Empowering your Business and Achieving your Goals with Brian Kaskavalciyan

00:00:00
Intro/Outro: Welcome to the Construction Disruption Podcast, where we uncover the future of design, building, and remodeling.

00:00:17
Todd Miller: I'm Todd Miller of Isaiah Industries, a manufacturer of specialty metal roofing and other building materials. And today, my co-host of the show is the, what should I say, illustrious Seth Heckaman. I think I've used that word before. How are you doing, sir?

00:00:33
Seth Heckaman: You're getting your challenge word in already? I'm doing well. How are you today?

00:00:38
Todd Miller: I'm doing well. That is not my challenge word. But hey, heck, you already spilled the beans. So let's let the audience know that we are doing challenge words his episode along with our guest. What that means is that each of us has been given some random, challenging word to work into conversation, boy, my eyebrows are active today, to work into the conversation as seamlessly as possible. And at the end we will reveal whether we have been successful with our challenge words or not. So, Seth, I have a question for you.

00:01:08
Seth Heckaman: Okay.

00:01:09
Todd Miller: Why do the French eat snails?

00:01:12
Seth Heckaman: No idea.

00:01:13
Todd Miller: Well, one answer would be because they think they're better than the rest of us. But that is not the answer. I do have an interesting story, though, so I can spread this out a little bit before I actually give the punchline. Is that okay?

00:01:26
Seth Heckaman: It's too late now.

00:01:27
Brian Kaskavalciyan: You might be good.

00:01:30
Todd Miller: This is a story that I find funny, and most people just stare at me. So several years ago, I'm in Quebec, French-speaking Quebec, out to dinner, and I don't speak French. Of course, everyone up there speaks pretty fluent English, it seems like. But anyway, so we're out to dinner. One of the people we're at dinner with is a doctor, a medical doctor, and everyone is being kind to me and gracious. And they're speaking English because like I said, I do not speak French. So the doctor tells and this is all true. I mean, he's telling this story about, yeah, I had this patient and I told her she needed to have surgery. I think it was kidney or something. And she's and I said, "You've got to have surgery." And she said, "I'm not going to have surgery." And he said, "You have to have surgery." And she said, "I'm not going to." And she said, "Well, what's going to happen to me if I don't have surgery?" He said, "You're going to die." And so one of us, of course, asks, well, how this turn out. She died. But anyway, he tells the story. You know, we are kind of laughing about it. It's very macabre, you know, But it was kind of funny, okay. Especially to hear him talk. Some lady from a nearby table was listening, obviously spoke English also and comes up and just lays into him for telling a story like that. And being a physician, he was pretty embarrassed. Anyway, so that's my weird story about French-speaking people. It meant nothing, so.

00:02:54
Brian Kaskavalciyan: What about the snails?

00:02:58
Todd Miller: Go back to my original question. Thank you, Brian.

00:03:02
Brian Kaskavalciyan: I'm curious.

00:03:03
Todd Miller: Why do the French eat snails? Because they hate fast food.

00:03:08
Seth Heckaman: Oh, ha ha ha.

00:03:12
Todd Miller: No. It's all very weird.

00:03:14
Brian Kaskavalciyan: That was a good one, that was a good one.

00:03:15
Seth Heckaman: I'lll give that a seven and a half. That's one of your better ones.

00:03:19
Todd Miller: Okay. Shall we go forward with this show?

00:03:21
Seth Heckaman: Yes, please.

00:03:22
Todd Miller: We'll forget all this nonsense. Okay. So here on Construction Disruption, we often talk about the construction industry being a $1.6 trillion business here in North America or the United States. Actually for this year, they're saying that number is going to be closer to $1.8 trillion. And out of that huge industry, there are all kinds of businesses and business owners. You have huge companies. You have sole proprietors. Regardless of their organizational size, though, if you look at the industry, you have some individuals and companies making huge amounts of money, getting very wealthy, and you have others just scraping by. So the question I think for all of us is what makes the difference? And today we have Brian Kaskavalciyan, as our special guest to delve into this question and share with us from his wealth of industry experience, knowledge, insight, wisdom, and research. Brian has about 30 years in our industry starting actually, I think it's very interesting. He started on the franchise end of things and then the handyman business, and since then he's been a columnist for Qualified Remodeler. He is the lead marketing strategist for gFour Marketing, and he's also the founder of The Wealthy Contractor, creator of the One into Five program and host of the Wealthy Contractor podcast, as well as author of his book about The Wealthy Contractor that I'm sure we'll talk about. So that's a huge resumé and we want to touch on all of those things today and see what Brian has to teach us. So Brian, welcome to Construction Disruption. Yeah, easy for me to say, huh? It's a pleasure, it really is, to have you as our guest today. Thank you.

00:05:08
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Thanks for having me, guys. Appreciate it.

00:05:10
Todd Miller: Well, let's dig into things. So that really is quite a resume and I want to dig into it. But first, I kind of wanted to start with your history. Because you have kind of a history of starting and leading your own businesses, not just following the path of working for someone else. Why is that? Why did you want to do that?

00:05:30
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Well, I wanted I think what we all want as entrepreneurs, I wanted the ability to control my time. I wanted the ability to make as much money as I could possibly kind of come up with by delivering value to the marketplace. And I didn't want to be stuck living by other people's rules. I don't play well that way. I've had really, like two jobs in my life and I didn't like it. The other thing, and I'll tell you, and I don't talk about this a lot, I wrote about it in my first book. But my dad, you know, my dad came here. He was 27 years old and he was chasing the American Dream. And, you know, back where he was from, he was the second, third-class citizen. No matter what he did, he was still going to be a second or third-class citizen. But, you know, you come here, America, you got a chance to live the dream. And he did. You know, he he met my mom and he had a job, a good job. And they had a nice house, you know, middle-class, little house. And they had a couple of cars and they had a little bit of money in the bank. And lo and behold, he was my age, 55, 54, 55. And guess what? The company that he had worked for, for I don't know how many years, 20 years, sold. And they said, "Hey, you know, you could move your family again." They had already moved us once. "You can move your family again or, you know. We'll see you later."

00:07:14
Todd Miller: Hmm.

00:07:15
Brian Kaskavalciyan: He's 50 something years old. He only knows the one thing.

00:07:17
Todd Miller: Wow.

00:07:18
Brian Kaskavalciyan: And that's it. He was out. And it didn't, his career, if you could call it that, did not go well after that. And so when I was 17-ish, when I saw this happen and I'm like, "No, dad, that ain't for me. Plus, I'm not real smart." So, you know, my dad's an engineer or was an engineer. And, you know, I'm not very smart. I didn't do good in school. So, yeah, I didn't have a whole lot of other options. I had to go figure something out.

