192. The Price of Success | Gordon Fairbanks

when you start out, you're hiring D+, C- people because it's all you can get.

Okay?

Your A players will not go to work for a C team. But if you focus on getting better, you'll take those C- and make them into C+, B-. Now, when I get to a C+, B-, I can attract a little better talent. And if I develop them, suddenly now I can start attracting A players. And when you start attracting A-players, look out because you're fixing to go.

This is the Wealthy Contractor Podcast brought to you by G4 Marketing. Interviews with today's top home improvement entrepreneurs about marketing, sales, money, mindset, and lifestyle. Now here's your host, Brian Kaskavalciyan. All right, well, everybody, welcome to another episode of Wealthy Healthy Contractor Podcast. This is Brian Kaskavalciyan, and with me today is Gordon Fairbanks. If you haven't heard the name Gordon Fairbanks, let me tell you a couple of things about him. Number one, we should acknowledge the fact that he's a legend of the home improvement industry from, uh, through Dave Yoho Associates. Very well earned. Again, if you don't know him, just wait. In about 15 minutes, you're going to be a little blown away by what he's done. You had a company called Fairbanks Construction, very successful company, followed certain fundamentals and principles and things that I think we're probably going to touch on today. And we, you know, made a lot of money and built a great company and eventually exited for, I don't know how much, but I would imagine it was a pretty decent amount of money. And so with that said, why don't you tell your version Give us the 2-minute version of your story, and then I got a bunch of questions. I got a bunch of stuff we could talk about.

Okay, well, you know, as you said, I'm born and raised in Ocala, so I naturally started here. I aged myself.

Florida. That's Florida. Sorry about that.

No, and I graduated high school in 1980, which ages me, but I came out and I got started in the aluminum industry building screen rooms and, and structures where we would take, you know, sticks of aluminum and fabricate things on site. Did that for about 6 months, got my own truck and did quite well. Was a subcontractor. I mean, other than from the time I was 18, other than maybe about 18 months out of my life, I've never worked for anyone. I've always kind of been in charge, which makes me probably a very bad potential for an employee for somewhere down the line. But, you know, so anyway, so, you know, as I said, I started at 18 and about 22, 23, I started looking at guys that were 40, 50 years old. And the sun is just brutal here, as you're aware. And I started going, you know what, I'm not gonna be one of those. So at 28, I stepped out from where I'd been working for a number of years as a, as a sub and started Fairbanks Construction. Cuz at the time I just figured I couldn't do any worse than everyone else that I was seeing out there. Okay.

Good. I like that.

And, and fortunately I had, you know, cut my teeth in a siding joint and had learned some of the marketing stuff. I mean, sometimes we learn as much what not to do from people as we do what to do. Yeah. So I watched I've seen a lot of unscrupulous practices at that siding joint. These were true tin men. But anyways, long story short, we moved into the siding business, was dropping inserts all the way middle Georgia down to the panhandle of Florida and that, and eventually just began to run across people that were far enough away that they were more than willing to, to allow us to come up and visit. And we began to learn some best practices and, and build a very nice business. We were always looking how to differentiate ourselves, make ourselves a little bit better. And always focus on how could we better be better than yesterday.

Just to give everybody a little indication of what the business became, did you mind sharing any number? Are there numbers?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, understand, when I started, I was it. I cleaned the bathrooms, I was the marketing, I was everything. And, you know, so we went from nothing in 1990, '91. We did, you know, through probably just grace of God, but we did $1 million in '91 and we did $2 million in '92. Don't sound like a lot today, but back then those were big numbers.

Those big numbers.

Yeah. And we ultimately, we were about $20 million when we sold. Was pacing real nice as far as what we were. We were the big fish in our small pond and we simply dominated our market.

Yeah. So how long did it take you It's a different way of asking this question. How long did it take you to figure out how to make money in this business?

