S.2 Ep.25 TMH Matt Bolyard - GC/Owner Partnerships
In the commercial, industrial, and multifamily construction segments, companies have the chance to work together repeatedly. As such, maintaining strong relationships with customers and service providers alike is a great strength for the companies that do it well.
Matt Bolyard joins The Huddle to talk about the value of strong relationships between GCs and Owners, and the service-oriented mindset he and the Southway Builders team use to create lasting partnerships with their customers.
Transcript:
00:00
Speaker 1
We need to get back to work. And work is one of the ways that we contribute to this country, that we grow our gdp, we grow our tax base, we contribute to each other effectively.
00:09
Speaker 2
We help finance our national security, our.
00:12
Speaker 1
Homeland security, our, you know, our infrastructure.
00:14
Speaker 2
I had key employees that really wanted to be leaders in the company, but they didn't want to have any ownership in it, responsibility that way. So I just had to start researching out and figuring out, well, how.
00:26
Speaker 1
Do I market my company?
00:28
Speaker 2
Go to your local school board for one hour twice this year. And if you can have even just.
00:33
Speaker 1
10 or 15 employers show up and.
00:34
Speaker 2
Do that at the same school board every single month, there's two contractors filling out a little card to give your 30 seconds at the podium that says, I need your help and we have great jobs. Eventually they will hear you. But if everyone just did two hours a year, that's how we change this. Stacy, how you doing this morning?
00:50
Speaker 3
I'm doing great.
00:52
Speaker 2
She loves it. I ask the question every time she sleeps like, I'm fine, dude, just a little much.
01:01
Speaker 1
And I say to that owner, I said, sue, you're not willing to invest in yourself. You're not going to invest in yourself. You're going to invest in companies you have no control over, whereas your company you control and you don't have the confidence to pour the money into that.
01:14
Speaker 2
When things are busy and they're looking for their GC friends to sit down and negotiate a project on a GC and a fee and they're more excited about building the project and then all of a sudden the model, the market swings and now the developer market is going to go out and they're going to hard bid the same project to two or three different GCs. And that's where it starts going down. Morning huddle time. Good morning, everybody.
01:47
Speaker 1
Good morning. Good morning.
01:48
Speaker 2
It's June 14th. We started our day with a thunderstorm. Not a typical start to, to a morning, but I was like the only one in my house awake for it. Look, looks like we're in for round two, you know, as well. So hopefully on this live broadcast we don't have a power outage.
02:09
Speaker 3
Yeah, we'll see.
02:13
Speaker 2
So we've got Matt Bolliard here with us this morning. Matt, how are you?
02:18
Speaker 1
I'm well, Chad, how are you doing?
02:20
Speaker 2
Real good. Thank you for being here. So Stacy, how was your weekend?
02:26
Speaker 3
It was good. I took a trip to Philly and saw my parents for a while and we did. We watched the Keys versus the Thunder games. It was awesome.
02:38
Speaker 2
Oh, that's awesome.
02:39
Speaker 3
Yeah.
02:40
Speaker 2
That was minor league. Minor league baseball.
02:43
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah.
02:45
Speaker 2
I have not been out to a Frederick Keys game.
02:49
Speaker 3
It's a blast. It's a blast.
02:52
Speaker 1
Good.
02:53
Speaker 2
All right, I'll put that on the list. How about you, Matt? How was your weekend?
02:56
Speaker 1
It was great. My daughter and wife were away for a Girl Scout trip, so it was a boys weekend, which concluded on Sunday with a Lego festival, which was a lot of fun. So.
03:10
Speaker 2
So just you and your sort of grown up friends or. Yes.
03:15
Speaker 1
Sometimes they act like grown up friends, but the two boys are seven and three, so that's awesome. It was great.
03:21
Speaker 2
A Lego fest.
03:22
Speaker 1
That sounds great.