00:07:52
Todd Miller: Very interesting, you know. And since we're telling dad stories, you know, as you're talking about that my own father, of course, started our company back in 1980, and he had had several fits and starts with other businesses before that. But honestly, he he could not work for someone else. I mean, he tried it for a number of times and it just was not his gig. So it's really interesting what sometimes brings us where we are. You know, one of the things I see out of that, though, is people such as yourself who take responsibility and realize that you can control your own destiny. And I think it's kind of interesting that early on you did that as a franchisee of Surface Doctor and you went on to found the Handy Man Network and Handy Man franchise system. So, for someone...

00:08:40
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Wow, you're digging deep. How did you get all of this on me?

00:08:42
Todd Miller: I am a stalker.

00:08:45
Brian Kaskavalciyan: You did some research.

00:08:47
Seth Heckaman: Grade-A sleuth, yes.

00:08:49
Todd Miller: So I'm kind of curious. I mean, for someone else out there who is looking at this $1.8 trillion industry and says, I'd like to get in that somehow. Do you think franchise operations are a good thing for other people to consider, and if so or not, why?

00:09:05
Brian Kaskavalciyan: It depends.

00:09:06
Todd Miller: There you go.

00:09:07
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Oh, God. I mean, I could go on for hours. Let's see if I can give you a succinct, short answer. It's, I think it really depends on the person. For people that are used to corporate America, like, say, my father, that have no entrepreneurial instincts, desire.

00:09:30
Todd Miller: Mm-hmm.

00:09:30
Brian Kaskavalciyan: There's a difference between, and you probably know this very well, Todd. There's a difference between somebody that's an entrepreneur and somebody that owns a business. Big difference, big. I thought I made a mistake. I went broke from the franchise business. Not my core businesses. What really caused me to lose everything financially was the franchise side of the business. What I didn't understand at the time, I was 30 something years old, was you can't turn someone into an entrepreneur. And so if you are someone that is looking to make 100 grand a year wants a formula for, if you're in the painting business, it's tough with franchises or, you know, the multitude of them that are out there. If you're looking at something, you know, you're hoping to do $5-600 a year, make 100 grand a year with a proven formula that you can model off of other people. It might be a good thing to get into. But once you get past that, I have this conversation because in our mastermind groups, we've got 3 or 4 people that are part of franchises.

00:10:58
Todd Miller: Okay.

00:10:59
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Once you get past, I'd say a couple million bucks in revenue, you've outgrown the, in a lot of cases, you've outgrown what the franchise or themselves has designed. They haven't designed the business to be sophisticated, to handle multi-millions of dollars. Anyway, I again, I can keep going on and on, but does that kind of answer the question? Does it get close?

00:11:25
Todd Miller: No, no, I think it does. I think, you know, it just depends upon the person and what they want.

00:11:31
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Yeah.

00:11:32
Todd Miller: You know, if they really, truly want to be queen of their own destiny and have the sky be the limit, you know, entrepreneurial end of things might be the better way to go and, you know, really, really expand that way. So, good stuff.

00:11:46
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Yeah.

00:11:47
Todd Miller: Well, after that, you know, you went on to found gFour marketing in 2008, a company that still serves home improvement contractors, helps them grow their businesses and reach desired success. Can you give us a little bit of an oversight of gFour for our listeners who may not be familiar with it?

00:12:06
Brian Kaskavalciyan: So I was, probably my most miserable year in my career was around that time, 2008. Because we had, you know, everything came crumbling down and I had to figure out how am I going to feed my family. I almost at that point I was like for a split second, I thought, Oh shit, I might have to get a job.

00:12:32
Todd Miller: A job?

00:12:35
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Can I say a bad word?

00:12:37
Todd Miller: We love, we love explicit ratings. So, you're cool.

00:12:41
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Got it, okay. So, I start doing, you know, what do you do as a failed entrepreneur? You go be a consultant. Sorry, there are a lot of good consultants out there. But, you know, when you're out there as a failed entrepreneur, the quickest, easiest thing to do is to go be a consultant. And so that was the most miserable experience of my life. I would never, ever, ever be a consultant ever again not to, you know, disparage anybody. It's not for me.

00:13:05
Speaker: Sure, it wasn't for you, right.

00:13:08
Brian Kaskavalciyan: So I have this client and we're working on marketing, revamping their selling system to contractors. They sold solely to contractors. And I said to these guys, I go, you know, "We're so focused on a lot of meetings. We're so focused on the front end of the business, making leads." Leads is the the crack cocaine of our industry. We're so focused on leads, leads, leads. What we completely ignore is the opportunity that's on the back end after we make a customer, after we get a customer. So how do we get this customer to say good things about us, to tell their friends to come back and buy more from us? And so I actually sketched this thing out on the whiteboard and I said, "That would look like this and this and this and this." Well, lo and behold, you know, I thought, well, this is kind of interesting. Nobody's offering anything like this in the industry. So we started to offer this service where we basically when you're done as a contractor, you're done with the job, we'll go in. Now it's much more sophisticated than it was back then. But now what we do is we'll go into your CRM, we pull out the information of completed jobs. We'll deliver to them a thank you. We'll do email. We'll do a package that goes out. We do cookies, we send cookies out. A nice thank you package. Thank you for your business, we appreciate you, blah, blah, blah. Then we ask for reviews. By the way, when you send something out to somebody and you say thank you for your business and you ask them for something on the other side of it, there's a much better chance that they're going to. It's called the law of reciprocity. And so, you know, we found that, hey, we knew this going into it, but we found, no shit. This really actually works. And so then we just stay in touch, stay in touch. Drip, email, newsletters, but not spam. Relationship building. We're building relationship. We're your trusted source; when you need something, we want to be there. We want to have the opportunity to do it. Now, at the beginning, you know, we were just talking about our good friend, Dave Yoho. So, you know, at the beginning, when I show up at these Yoho events, no one wanted to buy this. It's like, wait a minute, how many leads am I going to get? Well, you know, it takes a while to make leads. These people just gave you ten grand, twenty grand, whatever. Tomorrow, if you send them a thing or cookies, they ain't going to buy more today. But if we stay in touch with them, there's a very good chance 12 months down the line, 18 months, 24 months, the line, which is about the time they start thinking about what's next, we're going to be their top-of-mind. Because what happens with most contractors? You know this Todd. They leave, they do the job. They get their payment, they leave. They never contact that customer again unless, unless they get desperate for leads. So when they get desperate for leads, what do they do? They're like, Oh, man, let's go to our past. They start calling, "Hey, hey, it's Brian from XYZ Windows. It's time for you to give us more money. Here's the deal that we've got. Does it work?" Yeah, it works, but it could be a whole lot better. So anyway, so that's gFour. That's gFour marketing. And, you know, and, and nobody wanted to buy it at the beginning. It was tough, but we had a few people that came in and really strong. We've got clients that are still with us since day one, still with us. And that thing is yeah, it's done pretty well. It's nice. It's a great service. It's got new ownership now. Me and Addie have stepped away. It's got new ownership. But they're, they're killing it. It's great, it's great business. But that business, so with that business that got me behind the scenes because I'm not a guy that's just going to send out cookies for you, I want to know about your business, what's going on, what else can we do to help you? And so when I got behind the scenes of some of these businesses, whoa. It's messy and it's ugly. And so I start looking for patterns. Well, what makes somebody really successful in this and what keeps people struggling in this business? What frustrates the hell out of people? How do we build a business that is scalable but also very, very profitable? And so anyway, that's I'm going on and on.

