30 Years of Building Luxury: Jim Sasko’s Journey with Teakwood

00;00;00;00 – 00;00;15;10
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

00;00;15;10 – 00;00;27;13
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Blue Collar Startup, the podcast where hard work meets big ideas. This is your home for real talk, real stories and real strategies from the front lines of life and the business of the trades. I’m one of your hosts, Mike Nelson from Five Towers Media.

00;00;27;15 – 00;00;31;12
Speaker 3
And I’m your co-host, Derek Foster. Diego Clinic Systems.

00;00;31;15 – 00;00;34;09
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, I’m just asking the builders.

00;00;34;12 – 00;00;35;22
Speaker 1
Well, Jim.

00;00;35;24 – 00;00;39;09
Speaker 2
How we do it. Thanks, guys. Appreciate being invited on.

00;00;39;11 – 00;00;59;16
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So now we’re going to we’re going to kind of, jump right into it. But before we do, obviously, you know, we want to take a quick moment here just to give a shout out to our sponsors. These are the folks that help us raise money for tools and tuition for kids locally here at Boces, Hvac, or what we commonly call the the blue.

00;00;59;19 – 00;01;23;19
Speaker 1
Our college here, because of all the great trades. So, you know, big shout out to, the folks over at People’s Martin Electric, MLB construction, Binotto Construction, Michaels Group, Catamount Consulting, northeast call it our I’m Sorry, Northeast Construction Trades Workforce Coalition, and of course DS team and Diego Cleaning Systems. My team over at Five Towers. So let’s get right into it, guys.

00;01;23;21 – 00;01;35;07
Speaker 1
Jim, tell us a little bit about, about yourself, about teakwood. I mean, you know, you guys are pretty well known locally, but we’ve got, listeners all over the country, so we want to educate them as well as who we are and who we are.

00;01;35;09 – 00;01;56;08
Speaker 2
Well. Oh, thanks. So I’ll tell you a little bit about secret. First, Quinn is a reference for some of the design build remodeling and new construction build contractor. So what does that mean? So we will take on projects for a client that has something as small as a bath remodel in their home, a basement set up, small additions.

00;01;56;08 – 00;02;20;14
Speaker 2
And that is done with a design team on our our staff that will help run the program of what the need is, develop the drawings, and then our estimating team puts budget numbers together. Our planners put together all work specs and our team signs off on a contract. And then the other production side of it will build the project.

00;02;20;16 – 00;02;26;21
Speaker 2
That’s one aspect of what we get involved in. And then the other would be we refer to as kind of luxury.

00;02;26;21 – 00;02;27;17
Speaker 1
Level.

00;02;27;20 – 00;02;55;10
Speaker 2
Building. And what does that mean usually entails a architecturally designed project that is, as the word custom is used quite a bit, and that is a fair deem to call a custom luxury. Usually starts with a little bit more of an investment range, dollar investment for the build on that. And that’s because of a lot of the products that are being included within those builds.

00;02;55;12 – 00;03;19;10
Speaker 2
That may be the complexity of the project and may be, a location does play a factor to that. If we’re building lakefront homes or something to that effect, there is more complexities of building lakefront projects. And again, the fit and finish, how it gets better finished as the end result. It’s it tends to be that that really, truly bespoke finish project that we we love doing that that’s a good fit for us.

00;03;19;13 – 00;03;43;28
Speaker 2
What we don’t compete with is our lack of it in terms of production, the whole building aspect. So we’re not a developer. We don’t buy land and build homes on it. We do more spotlight builds that are designed by an architectural team, and then we convert those visions into real products and building products. This is our 30th year in business, so happy birthday.

00;03;43;28 – 00;03;50;12
Speaker 2
And and one more week, we’ll be 30 years old. Nice is remarkable because I don’t look a day older than 35. Right.

00;03;50;19 – 00;03;52;21
Speaker 1
So,

00;03;52;24 – 00;04;12;24
Speaker 2
I started the business, is, you know, it’s fun facts like, how did people say, how did you get into this? Right. And I, I didn’t I got into owning a business. Operating a business because you usually don’t know any better at that age. 26 years old. And I’m told you’re doing pretty good at this on your own.

00;04;12;26 – 00;04;18;08
Speaker 2
You should stick with it. And you grow this thing to be something.

00;04;18;11 – 00;04;37;07
Speaker 2
Sounds great. Right? And you get peers that you trust in and are telling you you got something. So you build upon that, but you don’t know the hurdles that you’re about to face. And you keep running and you keep running and you trip and fall and you pack up and you keep running, and you it evolves over time to the point where you’re like, wow, I’ve built something.

00;04;37;07 – 00;04;59;27
Speaker 2
Now that I don’t think I’ll go backwards where I’ll have to and reinvest more dollars and more time, more people, more energy into this thing and get better results. Because right now what happens is wealth results. And I guess that’s entrepreneurship, right? Like, we we are driven by so many factors of what we do. Sometimes this is the success of what we’re building.

00;05;00;05 – 00;05;22;05
Speaker 2
Sometimes it’s dollars that we’re earning, but sometimes it’s just the fact that we’re building people to become better at what they are and who they are and what this industry is, and that today that’s that’s me. Like when people say, when you love, we do. And we as a loving do they think, yeah, we can share some really cool projects we’ve been involved with.

00;05;22;05 – 00;05;47;02
Speaker 2
And that is exciting and that’s really cool. And I like having awards for some of those projects at night. But I, I certainly get more gratification out of hearing from a person that has been employed as part of this team for 25 years, talk about where they’ve gone to, how their lives have changed, what they’ve grown into, how what they do for their families to this point.

00;05;47;04 – 00;05;56;03
Speaker 2
And, you know, that’s that’s a bigger feather in the cap to say I had something to do with that, you know, just just with some leadership skills. Yeah. Enjoy it.

00;05;56;03 – 00;05;58;28
Speaker 1
All, Jim. Oh go ahead.

00;05;59;00 – 00;06;10;12
Speaker 3
I was just going to ask Jim, what did your what did your role look like in the early days. And you know, how did that evolve over time as you begin to hire employees and what did that look like for you?

