Fence University Five Step Program and the Story Behind FWA Health

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Hey, hey.

I love that time lapse. Like what on earth? That was like what was that like eight hours trimmed down to what? A minute and a half. Really? Are you serious? No, that was really cool to watch. I didn't know you actually knew how to build fence. Well, I was just out there pointing at stuff. Like, let's just be real honest, right? Those ties look like they're a little too wide apart. Well, how wide should they be? I don't know. But damn it, just adjust it, would you? Well, your team seems to take direction. Well, it's a pretty fence in the end. Why were you building a fence in your yard? That's the uh ch the chain link fence uh for the for our training for the university. So, we're setting up some areas for the university. So, we're we're working on it. It's uh you know, obviously we're doing that around uh installing fence for ourselves. So, I love it. Yeah. Well, I mean, you've got a lot of things going on uh with the Finch University. Um I shared the the five-step program this morning. Like, what what's up with that? Yo, how cool was that? How cool was that? Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, we went over it for a while. I've been working on that stuff. So, um the five step it's let me pull some of it up. It's the stuff that uh you know that I've been saying that I needed for myself from the beginning as well. So, we got five steps that for companies that are just kind of starting out that want to get um a little bit more involved into growing their business and structuring a little bit better and and maybe even working on little little parts, you know, take take two or three things out of the the list that we're going to be working on and it's going to be invaluable to to changing your business. Stuff I've learned over the years and we're going to have a lot of great speakers and a lot of great people coming in and helping with it. Like, um step one, what I love about it is like I'm just kind of like perusing over this. I feel like these are the things that you've actually taught me in the past six to eight months like personally like just websites alone like and marketing like um the social media accounts and stuff like that like I had a decent presence and grasp on social media but I mean like you changed the way I social medied you changed how I actually maintained a website and like to pay attention to how it looks on you know a browser as opposed to how it looks on you know your cell phone and stuff like that like I think these are that everybody needs and and these are and it's not just uh building a website. I think that sometimes that's what we all think but it it is the website is important but I mean you could have the most beautiful page in a yellow page book you know back in the old days but if no one ever flipped to your page it's irrelevant doesn't matter how pretty it is. You could spend a million dollars designing it, paying an art company to design your page, but if nobody ever flipped to that page, you never got the phone call. It didn't matter. But what do you do once you get that call? I mean, I think that uh it's getting tougher because sales people are disappearing and uh it's turning into a lot of order takers and and uh yes, the art of sales is dying. I agree. Like um I mean just like we see it every day, especially with younger generation, they just pick up a phone. If the person on the other end doesn't know what they want, they're going to call somebody else till if somebody finds out like, "Hey, what do you need? Let's talk about this a little bit more." Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think to me, generating better leads is probably different than someone else, too. Um, you know, sometimes someone says generating better leads, maybe it's just they want to generate more and they want to just get rid of everybody that's not a guaranteed sale. And um I think that we we hurt ourselves on that because you have to spend a lot more money on marketing, too. So, there's two different strategies. uh you're either going to go organically and you're going to you're going to get calls from some of the marketing and some of the stuff you're doing and you got to work that lead a little bit harder or you have another approach where you just market and spend a ton of money and then you just get rid of everybody. Get rid of all the tire kickers, everybody that's not 100% positive that they want to do

It and then you're just down to that last that last core, you know, two two out of 10 that's actually going to buy something. And that's a strategy, too. There's nothing wrong with that strategy, but it just means you got to invest more money into marketing. And a lot of these newer companies don't have that. They don't have the ability to dump 1020,000 a month into marketing to generate the leads they need. As you grow and get older, you know, and your business grows and gets gets older. Not you get older, I guess, with your business too, but as your business gets older, you um you end up with the funds and you can you can do that. But in the beginning, I want to try to teach them how to generate better leads through um you know, through basically different organic ways that are going to get the get the phone to ring. And then improving the phone sales, you know, that's a big deal, too. like what do what do you do when you answer the phone, right? No, seriously, like just that whole answering the phone with a smile like is almost like dead to the world now, right? But I mean, I like that you're really bringing uh something to the industry that all differentiz companies need, small, medium, and large. You know what I mean? And and the price is right, like and they're going to walk out with like step one of of a simple marketing plan, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, and every one of these um you know, I'm going to go through the five steps real quick with you and show you, but every one of these also as a member, you get up to 20% off anyway. So, if you you go in there, log in, you're you're probably already in our system because we have the largest member base in the country of for an association. So, you're most likely a member of FWA already. So, when you log in and you reserve this thing through FWA, you know, at fenceworkers.org or even go to join FWA and once you um are logged in as a member, it changes the pricing for you. So you actually get up to 20% depending on what type of member you are. So