74. Transitioning From Home Builder To Business Builder With Daniel Troncoso

I had to make a decision, you know, am I going to go look at other builders, or is it time for me to step up and become the builder we want to do is do it the right way, get the leads in and have a sales process. And that's what APD is helping us with. We just had nothing in order for the business to be able to flow by itself without me or Juan. You take on so much pain because you're learning something and you're learning something failing, you know, it's painful. There's many days where you want to quit. So excited. I feel like we finally got the partner we needed. The people who talk our language.

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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. We have another exciting episode from the Professional Builder Secrets podcast. Joining us today is Daniel Troncoso, partner from Ocean Avenue Custom Builders. Daniel, welcome and thanks for being on the show.

Hey, Bosco, thank you so much for having me.

Well, listen, my man, tell me a little bit about you and how did you get started on your journey as a builder?

Wow, it's been a long journey. 45 years old now. So I was a college athlete, played baseball and one of my coaches owned the contracting company. And in the summer of my junior year, I didn't have the means to get back home and wanted to stay back and work and he gave me a job and I started doing labor work and framing work and I just fell in love with working with my hands. I guess it goes hand in hand with the sports and baseball and it was just natural to me to work with my hands and I just love to see things come together. So that was the very beginning and just a long climb from there. After college, played a couple of years, some professional baseball for a couple of years and then I got into the commercial roofing world again. Still hands on. I just love being different places, new sites, and again, I just love seeing things come together. I'm always curious on how things come together. So I did that for a while, became a union journeyman in the city doing that for a few years. Then again always had a love for wood and carpentry would always do that on the side and did tons of side projects doing that. And one day it was time to take the jump and go on my own. And I was able to open my carpentry businesses trunkoso into our contracting, which I still run till today. And again that was more tools on building beautiful things. I was totally blessed to start building on the Jersey shore over here, high end homes. And so I learned things at a high level. It's basically where I always wanted to build in these beautiful homes around along the ocean. So that was kind of like a dream come true doing these custom ceilings, trim. And I finally made it at that point from remodeling little apartments to actually remodeling million dollar homes. Then shortly after that I did that, I want to say four or five years. And it came to a point where I had to make a decision. A mentor of mine, Doug Kitchell, he was a great builder here on the shore, passed away about four and a half years ago, which was the beginning of Ocean Avenue Custom Builders. At that moment I had a six man crew under my contracting business and I had to make a decision. Am I going to go look at other builders or is it time for me to step up and become the builder? And that was always a goal of mine. Even during the carpentry years I always wanted to be the builder because I, I just paid attention to every trade and I knew the whole thing ground up. And it was time and it was almost like I was almost forced and pushed into the the moment to either do it or not. And that's when I took the jump and started the company, Ocean Avenue Custom Builders. And it's been a ride these last four years.

So what does Ocean Avenue Custom Builders specialize in today? It sounds like you've had this journey that's come full circle. But if you have to look at your company today and you met someone, let's say that said, hey, what do you guys do? What would that answer be?

So we specialize in custom home renovation. We do ground up construction as well. I would say 85% of our work is high end additions, you know, add ons to these beautiful homes here along the ocean. You know, we've gotten a couple of ground up constructions under our belt as well. But we seem to have a knack for finding these 100 year old homes that people want to bring back to life and, and remodeling those. So those are Fun for us. And. And that's definitely a specialty of ours at this moment. Again, we hope to become design build, and that's kind of where we're at. You know, through apb, the training we're having and coaching, it's been amazing. And we're hoping to grow to that design build level and hopefully get into the new homes one day and stay consistent with that.

Now, I'm also told that you also have transitioned from home building as well to business building as well, But I'll ask you a little bit about that shortly. I guess the first question that I had for you is, what were some of those ambitions for you when you were building your business? You're looking at transitioning from home building to business building. You know, what are some of those ambitions? Tell me a little bit about why you chose that path.