03:23
Speaker 2
Yeah, A lot of fun. I threw my back out on Sunday, which has been exciting. I've been. Yesterday I was like, holding on to hope I play hockey in like an old man's hockey league. And yesterday I was holding on to hope that I would be able to play hockey. I didn't like, tell the team until noon. And I was like, you know what? I can't really walk, so probably hockey's off the table tonight.
03:47
Speaker 3
How'd you do that?
03:49
Speaker 2
I'm not sure is the hardest.
03:52
Speaker 1
He sneezed. Yeah.
03:56
Speaker 2
You start to. It happens. Everybody has warned me that it would happen and it's happening where you just start getting older and things are falling apart part. So it's a blast. It's a lot of fun.
04:05
Speaker 1
Yeah.
04:07
Speaker 2
Well, good. So. So I want to introduce Matt Boliard. Matt is vice president at Southway Builder. Southway is a Baltimore based builder. I don't know, you know, if. If you want to expand on sort of size and type and all that kind of stuff, I'll let you do that, Matt. But they're good friends of mine and I've known Matt for a long time. What's really cool is that when the reason that Matt's on the show is that I was talking to a developer client of mine that has, you know, projects going on in 14 different states and folks all over the country and obviously works with lots of general contractors. And I said, hey, I want to do an episode where we are talking to a general contractor that has really figured out how to be a good partner for you guys.
04:57
Speaker 2
Do you have anybody that you'd throw in that category? And he didn't skip a beat. He said, you should really be talking to Southway builders. I'd recommend talking to Matt Boliard. And I was like, that's really funny because I know them really well. And, and I wasn't surprised. But it was validating of a lot of the feelings that I have about Southway and a lot of the feelings that I have about Matt personally. And so there's, I think I'm really interested to have our audience hear how you're approaching things and you know, as it relates to building effective general contractor ownership partners, owner partnerships, that is, you know, what you're doing that maybe, you know, made our mutual client put you at the top of the list.
05:41
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, first thanks Chad and Stacy both for inviting me and Southway on the show here. We really appreciate any opportunity to speak about this topic, especially it's something that's I think, near and dear to our hearts. Southway is getting ready to celebrate our 31st year in business. We are, depending on context, I think, a mid size regional general contractor. We, while our roots were founded in affordable housing, we have grown beyond that in 20 years ago, started a commercial group. So we're pretty evenly distributed now with commercial project as well as our multifamily projects ranging from affordable housing apartment deals to projects like Lexington Market that hopefully folks are familiar with. So I've been with Southway for 15, coming on 15 years now.
06:41
Speaker 1
Started as a project manager, coming from another company prior to that and kind of stayed here and worked my way up. But it's been really great. It's a great company that has grown a lot in those 15 years and the 31 years as well and continue to grow based on a lot of the principles that I think we'll discuss today. So thank you for having us. Awesome.
07:05
Speaker 2
Yep, we're happy to get into it. So Stacy, you know, as always, you know, making sure that we keep capture questions and comments from the audience. We'll pull you back in here toward the end, but I'll, I'll spare you needing to sit on screen and type at the same time because I know that's fun for me. So. All right, cool. We'll see you soon, Stacy.
07:30
Speaker 3
Sounds good.
07:31
Speaker 2
So Matt, I want to kind of, you know, pick up on this sort of thread of what creates the kind of reaction that I got from the developer that I asked. What do you think makes a successful partnership with an owner in your mind? Where does that sort of start?
08:00
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think, you know, we're often asked, you know, what's our secret recipe? What, you know, what's, what's magic about how we approach this? And I, I don't know that there's any, it all seems really obvious. To us. Right. And, and I don't know that it's magical for us, it all begins with trust. And, and really that was sort of ingrained from 31 years ago and how the business was built. But in more recent history, we've really modeled our behaviors off of the five dysfunctions of the team. So Patrick Lencioni, Author of the Advantage 5 Dysfunctions and many other books, had created this model with a pyramid that starts with trust, goes to accountability, commitment, conflict and results.
