14. Building A Reputation In The Construction Industry With Rocky Simmons
2 Dec 2025 · 35 min
Podcast interview (Professional Builder Secrets) with Rocky Simmons, owner/vice president of Vision Homes (recorded Jan 27, 2022). Rocky recounts his career path from hospitality and real estate into homebuilding, the accidental founding of Vision Homes around the end of 1993, and the company’s niche between production and custom homes. Key themes: building long-term relationships with crews, suppliers, bankers and customers; the importance of knowing costs and creating written, repeatable systems (sales and construction processes); joining the Association of Professional Builders (APB) and adopting coaching/modules (joined June 2018) to scale beyond a $4–5M plateau; practical responses to supply-chain and interest-rate risks; and succession/exit planning as a partner nears retirement. Rocky also shares specific operational figures (historical 32-home year with very low profit due to costing issues; typical current volume ~18–25 homes/year) and advice for new builders (know costs, create systems, avoid price wars).
Questions this episode answers
January 27, 2022.
Around the end of 1993.
June 2018 (joined APB and later used its sales/coaching modules).
Approximately 18–25 homes per year (historically up to ~30s in earlier periods).
A year when they built 32 homes and made a net profit of $2,500 (estimator left due to illness).
Chapters
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Hello and welcome to the Professional Builder Secrets podcast, a podcast by the association of Professional Builders for building company owners, general managers, VPs, and emerging leaders. Here we discuss all things running a professional building company from sales, processes, financials, operations, and marketing. Hello and welcome. Today I'm joined by Rocky Simmons, owner and vice president for Vision Homes. Rocky, thank you for being here today.
Bosco, thank you. I was very excited when APB sent me an email and asked me if I would do this. I knew they were getting near the bottom of the barrel when they called me, but I was excited to chat with you.
That's too funny. No, we're actually very happy to have different builders from all around the world, and I'm constantly surprised when I interview different builders. But let's start off with your journey. How do you get into this industry and how did Vision Homes become what it is today come to be?
Well, I grew up in a generation where we started working very young, so just working, mowing grass, helping anywhere that I could. I grew up in the country, but got into the restaurant business all through high school and college. And if you see a lot of Facebook posts about that, they'll tell you it's one of the best relationship teaching industries there is for what you deal with in that industry. But my degree in college at West Virginia University was business management with a finance emphasis. And then after college, you know, a degree back then, and wow, 1985, you know, what do you do with a degree like that? But a lot of jobs jumping around, but I finally settled into working at a resort in Pennsylvania that was a golf and ski resort. And I actually worked in the conference sales division, selling meeting space and so forth. And again, I'm big on relationships, is what it's been about all my life. And one of my customers was a huge company called dupont. And dupont offered me a job to go be their meeting planner. So when I came back to my resort and put my notice in, we had a real estate division and I was very good friends with the director of real estate. And he said, why are you leaving? You like it here? You like the area? Well, I have a growth opportunity. And he simply asked me, said, why don't you come and Sell some of our condos and townhomes. And my, my mom had been a realtor when I was younger and I really enjoyed that industry. So I jumped in and immediately found a lot of passion and just really enjoyed what I was doing with the customers. And you know, it was a sell of townhomes, single family houses, condos. But it was really a fun sell because at that point the people were buying to come ski on the weekends or golf or hike. So we joked and said we really weren't selling condos, we were selling a lifestyle. And they just had to pick where they wanted to store their golf clubs in skis or whatever. So once that happened, I'm not a big cold weather person. My wife at the time and I moved to the Carolinas. We went to South Carolina first and then to North Carolina. And I was involved in the retirement sales of golf course communities. And it was going okay. But the community I was at is incredible. Now it's called St. James Plantation. And also learned a very valuable lesson there because Homer Wright, who was from the area, had such an incredible vision of what he wanted to create and everything he said was going to happen actually happened. But when I was there, it was the early years. I was married, had a dog and a 2 year old. And I learned how important numbers were at that job. The commission was 10%, but I quickly figured out that 10% of nothing was nothing. So I ended up. We were there a couple of years and came back to Morgantown, West Virginia, which is my home. And I took a break from that industry and took a job. I was looking for a little more steady income and took a job as a food sales rep for Cisco Foods, which is a huge food distributor. And I was a sales rep and it was still nice. I was out building relationships with, you know, chefs and owners. But I just, I wasn't enjoying what I was doing. And one day saw an ad for a production builder, Pat Wilhelms and my market. Make the story short. I was fortunate enough to get the job, went in, interview, got the job, and I was just a sales