00:18:04
Todd Miller: That's, that's good stuff. And, and I love what gFour does. And I got to tell you, I have never met a cookie I didn't like. So it ends with you guys and your boxes of cookies and you're just lucky I don't go in there and steal them all when you walk away to go to the restroom or something.

00:18:20
Brian Kaskavalciyan: You should, though. You should. Anytime you see them, you should.

00:18:25
Todd Miller: As you told that story, though, something kind of occurred to me that, you know, one of the reasons I find that, you know, sometimes contractors don't want to go back to their past customers is they're afraid of callbacks and afraid of dredging up stuff they don't want to do. So, you know, when a company is engaged with someone like gFour, you know what that tells me is, they do a good job for their clients. They're not afraid of going back to them. And so that's kind of an interesting angle for me to to think about as well.

00:18:50
Brian Kaskavalciyan: But think about something, Todd. Do you really want to be in business and have a bad reputation?

00:18:58
Todd Miller: Oh, I know. Go to the gas station pump and wonder about that previous customer that pulls up next to you.

00:19:04
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Yeah, that's a horrible, horrible way to do business. But that's the way that this business has been. And I shouldn't say just this business. Most businesses are done like that.

00:19:14
Todd Miller: Yeah.

00:19:15
Brian Kaskavalciyan: How many businesses do you go to, that you give your money to, that actually say thank you? That actually even just say it, let alone send you something. I mean, look, you want to send somebody a box of cookies, but somebody just spent 12 grand with you. 15, 20, 50 or 100, you can't write them a fucking, sorry, a damn thank you card? You know, it makes me incredulous.

00:19:45
Todd Miller: I could tell that.

00:19:48
Brian Kaskavalciyan: It makes me incredulous when I think about it. When you, um. It's so like, common sense. It's like, let's say thank you. Let's show them that we actually, like, care about them and that we want to continue to have a relationship with them. But instead, it's like business owners are like one and done. I mean, like even, like, you know, what blows my mind is, so retail stores, you know, they have a captive, you know, experience. The people are coming to them. Restaurants are the same way. Captive experience, right? People are coming in. They're spending money with you. When was the last time a restaurant asked you for your email address or your phone number or said, "Hey, we'd love to have you come back. Why don't we make another reservation for you while you're here?" But they just sit there and they wait. They wait for people to come and then they get grumpy that, well, we don't have as much business, so we're not making money or we're not. It's like, Are you serious? What are you doing all day? You're just sitting there waiting for people to come.

00:21:05
Todd Miller: Well, I think it's interesting, though, out of all that incredulousness, if that's the right word, about six years ago, you then wrote Seven Secrets to Becoming a Wealthy Contractor.

00:21:15
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Has it been that long?

00:21:18
Todd Miller: Well, that's that's what my records show. It was about 2017.

00:21:23
Brian Kaskavalciyan: No, '19.

00:21:24
Todd Miller: 2019, okay, maybe I'm wrong.

00:21:26
Brian Kaskavalciyan: You're giving me a lot more credit than. I started, well, actually, no, you know what? You're right, because I started the podcast seven years ago.

00:21:35
Todd Miller: Okay, that might be why.

00:21:36
Brian Kaskavalciyan: I started the podcast seven years ago. The book came came a few years later. Because the book is, you know, it's like all these, you know, people that I was meeting and all these people that really were doing the business the right way. You know, every person that's been on the podcast makes money in this business. But like good money, good margins, they understand their numbers and all of that. And so with all of that information and then, of course, from my own personal experience, I was able to put together the Seven Secrets book.

00:22:06
Todd Miller: Gotcha. Well, tell us about the book. I mean, you know, what caused you as you looked around this industry to say, you know, "This is an important book that needs to be written," you know, what led to that?

00:22:17
Brian Kaskavalciyan: So business people, we tend to focus too much on the mechanics of the business.

00:22:23
Todd Miller: Mm hmm.

00:22:24
Brian Kaskavalciyan: We are, we want to know, we want the next, latest, greatest bright, shiny object, the magic thing that's going to make our sales system work better or our sales training or the sales tool software, AI, whatever. And all that stuff is great. But if you're only focused on mechanics of the business and you don't think about your thinking, you're making up. It's hard to get anywhere. Why are people stuck on the hamster wheel? They're stuck on a hamster wheel because they're doing it, doing it, doing it, rying the mechanics of the business. But they aren't changing who they are. I just found out that this quote, one of my favorite quotes of all time is I just found out it's actually from Les Brown. And the quote is, if you, basically if you want something you've never had before, you want to be you want something you've never had before, you've got to become someone you weren't, you've not been. I butchered it. But that's the basis. It's all about who you become. So if you look at the most successful people in this industry, they are... And when I say the industry, I mean my group is like yours Todd. It's roofing companies, replacement, roofing, windows, siding, one-day baths. These are my core clients and so, yeah, so I always look at because that's what changed for me. I was one of those guys that I just kept doing it, kept doing it, kept doing it, you know. But what I needed to change was me and how I thought and what I believed, not only about myself, but about the world around me. Now, this sounds out there, and I get it. I get it. It sounds out there. Nobody talks about it and nobody talks about it. Why? Because most people don't understand it, first off. And most people I haven't had to really go through it. I mean, I was broke at 40. Two little kids, a wife. We had to move out of our home. We lost our home, we lost cars. We lost all of our money and we had to move. We moved across the country. This is when we started gFour and we lived in my father-in-law's house. He was in the front bedroom and we were in. I mean, when you're there, you got to ask yourself, I did it, all right. I mean, I'm an amazing marketer. I was a hell of a marketer. We built amazing systems in our businesses. We franchised the business with 30-some franchisees around the country. But what needed to change was me. I needed to change.

