Andrew Ammons is the founder and president of ACR Roofing, an incredibly successful commercial roofing company located in Texas. Andrew shared a secret with us during this episode: He isn’t super passionate about roofing.

What he IS crazy passionate about is building processes that work and building up people to perform at their best and achieve their goals.

In this episode of The Real MF’ers, Andrew shares how that passion led him to start several successful businesses and create the One Tribe Weekly, a movement that is changing lives and the world one week at a time!

Full Transcript Below

Scott Peper  0:37

Everybody, welcome. Today, with me is a great friend of mine, somebody who I’m really excited to introduce you guys. Excellent roofing contractor, human being, father, and business owner, someone I’ve learned quite a bit from actually and really enjoyed working with and getting to know personally and professionally. Andrew Ammons is the president, owner, co founder, founder of ACR, Roofing and ACR Companies. So we’re going to talk a little bit on all those. But Andrew, welcome.

Andrew Ammons  1:04

Thank you. Thanks for having me on. It’s been a little bit in the making. First off, I appreciate not only you have me on here, but everything that you guys have done. It’s interesting. Almost immediately after me and you met, there was business to be done between us. And I don’t know that I knew at the time how helpful that was to our organization. And I know I’ve I’ve thanked you before, but I got to do it, you know, in front of all the millions of people that will see this.

Scott Peper  1:31

Well you’re very welcome. Number one, thank you. But more importantly, I’m glad that we were able to help you and the things, anything that we were able to do to push you forward faster to help yourself has been great. I’ve shared your story with many customers now just how you’ve saved money on those projects, how you utilize our loan program, as good or better than anybody I’ve ever seen. And I’m really interested in talking to you about that as well. But if you don’t mind, can you give everybody take take two or three minutes, just give us some give everybody an overview, just who you are, where you’re at what you do what the business is just so they can get a concept of the ins and outs of your life.

Andrew Ammons  2:12

Gotcha. I took a big gulp right before he said that, because I don’t know if I can do it in three minutes. Because I’m a little bit long winded, but I’ll I’ll do my best. So I think you covered my name. And I am stationed out in West Texas Actually, I’ve been in the contracting business. Gosh, ever since I can remember I grew up with a dad who was in the residential remodel and roofing business. So I kind of saw how that ran growing up had the blessing to see both of my parents go from, I guess what you’d say as a nine to five job into more of a owner operator or entrepreneurial situation. So I got to see both sides of that it always intrigued me to be able to have you know, full control of your future, right, the good and the bad, everything that came with it. So I get to watch that growing up. I am in the contracting space.

People ask me often, you know, what’s your passion? Or what do you enjoy doing? And the fact is, I’m not crazy passionate about contracting in general, I am crazy passionate about building processes, building people being able to put my mark on something and seeing that continue to operate. So just a little bit of history, say I started contracting business. First was landscaping, landscape maintenance in the residential markets, which is probably some of the lowest barriers to entry you could probably have in construction, right? You gotta have a trailer, couple mowers, not much to it. So I started there, kind of built out some processes and cut my teeth so to speak, in that world ran a landscape company for Gosh, almost a decade. A little bit crazy to think that I can say that. Because I still consider myself young, even though before we started recording, you make sure to call out the gray in my beard, which

Scott Peper  4:07

If I grew one out, I’d have that same problem.

Andrew Ammons  4:12

I don’t know if you can actually see it. But anyways, I did that for about 10 years. I enjoyed it eventually got burnt out, hit my head up against the same brick wall over and over again. I didn’t quit rather than doing that I brought on a partner who was a little bit more seasoned in the landscape world than myself. Let him come on again to operate it. And I’ve still maintain ownership and very high level involvement with that company very landscape companies. So once once I was kind of done with that I fell back into I guess you could say my roots where I saw you know my dad first move into the contracting world. But I went straight into the commercial roofing world rather than residential mostly because more opportunity there at least as I saw it, and the clientele. You know, it seems to be more about solving problems and a little bit more of a challenge. I enjoy that. And so jump right back into commercial roofing. And that’s where I am today.

Scott Peper  5:17

Awesome. Man, I was really curious of how you decided in the construction world pivoting from doing landscaping, or like you said, getting into residential landscaping and also in jumping into commercial roofing, you got different licenses got different skills, bidding, I mean, all that’s a big leap, I was curious of how that came about.

Andrew Ammons  5:36

There was a lot more of an evolution than I probably gave credit to because we started in residential. And eventually, and I’m not knocking residential whatsoever, it just isn’t quite frankly congruent with with me and how I deal and operate with people. So there was an evolution there, we were doing the residential work. And at some point, I started to build relationships with property management groups, and ownerships and, and really understood some of the unique challenges that they had. So we slowly and systematically started started moving out of the residential world is strictly in the commercial with the landscaping company. So I’d already started that again, and been around residential roofing my entire life. In fact, you know, my first job, so to speak, and Kane Harvey called a job that was residential roofing sales. So I knew the business. But because of the some of the relationships, we’ve begun to build with the landscaping company in that world that I was so intrigued by especially what I refer to as the multi stakeholder situation where, you know, you’ve got a, you’ve got a local property director, a property management group, and then somebody somewhere behind the veil that owns the actual asset. So I became very interested in how that worked. And that was a big driver for why we went straight in to the commercial space.

Scott Peper  7:00

Yeah, it’s awesome to hear you talk about why you wanted to get into this business and where your passions really lie in how you’ve used construction as a vehicle for you to be able to do that, you know, when you and I first met out in, gosh, almost a year ago, now, maybe a little longer out in Whistler, the first thing that attracted me to you is, I was like, I can’t believe you’re in construction. I mean, we’re amongst a group of 100 or so entrepreneurs. And most construction folks are not thinking about the why they’re, what they’re doing for business and why they want to help who they want to help and how their teams and employees first, they’re always thinking I grind it like you did. But the first thing they talk about typically is that grind and how they got to it. But you talked about your team, your, your your employees, the people you’ve developed your passion. And it wasn’t till five minutes of the conversation, you’re like, yeah, and by the way, I’m a roofing company, I was, I was waiting for you to tell me Oh, like software or some other b2b organization. And I asked me that, because I think it’s so important, why you do something is more important than what you do. And if you focus on why you do things, what you do becomes even better, and everyone recognize that. And I want the audience to hear your words how you took that part of your life and passion, and molded it into a construction company. Because I think it’s a really hard bridge when I talk to our customers or potential customers, how they mold those those passions and that desire to help not only into our project, but into their team and the organization inside of a construction environment.

Andrew Ammons  8:38

Right? Well, I’m glad you bring that up. Because that goes back to the first thing we talked about on this call, like I would argue, and I may be wrong, but that you Scott are probably not just overly passionate about the funding side or, or the nitty gritty of what you do. You’re passionate about helping people. Right, you’re passionate about, okay, my client base or prospective client base are contractors who suffer a certain problem that is or a certain set of problems that are probably very common amongst all of us. And you found a way and a very specialized service that you can help us with. So you’re passionate about going in, how do I make that product better? And how do I help more people with my thing that I’ve put together, right? I mean, I would say that’s, that’s what gives you the drive and why we’re doing this podcast and everything. And it’s a it’s the same for me. I love telling people that in fact, during our One Tribe meetings on Monday, which I hope we get to talk about a little bit here in a second. I say that frequently. I’ll tell people like, Listen, I’m not passionate about roofing. You know, I don’t wake up every morning to say, Man, I can’t wait to put on the best damn single ply membrane you’ve ever seen in your life. Like that’s how could have given you I mean, yes, I enjoy the construction process, but to get to your question, I struggled with it for a long time as the answer. I went into contracting, and into what I do, I mean way back, probably like most people go into business or went into a job way to pay the bills, right. And I grew up with guys who accelerated either either some of them came from families who already has established businesses, or maybe just like any of us, you know, friends who accelerate faster, whether it be financially or success across different areas. And I, I really struggled with man, I feel like I’m talented to be doing something more of a professional career or something that’s a little bit more flashy requires me to dress a little bit nicer. And I, I really did, I was like, I’m sitting here doing construction. And I’ve got these buddies who are doing this, that the other half this buddy, Scott is a, you know, a slick financial guy, I got, no, I got all these people doing this. And I struggled with it. Eventually, I landed on and I talked with my team about this a lot. Like, if you’re chasing passion as what you do, rather than a part of what you do. And I think I’ve worded it better than but if you’re just looking at saying, you know, the same old dream of I’ve got to grow up meet a certain thing. And that’s what I’m passionate about, you’re never gonna find it, you’ve got to find something about what you do. So inside of what you do, that you enjoy that you wake up every single morning for and you’re excited for. It doesn’t matter if that’s being a firefighter, landscaper contractor, it doesn’t matter, you got to find that thing. And I guess I consider myself blessed to find that thing for me is to build out processes and systems and things that I can watch grow, wouldn’t matter what the industry was.

Scott Peper  11:44

I mean, you hit the nail on the head. And you’re right. And I appreciate you bringing that up and recognizing that because for me, and you’re right, and I care more about helping people. I mean, I have a sales background, a finance background, a lot of people think, oh, he must have graduated with a finance background, not as a sales guy, either. Yeah, I mean, I was more in sales. But you know what, what I liked about sales, I like talking to people. And when I talked to you by like hearing what their problems were. And I liked figuring out what the how to solve their problem. And if there was a product to solve their problem that I happen to sell great. But most of the time, the problems they had my product wasn’t solving. So I just would connect them with the the other sales rep that I knew that was selling that product or the company I just heard about, because I’d go to every single Hospital in the entire state. I knew what the other physicians that were like them that were selling, I happen to sell medical devices. So I’d say, oh, in that procedure, I saw Dr. Song, so do that. And what happened was I created so much value in the knowledge that I had from me traveling all over the place and sharing that just in communication. The people naturally when they did have the problem that my product was all they come to me instead of my competition. And right, what I realized going into this finance business, one, I better find somebody that has a lot of knowledge about finance, because I’m not the one that’s gonna program. But once I could see what the value was, I said, I don’t want to bring that what I want to find my father was in construction, I think I shared this with you. And to grow and scale, I knew the cashflow problem. So when I when the Prop, someone had the idea of this product, and we mold it into this, I said you know what we need to do we need to solve the problems of business owners have first which is they can’t make payroll, keeping them up at night, we don’t need to lend the money, we need to give them a solution to have an ongoing relief of stress. If our loan product can do that great. But what we also need to do is help them with all the other things, find the right insurance, find the right bonding, be part of a solution that can offer all the value out there to educate while they’re grinding these construction business, which have a lot of employees a lot of money back and forth. They’re constantly bidding, they don’t have time to educate themselves on all these other things that we can be that resource. If and when they do need money or a product will be there. That’s the part that I contributed to this business and what I thought you did so well with your construction business and what we talked about what our potential clients how to mold that over. And I watched you do it so well that I was really wanting to make sure that you shared that. Right like what I do want you to talk about which I think is part of what we’re going into now is how you implemented your One Tribe concept which really labeled everything you and I just talked about and for the audience.

I want you guys to pay attention to this part because this is really the key piece. Well all those words being entered just threw back around he put in he put a label on it called One Tribe and then he built that One Tribe brand inside of his own company. So they go ahead and talk about that because this is this is the this is the real importance.

Andrew Ammons  14:45

One Tribe in general?

Scott Peper  14:46

Yeah, how you doing your meetings, the concept how you implement it weekly.

Andrew Ammons  14:50

it well, first of all, it came just the same as it came as to how I recognize what my passion was. It came from me, from me going into an office and I just despised. And working with people that I hated. And having this is true, but I don’t know any better way to say it. Like, it came from such horrible company culture that quite frankly, the the type of fear driven person that I was in a previous life, I probably created that. But at some point I decided it’s time to break out of that mold. Like, we’ve got to build some unity here, we’ve got to, if I want to achieve this monstrous goal, it’s going to take a tribe, right? It’s going to take a it’s gonna take a family.

So long story short, all One Tribe is I sat back and I looked at it. And I saw how people in the administrative department were teaching or treating people in the sales department, the sales department was treating people in the field. And, you know, you hear that concept that people talk about team, you hear family? Well, to me, it was kind of like, your team’s not strong enough. Family, you don’t get to pick I don’t, I don’t want that right, a tribe infers a strong bond, a strong group of people who are collectively working towards one goal. And where the one came in, was just the simple concept that no matter what department you’re in, how old you are, what your pay ranges, what color you are, whatever it is, we are one tribe, we’re one group of people that are all here for the same exact reason. And that reason is we showed up here to make money. We want to be respected and have a decent time. But we want to walk out these doors every single day and feel like, Hey, I contributed something and I did something. And when people start to realize that no matter if you are aggravated in your HR department, because let’s say a salesman screwed up in a contract, or you’re upset with this person, for whatever reason, when you realize that your job, right is dependent upon that person. And we’re all human beings up here. And then we can drop our stuff at the door and just work together, which is not an easy thing to do. I believe that huge momentum would start to occur with our business. And I think that I think the One Tribe movement, honestly, Scott, I think the world needs it. I know that sounds crazy. But I set in front of my team last last couple of weeks, and almost got emotional about it. Because I I see so much hate, I see so much arguing and it’s like, the world needs to hear this.

Scott Peper  17:29

And you’re right, man, everybody needs to calm down and chill out a little bit. And if you focus on something other than yourself, you know, what, you probably won’t get so emotionally charged, and the world might actually be a better place. And I think that’s the difference maker right there.

Andrew Ammons  17:44

Right. And, you know, from a tactical standpoint, for you, if you’re a business owner, it was also something for my team to rally behind. You know, the second I came up with it, I trademarked it, it’s got the law next to it, you know, it’s something that I want them to know is ours, you can rally behind this doesn’t mean that every everything’s perfect. And we, you know, are always just congratulating everybody. And it’s rainbows and cupcakes, no. But it means at the end of the day that we stand for something more than just roofing or landscaping or whatever the thing is, and I think that that drives a lot of things in a business.

Scott Peper  18:21

And you know, it’s a great segment, because one of the other things you do really well. Well, you do you market your business. Well, you do it in a more unique way than most in the construction field. And I think you also and I know you do this, you take your One Tribe branding concept. And that’s one of the biggest parts of the marketing that you have for your entire roofing business. You need your customers down your One Tribe path just like you do your team and your employees and anyone else working with you. And you’ve marketed that way. Can you talk about your thought process and how you went about doing that and sharing some of the success that you had that you put together doing it?

Andrew Ammons  19:01

Here’s the fact man I believe in it, I feel so strongly about it. You know, that’s care about people taking care of people. It’s one of the things you know, when me and you first met, I picked up on immediately. And it’s not something that I’ve always been good at. But you’re very keen, you listen to people, right? You know, what their struggles? Are we going back to what you said about your products in general. So I think what I recognize really quickly is people like you who are successful in what you do, and people in the Arete Syndicate, which we’re both involved in, who are successful. There’s a deeper meaning behind what what they’re doing. And so when it comes to the marketing, and it comes to all that kind of stuff. Yes, we utilize that and we make certain that our customers know about it. But I think we’ve done a good job of and I think that you do and I wish more people would do is recognize that their prospect or their client at the other end of the table is another human being who needs help. Now, maybe they need help. With financing, maybe they need help with roofing. But they probably also struggle just with self doubt and all the other things that we struggle with too. So I think what I realized and we’re still seeing happen is, what if we tried to connect with people to their real struggles in life, and we shared a part of our weekly meeting where I typically talked to the team about stuff like that. What if we could help somebody better their relationship with their spouse? What if we could help them have less self doubt? When it came time for them to buy a roof? Who are they going to buy from? Somebody who who has the best warranty? Or somebody who helped them? I know I’m getting deep there, but do something have actual substance in their life?

Scott Peper  20:45

Yeah, you given value before you’ve ever asked for anything? And that’s, I mean, what better reward could you possibly give somebody? Right? And even if they never bought a roof mirror, and they don’t even need a roof? The friends might other people, right? You putting a positive ripple out there that, you know, is gonna reverberate.

Andrew Ammons  21:03

But one of our one of our joint mentors or say mentors, and Andy told us both, I think he told us this at Whistler. He said, some of the best people that he has ever hired, were actually friends of people he didn’t hire. Right? And because he treated those people so well in the interview process, and actually gave them some level of value. But that person left and said, Hey, listen, man, they didn’t have a spot for me. But what they have with fits you perfectly, you got to go work for this person, it’s it’s the Rule of Reciprocity, it’s the same as you set me up with the bonding company that we work with. Now, you are responsible for that long before you ever made $1.

Scott Peper  21:39

For me, that was the problem that you had. And you know, it’s a great segue, because I was going to ask you about something, there’s another compliment on it gives you that, that this turning into complimenting you, but

Andrew Ammons  21:50

A little reverse, and I’ll just give you yours.

Scott Peper  21:53

This may sound a little self serving, but what I want people to hear, one of the things I’m really passionate about is aside from what we’ve talked about, and how to help them and how to deliver resources, is using our loan product when it is applicable in the best possible way gain those efficiencies grow. And you know, you did that as well as anyone give a little story background for everybody. Andrew came to us, he had a great contract working billing, putting the roof on a VA government facility. And he needed bond for it. So I told him, Hey, look, I know exactly where to get this bond, here’s the deal, this guy can work this up for you. And he did. And it’s part of getting the bond he needed. He also realized going into the winter, whether he could accelerate this project. So he said, Scott, what would a loan look like? So I explained the loan product? Well, we built our cash flow model out, Andrew saw it in a cash flow, and made like five tweaks to it. And ultimately, the outcome is Andrew saved more money by borrowing our money in the project cost, which is astonishing to me, but it showed them what you did and how you did that. Because that’s the key to using our product it is.