rep. People came in, we were a scatterlot production builder. But the good thing that happened is while there, the president of construction was Mike Helwig. So after about 15 months, I saw that I was selling everything he was building everything. We were answering all the questions. We were doing everything but getting the reward. So one day we were driving to a job site and I said, mike, why don't we start Vision Homes? And that would have been at the end of 1993. Well, he said, we need money and I'm a little cocky sometimes and I know a lot of people in Morgantown. So I went to a huge corporate guy here who has a ton of money and a friend of mine and I asked him for his signature for a line of credit and he was very respectful when he looked at it, but he simply said no. So about four or five months went by and it's a very funny story because being able to open was an accident. I went to meet a friend who played in a bowling league. Actually went there on the wrong night. But timing's everything. He wasn't there. So I walked up to the lounge and Mr. Pushkar was at the lounge and asked me what I was doing. I said, well, still trying to open my company. Well now instead of a written verbal presentation, it was a face to face. He asked me why I wanted to do it. And I think as I explained it to him, he could see the passion and the belief and it was a really neat thing. He gave me a bar napkin and he said, call this lady at 8 o' clock tomorrow on a napkin. I actually still have the napkin in my office. I didn't sleep the whole night. And at like 8 o' clock the next morning, called Sandy Hatfield at Huntington bank, who's still our bank today 27 years later. So then that's how Vision Homes came from a superintendent for a builder and a salesman as a builder to two owners. So it's pretty neat story.
Yeah, it sounds like it was almost like fate because you've got that accidental story, the napkin story, but you've also got two different working professionals that came together based out of a need to want to have control as well. So it's a pretty incredible story about how the partnership started out. Now, obviously you've decided to build this company and you mentioned that this investor had asked you about why you wanted to start this company at the time. If you look back then, what was the purpose to start this company? Was it more a passion for the industry or was it more a vision for the industry? Why did you want to get into this?
That's a great question. And you actually hit it on there because through the fate as Mike and I both had completely different skill sets. I've got. We're not on video, but if people laugh when they. I say I'm a builder, owner, building company, because these hands can't. They've never held a hammer. But my partner was all construction. He's done all phases of construction personally. He Knew how to manage his crews, suppliers. He was also good at numbers. My expertise was more in marketing, sales, finance and it was a great combination and what we saw in our market and the reason we wanted to do it is I think we both were just very motivated to have something of our own because we wanted to work for ourself. But also we saw a gap in our market for buyers in our market clear back in like 1992-94 we saw that choice one is they could go out and they would have a production builder but there was no choices, everything was limited. The menu was very restricted, but the price might have been attractive. The flip side was the word custom and a custom builder. They would do anything you wanted but it was usually had to be a much bigger house, very fancy in Kaching City. Well we saw a wide open market for a niche of somebody still only wanted a 12, 1400 square foot home but they wanted to put all their bells and whistles in it. And so we created a niche between say like a 1200 square foot home to 3000 square foot, which is kind of the production mentality. But we combined that with what we saw in the custom end which was it's your house, your money, what do you want inside it? We'll do it. And that's kind of what was our driving force. Back to the Hidden Valley gentleman. He ended up being my father in law by the way. He told me find a niche and then just work in that. And that's really where we've stayed in our lane is that we wanted to create a company. And what we three simple rules was to tell people what we would do, go out and do it and then tell them what we did. And that just created a circle of referrals and a consistent business.
You always know that the goal was to bring the company to where it's at today. Or did that goal evolve over time.
When we first started it was just there was a lot of things happening where we worked that we just weren't crazy about. And it's funny that you asked that question because we did a business plan and one of the things we did very well is everything except that realizing that we might succeed. And my business partner is at retirement age. So when that came up we realized that we forgot to put an exit plan when we started the company. We're just like I will start this and do this and all of a sudden it's 22, 23 years later and one partner wants out. So we had to recently work on some exit plans. But it was more just we wanted to go take care of customers. Not only customers. I mean this business is filled of the spin off is the crews, the suppliers, the bankers, the appraisers. Brand is a great word but we wanted to build a reputation of people could come to us and we would help them even if we wouldn't build for them because we'd tell them what we could and couldn't do and then we would do it. And it's Amazing how fast 26 years has gone though now.
Rocky, what do you love the most about what you do today? I'm sure that has changed over the years, but what do you love the most today?