that's a big deal too. So um yeah, that's definitely something to look at. Um but we we want people that aren't members too to be able to go in and take advantage of it. But yeah, yeah, I think as we go through, you know, what software because software is a big factor in it now. What software is right creating social media and this is where you're going to get a lot of my insights and I think everybody knows I kind of came in and flipped this social media for our industry upside down and it's Yes, I'm on a lot of I'm on a lot of people's watch list. What's he doing now? Let's How are we going to copy and duplicate that? So, I'm going to be maybe maybe not watch list, but maybe maybe they're they're mute friends for a while. I know I'm making it sound like the TSA is watching me, but yeah, you know, and then kind of going over manage that the directories and you know, manage your directory listings and and the you know, how what you know, why you got to be careful with tracking numbers and you know, you get if if you don't own the phone numbers and you don't own your domains and things like this, how dangerous it gets when um you're spending all this money building up traffic to numbers and stuff you don't know. So, we're going to get into sales and marketing budgets, understanding your market and your area, stuff that I think everybody everybody should know. And uh you know, that's just that's just I believe step one for everybody. They just got to and and none of this stuff actually um unless you're getting thirdparty services actually costs somebody anything at all. It's just time and effort to go through a lot of this and and create. Social media is free. So, um, unless you're going the route where you just wanted a ton of leads and you're going to throw away 80% of them, we're going to kind of show you how to, you know, how to actually generate more sales from from the actual leads you're getting. And but it's going to be more work. It is more work because I mean, you're saying now like what it minimum of 10 touches before somebody actually makes a purchase from you, right? So, like how do you keep people engaged for 10 separate conversations, right? To get quality leads. So, do they need to bring a laptop to this course? I would. I mean, I take my laptop everywhere, but uh I Yeah, I would bring one. I mean, if you don't, we're going

To be able to um still go over with you, but I would because you're going to want to we're going to help you set up your and create your social media accounts. We're going to help you uh and show you how to do some um social media contents using this and also at WAI and all this stuff. So, we're going to be going over that. And then we're going to be showing you um how to set up calendars and things like this. But improving the phone sales is going to be simply when you answer the phone, hey, do you set that appointment right then or do you let that customer call the next number and try to set an appointment up with someone else? You know, field sales, are you going to, you know, if you don't, I'm a firm believer if you don't ask for the sale and you went back to your office and you didn't get it, that's on you because you never even asked for the sale while you were standing there in front of the customers. So, you know, I mean, it's little things like that and it's probably going to be a little old school, but uh you know, that's just uh step one for fence marketing made simple. So, I'm excited to get uh that and that's going to be out in uh December 4th. Heck yeah. What's step two? Step two, we're looking at numbers. I call it I call it the numbers workshop. It's it's it's probably a twist on know your numbers. Everybody, you know, you hear that a lot, know your numbers. Know your numbers. And I think I think we are just so quick to throw um phrases out. You know, hey, you know, how much uh you know, what should I bid this job at? And all we do to tell people to help me is well, you got to know your numbers. Well, that's great. Okay. Where do you start with numbers? Oh, you take your profit and loss and you add markup to that and you that's our advice. Okay. Well, what are our numbers? So, um we're going to go we're going to kind of get into a little bit and help them uh show them the different ones whether it's QuickBooks, whether it's Zero, whether it's going to be um you know using your accountant and maybe you don't have your own accounting so someone else does it. We're going to kind of get into that. Reading your balance sheet, uh understanding your profit and loss statements, just basics though. I think you got to know the basics and I think sometimes um and not not we're not going to get into ind depth with it but I mean I I'm a firm believer you don't hire anybody to do anything you can't do yourself. Doesn't mean you can do it as good as that person you're hiring. So at least understand what your accounting accountants doing because you'll never be as good as somebody that that just focuses on something every day, right? And I see that's a three-day class and that makes sense because it's going to be a little more detailed, you know, going from step one all the way, you know, to actually under basically understanding like your P&L statement and uh your labor costs and stuff like that. I really I think this is just super awesome. I know you've been working on this and dreaming it for a while, but like man, this is changing the industry, dude. It's going to be cool. And that's the next month in January. So January 8th, I think that one is. And then um yeah, we're going to be bringing in a whole different class level of uh uh people in some of the these different some of these different steps. So this one we're bringing in some highc caliber people that uh are trained not only in knowing about accounting, knowing about payables and uh accounts receivables, but actually know how to break it down to terms that we can understand, you know, right? Teach me like I'm a kindergarter, man. Yeah. Workers comp rates here. We have we call them mod rates and you know, things like that. Um how it does affect, you know, affect that and the cost of it. And then licensing and insurance cost, uh, you know, your depreciating assets and and, uh, you know, expected maintenance and knowing what these vehicles everything's going to cost you to replace and marketing and sales budgets, administrative expenses. And people don't realize there's a lot of that going on. What um that you you don't even realize that it's part of your your business, you know, and uh, plan for help them help them kind of come up with a general plan to plan for your expected growth, direct and indirect labor costs and materials and consumables and things like this. So I'm excited to get into this because you