08:53
Speaker 1
And our starting point on any relationship is really coming at it with the understanding that the environment that we've chosen to be engaged in, that of construction for many years, has been rife with deceit and mistrust. You know, that's the stigma that has been developed, not unlike the stigma that follows the mechanics of the world. And I think our recognition of that is really important as we come into a relationship and understand that we have to, you know, first develop this trust and wash away the narrative of that stigma and then start building on that foundation towards achieving those results at the top of that pyramid.
09:40
Speaker 2
So along those lines, I agree with you totally that there is this stigma, well earned stigma, quite frankly, you know, surrounding contractors. And I say well earned because I think, you know, it's very common to run into contractors that are doing whatever it takes to make the money that they need to make. And sometimes, often that comes at the expense of their customer's experience, the way that they're, you know, conducting business ethically, you know, transparency or lack thereof. It, I mean, it happens a lot, whether it's between subcontractors, generals, general zoners, heck, suppliers and manufacturers and the rest of the industry. There's, there's a lot of hiding, you know, in shell game kind of stuff going on. But anyway, because of that, I think your customers, they either are working with a general contractor today, for the most part. Right.
10:55
Speaker 2
This isn't their first project. With the exception of those for whom it is their first project. They're working with a general contractor today or they have worked with general contractors in the past. In either case, they're coming in with some preconceived notions. How do you overcome that? How do you overcome the baggage that you're maybe walking into with a new customer?
11:17
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think, you know, the baggage of a relationship with a customer is really not unlike the baggage of any relationship that you're coming into, whether it's a romantic relationship or new friendship, whatever it might be. Everyone's got baggage, right? And so there's an added wrinkle, I think, inherent with contracting where the starting point of most relationships, at least once it gets to a project level, you know, then we start developing a contract where all of the terms are centered around this idea of what happens when things go wrong. And the terms are really baked into this fundamental thing of not trusting the other party. And so you have to insert and create these terms.
12:01
Speaker 1
And so the starting point of any relationship has, you know, baggage plus, at least in the contracting world, but similar to, I think, any other relationship, at least most traditional romantic relationships, right, you're not meeting someone or courting someone from across the room and engaging, and then next thing you know, you go to the love Chapel. In fact, some people may, but the very next day, we're often going to the chapel to get married. And so over time, over a courtship of dating, you know, we start to unwind, I think, and learn about that baggage and what that baggage effect has been on that individual or in this case, the customer. And so for us, the trust building scenario is really a project, right? So we get to the starting line and then we get into the project.
12:58
Speaker 1
And it's not the first three months, it's the entire span of a project. We refer to the first few months of an engagement usually as a honeymoon period anecdotally. And it's stated that way for a reason, right? Because you're not going through all of the ups and downs of a relationship as you would. And so for us, we really build that trust through demonstration, I think, through the project. And that demonstration is really just founded on this unreal commitment to candor and transparency. And really, I think reflection and understanding that the other party has been burned, has had some baggage, has preconceived notions, stigma or otherwise about contracting, that we really need to unwind as we perform on a project so it doesn't happen on day one. It's a process like any other relationship, us.
13:56
Speaker 2
I often talk with my partnering clients about this idea that you have to extend trust and that everybody is sort of waiting for the other person to earn their trust. But in that waiting period, I'm waiting for this person to earn my trust. The behaviors that you have tend not to behaviors that earn the other person's trust. And it's always at least a two way street, if not a multiple way street, depending on how many parties are involved and what you are doing to extend trust. Initially, I think, how does, I guess how does that translate for a general contractor working with an owner. What are some of the gutsy things that you have to do along the way that are like, this is a new relationship. I sure hope this doesn't come back to hurt us, but here we go.
15:03
Speaker 2
What are some of those extending trust situations that you might have as an example?
15:09
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think the first thing for us is acknowledging for ourselves that we're going to make mistakes. We're human. The second step is encouraging our partners, and I'll use the term customer, to be inclusive of design partners, you know, the three legged stool of client, design contractor. But all of us, I think our next step is to have everyone on the team recognize that all of us, we're going to make mistakes along the way. And you know, a traditional, I think approach in the construction process, especially in a hard bid environment, is one in which everybody's trying to shift risk and avoid the mistakes and point the finger to one of those other stools. Our approach, I think is really a little different in that we try to, I think, help everyone to be successful.
