Real Talk - My Fence Life

A

Bman son

M a

The break purchase and things you can build yourself and what are the advantages of the boat I'm excited to bring this to you guys see what

We I love that time lapse like what on Earth that was like what was that like eight hours I 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 white apart well how white should they be I don't know but damn it just adjust it would you well your team seems to take Direction well it was a pretty fence in the end why were you building a fence in your yard that's the uh chain a chain link fence for the for our training for the University so we're setting 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 we went over it for a while we'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 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 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 gonna 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 bruising 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 media 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 things that everybody needs and and these are and it's not just 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 flip to your page it's irrelevant it doesn't matter how pretty it is so 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 salespeople are disappearing and uh it's turning into a lot of order takers and uh 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 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 GNA 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 the newer

Companies don't have that they don't have the ability to dump 10 $20,000 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 differ sized companies need small medium and large you know what I mean and and the prices 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 gonna 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 um fence workers.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 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 gonna copy and duplicate that so I'm gonna maybe maybe not watch list but maybe maybe they're they're mute friends for a while I know I make it sound like TSA is watching me but yeah you know and then uh kind of going over manage 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 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 just got to and and none of this stuff actually um unless you're getting third- Party 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 want 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 lead you're getting and but it's gonna be more work it is more work cuz I mean they saying now like what 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 gonna be able to um still go over it with you but I would because you're going to want it we're GNA 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 fwa Ai 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 gonna you know if you 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 little things like that and it's probably gonna 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 you start with numbers well you take your profit and loss and you add markup to that and you right 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 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 you maybe don't have your own accounting so someone else does it we're gonna kind of get into that reading your balance sheet understanding the 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 in 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 you're accounting accountants doing because you'll never be as good as somebody 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 your like your p&l statement and uh your labor cost 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 I we're going bringing in a whole different class level of uh of people in some you know these different some of these different steps so this one we'll bringing in some High 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 a kindergartener man yeah workers comp rates here we have we call them mod rates you you know things like that um how it does affect it you know that and the cost of it and then licensing and insurance cost uh you know you're depreciating assets and and 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 lot that you you don't even realize that it's part of your your business you know and uh plan 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 right step three which is yeah estimating estimating work 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've I guess I grew up always bidding both so I've never was on one side necessarily the other so I grew up B 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 Industrials different than some I don't consider GC work and things like that so um but we're we're also um gonna 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 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 it's 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 IAL we'll be bringing people on that and here's something that I think the new guys GS and any new fence don't do the uh your terms and condition I mean um 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 just something you had to eat some amount of money it costs 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 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 software but lead generation stuff you take you take you know you take my salesman you got AR 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 in versus versus online estimates what's the difference I call online estimates sending them out or ask him for the sale in person um adding here's gonna 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 um I live in a highly regulated State and I'm gonna 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 ins 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 cuz you know yeah yeah got an architect somewhere copying and pasting from yeah from 1975 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 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 time we 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 they 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 U well established and you know have enough money to travel and spend 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 these this will all be yeah we 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 no one you know designing your work orders I think this is a big deal so we're gonna 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 well what is that will you do material workups yeah we that's your dear is asking definitely going to be helping uh people undering the estimating fade do uh phas 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 system 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 me 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'm the only one on here huh yeah but who who would you over there yeah but um yeah no I would send U my sales I mean it depends on which one it is 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 pass 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 or paper click or whatever marketing so we're going to teach them how important it is um to uh look youir is full of questions here today huh 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 what I don't know maybe she tell monopo go Monopoly go yeah that's what it's called right that's literally we're obsessed with that so I think uh we go home I think we we barely even talk each other other than we're like I'm the Champion it's like we just play Monopoly go now 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 fence university.com or you can go to offense workers.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 gonna actually uh if there's any accounts that need to be set up we're GNA actually go there help you log in we're gonna get the stuff set up with you and help you create content and things as well so that's what the Ben 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 that's definitely I appreciate you sharing it too no 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 Zach Zach Ramiro's in the house I think I just saw JC gur too right that was that was probably Mark all of our people are here I love it what do you what are you just U munching on cough drop 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 yeah tell me about Louisiana what's going on up there aren't we going am I am 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 like a smaller like Regional one and then they do an entire State one down in um Kenner Louisiana yeah okay sorry down in Kenner Louisiana and um it's their National one and that's going to be November 20th and 21st and they were so kind as to offer us a table and um some cuu courses to help with education and um Brian's gonna be there I'm Gonna Be There is jir 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 a 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 a an fwa kind of networking event yeah I think that'd be amazing and like um I'm pretty sure JC gur goes to this event every year as well oh oh maybe yeah I'm sure they're at every event you know they had people out sick last week too they did I'm excited so we are going to have some stuff there we're going to 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 at least 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 F he yeah yeah so there was a price increase because people are using their fwa health plans but only went at $5 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 health 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 if if you go to fwa health.com it'll redirect over to um fence workers.org fwa heal 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 healthc care from $95 or actually $49 up to $95 so 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 afflac or something but it's 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 telam Med and and urgent care but I've been to my doctor for preventative medicine a 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 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 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'll get into why I did it but I'll had 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 a 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 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 but it was never that big of a deal for me so um I 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 out of a wheelchair and then um every you know since then every three 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 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 health care 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 live 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 together for us so we you know we worked it's it's a passion of Love on this thing and it definitely is why I mean I hear in your voice I know this this isn't always easy conversation because 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 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 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 seven $800 like every you know like some of the other plans and you don't have to have 10 people in 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 it's 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 E year is strong and we've got a good support group she is yes she do so besides that yeah um yeah thanks for bringing that up right yeah twist this one 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 yudira but I mean it's not just yudira it affects every single one of us right like she's not the only person in the fence industry who's affected by yeah yeah I think that um the reason I also bonded so much with the women of HB and wanted that whole thing created is 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 fua they cared and uh you know it's funny how the you know the companies the small mediumsized companies they care it's just it was 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 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 if 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 in 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 got start car about everybody you're is right and we're just getting started I mean this is just 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 it's definitely our passion you're right 401ks is all that stuff we're working on but and this this is just just one thing that I mean that's going 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 uh 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 have blue Blue Cross Blue Shi before and it didn't most of it didn't apply to pregnant women at all yeah 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 that 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 say it against the 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 yeah Vision I know you're using Vision huh 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 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 part of I think that's where you can go in and actually look up if your doctor yeah 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 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 in October Sean yeah Sean King's 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