Know if you don't know all this you're not even going to get to the point which is the next step step which is yeah estimating you know estimating estimate workshop. So if you this is my favorite part I mean I live in this world this is uh this you know I live in this this this part of it right here. So um you know bidding residential projects and bidding commercial industrial projects it is it you know we tend to separate them in our industry and I' I guess I grew up always bidding both. So I've never was on one side necessarily the other. So I grew up res bidding residential. While we mainly do commercial industrial, I was bidding them both. So we are going to get into it and what I consider commercial industrial is different than some. I don't consider it GC work and things like that. So um we're we're also um going to get into designing your quote forms because I don't think there's any one single thing that is as important on this other than getting your quote and asking for the sale um out, you know, to the customer. I don't think there's any one thing that's any more important than designing your quote forms and having something um that when it's basically it's it's it's basically your it's your way of showing a customer that you understand what they wanted and it's clear simple and is asking for the sale. So, I think that we're going to get into a lot of different designing your quote forms and why why you would want to do drawings over a paragraph and and things like this and how you lose jobs to a guy that's charging more money because he took the time to to make it clear that he understood what the customer wanted. So, working with subcontracts, while I don't do a lot of subcontracts, obviously I'm really familiar with them because we do do them and I mainly do commercials. So, we'll be bringing people in on that. And here's something that I think the new guys and gals in any new fence company don't do. the uh your terms and condition. I mean uh that's a big one. It literally every one of us starts off with a terms and condition section about like this and after you know after a year or two it goes like this goes like this you know and every one of the times it grows it's a mistake you made and it's something you had to eat some amount of money it cost you by the by the time you're done you know five 10 years later it's on the backside it's right here right it's every you want to see you want to see how many mistakes and how much money every fence company had to eat go look at their terms and conditions right it's in there you know because of a mistake we made so I'm excited about that, you know, and then uh getting into that. So anyway, without kind of going into great detail on that, presenting the quotes to the clients, that's a big deal. Um knowing knowing your project cost, which comes into knowing your numbers, um estimating software, man, there is just a ton of great estimating software out there. Not just estimating software, but lead generation stuff. You take you take, you know, you take my salesman, you got arsite, you got um um job nimbus, um you've got contractor accelerator. I mean, I could go on and on and on. Yeah. About how many different um estimating softwares out there. So, which one, you know, which one's good um good for you? Yeah, we'll go over it and um go over some of that stuff and hopefully we get a lot hopefully we get every every one of them in here to help present on some of that um in versus online estimates. What's the difference? I call online estimates sending them out or asking for the sale in person. Um adding here's going to be a good one. We're going to teach them how to add automatic gates. Um I know a little bit about that. Yeah, you know a few things. I'm sure you'll be helping on that. How building codes affect your bids. This is something I think um I live in a highly regulated state and I'm going to be getting into great detail about um how that does affect what you can bid, where you're bidding and things like that. Um and how you're you know how you need to cover yourself. Anyway, reading plans and specs and that basic stuff, but um I don't think reading plans and specs is basic. I had lots of customers who didn't know how to read plans and specs and a lot of them didn't make any sense because, you know,

Yeah. Yeah. got an architect somewhere copying and pasting from Yeah. from 1975, right? It's like and it's like it's like a you know a vertical like aluminum slat or something that doesn't even exist anymore, right? And that's where all these uh RFIs come in where you're just, you know, and we got to teach them what to do. You know, don't you never just put on a bid, hey, this quote is per bids and plans and half the time you don't even have all the plans and specs and you know what I mean? So, we're going to get into some of that stuff on the estimating, but that's obviously a two-day uh two-day conference, you know, just on that stuff. So, um, work orders, man, this is I I think by the time we're done with these five steps, and we're almost to the fifth one here, you're going to have a pretty well-rounded, um, company ready to go. And then you there's a ton of advanced stuff out there for everybody that uh, you know, a lot of consultants and stuff like out there that can take you to the next level, but let's get them to the point where the consultants can even help them, you know, right? And I think that we're we've just spent the last two decades focusing on companies that are uh well established and you know have enough money to travel and spend 15 20,000 and go somewhere or things like that. So I think it's time that we help them out and hopefully all of this gets recorded. Um not hopefully it's going to and then over time after a couple days this will all be yeah we'll have multiple cameras on there but because it'll be in our training room and um it'll all go online. So we're excited about getting that out. So knowing you know designing your work orders I think this is a big deal. So, we're going to be going over and helping design your chain link iron um with the help of um you know, help with Sean King and everybody. We're going to be doing um the wood and the vinyl work orders, knowing your job sites, understanding what's you know what you're going to be putting on the work orders, 811, dealing with utilities, material cost, breakdowns, gate