You know, here's something I'm really proud of. I mean, as a sub, I mean, I was piece rate, and, you know, uh, we made money every day and we worked daylight to dark just to get it done. So when I started the business, right off the bat, everything we did was profitable. Because again, I think being a sub had me focus on, you know, the COGS, the cost of goods sold, meaning that was my labor at the time. So we made money right from the get-go. Now, to get good at making money, I would say, Brian, that took me about 10 years. You know, you go through a lot of the school of hard knocks. You make bad decisions that cost money. We hired people like Dave Yoho and Associates and a few others to help us do some stuff. That was a big investment. But I always looked at it like this: failure wasn't failure as long as you learn from it. Yeah. And we had a lot of opportunities to learn because we made a lot of mistakes. But at the end, we were right 51% of the time, and it worked out for us.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll often ask people, you know, about their quarter. I'll say, did you win or did you learn? You know, sometimes it's a little of both, right? So it took you 10 years to figure out how to make money. And part of the reason why I'm asking you this is right now I'm deep into preparing for our profit workshop. This is the third one we'll be doing with your buddy Mark Curry.

Okay.

Yeah, Mark understands, as you know, numbers, and he's the only— one of the only, I shouldn't say only— one of the only people that I know that can actually explain it in a way where we can understand it. And so it's top of mind for me right now. So Through that process, through that 10 years, what did you have to learn about making money?

First, I would say I agree with you wholly on Mark. Mark has a way of explaining it to where anybody can understand. And if you listen, what Mark advocates is simply how we did it. Okay. Because again, Mark breaks it down to very simple steps. I mean, and I like to keep things simple so that, you know, you didn't have to have a big, you know, major college degree and somebody to decipher what you were looking at. So we just simply, again, through trial and error, we begin to dial in what worked, what didn't work. You know, take TV, for example. TV was always one of those mediums that Ocala being a small market— and understand Gainesville's 35 miles north of us, but Gainesville's a Jacksonville DMA, Ocala is an Orlando DMA. So marketing was not cheap, and we began to realize TV was a shotgun approach. We had anybody and everybody, so we would get a lot of credit criminals, you know, where we'd write $6-8 million that year but only put up $2.5-3 million, you know. And so we began to learn how to fine-tune our marketing and get that dialed in, the sales process, the entirety of the operation. I mean, I won't tell you we had very well-written SOPs, but we had very good SOPs. We learned from what we made mistakes on, and we finally got to a point where we just didn't— I used to like to use the back of my contract, the terms and conditions. I'd say about year 14, I don't think we added anything to the back of that contract because at that point we had dialed that thing in where it covered just about anything that could happen.

Okay, so there's a couple ways I can go with it. Let me ask you this, okay? What had to change in you in order for you to start really making money. Those are the dynamics. Those are the dynamics of the business.

Sure.

Those are the fundamentals of the business. You have SOPs, you've got a selling system that sells value, not price. You've got marketing that you gotta get dialed in so you can cost-effectively create a lead. You gotta be able to install the work and create 5-star reviews and happy customers that are gonna come back and buy from you again. Okay, those are the mechanics of the business. And you figured those things out. You went and learned from other people and, you know, through trial and error and school of hard knocks, as you said. But what had to change inside of you in order for you to be able to start really making money?

You know, the biggest change that happened was, first of all, I had to learn not to take things personal, you know, and separate myself and my emotions from what was happening at that moment. So if you'll do that, that'll help you look at a lot of things objectively and not of, of how to get revenge or, or to show them they're not going to take advantage of you. Okay, now one of the biggest things that helped me, and I was, you know, again, aging myself, I was a big cassette tape junkie. And if I was in my truck, which I was doing quite a bit, I would listen to Brian Tracy and Earl Nightingale and Tom Hopkins and Zig Ziglar. And Zig was one, he'd always say this: if you can help enough people get what they want, they'll help you get what you won. And I really could not wrap my head around that because, you know, I was kind of raised in a situation where all that mattered is you got to win. If the other guy doesn't win, that's okay. You need to win. And I started to realize, you know what, life needs to be a win-win. So if I can help those that are helping me get to where I want to be, if I can make it to where they feel like they're valued and appreciated, which again are the fundamentals— you can research it real easy today Yeah, and that was truly the difference of where all of a sudden I went from when— and I don't care if you were a lose or a win— to where everything I focused on was win-win. That was a big difference maker for me personally and the business.

