Sales Silence and Cash Flow

Hey,

Hey.

Hey, that's it you guys. My favorite song of the day. So, what's going on Sash? How are you? Robin, Dusty, everybody. Thank you for coming on. Great to be here. Glad to be here. So, so what's going on, Sash? Tell us what's new, man. I mean, you obviously are uh you're not in your office. What's happening, man? Yeah, let's let's keep this very um censored. I'm in a closet at the moment. This is um Don't ask me how I got here, but apparently the room that was meant to be the podcast room is going is having some technical difficulties because in Australian and connections and internet, yeah, don't ask anybody. But it's a barmy it's a barmy 95 today here in SoCal. So it's nice and hype. Um one fence at a time, right? But the show must go on, man. Regardless whether the internet issues, whether we got audio issues, video issues, we got to go find that internet. That's one thing I learned, man. If it's a Starbucks, if it's a coffee shop, if it's your friend's house, you go find that internet somewhere, right? Yeah. Yeah. I nearly went to the neighbors and they're like, "Absolutely not. are you allowed to use our office? So, here I am. We appreciate we appreciate you being here and I really appreciate Dusty, Robin, you guys coming on and uh I know we're going to be getting into a little bit about your guys' courses that you'll be doing on the Full Throttle um education experience at the Fence Show coming up in October. But, um I for anybody that doesn't know who you are, um let's give them a little background. You guys are um owners of uh Blue Ribbon Fence and uh you were telling me a little bit earlier what what how Blue Ribbon Fence started. Robin, why don't we why don't we just get tell everybody a little bit about you guys? So, um, yeah, so we're in East Texas and we neither one of us were working in the fence industry when we started the company. I was working as at a CPA firm. Dusty was a a police officer for Long View, a detective. And so, he had actually done some repair work on my dad's fence. I guess I should say he he worked on a ranch during his college years and you know during the summer and built a lot of fence there but he was just doing some repair work for my dad and my dad was in the fence business for over 40 years and um told just in passing told Dustin you know you should do this on the side and you know you can make a little extra money you can set yourself up for retirement when you leave the police department. So we did, we started something on the side and uh it continued to grow and we kind of got to a point about 3 years into it where Dusty had to make a decision either he had to leave the PD or he had to shut down the fence company because we couldn't do both anymore. It was kind of getting to that point where it really required his attention because we we tried a couple different models having somebody else come in and run the business but you know if it's not their business they're not they're not bought in like you are as the owner. So, we made the decision for him to leave the police department and never look back. Here we are. Well, how long was that? How long How long, guys did you decide to go full time? Three years ago. July July of 2023. Wow. So, during a sort of the end of co through a crazy time. So, tell me how was it? How's it been? Has it been what they say it is? It's all roses and dandelions, you know, digging off. How's it been? How's that? How's that transition gone? Especially from being a detective to running fence crews, you know, trucks, dealing with clients, like how how has that how's that transition me? It's been really interesting. The people that I used to put in jail, I'm hiring. That is so true. I'm sorry for everyone out there. Yeah, not really. Not really. That was a joke. But uh it has been difficult. Um as far as just trying to figure it out, navigate my way. Luckily, I've had a good group of folks. Um Robin already knowing how to do the book set us up for success. Her dad already being in the industry helped us so much, you know. So, I definitely or I say I we had definitely a uh kind of a fast track there, but it's still it still had its struggles. Well, definitely challenging.

Mark says two of his favorite people. And I know he's not talking about Sasha and I because we're not even our wife's favorite people. So, it's mutual, Mark. Yeah. Yeah. And going I I would assume going from the PD over defensing, I mean, you think about it, um, we're, you know, you're still in business basically because of criminals, dogs, and children. So, I guess it's pretty similar right down to it, right? Yeah, pretty much. So, so, um, I was actually kind of excited uh, to have you guys on. I know um, Veronica talked to you guys a whole bunch, you know, about um, some of the education stuff that we had going on there. Um, and getting into the education side of it, um, I wanted to know, you know, why is continuing education, I mean, obviously, I know this is important to you guys. You do a lot of helping people and stuff. Why is continuing education important in today's fence industry compared to like in the past? It's just evolving. I feel like Go ahead, Dustin. You can take It's just It's just evolving and trying to move that needle and trying to make everyone else better. um to where we can I mean to where everybody can make their money and put out a better product. So if if everybody's prices comes up as far as an install, then we're all making more money. Our margins are better and just doing what we can to to really like I said move that needle needle and make the median get better. Yeah. Do you think it's gotten like um I think there's more education now than there was five even five years ago. It's like you throw a rock and there's a class going on and it used to be a couple times a year, right? There'd be an event maybe an education one two three times or maybe just solely manufacturer specific to products. It wasn't really, you know, about training small fence companies and um people that, you know, obviously in our association kind of specializes in uh helping people like like yourselves that was started off doing this maybe on the weekend or part-time. And I love your story about that because I say it all the time. You know, you're the type of people that, you know, if we're not careful, we run out of the industry. Instead of taking a weekend person or someone that does it three days a week and turning them into a full-time fencer, we chase you off. So, you guys are a success story that I love to hear because that's exactly what we want to do in the industry is take people that are in this if you're crazy enough to go dig holes with us, we want you doing it full-time, And I I love the fact that so the the entry barrier for the fence industry is so easy. Like, it's so easy to get started. I mean, you can have a pair of post post hole diggers and a you know, a shovel and some cement and you can build a fence almost. So there, you know, you can get started for relatively cheap if you just want to get in into the industry. And I think having all the education there's, you know, there's a big difference between being good at building a fence and being able to run a business. And so you can be good at the one part, but there's so much education now about running your business and how to run your business and how to u be profitable. And I think that's really where the continuing education has helped a lot of fence companies. Yeah. And I think I think too what I love about your guys story is that you're living proof that you don't necessarily just have to drop what you're doing and start it. Like you can have a you can get your feet wet. You can do it either way. You can go straight into it. You can also get your feet wet and start to get more and more comfortable and and turn it into a um you know a full-time business. I think that's a bit of thing that we don't discuss a lot about fencing. It's like why not try like why not even start part-time and just get the feel for it and attend some of these training programs especially I think what has really changed our industry is when we get people like yourselves that actually do the education because I feel like you can get books smart all you want and don't get me wrong you need that as well but it's it's through those experiences when when we said at the beginning how was your last three years dusty you