00:25:27
Todd Miller: Wow.

00:25:28
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Who I was needed to change. I gave this example. I just wrote an article about this for our newsletter, for our Wealthy Contractor newsletter, and I gave the example. Of like a one-call close, okay. So let's say you're somebody out there, you're in the window business. You're doing a million or two a year. And you are, that's it. You are the sales person. And you go out there and because you've got the instincts, because as entrepreneurs, we know how to sell. We know how to sell and we know how to solve problems. And so you go out there and you start your business. You go out. You sell. You sell windows or you sell roofing or whatever it is you sell. Around a million or two you're going to come up against a wall. Because what's going to happen is you can't sell any more while still trying to run the business. It's two full time jobs and you can't do either one effectively. So now you've got to make a decision. Am I going to keep muscling my way through this and work harder and longer just to squeeze out a little bit more money? Or am I going to become a sophisticated business owner? And so if you decide, yes, I'm going to become a sophisticated business owner, the one the first thing you got to do is you got to stop selling. Stop selling. But what's the mistake that most people make? They try and hire a salesperson and teach them their way of selling. I can't teach you my way of selling. I could. We could sit in a classroom. You could follow me around for a year. You ain't going to sell the way I do. And guess what? I'll follow you around for a year, and I won't be able to sell the way you do. And so you need a system. And so in our industry, we've got the one-call close, Right? And it has negatives to some people and to some people, they understand that that is the gateway to my liberation. Okay, so imagine I'm now the guy I'm at million or two. I go to my events, Accelerate. I go to Dave Yoho's event. I start to get out there and I start to hear about this one-call close, the one-call close. And I take notes and Oh, that sounds interesting. You mean I can hire people? And I put them into a step selling system and then I could measure their effectiveness all along the way. And oh, by the way, now I can scale the business. I'm going to get them two leads a day. You know the deal. This is how you build the business. This is how you go from, you know, rugged individualist to a sophisticated business person. So now you're writing notes in your thing and you and you say, you know, this makes sense. These other guys are doing it. This must be the right way to do it, dammit, I'm going to go do this. Okay, so now the event's over, they get back in their car or they get on the plane and they start their flight, their trip home. Well, what starts to happen on their trip home? All the old crap, the resistance to this idea. Okay. The resistance to this idea starts to bubble up. You may not even be aware of it happening, but it'll start to bubble up and you'll start to think things like, "Wow, you know, that's a really different way to sell it. Wow. That's I don't know. I don't know if my customer will buy that. Oh, and I have to raise my prices. Oh, I don't know if they'll buy that." But this is all going on behind the scenes. So now you got your office and you're excited.Because that's that's another thing we have, right? We have this eternal optimism. So now we come to our office and we throw up over the three people that are there. And we said, Oh my God, we're going to be a $10 million company and we're going to start by doing one-call close. What's everybody going to do? They're going to be like, Are you out of your mind? What do you mean? We're going to go into a house and we're going to sit there until they sign a contract. Well, it's not quite like that. That's not the way they describe it. But, yeah. And they're like, "No." And then you talk to the one guy that might be helping you with sales. And he's like, "Oh, God, no, that's not who we are. That's good for them, but that's not who we are." So now the owner is in a. He had his fears and resistance bubbling up. And now he's getting this revolt from everybody else. It's like they're pushing him back. So what does he do? Nothing. Just keeps doing the same thing over and over again and goes back next year and says, "Okay, this is the year. This is the year I'm going to do it." You've seen these people at events, haven't you?

00:30:31
Todd Miller: Oh, absolutely. Yep.

00:30:33
Brian Kaskavalciyan: We've seen these people year after year after year. This is going to be the year. What? When they make that change. They have made the decision. I have to now be somebody different in my business. I'm not changing my values, my morality. I'm not talking about that. I'm not changing my ethics. But I'm going to change who I am in my business. And if they don't want to go, this is just one of the things. But if they don't want to go with me, they aren't the right people. They got me here, but they aren't going to get me there. And you have to overcome that. You have to overcome that with yourself. You got to overcome that with your family. You got to overcome that with your team. You got to overcome that with who you love. To me, that's the hard work. That's the hard work. And so, sorry, I keep going on and on. You want me to go? I got one more point here.

00:31:41
Todd Miller: Go ahead.

00:31:41
Seth Heckaman: Go ahead.

00:31:41
Todd Miller: Yeah, you're good.

00:31:43
Brian Kaskavalciyan: So this is why. So when I put the book together, back to the book now. So when I put the book together, people are you know, if you go on Amazon, we've got, you know, hundreds of reviews, but you got those 1 or 2 reviews that will just say, "Oh, this book has nothing to do with growing your home improvement business." I never said it did. It has to do with growing who you are so that you can build a business that works for you. The first thing that we talk about in this book is. What do you want? What do you want? So I ask people this all the time and you say, Well, what do you want? Well, I want a $10 million business. Like, well, why do you want a $10 million business? That doesn't sound like fun. Why do you want a $10 million business? You know what it looks like. Do you know much work you have to do to get there? Well, because, you know, they don't have a good reason for it. What I want to know is how much money do you want to make? I mean, really, how much money you want to make? A $100 a year, $500 a year, a million a year? How much do you want to make? Then let's build the business around that. You want to make $500 a year? You don't need a $10 million business. Now, a lot of people out in the industry because they don't think this way. Need a $20 million business just so that they can make $500.

00:33:03
Todd Miller: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

00:33:05
Brian Kaskavalciyan: But my clients don't. My clients have $5 and $6 million businesses, and they're becoming multimillionaires.

00:33:12
Todd Miller: Yeah.

00:33:12
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Why? Because we're focused on the right thing. We're focused on what we want. Then we go build the model for our business to deliver that to us. And then we go work the model and we go work the plan.

00:33:27
Todd Miller: Nope, that makes evey bit of sense, you know. And I do think it's a natural assumption for most people in this business to just assume that in order to get more success, I got to be bigger. I got to have more people do more jobs, all that type of stuff.

00:33:39
Brian Kaskavalciyan: And it may, look, it may be true.

00:33:42
Todd Miller: Right, right.

00:33:44
Brian Kaskavalciyan: But let's understand at the core of it, let's understand why do you want to do this?

00:33:50
Todd Miller: Yeah.

00:33:50
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Then we'll go build it.

00:33:52
Todd Miller: Well, I mean, you and you have a great book and great website to help walk people through that. And one of the things I wanted to talk to you a little bit about today, though, is customer experience.

00:34:01
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Yes.