So the transition just to become a builder was tough. Just to remove the tools and entrusting your carpenters to take over, take the reins and become foreman and trust them with the work. When I was so hands on, that alone was. Was tough. You know, I got through that shift, you want to call it. And to the point I'm at now in the transition of going as a business builder, it was kind of the same thing. I was always in the. I call it the war zone. I'm always in the smoke in the build. I'm always with the client, with the carpenters, with the plumbers, with the roofers. I'm always on site. I've always just been around the construction, and I've never been able to step out of the smoke to learn, you know, how to control this thing from afar. And that's been a big shift for me. It's been tough. It's been almost as tough as taking the tool belt off. I would say equally as tough. It's just, again, it's hard for me to sit at a desk and look at numbers and plan. And so that's been a hard shift. I'm still in that shift. We have a great coach in Eric, and he's guiding us through that process. I'm very grateful, very grateful for that. And I got an amazing business partner in Juan Vasquez. He's awesome, Amazing experience and a brother. We're on it. We're just letting Eric hold our hand and we're following.

So what inspired you to choose that path and make that decision? Was it the fact that you needed to be on the business? Did you, you know, like, was there something that happened that said to you, okay, this is the time for me to give up my trade to some degree and now focus on a redirect, right?

Yeah, I study patterns a lot and we basically have become a pattern. Right. We do two to three big builds every year and you know, we're three years and we've been very blessed, you know, to be on these projects. And it's almost like the same cycle kept happening. You know, we're busy, busy. We can't even breathe, we can't even pick up phone calls. We, you know, APB was, was trying to help us for a while. Thank God for Michelle. She was amazing following up with us. But I couldn't even conversate with anyone. Just how inundated we are with the work. And then the pattern that we kept falling into is, you know, we're so busy, we're happy, we're growing, and then three months later, we're on edge, nervous because we don't have the next jobs lined up. So it's almost like, oh, no, what do we do now? Now it's panic time. Okay, let's make phone calls. Let's see who's going to call us in time. And we just want to break that pattern. We wanted to create a true process, a true marketing process. You know, get our website up and we have a great word of mouth clientele. Thank God. You know, even what we're running now is from word of mouth. But what we want to do is do it the right way, get the leads in and have a sales process. And that's what APB is helping us with. And that's where we want to be so we don't make that same pattern. Mistake we keep making is just getting so busy we forget to estimate and set ourselves up for the next months.

So it sounds like there was a need for you to put down the tools and start to look at this from a business perspective. What were some of the challenges? You talked a little bit about the fact that you were busy and then you weren't and you had trouble keeping up with the calls coming in. But what was some of those big challenges that you were facing before you discovered apb?

A true sales process for number one. One of the wins we call them with Eric was the concept agreement. And we were so proud of that. I basically watched the training on that and I put it into practice. It's almost like the two days later it fell on my lap. A client called in, you know, they needed to design a build. And we've been here before, but we've never charged for it, it's amazing, you know, the amount of times we refer architects, and we basically hand over the money that we should have made just on the concepts. So we put it into practice, and it was amazing. We closed the deal right away. We got paid for our time and our design, and we have various architects we know, and we hired one and we basically were able to mark up his fee. And along our time, we got paid for it. So that. That was amazing. So the sales process, for sure, we didn't have it was almost like we were very reactionary. We were just reacting to incoming phone calls. Okay, we got one. Let's go check it out. And if the phone's not ringing, it was like, oh, we gotta wait till the phone rings, you know, because we weren't marketing, so we just had nothing. In order for the business to be able to flow by itself without me or Juan jumping on calls and making things happen, you know, we kind of knew we had to make a change.

Tell me a little bit about how you discovered the apb. And, you know, were you looking for coaching or did it just so happen that the knowledge led to you making that decision that, hey, I need to work with Eric.