Andrew Ammons  22:57

So I think that it’s one of those things that your heart is to help people grow their business rather than necessarily. Not that you wouldn’t bail somebody out of a position where they’re, you know, in a corner somewhere. I think that’s I think that’s powerful to note, because I know that you talk frequently about people not wanting to tell their general contractor, they have a financing partner, and all that kind of stuff. And listen, I’ve I’ve got a whole nother opinion about that. And my opinion is that I agree with you. But the way that we did that, and the way that will accelerate the job, not only did it save us money, and and we were able to actually accelerate the job with more crews, more material landed in advance, as well as a an additional supervisor that we wouldn’t have had on site had we not been able to make those arrangements. And you know what, let’s not just over let’s not just step over those things, because being able to stage materials earlier that we might have held on because of cash flow decision making, having multiple crews out there, because the cash going out the door was not so much an issue anymore. I mean, those are huge things, right, our time is money, the faster I can get that job done, it was about a one I think is a 1.6 or $7 million contract, the faster I can get that done, the less impact it has on overhead company resources, all that I’m in and out and get my money on the way. So that was huge. The tool that you gave me up front laying out the cash flow projection is being able to see that and really think it through. I pride myself on on being a very analytical logic driven person. But I don’t know if I would have taken the time to have thought that project out the way I did. Had you not sent me that tool as the starting point for us to explore if that was an option.

But I don’t want to I don’t want to also overstep before we before we close this out the value of sleeping at night. And it’s not that money solves problems and it’s not that your tool is to just give somebody might have to worry about anymore. But not worrying about cash flow because you’re covered with an army out there is a very good feeling for an owner or operator. And it allows them to focus on which what I did. And this is the truth. I’ve told you this before. But during that time, I was building our estimating department that went from zero dollars in what I refer to as retail or new construction bid to now we’re at $38 million year to date in bids out the door. From a estimating part, it’s got nothing to do with me, I did that while that VA job was going because truthfully, y’all solution gave me the ability to focus where I needed to as a business owner.

Scott Peper  25:44

You didn’t have to run around all week chasing down receivables. And

Andrew Ammons  25:48

Or watch, are you guys timing this shit? Just right?

Scott Peper  25:51

Yeah, no, did I like I said, you put that together then watching you finish the job. In 75% of the time, that was a lot, which

Andrew Ammons 25:59

by the way for like two months Didn’t we are to

Scott Peper  26:02

You finish in eight weeks. It was set up for 13. I mean, you save five weeks worth of labor? I mean, how many crews? How big was your crew on that job?

Andrew Ammons  26:09

I think we had up to 28 at one point in time spread out.

Scott Peper 26:13

Yeah. I mean, what’s the payroll on 28? People?

Andrew Ammons  26:17

I don’t know. I get too many numbers in my head.

Scott Peper  26:18

10s of thousands of dollars. I’m sharing file ship. times 10s of thousands is a real number. Yeah. The business?

Andrew Ammons  26:25

Yeah, it’s um, so I think the answer you’re probably looking for it in less words, is my story. Or the way that I would think to maximize it is to put it into place, even if you don’t think you need it. And run the job. quick, fast and efficient, allow it to run faster for you, and you make more money in the long run.

Scott Peper  26:47

Another thing that might be a good time Yes. If we ever come up with a brochure, maybe that’s the tagline that’s on the brochure. That’s it. And I really appreciate you going through all this again, I know you’re a busy guy and taking the time out to do it to help share your story with everybody means a lot to me and I really appreciate it I know it’s gonna add some value to folks that get a chance to listen to us.

Andrew Ammons  27:07

I hope it does.

Scott Peper  27:09

Everyone I hope you guys enjoyed this today. I hope you and your stories Andrew puts out a lot of great content on LinkedIn feel free to reach out and connect with them it’s got a great Instagram story as well.

Andrew Ammons  27:20

It one tribe weekly.com to any you guys and it’s got no self gain there you see what I’m doing. It may help you lead your guys and your team as well. That one tribe weekly.

Scott Peper  27:31

Thanks everyone. I hope you guys all have a great day. Better evening and enjoy the rest of your week. Take care

 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Cash flow management is a critical component in the success of any business, and it is especially critical in industries like construction where a lot of cash or credit is needed, start-up costs are high, profit margins are thin, and getting paid can be a real hassle. The complex cash flow ecosystems that construction and manufacturing companies survive in make effective cash flow management absolutely critical. The good news is that there are technology solutions that can streamline your cash flow management.

Why Cash Flow Management is So Complex in Construction

Making money in construction is contingent on many factors, some of them completely beyond your control. Your work is dependent upon the performance of other trades. Project schedules shift due to weather, design changes, and resource shortages (which are typically a cash flow problem in reality).

The complex payment hierarchy means you pay out large amounts upfront and are paid slowly and over time. This makes managing cash in the business more difficult. Sure, there is money in the bank account, but what money is that for?  Is that payroll for this week, but for what job? Can I use some of that money to buy materials for the new job starting or is that the money I need to pay for the materials I already used for this project?

As you know, these are real questions and the real answers are not easy to determine if you are operating only out of your checking account and don’t have any reports or cash reports to make decisions off of!  You can make this easier and it is easier to do when you have the right cash flow reports and cash management tools.  With these tools you will be able to:

• Know what bills to pay with each chunk of cash you have come into the business
• What to do with the cash that is in the business right now
• What money needs to be allocated to the new job and what money needs to stay on the current job
• Know if it is the right time to buy the next piece of equipment
• Know when you can take some money out of the business for an owner distribution

Complex isn’t impossible, though. There are a number of tools and technology solutions that can help streamline and improve your cash flow management. Let’s start with something really simple: an Excel spreadsheet.

Plan Project Cash Flow in Phases

Many contractors determine project costs as a lump sum, but that is not how those costs are incurred. Similarly, contractors will estimate profit as a lump sum, but that is not how you make your money. To accurately plan the cash flow on a project, you need to not only see how much money you will be spending and earning, but WHEN those amounts become relevant in relation to the project.

Our Cash Flow Tracker tool was created to do exactly that.

Download Our Cash Flow Tracker Tool
(Don’t forget to get the instructions, too)

When you can see your project cash flow broken down on a weekly basis, you can make smarter, more strategic decisions regarding labor, supplies, equipment, and financing.

Bonus Tip: If you want more integration between field and office, use a construction management tool or save your Excel worksheet on a cloud-based document sharing platform like Google Drive or Microsoft Teams.

Let Data Inform Your Bids and Estimates

Doing a bid the right way takes time. A bid is more than just a number and specs — it is the story of how a job should be done, how much it will cost, and why you are the best contractor for the job. Show General Contractors your experience and expertise by building estimates from real historical data, easily pulled from your construction management software.

Power-up your chance of winning by showing REAL historical numbers to back up your estimates.

Integrate Your Teams with Construction Management Software

Construction is an industry of constant change. Changes happen in the office and on the site. Changes to the construction schedule that aren’t properly communicated can result in equipment rentals or material orders happening out of sync with the project’s actual schedule. Each of these cost the business hard-earned money.

Bottom line: Your entire team needs to know what changed, when it changed, and how it impacts the rest of the project — and the rest of your other projects!

Construction Management Software tears down the communication silos between departments. It creates a shared source of truth for every project, increasing transparency and efficiency, and cutting down on email chains, phone calls, and trips to the field.

There are plenty of industry specific tools, but you can also look for a trusted, industry-agnostic solutions like Monday.com or Airtable.

Automate Your Accounts Payable

You will always need a controller, bookkeeper, and/or CPA. However, when it comes to Accounts Payable, manual entry is inefficient, often relies on the knowledge of a single person, and results in errors and manual rework to correct.

Lack of communication transparency between field and office teams means reporting and invoicing is always reactive rather than proactive. Likewise the field is often at least a day behind on new information affecting the project’s cash flow. An automated, cloud-based AP system that is integrated with your construction management system means everyone has the information they need when they need it. If something changes in on-site, the Project Manager and the office team will know about it on the same day. Similarly, if something changes on the project’s cash flow or finances, your office staff and Project Manager know about it at the same time. This increases communication and proactive problem-solving.

Why Cash Flow Management is So Important

Cash is the make-or-break when it comes to construction. You need to be able to pay for supplies, materials, equipment, and labor to keep jobs moving, and cover your overhead costs to keep the lights on, AND you need enough money to invest in your company’s growth. And if you’re lucky, enough free cash flow left over to make a profit for yourself.

Long-term cash flow shortages can ruin a business. If you can’t complete the work and have to leave a job, your reputation suffers. If you can’t pay suppliers on-time, you are less likely to get better terms which inhibits your potential to perform. If you are feeling a cash flow crunch, you are more likely to fall victim to shady funding solutions like merchant cash advances.

Here’s the upside: Effective cash flow management ensures you have the funds to do the amazing work you’ve built your business on. Access to cash is the only way to grow — you need to be able to jump on an opportunity when it happens. The free cash flow created from performing your work enables you to grow your business, build up your balance sheet, and it empowers you to fulfill your company’s broader purpose. Charity, education, whatever it is — you need cash to do it.

When you can see where your cash flow pain points are, you can proactively work to resolve them. When you can accurately estimate, track, and forecast your cash flow, you can take the reins of your future and start really planning for growth.

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Recommended Reading

https://mobilizationfunding.com/2021/01/14/cash-flow-can-make-or-break-your-growth-strategy/

The construction industry has the 2nd highest rate of suicide in the U.S. Globally, the numbers aren’t much better. Construction is a tough job when it comes to mental health, for a lot of reasons: time spent away from family, seasonal wage fluctuations, physical injuries, substance abuse, and a “suck it up” culture that can silence any cries for help.

But, it doesn’t have to be that way.

In this special episode of Built for Growth, Randy Thompson from LivingWorks joins us to share a message of hope for the entire industry. To shift the culture of the industry, all it takes is business owners and leaders (like YOU!) to start talking about the importance of mental health and suicide prevention.

Full Transcript Below

Scott Peper  0:32

Hello, everybody. Thank you for joining us today, I’m really excited about our guests, a special guest, Randy Thompson from LivingWorks. He is the Vice President and business development leader, he is going to spend some time with us today talking about the impacts of mental health awareness, what organizations can do you as individual leaders and how you can help your organization’s and the people that are not only important and close to you personally, but also your team and your friends at work and colleagues. Randy, welcome. And thank you very much for joining us, I really appreciate you taking the time to do so.

Randy Thompson  1:07

God, it’s my pleasure. Anytime we can talk about mental health and suicide prevention, I’m quite eager to participate. So it is my pleasure to be here. My role here with LivingWorks. For those of you who might not know the organization is we are a suicide prevention training company, been in the suicide prevention business for over 37 years, have developed workshops that are globally delivered. So across the world, to help people keep people safe from suicide.

My background is in mental health actually, as a social worker. I’ve worked mostly primarily with organizations around mental health support, so building mental health and wellness programs for organizations. So it’s it’s a topic that’s very near and dear to me, I have shifted over into suicide prevention, as I always felt there was a bit of a gap there when it came to mental health support most organizations and out there, and I think we should really focus on prevention and early intervention. But there’s a piece around suicide prevention that I think needs to be a part of that regular stream of support within organizations. And we focus, of course, on one industry in particular. And that is a construction industry, which we know well Scott has been impacted by suicide more than any other. So happy to talk about that today and the impact of suicide. And I think what organizations can do to kind of shift the culture a little bit around making mental health and suicide prevention, okay to talk about, and know that these, these cultures haven’t been built in a day. And it’s going to take some time to shift it. But as we look at some of the statistics, I think we have a need, and we certainly there is a need out there for us to take a stand. So I’m just excited to be here with you today and have this conversation, then hopefully we’re able to help some folks.

Scott Peper  3:07

I think we will in fact, I know we will. Really one of the things I wanted to talk a little bit about first or hoping you could touch on is how did this become such a topic of passion for you, you’re very well written, you speak all over about this, you’re brought in expert leader and you can tell that it’s a lot more to you than just your job.

Randy Thompson  3:29

Yeah, absolutely. And speaking of mental health, been in the business industry for over 30 years, and I’ve always just had whatever reason to need to help. I used to think it was because I was really poor at math. So I should probably get into the people helping business, but also realize that it is a passion of mine. And suicide in particular is important to me, I lost a brother in a very close friend of mine to suicide A number of years ago. And that really impacted me in a very significant way. Very personal way. In not in a way where I felt like, you know, I probably should have saved him when we can talk a little bit about, you know, how folks who have lived with suicide can manage themselves, but just more around, there’s got to be something we can do about this because suicide is not as rare as people think. And when I started looking into this statistics around suicide, what I realized there is a whole there’s a significant need there for support and I couldn’t find it anywhere I spent my education and social work and very little time did we spend around suicide prevention. So even those who you think are trained in helping people with suicide and dealing with their suicidal ideation and suicidal activities are not necessarily trained to deal specifically with that issue. So that became an issue for me and and LivingWorks just came calling one day. Well, I was I was working with Family Services at the time. And in the employee assistance program. And, and this opportunity came my way I wasn’t looking for it. But it was certainly one that I felt deserve some time. And after we had a number of discussions, I felt like this was the right path for me at this point in my career. And I felt like I could do something about it that I could maybe move the needle a little, because where there is passion, there’s action. And that’s really what drove me into suicide prevention. And I’ve been here now for almost two years. And I’m seeing I’m seeing progress. And I’m seeing opportunities here to help folks and make a difference. And it starts small. And and it builds out into into your communities. And we can talk a little bit Scott about what that could look like.

Scott Peper  5:55

So diving straight into construction, as you know, our audience is a big construction audience, we focus a lot on construction as well. We try continuously to provide value in any possible way we can to the construction leadership teams, our clients, people we know people, we don’t know, anyone out there. And because construction and you mentioned is the number one industry that is prone or more prone to suicide. Can you touch on why that is? And what are some things I’m hoping we can pull from this are some things that are really, leaders in this industry not only can do for themselves, cuz I’m sure some of the leadership is the people that are actually having some of these problems, but also noticing that amongst their teams to help create an environment that’s safe for them to speak up when they’re there.

Randy Thompson  6:41

Absolutely. Yeah. And there are a number of reasons why the construction industry have the numbers that they do. And I certainly look at statistics, and look to read. And I think the latest report is constructions identified as number two, the number two industry but the number one industry is mining and extraction. And we’re, as far as I’m concerned, to me, those are two such similar industries that we can’t ignore the fact that they’re so related, and to me, both need the attention around suicide prevention. So I kind of I kind of cluster that mining and extraction in with construction, very similar industries. When you look at the, the the complexity of those industries, you can understand why there’s they’re at risk for suicide. They have challenging job types, within that industry, anywhere from general labor, then to skilled tradesmen, you’ve got management, you’ve got such a wide variety of different types. And there’s over 11 and a half million construction workers in the US alone. So the numbers itself are quite large. When you think about the working conditions that a typical construction worker has to work with, you can find that challenging as well, just from a weather perspective, when you look at injuries, and chronic back pain, and that type of thing within that industry is quite prevalent. And often when you can’t work, you don’t get paid. So you’re looking at financial issues that are that can be that can drive mental health within that industry. Seasonal and temporary work is very common in the construction industry. So you don’t know from one project to the next if you’re actually going to be able to work and bring you know, bring home the finances. There’s a lot of cases of isolation where fathers are away from their families for a period of time away from their support network. So really reliant on the folks that they actually work with once to complete that project so that separation from family can cause issues. And despite the fact that we hear from other sectors, when it comes to the construction industry, mental health cases are the least reported reason for people to be off. So these folks, these workers are coming in saying that they’re either not feeling well, or they have back pain, or they have other physical conditions. They’re not actually relaying the fact that they’re having mental health problems for fear of bullying, for fear of perhaps losing their job from some type of retribution, that they can be easily replaced. So even though they’re reporting absences, they’re not reporting the right ones. They’re reporting other issues that they might be dealing with. But really, at the end of the day, the focus should be on their mental health. So we’re not they’re not always getting the right help they need. So there’s a huge number of factors that can impact an individual’s mental health, particularly in the construction industry, that can drive to suicidal ideation and suicidal activity. Because for whatever reason, they just can’t get past the issues that they’re trying to cope with.

Scott Peper  9:56

So interesting. You bring those points up, you know, I want this to be very actionable for the leaders that are listening to this. So sure, if we’re speaking directly to the construction leadership team or owners of the business, and they get nothing else from this video, what is one thing they can do to help make this better? Doesn’t have to solve the problem. We don’t have to think too often. In any problem. We all try to go A to Z too fast. But they just make one step, you know?

Randy Thompson  10:25

Yes, absolutely. And it’s not an easy one. And there’s many organizations that often just refute the fact that they may have mental health issues, drug and alcohol issues within the organization. There’s a number of reasons for that. But when you think about it, I always tell organizations these because they come in and say, Well, what can we do? Right? Like you’ve got all these wellness programs and EAP s, and there’s so much out there? Where do I start is often the question I get, and I always tell them start small. You know, this culture that has been built for so long, didn’t happen overnight. And it’s really a culture shift.

And most organizations are doing something, whether it’s in the EAP, or most organizations are trying something to help their employees, but really focused on the right things. So before you decide to get into any type of wellness programs, really think about what are you trying to achieve? Like? What do you want to accomplish? Do you want to build a culture of mental health? Do you want to build a culture of wellness within the organization? What are some of the objectives that you want to achieve? before you even start? best thing you can do is build is like building a committee to get that thing going, right? Build an action plan around some of the objectives that you’ve talked about, and put a committee together to start investigating one, what you’re already doing to what’s working and what isn’t. Three, do a needs assessment around it. solicit your staff, your employees, ask them what’s working, what isn’t? What do they need, but study recent studies, when they asked about you know, if you got anything right up to raises more money, vacation time, what’s the one thing that you would look for in your employer, and for the most part, like I don’t have the numbers in front of me, SCOTUS, about 70% of those that were surveyed said, mental health support in the organization, I want my employer to be able to provide support for me and my family, so I can be safe focused at work. It wasn’t about more money, more paid more vacation time, it was about taking care of me and my family.