And so, okay, so that sounds to me like, okay, there's enough for everybody. It's not a zero-sum game. It's not only I win and everybody else loses. That sounds like an abundance kind of argument. I'm a big mindset guy. I am, I am burden. I've said it before and I'm going to say it again, just from my own personal experience, from observation, from study, from being around people like you for so many years now and having these deep conversations, I am convinced this whole thing is 90% mindset and 10% skill set. Because we can, especially today, like you just said, it's so much— we could go hire Dave Yoho Associates and get all of those things. You know, here, let's bring all of that knowledge of 40, 50 years. I can have Gordon, by the way, Gordon also does part-time. He works with Dave Yoho Associates as a consultant and goes out and helps companies with everything, you know, whatever you need, he goes out, he helps you get right. We're going to talk a little bit about that too. But, you know, and there's videos you can watch and there's seminars you can go to and workshops and there's all these stuff. You can even buy a selling system today. Whereas you probably had to develop it over time, you know.

Yeah, we had to dial it. I mean, Brian, I will agree with you fully on this. I wanted to be what my definition of successful was, because what I've learned is, you know what, there are a lot of people, especially today, that are doing some very big things, but I'm just convinced they dream bigger, okay? And so I'm fully convinced that if you don't want it I don't care, it's just not going to happen. You have to want it, and then you have to make sure that you're doing, you know, the right things, okay? You're not just doing— you have to do the right things. Right things breed right things. Otherwise, you may get something that just may not be what you're looking for. Does that answer your question?

Yeah, because it goes right along with the number one piece to our framework, if you know, for lack of a better word, the Wealthy Contractor Framework, the number one piece is what do you want? What do you want? And don't look at what other people have. That means nothing. I totally agree with you. There are people that think a lot bigger than I do. But I had a goal. I wanted to make a certain amount of money. I wanted a certain net worth. And sure as shit, when you realize Wait a minute. This is my race. I need to figure out what's going to make me happy. You know, what's going to make my family happy. And then I work towards that. So for some people, let's just use money. You know, money and time are the easiest things. So let's just use money. For some people, a couple million bucks in the bank, and they would be thrilled. Their lives would be like, think, you and me know people that make $2 million a month in this business.

You know, Brian, you know, I learned that, you know what, again, don't let anybody else define for you what success is. And again, if you don't have the drive and determination and heart, I mean, I'm a firm believer in the DiSC profile or whatever you're using. I mean, we had moved to another one at the end, personal, whatever it was anyways. And I violated the DiSC profile very infrequently, but it was always because somebody— I mean, you just knew there was something different, and you just can't measure what's inside them if they're convinced they're going to succeed. Because again, when I started the business, I— when I left the place I was working at, which is a very sizable company at the time who was building retirement communities, which he sold for a bookoo money, but they sat me down and told me you can't do it. I was literally the kind of guy when I showed up to go to work, if you came out to talk to me, I would just about I'll tell you, I don't get paid for talking, I get paid for doing. So just let me do. And they call up and these people would sit me down, oh, you, you'll never make it with your personality. Well, I realized, you know what, I was going to have to change. And again, it is a learned discipline that if you're convinced you can do it, you can do it.

