Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: All right, here we go. Back to our Tuesday shoots, back to.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Our Tuesday shoot in the afternoon, and we're continuing the trend in that. I'm dropping a topic on you right now live, and you've just got to roll with it.
[00:00:23] Speaker A: I can.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: That's the beautiful, beautiful part about being old. Like, I have all these twisted thoughts that I've collected from periods of time. I can generally. Yeah, let's see what. I'm always excited to see what you have.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: It's interesting because throughout the week, I'll have a bunch of inspirations and I'll write them down, but I never actually pick the topic until we're virtually walking in here or ten minutes before it just hits me. Okay, this is the one. Even though I'm prepping, it's just like, ten minutes before I'm like, it's the one. So I'm not super prepared coming in, either, but I know the topic that's coming into mine.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Well, I want to mention something, too, is that we were away this weekend at Yukon watching some soccer. Yes. Shout out to your new sanctioned duds. Sanctioned. Thank you, Doran, for your.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Dorney.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Dorney. Dorney.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: I heard it's Dorn. Just her last name, but.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: I called her Dorney.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: So my point is, we spent 12 hours in the car together, 5 hours on the way up, 7 hours on the way back. We did, and we're still talking. That in itself is pretty damn impressive.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: We are.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: But that's where some of these topics came from, though I definitely do a better job of thinking when we're together, just commenting, having the conversations that we have along the way.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Yes. And I will have some topics in mind, and then something will happen and trigger it like it happened today. So I was just telling you a minute before we started, somebody just posted something on LinkedIn and listed ten people in the construction industry that he really enjoys their content. And he said people that something along the lines of people that create content in construction are on another level. And I think all he means is people in construction don't create content. So if you do, it's a little bit different.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: And it got me thinking about being a differentiator and then even taking that a little further and going into specialization niche versus being a generalist. So I'd like to start there, and then we can delve into having a niche, being unique in what you do. But let's start with the specialist generalist space, which I've thought so much about, because I've thought about this a lot as it relates to sports growing up, because when I was growing up, I ended up being a specialist in soccer by the time I was twelve. So when growing up I played, my parents put me in a ton of sports. I ended up really liking and being good in lacrosse and soccer, playing both very seriously. Very seriously until I got to high school. And once I got there, I had to choose because I was playing club ball and high school, and it was every day. And so by the age of twelve I was specializing in soccer. Now to this day I will say I don't think I would have been able to play at the level I did had I not specialized. At that age, I developed all those technical skills. I see the other side. Well, you're more prone to injury. Your body's working at those same movements, repetitive, over and over and over. You're not getting the other movements from playing various sports. So many coaches now like multi sport athletes because it develops their athletic abilities in different ways. So this is a topic I've been thinking about in a lot of different facets in sports and in business.
The greatest thing is I know what I have done, I know what I believe has worked for me. But I also don't think there's one way. I think you can be very successful as a specialist and very, very successful as a generalist, as we call it. I don't love that word.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: No, I don't either. And I'll tell you why. Because if you don't differentiate in something.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: So that's what I want to get into the generalist piece. But there's more to it than just being a generalist.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. You have to pick something. There has to be something about your repertoire that is differentiated or there's no attraction to it. Now.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Back to the sports analogy.
And was so fortunate enough to coach the girls sports all the way through. I touched on it last time, just talking about the difference between watching parents coach their sons and their daughters differently and teach them as it relates to the sports side. I do think at some point, just because time is so finite, it would be hard to master. I mean, coming from the golf world and knowing how many different things you have to master to be excellent. If you watch the Ryder cup this past weekend, all the different shots they hit, they hit 300 yard drives and then they hit a flop and then they hit a cut and then they hit a. So it takes a long time and a tremendous amount of repetitions to be able to do all that just like any other sport. So at some point the specialization, I believe, comes from just the idea that you have a finite amount of time, and if you're not going to put the vast majority or even all of it into that particular endeavor, and that endeavor, we can build this out into a thousand different things. Into that particular endeavor, you're likely not going to have enough repetitions to compete at the very highest levels. And that's where I think the differentiation. But I was the same way in having lots of different girls. Like for example, I love girls that play basketball because they had great feet.
[00:05:49] Speaker B: Soccer, lots of different girls. As a coach, that came out weird. Having lots of different girls. Oh jesus, what's wrong with you? Nobody was thinking about that.
If you came in right at that moment, you might be like, well, our.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: Listeners listen all the way through, they would never dare miss a nugget.
Having had the good fortune to coach a number of different girls, having three daughters in multiple seasons. Yes, jerk of all.
I love the athleticism, or the type of athleticism that my good basketball players had. The lateral movement, like your thing about doing the same thing over and over. Soccer generally a pretty straight ahead, straightish ahead sport. Man, I love my basketball players. They had great feet. My defenders in lacrosse that played basketball had great lateral movement. So I completely agree with that. And just in general too, I had crazy parents. Like if you've coached, you've had crazy parents who are either living vicariously through their children because they didn't play sports or something has them driven to near madness about how they show up on the sideline or whatever crazy ass choices they're making, screaming this or demanding that when kids not really that good, I forgot where I was going.