Today that's true. And you know, in the beginning it was, I was the salesman when we opened. I mean we were still very lean and mean unit wise. We've always and actually used to do more houses. We used to do in the 30s but then when the interest rates dropped it made the houses bigger and more so we're at 18 to 25 homes a year with revenue of it used to be 4 to 4 to 5. And that's why I went to APB and three years later we're going to be in the 7 million and continue to grow safely and securely as they recommend. But in the beginning it was just about meeting the customer, you know, helping them getting the house and the keys. But after 26 years, what I enjoy the most is the relationships, as I just mentioned. I mean it starts with your bankers, it starts with your suppliers, it starts with your crews. You notice we don't call them subcontractors, we call them crews because they're very loyal to us, we're very loyal to them, the employees and then of course our homeowners, when you see them getting what they were told they were going to get. So relationships is pretty much what I enjoy the most out of what we do now.
There must be an it factor for the growth. You talked about, you know, having 25 homes and this financial revenue model that's, you know, almost double now with working with the association of Professional Builders, which is a pretty amazing feat on its own if you look back. What do you think led to this growth? You know, if you had to articulate a word for it, what was the contributing factors that have brought you to where you are today?
Well, in the beginning there was, frankly there was just a wide open niche for the market we created. But the transparency and the honesty and the way we presented it, we grew pretty quick. A couple, I have a lot of friends in our town that are builders. And I saw one recently and he quoted it as rocky kind of snuck up on us. We just opened and what we concentrated on is we worked hard every single day and we made sure that when we did something, we did it right. And if we didn't right, we made it right when the time came. And I think probably one of the biggest things that helped us grow and sustain a business to a certain level was that we always have a theory of we do what's right. It's not always easy, but it's always right. And we grew pretty well. But then we hit a. We got to like a 4 to 5 million. And I realized that we got there because my salesman and I, the sales process was in our head. We knew what we were doing. But you know, I hate to say it, it's hard, I'm honest enough with myself to say, but we frankly winged it a lot. And we always had great written construction back end systems. My business partner and his son clear back before builder trending that had basically an Excel sheet that, you know, allowed us to run up to 12 jobs at a time and keep everybody happy. But we got to that 4 to 5 million range and then it's so funny because I watched Ty's interview and he hit it right on the head. I knew APB stuff worked because I one day got a Facebook or something, I clicked on it. So I started getting their emails and it got to the point where I was excited. When's the next one coming? The next one coming. And right in front of my desk here where I'm doing this podcast from when they got me that I joined in. They've changed it to the sales process now, but it was the eight steps to a successful sales process. Well, I clicked on it, I loved it. Set a coaching call up and then now what does help with the growth is we took all these things that I knew, but we put them into repeatable systems. And it was funny because when we joined apb, you can join apb. I know this is a rocky story, but it's important to share this. When we joined them, you could join for just the next dollars and have access to the modules or you could have a coaching, mentoring. So I went to my business partner and I said, do you care if I do this? And he's the type of guy that will fight you over a dollar, but he'll spend 10,000 if it's worth it. And he told me I could do neither or both. He says, because if you just join you, you'll play around with them and nothing will happen. And so we went full pledge in and joined. And what was nice is my salesman said, why did you join? Everything they're telling you, you already know. And I said, yeah, I know it, but it's up in my head. We needed a repeatable system so we can follow it. There's no winging and all that. And one of the greatest things that I get in the past three to five years is three years ago, June of 18, we set a sales goal that we would hit in 21, and we exceeded it this year.
So congratulations.
It's pretty exciting.
Yeah, it sounds like it. Rocky. Now, I've talked to a lot of builders to know that it's never smooth sailing. And with the highs come some lows as well. So let's start off with uncovering some of these experiences you had. If you had to sum up some of the lows or some of the challenges you faced as a company, what would they be?