00:34:02
Todd Miller: It was kind of interesting. About a year ago, I had a digital marketing expert tell me that, you know, our space on the Internet is so full as far as the number of people advertising home improvement or construction services that the key to success going forward is customer experience.

00:34:21
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Hmm.

00:34:22
Todd Miller: I'm curious to hear what that means to you. And, you know, where does this customer experience actually start? Is it really prospect experience also? We don't really talk about that much.

00:34:32
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Well, it's funny because I've been talking about this stuff for, you know, 14 years. And a few years ago there was a lot of stuff coming out about the experience economy where, you know, we're moving into an experience economy. What it means is you take yourself out of the equation because we you know, we all focus on ourselves. Let's take ourselves out of the equation and let's put ourselves in the shoes of our customer. Let's understand who our customer is, what keeps them up at night, what are their challenges, what are their concerns? And so when we understand this then and then so once we understand that, let's understand what is the solution we are providing for them. So if we're selling windows. Let's understand what is our solution? We don't just slap in windows. We're taking a house and making it more energy efficient. We're making it, we're making it prettier. We're we're enhancing the value of the house. And then we have to understand, okay, well, if these are the solutions we're providing, going to your question first, about the second question first, which was the prospect. So how effectively are we communicating the solution and the problem. Not, hey, buy two windows, get one free.

00:36:02
Todd Miller: Mm hmm.

00:36:02
Brian Kaskavalciyan: What solution or what problem does my customer have that I uniquely can solve? And so that starts off the relationship and the experience with these people understand me. And then when I call in and I pick up the phone and I say, "Okay, I like what they're saying here, let me pick up the phone and call." Now I get an operator at the, hopefully I get an operator at the business. I called a business yesterday. I'm trying to get my garage redone. I called a business yesterday and got voicemail. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? In 2023, you placed an ad in a magazine which wasn't cheap. It's got a tracking number. I know it has a tracking number on it. I called your business within business hours. And not a human being didn't pick up. By the way. It's how many hours later I still haven't gotten a callback.

00:36:58
Todd Miller: Wow.

00:36:59
Brian Kaskavalciyan: So that's a horrible experience from the prospect side. But let's say it's a good experience. So now I get an operator on the phone. The operator asks me a couple questions, says, "I can help you with that." Great. Understand where I'm coming from first and then tell me. Yeah, I, I can I can help you with that. So the way that we have taught it, customer experience is just like that. Place yourself in the shoes of your customer and we break it into three components. This is a big part of what we've done for years and years for our gFour clients. And we, and I teach this too, when I'm out doing things, but there's before they become a customer. So here's the parts and pieces before they come a customer. So now let's look at how the phone is answered. Let's look at when we go out to the people's home, how are we showing up? What car we driving? Are we in uniform? What do we walk up to the door with? When we get up to the door. Do we just stand there right up in front of the door, or do we take a big step back so that they can see who we are so they're not intimidated? And on and on. Once they become a customer, now what happens? So they sign the contract tonight. Tomorrow they get a phone call. "Hey, thank you so much. We're so excited to do this job for you. We're going to send somebody out in a couple of days to measure up. Just make sure we have all the right measurements for the windows so that when your windows arrive, we don't have any problem. They all fit just right." And then you just go through the whole step by step. It's choreography. In that handyman business that you brought up that we franchised, this is what we taught our laborers. We didn't teach them how to do the work. We taught them how to deliver an experience to the customer as we were three, four, or five times the cost of what a typical handyman off the street would be. But we delivered on that value through the experiences, assurances and guarantees and things like that. But the customer experience is that's that's your bread and butter. That's also what's going to help you charge premium prices. It's what's going to help you achieve the gross margin you need in order to have the net profit that you need. And ultimately, it builds a healthier business. You know, we've been six months away from a recession for the last three years, right?

00:39:38
Todd Miller: Yes.

00:39:38
Brian Kaskavalciyan: And so when that eventually comes in, it's going to come and I think it's going to be ugly when it finally does. But when it does. Who do we have as business owners? Who do we have to rely on? We should be able to rely on those clients that we've done work for and built relationship with. They're the ones that are going to keep us going when the phone stops ringing. So there's so many layers to it.

00:40:08
Todd Miller: Yeah, no, that's great. And you know, that customer experience is what builds that trust from that customer and, you know, proves to them that you have true value to offer to them. And it just builds on itself. I love it.

00:40:21
Brian Kaskavalciyan: That's right, yeah.

00:40:22
Todd Miller: So so let's go back to this phrase 'wealthy contractor' that's the moniker you use on everything, which is fantastic. So I'm sure there's people out there in our audience like, "Hey, I love that. That's who I want to be." So where should they start? What questions should they ask themselves or how how should they define things in their own lives to get started on this path to become a wealthy contractor?

00:40:47
Brian Kaskavalciyan: So we start, with our clients, we always start at the same place. We start with an exercise I developed called the Four Numbers Exercise, and I can give you guys access if you want to share it in the show notes. Where I did a, I walk people through how to do this exercise, how to think through the exercise and the worksheets and things that go with it. But basically, this is how I, one of the tools I use inadvertently to figure my own crap out. And so it works like this. Instead of saying, you know, how much money do you want to make? I want to make $500. Great. How much do you make now? Well, $200. What's the most money you've ever made? Well, it's $200. Okay. So you want to go from 200 to 500? Okay. You want to go two and a half times, so great. Let me ask you this. How are you going to spend the $500? What do you mean? How am I going to spend it? How are you going to spend it? What are you going to spend it on? Well, I'm going to buy a house. Okay. Where? How much does a house cost? What is it going to cost you to live in that house? To maintain that house? What else? Well, I want to send my kids to private school. Right. How much does that cost? What kind of car do you want to drive? I want to drive, I don't know, a Lexus. How much is that going to cost? What do you want to do for fun? Travel. Okay. That's for us. Me and Addie love to travel. Okay. Well, how do you want to travel? Do you want to sit on the front of the plane or do you want to sit in the back of the plane? What kind of hotels do you want to stay in? Five star, or are you okay with three star. So you get where I'm going with this? So let's determine how you're going to spend the money. So the four numbers are, one is lifestyle. It's all of that stuff that I just said. It's like, how do you want to live your life? What is your ideal life look like? All right, let's go shopping. Let's figure out what it's going to cost you to live that life. Don't just throw a number out there and say I want to make $1 million a year. That was my number for years. I want to make $1 million a year. Well, great. Until I started to spend the money. Now, of course, I spent it on paper, not in reality. But until I started to spend the money, it wasn't real. And so it eluded me for 20 years. When I finally wrote it down and I'm like, Oh yeah, I'm going to put X amount of dollars to lifestyle. I'm going to put X amount of dollars to future wealth, future wealth. So how much of that money am I going to put away? Invest for my future and my family's future. How much am I going to give in charity donations? You know, my giving account. And then finally, the last number is taxes and liabilities. So do I have debt I need to pay off? How much am I going to need for taxes? I take those four numbers and I come up with one number. And now I got a real number to focus on. So we got you know, you've got people that, you know, they're doing 9 and $10 million a year. And I do this exercise with. They want to make half a million dollars a year. See, that's their number today. Half a million. And I say to them, I look at their business and it's not making money. And I'm like, okay, cut the business in half and charge more and get really dialed in on your systems and processes. Well, what do you mean cut my business in half? I mean, this is an extreme example, but cut my business in half. What are you talking about? You want to make half a million a year, you ain't going to get there the way you're doing it out. How's it worked? You can make, you've been making 200 a year. Now you got to do something different. Now you got to become who you have to become somebody that is a $500 a year person.