Doing this full Simon, you know, you know, there were challenges and I think that's what really that's the education that I think is leading now and that's what's really important because sometimes it's those experiences and when you're running these classes and coming from [snorts] where you guys came from and people that you're talking to, I think it's very affirming and and I think education these days needs to be a little bit more, you know, people from experiences rather than, hey, here's a book, this is ASM codes. Yeah, we get that. You need to do that. And then by the way, you need to do Quickbooks or whatever pro, you know, that's all part of it. But I feel that's what's exciting when you get to get people like yourselves running a class. I think it's more relevant because people can relate now. They go, "Oh, okay. Wow, you did this and okay, maybe I don't have to be so scared or maybe I can start a part-time or if I do, you know." So I think that's where education for me personally has come a long way and it's about time because only have so much educated people trying to educate us where I think we need that mix now where we need the the experienced people that can actually back us and go worry about it guys there'll be days where you're like I don't know what the heck we're doing and then there'll be days you're like hey you know so I love it there's days you're like am I getting paid for this this is awesome right and then there's days You're just going, "Man, why didn't I get paid for this?" Right. Am I ever going to get paid for this? This was more work than the stuff I got paid for. Yeah. And I think it also the education when you get involved in the education and you start getting into some of the classes and meeting different people. You start building a network too like you were talking about and you have people resources that you can call on especially if you're new to the industry. You meet people and and you have people that you can call and say, "Hey, I'm I'm facing this. what what would you do in this situation? Have you ever seen this? And and it just helps to have that network of people. Yeah. You're creating a community and we're already we're an amazing community, but we're like a tight small community. Everyone knows everyone, you know, even like as you can tell from my accent, bit of straight, but it's like the fencing industry across the world is small. Like it's just and it's tight niche. like Americans can go over to Australia and work, you know, vice versa because we're all looking for experienced people because fencing is sort of think we had that laugh. You don't come out of college and go, "Oh, yeah, I want to get in the fence." Right. But when we get education, we get people like yourselves and Brian and the FWA team sort of promoting. It's not Yeah, digging holes part of it, but there's also so much other things that makes fencing amazing. And and like your dad said, you can retire, you know, and I think that's the cool part. Fencing does Yeah. It's not prestigious per se, but mate, it makes a good life, you know. Yeah. And there's again Susan's like two great two great humans, right? Everybody says nothing but good stuff about you and I, Sash, you see this, right? This is awesome. I'm glad you two are here to see this. I'm taking it. I'm taking anything I There's Michaela says hello you all. Uh but um this kind of ties into what I was uh you know we were talking about why do contractors sometimes avoid training and uh I love that this was in there because I was one of those. I'm I'm still one of those. I mean I I go to these expos because I like the the to walk around and I don't have the attention span to sit in these these classrooms and just flip through books for eight hours. And I think that's what all of our our training was for a long time. And I think that's what is changing now is people like yourselves coming in and saying, "Hey, we're going to teach you from from real experience." What do you think? So, I've been toying with this whole theory for a while. And part of my um because the entry level's so low, somebody doesn't leave school and say, "Yeah, I'm going to go dig holes for a living." you know, um, so it's usually not somebody that wanted to spend a whole lot of time in the classroom, And, and it's not just the fence industry, contractors in general, across

The board, if they could choose something else because they were good or school was their thing, they probably wouldn't be doing what they were doing, right? And so, um, I think that's one of the reasons why people don't want to do the training is because it's just not the school's not their jam and that's okay. And, uh, but I think having some making it relatable, like what Sasha said, um, definitely kind of gets them in the door and then goes, "Hey, this really wasn't that bad. This is, you know, I did pick up something." It doesn't have to be, you don't have to pick up the entire course in a sitting. You just need one thing that's going to move the needle for you and your business. And that and that's we just got to get them in the door. Yeah. I think I love that's one of the things I tell everybody about the industry. You know, sometimes we're in a hurry to change things, you know, and we're in a hurry to change things and we want to be like this or be like that industry or that industry and they don't realize that once you start putting those barriers up, it takes out the reason a lot of people are in it. And now we're struggling for companies. We're struggling for other people to get in. We're pushing the small guys out. They got in for that reason. I think what's great about this is and again there's I mean if you've rehabilitated yourself and you went through jail or you did whatever you're going to do and you're uh recovering from something or even you're just a uh someone that didn't get all the education that you should have got earlier on to do a different career path you wanted or something like that. You have the opportunity to come in here start your life over if you want or maybe it's the first thing you ever do. A lot of us are just in it for the you know families were in it. kind of carried it on, but you have the ability to build something and the same the same as anybody else and you could you could support your family. You can get a house, you can get a boat, you can get a car, you can you can get put your kids through school in the fence industry. And that's where um I think that we got to really protect that because that has a huge value in our industry. It's huge. And I think I think what what you guys are all saying is and what I love is like from your dad's perspective, it it was how long did he have his business for? about 40 years. 40 years. And it took the kid, you know, and then he's ultimately said, "Hey, I retired." I think that's where we've got to bring everything back together because my fear in the industry is we've got so much talented older generation fans that that have secrets and have have have done things actually through some really really tough times. Like it wasn't that their times are always great either. Um, and we need a bit of that with the new school together to come together because I feel if I could tell everyone if if I could encourage you to check out an industry, check out fencing. Like it it blew my mind like I think we're talking back backstage want to call it. Um, there's only two type of fencing people. Either you're either in it because you were born in it or you sort of fell in it. But once you're in it, you're sort of in it. Like, you know, Dustin, you made a huge decision. You know, it was and I can only imagine me, I came completely out of fencing and I just and I was working in pretty lucrative, you know, the mining industry where but dude, when I fell into fencing, it just sucked me in and I don't know what it is. And that's why I said more people talk about it. You know, Robin's dad told me, he goes, "It gets in your blood." Yeah. Yep. And and you can't it's sort of when it brings you in and you try to leave for whatever reason, you just you sort of nope, I'm back, you know. And I think that's what that's why I love these education programs that all you guys are involved in and FW is putting on. So I think the more real they are, the more we can encourage our industry to, you know, because we need people to go from these and go, you know what, we can do that and tell other people, you know. So I think the one thing about our communities is you know Brian and correct me if I'm wrong we know everything about everybody whether it's good bad or wrong we tend you know so like let's start encouraging this growth in an industry that's it's it's sort of