But I remember just say, what would you say? I would say respect the seasons. I also love the idea of the seasons. I remember specialization wasn't quite the same thing when I was coming through, and I love shutting down fall and going into the winter season and shutting down the winter season and going into the spring season. That said, before too long I was playing golf around the clock, around the year, very easy summer sport. We would knock off a little bit when it got too cold. But I think that specialization in the sports world is driven by having to focus finite time, because everyone's time is finite towards something, to be able to get enough repetitions in to participate or even compete at the highest level.
[00:07:45] Speaker B: I think if you are playing multiple sports it's going to be great for your athletic ability, but I'm not sure on the technical side you'll be able to get where you need to be.
As I get older, the more and more you've heard that. Everybody's heard that it takes 10,000 hours to be an expert. I'm not sure if it's 10,000 hours, but I do believe more and more it's just that compounding time, like you need to put the time in. And also this is great in theory, but you have to be a specialist in sport. It's going to be around the clock. You're going to be demanded by your club team to be there every day. So it's really not going to be an option for most people.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: And that goes into the work role. Was last time you met a doctor lawyer.
Not too many of those running around. Now, I do know some doctors who have left the field out of frustration because of malpractice insurance and joined the dark side, which is the attorney side for that.
[00:08:36] Speaker B: Exceptions always.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: But in general though, I mean, as you go through your whole mean you're going to have to specialize in something. You might have lots of different interests, but at some point you're going to be an accountant or you're going to be something that's specialized. I mean, Tommy's superpowers relates to creating content. The marketing side, I mean, you're heading down that specialization road in really in any number of different facets of your.
[00:08:59] Speaker B: Life as well as part of specialization obsession. If you're obsessed with something, which is what I think it takes to be the best, I think you have to be absolutely grossly obsessed to be at the top. That's all you're going to want to do right now. As I say that as a segue into the business world, I know I am not a specialist in anything in construction, yet I have managed to build a really successful business the way that I have. I would say for you, on the other hand, you are very much so, a specialist in packaging. So I like the idea of looking at this from two sides of the table and saying it can work in two different ways. And here's what I see and here's my approach and here's my strategy and here's been yours.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: So why don't you start off with how you see it and where you would put yourself? You don't have to put yourself in one box or one camp or the other.
[00:09:59] Speaker A: But no, I can.
Just yesterday our new vp of marketing started and we had a conversation and the simple question was, what makes us us? Which is code for why are we differentiated or with all of the choices that our consumers have. Why do they choose to shop here? And my immediate answer was technical expertise. I mean, that is exactly. So, yes, I would consider us crazy specialized.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: I'm talking about you parts.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: Oh, me individually. Okay, great. I think we can talk about all levels of this.
[00:10:34] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I think you need both as part of a company, but I'm talking about personally, like specialists versus generalists.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: I'm a salesperson.
I'm a salesperson.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I was going exactly there. Dive in.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I'm a salesperson.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: Let's just start here. Would you say that you are a specialist in packaging?
[00:10:57] Speaker A: Yes, I would. But not just that.
We have an automation division because I was wildly attracted to that type of. The packaging solution piece is very interesting. Right. I mean, our job is to get things from point a to point b and not let them break and then pile on some other things as it relates to efficiencies or productivity, what we call the pillars. Yes. There's a very technical component with the goal being get it from here to there and make sure it doesn't break. Now, once we do that, then there's five other things that we would focus, literally five other things that we would focus on. That's part of that. But we have an automation division because I was also very interested in the productivity piece. The market was clamoring for it. There was a tremendous amount of demand. Our supply wasn't right. So that piece I was very interested in.
I'm probably going to contradict the hell out of myself. Yes, I'm a salesperson, but I do have a rather deep understanding of all of the things that go into our business, which I would say allows me to create and articulate the value proposition very, very well. So I am in front of a customer. I am selling, if you will. I don't even love that word. And I'm not anti sales, right. I don't call myself business development because I'm too good for sales. I would just say that my approach after 30 years and what I know and what I'm looking at and the analysis I'm doing for the customer has a very consultant's level.
Do I want to win? Sure. Do I want to sell something? Of course. It's why I get out of bed. But it doesn't occur to me in the moment what I'm really just doing is solving and helping the customer be more profitable, as it's indicated in our tagline. And that analysis piece is all part of it and getting to quantifying it. But it's in support of the sale. But those are all of the different skills that I have learned. So at times, I'll have an engineering hat look on, or at times I'll have different types of engineers. Industrial engineer. We're doing time studies. I might have some input on the mechanics of how something would work better, or if I'm with our engineering team, they're the really smart, true engineers. But I have input because I've been fortunate enough to spend 30 years going to customers locations and seeing how things work. Oh, well, in the such and such industry, they generally feed this that way if we're talking about moving product or something along those lines. So I would say salesman salesperson. But I've definitely built out a very wide range of skills in support of selling things to our customers that would make them more profitable.
That was all over the place.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it was.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: But I think what you're making me do is listen and understand what I do and realize that while I wouldn't call myself a generalist, I definitely not just one thing either.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: So I think I can help God.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: Holy hell. Hurry.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: I think I can help you.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: Oh, my God, Tommy. I'm never showing up with no idea what's going.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: No.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: Ever again.
[00:14:11] Speaker B: Actually, this is why we do this, because it makes you formulate your thoughts, live. What's interesting about it?
[00:14:18] Speaker A: Holy hell. I'm terrified.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: Now, I don't want to say danced around, but you are.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: I was learning real time. I wasn't dancing. I was like, wait a minute.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Do I really do that? Let's break this apart. Packaging. One thing.