hardware, uh tracking labor, tracking tools, special orders. Anyway, we're going to go on and on on that stuff, but yeah. So, I'm super excited to get into the work order part because that's a huge phase, you know, to to focus on as well. Um step five, this is it. we get to this point, you guys are ready to ready to rock and roll. Um workflows. Um what what is that? Will you do material workups? Yeah, we that's asking definitely going to be helping uh people under the estimating fade do uh phase do chain link chain link breakdowns and stuff. So we're going to be doing chain link wood vinyl and helping you do material breakdowns. Um hopefully these are just going to get even more and more in depth as we go. Um this one and we're already what into April. So by the time you if you do kind of jump on board on this by April you'll be through all five steps. Um designing workflow systems. So, we're going to come up with some different workflows for um leads, sales, projects, um getting into a calendar, how you schedule your tools, equipments, customer communication. I mean, it's just going to get into great detail on that. Project management responsibilities, cruise responsibilities, it just goes on and on. I just wow, that was uh that was more than I thought I was going to get out. I love it. So, like if you're a business owner like watching this, like who is your ideal person that you want to send to this this all these five steps? Yeah. Yeah, I agree. you'd want to send um I thought you were asking someone, but yeah, I I'm the only one on here, huh? Yeah. But who who would you who would over there? But um Yeah. No, I would send uh my sales I mean, it depends on which one it is. Obviously, you'd want your your key management to run through everything if they could. And then um if you wanted to break it up and just send your sales team so they understand. And we're going to teach the salespeople how important it is to um to ask for the sale and to make sure the quotes look right and to present them and not waste your leads because um you know sometimes a salesperson gets really busy and they've got had a great month. They're you know we've sold hundreds of thousands this month or whatever the whatever they were expected to sell. sold a big job and

They don't realize that those every one of those leads just because you sold a big job every one of those leads cost you just as much to generate whether it being time or labor perclick or whatever marketing. So, we're going to teach them how important it is um to uh look at Yadira is full of questions here today. Did you not present this to her because I've been hearing about this this five-step course for a few minutes. No, we've been playing that Monopoly um I don't know maybe she tell Monopoly Go. That's what it's called, right? That's literally we're obsessed with that. So, I think uh when we go home, I think we we barely even talk to each other other than we're like, I'm the champion. It's like we just play Monopoly Go now at this. That's kind of cool. So, what did she say though? I didn't read that one. She said the people you want to send are your salespeople, project managers, and GMs. Yeah. Yeah. If you could send them to all of them, that's great. But, uh you can pick and choose which one um as you go and we'll kind of see. But, I'm super excited. We'll have more information. go to um you know you can actually go to fenceuniversity.com or you can go to offenseworkers.org and you can see some of that stuff on there. I think we got the first two already on there that you can register for and um we'll get we'll be announcing some of the presenters and stuff that's going to be at that. But it's going to be a lot of hands-on more hands-on than we're used to. So we're not just going to fill this with room full of people just talking to you. It's going to be in depth. We're going to actually uh if there's any accounts that need to be set up, we're going to actually go there, help you log in. We're going to get the stuff set up with you and help you create content and things as well. Well, that's what the French university does differently. They make sure that it's a hands-on experience because you can read out of a book all day long, but when you go to actually put it into play, like it's still brand new. Well, I mean, I think a lot a lot of it is you go out and you're just like, you know, you go and you spend two, three days somewhere, a week somewhere, and spend all that money and and everything was built for, like I said, people that were, you know, well established where it really didn't matter. They're already they're already set. They're just doing this for something to do, you know, I think at this point. and then um they go back and they're like, "I still don't know what I'm doing because you just watched some videos and and you went over it and it was just listening to people talk and it wasn't really relating to the size of their company maybe even sometimes." So um yeah, so we're excited, but that's uh that's definitely I appreciate you sharing it, too. I think it's going to be really good. I'm really excited about it. You know what I mean? Um, I definitely want to experience the class and I actually I definitely want to help with some of the courses or you know topics especially stuff that I do understand and you know have been working on for years in the industry. What's up Zack? Zach Romero's in the house. I think I just saw JC Guri too, right? That was that was probably a mark. All of our people are here. I love it. What do you What are you just u munching on cough drops? Is that what's going on? Yes. I um you know I have like an upper respiratory infection and just like I'm trying not to you see me mute every now and then and I'm just trying to be respectful of the people listening not coughing to the microphone. You man I remember that right after the show I couldn't I couldn't I couldn't understand you couldn't even talk for like four days. It was bad. Yeah. I know. And I'm still I still barely have a voice but it's coming back. So um I I did go to the doctor and you know they called me out some stuff. Yeah. Tell me about Louisiana. What's going on up there? Aren't we going Am I Am I Am I coming down there in November? You are coming down here in November. So, um I've been working with Louisiana Life Safety and Security Association, LLSSA, here in Louisiana actually for a few years. Um and have a really good relationship with those guys. Um they do two trade shows a year. One's like a smaller like regional one and then they do an entire state one down in um