00:44:50
Seth Heckaman: I love that process in giving them a true vision of what they're shooting for rather than this arbitrary number they throw out front. But so, I'm curious, when you are working with that $9-10 million or 5-6, whatever, a business owner who has a business that isn't accomplishing their goals, there's not much left but a gralloch of a business and not serving them at this point. Are there some consistent, you know, consistent traits you're finding? Consistent first things that you set your sights on that they need to start making adjustments?

00:45:22
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Absolutely. So, number one, issue and we, well, anyway, the number one issue is they don't know their numbers. They don't understand their P&Ls. Their P&Ls aren't set up properly. They don't have a good scorecard. They don't have accountability of self and others. And so I saw this in our industry. Nobody teaches anybody how to make money in this business. Have you noticed that, by the way, guys, you go to these industry events and they'll tell you what it should look like. But they don't tell you how to actually make money. What do they tell you? Oh, you need more sales. You need more salespeople, you need more marketing. You need to get more marketing out there. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. What about their P&L? I look at P&L. So we do in response to this. The one guy in this industry that I've heard one day talking through profitability, I grabbed them. His name is Mark Curry. I think, you know, Todd, you might you guys must know Mark. Under-the-radar guy, you see him, he's quiet in the back of the room taking notes. Quiet guy. But this guy understands profit. I've had him on the podcast. He's been at Accelerate. I asked him to come and speak at Accelerate because I'm like, "Dude, you're the one guy that could actually, like, explain this shit so dummies like me can understand it." So he goes to Accelerate, he presents, I get calls, like I get constant. "Well, Mark said this. How do you can you put me in touch with Mark?" And I'm like, "No, Mark's busy. He's not going to come." So we put together a profit workshop and we just finished it a couple of weeks and just finished it a couple of weeks ago. And it is shocking to me, shocking to me. These companies and their P&Ls, they're a flipping mess. One example, one example. Nice people in in our mastermind group, wonderful husband and wife team. They call me before the workshop and they say, Hey, let's meet. We want to be prepared. I came once a couple of years ago. I'm coming again, but this time I'm going to get it. Great, let's get together on a zoom call. Show me your P&L. So of course it's just a mess. So I look at it, What do I do? I go to the top number, then I go to the bottom number. The bottom number was awesome, like 400-and-something thousand dollars through August. Like, this is great. Then I go back in between and look at the details. There are negative numbers in there. I'm like, "Why is there a -$240 here?" "Oh, I don't know." "What do you mean, you don't know? It's showing -$240 on your P&L. What is that?" "I don't know. It's our accountant. He told us to do general ledger entries." About what? And I'm like. And, you know, and look, I work with the nicest people in this industry. I mean, look, I say it in the book. These are the hardest working people I've ever met. I was one of them. I worked my ass off for 20 years and I ended up broke for 20 years. And I ended up broke. I had to figure out a different way. And one of the things is you've got to control, have a control over your numbers. And so when you have control over your numbers and I know what my margin is, we got, we call it LMC, labor, material, and commission. Those are my direct costs against every job. Here is the benchmark. Here is where you need to be, right? And if that number is off, what are we going to do about it? Because there is a number of things that we can do to troubleshoot that. But when you don't even know what that number is or you don't trust it because like with these people, I looked at that P&L. I didn't trust it. I didn't trust anything on it anymore.

00:49:31
Todd Miller: Mm hmm.

00:49:32
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Nothing. So the whole thing is garbage. I threw it out. I'm like, "Guys, this is a mess. You got to figure out what these stupid entries are." And so that's where it all starts, is to really understand this is a numbers-driven business. You know, it's a numbers-driven business. There's formulas to it. There's models and frameworks to follow. And people make it so much harder than it needs to be. But then that goes back to what I said earlier, is it's the thinking, the beliefs that they have inside about themselves and about the business and the world around them.

00:50:10
Todd Miller: You know, a couple of years ago, we had another mutual friend of ours, Frank Farmer, speak at our Metal Roofing Summit, and Frank went through different-sized contracting companies and really nailed it in terms of this is what your books look like. And there wasn't a person in that room who didn't say "Yeah he's pointing at me when he talks about that guy." And then he showed them how to build what in essence is a wealthy contractor model.

00:50:39
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Yeah.

00:50:40
Todd Miller: And be able to make money at what you're doing. So, good stuff.

00:50:42
Seth Heckaman: And, you know, it's so rare. You know, Frank's a business that measures his P&L down to the 10th of a percentage point. And then you've got people in this business that are flying blind, like you were saying, and people that can come in and help. It's so critical.

00:50:55
Brian Kaskavalciyan: If I can, if I can just go back to the wealthy piece for a minute to why the Wealthy Contractor and by the way, I am not the wealthy contractor, it's not me. It's the listener. It's the reader of the book. It's the person that's listening to this podcast. It's you. It's not about me. You know, again, I put myself in my customers shoes. And being wealthy means different things to different people.

00:51:22
Todd Miller: Yeah.

00:51:23
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Wealth is not only about money. Wealth is also about time. Time is more valuable than money. And when you're working. So I have a client right now that that, you know, in our mastermind group that divulged to us that, you know, he's working six, seven days a week. Working his ass off. The business is doing okay, but it's all through muscle and effort and work. And when he's with his kids, he gets his kids two days a week. He's thinking about the business. He can't focus on the young children that are with their father only two days a week. That's not a wealthy person. I don't care how much money he's got in the bank. That's not wealth. Wealth is having a business that works for you so that you can go do the things that you want to do with your life. Your life should not be your business. The business is only a vehicle to fund your life. Does that make sense? It's only a flippin tool.