Yeah it's not dying but it we need that new blood but we need also the old blood with it to to help it all sort of to go you know. Yeah. Yeah. It gets Yeah. You get uh Yeah. It's something else. The industry is once you're in it, you're like, like you were saying, you're in it for life. And yet, you know, every time you I tried to get out of it, I don't know. I pretty much ended up sleeping in my car. So, um I'm uh I'm stuck in it. It has you now. It's kind of like you saw that uh what's that show where uh the guys went to Vegas and Hangover movie or something and they went to the next one. They were in Thailand and like, "Oh, Thailand has them now. That's it. Defense industry has you now." It's like, "You're lost. You're gone. You're in it. It's got you." Yeah. And I tell being a like being an outsider from Australia, had I known about fencing, like you can literally I tell my kids like you can travel the world and have a job. Like literally it is the one industry that if you if someone says what you know France, I'll hire tomorrow. You could be in Italy, you could be in Thailand, you could be in Australia. It's just one of those things that they're like what you know France. then you know then what's wrong with if you're doing admin or bookkeeping or you know there's there's just so much in fencing that yes we need to dig a hole but there's just a whole there's management there's run you know there's it's amazing so I feel like that's what is so encouraging about the education programs you know and we got some weird comments coming in so I'm not even sharing them all I don't know what I don't know what any of these things mean just like look at these weird ones so uh I guess some people are watching Is who who's watching? I guess you never know, right? But Sasha, I know you wanted to ask this one. Yeah. So, what's So, let me ask you guys, what separates companies that grow from companies that are sort of stuck in a in a in a rut? I I have my my opinion on that and I'll let Dusty chime in with his here, but I feel like when you're stuck, if you don't change the behavior, you have to make the change. It's not the industry isn't going to change. You have to make the change within your company if you're stuck and you're trying to grow and you have to um and it education. It comes down to educating yourself, finding out, you know, if if um the fence company next to you is growing and they're making money. Be like them. Find out what they're doing. What are they doing that's that's moving the needle for them. Yeah. I don't I didn't know if Dusty you had anything you want to chime in on that one, but uh it's a little you handle a lot more of the sales and and you know I know when it comes to that side of it and it sounds like she's a little bit more on the admin uh and not not just admin but the business operations side of it. Um what do you think on the sale for sales side of it? What what what how do companies get stuck you know when uh how they approach their sales and things with their customers? I think sometimes um we hear a lot of noise. This was for me too because like I didn't think I was a salesman and then I because I talked to a bunch of people in the industry going hey what am I doing wrong what am I doing wrong and event essentially it's just be yourself like don't try to sell it just solve the problem and be yourself and be professional and it'll sell itself right yeah I agree I mean I think everybody has their own you got to find your groove and some people's grooves are. Um, and I'm not the type that would go in and overeducate. Um, I try to build a relationship with them and see if you're going to solve a problem for them and then um I like to, you know, I like to put in the work and and do the drawings and show them that I'm ready to basically start the job. I mean, I I I don't want them thinking I'm going to have to come back and do a lot of work. And I remember it's kind of like my first job that I got working at a Vans. I don't know if you have Vans grocery stores out there. Anybody have a Vans or like a Ralph's grocery store? Any kind of grocery store? And I remember they were um I wanted to go get a job as a a bag boy, you know, just bagging groceries. Well, I went in there and I did some recon and I seen what the

Baggers were wearing and I went in there with the same shirt, the same pants, the same shoes and I walked in for the interview and I said, "Not only do I want this job, I'm ready to start now. Just hand me an apron." And uh you know, I was ready to start working. And I think that uh that carried over as I got older. So, when you go out to the uh customer's house, I mean, the drawing I do and the all that stuff, everything I present, I mean, I'm not going to let I'm not going to let some guy selling a $300 cell phone out sell me and have and and put more effort into selling a cell phone or selling me shoe shine at the mall than I'm going to put out selling a $3,000 fence. It's just not going to happen. So, I'm not going to write on the back of a business card and tell them this is going to be 3,000. I'm going to do the time to spend it. I'm going to even mark the ground for underground and say, "Hey, look, even if you don't use me, I'll call in that 811 for you." Of course, I just want my marks on the ground so that the next guy comes out and thinks I already sold it. But, um, you know, there's obviously stuff like that, but uh, you know, I go that part. So, I think it there is everybody finds their groove and some people believe that I'm just got to get go do as many as I can and and be the lowest and they're just trying to get the lowest and hoping the number sells. So, um, I think that's my approach on it. I think the companies that get stuck are the ones that don't change as well. Yeah. And and evolving with your customer your customer base. I mean, eventually we're kind of getting um you're every decade you're getting a different customer who's ready to buy. So, knowing if you're going to be more digital than before. And so, it's kind of evolving because we like to send estimates out via email or I'll walk through it with them on site, but I can't tell you how many times I have somebody, a older customer, go, I don't email. Yeah. So, it's just kind of knowing who who you're in front of, too. Yeah. Yeah. And my my goal has always been um I know everybody's got a different approach. Some people want to go back, work it up, and email it off. And my approach is if I drove all the way out there, I'm going to ask for the sale. So, it's uh I'm going to, you know, because I want to see the reaction on their face. I want to hear the tone in their voice when they see the price. And I think that uh and even when I right after I send an email, if I do go back and do it by email, which is a lot of times you do on commercial and stuff, I go back and right within 30 seconds of sending the email, I uh I go and I uh I actually call them and say, "Hey, did you get that uh email I just sent you and I want to hear open it up while I'm on the phone so I can get this if it's a sigh or if oh that sounds great." Things like that. So yeah, it's different. It's a different approach for everybody, isn't it? It's funny when you when you talk to people. Yeah. Um, this is for both of you guys now that you're going to be doing more education and stuff with us. Um, and you guys are gonna be doing live education and some people might be watching this later on YouTube or Facebook clips and things like this. So, um, with your opinion, what do you think the difference is in live education versus, you know, going and watching a YouTube video on something? You're committed. If you're if you're there, you're committed. Um, and you're there. You're you're present. if you're just because I'm guilty of it when I watch YouTube. Sometimes it's just background noise. So being there, being present, absorbing the information, being able to ask that question when it's on the spot. I mean, there's YouTube and Facebook and and those things are good, but doing it live, there's no substitute. Yeah. You can't ask YouTube uh what you mean by that. Right. You know, can you can you can you dumb that down for me? I have ADD and so I get distracted if I'm watching a YouTube video. And I do watch a lot of YouTube videos, but as soon as the dryer buzzes, even if I don't get up, my mind immediately just shifted. It's like, what was in the dryer? And do I need to fold it now or do I can I let it sit there for I mean, and I've lost five minutes of the YouTube video. So Yeah, the distraction for me is really hard. Yeah, I think it's why I have a hard time working from home. I know a lot of