16:10
Speaker 1
You know, it's, and that's rooted, really comes back into our purpose. We'll talk maybe a little bit about this later. But you know, our purpose is to serve others, to help them to achieve their maximum potential. And that goes around the board. So we approach a project in a relationship of look, we're not to use the sort of saying that's come to life here with the pandemic, but we are really all in it together. And so we approach it from a sense of look, let's lock arms here. Your problems are our problems, but the reciprocal of that is that we want you to be willing to play a role in our problems being your problem so that we can collectively solve them instead of pointing to you and saying, well, this is your problem, you need to solve it on your own.
16:57
Speaker 1
I think the other side of that, maybe to cite sort of a broad example, is it comes back to that pyramid. The accountability piece on the pyramid of the five dysfunctions is a really hard piece for contractors, but I think for anyone, especially when you have an expectation of holding your customer accountable, the hand that feeds you. I think often folks feel that they're in this position of, well, I don't want to bite the hand that feeds me. But holding every partner at the table accountable is really toward, you know, focusing towards a common and greater good and having that all. You can't do that without trust. And that's why trust is it at the foundation. But when you can create an environment where you Trust each other enough to, where you can have conflict, you can have the difficult conversations.
17:56
Speaker 1
And when somebody's not performing, whether it's the customer, whether it's the design partner or the contractor, that each person in that triangle, each group in that triangle can point and say, hey, that's not good enough. We need this. And you're not holding up your end of the deal. But, but often I think because of that, you know, relationship of the hand that feeds you, we're silent. And I think that's where we really strive to not be silent, but to be candid and have an open and transparent culture.
18:28
Speaker 2
So, so there's, I mean, there's so much in the past two minutes of that answer. There's so much in there to dig into. I want to, I guess, highlight a couple of the things that really, I.
18:42
Speaker 1
Pulled out of that.
18:43
Speaker 2
One is acknowledging your own fallibility. And you know, I always, the term I like to use is like, bust yourself before they bust you.
18:56
Speaker 1
Right?
18:56
Speaker 2
Like if you've screwed up, don't let other people catch you that you've screwed up. Come running down the hall and be like, I screwed up. Just really announce that it makes a huge difference in terms of trust, right? Because if somebody feels like they had to catch you doing something wrong, that doesn't go well, right. That, that undermines trust. So that's. One is acknowledging your own fallibility and readily, you know, calling yourself out on your issues along the way. One of the things I think that buys you, if I'm hearing you right, is it buys you then the, you know, other end of that, which is the right and the ability to, in a non accusatory way, to hold your customer accountable to, you know, when you identify mistakes that they've made.
19:46
Speaker 2
And it's like, it's not like, hey man, you made a mistake, so you're going to pay for it. It's, hey, we've identified this. Can we mutually agree this is a thing that we have to overcome and we're in the boat with you. Let's, let's solve it together. But because you called yourself out, it makes it easier for you to sort of call them out. And then one last thing, you use this term, candor. And I can't stress enough that I have found when people fail to tell others, shoot each other straight and say like, hey, like if you bite your tongue and you say, I really don't want to bite the hand that feeds me there, I'm gonna hold Back. I'm gonna not say what I think is the issue going on with this customer.
20:30
Speaker 2
It's subtle, but it erodes your liking of that person over time. And it eventually will make it to where you don't treat them like the partner that you want to treat them because you don't like them, because they're jerks, because they've screwed you over.
20:49
Speaker 1
Right? That's right.
20:50
Speaker 2
But in my opinion, the truth is it's your fault. You had an opportunity to correct it.
20:56
Speaker 1
Right? That's right.
20:57
Speaker 2
So that's the, I mean, I don't know. Is that, is that a summary of some of those themes? Is there anything in there that you would disagree with or expand on?