Sales separate. You are a packaging specialist. Why? Because you have been obsessed and you've studied packaging. You've been in and around it since you were a little boy.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: True little boy.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: So how many years? Call it.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: I mean, oh, five. Call it 47 years.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: 47 years old. You have done packaging.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: I've been fascinated by boomerangs made out of plywood out of the plant.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: So a, you are an absolute packaging specialist. That's one. You have also developed a skill set as a salesperson. We're going to call it a salesperson, and you have become an expert, a specialist in being a salesperson. So I'm looking at them as two different things. And it's interesting because as I was thinking about, well, what am I as it relates to this conversation? I've only been in construction industry for how many years now?
[00:15:30] Speaker A: Ten.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: No, more. It's been a little bit more than that because I've had my company for seven.
I don't even know, ten to twelve.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: Yeah, that's fair.
[00:15:37] Speaker B: Okay. And I am not a specialist in construction. I could never call myself, especially relative to people that have been in the industry for 40 to 50 years.
However, I do think I've become a specialist in sales and business and how to run a business.
But now I'm contradicting myself, too, because I've only done it for a certain period of time. But here's the difference. I haven't tried to become a specialist, and I haven't been obsessed with construction. What I've done is I've intentionally brought in specialists from the outside. So most of the time, as it relates to my organization, it's subcontractors or typically vendors or manufacturers, and I've brought their expertise.
I've partnered with them. So I have relied on a bunch of specialists outside of our organization and brought them in as, like, part of our team that we heavily rely on to build out our organization. So I don't have that expertise necessarily in house, but we have such strong partnerships with people that do have that specialist. I would say in Arnold packaging, you guys have the specialists in house. And one of the differences is you guys have been around a hell of a lot longer. You're bigger, we're smaller, and we haven't been around that long. So that was my strategy and approach and has been just to get us up and running for.
It's allowed us to get up and running for the seven years. But they're different. But they both work right.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: Well, at the same time, too, though, you have to do something to differentiate those. So I get all that.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: Yeah, but we're talking about specialists and generals right now. I understand we're going to get into that.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: Yeah, but there has to be a component of your delivery that is specialty or specialized, which allows you to be different or you wouldn't have a following.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: That's absolutely right. But I want to stay here for a second because I want to ask the question. I've also been thinking about in business, if you are a specialist, can your focus become so narrow that you aren't able to do as much or be as successful as you possibly could be?
That is not you. I mean, you have started automation, which I would say you personally are not necessarily a specialist in automation. You've brought in specialists. You partner with them. You know enough to be dangerous, certainly, but you've opened your mind and taken on different things inside of your business. But I do think there are people, there's one thing they're very good at. They hone in on it. But they also really limit what they can do because that's the only thing they're focused on. And that could be by choice. What do you think about that?
[00:18:46] Speaker A: I will tell you, I'm thinking about people that I know that are in and around my sphere or our sphere, and think about some of the professionals that we work with. That would be one I'm racing through. My accountant and people that are truly specialized, they picked a discipline and a profession and went head down an accountant into CPA and law school, into the bar, and tremendous amount of commitment into those particular spaces. And I would say that, yes, there are any number of people I've met that are very specialized. I'll use the accounting profession. For example, our tax, the person that does our tax work is very, very focused on tax. If you look at all the things that an accounting firm could deliver as a service, this particular individual, Dave Kamalosi, give Dave a shout out because he's awesome, is hyper focused on tax. And as it relates to tax, he's a wonderful advisor.
But I would say that my experience of people that are hyper specialized, their ability to advise in a wider lane, for example, versus Tod Furman, who also is with the same firm, who is an MBA and a CPA, and he's done all this stuff as well, but not hyper focused anymore. And therefore, his width and the size of his lane to be able to advise is different than someone that is specialized, which I think is what I was realizing when I was talking about myself as well, where if I was just a head down packaging engineer and my specialty was shelf life, I would be awesome at chicken, right? I'd be awesome at beef. And I'd say, well, I do this. I make your shelf life. When you put your chicken in the cooler at the safeway. No one does shelf life like I do. But if you ask me anything, particularly outside that lane, I would have very little to offer in that regard versus the way we've approached. Yes, we are packaging specialists, but have certainly widened that lens to say, you want to ship a missile, we got you. But then flip over here, you want to wrap or unitize something, which is a completely different approach, then we would also have an answer for you as well. So we built out, while being specialized in packaging and even having incredible specialization in certain elements of it. When I say, I'm not kidding, when I say, if you want to bury your tomahawk missile in the desert and dig it up and fire it, you call us. I'm not kidding, we can do that. But then there's any number of other disciplines inside of packaging that we are also experts that have a very different look. So I would just say that those specialists are amazing and you need them, right. If you have something wrong with your body, you want to go to the specialist, right? Someone that doesn't do, they don't do eyes and arms and skin and they're not this hybrid cross training shoe that's not exactly good at anything. You would go to a specialist and say, no, it's right here. And I want the person that does this. I don't want any Overlap, by the way. It's called a general practitioner. That is a generalist for sure, and at least get you in the right direction. Be an advisor to say, I don't know, I got this thing that hurts over here, and they dig in only so far, and then they're going to probably give you the hand off to somebody that's a specialist.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: I agree. I think there's an absolute need for both. And I totally agree. I've also seen a pattern, and I'm not talking, like you pointed out, an eye surgeon specialist. All they do is they work on eyes. I'm talking more in the entrepreneurial world that the world we're in. I have noticed a trend that a lot of ceos or founders at the top are generalist a lot of the time. And I'm not sure if there's a correlation with. When you are more of a generalist, your creativity, there's no bound there, right? You're not wholly focused on one thing, and thus you're able to open your mind and your creativity up. It's broader, there's more depth, and it allows you to do more things.