00;06;10;15 – 00;06;29;25
Speaker 2
I and I was the hands on. So I did go to school. I’m I’m a Hudson Valley grad and, finished up to, you know, it’s a valley. And I did transfer out to Utica College and did their construction management program. I, I’d say Hudson Valley programs often back in the early 90s, and it still is today.

00;06;29;27 – 00;06;46;05
Speaker 2
None of my professors are there anymore, but there was a period of time when I would go back and speak to the students for for a while just to, you know, share my story, tell them about how I got started and how the program there has helped me through my years. So I was to answer your question.

00;06;46;06 – 00;07;14;26
Speaker 2
Yeah, I was a hands on. I knew how to do parts and the craft good are good enough. Some better, some some not so good. And so earlier my years, I went from truck to rolls, running with my feet off the ground. Estimates at night, sales at night, learning how to track dollars and and to figure out did I actually make $15 an hour on this job, or did I make $3 an hour on this job?

00;07;14;26 – 00;07;41;25
Speaker 2
So you learn those lessons very early on, and I knew better to to scale up from those things and would find out that I could find somebody that was a better trained carpenter than I was and bring them on board and hire them. And that worked well. And I was a more of a project manager, and I find somebody that understood project management, but yet they still work with the tools that make me a little carpenter, and I was able to move again.

00;07;41;27 – 00;08;08;19
Speaker 2
So it was absolutely like an organic growth and with a lot of advice from, again, as I say, peers, National Association of Home Builders, you know, I would attend seminars, listen to whatever I could and and websites, joined a peer group, learn from local trades and just kept building that business.

00;08;08;21 – 00;08;16;26
Speaker 3
How long did that take for you to get out of the field and more into that, that project management role?

00;08;16;28 – 00;08;40;05
Speaker 2
I said I was in business for 30 years. Right. So you’re asking a question, that might go back in time. So I’m going to say likely eight years ago or within the first eight years, I figured out that, okay, I’m doing project management, but yet what’s more important, ad started. I built a machine that I had to start building in order to feed that machine.

00;08;40;05 – 00;08;53;21
Speaker 2
You had to meet with new clients and make sure that there was marketing set up to attract those new clients. So probably between 8 and 10 years in, I would step further and further out of the project management role.

00;08;53;23 – 00;09;02;07
Speaker 1
And did you always work on the kinds of projects that you’re working on now, or was that something that it evolved over the decades that you’ve been in business?

00;09;02;10 – 00;09;31;08
Speaker 2
It evolved for sure. I don’t think anybody steps into this industry in the building remodeling and say, I am only going to do luxury level stuff like that and have to build that reputation, get to earn that reputation is what you should say. And no, I, I will say this when I was, when I was in high school, I started, framing carpentry career, and I was actually 15 years old, and I used to ride my bike down the street because they were building new homes on a cul de sac.

00;09;31;08 – 00;09;59;24
Speaker 2
And I was fortunate to get picked up by a family run business as a parent, as a laborer, on a framing career. And within I worked for them each summer or winter breaks. And then it was my high school senior high school year, or maybe was my first year of college. If you recall, in the early 90s, key bank executives were moving to the area because KeyBank was headquartered in Albany, and I was able to frame some of these homes that were being built for these KeyBank executives.

00;09;59;24 – 00;10;19;23
Speaker 2
And I mean, you talking mid 90s, maybe early 90s, these homes back then, I think we’re over $1 million. So you can imagine how cool they were. So there was the taste. I had a taste of what that was like back then. And I always felt like, boy, if there’s something I really want to be involved in, I want to do more of that.

00;10;19;26 – 00;10;43;06
Speaker 2
And Baroness, this is still upstate New York. We didn’t see as much of it back in the 90s, early 2000. So, you know, Saratoga was the right home base for business. I moved my family here. So we we saw, you know, when the remodeling perspective a things that we could improve homes and improve them with really nice luxury level products.

00;10;43;08 – 00;11;08;16
Speaker 2
So that’s more of, you know, the slower organic introduction into that type of business. Again, scaling up from what I thought was going to be, you know, just remodeling business turned into a would you consider building this home? Because we were looking for that level of craftsmanship in the home that you guys are remodeling. But we needed that new construction.

00;11;08;19 – 00;11;16;03
Speaker 2
We we we entered that field almost ten, 15 years ago. And into and new construction project as well.

00;11;16;05 – 00;11;26;04
Speaker 1
And that just kind of happened organically for you where you were running your business day to day. And someone reached out and was like, hey, I really love your work. I’m going to build this amazing home, and I want you to do it.

00;11;26;07 – 00;11;49;13
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, maybe not in those words, but yeah. And like, yeah, that’s you know, it was it was like would you consider, you know, is this, is this a good fit for a year team I like what you did here. And again you lessons learned. You know at first like okay if we’re remodeling we would do everything. You know, we had we had to keep it good and some really, really good talents on the team.

00;11;49;15 – 00;12;07;29
Speaker 2
So we could we could even set a foundation, you know, we knew enough how to set some forms or something, which is ridiculous that we wouldn’t try to do that because they know how to do it better than we do. And they’re faster, more efficient than we are foundation groups. So but we would I think that house was like, I we didn’t do the foundation, but let’s do all the framing, let’s do the roofing.

00;12;07;29 – 00;12;33;08
Speaker 2
I see the siding, I do all that work. And you’re like, you engulf your entire team on one bigger project and realize we were, wait a minute, this doesn’t pay all the bills. And we’re leaving our remodeling contractors hanging, our clients hanging. So we again learned lessons learned was like, let’s let’s do it better the next time and find certain trades that do this skill for most of what they do, like a framing contractor.

00;12;33;13 – 00;12;44;09
Speaker 2
And let’s take away the parts that they need us to do. And that was no work. So we had this reputation for doing this outstanding millwork. When each one of the projects we were involved in.

00;12;44;12 – 00;13;12;03
Speaker 1
I, I’m curious because you talk about, you know, lessons learned. You said that a couple times already in the show, right? You know, I, I think most business owners can attest that there are lessons learned. There’s also really hard lessons learned. When you were talking about, you know, I don’t want to say that you. I certainly don’t put words in your mouth that you ignored the remodeling, business, but you kind of moved your focus, right?