Scott Peper  12:34

You know, I watched I have watched a podcast of someone I watch off and they had a guest on and I can’t recall the guests name offhand. We know that a similar question was asked, and the response was, and I’m curious to get your opinion on this, if there was one thing they could do, it would be to hold a meeting with your entire team, bring everybody together. And just tell them all that this is a safe place for mental health, to talk about that.

Any problems you may have, you can always come into the door and talk about it. But they said, you know, just having that one meeting with everyone. And tell everybody you know what mental health is important to me, as your leader, I have had issues where I’m not as happy as I could be, or I’m not before. And I need you all to know that if you ever do feel that way, you can always come talk to me, there’s no judgement at all. It’s not going to be a place that we’re ever going to tolerate type that type of judgment. No one’s brought the issue up, but it’s here. And I want you guys to know. And they said that you can fully expect Not a single word to be mentioned that meaning and no one to say anything, and that’s okay. But the fact that you had that meaning and you offered up anybody to talk and they know will make a huge impact. And I’m just curious if you would agree with that, or anything you would add?

Randy Thompson  13:52

Absolutely. One of the first steps in talking about shifting that culture. And that’s probably why you don’t get much feedback from a comment like that, because kind of catches people off guard. But but the number one, number one, I think the key to a successful wellness program or successful culture shift is really getting that buy in from the top. That they have to hear from leadership that this is important to us. Your mental health is just as important to us as your physical health. You do a lot of training with you know, protective equipment in gear to keep you physically healthy. We are now focused on your mental health. And it’s important to us and from here on in, expect to hear a lot more from us. We’re going to look to engage you in this process. It’s not going to be us telling you what to do. We want you to be a part of it. It’s super important to have your input. And we can build a small committee around this and agree on some objectives and then come up with some recommendations on what do we need to do to make this environment safe for you to talk about mental health safety to talk about suicide prevention, but more importantly, that we have the right resources available to you. And a way that you can access it in a confidential manner in a way that doesn’t put your position or your role at risk, and one that will help you get back to full productivity. And that Scott is such a critical component and a great way to start off that kind of culture shift.

And then as you work together, as that committee does work together, really look at what are the driving issues within your organization? What mental are their mental health issues specifically, that drives that organization? Take a look at your drug costs. Take a look at your HR systems in terms of absence data. Take a look at what you’re seeing. Are your managers trained at identifying someone who might need help? And what are they looking for? There are many ways that you can build around that to start creating before you even start creating programs is really creating what is the need here? And are we engaging the right people in this process to help build these programs. And I’m not talking about a full I mean, you got some organization talking about their wellness program. That didn’t happen overnight. They started with something small. They started with like a nutrition program, because they’re looking at drug data and their cholesterol was through the roof. So they started small, and that to me is the right thing to do. And they just kept building on and they kept and they kept reviewing is this program working? Is it successful? Right, they keep going back to that review. And if it is, and it’s the right thing to do. And let’s build on that because we’ve we’ve had some success. So there is a structure and a strategy to it. But I always tell organizations doesn’t have to be difficult. Start small, engage your people identify what your risk factors are, it’s not hard data is there for you get the right people to work on it, you’ve got HR systems, if you do, if not, you, there’s HR support available out there as well. But you’ve got most of the data to help you get started. So start small, bring in some people you know, who’ve got the experience to help kind of get you going. But eventually you will own it, because you need to. And then you’ll be able to kind of build on that as you go. And before you know it, you have a much more engaged workforce, mental health and suicide prevention will not be such a taboo, there won’t be such stigma attached to it, people will be talking about it freely at the phone, like they talked about Sunday’s football game. And that’s really what you want to build is that type of safety, that type of culture.

Scott Peper  17:30

You say safety, and you mentioned so many times, it really should be part of a safety program that’s already probably in place. Why not, in safety is so key on a job site on a worksite, to your insurance to your people, to your team, to their family. Maybe incorporating that into your safety program, is probably a great way to do it. And I guess I’m talking directly to our audience right now. Make it part of your safety program. And then it doesn’t have to be as in your face, or new, so to speak. It’s just part of a program that’s already there. I would strongly recommend having that meaning, based on what Randy just said, what I heard before, I think just a hearing from the top that it’s okay, and it’s a topic that’s on your mind is going to have a lot bigger impact than than one might think.

Randy Thompson  18:20

Oh, absolutely, you’d be amazed. And it’s just it’s it’s like, we’re now on notice that this is okay. And that. And they it’s exciting to hear something like that right. And, and something that they’re going to participate in and engage in, they’re going to be a part of it. And you can do that where there’s joint committees as well, where there’s a union, where there’s unions involved, I’m a big fan of of bringing in joint committees and having them work together. And there’s talk about mental health and suicide prevention. What a great cause for both those organizations, both those departments to work together. So there’s great there’s great opportunity there.

We’re actually working with some of the larger construction organizations and I met I didn’t mention earlier I’m I’m a proud Board of Trustee member with the Construction Industry Alliance for suicide prevention. And LivingWorks we just developed kind of a one-hour lunch and learn we call it as an it’s kind of like an introduction to suicide prevention, for building awareness around suicide prevention. So it’s kind of at that beginning phase for organizations who really have very little and and the message is, let’s look at embedding this as part of your onboarding process. Let’s make this a part of the person’s first or second day as much as you as you onboard around health and safety introductions. Let’s make suicide prevention and mental health part of that, that onboarding process so that that new employee gets the sense right off the bat that you know what mental health is important to this organization, just as it is, is our physical health. So we’re trying to push the needle a little bit in that direction and make it you know, make it right at the very forefront of a person’s career or within that organization. So that so that it just becomes part of their culture.

Scott Peper  20:13

What is a program, a good program or even a startup cost? Is there? Is there a cost to it? Is it really part of what cost structure is already there? It’s just creating awareness and around it?

Randy Thompson  20:25

Well, that’s a great question. And often that’s what prevents businesses from actually jumping into the site because they feel like, I don’t understand the cost. Is there a cost? Where do I start, there’s a lot of things organizations can do at no cost. And it’s just around the messaging that you can have around your sites around mental health.

There’s organizations like say,  where there’s resources available, your employee assistance program comes at a cost, which is quite minimal, when you look into it. So it, there is a certain cost to most programs. But what’s important, Scott is what is the return on investment you should expect in those programs. When you look at a health and wellness program, looking at a smoking cessation program, etc, 97% of organizations today have any EAP, and within many of those EAPS are these types of programs. And folks that are that have the background and expertise to help them develop these types of structured programs, so that the cost can be quite minimal. But it is a targeted program that should have an ROI attached to it. And at the end of the day, these are issues that are driving costs within the organization already. So take a look at that in terms of what is this? What does this issue actually costing us? And then what can we do to mitigate it, so that at the end of the day, we’re not only achieving of return on investment, are actually engaging our staff, our employees, and they’re seeing us as an organization that cares about them. So there are varying degrees of cost Scott, I’m not gonna lie. But that doesn’t have to cost anything to start shifting culture. It’s just in the messaging. It’s just an how you might be training your staff and your, your managers and supervisors. And being able to identify, some of them might need help, and just having a conversation. So they start small, you don’t have to get into these huge programs start small and build from there.

Scott Peper  22:29

So one of the things I I’ve heard from others is, you know, my company is not that big, yet, I don’t need a wellness program, or I only have, you know, three people in the office and two of them are in and out. What is the right size organization is one too small is one too large to have a wellness program and talk about mental health.

Randy Thompson  22:49

Yeah, it’s a you’re never too small, to be honest. And then that’s very real. I’ve worked with organizations with 10 employees, what I always think about is, the smaller you are, the bigger the impact is going to be. Because in most cases, farther, organizations don’t have the resources available to them to be able to support someone in need. And that person while not being treated, their their loss of productivity is hugely impacting the organization. So often, in many cases, it’s more important for them to have the support and resources that that are available to their staff, that they can help resolve them and get them back to work and get them back to being productive. large organizations can withstand a bit more because of their size and because of their resources. But to me, I always near and dear to my heart is that that National Small Business division, because they’re the ones that are that are mostly impacted by mental health. And they’re the ones that need the support the most. So I would say that it’s just as just as important for smaller organizations to think about mental health as it is for large ones.

Scott Peper  24:00

I personally think even if you were in a very, very large organization, your best method for being able to really communicate this and make an impact is to break it into small groups anyway. So if you are a small business, doing it earlier, and often is even better, because then you’re going to create that culture that as you grow and scale and organize your business, it’s going to be part of the normal internal guidance that new employees, new team members, new leaders come into the organization with and can notice and accept and feel right away. So I think I would agree with you. I think the smaller the better. And if you’re too big, if you’re already big, I think you need to figure out how to make it small, have one big conversation but figure out how to get into small groups as fast as possible.

Randy Thompson  24:46

100% I’m a big fan of pilot projects in a very structured manner. And large organizations. If you’re going to throw this program out to everyone, it becomes so unwieldy. Tough to manage tough to monitor. You’re absolutely right together. Start small small focus group, test it out, reevaluate, see what’s working, see what isn’t make the changes you need in those small groups. And then once you’ve got it right, then it’s time to kind of scale it out to other other departments, again, keeping it small, just kind of building from there, and start off with everyone, all on the same page. It’s tough to manage. So two great points. And one that I often recommend to organizations start small, doesn’t have to be daunting, right? You know, just to talk yourself out of it.

Scott Peper  25:34

So where can someone watching this, go get some information, access to information, free information, ways to educate themselves learn? Is there a book you recommend? Is there a website they can go to? Obviously, your organization is key is is there? What’s part of what’s on your website? Is there others? Where did they go, I want this to be an again, an actionable part of this series that we’re doing is I really want people to be able to watch it be moved, but know where to go next

Randy Thompson  26:00

Absolutely. And there, there are a number of resources available, both online and through text, believe it or not, often recommend organizations, particularly around mental health, I know I talked a bit about please systems programs. And that is kind of my background. But I believe that many of them are underutilized. And they often know more about the organization than then than anyone else, particularly around mental health. So I would definitely want to leverage your EAP a lot more. When it comes to suicide prevention. Of course, the CISSP is a great resource for any any construction company, particularly within the US. And you can access support through CHP through their website, which is prevent construction suicide.com. So that’s the cisp website, there is a challenge out there to all construction industries stand up. Or we’re asking construction companies to take a pledge to stand up to suicide prevention. And there is actually free training, or training that are available at a rebate through the CIASP for these construction organizations. So that makes it affordable for everyone. And it’s just like I talked about earlier about creating awareness, there’s a 90 minute online training called start that we developed at living works and launched about a year ago, where people can learn, you know how to support someone who might be in need of some suicide prevention, support, how to identify someone who may be in need, and be able to approach them have a conversation, and be able to link them to someone who might have a little deeper awareness, a little deeper expertise in suicide prevention. But it’s a great place to start, right? Because we’re all built and everything we do is built for helpers. So this is an opportunity if you want to be a helper to actually access that type of support. Our own website, of course, LivingWorks.net has a number of resources available for folks who want to be a helper. Mate’s Construction is a very famous, very well developed organization out of the out of Australia, where they developed a program where the employees themselves own it, essentially, they run it, they manage it. mates provides the resources that are necessary in the training that are necessary for these individuals. But Mates Construction is really a kind of self-owned suicide prevention program that’s showing great success. You can find them at mates.org.au. And again, just lots of research and data available for folks that are looking for. As we near November. We also are nearing Movember, which is a site that’s geared more towards men, and getting support for mental health for men. So that’s coming up in a few weeks, and we’re excited to be working with Movember as well as part of their suicide prevention initiatives. So Movember.com is another resource for men where 93% of this of the construction industry is male dominated. So I think that’s a good one. Then there’s national support. So the Suicide Prevention Lifeline so always available 24-7 to people through suicidepreventionlifeline.org or the one 800 number one 800 suicide there’s so sorry, Scott. There’s lots.

Scott Peper  29:39

That’s great to know, you know what, in the fact that there’s that many resources out there, I should tell everybody something, you know, we’ll we’ll put up what information we can on our resources page. We’ll make sure that there’s obviously links here associated to this video where everyone can access your information they can find easily find you find your website, your organization, and Get information that way too.

Randy Thompson 30:01

Yeah, absolutely. You can even text 741741. And you’ll get some and someone will respond. Some people see younger people even want to use different modalities to get support, you don’t have to make a call, or you don’t have to serve a website, you can actually get text based support as well.

Scott Peper  30:18

Randy, I really appreciate you taking the time to do this for our group for me, for us, our organization and all of our listeners and customers and potential customers out there. I really think it’s an important topic. It’s something that we certainly are important to us here. And I know it’s important everyone else and is anything man, if we could just have impacted even one person today, then it’s certainly worth our time.

Randy Thompson  30:41

Yeah, absolutely. And I and I know it’s a lot of information at one time. And I’m happy to answer any questions or people want to contact me via email, if I could share that is to have a conversation around the world why start or you know what’s available, I’m more than happy to respond.

Scott Peper  31:00

We’ll include your email. And if you want your phone number as well, please feel free to reach out to Randy. Randy, you’re very gracious with your time. And I really appreciate you sharing your email and number and be willing to talk to folks. That means a lot to us. Thank you.

Randy Thompson  31:13

Absolutely. We’ll get more into that. Just kind of putting it out there today. And he said if we helped a few people great. But by all means, feel free to reach out. It’s not easy to do. But once you do, you’ll be glad you did.

Scott Peper  31:27

And we’ll leave it at that. I don’t think I could finish in a better way. Thank you everyone for joining us. Randy, thank you very much for joining us today and sharing your insights and thoughts.

Randy Thompson  31:37

I can’t thank you enough. I appreciate it.

Scott Peper  31:39

Folks. If you do nothing else, have that meeting. Let people know that you care and let people know what’s on your mind. Have a great day and a great week and keep it going. Thank you very much everyone. Take care

 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Delta Construction Partners is the largest  and most specialized construction recruiting agency. They focus on finding, hiring, and onboarding superintendents, project managers, estimators, designers, and engineers. More than finding a resume that matches a role, Bob and his team built Delta Construction Partners to do something different: to hire the “difference maker” for your organization. Bob built his company based on a core purpose of making life easier for his clients and making work fun for his team.

Full Transcript Below

Scott Peper  0:38

Everybody, welcome to our latest episode of The Real mFers, I’m super excited today to introduce you guys to someone who I’ve become fast friends with or refer to each other as brothers from another mother even. But this is Bob Magnan. He is the CEO and president of delta construction partners. I’m excited specifically to hear from Bob day too, because he’s bringing a whole different spin to the construction world, from the other side, how to find good talent and retain good talent, he runs an amazing business himself, one that I admire and respect just seeing him in the brief time that we’ve known each other. And I’m really excited to bring what he offers and what he’s built to you guys and you guys to hear what he does in his business and how he can help you too. Bob, welcome. Thank you for joining us.

Bob Magnan  1:22

Yeah, thanks for having me, Scott. It’s an honor. Appreciate. appreciate you having me on your show here.

Scott Peper  1:29

Do you mind I’m just for the audience kind of taken maybe a couple minutes, just walk them through high level who you are, where you from? How you started Delta what delta is,

Bob Magnan  1:40

Yeah, sure thing. I started started Delta in 2007. You know, it was perfect timing, you know, the worst construction recession in the history of the world, it’s probably not the most perfect time to start a, you know, construction recruiting business. But somehow we endured, even though my timing wasn’t the best. The first couple years were tough, you know, sat in a small office by myself, and, you know, really just tried to develop a niche and an expertise in the electrical sector. And so our first clients were electrical subcontractors, all over the country, that basically a commercial work, and we went with that niche for the first 10,15, you know, 10,13 years of our company. And in that time, we proved to be the nation’s largest, most specialized, you know, focus, permanent placement recruiting agency that really focused on you know, finding, and hiring, onboarding superintendents, project managers, estimators, designers, engineers, any of the basic management positions, what we did not focus on are the installation position. So the guys that are actually doing all the hard work on the job site. So that’s, that’s kind of the quick, the quick overall summary of where we’re, where we started today from starting, you know, in a small office 200 square feet by myself, you know, we now have about 35, great teams members, and it’s a very high energy passionate, you know, collaborative team culture, and we have a lot of fun every day.

Scott Peper  3:30

Yeah. So if I were to sum it up, you if I’m, if I’m the owner of a electrical contracting company, and I’m growing, and I’m looking for a leadership, talent, and management in engineering, or estimating or those real, more, anything outside of the labor position between me as the owner and the labor force, you I could come to you and you could help me find and retain and hire that talent.

Bob Magnan  3:55

Yes, that’s exactly what we do. And most subcontractors, you know, they’re they’re experts at what they do. And that, you know, the subcontract the business model is a very difficult business model. There’s a lot of moving pieces. So traditionally, most electrical contractors don’t have time to set up, you know, an in house recruiting department, to go find those individuals and qualify them and onboard them that are real difference makers. And that’s what most of our clients are looking for, at least from us, they’re looking for somebody that could add a lot of value to their company, take their company to the next level. And those people are very difficult to find on job boards, you know, like indeed or zip recruiter or monster. Those individuals that are usually listing their resumes. On those job boards are people that are out of work, or usually their employment stability is barely happy. So our clients call us in because we we have the relationships. We have approximately 75,000 electrical construction, and now mechanical construction as well as general construction professionals in our database that we have relationships with. And we’re able to go out and help them on board, you know, them for the great clients that we work for.