That's a great question because when we opened we kind of set up, even though we're lean, but everybody would stay in their lane. And we were fortunate enough. One of the things that I know we'll probably touch on again here in a minute is I feel like if you don't know your cost, it doesn't matter what margin or markup you need. You're just, you're playing Russian roulette. So we were very fortunate from the day we opened for about seven years from probably 95 to 2002, that we had our own in house contract estimator. Well, what happened is he ended up getting cancer and was no longer available to us. And so at this point, we were building 32 homes that year. So my partner, he was out making sure all the promises were being kept that we made. I was still marketing and selling, so we really had no one in charge of cost. And so we had a year where we built 32 homes and made a net profit of $2,500. So that was a huge challenge. And I'll never remember the bank meeting. We went to meet with the bank. You know, at that point, we have seven years of our word is good. We did what we would say. And the banker looked at my partner, Sandy, and she said, oh my gosh, Mike, why are you going to. He said, sandy, we've already fixed this. But in our business, the sales process and the turnaround on money is such a long process. He told her, he said, we've already fixed this. It was about August September, he said, but you're not going to realize or believe me, until we meet next year this time. And it's because we got an estimator, got our costs back in line and all that. But, you know, that was quite a challenging. That was more of an internal thing where we went on top of our costs. The external stuff's always there. We look at those as opportunities instead of external headaches.
Now every leader can look back to a classical leadership, entrepreneurial or business mistake that has defined how they become a better leader. So if you had to look back down memory lane, what's that one classical mistake that you'll never make again?
I hope humor's allowed in these. I'm glad it's only a podcast because it's still an embarrassing story. We opened a second office and we were trying to grow, and I was handling the sales. And as my partner says, I'll do anything to make this out because I'm that competitive. Well, and back to knowing your cost while I was allowed to do the pricing and the sales and all that. So I'm alone in this transaction. And I want was crazy because I was bidding instead, which we don't ever do anymore. We price homes, we don't bid them. So the long and short is we sold a home. Fast forward eight months later, forget fixed expenses. We paid out of pocket 2,500 more dollars than the money we collected. So I had to meet my partner for lunch. And this is the funny part, and the lesson. And I told my wife at the time, I said, I think we're going to be closed. I said, we just. I mean, the people have never invited me to dinner. I've never spent a night in their own. And we paid for some of their house. So at lunch, he looks at me and he goes, you know why we're here, right? And I'm like, yes, sir. He says, well, you know, you're an owner, right? And I'm like, yes. He says, well, the next time you get the urge to Give a prospect $2,500, go get a check, fill it out for 2,500, sign your name and say, thanks for coming in. He goes, our liability's done. We're done at that point. So what I learned there is written, repeatable systems for everything. Next step, commitment. Do it. Don't let the salesman be in charge of the costing and pricing. Give them the pricing and that. So it was a valuable lesson.
That sounds like it's something you'll never forget as well. Take me through where you are today. What are some of the, you know, you alluded to the fact that you're systemizing things and you're taking things out of the brain and actually applying them. Obviously, with all this growth that's happened as well and achieving all these sales quotas, what are some of the business lessons that you're applying today to prepare you for the future?
Andy, who was my original coach, he realized very, very early that I am a go, go, go personality. And he realized real quick that if he gave me 10 things to implement and I only did seven, that I was going to feel like I failed. So what we are doing now is there is just each day we can improve something. So we take what we think needs to be done, dealt with next, and we sit down and we go through, we implement it and then we go to the next step and just, you know, making sure we're taking baby steps to grow. I love the quote that APB uses, growing safely and securely. A lot of builders, I know they're going to hear this if they try to make change. My own staff fought me on everything. So what I did is I made sure that when I joined ap, I did everything that they asked to be done so that then I could show the people. And it was funny. Now, so many things that I first got battled on, I'm now getting thank yous for and it's working. But the, the greatest thing was that we were just stuck. And don't get me wrong, 4 to 5 million, still you can make a living. But you know, in any business, you want to grow, you don't want to stand still in a train track, you'll get hit by a train. So it's just very rewarding to see, you know, the little things we put in and then see the results. But we have so much more to grow. And that's exciting because I know there's such a good opportunity if we just put our work ethic in. We're very transparent, we're very honest to customers. And the big thing is to make sure you're spending the time with those that want your time.
And Rocky, you alluded to something about relationships as well. It sounds like, you know, you have a very strong relationship. You talked about the fact that, you know, you don't call your subcontractor subcontractors, you call them part of your cruise. And so, you know, where does that belief about relationships come from? And what's the biggest advice you have for other building companies who want to build relationships with their vendors, their suppliers, their Clients, what's the best advice you can give them about building strong relationships?