People can. Um I like to get up at 6:00 and 6:30, hit the road. Otherwise, I'm uh I'm distracted, man. I'll start watching the news, I'm making coffee, and I mean it, you know, all this stuff is preparing, even coffee and snacks for work, and it's just I'm 10 o'clock in the morning and I've done nothing but play, watching uh doing social media, you know. Yeah. I well I got my whole MBA online and so I had to condition myself to you know I would get off because I was working full-time too. So I would get off work I would go home and to me in my mind I was going going to college so I was going to school. So I kind of do the same thing because I do work out of the house but I close my office doors. I don't leave them open. I you know I I'm when I go in there I'm going to work. I try to get up and get dressed every day just like I'm leaving the house to go to an office somewhere because if I don't I'd be like you. Pretty soon it's like 10:30, 11 o'clock and I'm still sitting in my pajamas watching YouTube or something. Yeah. It's like 1 in the afternoon. I'm like, do I need to shower? I mean, this is what happens when I don't go around anybody, you know? I'm like I need to I need to go to the office just for just for my own personal hygiene. I think you don't need me at the house for three days. No, please don't. So where do you guys think live I say word live but where so where is education at right now for you guys like like where do we have to go is it going in the right direction you know but he I I think live education is think it's a lot more I think it's got a lot more advantages is YouTube easy yes you can do whatever you want and etc. So, where do you think education is right now and where's it going, do you think? Or where should it be going and how do we get it there? I like the live because like Dusty said, you can ask the question and you know with YouTube, you've kind of got a script. You're going through it. You're going to you're going to cover these points and that's it. When you're live, somebody can ask a question and it can take a whole different route then. You know, it's more interactive. And I feel like that that is I I think there's a place for YouTube and I think there's a place for for those types of education for that type of education. But I really feel like the the heart of it needs to you've got to get some live education in there because you got to have a chance to ask those questions. You got to have a chance to hear other people's questions and and see where that takes the where where that takes the class at that time because you can you could walk out thinking you're going in to learn one thing and walk out with a whole other little bag of nuggets, you know, to to to feed off of. Yeah. Because I think good instructors um when they're in there, they actually kind of read the audience and you kind of learn. I think I think that's another good point maybe to the inerson. You can kind of guide where the the class is or the the students or the people attending are because you may realize that you're talking about a subject they're not ready for and you got to tone it back and go back to the basics. And if you know something, you could get you could just leaprog over with the basics and then they just forget everything else you learned or that you taught them throughout the rest of the 45 minutes. When if you'd slowed down and taught them that first five minutes they needed, they would have comprehended the rest. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. So, while we're talking about courses though, I do want to get into what you guys are going be doing at the fence show this uh this October. So, uh these are some outlines and I'm we're so fortunate to have Veronica and Susan working on this stuff because I know they've been working closely with you guys and Veronica especially on the education side and um helping with um kind of making sure these courses fit, you know, who's actually doing them. And I know you guys are um you know, working with her to to get these things right. So, uh, Dusty, uh, I think this fits you, too. Uh, you know, especially after we've got to know you, uh, reading customer behavior and adapting your approach. Uh, tell us about that. How did that how did this thing, uh, come about with you and Veronica? Yeah. So, uh, my background, well, the last seven years at the police department, I, uh, was a violent crimes investigators. So for that it means

Something a little bit different for every PD but that essentially my task was um robberies and homicides. So I got to talk to a whole lot of people who didn't want to talk to me and u I'm going to be a little boastful here. I was good at it. I'm really good at it. And I got them to tell me what I needed them to tell me. confessed to crimes or or whatever. And all of that just was about building trust uh from the beginning. And so I feel like that really translated once I was able to kind of hone in on just being yourself, doing what you know how to do. And that translated to the sales of like just read who you're talking to and meet them where they are and get them to trust you. and things started kind of falling into place. Nice. Yeah. And now you're investigating what happened to all the Ubolts on my track brackets. It's like a whole different uh a whole different investigation going on, right? Yes. There were not enough hog rings on that chain link f Why did they send me steel ball caps when I ordered aluminum? I'm going to get to the bottom of this. Robin, get me all the invoices. I'm gonna see if it was our mistake or theirs. For sure. So, um I know that was kind of what inspired it. Uh so, what do you think on your end of it though? Uh what do you think the contractors struggle with with communication? A lot. You kind of mentioned it before. A lot of times we want to educate them. A lot of times it's just shut up and listen to what what they want or what they want or what they think they want and then help guide them to to where you're where you think the best product is. Um, one of the old detectives that I worked with, he told me one of the his favorite things to do in an interview room would go in there and just be completely silent. Don't say a word. And then he would start writing on his notepad. And he goes, I might be making my grocery list for later. And they want to know why you're writing on your notepad and not saying anything. And then next thing you know, they're spilling their guts to you because they can't stand the silence. So, a lot of times if you'll just be quiet, they'll tell you and lead that conversation without them knowing it. And then you can help guide them along the way. And so, a lot of times we want to overeducate. I was doing it at one point, too. Like, hey, this is so much better than this. And then I finally just like be quiet and let them tell you what it is. And then again, it kind of sells itself. Yeah. I think and but your perspective of that too you know having someone like yourself that's gone through your your life journey and especially in the workforce what you've done to be able to say that he had said that to me years like I had to experience all that you can tell I talk a lot it's a race between me and Brian words right often you're just complicating everything because you're you don't you're not just shut up like yes you want to sell it but you know that perspective and just listening to that is like you know what you got a point that's you know what I mean so I feel like that that's something that I can't wait to see this course because the experience that you have and what it's taught you now in now in fencing you know it's cool I think it's it it it's going to help a lot you because often we just we get the question before what happens when you're stuck and you do you know you guys know better than anyone. You you get into business, you're super excited, you put all the effort in, you get to here, and then it's like it just flat lines for a moment for whatever reason, whether you're over talking or understand something, you know, all those those those things. That's why you feel the other part if Brian kind of hit on something as we were talking too that sometimes you need to go back to the basics as far as what is communication and it's a message, a sender and a receiver. If any of those three pieces are broke, the communication struggles. And I mean, we were kind of dealing with it with our guys at one point. And so, cuz one of the guys is like, "Our communication is horrible." And I'm kind of sitting there going, "Well, what's