Going to 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 gonna stay the night maybe or it's only two and a half hours away so we might drive up um that night toh Sean's house and then I think Sean from cm's coming up as well um I think there's gon be a bunch of people coming in and then we might head down to Louisville Kentucky yeah might 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 yeah yeah uh I I'm guessing you didn't tell yir 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 going to 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 gonna 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 Tula if anybody anybody's uh wanting to go to that trade show let us know we're gonna be there with um Mark and Mary JC G is going to be there as well love so that's the uh you know you're pretty familiar with that one because that's uh on the access gate oper 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 gonna 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 gonna be what number fourth to the seventh I think we have we'll have to we'll have to get some information out there we're gonna start doing some some marketing on that know that I'm going to go to the one in Lafayette which is an hour west of me and then I'm going to go to the one in h which is an hour and a half south of me and then if I have time I'm gonna go out to Billy Grove in Heist Still'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 yeah see a third of the country doing it right yeah I'm GNA going to 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 g 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 is that November you know youir 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 gonna be going to Mexico I think for a week in between the two so okay so she'll be back for November 20th for llssa in kener Louisiana y yep okay good good good and then is De yeah step 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 going to see what's going on so I'm me 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 where she could try to do one oh she's gonna be in Mexico during fence week that's right so um we need to get her to to do

It down there in Spanish 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 the bang um with lots of events and things going on um I'm I'm just super excited for 2025 like next year gonna 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 that limited bubbles which is like all the sodas he can drink I'm like okay I I think he deserves it Marissa said she's bringing um Marissa from her office on fwa side she's bringing her kid too I think and uh 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' 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 condens 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 have $3,000 in add-ons right now so I'm trying to dwindle it down to like what actually makes sense just coming yeah it's it was only a three uh a three $400 room to start with now somehow youve managed to get it up to 3,000 when you're done right just saying it's my first cruise I gotta 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 educ 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 gonna do let's hear some recommendations everybody let's uh let's make this fun right 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 yudira so I guess we have to kind of decide that as well luckily the the cours work that we have already in our system like we're all extremely familiar with and feel confident about so yeah it's gonna be easy by then we're gonna have this uh you know 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 got plenty of time so everybody knows Susan's only 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 what what's going on Susan I I feel like the show threw us all off right and then like I was SE 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 bottom line everybody support your industry and uh we're gonna 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 dor 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 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 handyman anybody can do this and the way we're gonna um the way we're gonna 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 banning together and supporting each other and becoming strong you know yes there's having a voice yes anyway Susan I love this industry man I love it I know you uh you were just feeding your kid he's probably running around loose uh writing on your walls and stuff 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 F 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 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 yay peace