Scott Peper  5:18

So, you know, one thing I really want the audience to understand and hear and I don’t know, if I really want them to take this away from what you just said is I have a background in medical, medical device history, I’ve worked in and around, you know, multiple hundred million dollar medical device companies that I was an employee of one point a salesperson, a manager and in different leadership roles. And we always in that business, oh, literally, for almost every position, whether it was sales or marketing, we would always use outside recruiting agencies, and it was part of our budget, and we spent, I mean, they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, hiring and finding talent. And the reason being is it’s so expensive to make a mistake, and train and educate and bring somebody on board to find out that they’re not a good fit culturally, or tantalize. So what I thought was so cool, when I met you, Bob, is that you’re bringing that huge resource to a, to a subcontracting business, that usually is only out there for what is otherwise hundreds of millions of hundred million dollar companies or even billion dollar companies. But for you to have that expertise, and bring that type of value to a smaller, five 610 million, 2 million $1 million dollar business or more is just a really important resource that I don’t think enough people know is out there, or if they do, I don’t think they really understand the value that it brings, and the amount of savings and cost savings it can bring to their business by not making mistakes.

Bob Magnan  6:43

I mean, I mean, you’re hitting the nail right on the head, are our clients expect, expect us to make their lives easier? Right? There, they’re very complicated, you know, from six o’clock in the morning till seven, eight o’clock at night, most of our clients, their hair’s on fire all day long, dealing with General, you know, general contractors or, or owners and, and the various, you know, the labor issues they have all day long design issues, material issues getting paid. I mean, it’s a very complex business model. So, you know, our kind of motto is, you know, we’re going to make your life easier, Mr. subcontractor. And it’s very important to us that, that we succeed in that area. So when an owner of a company gives us an assignment, we understand exactly what they’re looking for. I had the great fortune of working for maybe one of the, you know, top electrical minds in the last, you know, 50 years in our, in our country, maybe even on the planet. And his name was Mitch Permuy. And Mitch founded Power Design, in 1989. And, you know, grew it from the first set of plans on his kitchen table, to now the company is in the $850 million a year revenue range, and growing to probably 1.21 point 3 billion within the next two years. So, you know, it would be like Scott, you had, you know, chance to work for Steve Jobs. Right? Yeah. You know, just being around that energy and that creativity, and that, you know, that brain for a couple of years, you’re going to, you’re going to gain a lot of experience, so and knowledge. And so I had a really good fortune of starting off. For two years working for Power Design, working for directly with Mitch, I kind of shadowed him for three, four hours, you know, every day for two years, and that insight and experience was his, or, you know, millions to me, because I had a chance firsthand to see how a real leader of electrical contractor thinks, right, and how they, you know, how they react to certain situations. So, when I look at a resume now, I see things that I would never be able to see if I hadn’t had that experience. And that gives us and our firm a huge competitive advantage. So it’s proven on a daily basis to help us add a lot of value to our clients lives as well.

Scott Peper  9:22

Yeah, you could have been in the recruiting business and worked with all the medical device recruiters and separated yourself from the others and been just as successful but you chose electrical contracting. And because you have a background in it, you understand it from an owners perspective, you were trained by one of the hot, highly educated, successful company electrical contractors that grew from smaller to 100 and 50 million. And I don’t think you’ve shared this yet, but I happen to know that your dad was a master electrician in the Navy as well.

Bob Magnan  9:52

You know, I always wanted to kind of keep that, you know, the fact that family you know, tie to, you know, to the electrical business going and my dad being a master electrician in the Navy, it just felt like the right thing to do from maybe a DNA standpoint, I was, you know, very proud of my dad. And so that was a feel good type of relationship to what my new career was going to be all about. But besides that is probably, you know, as important.

Maybe more important was the fact that when I worked at Power Design, I had a chance to interact and on a daily basis, you know, talk to project managers and superintendents and interact with them. And I just thought these guys were the salt of the earth kind of guys. And, you know, I had some prior experiences in the brokerage business. And, you know, the difference in personalities and integrity levels is, is significant. So, I just love working with the construction guys, great family, guys, I love performing for my clients. And it was just a lot of fun. And it’s still fun today, it’s not a it’s not a job at all. And every day I come to work in just passionate about being the best construction recruiting firm on the planet. And that’s, that’s our vision.

Scott Peper 11:21

You know, one of the things that I personally focus a lot on in our business, and I think is super important, really is the key separator between success and failure is the culture that you have within your organization. And being passionate about that and speaking about that a lot as much as I can, not only to my own organization, but just in the community and where I’ve learned, one of the things that I was drawn immediately to you just upon walking into meeting you, but walking into your office and meeting your team and your group, is the culture you’ve created there is very clear and evident, and it’s permeated throughout everybody. Can you please talk a little bit about that? Because that’s, that’s not an accident. And you clearly it’s something you worked on and focus on, and you guys live and breathe every day? How did you learn that? Why did you implement it? And what what have you seen beneficial from that? And how do you relate that over to your business,

Bob Magnan  12:12

It was all those those classes I took in college. No, it had nothing to do with my college. Education. Actually, I don’t remember go to classes, I played a lot of baseball in college, but very little class time. So I became a fan of Stephen Covey and the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and went through a couple seminars, couple certifications around the certifications to become a, you know, become covey teacher, and the whole nine yards and what I what I really picked up from that experience was that you know, you can, you can, as a business owner, you can go out and buy anyone’s labor, their hands, you know, their backs, dig a ditch, whatever it is, you can go buy that, right. What you can’t buy is their heart, their passion, right. And that’s where the real magic comes from. When you have team members that are all very passionate about your company’s cause, they understand what that cause is, they have a clear vision of your vision. And then they understand the exact role that they play, and the responsibility they have in taking your company to that special place. It just becomes magical. And so that’s one of the requirements to work at our company. You know, if you’re not passionate about helping people, if you’re not passionate about helping our clients, if you’re not super passionate about being part of a team, that is going to be the best team on the planet, at what we do. It’s not a good word, it’s not a good fit for you, you know, it’s probably a place that’s not going to work out for you in terms of employment, you know, I would encourage you to seek employment elsewhere. Because on a daily basis, we have a passion about getting better, both personally and professionally. So we’re always challenging each other. And it’s, it’s, it’s seamless. I mean, it’s that my my team members challenged me on a daily basis. Bob, did you do your meditation this morning? Bob, did you get your run in the morning? You know, did you get your 20 minutes sweating this morning? You know, Bob, did you do anything for somebody else today? So we have these, you know, the criteria that we think make up what it’s, you know, what it takes to really be a highly effective professional and personal development type of character on a daily basis and, and we stick to it, and it’s a lot of fun.

Scott Peper  14:43

I really appreciate you share that story. How do you relate your culture and what you’ve done in your business? How do you carry that over into the recruiting side when you’re working on behalf of one of your customers?

Bob Magnan  14:54

We share a lot of the things that we do with our with our customers, such as You know, we kind of have a saying around our office, you know, you know, catch people doing things, right. And thank them, you know, give them a pat on the back versus a lot of companies, you know, you that we’ve all worked for that manager that, you know, hey, you know, you did this wrong or, you know, you should have done this way. And I understand there’s, there’s a need for that every now and then. But we, we, we like the culture of catching people doing things right and thank them. So to take off on that, that thinking and that thought, every Friday, we have a we have a lunch meeting which we buy lunch for everybody. And usually their night, you know, we have a nice lunch and, and we go over the week’s goals and how we did and plan for the next week. But we also have what we call is a silver box and silver boxes in our office and all during the week and the silver box. We have team members that put anonymous little statements in there about other team members. And on Friday, we pass the box around, everybody picks two slips of paper out of the box and read them. And it would say something to the effect of you know, if I’m reading one of those slips of paper, it would say, Scott, thank you so much for you know, all your hard work this week, coming in early, staying late. You were You’re a real difference maker, and everyone in the team appreciates it. And, and they’re all you don’t know who it came from. So So that’s kind of cool. Because you try to figure that part out, you know, I wonder who said that nice thing about me. But it’s just nice to get that kind of recognition. And we make it a habit. You know, every Friday, we go through that silver box. And I looked at before I came up here, there must be 100 anonymous, you know, thank yous and in the box are ready for this Friday. And it’s what Wednesday at, you know, 11 o’clock in the morning. So that shows me that my team is engaged, that they take that very seriously. And it’s important to them. It’s an important part of our culture.

Scott Peper 17:04

See, personally, I talked to construction contractors all the time. And I always talk to them about our business, because I want them to feel and understand that just because construction has certain connotations to it, or it’s harder work that that the business Business is business in, and your people are your people and all of these concepts, actually the ones that are the most important to whether your success, or is Matt, the way you want it to or not, is all these principles that we talked about. So even though your business is construction, recruiting, and you would hire someone would hire you to help find them the next best Superintendent they have for their job, what they’re going to get from you aside from a superintendent is awesome beliefs on how to make themselves more successful internally. And those are the additional value points that I think are so key. Getting to what you actually talked about there that when you and your actual business. One thing I’ve heard a lot of subcontractors say to me as Oh, I can’t imagine using recruiters when I brought brought you up or just a thought of a recruiter, they’ll say something like, Oh, those are too expensive. It’s too expensive to hire recruiter. And I was like, well, what’s expensive? And the answer I’ll get is up, they want X amount of thousands of dollar fee. And I said, Well, how much does it cost you? If you hire somebody and they don’t work out? They’re like, well, I just hire somebody else. And you know, I’m not equipped as well as you are to answer that question. But I’m sure that dialogue is something you’ve probably had before. And I think we’d be remiss not to touch on that here today. So if I were to ask you, why is your fee valuable? And why should the people just run to you to pay it? I know what I would say, and why I would do it. But what what do you what would you want a contractor to hear? Hear now. So while they’re watching this, so they say, you know what, he’s right, I need to just do this and say myself?

Bob Magnan  18:54

Well, the generally accepted, you know, facts about what it costs to replace an employee is somewhere around 75% of the person’s first year salary. So if we’re, if you hire a guy $100,000, or he only last six months, it’s going to cost you approximately $75,000 to replace that person. And so what what makes up that 75 grand costs are, you know, the amount of time that your team has to put into training that person, you know, you’re talking about, you know, 50 to 100 hours for this, you know, for the normal person just to be trained on systems, processes, culture, the whole nine yards of software. So, so that’s, that’s a big piece of it. In some instances, it could be a lot more. So there’s a there’s a hard cost to replacing somebody that you just can’t get around. And then, you know, most companies don’t take into consideration that. You know, they may be Great contractors, and they may have their area of specialty terms of construction, but it’s very difficult to do that and to be an effective recruiting operation as well. So most subcontractors at water to people in house, maybe somebody in HR, they’re not proactively out there building relationships, they’re actually just taking resumes in and hoping they’re going to find somebody that works out. Usually, their process of reviewing the resumes, doing background checks, bringing the person in for an interview, is is not that efficient and effective. So, so they’re making a lot of mistakes and Madden, and, you know, we eliminate all that noise, and all those processes. And again, our job because, you know, because our fees are expensive to a lot of clients, as far as how they look at it. Like, for 25, or 35 $40,000, whatever the fee may be, we eliminate, you know, the recruitment, the, the contractor having to go through any of that process, we make our prime contractors lives easier, we only deliver, you know, the best of the best the best candidates, because ultimately, our job is to help that company, go to the next level. And there’s not very many businesses that can take their company from A to B, without having difference makers, right. And those are one out of 100, you know, you know, employees that are out there in the pool, and it’s our job to find that person. So I think we had a lot of value. And I think our track record speaks for itself, you know, we’re entering our 14th year of business, we’re still growing at about 15% a year, and we’ve actually doubled in size in the last six months. So if I seem a little frazzled right now, it’s because we got a lot of action going on right now. So we’re moving into an almost 10,000 square foot office in less than four weeks. So a lot of exciting things happening at Delta. And we’re helping more clients now than ever.

Scott Peper  22:09

That’s awesome. You know, one thing I want to share with everybody that I wasn’t planning on, but it’s so relevant, I’ve made personally, so many mistakes, even here at mobilisation funding, especially here, whether it’s bringing in the wrong people having the wrong people on the team keeping them around too long, I can personally attest to you that the costs of making mistakes and hiring or keeping folks that aren’t a good fit, not implementing your culture, or just keeping people around, has caused me personally, probably hundreds of thousands of dollars, and even some, even some personal relationships. I think it’s also cost me opportunity costs of success are especially early on and nearly failure in many cases. Matter of fact, better luck. without some lock, I probably would have failed not had the business because I didn’t have the right people around me and I kept the wrong people around me too long. And if I could have shorten that gap going back if if nobody takes anything else from this, if I could shrink the gap between where I am now and where we started by literally paying, what would it what would be about less than 1% of the cost of the money that I probably lost, to buy Bob, to find me the right talent where I could have stayed on top of a situation that wouldn’t have become a problem because I didn’t have to do all the things I was doing. Or I didn’t get intellectually lazy in my hiring process and just check for a pulse and say, Oh, you sound good. Let’s do it. And we’re in a great spot. Today, we have a great business, we have a great group. But what we’re going to be in three years from now, I probably might even be right now here right now, if I had this advice, or watched what you’ve told me, and I took it to heart and implement it. One of the things I really want you to talk about, we when COVID hit like yourself, we decided that mobilization funding our team that we were going to, we were going to define ourselves in the most looking back at COVID. And say this is one of the greatest times of our company’s history. And what we did, when that happened, doubling down on what we were going to do, how we were going to help people integrating the business really challenging ourselves has made a huge difference for us. And we like yourself are in a great stretch right now and growing. And I think we’re helping people better and doing things even better. And I know you are too. Why don’t you talk with just from a business perspective as an owner, what you did when COVID came about how you used your your human talent, your team and where you guys are now what tell them what you did, because I think it’s pretty impressive.

Bob Magnan  24:36

Sure that you know, very specifically when COVID hat COVID first came out number one, as you pointed out earlier, we got lucky because construction was considered you know, exempt from you know, any shutdowns Basically, there were some sites that were shut down projects but you know, we were able to stay in business, which a lot of companies did not have that good fortune, whether you’re, you know, hair salons or whatever. So we got lucky in that sense. And we’re very grateful for that. But, you know, I went through probably about a week of being really angry at our government, you know, being pissed off and, you know, throwing a pity party for myself, Why me? You know, March was a march was the best month into 2020 in the history of my company, and then COVID happen. I’m just like, you know, this isn’t funny God, you know, this is bad timing, you know, I don’t appreciate your sense of humor right now. So I did go through about a week or so of not probably responding in the most positive way. And then whether it was my wife, or some divine intervention, or my team members, I saw it a different way. And I said, you know, let’s get aggressive, let’s get proactive. We’re going to go out, and we’re going to find 15 new clients, that’s our plan. And so we expand it. And, and, and sped up the process of opening up a few new divisions. So we have a general construction division. Now that’s really kicking butt. We have a mechanical manufacturing division that we’ve picked up 16 new clients in the last two months, we have an engineering division, that we picked up about 20 new clients in the past three months, and we’re opening up probably the biggest division of all, it’s going to be a renewable energy division. So we did all that, within the last six months, hired account managers, for each division, each division is making two or three placements 75,000 $100,000 in revenue a month right now. And so it’s messy, because we’re still in systems and processes and integration stages. But we’re sticking to our core values, which basically is, you know, continuously make our clients lives easier, right, as long as we provide the best of the best of the best candidates, to our clients or businesses like yourself, those leaders, those difference makers, make your life easier. Right. And, and that’s really where, you know, we get all of our repeat business from, there’s really nowhere else our clients can go to get the level of service and the quality of the candidates that we deliver. So that’s what we try to stay focused on, you know, always delivering the best candidate possible for for that search.

Scott Peper  27:35

A couple quick questions for you, before we wrap up that I was really interested in getting your kind of lightning round opinion on so to speak. The first or what is there one or two things that you when you talk into an initial customer of yours or client of yours that you that you say, you know, what, there’s one or two three things here, that really I can tell determine success or failure and in a client for their business?

Bob Magnan  27:58

You know, I love working with clients that are pushing themselves, whether you know, no matter what area of their lives, it may be, or their business, right? So they’re, they’re always committed to, you know, building the best project and adding the most value to their clients lives. And, you know, of course, there’s the fundamental, you know, we want to be around people that like to have fun. People that in clients have a high level of honesty and integrity companies that you know, want to hire you that are looking for a partner, and not just a recruiting company to make a placement. So we, you know, we go way beyond just making placements for our clients, we just we love working for clients that are really looking to become the best of the best at what they do.

Scott Peper  28:46

Is there any size company, whether it’s in revenue, or maybe employee size that you find are have a higher chance of success than others?

Bob Magnan  28:54

Well, we’ve helped a lot of companies, you know, go from, from 10 million to 100 million over the last 10 years. And so that was always fun to it’s always fun to work with smaller companies, because in the case of the company I just mentioned, we helped them find a general manager when they were very small. And that General Manager turned out to be a superstar. And he helped them grow a couple new divisions, and they’re in Chicago right now. They’re the largest merit shop electrical contractor in Chicago, and they’re probably gonna do 125 100 30 million this year. So that was a lot of fun to know that, you know, the one or two key employees that we help them find 10 years ago, are still there. And they built a tremendous company.

Scott Peper  29:39

What What about the companies that are a couple million dollars? Do you see that you can benefit them in the same exact way?

Bob Magnan  29:45

Going from one or two to 10? Yeah, sure. I mean, you know, our fees is a little more challenging for you know, a very small electrical contractor or, you know, any subcontractor or any company, you know, if you’re doing a couple million dollars in revenue So I’m always offering, you know, flexible terms and in fees to make it right, to make it the right fit for that company. And sometimes it’s a lot more fun working for a smaller company where you find a one person, and it helps them double the size of their company in two or three years. So I get a lot of joy, I get a lot of, you know, satisfaction. from doing that. We’ve, we help a lot of companies that do a billion dollars a year in revenue, you know, so anywhere from a couple million to, you know, there’s a few mechanical electrical contractors that do four or $5 billion a year in revenue.