21:05
Speaker 1
No, I think it's great summary. I think you hit the nail on the head. You know, while trust is the word at the foundation there, it's really a version of trust. It's vulnerability based trust. And if we accept the idea of being vulnerable about our own misgivings, our own mistakes, that is the recipe. That's the trust recipe. Right. But absolutely great summarization.
21:31
Speaker 2
So what are some common sense tools? If we're listening to this, we're like, okay, this is thought provoking. We want to create this two way street for accountability. What are some, what are some common sense or real world tools that you might use or strategies that you might use to create this environment of accountability?
21:50
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think we have a lot. The one that I think I would hone in on here, just continuing theme of that project, demonstration of trust, is at the conclusion of that project, everybody I think gets really caught up in the motion of any one project. But we have a process at the end of every project. It's based on the Army's model for after action reviews, which is a real specific sort of construct where, you know, you review your mission objectives. In our case, the project objectives kind of figure out where you landed relative to those outcomes versus the initial desired outcomes. But the meat of that process really comes in two forms. One is reviewing collectively with the customer, again to be inclusive, the design partners what our team and project wins, losses and challenges were.
22:48
Speaker 1
And then trying to reflect and understand, okay, well, these are where we lost. How can we avoid or mitigate these losses in the future with each other? But again, that requires this vulnerable trust where all parties can really say, yeah, well this is where we screwed up and be honest with each other. And if everyone isn't in there with that same level of trust and the process starts to erode from the start. So it still, it all comes back to that trust. But then going through the wins even and talking about, well, where were we successful and how we can enjoy those same successes going forward. The other part of that we often bolt on is a real 360 feedback.
23:30
Speaker 1
And not all customers are game for this, but we find that ones who are, it really creates this deep and meaningful relationship that makes us that much more successful in future projects. But literally where we're in a room round robin, and whether it's a project engineer providing feedback to a project manager, or a project manager providing feedback to an architect or the owner, everybody gets to go around the room and start, stop, continue fashion, say, hey, these are the things that, you know, maybe we didn't do so well or we should reconsider on the next job as just leaving it behind. Whether it's behaviors or otherwise, these are things that we didn't do on this project that we think, you know, maybe you should start to consider to deploy on the next one.
24:17
Speaker 1
And then of course, celebrating wins, talking about, these are things we did well and let's keep doing these things in the future. But having that 360 feedback loop, especially when we can get our customers involved and in the room with us, the results of that exercise are profound. And it just deepens again. It really shores up and codifies that vulnerability based trust.
24:40
Speaker 2
There is so much courage necessary from all parties to pull that off and to regularly conduct that exercise. Not just from the executive team at, you know, Southway, but, you know, really from the folks that are in the trenches. I mean, what a.
25:04
Speaker 1
That's right.
25:04
Speaker 2
What a potentially really scary experience. But what you're saying, I think is so valuable is that if we do really create that kind of continual feedback loop, willingness to confront the truth, whatever that is, that has, I think you said, a profound impact on trust. So now all of a sudden we've got, despite whether the project was a home run or whether the project was fine, what we've got is a sense of partnership that's left behind. And one last question on this, and it has to be brief because I know Stacy has questions from the audience that we want to make sure that we get to. But does it ever happen where you determine at the end of that this is not a good partnership?
25:58
Speaker 1
We haven't had a. We usually make that determination before engaging. Quite honestly, you know, the work that we do usually carries with it a really long gestation period because of the negotiated work that we do. And that gestation period allows us to really have. You know, that's a project in itself where you can.
26:19
Speaker 2
Right. There's all the dating.
26:21
Speaker 1
Yeah.
26:21
Speaker 3
You've.
26:21
Speaker 2
You've had an opportunity to date before you decided to go on vacation together. Yeah.
26:25
Speaker 1
100. Yeah. Yeah. So anytime that we've recognized that it's usually been before, we've put the ring on the finger, so to speak. So.
26:33
Speaker 2
Yep, Yep. That makes sense.
26:35
Speaker 1
So it's.
26:35
Speaker 2
It's kind of like, hey, if we've done a project together, we had enough positive signals that you were going to be a good partner.