Broken? Is it the is it my message? Is it me? Or is it you?" And so sometimes we need to just get back to the basics of some of that, too. Yep. I think I remember talking to one of my sales guys that was every time he would be I mean a customer wouldn't even bring up Home Depot or Lowe's or any of the box stores and he would just go into this this rant about how much better our materials are than Home Depot. I'm like they didn't ask you that you know I mean and the you know and you got to be careful you're not uh you know now now you don't want to be bashing on a whether it's whether it's a box store or whether it's competition. They said, especially if you, you know, you didn't, it's not like somebody presented you a quote and said, I'm trying to get a comparable quote, and your price was so much higher. And you can look at it and say, well, it's because they were using inferior products. Sometimes we we end up out there uh trying to, you know, outsell ourselves for no reason. So, I'm excited to I'll probably jump in on some of your class, too. I'm excited to hear your approach on it. You know, there's no doubt. And I'm Yeah, the silence thing would drive me nuts. So, I'd be uh I'd lose my mind. you sat me in a room and started writing on a notepad like what do you want? What what what am I here for? I love it. Yeah, I've got some good stuff uh that I've been thinking about already. So, I'm I'm excited to get into it. I think you should just walk in with a tablet, sit down and just like get some some lights like facing them on and you just sit there in a chair and you spend the first five minutes just writing stuff down while you look at them just to see who cracked first. Just like that. That should be like the five first five minutes of the car. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can tell you when I married Dusty, I felt like I married a mute because he didn't talk like in in the first few years of our marriage. Like I'd have to check him for a pulse. I'm like, "Are you here? Are you Now I know why I I said that before. It's because we're guys. We know if we talk long enough, we're going to screw it up. Silence is golden for us men. you know, and I know uh uh Sash, you were gonna ask Robin to ask Robin a little bit about some of her courseware's got going on. So, Robin, this has come up at a perfect time. Last week's podcast, me and me and Brian were sweating bullets, you know, because I think this is this is a great one. Mistakes, accounting for fence businesses, you know, taxes, profit, financial mistakes. I think sometimes we get really scared. We don't necessarily do everything 100% right. I did not say that openly. I, you know, make sure you raise that. But as a small business, you like you're selling, right? The the key is to get the get the get the bids out, get get the guys working and and sometimes you don't necessarily and I don't think you do it intentionally, you just and maybe you don't know. So tell us a little bit about your course and and sort of what what your background is and what you'll be teaching. So, my background is is accounting and uh financial operations. Um, and I've been doing it for a long time. I'm not going to tell you how many years because then I'll tell you how old I am, but it's it's been a I kind of shifted over to the fence industry when Dusty started the fence company. um and started kind of keying into the to the fence industry and and it's the same you know it's kind of what I said earlier like you the entry barrier is really easy and so a lot of times you can you know you got someone who's good at building things and they can build the fence and they catch on to that part really fast. It's very different from running the business and so and what you don't know what you don't know when it comes to the business and and government compliance and your state compliance and and all those things and even how to structure your business. You know that matters. It matters if you're an LLC or a partnership or an S corp or a CC corp. All those things matter about how you pay yourself, how you structure your payroll because you know an LLC is very different from an S corp. And the IRS is very picky about those things. And so having a good you need to have a good um