00:52:26
Seth Heckaman: Mm hmm.

00:52:27
Brian Kaskavalciyan: But we make it. I was a bit guilty of this. I got so emotional about my business. Oh, so much emotion. One day I loved it. The next day I hated it. You know, one day it loved me. The next day it hated me, you know? And if you add these things or they're. They're devious, they will take over your life. The business, I mean. It'll take over your life if you allow it to. And I did it. And I see a lot of people out there that do it. And it does not have to be that way.

00:53:03
Todd Miller: This is good stuff. No doubt resonating deeply with a lot of our listeners and perhaps even one of the hosts right now. But anyway, so so tell us about your podcast. Well, for the Wealthy Contractor podcast, what do you try to do through that? Who are your typical guests? What can people accomplish by spending some time with you on that?

00:53:26
Brian Kaskavalciyan: So when it first started, I didn't know what the hell it was going to be. I had no idea. All I knew was I should start a podcast, okay. I'm learning a whole bunch of stuff. I meet incredible people. And maybe, maybe, you know, we put some, you know, good stuff out there. And I ask people about what made you successful. Some people will listen to it. And my very first phone call was to Brian Elias, the formerly 1-800 Hansens. Good friend, a really good friend of mine. I said, hey. And Brian's one of those, I could call Brian, he'll do anything I ask him to do. So I'm like, "Alright, I'm going to call Brian. He's entertaining and he holds, you know, holds nothing back. And we have interesting conversations." And so he was my first guest on the podcast. And so after, you know, I had him and I had a few other of my friends and people from the industry and successful people from the business, and we're like, we're coming up on our 200th episode. And according to the dollar stats and stuff, it's like in the top 1% of all podcasts in the world, which I thought was kind of cool. And it's really all about having conversations with real people that have been there, that have done it, and are continuing to do it. And we talk about like this, what's going on out in the industry. What do you potentially see coming? What are some issues maybe? And that's kind of, and it's just kind of taken on a life of its own.

00:55:20
Todd Miller: Well, it's a great show. I've listened to a few episodes and yes, great shows, so we encourage folks to listen to that.

00:55:26
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Yeah, thank you.

00:55:27
Todd Miller: Well, it's been a great time. Before we close out, you know, we're getting close to the end of what we call the business end of things here. But is there anything we haven't covered today that you'd like to be sure to share with our audience today?

00:55:41
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Oh, a ton of things. But right now, I think that, listen, I think if if people that are listening get one thing out of this, then I think we've probably done a good job. And that is as we, when did you say this is going to be. We're doing this in September so it's going to be...

00:56:00
Todd Miller: This will probably air right around the start of the new year.

00:56:03
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Okay. So perfect, perfect timing. I would say to everybody, when you are going to sit down and you're going to think about your next year, 2024, I like to actually think in threes. So look at 24, 25, 26 and say, okay, because we can accomplish a lot in three. We could change our lives in three years. And so what I would say to people is really think about stop, don't think about, oh, now with this year we did 4 million. So next year we want to do 5. No, work it backwards. Really think about what do you want? Where do you want to live? How much money do you want to put away? How do you want to live? What do you want for your children? What do you want? And really think that through and come up with a number. And from that number, by the way, in the book, I give I give all kinds of tools and stuff for this. I keep my other way, but I give tools for that. It's all free shit, you know? But it's, think about what you want your business to look like in terms of money delivered back to you. And then let's go build that business. So you may not need to go from 4 million to 5 million. You may only need to go from 4 million to 4.2. But increase your margin by 5 or 10 points. So that would be I think that's like the one thing that and that's what we're going to do in our mastermind groups in November. It's all about planning for next year. But none of this be asked about, well, how much did you do this year? 6 million. How much did you make? Well, you know, we put money back in the blah, blah, blah. How much did you take home? Well, okay, great. You didn't take anything home. So what about next year? Well, we're going to do 10 million next year. Give me a flipping break. You know, let's start from scratch. That's my best advice.

00:58:06
Todd Miller: Good stuff.

00:58:06
Seth Heckaman: Love it.

00:58:07
Todd Miller: Hey, this is great. Well, before we do close out.

00:58:10
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Thanks for coming, you guys.

00:58:11
Todd Miller: No, thank you. It's been excellent. Before we do close out, though, I have to ask if you're willing to participate in something we call our rapid fire questions. So these are seven questions that we will ask you. They may be serious, they may be silly. All you have to do is give the answer. Are you up to the challenge of rapid fire?

00:58:28
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Let's do it.

00:58:29
Todd Miller: Okay. Seth and I will alternate asking. Seth, you want to ask question number one?

00:58:34
Seth Heckaman: Sure, rapid fire question number one, how many alarms do you set in the morning and how many times do you hit snooze?

00:58:40
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Basically zero alarms set. But when I do hit the alarm, like if I have to catch a plane or something, at least twice.

00:58:49
Seth Heckaman: There you go, similar.

00:58:51
Todd Miller: Good answer. Question number two: What would you like to be remembered for at the end of your days?

00:58:57
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Really, like good husband, good father, and hopefully helped a couple people, you know, think about their lives a little differently.

00:59:08
Todd Miller: Good answer.

00:59:09
Seth Heckaman: Beautiful. Question number three: would you rather have to dance in front of a thousand people or sing in front of a thousand people?

00:59:16
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Oh, jeez. Definitely dance.

00:59:23
Todd Miller: Because you really love dancing?

00:59:28
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Singing? How much singing would you have to do, though? Like one line or a whole song?

00:59:36
Seth Heckaman: I think it's a whole song. You have to make it painful either way.

00:59:41
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Yeah, I'd rather dance.

00:59:45
Todd Miller: Okay, next question. What is something that amazes you?

00:59:50
Brian Kaskavalciyan: What is something that amazes me? I'm amazed that I've been married to the same awesome woman for 25 years.

00:59:59
Todd Miller: Good for you. That's great.

01:00:01
Seth Heckaman: That's awesome. And you work together every day on top of it.

01:00:06
Brian Kaskavalciyan: We do.

01:00:06
Seth Heckaman: You don't even get that. Powerful, man. And she's awesome too.

01:00:10
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Yeah. She's the boss.

01:00:13
Seth Heckaman: Next question's going to take some honesty. Is there anything about your job that you really hate having to do?

01:00:22
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Yes.

01:00:29
Todd Miller: He found the loophole. Anything you're willing to share that you hate having to do? It's okay if not.