Kenner, Louisiana. Okay. Sorry. Down in Kennor, Louisiana. And um it's their national one and that's going to be November 20th and 21st. And they were so kind is to offer us a table and um some CU courses to help with education. And um Brian's going to be there. I'm going to be there. Is Jadir coming? She's coming. Yes. So, we're gonna eat good and we're going to do some education. Hopefully, we're going to do like a networking event or something like that. And um Hey, who's interested in Let's do a networking event right while we're there. Hey, who's ready to go down to Louisiana? Is this Baton Rouge, right? It's It's closer to New Orleans. New Orleans. Okay. Yeah. Let's get Let's see who wants to get together. Reach out to us or drop a comment in there. Let's uh let's all get together while we're there. That'd be a blast. We'll do an FWA kind of networking event. Yeah, I think that'd be amazing. And like um I'm pretty sure JC Guri goes to this event every year as well. Oh. Oh, maybe. Yeah, I'm sure they're at every event, you know. Oh, they had people out sick last week, too. They did. Yeah. I'm excited. So, we are going to have some stuff there. We're gonna have also um um we're going to be bringing some other uh gate safety stuff related, you know, stuff over to there. Hopefully, we'll be doing a little bit some of the gate safety summit stuff and and stuff as well. These kind of having some discussions on that. Um yeah. So, that that's pretty cool. What about uh the new pricing? I saw some new pricing came out on on FWA Health. Yeah. Yeah. So, there was a price increase because people are using their FWA health plans, but only went up $5 a month, so it was nothing crazy or scary. Um, but I'm pretty excited. Um, I've been using it for like since March now. Um, I've used the healthc care, I've used the vision, I've used the dental. I haven't had any problems. I didn't have to change any doctors. Um yeah, I mean our sites are updated with pricing now too, right? Yeah. So I think uh yeah, if you go to fwa health.com, it'll redirect over to um fenceworkers.org uh FWA health site right now. So a little bit more information where you can log in. Um it's pretty cool though um what you know what they've done here. They put I think they added a new package this year. So um you can definitely get healthcare from $95 or actually $49 up to $95. So 90 a whole family for 265 bucks a month. And um I want to go over a little bit of it because I think sometimes people um don't really understand what it is, you know, right? They think, oh, what is that? Like is it like AFLAC or something? But you did you have to switch doctors or anything like that? I didn't have to switch any doctors. Um it it was honestly the only thing I haven't used on it is like telmed and and urgent care, but I've been to my doctor for preventative medicine, uh preventative female, like the whole nine. like I've I've done all my checkups. I've been to the do I've actually had some cancer screenings this year just to, you know, cover cross their tees and dot their eyes. Um, so no cancer here. But I mean, yeah, I've used it. I've been able to keep my doctors and it's it's been an absolute blessing if I'm being honest with you, you know. Um, I know this took you like like a really long time to kind of finalize, but like I don't think people really know the motivation behind FWA health. And I feel like it's time for people to to know why this was so important to you. Well, I mean, it's it's a tough one. I mean, I think you and maybe a handful of people actually know um about what me and my wife go through with the um with her cancer. So, um we started and and the reason I'm so passionate about this for the industry and why I wanted to push for it and why I reached out to even other associations, see if I could help and and why I ended up having to go do it on my own. People just weren't interested in it. But it was a it was something that I felt was important for us and and the industry. Um I've even had people come up even, you know, and I I'll get into why I did it, but I'll have people walk up and say, "You know what, Brian, if you wouldn't have created this FWA health, me and my wife wouldn't have health insurance and we wouldn't even be in the fence industry anymore." So, um, and I I think that's

Great that they're still in the fence industry, but I can tell you this that when my wife got sick, I mean, it was like we went out, it was probably seven years ago, almost eight years ago, and it was like on Valentine's Day, we went out and we came back, she wasn't feeling well. And the next morning, she couldn't get off the couch and cancer ate one of her vertebrae. So, she's in a wheelchair. So, um, I was in a panic, you know, and, um, it was it it was, you know, I felt guilty because I didn't have health insurance. I felt like I should have provided this and you know as a man and all this stuff and I but it was never that big of a deal for me. So um I we went you know I went and tried to get health insurance. Nobody wanted to talk to us. Cancer hospitals don't want to talk to us. We went to the hospital and you know you go on some emergency care kind of stuff and and honestly had we had the health insurance. It's the difference between finding out at stage one rather than stage four where every Christmas you don't know if it's going to be your last Christmas. So, um, we, you know, went through 30, 60 days in the hospital to get her out of a wheelchair and then, um, every, you know, since then, every 3 weeks we go, we drive to Arizona and we go get chemo. So, um, she's sick, you know, for a week and then feels a little bit better and then we go back and, and this is what we deal with while we're doing all this stuff. So um I'm passionate about this FWA health because it's literally the difference between you finding out that you know something wrong with you not just cancer but something else and keep not just keeping people in our industry but um keeping them healthy and then what happens if you got you know also you know your child or somebody gets hurt and they can't go to the hospital and maybe they you know it turns into something serious an ear infection could turn into some kid losing his ear his hearing because somebody didn't have it and us as an industry you know we're we're talking tens of billion dollar tens of billions of dollars in an industry. We can fly around and we can uh you know we can all stay in fancy hotels and do big conventions and we can do you know we can spend all this money on our on our industry