00;13;12;03 – 00;13;40;11
Speaker 1
And and then there was a lesson learned there about moving your focus, and. But you still have remodeling clients, when you’re moving up this path of decades for your business and making mistakes and learning lessons along the way, I we’re lessons hard to recover from sometimes. I mean, were there points in your business where you’re like, oh, man, like, I really messed up and I got some serious work in front of me to recover.

00;13;40;13 – 00;14;01;28
Speaker 2
Yes and no. Right. So I also said that when you’re younger, being naive is almost an advantage because you don’t always I didn’t I didn’t have huge expenses. I’ve never I never put myself in a position where I had this massive overhead and I might have had a truck payment, I might have had, or rent for an apartment or something.

00;14;01;28 – 00;14;25;13
Speaker 2
It wasn’t like I was ever in a financial crisis, right? Or for myself out there to have to borrow money to stay alive. So. So yeah. What it what it was to me, Michael, as I’d see gaps in our production schedule, to me, that was the problem. That’s where I fell short. So lesson learned was, boy, I, I can’t be all things to all people.

00;14;25;16 – 00;14;45;14
Speaker 2
And I use the term also and with our team now, it’s like we say it’s a lot to each other. It was like, stay in your lane, you know? And if I had to remind myself, like you, you can’t be all things about people. And if you’re good at doing this aspect of work, stick with that. You know, stick with what you do well.

00;14;45;22 – 00;15;07;15
Speaker 2
Conquer that first before you move yourself on to doing something more complex. And that’s that was that’s the other one of the best things that I well, you don’t figure it out when you’re younger. As I said, you continue to try. Well, I didn’t want I’ll try it again. Test the waters over here. But during the years I’ve been like, okay, let me let me just stay focused.

00;15;07;15 – 00;15;23;03
Speaker 2
This is what we’re good at. This is what we do. Well, we’ll keep focusing on here. And that’s true to this day. Like anybody on the team, if we start to veer off from that, I’ll be reminded from somebody else who say it doesn’t feel like a job we should take on that doesn’t feel right for some reason.

00;15;23;03 – 00;15;25;27
Speaker 2
So it’s good.

00;15;25;29 – 00;15;55;08
Speaker 1
Yeah. That was going to be kind of my follow up question was, you know, like as you mentioned, right, you’re 26 years old. You’re running a new business and you want to just say yes, right? People want to pay you to do stuff like, yeah, I’ll do that. Right. Even. But it’s not necessarily in your wheelhouse. And and so I was wondering of how, how you would now look at that to say, like, I guess I was actually just in a discussion this morning with the group of people talking about saying no to the business.

00;15;55;08 – 00;16;12;11
Speaker 1
That’s not really the right kind of business. Right. But when do you start to say no? Like in the beginning, you might want to say yes to everything because you need the revenue. But at some point you start to say no. And I’m just wondering what for you. And you kind of answered it. But maybe just to get a little deeper in the details of like, when do you really know that?

00;16;12;11 – 00;16;17;22
Speaker 1
Okay, now I need to start saying no to certain things that maybe are not in our lane, as you phrased it.

00;16;17;24 – 00;16;43;02
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, I don’t think I could tell you there’s a there’s a point like when, you know, I don’t think it’s like a you now know, you have to say no to these things. But the lessons keep happening. But if there’s a, you know, a pivotal point and maybe my maturity and as a business owner was, meeting my wife and, you know, settling down was like, oh, you know, there’s this is real.

00;16;43;02 – 00;17;03;20
Speaker 2
I’m going to now share more of my time, which was primarily invested in one thing and one thing only. And that was business, because that’s what I knew. And I made friends through business. So it was almost like, hey, I’m going to work to be with my friends and operate a business. And, she she was always an inspiration to me.

00;17;03;20 – 00;17;23;29
Speaker 2
When I met her right away, I said, oh, she’s going to be good for me. And, one of the things that she said to me early on and I never forgot as as we were dating, was she was she was in grad school to her MBA and she made a remark or something about, I said something about my company and she said, no, no, no, no, you have a business, not a company.

00;17;24;01 – 00;17;41;21
Speaker 2
So what are you talking about? Just because it’s a business, you are part of that business. You are that business. When you have a company and you don’t have to be part of that every day operation, now you’ve established to be a company and like a trader or something like that. At that point I thought like, okay, what?

00;17;41;23 – 00;18;01;21
Speaker 2
Dissect that. What does that mean to people? And you recognize yourself as like, oh, I’m the estimator, I’m the project manager, I’m doing the sales. I’m, you know, listening, working with the financial people. I’m doing all these things wherein all the hassle, it’s like, oh, you’re right, it doesn’t really, truly operate without me and it doesn’t happen overnight.

00;18;01;21 – 00;18;20;11
Speaker 2
You it takes years to get there. So joke about it. Even to this day when people that part of my team members that have been here for 25, 26 years, we them I would say for the first 20 years we were practicing, it really wasn’t until the last ten years that we’ve evolved into a company, and I do.

00;18;20;15 – 00;18;42;00
Speaker 2
I have pride now. I can say like, hey, I’m not. I’m an integral part of this operation here, but I’m not, and I don’t make all the things happen for all aspects of the company. And it does run without. Well. And so there’s the milestone that we finally hit. Yeah.

00;18;42;03 – 00;18;46;13
Speaker 1
So you can finally go on vacation and, actually go on vacation. Is that that.

00;18;46;16 – 00;18;56;03
Speaker 2
I leave next Wednesday for a trip and I am off grid for five days. There’s no way to get Ahold of me by cell phone, by text, nothing. It is nice. It does work now.

00;18;56;03 – 00;19;14;18
Speaker 1
Yes. Yeah. Derek and I are still trying to figure that out. We think that, like, you know, we’re on vacation, answering text messages, answering emails, trying to, you know, setting appointments and, you know, not not there yet, but you’re still working our way up. That’s that’s there, I guess. That’s right.