Accounting foundation and and have a partner in that area somewhere, whether it's um a bookkeeper, you know, and a CP everybody says, "Well, I need a good CPA." Not necessarily. when you're starting because a good CPA is generally going to be somebody who does your taxes and they do audits and things like that. What you need is a really good bookkeeper who knows compliance and who who knows your state regula uh regulations and things like that. So I think when you when you first start out like you said I mean you're just you're trying to build a bench. You're not worried about you know what where the money how how you're accounting for the money and those types of things. And it does start the more successful you become, the more important that becomes because that can that can get you in one of those situations where you're stuck and you're not moving forward and you're not growing because you don't know what your numbers are. You know, a lot of people confuse. They look at their income statement and they think, "Oh, wow. Well, I made, you know, $40,000, but I don't have $40,000 in the bank. Why not?" And that's because your P&L is not your cash flow statement. It's totally different. You can have if you're buying machinery and you're buying assets to build your business, they're not hitting that P&L, they're hitting your balance sheet. So, understanding all the financial reports and how where your money is located on those financial reports so that you can, you know, know well how much cash do I have to start this next year with and what was what was my profit really? Um, knowing, you know, all those types of things and most people don't know it. And so finding a good partner that can help you understand those things and talk you through it and maybe you're good enough that they can, you know, they start out and they they kind of explain a few things to you and then you're off and running. Sometimes you're like, I don't want to bother. I don't that does not interest me. I want you to do it for me. And that's okay to have somebody do that. But just understanding how important that is because you can be the best fence builder in the world, but if you don't file your sales tax reports, they're going to come shut you down. So, you know, you've gota you've got to know all those types of things and be educated on those types. How do you you know when you're talking to people that are starting in fencing and even it doesn't matter what business at some point in your business you have to know your business at some point you know whether it's through a professional CPA or through education courses where you have to know your profit and lot you have to know there just comes a point where you can't like do the ostrich syndrome or in Australia we call it the emu syndrome um you And I think that's I think that's what scared me in in in the businesses that uh I've had and run. Um you just go you put your head down and just run at a 100 mile sell. Yeah, we'll corner that. We'll get to that later. We're not going to go to jail for that. Right at this. And then all of a sudden you panic because you're like, "Oh, what's just happened?" And I don't know. You know, you wake up one day, you go, "Um, yeah, I'm not really sure where the money is." Right? So, I think that's that's amazing. I think the more that um we get that information and you have to know whether you knowing it right now or you're knowing snippets of it, hopefully, you know, you got to start some point. Yeah. I And I think one of the one of the biggest mistakes that I see people make is, you know, they'll setting up an LLC is one of the easiest ways to start your business. You know, you can go on the state website and you can you can sign you can do it yourself. you can you can you know run through all the paperwork and establish your LLC. Um but then they pay themselves incorrectly if they started the they're going to they're going to try to pay themselves as a W2 employee and you can't if you're just an LLC. And the other thing is they'll co-mingle their money. Well, the whole purpose of having an LLC is to provide protection so that if something comes goes wrong with your business, they can't come after you personally. And so, but if you co-mingle your money now, you've kind of pierced that veil of protection. So, knowing that, you know, if you have an LLC, make sure all your money is going in and out through your LLC. And just those those types of they're little things and they're not they're not that hard once you know them

Because, you know, I see a lot of times people the light bulb goes off and they're like, "Oh, well, that's not that hard, but I wasn't doing that, but I can do it now." So, yeah. So, um I like that you said that earlier about obviously the use tax and things like this. And I think um and I do want to get into what you think the most common mistakes are. Like I'm curious what we all think they are because it's a little bit different for everybody. And typically what we think are the most common mistakes are some that we made. That's why we say that. you know that's what it's it's just in the top of our head. But um I agree with what you were saying about uh how important it is because we get these great companies that start up and these people start off gung-ho and they grow from one truck to three, four trucks in a year and then all of a sudden they don't they weren't doing their books right. They weren't doing all that correctly and then next thing you know they're in hiding and they're they're not because they did bad not because they did bad work, not because they couldn't find the work, not because they couldn't hire trucks or hire installers and things like that. It's because they got behind on something that they that came and bid them in the end because now it's not just that money you owe. You owe penalties. You owe interest. You you know and it's becomes this bigger burden than you can handle. Now you you now you're using the money you need to pay your suppliers to pay off the state because they don't mess around. They're now going to put some sort of lean on you personally and or empty your bank accounts anyway, right? Or they might have just taken your money out of your bank. They'll freeze your accounts. They'll freeze it. They can't even get to your money. Yeah. And then next thing you know is you owe your suppliers money. So you start avoiding your now you built spent a year or two building a relationship with a supplier that you now are in hiding from and you got to go somewhere else and you're avoiding that. I mean it just turns into this this this wheel of you going into hiding and I think that advice from people like yourselves um you know on the business side you especially is is invaluable for these small contractors when they start and I even me I wish I 20 30 years ago would have had the advice that that I give out today. Well, and you know, just even building on what you were just saying, if you know, you now you can't pay your vendors, you're paying the state, and so you think, well, I'll go to the bank and I'll get a loan so I can get through this before I get a lot of credit. But if you don't have financial statements, you can't go to the bank and get a loan. So, it all just snow it can all snowball really quick if you're not set up correctly, you know? So, I think that I think just not understanding, you know, the domino effect of everything is is huge. Yeah. And I think that having that basic, it's not that hard, right? You can pay someone. And hey, by the way, guys, like you've said it earlier, both you both you two, which is really cool. Fencing is one of those businesses that doesn't take a lot of outlay to get going. And that's why I love this industry because you can have a go at it. Yeah. But there's certain things don't and like you know LLC take and in California you know the rip most ripoff state on the planet. Can I say that out loud? I can hear helicopters coming. Um you know it's only a couple hundred bucks you know so I can only imagine and we did it online. So having you guys being able to like take that breath moment. Yeah. You don't have to do you could you can do it right at the beginning and it's not that and you'll grow and it'll get more and more you know you'll fix it all but yeah that's exciting. That's why I feel like these two courses I'm so excited about is I feel like there's a lot to learn you know and and going back to what you said one thing I can tell you for sure I don't care what industry you're in. I don't care who you are. If you think you're gonna take a loan out to take care of some debt or something you have issues with, you're mistaken. Because one thing that banks don't do is loan you money when you need it. So, That is a guarantee. If you think you're going to walk into the bank and tell them you need the money and they're going to loan it to you, you're mistaken. They only loan it loan it to