Scott Peper  30:40

You’ve shared a lot of insight and things that I can tell are important to you and I think are really valuable. Is there anything that you wish you heard early in your career, that you go back and tell yourself right now that, you know,

 

Bob Magnan 30:51

Yeah, just whether you’re a mechanical, electrical general contractor, you know, the key, one of the key, you know, fundamental places, you know, things that you want to have a place is just surround yourself with the best possible people. If you’re the if, you know, if you’re the smartest guy in the room, you know, that’s probably not necessarily a good thing. So I like to surround myself with a lot of very smart people. And I wish I would have done that earlier in my career. I think my ego got in the way a lot and, and that cost me a lot of time and money.

Scott Peper  31:29

I hope you guys all heard that. Ego gets in the way. And as soon as you can park it speaking for myself personally, as well, as soon as you can park that ego is when you really see the success doors open up, for sure.

Bob Magnan  31:42

Well, I say stay humble and grateful for for what I have and appreciate of all the things I’ve got, you know, things go go pretty well. And I think more clear,

Scott Peper  31:53

no, I had another question for you. But I’m not going to ask it because there’s nothing more important than what you just said. And that’s the best way to end it here. But I really, truly thank you and your whole team, because I know it takes a lot to get us get this together. And I really thank you for taking the time to share your insights, your wisdom and your guidance. And I hope everybody got a lot out of this. I certainly did myself, I just appreciate you all taking the time to listen to us today. Bob, thank you very much for your time, your insights, sharing your team, thank you for what you’ve done for me. And thank you for what you’ve done for the folks that I’ve referred to you already. I’ve got nothing but positive feedback for them. And I’m grateful for that. Thank you.

Bob Magnan  32:30

Yeah, thank you very much for having me on, Scott. I really appreciate it and we got a big game six with the lightning. Probably tomorrow night. So go Tampa Bay Lightning. And I’ll see you around soon, Scott. Thanks again.

Scott Peper  32:46

That’s right. Go lightning. Thank you, everyone. Have a great day.

 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Cash flow management is particularly critical for small and mid-size businesses, as these companies often have less free cash flow to help them cover unexpected costs, delays, work shortages, or their growth.

Before we talk about good cash flow management and share a few tips to improve cash flow at your business, let’s back up a bit. What is cash flow, and why is it so important?

What is Cash Flow?

If you’re not entirely sure what we mean when we say “cash flow,” don’t worry—you’re not alone. Cash flow is simply the money coming in and out of your business. A positive cash flow means you can pay all of your company’s overhead costs, debt payments, and other expenses, still have some money left over in the bank account and hopefully provide a buffer against any future issues or challenges. If you have positive cash flow, you can reinvest in your business, take advantage of growth opportunities, and weather financial downturns with less stress.

Cash flow comes in three forms: operating, investing, and financing. We’ll focus on operating cash flow, which is the money your business makes from selling goods or services. Basically, the money your company makes doing whatever it is your company does. Financial cash flow shows the money you use to fund your business, including debt, equity, and dividends. Investing cash flow is money created from investment opportunities.

How Does Cash Flow Management Affect My Business?

Here’s an easy question: Do you know how much cash you have in your business each and every day, what the expenses of the business are that week and how much cash you need in order to manage the week’s needs?  If you answered NO to all or any part of that then this is especially for you! (Checking your bank account at any given moment to determine how much cash is there is NOT sufficient to give a Yes to this question.) A report given to you weekly or daily as the business owner is key to your cash flow management success.

Managing your cash flow sources and the consequent uses of that cash can literally make or break your business. A U.S. Bank study showed that 82 percent of small businesses fail because of poor cash flow management. We cannot over-emphasize the importance of being able to estimate, track, and forecast the money coming in and out of your business, especially if you are planning to grow.

Prolonged cash flow shortages can lead to insurmountable debt, while short but chronic shortages can lead to stricter payment terms with vendors and lenders, who know longer trust your ability to pay. It can also impact your company’s credit score, which means banks will be less likely to lend to you when you need funds to grow … or survive.

Cash Flow Management Tips for Small Businesses

Hire an accountant and likely a bookkeeper too. If this is the only thing you take away from this article, it would still be a valuable read. Hiring an accountant is THAT important to your business. Don’t rely on Quickbooks or your friend’s mother-in-law, unless she is a CPA. You need a trusted professional who can help you navigate your cash flow statements, ensure you maximize your cash flow, and help you craft your business growth strategy.  If you are saying to yourself, “I can’t spend the money on an accountant or they are too expensive” then you either need a new accountant because the one you have is not helping you, or you are being penny wise and pound foolish.

Know your numbers. The first step toward better cash flow management is to know your numbers so you can perform a cash flow analysis. “Know your numbers” may sound cliché, but it is so critical to your success or failure. You have to know what costs you have in your business—the fixed costs (salaries, rent, debt service, insurance, vehicle payments, etc.) and the variable costs associated to your products or services.

If you use an accounting software—or even better, if you work with a CPA like we mentioned above—you should be able to get an accurate breakdown of your cash flow sources and uses in a cash flow statement.

We all go into business for a completely different reason than “know your numbers” but that does not mean we get to ignore them.  If you do your business will most likely fail despite your best intentions.

Estimate, track, and forecast. By looking at a cash flow statement, you can see if you are accurately marking up your products or services to cover the overhead expenses of running your business. Here’s how you determine the accurate markup:

• Add the fixed cost of all recurring monthly expenses to get the total monthly cost. Multiply by 12 to get the Total Annual Expense of those fixed costs.
• Determine what the estimated Total Annual Revenues will be for the year.
• Divide the Total Annual Expenses by the Total Annual Revenues to get a percentage.
• That percentage is how much of each dollar you sell will need to go toward paying your fixed overhead expenses. If you add that percentage to every product, project, or bid you will break even and have no profit at the end of the year. What amount or percentage you add above that is what your profit will be.

The next step is to track your cash flow. This is especially true in businesses where costs can change. We specialize in working with construction and manufacturing companies, and their project costs can shift quickly and often. The same could be true for a restaurant, if the prices of ingredients suddenly skyrocket due to a shortage. Tracking your cash flow on a daily, weekly or monthly basis (depending on the nature of cash flow in your company) helps you stay ahead of any potential cash flow issues.

Download our free Cash Flow Tracker Tool.

Make sure to get the Cash Flow Tracker Instructions too. 

Finally, when you have a history of cash flow tracking and analyses under your belt, you can start to forecast or predict your cash flow, which is the key to making an effective cash flow plan for growth. You now have the ability to run your business and make good decisions in the moment but also proactively.  Decisions like when to buy new equipment, bulk order supplies when there is a good deal, take an owner’s distribution, hire a new employee, give bonuses, etc.

Have an emergency fund. Free cash flow is cash that you do not have to spend on overhead and that you could re-invest into the business. This is the ultimate indicator of financial health. Most accounting professionals recommend you keep three to six months of working capital in reserve. If this seems daunting, start small. Sit down with your cash flow analysis and determine what percentage of your cash can be saved. Then continue to save that percentage even as you grow.

Negotiate terms with suppliers. If you need something, you NEED to ASK for it. Remember that the customer/supplier relationship works both ways. You need their products; they need you to stay in business and keep paying them for product. If you need credit or extended payment terms, you need to ask for it. Get them invested in your success by sharing how the new terms will help you grow and order even more.

Get paid on time. The best way to avoid a cash flow shortage is to get paid when you expected to. In construction, the wait to get paid is often 60 days or more. One easy way to keep cash flowing in is to create a process around submitting invoices so that they are correct and on-time. It can also be helpful to setup reminder emails to clients if you have extended terms of payment.

Why Do I Need a Cash Flow Plan for Growth?

Growth phases are one of the most exciting but also most vulnerable times in a company’s life. Having a cash flow forecast built on solid cash flow tracking will help you determine how much extra you need in order to meet your growth goals. If you plan to grow by 25% next year, a cash flow plan will help you break down what that growth will do to your overhead and other expenses, and how much of your free cash flow can be utilized to cover the cost of growth.

There’s nothing wrong with taking out a loan to grow, but it should be part of a comprehensive financial plan that supports your growth without accumulating too much debt or the wrong kind of debt.

If you enjoyed this blog, you’ll love our newsletter. You can subscribe by clicking here.

Recommended Reading

Construction Management Solutions to Streamline Your Cash Flow

If there is one word Camell Williams wants you to get out of this episode, it is DISCIPLINE. Camell is the CEO & Founder of Prime Electrical Services, a commercial electrical contractor located in Apopka, Florida. He sat down with Scott to share his journey from student to contractor to business owner, and why he is still a student of the craft. If you are a construction business owner or a contractor who wants to be a business owner, Camell’s wisdom and stories can save you years of headaches. Camell believes in investing in his team, that business IS personal, and that the best thing you can do for your own success is be humble about what you do know and what you don’t.

Full Transcript Below

Scott Peper  0:38

Everybody. Good morning. Good afternoon. This is Scott peeper with mobilization funding. And I am really excited to bring our second Real MFer series to you guys, and one of my favorite guests. Today I’m going to share with you all his name is Camell Williams. He’s the president, co-founder of Prime Electrical Services Inc, out of Orlando, Florida, and has been a client of ours and become a good friend, and someone I really look up to and admire what he’s done in accomplishing his business. I’m really excited for him to be able to tell his story today. Camell. Welcome.

Camell Williams  1:11

Thank you, Scott. Appreciate the opportunity. How are you?

Scott Peper  1:13

Good. I’m very good. If you don’t mind, Camell, I think what would be good for everyone is to know just a little bit about you your background, how you landed in Florida, where you’re from, a little bit about just the general basis of Prime Electrical Services so folks can understand a little bit about your business, size wise people, etc, that we’ll dive into some questions and go from there. You know, we can tell lots of good stories.

Camell Williams  1:36

Okay, Scott, thanks. My initial visit to Florida was probably back in 83. 81. I’m sorry, I came down here to Florida Memorial University, I went to be what they have participate in HBCU. I just had to have that HBCU experience came out Florida Memorial. Went back to Detroit, late I’m originally from Detroit went back to Detroit. And I gotta tell you, that’s important to point out. The reason I left Detroit because I was determined not to work in the automotive industry. I came down here, got educated about my path and electrical industry and ended up back in Detroit, working in the automotive industry, but on a different level. I mean, I wasn’t on the line, I was working as an electrician there. And it was a great opportunity. I later came back down and I want to say 2006 decided to plant my roots here and started Prime Electrical Services in 2008. Great opportunity. work was growing, everyone said that time is important. I paid one cent of that time. And it was the worst possible time to start a business. This was 2008. But in my opinion, it seemed like the best time because no one was building anything new but everyone was repairing. Hence the name Prime Electrical Services I focused my business specifically on service work being and that was my niche to get back into the electrical industry and own my own company. From then I was in Lakeland, Florida back in 2008. I moved to Orlando and is where we are right now, in Apopka Florida.

Scott Peper  3:21

You  mentioned that you definitively knew you didn’t want to be in the automotive industry. But did you know what industry you want to be in? And how did you ultimately decide on construction,

Camell Williams  3:29

You know what it was, I knew I wanted to be electrical as I told you before, my uncle was a master electrician and on weekends and on summer vacation. My mother I was one of those children that my mother say do something with them, take them out and get them out there. So he would take me out in the electrical industry. Now it’s important that I tell you this when I started construction first my father — my grandfather was a mason and he took me out one weekend and brought me back in and told my mother keep that boy and in school. Wait I don’t want him on my job. When my uncle came along and I found that in the electrical industry It was a chance for me to not only use my love for math and my hands on experience but but to build something and be able to turn the light switch on and see the after effects and then made a difference to me and that’s what I focused on. And I knew it was it would be electrical industry.

Scott Peper  4:26

It’s funny you get a lot of experience from your, the people you’re surrounded with the most all throughout life particularly younger, you know spending that time with your uncle, giving you the guidance and instructions. You know, what else did you learn from your uncle aside from just wanting to get into construction?

Camell Williams  4:41

He taught me to approach everything optimistically and to think about it again. My uncle was also an instructor electrical instructor. So we not only taught me to trade but he taught me how to think in a trade because that’s what we need is to I just needed someone to directly in between he and my father kept me thinking He taught me to understand the business. Because he wasn’t a, he wasn’t a business owner, he worked for another electrical contractor. In fact, he worked for one of the first black electrical contractors in Detroit. And that guy was phenomenal. So just being around him seeing him raise my level to know that that’s exactly what I want to do at some point.

Scott Peper  5:23

That’s really cool. One of the things I heard you said, I really want to point this out to the audience, I think is important. And you mentioned 2008. And everyone told you was the worst time and not the time to start, but you thought it was the best time. And I can hear in your voice and knowing you a little better, but especially now hearing you talk about your uncle, that positivity and wisdom and guidance, I think he instilled in you also helped you see opportunities and see the playing field differently than other folks that are even that even though they’re telling you this is terrible, don’t do it. This is the worst comedy, don’t start the business, you found a way not only to add value, but really drive a new business and create a culture around success. And I think I think it’s important to point that out to the people that are listening to this, if you didn’t hear that subtly. That’s the key is how your vision of it is not what everyone else’s vision of it as well.

Camell Williams  6:14

It was the long term visions, but I had, and trust me, it was a hard sell. Imagine telling my wife that, in the middle of this worst time, in a long time, I’m going to start my own business. But my focus was that this business 2008 is going to cause a lot of businesses to fail. I realized that, and the market will pick up in three to four years. And if I started right, then three to four years later, I’d have history. So now when I walked into a general contractor, and asked him to give me opportunity, I wasn’t just starting, when times were good. They can look back and say well, these guys have been in business for four or five years, he’s lasted this long, he made it through 2008 910. Granted, it was small, the smaller number I say small numbers, they were decent numbers. But compared to now, they were much smaller numbers. But I survived it. And I learned a lot. What I didn’t prepare for during those times was their banks were not loaning any money, there was very little capital available and nor was I in a position to to go after it. So the struggle was real. It was real. But the goal was to survive. You know, my, my uncle, as well as a guy I heard from several years later, made a statement to me. And they said, it’s not how well you perform your craft. But it’s how long you can withstand the politics of your industry. And I never forgot that. So I knew if I got into it, dug in deep and stayed there, and eventually reached some success.

Scott Peper  7:48

That’s excellent advice. Just Just keep going. Be consistent with your energy and your efforts and your strategy and make the adjustments when neat when you do and continue to evaluate and innovate. But keep going on work in your favor. You know, it’s a great segue into something else I want to talk to you about. And I think you’re really uniquely positioned to talk about this, from all the reasons just mentioned. But you know, construction is a tough, business overall. And electricity and electricians are even even a tougher portion, depending on different scopes. And I think you’ve done a good job with your folks, both instilling a culture and managing those attributes. Can you talk a little bit about how you do it, and how you manage that and how you help your employees?

Camell Williams  8:32

Yeah, my focus, I have one word in my company. And I always say discipline, stay focused and stay disciplined. Because you’re right, the electrical industry is is a tough industry, because we are not just required. When we look at blueprints, to understand the electrical side, we have to understand the AC side, the plumbing side, we need to read architectural drawings, we need the fire alarm joins, because all these things that tie into our system, you can take plumbing and plumbing as a standalone system HVAC a standalone system, electrical, we need to either put power on those flushable toilets or put power to HBCU. So my team has to have the discipline to not just look at the electrical drawings. But every drawing is sitting there. So I hold them to a higher standard. It’s not always easy, because some guys want to go in and put a switch in and trust me Scott, I have my share of guys who come in and say I’m a journeyman electrician, because I know I lie at my grandmother’s basement, and it works just fine. So I have to deal with that. And I have to always bring them back to discipline. You have to make sure you become student of your industry student of your craft. You know and you hear me talk thru this conversation. I’ll use two words, electrical and contracting. I talk about electrical and focusing on the industry itself. And you and my technicians like field, they have to be students out there, that they keep current with the technology because it’s changing, it evolves. So what I’ve focused is just keep learning, keep growing, and stay disciplined, and you’ll be a great electrician. And that’s been the secret to my success and maintaining adequate personnel in the field.

Scott Peper 10:20

You’ve now taken that discipline, you’ve you’re teaching to it, you’re educating to it, you’re building it into your safety programs. I happen to be in and out of your office and talking to you all the time. And I know what kind of systems and processes you have, and all that stuff isn’t an accident. But not everybody can instill those are no to know how to and if you were going to, if you were going to counsel, a newer entrepreneur, starting not only just a typical business, but any construction business, what guidance would you give him around how to take what you just talked about, but instilling that into your team.

Camell Williams  10:51

I always tell my guys, I got three As that I deal with attitude, ability and attendance. And if you have any tour boats, I can help you get the last one. So when I talk to my team, I try to stress that they find something that they love. And master this, kind of do what you like, want to run conduit, continue to run conduit, if it’s why you like. But know the industry, focus on what you really love. From the administration side, I tell them to constantly learn, constantly go to — I put all type of financial aid programs in place, I have several of my members have their master’s degree that we pay for I have several members of bachelor’s degree that we paid for, because I stress high on learning. Again, it’s all part of that discipline. Scott, I really believe that my goal should be to teach my team everything they need to leave me, but treat them well enough so that they want to stay. That’s the only way I can succeed.

Scott Peper  11:55

I mean, did everybody just hear what he said, and that is so powerful come out and you couldn’t want I couldn’t agree with you more. And I think discipline is how you started the conversation. But what you build on right there, and particularly the three A’s if you have attitude, ability, and attendance, any two of those, you can teach the third. And that’s those are core values that you really instilling in the fact that you focus on continued learning and higher learning. I mean, I just think that’s so important. I just want everybody here, listen to listening to this and really pick that up. That’s a key thing. How do you talk about how do you bring that into the day? You know, I know you didn’t just have one meeting and bring that up? How do you incorporate it, incorporate that daily, weekly, monthly with your team?