00;19;14;21 – 00;19;32;07
Speaker 3
Jim, how did you. What’s, like, the secret to your, being able to get to that point? Was there have you been developing systems and processes over the past? You know, handful of years that really got you to that point, I guess. What really put you in that position?

00;19;32;10 – 00;19;53;04
Speaker 2
Yeah. In the dictionary, the number one thing. Right. So systems and processes are very important. And it’s funny because they know heard you asked a question in the past about like, you know what what system what process or what habit, you know, did you change in order to be this? I think I thought about this and I was like, shoot myself.

00;19;53;06 – 00;20;27;27
Speaker 2
I’m like, I, I don’t do well following process or systems. That’s just my mindset. I’m a rule breaker. I also have probably bad habits that aren’t that good to show people. So. So what did I do? Well, what changed for me is that not one thing. It was the people around me that developed processes and systems. What I did to contribute towards that is participated in peer groups, you know, just not just locally, but I belong to, a national group through.

00;20;28;01 – 00;20;49;16
Speaker 2
Well, was the Nahb with Ashley broken offer on her own and learn from other companies what works for them or what doesn’t work for them and learn from their experiences? We implemented we went through an iOS training about five years ago, and that was a game changer as well. And it helped bring structure to the organization, which I knew I needed.

00;20;49;16 – 00;21;09;26
Speaker 2
I knew I was at that point where I was like, I cannot be the only final decision maker on here. So we established a leadership team. We we follow, you know, a hybrid version of the system. But it has helped sustain our growth and keep the maturity level of, of the operations going the way it should be.

00;21;09;28 – 00;21;15;02
Speaker 2
So, yeah, it’s it’s multitude of things. Never really just one thing.

00;21;15;05 – 00;21;18;06
Speaker 1
Could you use for an integrator for that?

00;21;18;08 – 00;21;41;08
Speaker 2
We use Wendy Walder. Yeah. Oh, nice. Wendy was, like, really fun to work with, and it was a pretty cool experience. Okay, so my peer group members had had done that, and, they, you know, good and bad and different, you know, everybody thinks in a different way. And I guess what you have to realize and you, you have to make yourself into all aspects of that.

00;21;41;08 – 00;21;59;11
Speaker 2
So we started we started slow. We tried, we did a trial. And Wendy was fantastic work with me. We went from a trial to, okay, let’s get into this thing. And it was I think we had our five consecutive meetings with her to build out what we wanted to. We had our own criteria. Here’s our goals for this.

00;21;59;11 – 00;22;21;18
Speaker 2
And we walked away. Is the true story of this again, that that company aspect was we finished on like I don’t remember. It was like a, on a Friday with her. And the following week I was going away. And I’m one of these, you know, off grid trips. And my off road trips included motorcycles, dirt bikes and random areas and dangerous.

00;22;21;18 – 00;22;47;15
Speaker 2
So I broke my foot, right? So broke my foot in another country and had to come back to have a couple surgeries to put myself back together. But what what that did was pull me out of the office. I couldn’t I couldn’t sit up. Right. I had to be at to two surgeries and and I got rebuilt and, I was I was no longer able to participate in the way I had in the past.

00;22;47;17 – 00;23;08;17
Speaker 2
And I like wow, what a perfect timing to have implemented all this other leadership group to make the decisions for me, because we we talked about what happened when you buy a bus. It worked. You know, it was really timing was epic for me to break something. So I was able to step away. I was probably out of the office more than I was in for four months.

00;23;08;17 – 00;23;14;22
Speaker 2
And, you know, that’s that was a probably a worthwhile experience.

00;23;14;24 – 00;23;24;25
Speaker 1
And things kept running, right? That’s running. Things kept running. That’s always. Yeah. That’s amazing. It sounds like a dream to me, Jim. Go break.

00;23;24;25 – 00;23;25;17
Speaker 2
Your foot like.

00;23;25;19 – 00;23;46;05
Speaker 1
That. I know that all that. I mean, I haven’t been on a motorcycle in a few years, but I do similar trips. Whether it was doing like, you know, the, Oh, my God, what is it called? The single double track that runs back to 90 year old man. Yeah. And I used to do some, adventure bike stuff up into, like, Canada and all that.

00;23;46;08 – 00;23;47;13
Speaker 1
All fun, man. A lot of.

00;23;47;13 – 00;23;49;08
Speaker 2
Fun. Yeah, I still do it.

00;23;49;10 – 00;23;50;06
Speaker 1
Easy to get hurt.

00;23;50;11 – 00;24;05;02
Speaker 2
You’re to get hurt. But. But after 50, you got to do certain things to just push yourself a little bit. You got to be outside your comfort zone. And that’s that’s what I found. I was like, this is this is something I’ve always loved to do. And and it’s, you see, some beautiful country.

00;24;05;04 – 00;24;27;26
Speaker 1
Yeah. Jim, I’d love to know. You know, as you look back at the last 30 years, two things businesses always are facing problems, right? Every day as business owners, we’re we’re we’re being hit with problems. We’re trying to overcome things. I’d love to know. Not just like what the what you currently see as one of your larger problems of where your company is now.

00;24;27;26 – 00;24;39;29
Speaker 1
But I’d also love to hear about like, just a big challenge that you overcame over the last 30 years. That really, was a big deal.

00;24;40;02 – 00;25;11;01
Speaker 2
All right, so what we’re challenged with today, well, in fairness, internally, we are challenged with a lot of times is prices, as we all know, since since 2020, prices have escalated far faster than anybody can get a grasp on. So what we’re challenged by is our sales cycle was really long, really long. So it’s in especially on these really more complex projects, one of these sales cycles, we’re working with a client for a year before we start production.

00;25;11;03 – 00;25;39;21
Speaker 2
And nothing slowed down the escalation. Products, materials, labor has just risen and risen and risen. So it’s it’s our biggest challenge, I’d say today is like we keep we we’re not numb to the fact that it’s that it’s going to rise next year. But each time you start to talk about our average kitchen remodel might be now 175 to $200,000.