26:42
Speaker 1
That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.
26:44
Speaker 2
That's cool. Stacy, what do we got from the group?
26:48
Speaker 3
Yeah. So IKC said, how does Matt protect his subcontractors when working with an owner has yet to earn his trust.
26:58
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I think so the. Our five dysfunction. It's a great question, by the way. The 360 nature of everything that we describe, including our sort of dysfunction pyramid, is not unique to any one direction, be that upward direction to customer, you know, sideway direction, peer to peer, or in direction to our trade partners. You know, we have a similar function with our trade partners that it. That the foundation of trust has to exist with the subs as well. Right. And if we can't create that platform of trust with them, then it's no different relative to the relationship that we're trying to build with our customers. So I think the easy answer to that question would be that to Chad's earlier point, our goal is to not really enter into a scenario where we don't think there's an opportunity to build that trust.
27:58
Speaker 1
So in. In the case of the question, our hope is that our subcontractors are partnering with us to be part of that trust demonstration throughout the project. And so we're doing it together.
28:11
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think it's a really good question coming from Ike. You know, I can only imagine the scenarios that you run into where, you know, there's the practical financial aspect of what you need to accomplish on a project, and then the partnership aspect of what you need to balance with a subcontractor. You know, I don't envy the position, but I do in general, you know, around the market, hear very positive things about what you've been able to do there. What else do we have, Stacy?
28:48
Speaker 3
We have a comment from Mark that says the traditional reward system for project leadership team members focuses on protecting the bottom line, which turns into kill or be killed in pursuit of profits. Making a paradigm shift in evaluating project success is critical to moving our industry forward and beyond our big dysfunction. Just wanted to know, I guess were talking about the guiding philosophy behind choosing to run your business this way and, you know, kind of the things that you already talked about, but if you wanted to comment on the killer be killed.
29:27
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
29:28
Speaker 2
I mean, it's. It's Mark's spot on.
29:31
Speaker 1
I always thought that Mark and I had a subliminal connection. Now he just confirmed it because that's a great question. I hope Mark as well, by the way. We haven't talked for a while, but so. So the. Our guiding philosophy is really simple and it ties back to our purpose. And it's really, you know, if you look at Simon Sinek in the Golden Circle, it's our why. And our why is to help others to achieve their maximum potential. And it's. It really starts with this position of service, which is really different, I think, for most general contractors and is probably more aligned with, you know, a nonprofit to that regard, where our focus is how we can have everyone, whether it's subcontractors, architects, clients, everyone being this idea of we're all working towards something greater, right. To achieve our collective maximum potential.
30:21
Speaker 1
And so to Mark's point, our teams are not our assessment and our metrics that we have profit is pretty low on that list. Right. At the end of the day, if we have incredibly profitable project, but the owner's upset, the project looks like crap, you know, all those things, those aren't.
30:39
Speaker 3
That's not.
30:40
Speaker 1
That's not building trust. That's not earning work. And by doing that, it's not going to allow us to have that greater impact, to allow others to achieve that maximum potential. So for us, it always comes back to that center and to that why. And so when we're looking at teams and looking at the success of projects, we're really looking at, well, how did the team feel? Right. It sounds really weird for a contractor to talk about feelings, but at the end of the day, if we all can't lock arms at the end of the day and feel like we helped everyone, including the communities around us, the impact that we have socially, then if we can't feel good about that or feel like we've really moved that needle, then the profit, you know, what's the point? Right? For us.
31:22
Speaker 1
So to Mark's point, for us, we're not a kill or be killed by profit company. We never have been. The profits are just something that happens as a result of doing the right things and trying to continue to do those right things. To grow bigger and bigger so that we can do more and more right things and help everyone to really come and achieve their maximum potential.
31:46
Speaker 2
Specifically, when Matt and I were getting ready for this interview, one of the funny things that stuck with me was this idea that if a project manager did the wrong thing culturally but made the company $100,000, that would be a, considered a failure.
32:16
Speaker 1
Right?