It's bothered me for a while, and I've told you this on and off throughout the years while I was building Taylor construction and supply. I'm like, I'm not an expert in any one thing, like not one product we have where I'm just an expert. And it really bothered me until I realized this actually really works for me because it allows me to do a lot of different things. And what I'm really good at is establishing those relationships with the specialists so I can bring in all these different specialists under our umbrella and partner with them, and then it allows us to have that expertise in house. But I can stay up top and be more general. And I think that's really helped with our ability to do more, offer more things, be more creative, see outside the lines, not get stuck in one area. So now I love it and I've started to lean into it. But here is where you were going. And you cannot simply be a generalist and be successful.
There has to be something that, a unique factor that makes you different or you find some sort of niche. I'm not saying you can do a lot of different things, but some kind of niche that you're the best at, that another organization may not be. You were about to say something.
[00:24:37] Speaker A: Well, yeah. So I want to ask you a question, because you said it used to really frustrate you and or piss you off. That was that one of the times when we would have a conversation, you would talk about impostor syndrome?
Is that one of those moments? Because that was a very new term to me.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: Just so the audience knows now, that's all anybody talks about. But we're talking like six years ago, it was a newer concept, right? Yeah, 100%.
[00:25:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
That was an interesting word.
If I had known that word when we were creating the automation division, which, as you're right, I was not an expert on, my job was to identify the demand and then figure out the puzzle pieces to put together to speak to that demand.
I was more along the lines of, because in talking to our younger teammates, I remember one of the first meetings we had with our emerging thought leaders, this idea of an impostor syndrome came up. And it was one of our young engineers who said that he was in engineering school at Maryland, and he felt like he didn't belong there, like he wasn't good enough to be there or he wasn't as smart as anybody else in the room. And he used that impostor syndrome. And I thought, wow, if I had known that term, I imagine I could have applied it to myself when building the automation division. Now, I would say that we certainly were faking it until we became it. I don't mean faking it in a disingenuous or an inauthentic way or manipulation, not in that way, but just the idea that we didn't exactly have all the pieces figured out. And I will say it many times, we're building this plane while we're flying it, and I'll be honest with the people in the room and say, hey, we're going to have to figure out some of this on the fly. We're going to be looking each other with question marks on our faces at times, and we're going to have to figure it out, do the research, become an instant expert. Thank goodness all the tools are there. But that was a very new term, but I just remember you talking about that and it freaked me out. Just because I don't know anyone that is as confident or I'll say on the offense, right. Just the opposite of defense as you are. And I thought you felt like an imposter for any second ever. You've got to be kidding me. That can't even be a thing. That blew my mind. So I would love to you, just for listeners that are in those moments or trying to figure out what their next move is or feeling some doubt at times, because I'm sure that's laced with doubt in certain, which is not a word I would ever apply to you.
What did that feel like? Or what was this thing where because you were a generalist or you hadn't mastered the construction trade, made you feel maybe in for a second that you weren't worthy? And that's what one of the young engineers would have said, I wasn't worthy of being in engineering school. And I go, but you're in engineering school. What are you talking about?
[00:27:33] Speaker B: I don't even understand several different comments on this. So, one, I've definitely come to be comfortable with impostor syndrome and be very comfortable with sitting with it and saying, yeah, I do feel like an imposter at times. But because I think if anybody's starting anything new by virtue of it being new, you are going to feel like an imposter. There is no way around it. So I actually now lean into it and like it a bit because it reminds me that I'm digging into something that's a little bit outside of my comfort zone. I am starting on a new venture, a new trajectory. And that feeling, it's a good thing. It's the start of something new. So I've definitely been able to lean in on that and be comfortable with it. So, by the way, now I have no intention of becoming a specialist in construction, even though at one time I felt like it was absolutely necessary, because a, it's just going to take me way too long to catch up with. Not that I couldn't do it, but it's going to take me a long time. And I found this approach now where I can just partner with the experts. That's really worked. I think the other thing that has helped me with this is I realized that what I really loved at the end of the day, and we've talked about this on other episodes, is the business aspect, the negotiation, the sales. And that is where I have been wholly obsessed and know that that's my strong suit, I believe. I'm not an expert yet, but I'm becoming an expert or very good at that side of things. So construction, the actual industry, like the actual products we're selling, sure, I know a lot about them.
I can help with most of those answers. But when we're getting super technical, that's when I'm going to bring my experts. But over here on the business side, the sales, the negotiation, that's what I'm really good at. And that's ultimately going to allow me to grow the business, to start new ones. So I think being able to differentiate and pull away.
Here's what I am good at. And that's okay. That on this side, the construction, the actual product, I might not be an expertise.
And then the other thing is not pretending that I am that person. I think when you're just honest about it, that also makes it a lot easier.