on each on our on ourselves but we can't put together in decades of doing this. We can't put together healthcare for for companies of one or two people which are the ones that need it the most because when you get a company that's large enough you don't the price of the insurance isn't as big of a deal. So, we couldn't afford it and we didn't have it and it was um it was hard. It was hard and we you know, almost lost my wife over it. So, um you know, we're we're you know, even we lived three weeks at a time. So, now because we didn't have health insurance. So, I want um I I wanted it for our industry. So, I spent a year on this and and everybody kept saying you couldn't do it, you couldn't do it. And every went through a thousand different insurance companies and finally found a group that would put a package together for us. So we, you know, we worked. It's it's it's a passion of love on this thing. And it definitely is. Well, I mean, I can hear in your voice. I know this isn't always easy conversation cuz, you know, when people think of Brian, they think of the fun guy, but I mean, they don't know that that you've never missed a doctor's appointment. They don't know that last year after the show, you know, y'all were in Phoenix for how long? Two months. Yeah. We um we were a solid 30 days with like I don't know, something like 20 radiation treatments. That was right after the show last year. And then this year before the show, the week prior, we um we spent time down there getting scans and doing stuff. This was the week before our show this year. And so it's it weighs heavy on on us on that. And I think that we can make a difference. And when I hear that hundreds of people are on this health insurance, I think that, you know, that is more successful than any other association our industry's ever been if we can get health insurance for one person. So, um, that right there, it's, uh, it it was worth everything and all the hard work that we're doing. But, um, yeah. So, I mean, and and this health insurance has the stuff that would have prevented stuff that happened to us, you know, if if you do it. And it's it's the plans are there's no reason we can't offer it to our employees at $50, $100 a

Month instead of, you know, it's not $7, $800 like ever, you know, like some of the other plans. And you don't have to have 10 people, you know, and it's if it's just you and somebody in your um, you know, company or you and your wife or you and your your brother, you can get health insurance. You don't have to have 10 people. We struggled to get health insurance back then because even then we finally got some. I mean, we had to literally we had to borrow. We had no money. We had to borrow like from a friend that could put $15,000 on his credit card just to get admitted into the hospital. And then they said, "You got three days to come up with a quarter million dollars or we're throwing you out." And that's literally what it's like if you don't have health insurance and something catastrophic happens or something like that. And we could have prevented that, you know, by having it. So, um, we are fortunate that, you know, we we fight it and Edier is strong and we've got a good support group. Yes, she is. Yes, you do. So, besides that, yeah. Um, yeah, thanks for bringing that up. Right. Yeah. Twist this whole I mean, it's a good thing for people to know and understand that, you know, you're passionate about it. Women of FWA are passionate about it. You know, we have a a pink uh ribbon on the shoulder of all of our t-shirts and and uh pullovers and and that's in honor of Yadira, but I mean, it's not just Yadira, it affects every single one of us, right? Like, she's not the only person in the fence industry who's affected by any um the reason I also bonded so much with the women of SBA and wanted that whole thing created because in our industry, they weren't very compassionate about what we're starting. uh you know I mean I it's I was baffled about how little um our industry really cared about having health insurance for everybody. So um but the women of FWA they cared and uh you know it's funny how the the you know the companies the small mediumsiz companies they care it's just it wasn't being provided and it wasn't even being worked on. We were spending all of our time and I I guess I was just just angry about it. We're we're we have time to go we have time to go pass laws and regulations and talk to the government and hire lobbyists and and do all this stuff. But you're telling me that our industry in decades could not have sat and did what I did in a year with almost no resources and yet they have unlimited resources in our industry and we could not have done this. Why wasn't it done before is something I was thinking to myself. So and and if if they're not supporting this and people aren't supporting this then you got to ask yourself why. Why 100% why? And and we're not done here. Like, you know, I'm really we're working hard to find 401ks and retirement plans for these small business owners and medium-sized business owners of one employee, one employee. Like, and we're not going to stop until we find it. Like, I'm so passionate about that. How many times do we see people online trying to sell their fence company and it's not worth anything anymore? they they've not been able to, you know, start and creating a future for themselves past working, right? Like we're all working till we're dying and um that's got to end. We have to start caring about everybody. Is right and we're just getting started. I mean, this is just the beginning. This is just the beginning to empowering our industry to uh um to its full potential. And if we don't if we don't start taking care of our fence companies and our gate companies and everybody of all sizes, our industry is going to dwindle down. we'll we'll lose we'll lose it all. We'll separate and there'll be no more there'll be no more associations. There'll be no more trade shows. There'll be no more resources. There'll be no more community working together to solve problems, you know. So, um I'm pretty excited to see the direction it's going right now. And yeah, that's definitely that's definitely our passion. You're right. 401ks, all that stuff we're working on, but and this this is just just one thing that I mean that's going on. Just one thing, right? Just one thing, but it it's a big deal because I know we just renewed the policy and and things like that. And this is a pretty amazing program. So, you know, if if we should be we should be getting this out there to everybody.