I can only speak from, well, I think it's a life thing. I think it's in anything you do, it's relationships. But, you know, transferring that to business, I think you have to pick and decide what you're doing. We early on knew we did not want to be the lowest price builder. I could do that if I wanted. I just don't want the headaches that go with it. So we decided very early on that, you know, we pay attention to our competitors, but we believe our competition is our promises to our customers, to our suppliers, to our crews. So we formed relationships with people that we're very blessed. Our crews are all professionals in their area. They have families they need to feed. They're loyal, we're loyal to them. Same thing with our suppliers. I mean, of course we've got a, you know, you've got to check and make sure they're staying in line. Everybody does that. But we're not the type of builder that ever say we're going to leave you because the drywall is 10 cents. Because what happens is you're not building any relationships. And I don't want to talk about. I mean, it's been hard the last two years and it's just been worn out with everything that's going on. But let me just promise you, we're very blessed that we're in a much better position than a lot of people that didn't build those relationships because it's not even about price. It was being able to go to my, go to suppliers and have them tell me, hey, what do you think is going to happen the next six months? And you know, as a leader and an owner of a building company, you have to be 6, 9, 12 months ahead of where you are. I mean, the big one right now is what's going to happen with interest rates. I mean, that's going to be when things, in my opinion, are going to slow. But we've been through tough times. We opened in 95. We went through a really tough year, as I told you, in 2002, which was internal. Everybody knows about 2008. We survived then. So if you stay ahead and I just feel like if you have go to people that you can go to as far as suppliers, crews, bankers, appraisers, employees and customers, you can survive this stuff.
Now, running a business obviously has challenges and you've talked a lot about them as well. Tell me a little bit about some of these achievements that you've had that you're really proud of. You talked a little bit about hitting that milestone goal financially and that revenue goal, but let's dig a little deeper. Tell me about some of the things that you look back that put a smile onto your face outside of the napkin that is in your office.
It's really funny because Andy and my new coach Eric now, they both get on me because I'm really tough at looking back at that because I have the mentality that we haven't done anything yet. I think about what we could have done, but I start with just our suppliers and crews when they care. And thank you. Your employees, I mean, we have employees that have been with us 26, 22, 14, four and two years. So that. That's pretty good. Thank you. Our crews, we got to watch this a little bit. We've been able to, you know, some of our crews have been with us since the beginning. So obviously we're making relationships for younger crews. And I guess probably it just made me think of this. They didn't unrehearsed is this is one of my great achievements. I tell our suppliers or crews that want to come and do business with us, like here's the good news and the bad news, they're the same thing. We're very loyal. So you might not be able to have our business, but when you do get it, as long as you want to keep it, you can keep it. So that. But the other thing was getting stuck out of the mud and sitting down writing stuff out and saying, here's where we are, here is where we go. And listening to my coaches, how can we get there? And then when we hit that mark this year, it was a pretty exciting day.
Now, what's the plan for the future moving forward? You talked a little bit about your business partner now getting into that retirement entity and planning for an exit strategy. So what is the long term play for Vision Homes? And more importantly, how are you preparing for the upcoming future? You talked a little bit about interest rates changing as well, that landscape changing. What are you doing to get ready for that as well?
Yes. You know, we're lucky because we do have some developments we build in, but we also are a builder for folks with their own land. So we. And we're in an area where it just amazes me, but people just keep falling out with land. But I think the key going forward is without a doubt talking to your suppliers, your crews, your bankers, your appraisers. I did a lot of networking in the early years and got away from It I'm back out at everything I can go to now and just listening to the people. There's so many resources online. You got to be careful too. There's yet reputable, credible, your home builders associations, your NFIBs, et cetera. And then you get the data. Nobody knows but you just say, okay, what can I do best with this data? And the biggest challenge we have right now is the just the supply chain disruptions and it's not even as much about the price of those supplies as the ability to get them. And we're blessed that we've always picked everything out up front. And what we did to we hit a little bit of a rut because we had some delays on homes because the suppliers gave us no notice because their manufacturers didn't give them any notice. But we're blessed that we sell ahead. We keep a nice funnel of leads and we have starts lined up so that we can plan ahead in order. And we've recently tweaked something that we're telling our customers. We're going to have you come in for a meeting and your home is going to start even though no dirt's moving because we'll start ordering materials so that when the time comes that we need those materials are there, which will still allow us to build a customer house in the five to six months that we promised them. And that's a win win for everybody. It saves them time and money. It turns us the house over for us and it saves stress because the longer you stay in the process, the more hard it is to communicate and keep it.
You also are embracing digital. I was pretty impressed when I looked up your website. You've got a live chat button, you've got some videos as well. It sounds like you're embracing the digital landscape just as much.