00;25;39;24 – 00;26;12;04
Speaker 2
And then you use that average kitchen model that you did two years ago. And everything that was used then is now 28% more expensive today. And you just can’t have that. Like, how is that possible? So understanding your numbers, knowing your numbers has been our challenge. Like really trying to track where escalation prices are going next. So my brothers, you know, every part of, of our purchasing here is, is really he’s got his thumb on the, on the pulse of where, where costs are gone.

00;26;12;04 – 00;26;30;03
Speaker 2
So he gets a weekly report on lumber costs. So you’re always watching that because we’re seeing a lot of our projects, which means we’ve got to commit to a dollar based on where the client wants to spend. And tracking that to see where it’s going next is, is, it’s a lot of work, you know, to predict where that’s gone.

00;26;30;05 – 00;26;49;08
Speaker 2
So that’s that’s I’d say our biggest challenge and, and, you know, in fairness, in, in our trade, which I’m grateful for, I love the fact that, you know, I have really talented people that work with me for a long time that make a living at this. They support their families with this, and they are paid well.

00;26;49;08 – 00;27;17;23
Speaker 2
And and that’s great. That’s that’s an expense. But at the same time, I’m proud of that. And they’re not and they’re comfortable being here that I’ve being part of this team. But there’s a cost with having employees. So that ultimately is paid by the consumer that hires us. And that’s it’s it’s the challenge being, you know, always like price conditioning folks, that just cold call to say, I saw this on your website and we’re thinking of doing something similar.

00;27;17;25 – 00;27;36;00
Speaker 2
And then you’re like, okay, quick, the quick math on that. Go back to the job crusher part. What did it cost in 2018? Apply it to today’s numbers and then like and then scared the heck out of them about what I thought. That’s the reality where they go. So so yeah that’s that’s hard. That’s something we deal with a lot.

00;27;36;03 – 00;28;00;25
Speaker 2
And then I’d say, but really the challenge that we overcame that I’m proud of again, is the fact that we were able to staff up in the last five years because there was such a big demand, because we had so much work in front of us. The scary part is, you know, you could hire plenty of people were looking for jobs or jumping jacks.

00;28;00;25 – 00;28;19;26
Speaker 2
People were moving from other companies coming around and everybody was chasing a dollar. Everybody wanted to buck more here or there, and we stuck to our guns. We had we bracketed all our our price structure on all of our, our production teams, rates of what we what. We could fill somebody’s shoes and hire them. And this is what it was back then.

00;28;19;26 – 00;28;55;19
Speaker 2
We wrote job descriptions for all those. We gave them a path of how to improve themselves, how to get to the next level, how to earn more money. And we attracted fantastic new talents that came to us. We we we put it out there from deed to LinkedIn. Signage, anything we could. And the reality was our, our team would attract other carpenters and production folks to come on board because of what they how they communicated to somebody running into the lumber store or Stuart or something like.

00;28;55;21 – 00;29;13;04
Speaker 2
So that was we hired, I think, seven people in the last four years, and it might be more than that now, but that that was we did it. We did it well and we had really good ideas. And I think to me that was a great achievement.

00;29;13;06 – 00;29;26;16
Speaker 1
Well, yeah, especially in the environment that we’ve been in. Right. Where like, I mean, we you know, obviously Derek and I talked to a lot of people in the trades and everybody’s got, problems finding quality staff and keeping them.

00;29;26;16 – 00;29;46;10
Speaker 2
And it’s, you know, finding help was one finding that quality health is the second. Yeah, there was plenty of interviews where we knew we could fill a void, but we just we didn’t we we start to let’s let’s hold on to our values and hire the right fit rather than just a body.

00;29;46;13 – 00;29;59;12
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. If I can paraphrase what you said to me, like what I heard was we have such a great team that other people want to be a part of that team. Is that fair to say?

00;29;59;14 – 00;30;02;04
Speaker 2
Fair to say. Yeah. So saying that way. Yeah.

00;30;02;09 – 00;30;25;14
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well I just because I’m hearing you say it and I’m like, it just sounds like such a testament to having a solid company culture and having a team that wants to be the best, that it strives to be the best. And how just that alone, because that’s always been a goal of mine, is our with our company is to be so good that people want to work with us because we have such a great team.

00;30;25;17 – 00;30;38;19
Speaker 1
They vibe so well, they’re doing great work and people want to be a part of that, right? Like no one wants to be a part of the loser team. Like they want to be part of the winning team, right? So yeah, yeah, it’s amazing. I love it.

00;30;38;21 – 00;31;00;24
Speaker 2
And it’s been a success. You know, tracking was one thing. And then keep it is the next aspect. And we’re we’re I believe we’re different. I think once they join on and they understand we’re an open book company, we set goals together in the beginning of the year. We’re reviewing every quarter. I still do all the reviews for my teammates, so I have one on one.

00;31;00;27 – 00;31;22;12
Speaker 2
I’m involved with enough of my team members on all different levels where I’m constantly getting feedback moves. So it’s it’s good to to get the, you know, always be engaged as well as my, my thing, always engage with whatever’s happening on your just at whatever level sometimes on the surface, but at least I acknowledge and I’m engaged in whatever is going on.

00;31;22;14 – 00;31;52;27
Speaker 1
You you’ve mentioned or we’ve, we’ve talked about processes and systems a little bit. You mentioned company values in there. You know, on the show we’ve been talking a lot, with guests and like with people like Bill Tansey, that comes on the show from out back shop. We’ve been talking a lot about organizational charts. And you mentioned, you know, showing people a path for growth in the company is the I’m just curious if the organizational chart or version of it is something that you use to help chart that path.

00;31;52;29 – 00;32;17;24
Speaker 2
Do we use accountability chart? Yeah, no, and that’s pretty clear of what that is. It’s, you know, an accountability chart is, I think for us serves one purpose. It’s like, who’s with the remote reporting metrics? You know what most everybody reporting to a little bit of a hierarchy of shows to that that helps in that aspect. I also have my own what I refer to as an upside down or a chart.