Minor medical, uh you know, all these different plans. You go in different co-pays, this goes on and on. You urgent cares, uh prescription drugs, wellness, um these are all different programs. You can add hospital, uh preventative, look at all the preventative stuff. And I know you were you were always interested in this because you said a lot of stuff that people don't even include this. And a lot of people don't include any female service at all. So, look how many preventative services for women, including pregnant women, are up there. Like, I had Blue Blue Cross Blue Shield before, and it didn't most of it didn't apply to pregnant women at all. So, that's a big deal. Yeah. More stuff for um children under 25. And it just goes on and on. I mean, it's dental, different deductibles on the dental, $50 individual. Have you used the dental yet? I've used the dental. Um I've got my cleaning. I got one more cleaning this year and I only thing I paid for was the little extra for like the the you know to make them last longer. Whatever that stuff is like 20 bucks. What is that? Dentures and stuff in there. I can't see I can see the left the left is a little low. Can Can you shove it back in? Yeah. I didn't even have to I didn't have to change my dentist or anything. It was great. The vision I know you're using vision, Yeah. Yeah. I found out this year I actually have dry eye disease. Like what on earth? So I had to get like fancy contacts and I had to get IPL done to my eyes and irritated dry eyes. Yeah, it's Las Vegas is what it is. It ruined me forever. I don't even know what the fresh beanie thing is. I think it's just a login portal. But um that's kind of cool. I haven't uh I haven't I haven't been in this part of it yet. I think that's where you can go in and actually look up if your doctor is in the program. And like I said, I didn't have to change any of my doctors. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, plans obviously plans up there. Take a look if you want to add um employees or add just you and your spouse, add your kids. Um great plans and is uh cost effective. So you can participate in the plan every month. Open enrollment begins every single month on the 19th for the following month. So there's no, you know, wait until November or October like, you know, you do with a traditional company. You have the opportunity to jump into it every single month if you are not a participant currently. Yeah. Are you going up to Indiana next week or is it next week? I don't even know what day it is. It's 25th. I'm going on the sixth. Y'all are the 6th to the 10th. You dear told me. I I don't I don't know. Somebody said we're camping and I don't know how I feel about that. In Indiana October. Sean Yeah, Sean Kings on Mr. Fence Academy stuff's going on. So, it's like a fence camp. I'm I'm I'm really curious what what what's gonna go on up there. But uh I'd rather go to his retreat in Gatlinburg. I might just wait for that one. Big fancy building. No, we fly into uh Nashville on that Sunday. So, I think we're going to stay tonight maybe or it's only two and a half hours away. So, we might drive up um that night to uh Sean's house. And then uh I think Sean from CMM's coming up as well. Um I think there's be a bunch of people coming in and then we might head down to Louisville. Kentucky. Yeah, we might head down likes to check that thing out. So, I've never been down there. So, we're kind of kind of excited about that. I've got a couple of fence companies who've been reaching out that in that area that, you know, would like us to come by. Like, maybe you should stop at a couple of different places. You know what I mean? Give me a list. Maybe we should come do some videos or something for my fence life. Well, that's going to be a Wednesday. I'll be there on Wednesday. So, we'll figure out maybe maybe you can find me a spot. Um if anybody has around Louisville um on Wednesday, if anybody has a fence company or something they want us to stop by, let us know. That'd be cool. I love that idea. Yeah. Uh I I'm guessing you didn't tell Yadira that y'all are camping. I didn't. My bad, girl.

You'll be camping, but in February, don't worry. You will be in a a cruise ship in a proper room. So, there's some give and take here. Well, and Heather's gonna be there. So, I'm pretty sure they got some plans. They'll probably do some something, I'm sure. Something going on. She's probably not going to want to be out there digging holes with us in in Sean's backyard, you know. And then October, that's October. So, October 17th, we're going to Wasa in Tmacula. If anybody anybody's uh wanting to go to that trade show, let us know. We're going to be there with um Mark and Mary. JC Gury's going to be there as well. Love it. So that's the uh you know you're pretty familiar with that one because that's uh on the access and gate operator. I've actually never been to the Wasa show before. I mean I'm familiar with all the companies and and the the association itself, but um I've never done that one. But then like right after that then we have fence week, right? Fence week. That's going to be a blast. We have that's um what is that? November 4th. I don't even have the information to pull up right here, but that's um that's going to be what? number fourth to the 7th. I think we have we have to we have to get some information out there. We're gonna start doing some some marketing on that. I know that I'm gonna go to the one in Lafayette, which is an hour west of me, and then I'm going to go to the one in Homa, which is an hour and a half south of me. And then if I have time, I'm going to go out to Billy Grove and Heisill's place. Um, and like right outside of Pensacola, which is only like three hours from me. So, I hope to like really, you know, see a third of the country doing it, right? Yeah. I'm going to go into the other room because that's where we're doing it. But we'll be back in time for that. And that's we got um 22 instructors. So Mr. Fence Academy and Fence University have come together for this and we're hoping to make this an event every year that hopefully we get a hundred different instructors at some point. Uh oh, they have a booth at WASA. So yeah, so we're going to um be doing this every year. We're going to probably get 100 hopefully 100 in 100 different instructors do 50 different classes at the exact same time. So, right now we're on track to do 11 to 12 classes around the country at the exact same time. Yes, it's gonna be awesome. That's something that's never been done. So, um that's going to be that's going to be really cool. And then that's when is that? November, you know, Yader and I, we were just at Olive Garden today updating our calendars to see what was all the stuff going on. That was that's Yeah, that's Well, she's going to be going to Mexico, I think, for a week in between the two. So, it's okay. So, she'll be back for November 20th for LLSSA