I don't have to pretend like I am that person, but I'll definitely tell you that I can connect you with the person that knows it best.
Does that answer?
[00:30:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it does.
I would love to see that impostor syndrome word go away because.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: But I think it's also okay if you can come to be comfortable with it. This just means to a degree, if you don't feel like that, I think you're coming in a little naive, a little overconfident and a little cocky. If it's something that. No, if there's a tremendous amount of evidence you've been doing this for years and years and years and you still feel like that, then that's something different. But in the beginning or when you're new, you should feel like that.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I would never. I think I just hate that word. Right? I mean, if it signals off the idea that you're trying something new, that's great, right? I mean, that's fine. And by it being new, like you just said, by virtue of being new, does it mean that you don't know a tremendous amount maybe yet, or you're not exactly the most schooled. Yeah, absolutely. Totally fine. But anything that would have a negative connotation to it or even steal energy for 1 second, then I don't like the idea. If I picture that young engineer doing the work and getting into the school and busting ass the way engineers bust ass to get through and to get the knowledge that they need to pass the test, which there is no subjectivity, it's one answer, right? I mean, is that bridge going to fall down or not fall down. Well, that's based on a mathematical calculation, and if it's wrong, it's wrong. There is no room for interpretation. So the idea that that energy would be zapped for a second, or maybe this way would even be better. If you then take that energy and do something hyper productive with it, then I love that. Right. I mean, that would have more of a fear motivation feel to me, which is fine. Motivation is a wonderful, wonderful motivator. I've used it tremendously in my career. As I've said multiple times, we were spiraling the drain pipe early in my career. I was just too stupid to know any better, which was great. What a great defense mechanism. I mean, I didn't know we were supposed to fail in those moments and just went head down and fortunately outworked it in spots. But no, I think what you said is very appropriate and great.
And what I do know that you're excellent at is the delivery. Right. You said, let's get into the piece about while as it relates to maybe some of the very high technicality of construction.
[00:32:33] Speaker B: So for us specifically, it's like the building materials that we're selling, right.
There are certain things I know better than others, but those very specific products and everything you need, the specs, everything you need, the applications, the installee, like all of that. That's what I'm talking about.
[00:32:52] Speaker A: Sure. No, I understand. But what I do know, you do. Or so we go back to why are we different? Or why do people shop here? Because you're an expert at the delivery, getting the stuff there, not letting anyone down, answering the phone. Twenty four seven. I mean, I know with the way construction works, your phone will start ringing. Certain mornings at 445, the project manager is on his first site of the day and he's looking for his pile of lumber and he doesn't see it. And you have them so well trained. I mean that in a great way. They don't even look. They just pick up and say, where's my lumber? And without hesitation, you say it delivered yesterday at 02:00 and I think that's there.
[00:33:29] Speaker B: I think that's more about building, figuring out how to build a great business. Right. And that's what I'm talking like, that is what I'm good at and that's what I'm leaning into. And that's what I'm making sure that I am an expert in. Because if I'm not going to be it in the products we sell, I better be very good at something else.
[00:33:51] Speaker A: Right.
[00:33:51] Speaker B: However, getting into this piece about doing something unique. When I started my business, I had identified what could be a differentiator. And one of the things is, although it's not 100% what we lean on, it's very important in making us different and unique. And that was during that period of time, the window of opportunity I saw was the minority market, which is women owned businesses, black owned businesses, asian. There's different subcategories. I felt like the MBE market, we'll call it in Baltimore, specifically in Baltimore and Maryland generally, was weak. And I felt like there was opportunity to take advantage of it, leverage that at the same time as that was happening, there were two massive projects unveiled. So there was Port Covington, and there was trade point Atlantic, which that's where we live, that's where our home is. So talk about full circle. But both multi million or billion billion dollar projects with a b, and I knew there was federal, state, there was tiff money. So I knew at least a certain percentage of that was going to have to come from the contributions of minority owned businesses. So between timing and knowing with timing of those two, just those two projects alone, I thought to myself, well, if I can get a piece of either one of those projects, let alone both, I could literally create an entire business off of that. Now, of course, I'd have to go through my certifications. I'd have to get certified as a woman owned business.
Between the timing and that was what I would say was our initial advantage point. Now, what I always say, to be very clear, we are not a great business because we have those certifications. I created a great, very competent, very good business. We want to be the best supplier in the nation, regardless of anything else that period, go head to head competitive with anybody. And we happen to have those minority certifications. So I can tell you, especially on a port Covington or a trade point Atlantic, where 30% of the contract has to go to a minority business. If we're going head to head with another supplier and say they're just as good as us, we're just as good as them, but we are a woman owned business. Who's going to get that contract? We're going to get it 100% of the time. So that was very advantageous for us. The other thing, which was my trigger. Well, let me stop there.
[00:36:54] Speaker A: Oh, no, don't you dare keep going.
[00:36:56] Speaker B: But I have a whole nother point that's not even related. Okay, so do you want me to punt the ball, or do you have no thoughts? Are you thoughtless?
[00:37:05] Speaker A: I would like to think I'm never thoughtless.
I'm not always thoughtful either, but I.
[00:37:10] Speaker B: Don'T want to keep rolling. No, I step on your.