32:17
Speaker 2
That would be considered a problem. And you know, I get the sense that's, you know, those are conversations you really had before.
32:27
Speaker 1
It is, it's, in fact, it can be a little bit of a culture shock for folks that come from other companies because that is not consistent with most commercial general contractors. And the idea that, you know, we've had conversations where one of the members of our team, you know, they, there's $100,000 issue and you know, it's a little gray, but we have a really good set of core values. We call it qdi, which is quality, dependability, integrity. And what we say is use that as a guide on, for every decision that you have and you'll never make the wrong decision. But nowhere in those words, nothing about that talks about profits or stuffing money in our wallets. And so when there's this hundred thousand dollar issue, if the right thing to do is that's our hundred thousand dollar problem.
33:21
Speaker 1
When, when someone comes from another company and they're working for us and they take joy out of the fact that they turn that $100,000 issue into a $25,000 issue, but they did it on the back of a subcontractor or the back of an owner. That's not good enough for us because that doesn't pass our QDI test. Right. So, and that's a weird thing because, you know, there's other companies out there that celebrate, oh well, we just saved ourselves from $100,000 hit by converting it or pushing it elsewhere. But they don't think about, was that the right thing to do? And so it's, you're right, it becomes a weird, I think, conversation sometimes where there are some individuals, well, what do you mean, I just saved the company $75,000? Well, that's right, but that wasn't the right thing to do.
34:07
Speaker 1
And we'd much rather have had that hit in the spirit of what that means to our partners, whether it's our subcontractor partners or design partners or a customer, because at the end of the day, that's what's going to help them to achieve their maximum Potential and then. And there for us. Yeah.
34:24
Speaker 2
And it's, it's funny because that $75,000 that you left on the table, I know it's not why you're doing it. You're doing it for your core values reasons. Right, I know that. Which, which I think is why it works so damn well. But just as a side note, that $75,000 is coming back to you tenfold in the future because of the integrity that you acted with, be it toward the owner, be it toward the subcontractor. So ultimately, even though it felt like you were leaving $75,000 on the table, you were actually, you know, create. Doing, making a better financial decision long term. And again, I know you would say that's not a financial decision. Right, I know that. But, but it, it still is. Yeah. So listen, we're over already and I still see questions coming in. Stacy, I'll let you call it.
35:19
Speaker 2
Do you want to get one more in?
35:21
Speaker 3
Yeah, I think we should get this last one and I think it's good. How do you determine on whether or not to take a leap of faith on a subcompcontractor you have not worked with previously?
35:35
Speaker 1
Well, it's a great question. I think a leap of faith probably has some context to it in terms of how we might define that. Again, I think it really comes down to this sort of courtship. Right. And so, you know, we have, as most contractors our size have a formal pre qualification process and that sort of thing. But that, you know, that's kind of like the, I'm trying to go back to a romantic situation, a male and bride or something like that. I don't know. For us, the more meaningful part. Right. Is where we can really sit down and engage with that subcontractor at a more deep and meaningful, intimate level and really.
36:19
Speaker 1
And make sure that we're not just engaging with their leadership, but it's that with their leadership and their, you know, the folks that are actually going to execute the job for us. And, and what we really want to have in that process is that, you know, this isn't an interview where it's just rapid fire questions, but it's really something where we're engaging, whether it's over lunch or just in a more unstructured environment to understand, you know, their behaviors and their culture. And you know, we can figure out what their expertise and technical aptitude is from references and things like that. But the important part for us is what's it going to be like, just like with the customer?
37:02
Speaker 1
What's it going to be like when we're going through the ups and downs and can we get a gauge of that, you know, through a series of actual in person, just at the table sort of conversations? So, you know, and. And through that, we then elect if. If it makes sense for us to engage further or not in the same way. It's really no different than us electing to engage further with a customer. For us, a customer and a subcontractor both integral to our success and our growth and our ability to increase that impact and to achieve our maximum potential. So there's a willingness.