00;32;17;26 – 00;32;51;08
Speaker 2
And it’s it’s purposely done for us internally and it’s just sort of a mindset that we have where we, we put production on top and put everybody else as support underneath that. And the point is that I drive home all the time is we’re a construction company first. And if we can ensure that our production team is doing their job to the best of abilities with all the answers they need, all the materials and all the right trades that you perform that work, we all succeed.

00;32;51;10 – 00;33;14;03
Speaker 2
So that’s one way. It doesn’t necessarily show you the hierarchy of how to move up, but they they grasp that idea where it’s like, okay, we put that production team on top and everybody underneath that supports that team by whatever their role is in here. Then taking it farther, we have a job description for each each person within the team.

00;33;14;06 – 00;33;37;08
Speaker 2
And there are we we hired, I mean, the example of hiring a whether a laborer or an apprentice that comes to the field. And this is something fun we’ve done. Last summer, we had two apprentices that were hired on earlier in the season and had moved up to what we call a carpenter, one level. And, I’m not the one that makes the decision.

00;33;37;08 – 00;34;03;13
Speaker 2
It’s the carpenters who are the lead carpenters. Make the decision and say, hey, you know, Tom’s doing really well at this. Let’s let’s have the conversation with him and build out a self-evaluation score. Talk about what his strengths have are now compared to when he started. And they perform this a small test. They haven’t built a set of sawhorses within a certain time frame line under them.

00;34;03;16 – 00;34;21;12
Speaker 2
And then if they do it within the 20 minute allocated period with the raw materials, they have an a half baked plan because that’s reality, right? You don’t always have all the information they have to solve for some of those things. And if they do successfully, the team brings them up to the next level. And to become a carpenter one, you know, and then it happens the same way.

00;34;21;12 – 00;34;43;04
Speaker 2
If carpenter ones are eligible to become a carpenter or two, they’ll be carpenter role. Well, let me know or let them know that you know your your experience level or brought in to the next level. And with that each one comes a different pay grade, you know, so they strive, you know, two factors. One, they want the title to they know that there’s more money involved in it as they grow.

00;34;43;06 – 00;35;03;19
Speaker 1
I know we’ve got to jump over here to the Patreon side so we can keep things on time. But, you know, one of the questions I had as we’ve been going through is, you know, you said you you have some employees that have been with you for 20, 25 years, which is an incredibly long time and an amazing thing to I’m sure, to be able to say, let alone for me to be able to hear.

00;35;03;19 – 00;35;09;23
Speaker 1
Right. So I would what does the what’s the secret to retention?

00;35;09;26 – 00;35;37;16
Speaker 2
Man, you know, if I, I, I, I think there are some think of those people that have been here and it’s it’s now when he I think somebody is coming up in their 27th year and volunteer. I mean three years after I started this business. Yeah. I hire them and hire them as like a laborer, you know, and it’s somebody that now runs multi-million dollar projects and it’s just back capable.

00;35;37;18 – 00;35;58;19
Speaker 2
They don’t. That core group grew with the company. So they’ve seen the hard times, but they also have contributed to the growth of the company. They all have a stake in the game here. Like we we are pretty, as I said, open. But we’re also pretty clear on there’s a job to be done. You know what your task is.

00;35;58;19 – 00;36;23;10
Speaker 2
You know, your crews are you own that component, but you also benefit when you succeed at that component. So there’s there’s and I think I know I’ve always had that mindset that just include people in the bigger picture and how things operate, how things grow so that there’s more buy into that. And I truly believe that that that is why they’re still here.

00;36;23;10 – 00;36;40;03
Speaker 2
And it’s not just we didn’t, you know, and come up out of the out of this, you know, was paying people a lot of money just to stay. There’s ownership. They all believe they they have a piece of it. They’ve got a stake in the game. And and they still strive for that. Love it.

00;36;40;06 – 00;36;52;24
Speaker 1
Jim, I know we got a, jump over the Patreon side, so don’t go anywhere. But, for people that are listening to the main episode right now, if they want to learn more about teakwood. But who you guys are, what you guys are doing, projects that you’re working on, how do they find you guys?

00;36;52;27 – 00;37;05;22
Speaker 2
Hey, funny, any social media outlet, that we have right now between Facebook, LinkedIn, my email address can be posted on your website, if that’s helpful. And happy to happy to chat.

00;37;05;25 – 00;37;24;01
Speaker 1
Awesome. Love it. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for everybody for listening. Of course, if you are not familiar with the Patreon side of what we do, you know we do a short segment after the show that it’s for our membership only crowd. It is a subscription. It’s a whopping $5 a month, guys, but it just helps to, get some more resources for the show.

00;37;24;03 – 00;37;40;24
Speaker 1
And, you know, the information that we’re putting in there is designed specifically for folks that are trying to grow and scale businesses in the trades, right. From folks like Jim, talking about how they did it and kind of get know a little bit more detail, whether it’s hiring, sales, marketing, all the things that you guys are trying to figure out.

00;37;40;24 – 00;37;49;20
Speaker 1
So hop on over to the Patreon side. I’m sure Taylor will put a link in the, show notes for us. And thanks for listening, and hopefully we’ll see you on the other side.

00;37;49;20 – 00;38;17;20
Speaker 1
And that wraps up another episode of Blue Collar Startup. A big thank you to our sponsors, Five Towers Media, Daigle Cleaning Systems, Daigle Fire Solutions, The Michaels Group, Martin Electric, MLB construction, Pinocchio Construction People, and Catamount Consulting for making this podcast possible. And thank you for tuning in. If you learned something or felt inspired. Connect with us on our website at Blue Collar Startup Bio or email us at hardhat Dot CSU at gmail.com.

00;38;17;20 – 00;38;29;23
Speaker 1
We’d love to hear your questions and topic ideas. Help us spread the word by sharing the show and following us on social media for updates. Until next time, keep on building. Keep on dreaming and keep hustling like your future depends on it.

00;38;29;23 – 00;38;45;03
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

00;40;39;14 – 00;40;54;24
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

00;40;54;24 – 00;41;10;05
Speaker 1
Welcome, everyone. Back to the blue collar start up on the Patreon side of things here. We’re we’re still talking to to Jim Sasso from Teakwood Builders out of Saratoga Springs. Jim, just a few questions here for you. And, we’ll let you get back to your day.