[00:37:12] Speaker A: No, you can't. No, I'll yes on that. In saying that what I watched you do real time was acknowledge the demand. It was there. You acknowledged the demand for at least these two properties. And then turns out there was a tremendous amount of other demand well beyond that, that was being undersupplied and underserved, meaning the execution from the people that were in that space. They were in the space, they weren't any good. Right. And you knew that because you had to deal with it. You got broad brush or broad stroke still. Yeah, absolutely. There's still people that in your industry, and I hear the conversations when I'm in and around the same room where there is still this stigma, as we say, we talk about, there's this stigma that if you are that class, you're probably going to suck and they're going to have to do all the work and you're not going to really add any value. That was the differentiator, right? That's what you differentiated. And I hope this doesn't go in the opposite direction of what you're thinking. But there is a new class, let's not think of generalist. There's a new class that's come out in the world of tech called aggregator. And one could argue that Doordash doesn't do anything well either. Right. And they would say, what do you mean we don't do anything well? We bring you any type of food you want. Couldn't pick a duck out of a lineup versus a chicken, but I can get you the duck as long as you tell me which restaurant serves the duck you like. So there's something to be said in there and I wouldn't consider what you do an aggregator.
[00:38:40] Speaker B: Actually, the analogy, it's interesting and I see where you're going with that.
[00:38:49] Speaker A: Aggregator wasn't a thing when I came into business. Right. You were either.
[00:38:52] Speaker B: I've never thought of that term, but I think it relates really well to what we're talking about.
[00:38:56] Speaker A: You were only ever a manufacturer or a distributor. If you made it, you were the manufacturer and then you had channels, right? Your channel might be distribution, you might be working through an Arnold packaging to get your products to market, or you sold direct.
Any number of businesses did that. And if you were a distributor, then you had that manufacturer relationship and any number of others. But there was an expectation, at least in the packaging biz, and the expectation wasn't from anybody but the customers to say if you don't know what you're talking about, you're not going to be attractive enough for me to buy from. So that is one of the big drivers in the industry is the customer expectation side. But man, there's think about all the different types of aggregators there are in the world that through knowledge and being a benefit for connecting buyers and sellers in a very valuable way. Right? To both sides. It's got to be valuable to both sides where sweetgreens says, you know what, I don't want a delivery fleet. What a pain in my ass. And the customer says well I don't really care if the guy shows up, doesn't have a sweet greens hat on, I just want a salad. I don't give a shit who does that. So there still has to be a tremendous amount of benefit on both sides. If you are in the middle, you're aggregating or connecting, you don't just get a pass on that. You still have to create value in every situation. So I don't know if that particular word fits here, but you absolutely do.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: Wouldn't it be a fair argument then that we're a distributor, you're a distributor. At the end of the day we are aggregators. We're working with a bunch of different manufacturers.
[00:40:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Yes, I think there's some other terms that come in and these are very picky and very granular. And I'm not sharpshooting here. For example, there are brokers in our business and the difference really between a broker and a distributor would really be about inventory. Are you taking on inventory or not? A broker generally wouldn't. Distributor generally would. Yeah, they would drop ship it or whatever the different methods are. So you can get into the weeds or some of the semantics on the different terms.
Aggregator is an interesting one. That really wasn't a thing. Technology brought out the ability to aggregate because you could handle massive numbers of transactions. Because in the past if you didn't have the technical vehicle to handle the transactions, you had to add on so much cost. You were above the priceline, right? So that value component, you have to be of value to both. And you can charge for your services, but only so much. And I've watched, for example, Doordash. I've watched what happened to their prices and how much they charge for the luxury of getting whatever you want from wherever you want delivered to your house. To me it's gotten a little excessive and is below the value line. Living in a city, of course, like we do I would always get in the car and go get my food right?
That's not above the value line for me anymore. But this aggregator term definitely materialized with phones and the ability to handle massive numbers of transactions and only scrape, if you will, small amounts of gross margin off the top so that for $4 Mick will let Doordash bring it to him. But for five, Mick's getting in his own car. So the aggregator is a new term. I don't know that I've heard it used in our space, but it's one that is certainly applicable to the way I see businesses operate that are in more traditional industries than food delivery.
[00:42:23] Speaker B: You also brought up a very important term which is just execution. We were executing better than other people in our space, so much so to the point where we had to. And we still to this day are retraining general contractors and subcontractors, which are our customers to appreciate. And I'm going to say the word allow, which sounds weird, but to us to do our job fully because they have been used to working with minority companies that do nothing. So they run the entire process.
Literally the minority contractor does nothing other than maybe send an invoice and receive a check. So now we're coming and saying oh no, you're going to have to do it the way our process very compliant, above board. And to them usually it's in their control that seems more laborious, more tedious, harder.
So it has become almost a retraining and at times a disruption. They've seen it to their process or it's become harder or created friction. And every new customer we now bring on this is happening. We're in the middle of two new contracts, two new customers, and they're big projects and we're going through this very tough initial stage. Once they get through it, then they appreciate, once we're in the middle of the project they appreciate the value we bring because we end up taking so much off their plate. But that initial setup and like what is going on here, you're supposed to do it the way we do it has been really interesting. I mean eventually I can't wait to blow up the whole minority. And at some point when I feel comfortable speaking freely about it, just people are put, minority contractors general, everybody's put in such terrible positions. It's the program and I don't fault anybody for the way it's been created. I see the challenges.