37:38
Speaker 2
What I think. What I think I'd say there is that what I'm hearing is there's a willingness, and not just maybe a willingness, but actually kind of a desire, which is maybe not common as well from you and your group to actually build relationships with the subcontracting community to do the opposite of what so many people try to do, which is just kind of reduce them down to numbers and scope.
38:03
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's the goal. And again, look, we're not perfect with all of these relationships. We admit that we're not perfect and we're going to make mistakes along the way. But at the end of the day, our goal is, you know, just in the same way that we're talking about serving others to achieve their maximum potential. That applies to all subcontractors, all of our trade partners as well. And we don't. We don't deviate from that. But we're, you know, we'll continue to strive for perfection, but we're never going to be perfect.
38:33
Speaker 2
All right, cool. Well, I think we'll wrap it up there. This has been a great conversation. Matt, thanks so much for taking time out of your morning to do this with us.
38:42
Speaker 1
Thank you.
38:43
Speaker 2
Anything you want to say before we part ways and Stacy and I start talking about next week?
38:48
Speaker 1
No. Thanks for having me again in Southway. You know, we're really excited to be part of. Part of this. We're really excited to be in Baltimore and the impact that we get to have on this community and beyond every day. And. And this is just a small part of that as well, so. Good stuff. Thank you.
39:04
Speaker 2
Thank you.
39:05
Speaker 3
Thank you. Have a great one.
39:06
Speaker 1
You, too. See you, man.
39:08
Speaker 2
So, Stacy, next week, correct me if I'm wrong.
39:12
Speaker 3
Yep. We are talking about mental health with Rex Miller, right?
39:18
Speaker 2
Rex is. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Rex is. He's the author of one of the most influential books on my shelf, co author, along with, you know, a team of other really smart people that has really, you know, helped to shape a lot of the work that I do. And one day, on a whim, I reached out to Rex and said, hey, man, I don't know if you know this, but, you know, your book had a major impact on, you know, me and a whole bunch of other people. And he the kind of guy that, you know, scheduled a meeting with me to say thanks and learn more and figure out how to help. And so over the past year or so, we've been developing that relationship.
40:00
Speaker 2
And you look forward to digging in with him on a topic that I know is really close to his heart, which is, you know, how do we make a healthy, you know, building industry for people mentally? So that'll be a really cool conversation. And if I'm not mistaken, it's our last show of the season. Yeah, right. So, so if you're able to join us live next week, please do that. I do want to announce just a couple of quick things officially as of this morning. I can't believe it's taken us this long or taken me this long to do this. This is not on Stacy, but we're up on Apple podcasts, so we're on Spotify, we're on Apple, we're on YouTube.
40:46
Speaker 2
And, you know, I, every time I'm out at an event somewhere, somebody will come across, be like, man, I, I, where do I find these things? So I, I want, we're gonna do a better job of you putting that out in writing and sharing links and things like that. And then, of course, as we always say, make sure that if you know, you want to be informed on what we're doing at the morning huddle, all you have to do is just email Stacy. She'll get you on a weekly distribution list. And then, you know, lastly, as we prepare ourselves for season three, which is going to get going this fall, if you or someone, you know has an important story to tell about creating positive change in the building industry, reach out to Stacy or I, we'd love to dig into that again.
41:28
Speaker 2
I think we're looking for four more guests in season three at this point, so we're very interested in anybody that you'd have in mind, including yourself.
41:38
Speaker 3
Or if there's a certain topic that we haven't talked about in season one or two, we're trying to, you know, keep the topics very fluent and diverse. Please reach out to us. Me and Chad are pretty well connected, so I think we could find someone to hit, you know, one of those targets.
41:55
Speaker 2
Stacy's pretty well connected.
41:57
Speaker 3
Chad.
41:59
Speaker 2
I stay just to myself.
42:01
Speaker 1
All right.
42:02
Speaker 2
Thank you so much, Stacy, for all you do. And thank you to the audience, you know, appreciate you being here live. And if you're catching us on a recording, keep doing that, too. It's all good.
42:13
Speaker 3
Have a great day. See you.