Number one, I thank my Lord and my savior and Jesus Christ. That's my foundation. And that's where everything started for me in the growth process to allow me to have that faith, not only in him, but in the future of what I can build in this building company. Right? So that. That strong faith and that diligence and just getting better every day, that's where it began. So for me, developing myself on a daily basis, finding the best in the industries, you know, online, YouTube, finding someone that. That can help us get to the next level. And I was searching. I was searching really bad. I. I did pay for coaching, which was more on the business side, self development side, but it wasn't specific to building. And, you know, I spent a lot of money on it. I got a lot of good out of it. But they couldn't talk my language. They were talking as if they knew what we went through and they had no idea. And that was the search that was killing me for a couple of years. I really couldn't find a specific coach that can help us to do what we do and help us get better at what we do. And no builders around here are sharing their information to get us better. So all of a sudden, APB popped up, and I did hesitate because of the accents, and I knew it was from overseas. And I said, are these guys in the States, you know, what's going on. And then I did a little bit of homework, and I saw it, and, you know, the website's beautiful. The information was spot on. And I said, we got to sign up with these guys, you know, So I told my partner about it, and I said, we got to sign up. You know, these guys are just. They're just giving away amazing information. I could imagine how. How much more they can help us with. So we signed before we really got involved and jumped into coaching. You know, Michelle was contacting us, just. Just trying to give us help and value and resources. And it was coming over in the email, and I was like, oh, my God, I can't wait to get into that. But we were so inundated, we couldn't even open anything. And. And again, we fell into that lull of business. The pattern I told you about when we're two months really not knowing where the next job's coming in. So that lullaby was a lot of stress, but it was exactly what we needed to slow down and actually dig deeper into apb, and we were able to lock into the coaching, and. And it's been great. I feel we're growing, and I'm so excited. I feel like we finally got the partner we needed. The people who talk our language.

Yeah, I mean, I've had Eric on the show before. Amazing coach. They're all really amazing coaches. And the one thing that the APB does is they immersify themselves in the brands and the businesses that they work with. They're sort of an extension to what you're doing. Right. So tell me a little bit about your time coaching with Eric. You know, obviously, there's a lot of trust that has to be established as well. You're getting to know each other, you know, tell me about some of those critical impacts, you know, where you were like, okay, you know, this is actually working now, and we can move forward. What were some of those things that you noticed that was starting to change?

Yeah, well, with Eric, just the initial conversation and just getting to know him, it just felt very genuine and real. And just his background and the other industries he was part of within the construction industry was like, wow, this guy has done it all. And he's a genuine guy that really wants to see us succeed. And we felt it right away. Juan and myself, we just sat and we became students, and we're, you know, we have a long way to go. Don't get me wrong. But, you know, the business planning workshop was amazing. That's something I've Always. I've always seen myself as a planner. I just never knew how to do it. And he was able to do this projection for us, and it was amazing how it's. He laid it all out, you know, he laid out the revenue, he laid out the path and how many people I gotta hire, what trucks I gotta buy, what laptop I gotta buy, what, you know, what. What I have to do different in order to reach that goal. Sometimes it's hard for us to see next week, you know, and he was able to help us project that far ahead and laid out, like I said, I'm always in the. In the fire, in the war zone, where I can never see that far ahead. And that's been amazing. I still have a lot of work to do on that plan. And we're on it slowly, baby steps, but we're progressing. We're using a couple of partners that you guys provide us with on website building and also staffing, which we're in line to hire a couple of guys right now.

So you're part of the APB rewards program, I guess, in some ways as well?

Yes, yes, I'm part of the APB Rewards. I've met Paul and Justin. It's a staffing company and they've been amazing with us. Contract to staffing source, and we are working with them to try to find candidates to be super construction supervisors for us. Those guys just working with them a couple of days, setting us up. The information is phenomenal and they're great on the staffing that they're able to provide us is through the roof. It's amazing. And I know soon enough we'll be working with another one, hopefully, you know, helping us build the website and so on.

Yeah, it sounds like there's a lot of really strong value coming out of the rewards program. You know, the partners are really vetted properly for the right usage. And obviously there's the rebates as well. So this sounds like there's a lot of benefits to the builders out there who are utilizing the rebates program as well.

I agree.