Like I said, we've done this so long. And when I started the advertising was newspapers, magazines and a phone book. And one night when I was at a social event, I got clear back then. He said, rocky, he said, all your ads should be is a picture and a story. And that was magazine and newspaper. Well, now with the tools we have, we're doing this. I mean, just think what you can do with pictures and stories. So. And actually we're going to do a lot more. We're really excited for next year because we're putting a whole campaign of and it's not about vision homes at all. The other thing I like about apb, they truly want to help the industry, not just for builders, but for customers because it's just so frustrating when some folks don't want to take the time and do what they need to help customers. And that's what gives our business a bad name. I mean, you know, doctors get paid well, but when somebody gets sick at the hospital, they come home to the homes that we built. So it's just, it's really neat to try to make the industry better. And our whole video series that's coming out will just be about those fears. How long is it going to take to pill, how do I pick things out and just try to throw those things out there. And that way if somebody watches it, whether they build with me or build with somebody in a whole other state, but they see the video, then we help somebody and the industry gets better.
If you look back now at everything you've done, there must be moments where you feel like you could be doing this for a very long time. Do you feel like you've achieved that balance, that state of nirvana where business owners say that they have a balance in their family life? Because most builders work long hours, work weekends. Where are you at now in that.
Balance of time since June of 18? It's got a lot better because as you were asking about, the long term plan is I'm quite a few years younger than my business partner and very, very frank. My, my plan is to continue systemizing and implementing these things. And my goal is that this business can run efficiently whether I'm here or whether I'm over visiting you guys in Australia.
I would love to have you here as well. Would love to do this in person next time. Look, I could talk to you for hours. It sounds like you've got a lot of great stories, but my final question for you today is knowing what you know now, if you could give yourself or younger version of yourself one bit of advice when you first started, what would that be? And I'm also going to ask you this from a different perspective. What other advice would you give to a new builder or a struggling builder or builder that's, you know, in the industry as well, and they're trying to make, make something out of their business as well. What advice would you give? Obviously, you know, you've got a lot of wisdom with all the years that you've been doing this. So what advice would you give your younger version of yourself and other builders?
Well, what I do first, if I could go back and we were starting again, is I would get rid of my arrogance and I'd be more vulnerable and I would just because it was all in my Head. If you want to grow a business, and even if you want to grow, if you're going to be a soul builder and sell or anything, I would absolutely create a written process from hello until signing the agreement. That. And it's not to sell. It's to allow customers to ask their questions and get the information they need so that they can make a decision if it works for the builder or if it works for the customer. Because we didn't have a written sales process for a long, long, long time.
Great. And would you give that same advice to other builders as well that are getting into the business?
Well, I would say this. I said earlier I didn't know what a footer was when I started in this business. I don't use a hammer. I know great carpenters who've tried to be builders, but running a business, whether it's building or whatever that is running a business is running a business, and you gotta work on it. And so if somebody wants to get, as a young, what I would tell them is to look at the end and put systems on how to get there. Without a doubt, know your costs. Like I said, I'm going to mark this up 20. I'm going to mark this up 50. It doesn't matter if you start out behind the eight ball. I promise you, you're going to finish. And I forget, Russ knows the numbers of how many builders go out in the first year and the three years. So probably my greatest achievement, to go back to that, is that we've been open 26 years. But if you're starting out, use these resources that I didn't have access to 26 years ago. Put systems in place. I mean, it sounds silly, but if you have a model home, you open the front door, you turn the lights on when you close up, and if you just systemize and put procedures in and then you know your costs and you have a funnel of leads coming in. What I would recommend to builders, don't get into price wars because nobody's going to win. And everybody says, oh, the customer wins. Well, guess what? Sometimes the customer loses because some guy will do anything he has to to get to the price. And either the customer ends up with a home they don't want or a bunch of overruns or a combination of. But if I were starting out, I would know my costs. I would make sure I had systems, and then I would find really, really good people, because I think I heard it. I don't know whose quote I'm stealing, but it says systems run a business. People work the systems.
That's a great quote. And I think the numbers are actually 80% of builders fail in the first five years. I believe I heard Russ mention that as well. So that's a pretty insightful quote as well. Rocky, we could talk to you, like I said, for ages, but I think we're going to have to wrap it up here. But we'd love to have you back again. Thank you so much for your time, your energy, and your insights. We really appreciate you staying a little bit later and sharing your wisdom with us today.
Well, Bosco, thank you. And I make a promise to you that I've made to Andy. I will see you in Australia soon.
We'd love to have you, mate. We'd love to have you.
Okay. Hey. Thank you. Have a great day.
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