You when you don't and when things are going good. So, uh, and there's a lot of there's a lot of traps out there, too. Like, there's a lot of companies that will start calling you saying, "Hey, we'll we'll loan you money based on your receivables and you pay it back weekly." but their interest rates are so high and that can you can get into a really bad situation really quick with those types of companies. So, you know, just hoping that you never get to that point where you feel so desperate that you need to go that route. And and you know, we we started our company with very little money, you know, because like I said, it was something we were starting on the side. Um, I was still working full-time, Dusty was still working full-time and we were kind of doing this on the side. And then I left my job um, right after COVID and started my own business. And then shortly after that, Dusty left his job. So, we were like, I don't know what we're doing, but we're just taking a big leap of faith here to see if this is going to work. But, I mean, if you if you just kind of start out slow, you don't have to you don't have to start out with all the best equipment. You don't have to start out with, you know, the best of everything. Start out in a way that works for you, what works best for you. and then understand what kind of structure that is whether it's an escorp an LLC or what you know a sole proprietor whatever you know your situation is is different for you know for everybody and then fig figuring out when is it time to move from an LLC to an escorp and you know when does that make sense for you so I think there's there's a lot of things if you just kind of take a breath and take it slow and and really think it through um and have a little bit of education and a partner I always I always encourage people um to get a good partner on the financial side, whether it's, you know, a really good accountant or a um, you know, if you have a CPA, they can be a little bit more costly. You might not want to start out with that route and just have them do your tax return. But a CPA is going to do your tax return. That you're going to sign an engagement letter that says, "All the information that I just handed you is true to the best of my knowledge, and they're going to take that information and they're going to put it back on the tax return. They're not checking your books napkin." and he was just like, "No, Sash, that's not good enough. Get out of here." I think what's amazing about education is it's you can start here, but you don't have to start there. And I think that's daunting. Like back in my day, you know, it was like LLC's, oh, you got you got to start sold proprietary and then escal like it's not it's not that daunting. And it's even if you know me and Brian were talking about this last week. Doesn't matter the state that your business is in. If you've let it go, fix it. I get it. It's daunting. I get it. There's a scare. But the health of your business, you need to know it. At some point, you can't you can't deny it. And I think that's what's amazing about you guys and FWA and all these education programs because back in the day, it was always, oh, you can't do an LLC. you don't even have a business. I'm like, well, why not? You just pay the money. You know what I mean? And I think that's where Oh, and here's the benefits of why you do this. And oh, co-mingling. Oh my goodness. My first bit, you know, my account co-mingling. It's like a private credit card to pay a company credit card. It's like, what are you doing? You know, but it's all these hard lessons that, you know, that's what these programs are for. Like that's why you know people like yourselves you know come to these education programs people you it'll change your life. It really will. Yeah. Well I know Sash you have one more question for Robin before we get into the rapid fire questions by the way that Susan sent me to for Dusty and you. So interesting. So this is a good question. I like this one. What number should every contractor know weekly? Like what? I know you got wrap it up, but you what do you think? Cash flow. You've got to know what your cash flow is. That's that cash is king. I mean, you have to know what you have, what you anticipate is going to be coming in the door, what you anticipate is going to be going out the door, what your payroll average is. You got to know what where you stand from a cash flow standpoint because that can [ __ ] you like really fast. Um, I think you have

To know your uh there's I think every company is different and they they each has some, you know, some specific KPIs as far as like, you know, what goes on as far as the operation of the business. But I think from a financial standpoint, you need to know what your cash flow is. And I think you really need to understand your balance sheet and P&L because there are numbers on those reports that you can look at any time throughout the month and get some good information about your company. You know, doing your bank reconciliations and all those things. You can look at your you can look and say, "Okay, where's my cash at today?" Does that Does that make sense with what my cash flow uh projection is telling me and go out as far as you need to? The company I work for um as a fractional CFO right now, I do their cash flow um report for 12 months. For Blue Ribbon Fence, we we're lucky if we can get 12 weeks, you know. So, it's all relative. Yeah, it's all relative. But I think knowing knowing that cash and I and it can even be on a daily basis. It doesn't even have you don't even have to make it a weekly, but you could even do that on a daily basis. But I say if there's if you don't know anything else about your company, know what your cash flow projection is. That means dusty me in trouble. I'm a sales guy and my I'm like, "Yeah, I just spend money." Yeah, we'll do that deal. Yeah, that's fine. That works. And then Brett comes in, he goes, "What the heck's this?" There's no money, dude. No, but Rob is to be honest, even being in business as long as I have, you just you just simplified it for me because if someone was to ask me that question, I think I would have ranted on like sales first, then you you know what I mean? But it's really that take it all away. It's really not that it's simple, but it's really that specific. Cash flow, that's the only way you're going to stay in business. I love it. And I think that's really, you know, that's why these education and you guys and what you're doing is so important because um we we do we get lost, you know, we get lost, we go sales and then what happens if the guy doesn't sell it right and D you said something that resonates with me a lot and is why are we selling the jobs for so cheap? Like what is wrong with us in this industry? We are we are damaging our own industry by going in and saying, "Hey, oh, I'm going to be Joe Blow Fence, so I got to be here." It's like, "Come on, guys. We got to keep not that we're ripping anyone off. We're fair, but we've got to dude, our labor costs, our transport costs, our everything." Like, why? And that is so important for your cash flow, Robin. Right. Because if you're selling jobs and something goes wrong along the way, then you know that's why I love and you you need to know what your budget is. You need to know your goal. What's your goal for this week? What do I need to make this week so that I can so that I can meet my cash flow needs? Yeah. So, you know, having having your budget, you know, I think having a good healthy budget, a realistic budget, but a but a stretch budget, you know, there, you know, push yourself a little bit, but having having that information readily available and and how are you performing to budget? You know, you can look weekly and say, "Okay, here was what our here's what we said we needed. Here's where we were. Did we do better or worse? If we did worse, why? If we did better, why?" Because we want to repeat that. So, Well, way to go, Robin. Way to go. and take a subject that Sash and I would have went into a rabbit hole on. Yeah. For an hour. An hour. And on the way home, we'd be talking about in the car and we just I'm not done. I One more thing. One more report. We need Sash. We need this one as well. [gasps] So, rapid fire round, you guys. So, I'm going to be taking this one over here. We've got uh this one's going to be for you, Dusty. Right in the beginning. Biggest sales mistake. Not listening to the customer. Not listening to customer. Most underrated people skill. I'm gonna go with listening again. Really? Listening is a big one, huh? Okay. Okay. Best way to build trust fast. Validation. That one. Validation through uh Well, I don't want to give all my

Secrets away right now. We got to save a little bit for the class. There you go. Come to the class, get your full throttle passes. It's bentshow.com. Everybody, come on. What's the one thing, Dusty? One thing that you think C or contractors should stop saying to customers?