So tell me a little bit about this transition. You know, obviously it must be hard going from the war zone to now being in the war room. I guess in some ways, if I have to use that analogy, do you have trouble letting go and how is your dynamic with the crew? Because, you know, they go from, hey, here's a guy that we work with to now he's the boss. How does that work for you?

Yeah, so that transition of separating from the men happened in the very beginning of Ocean, you know, about four years ago. But I'm always there every day checking up on them and so on. But now at this point, they're seeing me even less and I'm just entrusting them with more so they get it. They're like, go, Danny, we know you got to go. You have to continue getting the work. For us. We're doing this, don't worry about it. And. But that transition is definitely a shock to your body, to your mind, to your whole system. And you just got to keep going and not give up. And trust me, there's mornings where I don't want to look at my phone or a computer. I just want to put a tool belt on and I can't. So I got to push through that and not give up and just continue to push forward and, and take the baby steps. So the transition is not easy. I'm not going to sit here and give anyone advice that it's easy, but it takes some perseverance, it takes some self work and some faith. You know, you gotta trust the process and trust that it's going to get you to the goal.

Now tell me a little bit about your new role. Obviously, you now come to the office, you're probably putting in the same amount of time, I would assume, or if not more, give or take.

Yeah, it's pretty much similar time right now, but it is a little less, I would say, because I'm really making sure I leave the guys in the field with the majority of the responsibilities. I'm pushing them to be leaders and take decisions and make decisions without me. If they need me, they'll call. But we are still in a position where I'm still running back and forth through a couple of jobs. My partner won as well. So we have two big jobs going now. He's on one, he stationed in one, he's got an office set up. The other one is not. It's being demoed right now, so we're not quite set up. So I'm kind of in and out of there. And again, we are still owners, project manager slash supers at the moment until we get the right hires under our belt, which we're working on right now, hopefully to hire two supers. Yeah. And so we're able to keep going.

So it sounds like you're growing as well with people. What are some of the systems and technologies that you're putting into place on the back of the coaching right now? What are some of the areas that, that you know, you've implemented that have made your life a lot easier.

Technologies. Our CRM, we use BuilderTrend. We knew the power. I guess we didn't really know the power of it until we actually started using it the right way. It's been great to organize us and track spending and keep budgets in line. That's been great. It's got a cool time clock on there where we can actually track certain labor that we need to track on an hourly basis. You know, we use QuickBooks just like most businesses, and it talks to build a trend. So that helps us stay organized for tax purposes as well. So that that technology has been great for us so far.

So I've got to ask a question about builders and the mindset of builders, because sometimes, you know, builders have a hard time changing or transitioning or taking that risk as well. Why do you think that is? Is it that prior to the apb, there's a lack of resources out in the market? Is it the fact that being a builder can be isolating what's in the mindset of a builder when they're thinking about change, but they don't end up changing or making those changes?

I would definitely say that there's not much in the market to assist you in making that jump and change. You know, it's like jumping in a frozen lake. You got to go in and see how it feels. There was really no class or service besides apb. Later on, I found you guys, but there was really no, no resource that can prepare you for that jump. And I think for me, my mindset has always been I want to see how this thing goes together, you know, whether it's how to frame a house. I always wanted to know, okay, why do the plates go down like this? Why is this header that size? Why does it have to be here and there? So I learned the whole framing process, and after I get that, my mindset wants to move on to something else. Okay, why does the plumber run that pipe through there? Why is the drain there? Why is this the water supply there? Why? You know, and then I would study that, and once I get it, I want to move on to the next thing and the next thing. So my mind has always been curious to learn a process. And once I learn the process, I gotta find the next thing to learn. So that kind of goes hand in hand to how I got here. Even though I love carpentry and I still at home, I'll mess around, put my tools on and make things and do things, I still kind of get to a point where, okay, I got this. I learned this. What else can I learn? You know, you got to constantly evolve and constantly want to keep learning, whether it's new techniques on how to make things, you know, new techniques on. On everything, you know, how to. How to hire folks, which we're learning now. You know, there's different ways on how to hire folks. You know, I'm learning in a sales process, there's different ways of getting business besides Word of mout. And there's actually a way that the business will come to you, which I'm learning with apb, and I'm just a learner. And I think that that's how you have to be to continue to climb if you don't want to continue to learn new ways of doing things or just seeing new things. I can't see the same thing over and over again. It's just not in my DNA. And I think this is the perfect business for that.