00;41;10;05 – 00;41;24;15
Speaker 1
And, first one is when getting started, you know, especially those early years, right? First couple of years, 26 year old Jim, full of piss and vinegar. What do you think the keys to success are.

00;41;24;18 – 00;41;49;05
Speaker 2
Black keys to success? Well, at that time, I thought it was a big truck. Right. I talked to. If there’s a this was asterisk by that, and I said it earlier, there’s one thing you need to stick to sticks. Not only stay in your lane, but learn how to say no keys is success. And not only the drive, not only what it is you want to excel at and focus on.

00;41;49;08 – 00;42;11;14
Speaker 2
And just if I could have told myself know at least a dozen times when I was in my early late 20s, early 30s, I think things would have evolved cleaner. Maybe that’s the right way to say it. Things went wrong either way, but you trip up a lot of times and it’s because of bad decisions, you know? And I didn’t have that.

00;42;11;15 – 00;42;31;15
Speaker 2
I didn’t have a mentor at the time saying like this, guys, we can do it. This isn’t your cup of tea crossing over this line. And, and I’d go at it to the point where you would be like, wow, that I could have lost people. I could have lost money. But it was it was a lot of it was just the fact that I was overambitious or.

00;42;31;15 – 00;42;32;06
Speaker 1
Ambitious.

00;42;32;06 – 00;42;49;25
Speaker 2
Overambitious sometimes that I know, that, you know, I know that’s a key, key to success, but that’s, it’s more like, you know, a restraint. Maybe you have the ability to mature enough to to stick to your what you’re good at and stay there.

00;42;49;28 – 00;43;09;09
Speaker 1
You know, it’s funny you say that, because Derek and I talk about this, and and Derek is very, I don’t I don’t know if admits the right word, but he’s very strong in his conviction in and I agree 100%, but that it’s a process. You have to go through the process and young when you’re young, you try to skip steps and take shortcuts.

00;43;09;09 – 00;43;13;24
Speaker 1
Right. And that that typically leads to bad decisions. Oh, right.

00;43;13;26 – 00;43;28;29
Speaker 2
Right. But you’re also when you’re younger you’re a lot more flexible. So you know, those things are easier to bounce back from. Yeah. Today it would be much harder. It would be much more difficult all the time that, that that some of those mistakes.

00;43;29;01 – 00;43;37;23
Speaker 1
Yeah. What do you think the top things are to avoid? Are.

00;43;37;26 – 00;44;03;22
Speaker 2
Top things to avoid. Ego terribly or ego in a way. There’s you know, it probably again aligns with learning how to say no. But ego can can steer you wrong, and it can be the ego where you’re turning people off that want to work with you. But you, you’re you’re too proud about what you are, what you developed.

00;44;03;25 – 00;44;09;23
Speaker 2
Staying humble is, is going to take people a lot farther. I love it.

00;44;09;25 – 00;44;11;07
Speaker 1
Ego is the enemy.

00;44;11;09 – 00;44;14;09
Speaker 2
You know the enemy, right? Reinhold?

00;44;14;16 – 00;44;18;01
Speaker 1
Yeah, I love it, I love Ryan, I read all that stuff.

00;44;18;03 – 00;44;20;26
Speaker 2
Yeah, like. Well.

00;44;20;28 – 00;44;34;14
Speaker 1
So let’s go back to, the early days, you know, when, you know, and for people that are in this position currently when you’re getting ready to hire your first employee, what are the things that you should consider, especially like before you make that hire.

00;44;34;16 – 00;45;00;11
Speaker 2
Yeah. So so you’ve heard this and I, I do I talk with again local folks that talk about like I need to find somebody to fill my shoe. I need to hire somebody like me that could just take my place. And my response to that is, no, that’s not going to happen. Number one, you need to hire somebody that’s got the strength for your work.

00;45;00;13 – 00;45;26;27
Speaker 2
And that’s, often, sometimes counter-intuitive. When we think we’ve got the person. I’ve made plenty of hires based off of a written job description, I think is exactly the person we need. And then I go through an interview process and realize, like, wow, half of those things don’t really fit this person’s strengths. But boy, did they blow me away when she told me she had these capabilities as I never even thought of that.

00;45;26;27 – 00;45;48;02
Speaker 2
So I will modify job descriptions based on somebody’s strengths. And I that’s that’s the piece that I, I would recommend for somebody like thinking about, hey, I’m gonna make a hire, make my first hire. Don’t think you’re going to fill your own shoes or find somebody like you mimic you look for somebody that’s got strengths, where your weaknesses are.

00;45;48;04 – 00;46;13;12
Speaker 1
I’m curious, as you grew through your business over the years, was was that something where it became more of, intentional activity where you’re like, all right, I need to hire someone that has these skills and and formulate kind of a plan to do that. Or was it more. It was. I’m sure at some point in time, it became less fly by the seat of your pants in your hiring and more systematic.

00;46;13;12 – 00;46;18;27
Speaker 1
But I’m just wondering, you know, maybe like where along the path line or where along the path, did that happen? You know.

00;46;18;27 – 00;46;42;03
Speaker 2
The first person, 15, 20 years or more, there was a there’s a hot body that knew the craft. Let’s put them in that place. They know what they’re doing. But that was fill the void, fill the void. Then it became we might not need more people on that level. We might need somebody that has more managerial aspects or, you know, strengths in these departments.

00;46;42;03 – 00;47;12;22
Speaker 2
So. So yeah, now it’s it’s it’s much more formalized. You know, we we look at our company structure and know when there is certain job descriptions that have a need for them. And despite some of the talents that have applied for those it and it doesn’t really fit the company need it. It just doesn’t work. It can’t. You can’t just hire anybody like I used to it because they were again, you know, a warm body to fill a void that we needed.

00;47;12;24 – 00;47;20;23
Speaker 2
It’s now, you know, what the, the purpose of that job is and and we’re gonna stick to our guns on that. So. Yeah.