Camell Williams  12:36

I tell them when they when they walk in the door. And it’s real important, we try to teach my team to be independent thinkers. Because ultimately, in order for me to move my business to the next level, I need to be in a position where I can trust my employees to do exactly what they’re supposed to do without coming to me. So I try to explain to them and every time if you bring a problem to me, bring to me a potential solution. That means I’m forcing them to think of think about what needs to happen, and to utilize their skills and let them know that their opinions are very important. I don’t want them to appoint me make a decision. I have consistent meetings with them. I consistently try to guide them. But I tell them, if in doubt, if there’s any concern. And I don’t want to sound selfish when I say this, but I said there’s any concern with this building, there’s two things you need to remember it’s the decision you make going to make prime electrical money, or is it going to save prime electrical much, you have to fall into one of these categories, because ultimately, this is a for profit business. And the stronger the company gets, the more I can give to my team, the more I can help them grow, the more I can put into their education, the more I can put into that bonus structure. So as long as they continue to think, make decisions themselves and I keep reminding them that these are the key rules, save the company money and make the company money — it helps them grow. That’s how I do it on a daily basis.

Scott Peper  14:08

Awesome, man. I’m so glad you shared that is the key and focusing on the time you spend with them and making a quality time and empowering them. I think you’re gonna hit your goals. That’s why people do stay with you because they they want to, not because they have to or need to.

Camell Williams  14:24

Well and it’s difficult and in a small business. Some of the challenges got I don’t know if I’m getting ahead, but it’s important that I focus on some of the challenges we have in order to competitively keep your team an owner has to make sacrifices. Prime Electrical Services offers 401 k which is a barrier and we have a very aggressive matching program. We offer major medical, we offer health and wealth. I mean we offer a lot of things that small businesses typically shy away from because they just plain and simple can’t afford them. But in order to get the quality talent you need in order to give your people our home and Let your people know that you’re concerned about them and you care about them, you have to make the sacrifice. Now that means taking less home, what you’re building a team that’s going to stay with you. And that’s committed to growing with you because they understand your sacrifice. So it’s all necessary.

Scott Peper  15:18

I couldn’t agree with you more, let me transition a little bit with you. You’re a business owner, you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve fought the fights and struggles. You’re also an African American doing in this world. And I think there’s different challenges that are out there. Some are well known Some aren’t. And I think you navigate those so well doing it. And I’d like you to talk a little bit about what you feel are some of those challenges that you’ve had to overcome and how you’ve done it and how you’ve utilized your your own abilities and skills to survive and thrive. And what you would suggest other young, African American entrepreneurs what they can do or should do, or how they should think about that to get to a point where they can be successful and thrive with what’s out there available.

Camell Williams  15:58

If I had to sum that up, Scott, I would say, first of all, surround yourself with people smarter than you. It’s really important. As an African American, our biggest problem you can, I have to be transparent here, is we don’t have generations of running a business of doing this with first generation, or second generation. I talked about my grandfather being a mason, a brick mason, but he never dealt with the volume that we deal with here in today’s society numbers are, I mean, he never would have thought his grandson would be doing tech work that I deal with. So we don’t have a father or a grandfather someone to go to for our business needs. My uncle was able to teach me the trade but not the business at the learn that and that’s still surrounding myself with people smarter than me, that’s the first thing, find other African American businesses and have an open forum be in a position where you guys can regularly meet and talk. That’s the other side. Third, which is which is really important, is, I think, the most underrated positions in in business, then again, when you’re dealing with limited capital, you tend to not spend money on things you can’t see, things that you don’t realize you don’t think are important. And that’s accountants, you have to have a good accountant. And that’s, that’s invisible to most people. They buy QuickBooks, and they log on and they put in a few numbers, and it spits out the results. And they think they’re cons. And now you need a trained professional.

Scott Peper  17:33

Camell, you bring up your points that you talked about and surrounding yourself with smart people, talented people, different experiences, meeting and talking with others, finding your accountant in the CFO. And then of course providing capital, the one thing that’s in there that I think a lot of business owners, African American, white, Indian, I don’t think it matters any, I talked to all different types of business owners in this particular setting. It’s pride. And you know, you’re a prideful person, but you don’t let your pride get in the way of just straightforward, realistic conversations. I mean, just listen to what you just said just now. And I think getting out and surrounding yourself with smarter people. It shows your confidence level in yourself. Because you know what you know, you know what you don’t. How did you learn those things you provide it? Or how do you? Where did you get that from?

Camell Williams  18:31

Scott, I’ll tell you a lot of it was trial in there, I can say you might have heard me say this before, I probably couldn’t find anyone out here who has made as many mistakes as I’ve made. Because I went out and listen to the mass. I mean, I attended every outreach, every event, every small business seminar that I could go to. And what they would always tell me is, these are the things I needed to do in order to be successful. What they didn’t understand, and what’s most difficult is the people that were talking to me, were not business owners, they had never been business owners, they had never had to make payroll. So here’s what happens. And a small business, you start you have a good credit, you build your credit to that point. And you’re ready to go off on your own. Well, what happens as you go on business, the first thing you have to do everything that you buy, you have to sign for personal, which means multiple inquiries on your credit report, multiple inquiries, and every time you get an card, that credit goes down. So now you’re in a position where you got your new truck that you started for. And you had a great new car. You got your lease building that you signed for you got your accounts with all your vendors that you signed for. And your credit just went from 700 down to 580. Just because of inquiries you pay your bills on time, but now your cash flows. So at this point, you got to walk into a financial institution. Why do we think we got to go to SBA bank and they’re going to give us all the money we need because that’s what they said at the seminars. You walk in that bank, and that guy pulls your credit and says, You know what? You’re back from your balance sheet your credit, we’re not going to loan you money. And you, and at this point, it is too late. So what do you do? You answer that phone call. Someone said, Hey, we’ll loan you money right now today on your receivables, we will give you cash right now. And you take it and it starts a downward trend. All now you had good intentions when you started this. So that’s the cycle that small businesses, and primarily African American businesses, go through. So when I say you have to put your pride aside, you have to realize that business is very personal. And everyone says Nah, no, it’s not personal. It’s just business. No, business is what feeds your family. It’s what pays your mortgage, what pays for the car your wife drive, but it’s good as your children go to? Now you have to ask yourself is your pride worth sacrificing those things? When you realize it, you realize No, it’s not in my business, to me is very personal. So I have to put my pride aside and go in there and learn all I can learn, grow with these people follow their advice, my opinions matter when I get back in my office. But when I walk in their office, their opinions are only thing I need to focus on. That’s part of my growth. And I did it the other way it didn’t work.

Scott Peper  21:24

So you just said something that I think I really want to make sure everybody hears is tying those decisions and your pride and discipline to something that’s most important to you. And what’s more important really than family. When you when you link those two things, from a business perspective to those decisions you’re making are for your family, how are they going to impact your family, you’re going to make better decisions, you’re going to drop your pride. I think everyone listening to this, if you don’t take anything else from this call today, I think that might be the most powerful thing you said already. Because you’re going to make better decisions, when you’re thinking about it from your wife, your children, your other family members, you’re going to you’re going to you’re not going to let pride get in the way.

Camell Williams  22:04

And one other thing that it’s really important. It’s so intimidating, walking into financial institutions, because there’s no secrets, they don’t leave anything on the table they want to see are your pay stubs. You know what you paid what you spent on dinner last night, I mean, they turn, they turn to you. So it’s a lot easier to do that to someone, you can put a name to the face and who’s willing to talk to you and say I need this. Because this and I need this because of that. And it’s a little less intimidating when you do that. Just imagine buying a house 10 times over. That’s what it’s like when when they get a loan your money in it, and it can be exasperated, really can.

Scott Peper  22:45

You’ve talked a lot about really good topics. And I’ve tried to focus people on those specific things. But is there is there one thing that you believe really separates a contractor success or failure?

Camell Williams  22:58

Yes, knowing your business and mastering the ability to balance your business. There’s two ways that a contractor can fail. One is by under eating, or starvation. The other one is overeating. I mean, and those are the two ways and so you have to get a balance, you have to know when to say no to a job. When to move forward with the job, you have to truly understand your financial numbers, understand whether or not you can finance this job, whether your forecasting is correct. And you have and you have adequate forecasting. I mean, those are the things that I would tell any small business don’t just go and I’ve seen it happen 1000 times I got a $2 million job. And this is going to change the company. Well, maybe so but once you do your due diligence and realize that three months down the road, you’re going to be out of money, and someone else would be finishing this job. So I stressed it to everyone know your business and balance your business appropriately. Know when to say yes. And when to say no.

Scott Peper  24:06

It’s great advice. I’d add one thing to that too. I want to make sure people know that. I myself in this business. I don’t I’m not the person that is the best at finance and forecasts and understand a business. I have a fantastic partner and a CFO. That hands me those tools. And when I see them in a format. I know how to make those great decisions that way. But you don’t have to be the chef. You just have to know how to evaluate the plate at the end.

Camell Williams 24:33

Absolutely.

Scott Peper 24:35

I think what I want to make sure is the connection. You don’t need to go to accounting schools, you need to just find somebody that can give you the information you need in a simple easy format that you can make decisions off of.

Camell Wiliams  24:45

And follow their advice and listen to them. You know that that’s again, that’s what your pride as we put aside, you have to listen to them. You brought them there to give you the best advice and it means nothing if you don’t listen to it.

Scott Peper  25:00

Last question for you. Is there one thing you wish you knew if you go back to the very beginning, and think about anybody that’s out here now starting their business there one thing you wish you knew or you wish you were told that you hadn’t addressed today, or that you just want to highlight from something you’ve already talked about today. That’s the one thing you wish you knew in the beginning that you know, now, maybe we save somebody some years of headache.

Camell Williams  25:22

Man, I’ve had this conversation so many times, and I’ve talked to people and I would think that seriously when I walked into it, if I understood that being good at my craft, would not ensure success in me being a contractor. I wish someone had explained it to me, someone had said, because I felt so much you risk, I felt that I was the best electrician out there, which means I’m going to be a phenomenal contract. And for several years, I ran my head into this block wall thinking that my skill in the industry would make me a success in business. I wish someone had sat me down and told me no, please become a student of your business. As much as you are student of the craft, become a student of your business. Surround yourself with good people have no I’ve said that before, but I can’t repeat it enough. Surround yourself with people who know more than you take the time learn and grow but understand your business. And no one told me that I never knew it. I thought I can buy software that could do it all for it didn’t work. So I found out that do the hard way,

Scott Peper  26:35

I’m gonna leave it there. I don’t know if I could improve on that any better. And I just want to tell you again, thank you so much for taking the time, the effort, the energy to share your stories, your honesty, your discipline yourself and what you’re doing. I think we certainly help people today if, if there’s anyone out there that’s listening to this, they’re going to get least one or if not more things from this conversation we’ve had and your honesty and your ability to share it and talk through it. I know people are going to be better off and I just want to say thank you very much for doing that.

Camell Williams  27:08

Scott. It was my pleasure. Thank you very much for having me.

Scott Peper  27:10

Well, everyone, I hope you guys enjoyed this time. If you have any questions you need anything, you can always find this on our YouTube channel. You can always find this on our website. There’s tons of resources out there that are all free to you. You can download them you can get them there’s cash flow models, all kinds of stuff about business construction topics that we provide totally free to you just on our website on the resources page. So feel free to go there. Thank you again canal. I appreciate it. Everyone have a great afternoon, evening or day. Take care.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Right now, women make up about 9% of the construction workforce. There are huge opportunities for women in construction, either as part of the workforce or as a business owner, but there are also challenges that must be met.

In this episode of Built for Growth, Sartura Shuman-Smith, Director of Tampa Bay Works for Women at The Helen Gordon Davis Centre for Women, and Robyn Donaldson, owner of Renew Construction Services, and Founder of the STEM Xposure Inc., join Mobilization Funding CEO Scott Peper for a discussion on the challenges and opportunities for women in construction, and what companies can do to encourage women to join the industry.

Full Transcript Below

Scott Peper  0:42  Hi everybody, welcome. I’m Scott Peper, CEO of Mobilization Funding. I’m really excited to talk today about women in construction and I have two awesome women. Very strong, powerful women, in my view, here to talk a little bit today. First is our Sartura Schumann-Smith. She’s the director of the Tampa Bay Works for Women at the Helen Gordon Davis Centre for Women, and Robyn Donaldson, owner of Renew Construction Services and founder of STEM Exposure Inc program, which exposes high school students to different STEM and architectural design programs. Welcome, ladies.

Sartura Shuman-Smith  1:17  Thank you.

Robyn Donaldson 1:20  Hi, thank you for having me.

Scott Peper  1:20  Welcome. I want to thank you guys so much for taking the time to do this with us. We always are looking for interesting and exciting topics. Today, I really feel like not only am I going to learn a lot, that I usually do from this, but I think it’s going to touch on areas that we’re just so not familiar with and in doing some of the research on both of you and the things that you guys have done being the fact that this is in our local community, to and you guys are all of us are in the Tampa Bay area. It’s nice that we’re gonna be able to see things and find out and things that I didn’t know existed really, I mean, I’ve known about different programs, but to see what you guys are doing and how you’re doing them and how they can impact our local area is really important to me, so I’m excited about that.

Robyn Donaldson  1:57  Awesome.

Sartura Shuman-Smith  1:58  I am too.

Scott Peper  1:59   Robyn, let me ask you a question, to start with you. You have different companies, you know, community real estate developer and you’ve had lots of volunteer work. Tell us a little bit about your journey, where you’re from how you decided to focus on the architecture and construction space. And mostly, maybe just round that through your whole career. How did you get into this?

Robyn Donaldson  2:22   Oh, well, let’s see I’ve always been interested in construction. I think it was to, to spite my mom because she always wanted me to go into the nursing field. So, while in high school, I went to Tampa Bay vocational tech, and I took up industrial electricity, just to make her mad, and I fell in love with construction. I just absolutely loved it. I’m a problem solver. So, it was just at the time an ideal fit. Upon graduating In 1987, I don’t want to say that too loud, I graduated from high school, I had a certification as an apprentice, and I worked for TC Hernandez Electric, Tampa Tribune, doing electrical maintenance, until I had an accident where my hand was caught in the machine. And I’m like, you know what, I have to stop doing all the laborer’s work. Let me get into a, let’s say the administrative side of things. I reached out to a great friend of mine, who’s a general contractor, and she just really exposed me to all of the different facets of construction. And let me say this, she’s my mentor. She’s the first African American to receive a General Contractor’s license in the state of Florida. And her name is Anne McNeil from MCO Construction in South Florida. She’s an awesome, awesome person. And again, she exposed me to the different trades, different aspects of construction. Whether it was aviation, transportation, and she just really gave me my start, she helped direct my footsteps. And I found myself in architectural design. Again, I’m a problem solver. I love to design things; I love to develop. And as a result, from that I took classes at HCC, I received my, my certification for architectural design. And then there was the building component. And it all just made sense. I just absolutely love involving, I say myself with hands, and then really just creating things. So that’s the gist of how I got into the construction side of things. But with all of the different business that I have, they all revolve around construction.

Scott Peper  4:49  Cool. Thank you for sharing that. And Sartura, you run the Tampa Bay Works for Women program and its construction-focused program of Women Building Futures. Could you tell us a little bit more about yourself, how you got into that what your thoughts are around your program, how you got to start it and where it’s heading and how you got into it yourself?

Sartura Shuman-Smith  5:07  Sure. Well, I’m, Robyn, I didn’t do anything in spite of (laughs)—so I, my start is right here in Tampa. I’m a Tampa native. So that’s a rarity in itself. I always wanted to be a school teacher and I guess you’re saying that how does that work into construction or careers, but I always wanted to be a school teacher and when the college, did that, taught school for a while, and ended up in nonprofit, decided that well, I don’t not sure if I really want to do this anymore. But I ended up in nonprofit my first nonprofit job was with Tampa Housing Authority. And then I went from there to PBS Television where stayed for a very long time. I would really date myself, but I don’t mind. I stayed there almost 21 years in children’s programming, education and in children’s programming. And when the recession hit in ‘08, everything fell apart. Um, my job went away. And so, it was like, Okay, all right, let me try to reinvent myself like everybody was doing then. But I ended up staying in a nonprofit sector and started doing contract work with different agencies. And someone referred me to the Centre for Women and said that, you know, you might want to check them out. So, they reached out to me and I went over and started doing outreach. And then a position came open as the director of one of the Center for women’s program called the Center for Girls. And I just was adamant in my heart, I didn’t vocalize it during the interview was like, oh my god, do not do this anymore. I tried to run away from children. Try my best. I love them though. And they really are my passion. So, I said, Well, okay, I’ll take the interim director’s position. So interim for me is like 30 days. I set you up, I get you straight. And then I’m out of here. Well, that interim position turned into six years. So, I’ve been with the Centre for Women for six years and in December this past December 2019. After a lot of prayer, a lot of self-reflection, I decided I wanted to do something different. It wasn’t that I want did not want to work with children anymore. I just felt that I had already made I had made a strong enough impact that I could light someone else’s torch, not passing the torch, because when you pass the torch, you give up your light. So, I wanted to light the torch of someone else to take that position. And actually, that’s where Robyn and I met through the Center for Girls. So, I came over into career development our Tampa Bay Works for Women program. I didn’t know that our Women Building Futures program was a part of that. So here I am, knew nothing about career development. I knew nothing about the construction field, but like Robyn, I am, I want to say I problem solver. I’m a fixer, I want to try new things. I want to see how much of an impact I can make somewhere else. And maybe we’ll get into that later. So, I’ll save that response for another question. But this is where I am, and this is what I’m doing.