There's been a lot of smart people who haven't been able to figure it out yet. And clearly there's more to it than I'm seeing at the eye, but it's a very faulted program, so let's just start there.
[00:44:35] Speaker A: Sure. Well, you would say it's well intended, right? I mean, we talk about this, you could look at elements of it and say, I could see how this was well intentioned, but the delivery and execution, and I think, listen, it's organized and administered by the government, which means it's going to have flaws just by virtue of turnover. Right. How people generally move through administrations or whatever those leadership positions are. And you're right. I'm excited that I have a front row seat to watch you work on disrupting that. But the thing that I love that.
[00:45:08] Speaker B: You'Ve done, which gets us into trouble a lot.
[00:45:10] Speaker A: Oh, it does. No, of course it does. Absolutely. The thing that I love that you've done is there's something called brand preference, and then there's something called brand insistence. And by you resetting the expectations of those contractors to a level that no one else can compete, then that becomes brand insistence. I mean, you're setting up the deliverables such that you can only shop.
Have to. Now all of a sudden, now they have to go back to the old way. It doesn't work anymore. Right. I mean, now it's like, well, what do you mean? I've got to do all that stuff. Tegler has retrained me that they handle this, and they are logistics expert. Right thing, right place, right time. They're part project manager. So, I mean, you can call that a generalist if you want, but if I watch your business operate as objectively as I can try to, what I see is the differentiation coming from all of those different pieces.
[00:46:09] Speaker B: But I think that's our point. You can differentiate and be a generalist.
[00:46:12] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:46:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And I'll say, if you want to have somebody slap two or 3% on it and pass some paper, go use them, that's fine. But now we're at the point where we can comfortably turn customers away that want that we weren't there in the beginning. And again, this goes into the problems with, I could have probably 20 episodes on this, and one day, I hope once I'm not running business anymore, like, that's something I would love to get into and work out. But the other piece which actually triggered this conversation in my head was somebody made a post on LinkedIn, which I was tagged in, and they listed ten folks in construction that they're producing. Construction? Not just construction. Content, content about anything relation to our podcast, relationships, leadership, mental health, and they said, anybody in construction, I think I said this in the beginning of the podcast, but anybody in construction that's creating content is going over and beyond just because it's not a common thing in construction to create content. It's still a fairly antiquated, obsolete industry, and there's just not a lot of it. So if you get onto social media and you start creating content and you're the CEO of a construction company, it's unique. And that's one of the things I did unintentionally was I got on the LinkedIn platform and I created a lot of content. And it wasn't just about tailor construction and supply, to the contrary, it was about bootstrapping the business. It was a lot about being an entrepreneur. It's about all facets and very vulnerable and transparent, and that has been attractive and appealing and different. And on that list, the other thing I noticed, out of the ten folks that were listed, I was the only female in that group. So then that's another differentiator, a female content creator. As a construction CEO, I think it's a product of probably just being a one of the fewer females in the industry, and also just being a little bit younger where I was coming in, just knowing more about social media, or being a little bit more equipped in the technology space, that I was able to leverage that and use that as something that differentiates us in the space. And I wouldn't have really thought of that. And it actually felt like such an honor being on that list. I'm like, that's pretty cool that people are noticing that as a difference. And now it's really motivated me, like, wow, I guess it is pretty different. I need to lean in and embrace that and really start to create more. Because now that you say that, I can't think of a lot of creators in the construction space. And I think it may be similar. You can tell me in the manufacturing.
[00:49:04] Speaker A: Space, I think so.
Just by virtue of not having a tremendous amount of free time. It's great that somebody did that work and served it up. I wish somebody would serve it up.
But I agree with you in that I like the idea that somebody from that space, you can only talk about a particular construction discipline so long, and then the concrete gets poured, right. I mean, that would be challenging, but to look at it through that lens, I mean, for example, we talk about workforce readiness or different career readiness. We talk about different things and be interesting to hear the perspective of someone from the construction space on career readiness. I know what I know in manufacturing and what our challenges are and or the skill sets that we're dying for and what keeps us from being successful as a country competing in a global marketplace. That would be a very fascinating perspective for someone in construction. And I don't know who's doing what in manufacturing and also who's doing it real time. I mean, I know a lot of the podcasts that I hear or you share with me, right? I mean, you're my number one source of podcasts. Just because I don't do a lot of research, I'm generally dialed into CNBC and real time news. Just is how I'm programmed. I also don't experience as many of those people that are still highly engaged in their profession, like you and I, are highly, highly engaged in our profession, and we're living this stuff every single day, real time, and stopping for an hour increments and sharing what we've learned. Obviously, these early episodes for us are an aggregate, I'll use that word, aggregate. Right. It's an aggregation of my x number of years in the biz and yours, and there's a decent amount of backward looking experience. And I remember when that piece.
But I love being able to work our ass off in our industries every single day and week and then come back and share it. Some of those pieces or some of the things I experience, they become professional podcasters. And that's not to say that they're not of value and that they don't have a lot of great ideas. But I love the approach where we're out here grinding ass off every day and coming back and sharing it with an audience.
[00:51:20] Speaker B: I think that those are the two differences. So everybody on that list was a CEO or somebody running the business. That's in the trenches. So one of the differences is a, you've got to take between running your businesses. You've got to dedicate the time to. As you're having thoughts or as you're angry about something or there's a challenge, you're taking the time to share it, which is hours.