So you talked about the fact that you're a planner and Eric had drawn out this plan for you, and it was what you were looking for. What do you believe? Your business and you as a person, as a leader, as a founder and a partner, what are you transitioning into now that you have seen the vision?

Well, the transition is to be in that war room, you put it perfectly, is to be in that war room more and more and spend more time in that war room. And I'm trying to find that. And like I said, as we hire and trust more in our team members in the field, you know, I'm going to spend more time in that war room, because at the end of the day, we're all business owners to gain our freedom. For freedom ain't free. Right? So these transitions are tough. So that's the goal, you know, once you're in that war room and you can project and you can see all your holes, you know, I can say, okay, I need troops there. Oh, I need artillery there. I need equipment here. When I can see that from that Google Earth view, you know, I just think my time's going to be freed up and along with my partners, we're going to be able to do other things in life that we're looking forward to on doing. You know, for example, investing. You know, we want to invest in some properties. We're already bidding some properties just for personal investment for our families. We want to be able to spend more time with our wives and be able to say, you know what, I'm gone for two weeks and I know the business is going to run on its own, you know, those are goals. And Eric has made it. And just in that workshop, he's made a plan for that to actually come to life. I've always had the faith. I'm always the mentality, if you can do it, I could do it. You know, it's just, you know, how. I don't. I still got to figure that out. But Eric is showing me the how. So I just got to follow that and get there to have that freedom and watch the machine work and continue to build.

You talk about curiosity as well, that, you know, it has led to you learning new things. If you look at your illustrious career, everything from your or origins, you know, your grassroots carpentry, working for someone and then starting your business, if you look back, what do you think has been the biggest factor to your overall success and growth?

The natural thing in me that I feel God put in me, I was born with is that it's that curiosity. You hit it on the head. It's a mind that doesn't stop wanting to figure something out that's God given. And I think that's what keeps me going and going on to the next thing and being able to have the courage to go on to this or that. Besides that, you know, obviously, you know, we all have to be raised and loved by someone. And, you know, I give all that respect to my mother. She ended up being a single mom. And, you know, the love she gave us and the opportunity she was able to provide for us, that's really where it starts. You know, when you have that encouragement and you can just go, it's priceless. And I did that in the sport of baseball. And, you know, I was able to play four years of college and two years of professional baseball because I knew she had my back. I knew, you know, I had that mentality of just the constant climb. And I love challenges. I love. Someone's telling me I can't do it, I'm gonna do it. It's just part of me. And yeah, so I would say just thank God for that, that personality trait that he gave me. And that's, I think, the most important part of doing what we do now.

Daniel, obviously the years have seen so much change, trends, you know, different things and happenings around the world. What are you seeing as a trend in the industry right now as a builder? Where do you think the industry is going?

The big shift and it's already happened. The subcontracting part of things where it's almost like everyone's trying to be a subcontractor meaning everyone's trying to sub a sub, a sub, a sub, you know, so that's something that, you know, can, can kind of mess a market up a little bit. And then the quality drops when that happens. And, you know, we're starting to see a lot of that, and we got to be careful with that. And again, custom building, especially on the ocean, there's only a handful of great carpenters, great plumbers. When you tap into those outside of that group, you know, you find the poor workmanship and stuff. So. So I think that is getting, I would say, worse where you don't have guys who just love their trade and are just all in for the rest of their lives that, you know, it's almost like they want to be a boss and they're just hiring anyone to hire. So it's kind of like the labor force shrinking in the quality. Like the quality is shrinking a little bit. It, it is concerning where, what happens when the old timers move on? You know, are they setting up the next generation to become these great carpenters or is it going to die out and we're going to have to babysit subs? And that's a concern. But like I said, the good people want to work for good people. So we've been blessed. As long as we continue to do the right thing, the right trades find us, and we find them. I feel everyone has it in them if they're going to be a tradesman, so I'll find them. I think there's too many humans. There's too many of us. And if you're born to do carpentry, I'm going to find you. If you're born to be a plumber, I'm going to find you. I know like I said, that subcontracting game gets a little crazy, but like I said, there's just too many people on this earth that are born to do something, and we'll find them to keep it at a high level.