00;47;20;25 – 00;47;44;17
Speaker 1
Okay. Obviously the market has changed a little bit over the last 30 years. As far as strategies that you’ve employed that work the best for finding new clients? Maybe it’s still the same, or maybe it’s changed. Like what? What have you seen that’s worked the best from, finding new clients standpoint.

00;47;44;20 – 00;48;10;04
Speaker 2
We we have we’ve earned a lot of repeat business. Having been in that for 30 years. There’s a there’s definitely the benefit of having repeat business. And and that’s you almost on you almost can’t calculate that. But imagine that I have worked in remodeled somebodies kitchen or bathroom and they’re now on their third home that we’re doing other remodeling projects for.

00;48;10;04 – 00;48;37;04
Speaker 2
And that’s been over the course of 20 years or so. That’s that’s again it, you know, where’s our strongest roofer all come from? Organic referrals from past clients to their friends and family. We we do. We really enjoy working with architects. And we’re included to work on an architectural project. It’s architectural design. I mean, we know our role.

00;48;37;05 – 00;49;06;29
Speaker 2
Like, I, we don’t we’re not trying to compete with the architectural design. We stick to our our role in that aspect. And our job is to deliver the vision that the architect is sold to the client. And again, that level of referral has had quite a lot of repeat business on us. So the strategy is truly like like really staying focused on doing your best to deliver a great experience for each of those not it’s not always just about the product.

00;49;06;29 – 00;49;22;28
Speaker 2
It’s how was that experience to get through, whether it’s a remodel or a new construction. And yeah, those people, if you give them a good experience, they’ll read about you and, you know, raving fan, that goes a lot, lot farther than any cool slacks. Yeah. We might put together.

00;49;23;00 – 00;49;40;20
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, I’ve Seth Godin calls it sneakers. I don’t know if you ever read any, Seth Godin not, but he talks about you want people that are so excited about everything that you’re doing for them, that they are just walking around like they’ve got a virus and you are the virus and they’re sneezing you all over everybody around them, right?

00;49;40;20 – 00;49;43;00
Speaker 1
Like just infecting everybody with your awesomeness.

00;49;43;00 – 00;49;46;02
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.

00;49;46;04 – 00;49;56;13
Speaker 1
Jim, I know we ask you a lot of questions, and I. I really appreciate the time they spent with us. I, I’m just wondering if there’s anything that we didn’t ask that you hope that we would.

00;49;56;15 – 00;50;27;11
Speaker 2
The mask. We talked a little bit off. Off camera, so to speak, is, about, you know, where things are with, you know, the younger industry. The younger. Yeah, the people entering the trades. And now, just again, a shout out to the northeast construction trades Workforce Coalition. I mean, I, I, I do believe that we’re going to be turning a corner and introducing the trades once again as a real career, not just a job.

00;50;27;13 – 00;50;51;16
Speaker 2
And I and I think I think good interaction with that, I really do I share that I’m seeing a little bit more and I think it’s wonderful that I’ve got younger folks that are more interested in this, and their parents are supporting the fact that this is what they want to do, whether it be and and on the direction team or working with our designers, or frankly, the estimator is understanding the business.

00;50;51;16 – 00;51;13;04
Speaker 2
And it’s it’s happening. There’s more there’s so much more awareness today than there was five, ten years ago. And, I, I’m a optimist. So I, I think we’re going to turn the corner a little bit on this and see more folks interested in this trade. I realize that all the statistics say we’re losing it. We’re losing because all these folks are aging out.

00;51;13;04 – 00;51;26;03
Speaker 2
But I’m an optimist. I think we’re going to we’re going to get there. We’re going to get some some of the right talents that are, junior levels that are going to come into our industry and we’re going to grow them the same way we’ve grown ourselves.

00;51;26;05 – 00;51;44;13
Speaker 1
I’m a believer, too, Jen. There’s a lot of, a lot of people working pretty hard to get the word out there about the trades. And, it’s, not just locally, but across the country. I mean, we see more and more and more of it every day, and it’s very, reassuring, I guess, because it’s if we don’t turn that corner, we’re in big trouble as a country, right?

00;51;44;13 – 00;51;47;20
Speaker 1
Like, right. Right. Who’s who’s going to fix everything when it breaks?

00;51;47;27 – 00;51;48;17
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;51;48;20 – 00;51;57;12
Speaker 1
So, Jim, thanks again for spending time with us and our audience. Really appreciate it. And, this is great. Thanks. So much.

00;51;57;14 – 00;51;58;12
Speaker 2
Thank you both. Yeah.

00;51;58;12 – 00;52;00;07
Speaker 3
Thank you. Jim.

00;52;00;10 – 00;52;00;29
Speaker 2
Likewise.

00;52;01;01 – 00;52;18;14
Speaker 1
Absolutely. And thanks again. Of course, everybody on the Patreon side for being members appreciate, your support here. You know, shoot us a note if there’s any questions you want us to ask our guests. If there’s something you’re working on in your business and you’re struggling with it, maybe you need a little guidance. You know, shoot us a note either through Patreon or shoot us an email.

00;52;18;14 – 00;52;25;20
Speaker 1
And, we’ll make sure to get, get those questions asked and answered by our guests that are coming on. So thanks, everybody. Thanks again, Jim. Really appreciate it.

00;52;25;20 – 00;52;53;18
Speaker 1
And that wraps up another episode of Blue Collar Startup. A big thank you to our sponsors, Five Towers Media, Daigle Cleaning Systems, Daigle Fire Solutions, The Michaels Group, Martin Electric, MLB construction, Pinocchio Construction People, and Catamount Consulting for making this podcast possible. And thank you for tuning in. If you learned something or felt inspired. Connect with us on our website at Blue Collar Startup Bio or email us at hardhat Dot CSU at gmail.com.

00;52;53;18 – 00;53;05;23
Speaker 1
We’d love to hear your questions and topic ideas. Help us spread the word by sharing the show and following us on social media for updates. Until next time, keep on building. Keep on dreaming and keep hustling like your future depends on it.

00;53;05;23 – 00;53;21;03
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.