And we've committed to doing that. I think the other point was, these people are not just talking about construction. They're talking about more social issues.
Everything that has to do with just being a human and going through businesses, and that was part of it.
Not everybody can relate to lumber.
[00:52:11] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:52:11] Speaker B: But when you start talking about the other broader issues that we as humans all share, that was the differentiator. And I was like, yeah, I guess that is. And then the biggest thing is, it's relatable. It's relatable. So that was great. And that's inspiration for me to continue to lean in on that and do that and share more real time as somebody who is in the trenches and running the business, which is unique, because you're right, there is now a ton of people that are just professional podcasters, but typically they're bringing on the guests that are in the trenches.
[00:52:44] Speaker A: Right.
[00:52:44] Speaker B: So that's the difference.
[00:52:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
Our piece is more like a view of the ecosphere from the perch called manufacturing. Right. And yours would be a view of the ecosphere from the perch called construction and what we're dealing with day in and day out. And I think manufacturing and construction are so very well aligned. I don't think people realize how similar manufacturing construction are, and maybe they do, but the types of people that we encounter and making things is really making things right, whether it's a building or a multipurpose complex or a car. Pick one. Right. The making things component of those are very similarly aligned. I also believe that makes the attraction similar. We encounter people that are similar in a great way. Right. I mean, we know them. They're very familiar. Their expectations are very familiar to us, and I think it makes us able to have better conversations or cover more ground faster because we meet in those common places.
That's been my favorite thing about getting to watch you participate in construction. And all the awesome people that I've met that are just.
I feel like they're manufacturing adjacent, just like I feel like we're construction adjacent, but we're really just making stuff.
[00:54:03] Speaker B: Right.
[00:54:03] Speaker A: So it's been great. And to watch the businesses work. And this idea today, we talked about an aggregator and how that has value now, how you can be differentiated by connecting everybody else by being the best at doing the best at doing it right. And Doordash, I think, is a great example of that where, like, what the.
[00:54:27] Speaker B: Hell do you do again?
[00:54:27] Speaker A: Imagine I brought my father back to life and be like, I'm sorry, tell me what that. What the hell do they do again? And why does anybody buy that? And you'd say, well, there's this thing, well, we have this thing called a phone now that's a supercomputer, and you carry it around and it will get you whatever you want, whenever you want it. And you'd be like, well, that's pretty cool.
[00:54:45] Speaker B: Yeah. And the truth it is, these podcasts, there's always a common thread, and we seem to always come back at the end to this idea that there is no one way.
[00:54:59] Speaker A: No.
[00:55:00] Speaker B: There are so many ways to achieve either the same thing or just to be successful or great. And that's why the conversations are so important in developing these ideas and these concepts in our head, because it makes you realize, and I think it's important to say that because it's so easy to just listen to people and think, holy shit, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. I can't be that. And guess what? You don't have to. It's great to pull inspiration as you're consuming content, but my word of advice is, don't consume too much content to the point where you can't lean into what you're good at or your own ideas or your creative ability, because there are so many ways. And don't believe for 1 second that you have to do it one way.
[00:55:48] Speaker A: Sure. Or you'd ever be at risk of considering yourself a failure because you looked around and thought, I'm not doing all this, I'm not doing all that. No, if you're doing it, you're doing it. And that has value.
[00:55:59] Speaker B: But that's definitely if you've noticed the common thread of all of our podcasts as we dig in, we realize that now we are always going to share how we did it because that's where the value is. That's what we know. That's our story, I think our value proposition. That's what we can share. But at the end of the day, a ton of ways to get there, which is the beauty.
[00:56:21] Speaker A: And that's why is it the only way? Hell no.
[00:56:24] Speaker B: What makes the world go round?
[00:56:26] Speaker A: All right, well, we did it again, and now we can go back to doing what we do. I love this thing, too. Right? So we always refer to Tommy. But one of the things that makes us work is we can run our businesses and drop in in these because Tommy does such an awesome job. We talk about preparation. A know, our preparation for this is very high end and it works. We can drop in because we're always ready. Like, what's a topic? All right, go. And then Tommy's got everything set up. We drop in and we'll spring right back out of here, and Tommy will go back to doing his awesome marketing work and we'll go back to our. We all have day jobs for that.
[00:57:04] Speaker B: Because somebody made a comment at some point. I wish I had the time. It was the CEO of some company. I wish I had the time to run a podcast, something we've never talked about. But just as an ending comment, the reason we can do this and run businesses is because we've made it so easy. No friction. So for anybody that doesn't know this, the podcast studio is in the building that we work. We've created it. So we walk ten steps to the studio. Tommy and you work in the building at Arnold. I work at Tagler. We're all so, like, everything is here. All the equipment's ready to go.
So we've made it just about as easy as one can. And it makes me think of you. Things have to be right in your face. They have to be easy for you to be able to continue to do them.
[00:57:52] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:57:53] Speaker B: So make anything you want to do, make it freaking easy. Put it right in front of your face or else it's probably not going to happen.
[00:57:59] Speaker A: Right? It'll be too hard. It'll be just hard enough to not do.
[00:58:03] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:58:03] Speaker A: All right, well, we did it again.
[00:58:04] Speaker B: All right, good one.
[00:58:05] Speaker A: Cheers. Great topic. You always press and deliver.
Thanks, Tommy.