Scott Peper  8:23  Well, I’m looking forward to getting into that topic next and make sure that we remember I guide you back there if I don’t. You know, one question I want to ask you guys, I thought it would be interesting to start with, before I dive into some of the other topics is you guys have met a lot of people in and around construction, both at a young age, in the middle of the prime of their career, and it sounds like even towards the end of their careers. Can you give us maybe one or two traits or talents that you see are the real separators between people that make it and are successful in the construction or the people that just kind of get into construction and are just stay there and don’t leave to either develop their company or make it all the way through their career? And the reason I ask the question that way is we see so many folks in construction that sounds such a hard field and people come and go in and out of it. Businesses fail and succeed. Maybe a little bit different pace than other industries. I think a lot of construction gets a bad rap. But yet, there’s really some amazing talent that’s in construction, mostly because it is such a hard field innately in my opinion to succeed at. There’s so many more dynamics, there’s way more challenges whether they’re cash flow problems, people, labor or material but the sheer dollars of a project, and I really want to see what is it in your guy’s opinion from your perspective that makes someone more successful or less successful? What are those traits that you see?

Sartura Shuman-Smith  9:46  I’m going to, Robyn I’m going to definitely toss this off to you after I say my little piece. Before we started, I put a disclaimer out there Robyn is the expert and I’m still learning but I’m going to compare my background to where I am now. So, I’m going to use the comparison with what I’m doing. I remember when I left the school system, I honestly thought that there was nothing I could do but teach, you know, what else can I do? And when I got an opportunity to go interview at the TV station, I’m saying to myself, what in the heck am I gonna do at a television station, but that’s because I didn’t know anything about television or production or media. But when I got there, I started out in sales, working in sales, and then moved into education and outreach and children’s programming. So for me, I think a trait that leads to someone’s success, and I think in any area Robyn can expound on it, when it comes to construction—I think just thinking out of the box, thinking outside of the box that okay, I don’t have to stay in a classroom to educate. I don’t have to stay here just to do this or I don’t have to just be a welder, or I don’t have to just be in business. Masonry, I don’t have to just be and I think when people understand the areas that they’re in and really do soul searching and realize their own potential, and when they get into an area, it’s like, you know what, because I tell people all the time when I talk to them, you know, you don’t have to do just, and I’m putting that in quotes because it’s not a just feel, but you don’t have to just focus on that one area that you know, broaden your horizons, educate yourself, and be bold enough to say, hey, Scott, I’d like to learn this side of the construction business. What you all do Scott at your company, like oh, okay, alrighty, so this is something different in that whole big area of construction.

Robyn Donaldson  11:47  I’m taking notes.

Scott Peper  11:50  Robyn, what do you think?

Robyn Donaldson  11:52  Really, it boils down to what time do you wake up in the morning? I wake up at three o’clock. I think that that would be definitely a trait of a successful business owner is the sacrifices and the time that you’re willing to dedicate to your ultimate goal or your ultimate business. Also, who they associate themselves with, I always recommend being a part of a mastermind group. Associate with people who are on the same journey or someone who has already achieved the type of success that you’re looking for. And also, feed your mind. Feed your mind always improving yourself, whether it’s in your speech, your skill set, whatever it is always be. In that learning, I’m always in a learning type of mode. And I’m, also more importantly, just really know what you want to say that you want to be a business owner. Again, those are just words. Now you need Have a plan, and it needs to be written. And I also think that having an accountability partner, which is in part also associated with the mastermind group, just having someone who can hold you accountable for what you’re saying that you’re wanting to do, I think those three things really are key in the success of an entrepreneur or starting or and running your own business. One thing that I did want to mention your subconscious mind, your mindset, the way that you think the way that you’re approaching things. And I know sometimes it’s, it’s a little roadblock because if you’ve been an employee for so long, you know that if you work 40 hours, you have a paycheck on Friday. But the mindset of an entrepreneur is so different. You have to literally make it happen every day. Like there’s no days off. And again, those things I think combined is what separates successful entrepreneurs from those who are just talking about it.

Sartura Shuman-Smith  13:58  You’re right, I agree with you Robyn on that one. It’s the mindset It really is got it and I didn’t want to interrupt you but you really have to decide and make up that mind of yours to say this is what I’m going to do and attach yourself to people who are sincere about helping you to achieve that goal not don’t attach yourself to someone who you just think is this great one because of their reputation, or their name or their association but attach yourself to someone who really has no other reason but to support you and to guide you and bring you to the next level.

Scott Peper  14:37  You know you guys are really speaking my language now I’m glad this question is on air because my team internally and certainly Autumn for sure, I understand this, but you know, you guys, I couldn’t agree with you more. One mindset is everything talking about what you are going to do not what you’re going to try to do is we talked about all the time. One of our core values is be a lifetime learner. If you’re not educating your mind every single day, somehow advancing yourself, you’re going to get left behind. Things I personally believe, finding a mastermind, finding a group who you surround yourself with, there’s people I follow and really listen to. And one of the things that’s come out of my mastermind group I think is relevant to the to two things really, that are relevant to what you guys said. One is, when you look at your inner circle, who you’re surrounding yourself with the people, you’re closest to the five, so people you spend the most amount of time with, you’re going to be some version of those five people. And the other thing I learned, which is a little more harsh, but I think very relevant, they were said to me, You have to figure out what type of hard you want to participate in. What that means is life is all hard. You know, being broke is hard. Working hard is hard. Getting up at three in the morning is hard, you know, getting up at eight in the morning, getting sleep and then not getting anything done, which leads to you having extra work at night is hard. And you really just have to figure out what hard you want to participate in. Right Oh, Nothing’s easy. There’s no such thing. And when I heard that the first time, I made me think you know what? Yeah, there’s a right you got to take time and pause with your family and do fun things. But you got to get back to it too. You know and know how hard you work smartly with goals with a plan with a group that’s helping us you’re not just run around like a crazy person activity and calling yourself hard work. That is the key. So, I mean, I really think you guys touched on some really important key topics. And I’m glad we touched on that because you’re right, it is all mindset.

Sartura Shuman-Smith  16:32  Hey, can I add one more thing, Scott and Robyn, no word, but oh my gosh, please. And I know it’s easier said than done. And we probably do it ourselves. But I try to make a conscious effort to not say that you just don’t know how many people I’ve talked to. Now that were remote on the phone, who they immediately start telling me what they want to do. And before I can say, Okay, well let me before I can say I’m trying to help them but this but that but it is and I tell them okay, I’ve given you five times to say it now stop. You’ve just talked yourself completely out of everything that you just said you wanted to do everything that you said you wanted to do you say that there was a but there. I said you have to eliminate that but and because all you can get is either a yes or no so but is not even going to hurt. If you say I really want to do this Scott, but we’ll just ask Scott. Or Robyn I really would like to go into architecture but. All right, we’re gonna say is what? But I can’t say but I don’t have the experience. But Scott, I don’t know anything about finance. I that word but has to go.

Scott Peper 17:47  The only time you can use the word but is when you respond to someone with, look all those excuses sound really good, but I just don’t care. I just want you to be able to get it done and so do you like mom taught me when, when I was learning how to apologize, which I still working on. But anytime you say I’m sorry, but you just negate the entire column. Right? If you say if you’re gonna use the word, but just realize just Mazal just skip everything you just said it’s not worth anything. And I realized, you know, I like talking and not having it mean anything. So, I mostly just eliminate that word from my vocabulary.

Robyn Donaldson  18:25  No, but.

Scott Peper  18:26  We’ll change gears on you guys. You know, currently the in the construction workforce, women make up just over 9% of it, at least according to the US construction workforce. Anyway, from your guys experience, what are some of the challenges that you think women face specifically as they’re entering into the construction industry?

Sartura Shuman-Smith  18:42  Robyn, I’m always jumping first because I know my two cents will lead into your 10 cents, because that I know this much. But one of the things I feel is that and I’m quite sure Robyn will agree with is there’s not enough women in actual leave to shift positions. So, they’re not enough. I mean, there’s some powerful women because I’ve encountered some of them. Robyn is one of them that are doing their own thing and are successful. But I don’t think that there’s enough women in leadership positions to make those decisions to bring a more diverse group to an organization or construction firm. I think lack of Robyn spoke of her mentor right off the gate. I don’t think there’s enough mentorship and opportunities or apprenticeships. And women are not visible enough in the industry, that you may hear about an Ann McNeil or a Mercedes Young or a Robyn Donaldson but not everybody has the opportunity to actually be able to engage with those people or those individuals. So, I don’t think there’s enough visibility with women and construction. The other issue is the pay gap. And I’m quite sure we’ll maybe go into that later. But there’s still for me, I believe with everything now and it has. And I don’t really think this has anything to do with the current climate, I just still think there’s a lot of unconscious bias. When it comes to women. Being in a male dominated industry, like construction, people will look at someone and immediately say, Oh, you don’t look like you’re in construction. You know, right off the bat. Oh, you don’t look like you know, well, what does that look like? You know, what does that woman in construction look like? Because I remember one time I went somewhere, and I heard somebody used the term drive by images. And for me drive by images of what you see literally when you’re either driving by walking by, whether that’s on media, so you have these perceptions and ideas and notions of what a construction worker looks like. But people don’t realize, well, the construction industry is massive, and they’re all types of Like Robyn, architectural design and electrical, this and all of these big things, and I just don’t think there’s enough of that in our faces. So, I think for me, those are some of the issues that I think women are facing in the industry.

Scott Peper  21:15  You know, according to the National Association of Women in construction, the pay gap, one of the things you mentioned, it looks like about 5% 90, women earn about 95% of what men are in the same field. And although that’s five percent, a lot, it’s actually a lot higher in construction or closer aligning construction than it actually is in other industries, which I found interesting. I wouldn’t have guessed that or known that to be accurate. I wouldn’t have thought I was actually worse candidly than the other industries. Robyn, I’m interested to hear your opinion. What why do you what do you think of those items? Why do you think it’s closer to the pay gap? But also, why do you Why do you think what do you think keeps more women from getting into the construction field?

Robyn Donaldson  21:55  Okay, so let me set the scene for you, right. You go to school for four years. As you achieve a degree, you want to enter into the construction field, whether it’s as a project manager, estimator, or even a designer, but then you’re paid considerably less than your counterparts. And then in some instances, you have to deal with different types of abuse, just because you are a female in a male dominated industry. So that’s an employee side, and wanting to change that you want to become, let’s just say a business owner or that entrepreneur. So now I think that is twice as hard. Because now you’re literally competing with the big boys as they would say, and they really don’t want you in their arena. Like I’ve so many times I have my How can I say my experience has been questioned because I’m a female. And so, it’s just they don’t they don’t see you the same and in my experience, you know, I have had wonderful, wonderful relationships with amazing women like Trail Blazers like Anne MacNeil. And then being a part of the organization called NABWIC, which is the National Association of Black Women in Construction. The women are out there is just the opportunities. And then the exposure. You don’t you don’t readily see that in the construction field. And then you have the situation where you can become a certified minority in the construction industry, but again, is all of these roadblocks that you encounter. So, it is a little difficult. It is not for the weak. I mean, you have to have some, you have to have some really tough skin because you’re going to have opposition that’s above and beyond a 40-hour week.

Scott Peper  23:50  One of the things I think you touched on I, I talk a lot about I think the greatest things in life come from a place of uncomfortability. You know When you get outside the lines, I call nothing, nothing great happens in the middle, it’s all on the edges. You know, if you’re going to get something that that other people aren’t going to have, you’re going to be outside the normal bounds working hard, either working hard, focusing on something that no one’s seen before. And what I like a lot from a sales background, I used to sell things in the medical field into hospitals, the accounts I’d walk into that I could sell the same day, I certainly liked and enjoyed, but I also knew that they could be taken away from me in the same day too. It was the things that had the extra hurdle or that much harder or the conversation or the person that I had to break through or resonate with or build a relationship with. That made it that much harder. I knew it was gonna stick. And so, I analogize that a little bit to what you just mentioned, as hard as it is to get those certifications. There’s such tremendous opportunity there that I think if there’s a way to educate women, minorities or even men that are trying to be in this field, figure out a way to really take advantage of that hard because if you can crack through it, there’s so much opportunity. It’s like you get through the hard part. And then there’s, there’s a lot of there’s some easy there. How do you see people navigating through that, particularly if they can see the other side? That’s what’s hard. Sometimes you see this huge wall in front of you. But you don’t realize the other side might be a green pasture.

Sartura Shuman-Smith  25:22  I heard somebody say the other day—and Robyn, you can write this down—I know your note taker. I heard this the other day, and I loved it. It said you can’t climb a smooth mountain. Right. And that just resonated with me. So, I literally visualize this slick mountain. And so, you’re right. You cannot climb a smooth mountain. You know, there has to be something for you to grab on to hold on to get your bearings in your foot footing. And as much as we don’t want to say things are hard or we want things to be smooth sailing. It’s not going to be that. And I used to do a lot of on when I was at the television station I used to I used to do a lot of trainings and workshops and presentations and for me, the person who had the biggest scowl on their face, the person who looked like they were writing their grocery list down instead of listening to me. That is the person I decided I was going to gravitate to. I’m going to stand by you. I’m going to place my hand on your shoulder. I’m going to look at your name tag, and I’m going to call you out and you’re just going to become my best friend before the end of this presentation. It’s like, that’s the challenge. It’s like, you’re going to like me, Robyn, and I’m looking at your name tag, Scott, oh, you’re going to like what I have to say. But it’s that not giving up and not seeing that, that one, that one detour sign or that one roadblock sign and decide that you’re going to turn around? You know, that that is like, you know, I tell people all the time, why would I go 50 miles to turn around and go back another 50 miles and go back to where I started from. We’ll just keep on pressing and go the remainder of the distance which may be shorter than from where I came from. So that’s just my little bit of knowledge and wisdom.

Robyn Donaldson  27:11  Oh my gosh, she’s so special. Um, I just really, she I love her though. You have to love Sartura.

Robyn Donaldson  27:18  Reiterating what you mentioned before, Scott, that you just have to decide what hard you want to play, or how hard you want to play actually, because a 40 hour week is hard, you know? So, but you’re building someone else’s empires, someone else’s dream, dedicate those same 40 hours to know what you have going on your business goal. And then also, I had just wanted to mention that I think is very imperative again, to have a mentor or someone to assist you with your journey because again, it’s very, very hard. You’re going to have rejection at every angle. And I’ll say whether it’s to contractors, whether it’s insurance, because there’s a lot that goes into being an entrepreneur, so you may have the best business plan the finances in order, but there’s always something that’s going to throw you for a loop. And just be ready for that. And then when you do see, when things like that do take place, you keep going and you find strength to just keep going through whatever you’re going through because again, is part of the process. And, and again, I just love that you have to choose your heart, because now you’re taking hard and impossible or difficult out of the equation, you’re going into this knowing that you’re going to have problems is just deciding how you’re going to deal with them when they occur. You know, I wrote that one down. I like that one too. I like that one too. Just choose your options. You can choose how hard you want to go, you know with diversity in the certifications, again, that was a way that I had to strategize myself or maneuver through the construction industry. When you have a certification, they have to let you play, so to speak, they have to let you in the playground. Now whether they let you own a screening or even give you a push, it’s something totally different. But I mean, you have to start there. And there’s going to be so many. And I have to just keep saying this, because there’s going to be so many failures, there’s going to be so many obstacles. But once you pass that first obstacle, and you gain some momentum is just, it’s just really part of the process. Because I expect people to tell me no, the first second or third times, you know, I expect those things. So, it’s just maintaining the momentum despite any type of mishaps that may occur.

Scott Peper  29:52   You’ve mentioned mastermind and mentors and I think, you know, a lot of that is talked about, but can you do you have any that you recommend or how would it feel As someone said, you know what I really do need a mastermind I need to surround myself with the most important five people are going to help guide me. And then they say, where do I go find them? Do you have any suggestions or folks that you would recommend or people that you think are good masterminds or places to find those masterminds so that they can make that make a good decision there and then be guided in the right direction?

Robyn Donaldson  30:21  Yes. And that’s a great question. There’s so many, really depending on your industry, or even your interest. I know I started out with Meetup.com, which everyone knows whatever your interest is, you can just sign in, put in your zip code and your interest, and it’ll direct you to groups that have that same interest. And they meet all the time. So again, now you’re connecting with people who have the same interest. And then from that there’s a lot of mastermind, you can google mastermind, there’s construction mastermind groups linked has a lot of them. So, I would get really specific as to what area or industry that you’re looking for. And just find I would go on LinkedIn of Facebook has lots of them. I know the one that my mentor, every Saturday morning is called the International Mastermind Association. And that’s a guided mastermind because we use Napoleon Hills Think and Grow Rich book. And I’ve been involved with that mastermind group for some years. And we literally reread Think and Grow Rich over and over and over again. Of course, the words are the same, but we’re different every time we read it. I think I’ve read that book maybe like 17 times now. Wow. And each time I learned something different because I’m different. And again, networking, of find people who, again, you would like to be like and find someone Who can add value to what you have going on? And not, we don’t deal in the negatives or any subtractions. And then, and or you can create your own mastermind group. So as of late, of course, I’m into the STEM side of things. And I’ve just associated myself with a lot of tiny home builders, you know, anything, any, wherever my interest is, I’m going to find the best of the best person to pour into me. And, again, I hope I answer that question. But yeah, you can Google or IMA. There are so many different mastermind groups out there some that are free, then you have some mastermind groups that have a membership, that’s very costly. But just keep it in mind who’s going to be in that room, who you’re going to have the opportunity to listen, converse with. So, it just really depends on how deep you really want to go with it.

Scott Peper  33:00  Yeah. One thing I want to what you said that I think is really important when you go on this journey, it’s so easy to think what am I going to get? Let me evaluate all these What am I going to receive? But if you really start with this the mindset of what am I going to give? First, what is my contribution going to be to going, your mind changes and you will bring and attract to you and this is my belief, you will bring an attract to you the things that you need people who will see that if you think first about what you’re going to give and what you’re going to do and what you’re going to put forth. Everything else will show up for you if your mind is looking right where you want to go.