01:00:39
Brian Kaskavalciyan: I will tell you, the thing that, and it's not really. It's like, again, it's not about me but I just hate, I really, and this is going to sound so sappy and this is why I didn't want to completely answer it. But I'll tell you, getting on the phone, a Zoom meeting with those, the couple that I told you about, the husband and wife with the messed-up P&L. Knowing how hard they work and they're doing good. I mean, don't get me wrong, they're doing good. And, you know, they got a good life and a relation, you know, and all that. But I just hate to see that their stuff is a mess. They're working so damn hard and they're getting bad advice. Their stuff's a mess and they're trying to figure it out and they're trying to run their business. And I think that's probably the part that I dislike the most.

01:01:33
Todd Miller: But ultimately, a great role you can play is painting that picture for something.

01:01:37
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Hopefully. I don't know.

01:01:39
Todd Miller: Okay, next question. If you were an Olympian, what sport would you participate in?

01:01:45
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Is there anything that you could just, you sit down? Something you sit down for.

01:01:52
Todd Miller: There probably are some sitting ones.

01:01:54
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Bobsleddding!

01:01:56
Todd Miller: There you go.

01:01:57
Brian Kaskavalciyan: You have to run really fast and then jump in to the boat.

01:02:03
Todd Miller: Isn't there one guy that sits the whole time or am I mistaken?

01:02:06
Brian Kaskavalciyan: That would be me then.

01:02:11
Seth Heckaman: Alright, last rapid fire question. Can you think of a product or service you have bought that was a real game-changer for you? Sort of a "where have you been all my life" moment?

01:02:22
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you want one or you want two?

01:02:25
Seth Heckaman: Two, absolutely.

01:02:26
Todd Miller: We'll take it.

01:02:27
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Okay. So, number one, TSA precheck.

01:02:31
Todd Miller: Oh, yeah.

01:02:32
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Best $50 you'll ever spend. And there's this service called SaneBox, S-A-N-E-B-O-X. And what it does again, it's like 100 bucks a year or something like that. It goes through all of your emails, all, through all history. And it has some sort of algorithm that figures out who's important and who's not. And it gives you, once it learns and you teach it, I've been using it now for like 3 or 4 years. So it's like spot on. Like I hardly I have 15 emails right now. And probably, you know, and yeah, I have 15 total emails that are new that I need to look at.

01:03:20
Todd Miller: Wow. So it just kind of filters stuff out?

01:03:23
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Filters stuff out, yep.

01:03:25
Todd Miller: SaneBox. I think I need this badly.

01:03:28
Brian Kaskavalciyan: You need it. Everybody needs it. It is the coolest thing.

01:03:33
Todd Miller: I had Outlook email me again this morning and say you're at 98% of your Outlook capacity, Todd.

01:03:42
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Yeah.

01:03:43
Todd Miller: Okay. We will check that out as well. Good stuff. Well, thank you. Well, thank you again. So for folks who want to get in touch with you or learn more about the Wealthy Contractor, how can they most easily do that?

01:03:56
Brian Kaskavalciyan: So the best thing to do is go to thewealthycontractor.com, obviously thewealthycontractor.com. When you go there, you can actually get a copy of the book for free. Just pay shipping and I'll send you a hard copy of the book, plus give you access to everything that's mentioned in the book. Can I also real quick talk about our event in February of this year?

01:04:18
Todd Miller: This is great timing.

01:04:20
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Yeah, So we we put on an annual event called Accelerate Live. And I was just telling the guys that last year we had 350 people. This year we will have more. We're going to be in Orlando, Florida in February, February 6th and 7th. And you can learn all about it. It is basically taking the podcast and doing it all, kind of live. I have my core speakers that come every year. Mark Curry to talk about profitability. My good friend Charlie Gandel, who I call the wisest man in home oimprovement. My buddy John Inglis, who is one of those guys that, like me, bumped his head against the wall for years and years and finally figured this business out, became a multimillionaire and now helps teach other companies how to do the things that he did. And then my fourth one is my good friend Scott Berman, who runs Florida Window and Door, one of the largest home improvement. I think he's like number 20 in the country for home improvement companies. But I always ask him to take us back to when he was a $4 or $5 million company. And because this guy is a hell of an operator, I mean, just incredible, incredible operator. And anyway, those are my core four people that we have at this event. But the people that you'll meet at this event are like none other. And so with that, you can go to either thewealthycontractor.com or you can go to accelerateevent.com, accelerateevent.com. And we've got huge guarantees on that too. You're told no risk at all to the attendees.

01:06:07
Todd Miller: Love it. Well hopefully we will see you there as well. Hopefully we'll be able to be there. So Charlie Gandel, I was just trading messages on LinkedIn with him last night. You maybe do, maybe don't know this. When he first, well, shortly after he moved to California to start his business, it was actually a metal roofing business. And then he just, you know. He was buying from Alcoa before we owned the Alcoa product line. And yeah, I live about three blocks away from where Charlie lived in when he worked for Alcoa in Sidney, Ohio. So good guy, great guy.

01:06:44
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Yeah, I love Charlie.

01:06:46
Todd Miller: So just to report back, we were all successful with our challenge words. That's pretty doggone good. Seth, your word was?

01:06:55
Seth Heckaman: Gralloch.

01:06:56
Todd Miller: So tell us what gralloch means.

01:06:58
Seth Heckaman: It is the picked-over carcass of a deer, according to Mr. Miller's definition.

01:07:06
Todd Miller: And you worked it in with great aplomb, anyway. Brian, your word was?

01:07:13
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Incredulous.

01:07:15
Todd Miller: You did a great job with it; worked it in well.

01:07:18
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Thank you.

01:07:19
Todd Miller: I had the word queen and worked her in there as well, here and there as well, so we were all successful. Hopefully our audience figured out at least Seth's word. I think they had to kind of wonder.

01:07:28
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Yeah.

01:07:31
Todd Miller: Well, good deal. Well, thank you again, Brian. This has been a real pleasure, enjoyed it so much.

01:07:34
Brian Kaskavalciyan: Thank you, guys; appreciate it.

01:07:36
Todd Miller: And thank you to our audience for tuning in to this very special episode of Construction Disruption with Brian Kaskavalciyan of the Wealthy Contractor. Please watch for future episodes of our podcast. We're always blessed with great guests. Don't forget to leave a review, please, on Apple Podcasts or YouTube. While you're out there, keep on disrupting, shaking things up, challenging folks, looking for better ways to do things. And most of all, don't forget to have a positive impact on everyone you encounter. Make them smile and encourage them; simple yet powerful things you can do. So God bless, take care. This is Isaiah Industries signing off until the next episode of Construction Disruption.

01:08:17
Intro/Outro: This podcast is produced by Isaiah Industries, a manufacturer of specialty metal roofing and other building products.