Now, you know, I could talk to you for hours. You've got a pretty inspiring story, but I'll bring it full circle for you. What have you learned about yourself during this entire transformation process, and what advice do you have for builders out there that are thinking about transitioning from being a builder to moving to the business? What advice do you have for them and what have you learned about, about yourself?

Well, I learned how to chew glass and survive. So I bring that up because I heard that from Elon Musk interview. They said, you know, what does it feel like to run a business like, it feels like you're chewing on glass. And I didn't really get that. But, you know, going through the ups and downs as an owner, you take on so much pain, so much emotional pain, so much physical pain, like, because you're learning something. And when you're learning something and failing, and I say failing and learning at the same time, you know, it's painful. There's many days where you want to quit. You have people who doubt you. You have long nights. You risk your relationships and growing a business through the hard times. And Juan and myself, we've been in this office two, three, sometimes four in the morning, you know, bidding when we were client growing this thing. So there's a lot of sacrifice, and it's just the will to keep going through the pain. And I'm not telling anyone to sacrifice their families and things of that nature. We didn't have the help. All we could do is what we knew how to do. And I know if I would have met APB in the beginning of this business, I wouldn't have had to do what I did and wanted myself, you know, with those late nights and sacrificing our relationships, you know, because, you know, we were just doing what we knew, and we didn't know that there was better ways of approaching, you know, certain parts of the business. So that's what I learned. I learned I can take a lot of pain, and it's not going to knock me down. I'm going to stick with it. That's what a support system. At home with my beautiful wife and my kids, and, you know, they have my back, and that's more important than anything. I can close the business tomorrow if they tell me to. But they're supportive, they understand. I love it. Like, go for it, dad. You got it. So, you know, that's what I learned about myself. I could take more pain than I thought.

And any advice to the builders out there that are thinking or in your shoes, you know, this show gets listened to by so many other builders from around the world. For the builders out there that are thinking about taking that next step, putting down the tools and being on the business, what advice do you have for them?

Sign up with APB and get a coach. Take a loan out. I don't care what you have to do. Get coaching. Trust me. I hesitated in the beginning just to even get any type of coaching because you look at the money, you look at, oh, I'm going to spend this. It's all worth it. It pays itself off. Unbelievably. And you can skip a lot of potholes that I went through by having a coach in our industry. You know, I had two other coaches that had nothing to do with construction and they shared some good principles, but they didn't know what it took to get paid, you know, on the third phase of work with paywacks and clients that are want the best but don't want to pay for the best and they don't know the ins and outs of construction. So that's the advice I would give is get the right coaching. And in our industry and what we do, we are custom builders and APB is for the custom builder. And again, there is no other. I haven't found any and I've been on a search for a long time and I haven't found the resource dedicated to custom builders the way, you know, APB is. So that's definitely my advice. Get the coaching as soon as it's possible for you to be able to afford that investment.

Yeah, I think my first lesson when I first came on as a podcast host was learning about the WIPA calculator. So absolutely it was one of the, you know, I think the financial awareness and the awareness about the industry is definitely very strong with the apb. Daniel, it's been a pleasure talking to you. Very inspiring story. I wish you all the best in your transition. I'm sure we'll have you back here again. Perhaps the next time we chat, you'll be telling me stories about chewing glass in the business world. But again, thank you so much for being here today.

Bosco, thank you for having me. I got whip of calculator homework. Actually, I better get.

Cheers, mate.

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