful thing.

Jay shares about the complications involved in communicating to all of the relevant parties on college projects when construction projects affect groups that might not usually need to communicate with each other. It always starts with listening closely and thoughtfully. Then it’s often necessary to filter and reframe–to see if you’re properly understanding what’s being said.

Tyler asks Jay to expand upon the importance of listening. Jay emphasizes the need for objectivity and making an honest effort to grasp the needs of the other party. If you can’t truly grasp that need, you can’t communicate it to the team with the means to solve it.

Tyler points out that we’re all pretty good at talking, but we’re not always great at presenting prompts.

Eddie asks about the give and take between Jay and Gil, an architect he has worked with in the past. Jay shares about how the availability of a long-term conversation partner has been helpful.

This openness led to the development of 3 guiding questions within their firm:
1) Are you committed to letting the best idea win?
2) Are you passionate about what you do?
3) Are you building expertise within your team?

16:40 - Looking back
Eddie asks Jay to share about times when the challenges became greater than usual. Jay explains that sometimes the university’s team’s goal was actually to keep architects from being brought into a project because of the concern that things would become more complicated than necessary. Jay’s job was to ensure that the job was done right–in a manner that would take liabilities into consideration and similar concerns.

Jay talks about the options that are provided by architects and responses given by the owners. Eddie shares his appreciation for Jay’s role as communication facilitator–a person who comes between two parties to ensure that messages are making it back and forth.    

24:15 - The greatest challenges
Eddie asks about factors that complicate college projects–students, donors, etc. Jay says that the hardest thing is actually when the owner doesn’t know what they want. Building consensus with end users is also a challenge, though.

Jay gives examples of the diverse end-user-groups involved in a sample building: IT, health care, instructors, administrators, etc. Politics sometimes come into play.

Eddie asks about the importance of long-term, multiple-project relationships with owners and contractors. Jay says they are simply huge. Over 95% of their work is repeat work with clients. Growth comes from providing exceptional experiences for everyone involved.

It’s about creating great experiences. Jay says you’d be surprised at how far a simple thank-you goes.

37:04 - Finding good help
Eddie asks Jay to share about the challenges of finding reliable, high-quality people as his team grows. Jay explains that...

Can you think of a more difficult decision than the one that President Truman had to make in 1945? We can’t

Sometimes sitting still and not doing anything is the riskiest thing to do. Tyler recalls a conversation with friend of the show Henry Nutt III. Henry recounted a situation where his boss left him in a room and told him to sit tight until the boss returned. Henry sat around for a while and then decided to go ahead and do what it was that he thought had to be done in this room. His boss returned and decided that Henry had leadership skills.

Entrepreneurship involves risk. It requires initiative and a willing to act when others might be unwilling to do so.

Eddie encourages us to ask ourselves honestly what we could change about ourselves in order to improve our productivity or some other form of success. Chances are that we know what needs to be done and we’re simply not acting on that knowledge.

Inaction often makes failure more likely that action.

Here’s the whole quote as attributed to Harry S. Truman: “There is some risk involved in action, there always is. But there is far more risk in failure to act.”

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Check out this link to learn more about the tools discussed in this episode.

00:00 - Introduction
Rob Coakley is the equipment manager at Lithko Contracting. He’s here today to discuss a decision familiar to every construction business owner: to rent or to buy. 

Rob shares some of Lithko’s history in order to set the stage for the complexity of the rent/buy decision. It boils down to this: Having a capital constraint along with a scalability issue put Lithko on the path toward rentals–more out of necessity and a desire for simplicity than to save money.

Managing rentals on a large scale involves a hefty amount of record-keeping and management. Lithko brought Rob on board to make the end cost of equipment a competitive advantage. He explains how many contractors who own equipment will bury equipment costs in order to win jobs. This often leads to financial trouble in the long run.

06:21 - Conventional wisdom (or at least preference)
Eddie describes the conventional contractor approach to tool acquisition: If I can put it in the job and buy the tool, I’m going to buy the tool. This often leads to tools sitting in the weeds.

Rob follows up on this and points out that an owned tool can become part of the landscape of a job while the pace of progress slows, whereas being on a rental timeline can motivate you to keep the project moving along. That clock doesn’t stop ticking. He also explains that ownership does actually make sense for many smaller contractors. It’s when your business scales up that the argument grows stronger and stronger for renting–even to the point of renting everything.

We discuss why GCs hire specialty contractors. Rob then discusses how he talks to owners of companies that Lithko acquires. He lays out a rental-based approach to pricing projects. If it can be done without eating into profits, then there’s no reason not to rent. Your long-term risk drops significantly.  

13:05 - Record-keeping when scaling up
Eddie asks Rob to explain how he and his team at Lithko has handled the increasingly complex task of record-keeping as they’ve grown. 

Lithko has grown from a $135-million business in 2008 to a $1.8-million business last year. With this growth came information-management challenges. Rob explains that you need to know what your cost will be at the end of the job and where you are today. That gap, of course, determines whether or not you're profitable.

When Rob began investigating solutions for the scaled-up version of this process, he found that Quickbase was a handy no-code/low-code solution for building the customized software he needed. He compares it to Lego kits and sand-castle building.

We discuss the importance of mastering project timelines in order to optimize the scheduling of rented equipment.  

22:15 - Lithko’s Quickbase sand castle 
Eddie asks Rob to run through some of the components that are most important to their customized Quickbase management package. Rob explains that they’re always short-term planning. It’s all about well-thought-out reports and dashboard items. He explains how they use the dashboards to allow record-keepers and managers to easily. This includes selectively sharing access with vendors so they can participate in the bidding process.

Rob shares about safety compliance components and the mobility features that enable decision-makers to access the data needed for decisions made in the field. He explains how data from their ERP system is...

You are surrounded by people. You’ll be affecting these people in one way or another. You can choose what that effect will be.

You can treat them kindly. You can show them grace. Or you can step on them. You can rip on them. You can take advantage of them.

Today Eddie encourages you to be an encouraging presence in the lives of the people around you. It’s not always easy to do this in a competitive industry, but it’s also not impossible.

Do everything you can to be as good as you can be to the people around you.

Be a bright spot.

Check out the partners that make our show possible.

Find Us Online: BrosPodcast.com - LinkedIn - Youtube - Instagram - Facebook - TikTok - Eddie's LinkedIn - Tyler's LinkedIn

If you enjoy the podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to us! Thanks for listening!