That was a tough one. I'm drawing a blank on that one. No, you could pass on that one. These were, you know, we didn't prep you guys on these ones. I know that's not fair. It's not fair sometimes. Yeah. I'm gonna have to pass on that Anybody want to take it? Well, so I will say for my area, um, I've been told to quit the small talk, but for my area, they like small I that's where we kind of help build that trust. And so, um, again, find your groove. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. It's different for everybody. And you guys do a lot of wood and chain link, um, right? So it's not as much even into the the other synthetic products or even vinyl and things like that. It's a lot of wood and chain link around there. Yeah. We were talking about that earlier. So it's different everywhere, right? Different customers. Um Robin, hit that. What is that button again? Let me see. So So it's official. Ready? Rapid fire round. Some shenan. I know. We're gonna have to come up with that, right? So biggest accounting mistake. LLC companies paying themselves as W2 employees. The owners of an LLC paying themselves as W2 employees. Okay. Okay. Um I'm going to be curious because um all of us, you know, run companies and stuff. Um what's the most important financial report? Cash flow projection and balance sheet. Those are your two most important ones. Okay. One number contractors ignore too often. I think a lot of times they will ignore [cough and clears throat] there's so many I'm I'm trying to narrow it down to one. You know, really, really and truly, I think the one the one number that they that they ignore the most is probably what's happening on your balance sheet on your on your capital on your capital expenditures because they that doesn't translate over to the P&L. And so there that's, you know, we kind of touched on that earlier. They look at their P&L and think that's what should be in their balance sheet, just what should be in their bank account, and it's not because they might have they might have had some capex that they spent a lot of money on that never showed up on that. So, I think they don't pay enough attention to that sometimes. What's on the balance sheet? Look at her with her fancy capex terms and Oh, sorry. Big argument my husband and I had about that one time. Right. You know, we already know you're smarter than us. Okay. You don't have to prove you've already validated that. You've validated that. Okay. Robin has just shot down everything we're doing in our business. That's it, man. So, so funny story. Dusty comes into my office one day and he's I even forget what the word was, but he said he was trying to look at incurred expense. He was looking at something for a it was a commercial job and it was how we were supposed to get our pay applications done or whatever. And he goes, "What does this mean?" And so I explained to him like the best way I knew how to say like what it meant and I even used it in a sentence for him. Am I even like, you know, used to in contact looking at me like a deer in the headlights and I and I'm like, I I don't know how else to to say it to you. And he just looked at me. He goes, English. I love it. I love it. What's your incurred expense? I don't know, five gallons. I I mean, what I mean, so if you if you Google the definition of incurred, it's it literally says a term only used in a county. Yeah. like a Latin It's like a Latin word or something that only six people used in college, right? 8,000 year old word that Yeah. fencing people have no idea about. Yeah. Okay. So, one last one, Robin. One last one. Um, biggest tax time surprise you see. Biggest tax time surprise. Tax time surprise you see. Um, I think probably people just not having not having their books ready for T. like they just they don't know that their book they don't know what they don't know. So, they don't even they'll take their books to the tax preper and it's not they're not ready. They're not reconciled. Their their uh maybe their retained earnings doesn't tie over to

The balance sheet and there's a lot of those things that matter. But they yeah, they I think just not having a good clean set of books to take to the to the tax repair and then they're shocked because they don't understand why they got charged, you know, for 14 hours for them to prepare a tax return for a company that might have had a net profit of, you know, $52,000. So there. Yeah, that can be a big a big shock sometimes. Yeah, that can add up quick if you don't have it together, which I mean I I know I my bill is always Don't take your receipts in a shoe box. Y I'm in so much trouble now. Seriously, I call jump off the balcony right now. the Dropbox folder I share with my CPA. It's called shoe box. Yeah, don't right. Yeah, you just drop everything in there. Yep. Right. So, so I want to close out with thanking you guys for coming. I got um one final thing because I know it's getting late for everybody. You guys are couple hours ahead of us. I think it sounds like we're over on the West Coast, so you're in Texas and and and around. So, um what's the one thing contractors can do immediately to improve their business this week? I have an answer to this, too. So, I'm curious if you guys have one. I got it. So, so learn one thing this week and implement the one thing. Don't try to eat the whole elephant at one time. Yep. Yeah. I think you should go to fenceshow.com and get your full throttle pass. There you go. and start watching these weekly podcasts leading up to the show because we're gonna have different instructors on every single week and you're gonna get little Yeah. You're gonna get with Dustin Robin. Yep. And then get your best. Yeah. Reach out to Dusty or Robin. Drop your drop, you know, drop your information. They want to help people, too. So, reach out to them. Drop your information in the comments here. We'll try to relay it over. Let them know you're coming to the class and and where you're at in your business. And I'm sure they can help prepare some stuff and be ready for you guys when you come to the class and stuff as well. Maybe even answer some questions, you know, um early. I'm going to be in the front row of both your classes, just so you know, because I'm sweating a lot at the moment. I'm nervous about everything they said. I don't know about you, Sasha. I'm nervous about Dusty being silent. I'm literally going, "What's he thinking? What's going I don't even know. Can you imagine Sasha, you and I in the front of the classroom with him just sitting there writing stuff down? I We would freak out. Freak out. That's dusty. Come on. What you talking about? Yeah. Like, you can't handle the truth. I can't. Then he just gets up and starts yelling at us. What are you looking at? Don't look at me. What are you Look at me when I'm talking to you. Don't look at me. Just like just starts rambling that stuff to us. We just go, "What? What? What? What?" Right. Okay. So again, thank you guys, everybody that's watching. Um I hopefully you guys got to um learn a little bit a little bit more about Dusty and Robin. And uh if you want to learn more, go to the fence show coming up in October, October 5th to the 9th. Uh classes going on on Monday, Tuesday that week. And then we've got the expo and classes going on on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Rooms, I believe, are starting um as low as 85 bucks a night. Uh double occupancy. I mean, that's pretty cheap to bring a team with you as well. So, and I don't know about you, but I've never been able to find not find a cheap flight into Las Vegas. So, you know, get get your stuff booked, get your rooms reserved. Thank you, uh, Dusty, Robin. You guys are awesome. We look forward to seeing you guys coming up in October. Thank you. Looking forward to it. Yeah. See you guys. Bye.