Robyn Donaldson  33:40  You know, that’s my tagline. I make a living from given.

Robyn Donaldson  33:45  And if you find how you can add value, whatever it is that you’re in search of, it’ll come back and I think that that has been my whole experience with STEM Exposure which is the non for profit summer camps. I just simply, I’m in service to others. That’s how I feel. I don’t ever approach anyone asking for anything. I asked them, how can I be a value to you?

Scott Peper  34:16  And that’s it. You know, you mentioned your stem exposure. That is one of the things I really want to talk about next is a great segue into that, that for what if anyone doesn’t know STEM is something that really exposes these students to these different types of career paths and where it’s at, but can you tell us more about your particular STEM Exposure Inc program, how it helps the students what it exposes them to, and just the program in general?

Robyn Donaldson  34:41  Well, you know, I’m smiling because I love talking about my kids. I love the kids. A stem exposure, as you mentioned, is a nonprofit organization and our mission is to expose minority students to underrepresented STEM careers. Architectural and design camp is our signature camp. It’s all about revolving around providing affordable housing options. So, our camp started back in 2018. I had an investor asked me to design some conceptual drawings to help revitalize East Tampa. So, I said, You know what, let’s get these kids to decide what they want their neighborhood to look like. And as a result, we started a summer camp. It’s a two-week camp, which we again expose kids to architectural design, development and the construction trades. And what happens after that second week is nothing but beautiful. So, the first camp we had was in 2018, and as a result of two students designs were selected and those houses were built in East Campus. So, we have students designing and building homes to revitalize East Tampa 2019 it was just a really overwhelming response to the channel. And what we, how can I say, to the camp of the impact that we had on the children and the fact that students ranging from third through 10th grade. Again, they’re actually learning how to design a home and then building it. And then so from 2019, we had the opportunity to have the camp at the glacier Children’s Museum in downtown Tampa, which was an awesome opportunity because it created the perfect atmosphere, you know, for STEM, the stem camp, of course, 2020 came up and we had six camps have scheduled but then COVID-19 hit, however not but however, birth to a virtual camp, online presence. And so since we again, we were featuring affordable housing for homeless veterans, we ventured off into the Tiny Homes and then When you think of Tiny Homes, who do you think of other than that different from Netflix, Tiny Home nation or operation tiny house. So what? I reached out to him, and he was our guest speaker, along with HGTV DIY. We had Schooley. We had all of the tiny home community, they just really poured into the students the first week, by talking to them about their design. They showed them the exterior and interior of their tiny home, which really just helped influence the students designs. And it was just really awesome. We have students from last year that really advanced toward architectural design. We brought those students in as instructors. So, we have students instructing students, which created a marvelous, wonderful, sustainable learning environment. We were also able to give students out for those instructors 1000 Dollar scholarships. And then 25 students’ participants, they received a $50 stifling. And that was from June the 15th through the 26th. And again, it was such an overwhelming response from the community. Zach says, Robyn, we have to do something with this. And so, August the 14th, through this past Friday, we had a global camp. We did a 2020 Tiny Home global virtual camp. This was a camp that we put together in the matter of a week and a half. And it was by far our best camp, because we had students all over the world participate. So, we had students from Philly, Argentina, Finland, and India. And also, we had a course we needed more instructors. So again, we reached out to the tiny home nation because they use SketchUp every day and they designed to Tiny Homes every day. So, Zach, he got on his IG. And he just announced it and we had a portion of instructors just volunteering. We had an instructor from India. It’s 5am. In the morning, we’re instructed but you know, she was still there. Then we reached out to SketchUp because we’re using their software. They became a sponsor. They gave all of our kids a free license, student pro version license.

Robyn Donaldson  39:28   I mean, it’s just like, I like it. Like he was just saying, once you just put something out there, the universe responds. And it was everything that we needed. It was given or answered in the way of in the inbox of email. We needed someone to assist with the flyers. We needed someone to assist with the website, and volunteers, volunteers, and I could sit here and tell you all about the case. But that’s the design side of it. On this summer, we were able to expose 120 students to architectural design and the construction trades. And they ranged from first grade to 12th grade. That’s awesome. Yes. And all virtual in is a two-week program. And the beautiful thing about the program is because of what it offers. First of all, it offers options to these students, because we feel that third grade is a crucial time for students, as well as the sixth grade, which is where they choose their electives. So, we can reach these kids early on and give them some options. Now they can choose you know, their electives accordingly. Again, like I said, that’s the design side. The building component of that is that we’re wanting to build these Tiny Homes for these homeless veterans and I reached out to her are wonderful, the city of Tampa and there’s some lots that are allocated It Well, we can actually build these tiny homes and to help with acquiring those lots. There’s a campaign that we’re kicking off September the first. And Scott, you can really help us out with this win by spreading the word is a global ask in this called Give a Buck for housing. So, we’re asking everyone, all 8 million people who lived in, in the world, we’re just asking them to donate $1. And that would be to acquire the property and the building for a homeless village for our veterans here in Tampa, Florida. And it’s just, um, I think is a wonderful concept because all lives matter. And we’re encompassing so many, many lives, because again, we’re exposing the students more importantly, we’re letting them know that all things are possible. All things are possible, and then we’re guiding them and then also We’re looking at the veterans who has, I can tell you about the veterans and then how important this is for them to have a home. And for these students to be able to design and to build. We have a lot of businesses, our sponsors who have just jumped on board to help me you know, make it a reality. So, that’s really STEM Exposure in a nutshell.

Scott Peper  42:27  I think that’s really awesome. I could see that being very successful.

Sartura Shuman-Smith  42:31   Let me jump in and something else you can

Robyn Donaldson 42:32  Alright, come on, jump in. Let’s do this. You know, when we’re mastermind and right now, you know that right? We’re mastermind, this is what we do.

Sartura Shuman-Smith All right. everything you just said is amazing, amazing. And so, once these little ones grow up and become women, we can enroll them and the Women Building Futures initiative at the Center for Women. So, if I have an opportunity I can want to just share about that program as well. Robyn is actually if—when we start, I won’t say if. When we are able to start the program of women building futures is our construction initiative for women. And it’s a 16-week program and women learn various areas of construction from carpentry, drywalling, electrical, even the administrative side of construction. And after that 16 weeks they receive a NCCER certification as well as the OSHA 10 certification. Um, the program is amazing and has been in just a viable part of our community for the past, I want to say five years. Well, before I came into that position, and actually garnered national attention from the today’s show, at the end of 2019, the program had been fully funded, but the funding went away. And so that’s been our biggest struggle is how we’re going to get these women in a program that was once free and now it’s going to have to have a cost associated if we do not get support or funders or sponsors. So, I think Robyn was actually one of the contract facilitators for the program. And it’s amazing how what during this pandemic, of course, I get calls on a daily basis about people looking for jobs or looking for career development, but at least five calls a week are for the women building futures program. And we talked about how just opportunities I had a call from a woman last week, who’s actually a teacher, she teaches Language Arts in Italy, but because of COVID, she can’t go back to Italy. So, she said during this downtime, I would love to learn construction. And I see you have the women building futures program. And I said well, because of COVID. You know, we are not able to do this face to face, the location that we had been doing. It is not back open yet. That’s HCC. But we have currently two positions available. So, I’m putting that plug out there. We have two positions right now for two crew members with our construction services program, and if somebody wants to email me, I’m going to say really quickly, it’s my first initial S. And my last name Smith s.smith, at the centre, thecentre.org. Email me and I will refer your information over to our HR program, but we’re looking for two people to work in construction to be a part of the crew. And this woman as I called her back, as I know, you want to downtown right now and I know you wanted to take the class, but would you be willing to apply for the position? What better way to learn, then right there doing that? So, we have people in the program? I think Robyn can attest to this. We’ve had people who were in the program previously, who graduated, get their certification and start have their own construction businesses, or their own handy woman, businesses. Actually, the person who is my go-to for everything here at this house was an employee of the Center for Women in the senior Home Improvement ship construction services, and also participated in the women building futures classes. So, there’s so many opportunities out there to support the efforts that everybody’s out there dealing to. And I just think it’s amazing, amazing what you’re doing with the kids it is I mean, having worked with kids pretty much all my life, it’s just amazing that they’re being given the opportunities to think out of the box to explore other opportunities and to know that they’re, they don’t have to just be you know, whatever it is they might have thought they want it to be or how they can expand or broaden that. So, working with kids working with women and nontraditional job setting is just amazing, because like I said, at least five calls a week are women who Want to build into construction? So, just want to plug that in there real quick.

Scott Peper  47:05   Um, you guys have been so gracious with your time I just realized we’ve talked now almost an hour already. And I just want to make sure before we let you guys go, is there anything else that you guys want to touch on or talk about or that we missed that? I don’t want anyone to not get from you guys while we’re here, at least this first call, maybe hopefully we can do this again. As new things come out and we keep rolling down the road.

Sartura Shuman-Smith  47:27  I Oh, I’m sorry, Robyn. I had a couple of notes that were we talking about women going into non-traditional jobs or young people wanting to go into STEM. And just having those mentors I just think being able to, I think everything starts within the company. I know we talked earlier about what does one do to get someone to see them. But I think it starts within the company, get your company to understand that there are women that there are young people who may want to go into this field, so make it available to them. Change your marketing, you know, when you see billboards or signage, you know make sure you have a diverse marketing plan or, or advertisement in your fliers. net. Provide networking opportunities, like Robyn said with meetup, provide networking opportunities for people to, you know, meet a Scott or Autumn or Robyn Donaldson or Sartura. Make those opportunities available and just educate. You know, the education has to start within the organization. If, you know contractors or construction firms want to hire women, to educate the people that are with you, so that they can speak the language and when I say speak the language when they go out and start talking about what’s going on at their companies or what they’re looking for, or who they’re looking to hire. They can know that well. Yes, no, we are hiring women. We are hiring young graduates, you know high school graduates who want an apprenticeship So, um, and again, you know, research, you know, people should research that’s how out and found me by researching women in construction and found out about our women building futures program and then found out about the Center for Women. So it’s just, you know, getting the word out and working together. I think collaboration is the greatest.

Robyn Donaldson  49:22  Well, there’s three things that I always say is a formula for success, right? So, number one, is to know what you know. Number two, know someone who knows what you don’t know. And number three, that’s all you need to know. And that is going out to all of the women who want to start a business may not know exactly what direction to take. Just know what you know. And do not worry about what you don’t know. Because that’s a big roadblock. And a lot of women becoming successful they feel that they don’t have all that is needed. And in order to do so, however, you just simply find someone who knows what you don’t know. And nine times out of 10 that should be a person of your mastermind group. And, again, just associating yourself with like-minded people. As far as the kids are concerned, and STEM Exposure, spread the message, spread the word and what we’re trying to do with these students, because it’s a game changer. I was speaking with, her name is Teresa Welch at the Boys and Girls Club. And she says, Robyn, you’re doing something that there hasn’t been a school can do. I was like, Okay, what is that? What does that she said you’re able to teach a student 1^st through 12th grade, a software that they have never used before in a two week period, and then they can turn around and make money that next day which is really what the program does. And because, I mean, we’re using the program for architectural design. But these kids have an opportunity to use a software where they can create anything. Knowing that all things have a beginning, you can learn how to design. So again, it’s just really exposing these kids to different options. And again, letting people know what it is that we’re doing. So we can impact more people. The whole mission is, of course, to expose but also to revitalize communities. And we can do that by the participation and the assistance that we get from our sponsors. So just sharing the word and I’ll get back with you on that given up for housing. But that definitely, we want that to definitely happen so we can house some homeless veterans.

Scott Peper  51:50  I gotta thank you guys so much. I’ve really learned a lot, I hope and I think most of our audience will too. And I just really want to thank you guys again for taking the time and for what you do. Both of you are very generous. Just with your time and your efforts and your energy, and I can see why your organizations are and will be successful even further. And anything we can do myself personally and our team will definitely help you do for sure.

Sartura Shuman-Smith  52:10  Thank you. Thank you for having us.

Robyn Donaldson  52:14  Yes. Thank you so much for having us.

Scott Peper 53:00  You’re welcome, everybody. I hope you guys enjoyed this. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you, Robyn. And as always, Autumn I appreciate your help on this too. And everyone, have a great day. We look forward to seeing you again next time. ­

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

What is a bid bond?

A bid bond guarantees compensation to the owner should the subcontractor fail to perform the work at the original bid price.

Why does the owner need a guarantee for performance and price? Every project has a budget and a timeline. Most owners have other stakeholders in the project to whom they are accountable, so there is a real need to stay within the budget and on schedule. A subcontractor who suddenly refuses to do the work or refuses to do it at the original price is a big problem for the owner, so they safeguard against it with a bid bond.

Bid bonds are common in government or municipality jobs, since they have budgeted specific taxpayer dollars to perform a certain project. They need to know when they put out  a bid that the subcontractors awarded the work will stay within budget and can perform the work.

How does a bid bond work?

What happens if the subcontractor doesn’t perform the work, or says they can’t perform the work at the originally bid price? The owner can then go to the subcontractor’s bond agency. The bid bond typically covers the difference between the lowest and second lowest bid, and this amount is paid by the bonding company to the owner. The bonding company may sue the contractor, depending on the bond’s terms, to recover the costs. The agency may also seek to install a new contractor at the original bid price or lower.

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How to Make Your Construction Company…

Cash flow can make or break the success of your project. Mapping out a project’s cash flow on a week-by-week schedule allows you to see the gaps and solve for them in advance. Getting it right starts by getting your bid right. Establishing the costs of your project, and the cost of running your business, is critical to estimating your bid. Finally, when you have the cash flow of every project estimated and scheduled, you have a solid foundation on which to build your business’s profitability.

CEO Scott Peper and Senior Commercial Underwriter Andrew Schwartz joined Michael Williams of Levelset for a complete crash course on setting up your cash flow to get the work done AND make a profit.

• The difference between margin and markup, and how much you’re REALLY making
• How to accurately estimate your company and project overhead for a smarter bid
• Why properly mapped out weekly cash flow will save you from penalties and conflict

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Cash Flow Management Tips for Small…

How do you determine whether a candidate will be a good fit in your company? Many hiring managers base the decision on skills and experience alone. What these managers do not seem to realize is that a good culture fit is equally, if not even more important. Hiring with your culture in mind can improve your new talent outcome, increase retention, build greater camaraderie among your team, and even increase productivity.

Why Culture Matters

Whether you have intentionally built your company’s culture or not, your workplace has a culture. Even a toxic culture is, in fact, a culture. It is the personality of your organization, and it greatly affects how your team performs. A negative culture has serious business consequences, including greater risk of workplace accidents. Employees are also more likely to leave a negative workplace culture when a new opportunity presents itself, and if word gets out about your culture it becomes harder to hire new employees.

Hiring a bad culture fit can have serious implications to your company’s productivity and employee morale. Companies are like any other community — they function on a network of agreements, compromises, and shared goals. When someone enters the organization and starts to make waves, it disrupts everyone on the boat. Processes start to fall apart,

A Good Culture Fit Should Be Part of Your Hiring Strategy

Increasing employee retention, decreasing employee turnover, increasing productivity, and cutting recruiting expenses are all good reasons to make “culture” part of your hiring strategy. How do you hire for culture? The first exercise is to understand your own culture so you can find a good match.

Once you know who your company really is, you can seek out candidates with similar values, work philosophies and personality traits. If you are a team of collaborators, put “likes to collaborate” in your job posting requirements. If your company isn’t great at communicating directions, be honest that you value “independence and self-direction.” If your company’s work environment is filled with stress, conflict, and aggression … maybe work on that before you hire someone new.

Improving Your Culture to Improve Recruitment

If talking about your company’s culture makes you cringe, there’s good news — you can change your company’s culture! And we mean YOU, specifically. Culture needs to be embodied and modeled from the top of the organization, so the change starts with you.

Define your company’s values.
What do you stand for? How do you want your company to be thought of among your peers, partners, and the larger community? You must first define the values that are true to you as a business leader, then implement those values throughout your organization.

Bring your team into the fold.
Culture cannot be mandated; it must be grown. That means sharing your vision and values with your team and listening to their feedback. Encourage an open dialogue of where your company is now in terms of culture, where you want to be, and ideas of how to get there.

Intentionally changing your culture may lead to a few uncomfortable moments — be prepared for it and remember the goal is worth the effort. If you are modeling the core values every day, your team will start to follow your lead. And if one or two of your employees don’t, it may be time to let them find a place where they are a better culture fit.

Set culture expectations early.
Make your vision and values part of your hiring strategy and on-boarding materials. Discuss your expectations with potential new hires and check in with them often during their first few weeks to make sure they are experiencing the values first-hand from the rest of your team.

Charles Covey, President of Alphapex, a waterproofing company based out of Austin Texas, says new recruits get introduced to the core values immediately. “They are in the on-boarding paperwork. They have to read them, they have to understand what they mean, and they have to agree to uphold them.”

Recognize employees who live your values.
Employee recognition doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. A verbal “that’s the way we do it!” from leadership can mean more to an employee than a formal Employee of the Month certificate. It’s all about authentic recognition and feedback. Encourage your employees to recognize and reward each other when they are upholding the company values and promoting a more positive work culture.

Reflect and refocus often.
Everyone in construction wears a lot of hats and taking time away from securing new work and managing projects to focus on something “soft” like culture might feel like a waste of time. It is not. As soon as you stop prioritizing culture, it starts to slip. You have to work at culture every day. Make it part of every team meeting, every business decision, and every new hire.

Focusing on your culture, and hiring good culture fits, will improve your reputation among your candidate pool, build employee loyalty and increase retention, and create a workplace people are genuinely proud to be a part of.