in Ker, Louisiana. Yep. Yep. Okay. Good, good, good. And then December one, step one and and then we're going to get a couple of days off for Christmas, right, Brian? Yeah. Yeah. We're going to try. We're gonna see what's going on. So, I'm going end of the year stuff, right? We're still working on uh information. I'll be in Mexico. Can we do one in Mexico? Oh, maybe that's what she could try to do one Oh, she's going to be in Mexico during fence week. That's right. So, um we need to get her to to do it down there in Spanish at the I love it. I love it. Yeah. So, anyway, then after that after that class in February, I think step one, we will um take it easy for the rest of the rest of the year other than our normal work. Other than our normal stuff. Yeah. So, basically, no rest for the weary is all I just heard. Yeah. Yeah. We don't have time for that. Yeah. I think um yeah, I love that we're ending 2024 with a bang um with lots of events and things going on. Um I'm I'm just super excited for 2025. next year's going to kick butt, man. It's just going to keep getting better and better. And then oh man, I called Megan today. Well, yes. I was like, "Hey girl, I have some questions." And she's like, "Oh yeah, let's talk about it." Like she is awesome. I don't know where you found her, but um you can already download the app and start looking at the excursions

And like I'm like, should I get the drink uh the unlimited drink package or you know you you know you already got the unlimited drink package. So what do you mean should I get I even I even got my kid the unlimited bubbles which is like all this notice he can drink. I'm like okay I think he deserves it. Marissa said she's bringing Marissa from her office on FWA side. She's bringing her kid, too, I think, and her husband. So, um I think, man, there's there's at least a dozen or so rooms already. We haven't even really um marketed. So, hopefully we can get hopefully we can get um a couple hundred people on this cruise. How cool would that be? I think it'd be awesome. Um there's one day out to see, you know, we can all just kind of fence fam it up. I'm excited about that. Um Oh, we're going to think of something to do. We're going to think of some course of some sort that's going to be happening. probably that sales and marketing condensed down to a one-day course so that uh everybody can justify why they why they went on the on the cruise. Mary said that they got the drink package. I don't know if I did. I I probably did. I just I when I first set it up, I just selected my room and then um Yeah. No, they just released like all the the add-ons and stuff like that. I probably have $3,000 in add-ons right now. So, I'm trying to dwindle it down to like what actually makes sense. Nikki H is coming. Nikki H. Yeah, it's it was only a three uh a3 $400 room to start with. Now, somehow you've managed to get it up to 3,000 when you're done. Right. Just saying. It's my first cruise. I got to do it right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, um tell me about the CUS. you said in Louisiana, we're going to be able to do um We are offering Yes, we're offering some continuing education courses. Um I'm going through our coursework right now and submitting it to the state of Louisiana um for approval, which should be pretty quick turnaround. I just haven't decided what course we're going to do. Let's hear some recommendations, everybody. Let's uh let's make this fun, That's actually not a bad idea. like as long as it's generic like it can be marketing, it can be um sales, it can be gate operator and access like you know um and I don't know who's teaching it if it's going to be me or you or Yira. So I guess we have to kind of decide that as well. Luckily the the coursework that we have already in our system like we're all extremely familiar with and feel confident about. So yeah, it's going to be easy by then. We're going to have this uh you know we in fact we'll have a lot of the literature and stuff out on this other stuff. So super cool. Thanks for coming on Susan. I didn't have a lot prepared. So uh that might be my fault too. You called me yesterday and say what are we doing? I was like oh we've got plenty of time. So everybody knows Susan's normally in the background and she's got control of one of my monitors basically and uh she's got all these highlights and bullet points and stuff. Where's my Google? Where's my Google doc? I don't know what's what what's going on Susan. I I feel like the show threw us all off, right? And then like I was sick sick the week after which just kind of completely threw me off. And so like we had the women of FWA podcast yesterday and I'm like this is weird. I haven't been been in front of a screen in two weeks like like this like yeah I'll get it I'll get the game back on. Yeah. So the bottom line everybody support your industry and uh we're going to support you guys. Uh get you know support us all. Get honestly all the associations have something great to offer. All the uh people not just associations but all the companies that are doing their training themselves. Door King and everybody. I'm not I'm just not I know I'm not naming everybody right now, but um support everybody that's that's uh willing to get in there and support you guys. And uh you know we doing this together. We can grow a stronger industry and uh we can definitely build something great. we can bring back what this industry used to be like. There's no doubt. And uh it was it was amazing. It still is, but we can make it uh even better. And we can make it stronger. We can validate our industry.

And and I know sometimes people look down and say, "Hey, you guys are just like handymen. Anybody can do this." And the way we're going to um the way we're going to prove to the to the rest of uh you know, rest of the contractor and everybody that we're we're we're here to stay and we're legitimate is by us getting together and and banding together and supporting each other and becoming strong, you know. Yes. There's no doubt having a voice. Yes. Anyway, Susan, I love this industry, man. I love it. I I know you uh you were just feeding your kid. He's probably running around loose uh writing on your walls and He made a bowl of ice cream. I'm like, "What are you doing?" Like, "Where did He's like, I needed a dessert." I'm like, "Okay, I have to go on a podcast. Bye." Where where's your mom? Nobody was home. Like, he had to fend for himself. Like they're all they're all off doing whatever grown-ups do. Stuff that we don't stuff that we don't do. I know because we're uh we're always working on this stuff at night, right? Um what what are they doing? Making chili. Yeah, Mary's at home making chili and cleaning out garbage cans. So, all right. We will see you guys all later next week, Wednesday. I know. Um hopefully we see some of you guys at the um step one marketing class. So, we will see you guys soon. Please.