So for everybody— that's not everybody— for you, the listener, Go back, go hit your rewind thing, go back about a minute and a half and listen to everything he just said and really listen because he said some things that are golden. And this is why I like asking questions like this because ordinarily we would talk about, well, what makes your selling system better? How do you get, how do you go from, you know, we're, we're closing at 27%, we want to close at 30%. Well, why, why do you want to close higher? Why do you want to do what? And ultimately it's it's going to come down to, I want to make more money, I want to spend more time with my family, I want to, want to, you know, I want all of these things. So you said, you said if somebody is convinced they're going to be successful, they're convinced that they're going to be— this is what you said, right? I don't want to put words in— this is what you're talking about? Convinced?

Absolutely.

And especially now in your position, when you walk into a place And I'll tell you, anybody that's hiring a consultant or is hiring somebody to come in and show them how to do something, or if you're going to somebody else's office like he used to do very smartly to learn, don't argue with people. The minute you start arguing with them about, well, you don't understand, that's not going to work. That's a, that's not somebody that's convinced they're going to be successful. When you know in your gut You just, you listen. That's, you listen and you listen for the gold. And then you say, okay, if we do that, then what about this? The other thing too that you said, and I'm convinced of this as well, is it's a learned discipline. Success is, and, and, you know, our, our core tenets are success, wealth, and freedom. Success is a learned discipline. Wealth, wealth is a learned discipline. And freedom. Is a learned discipline, whatever those 3 things mean for, for you. But those are learned disciplines. So it's so interesting that, you know, success leaves clues. I hear the same things, you know, and when you hear the same things kind of over and over again, it's like, well, wait a minute, you know, there's something here. Those are the things you got to be listening for. So as you are—

Go ahead.

I, I was— I went 3 places. My head went 3 places at the same time.

It gave me time to put that, you know, first. You know, my experience, money is easy to make, it's awfully hard to keep. Yeah, because keeping it is a discipline too. Yeah. If you discipline yourself— this is why I used to teach my kids— if you discipline yourself at a young age to do things that others won't, you'll be able to make choices in the future instead of being forced to make decisions. And there's a big difference, okay? And then the other aspect too is, again, just simply don't let anybody else define, because you have to be fully convinced. When somebody comes in, whether you hire them or you're at a seminar or whatever, you may not agree with everything, but I guarantee you there's some nuggets in there. Take 1, 2, 3 of those back and put them to work. That's all we did. We just constantly, you know, it's an everyday business. Every day you have to make leads, you have to make sales, you have to install, collect, and there's a lot of steps in front in between those two. But it is an everyday business and just every day try to be better than yesterday.

How do you convince yourself? How do you convince yourself? How did you convince yourself I'm worthy of success, I'm worthy of wealth, and I'm worthy of the freedoms that this business should provide for me and my family?

Well, I would say this, you know, I don't— I've always believed it's not bragging if you can back it up. And I was an awfully good installer, you know. I got paid more than everyone else because, again, I did stuff that just— we found ways to do it better. And so when I went into business, you know, in the beginning, I'm looking as I'm getting, you know, successful, because again, first full year in business, $1 million. Second full year in business, $2 million. That growth almost killed us because we outstripped our cash flow on that. But again, you're starting to achieve a level of success and you're going, you know, this pretender syndrome of, you know, has anybody realized that, you know, I ain't that smart and I shouldn't be sitting here? So I made an effort to learn. I became a very voracious reader because of what, you know, I like to say when I started in 1990, if you had a bag phone and a fax machine with the shiny glossy paper on a roll, you were cutting-edge technology. Okay. And when I go to seminars, I would meet people because who were where I wanted to be. And because of distance, I'd befriend them. And because of distance, they had no problem with me or whoever I wanted to come with coming up and spending a day, a week, whatever it was. And so I went and watched and learned from people that were doing what I wanted to do. And I just again became a student of it. And I still think if you're not, you know, Grasso was somebody I worked with quite a bit, and I mean, I was one of his first clients, but he had always this, you know, this saying. There was a lot of things Rick would say. Don't take my advice in business. I wasn't that good. But if you're green, you're growing. You're ripe, you rot. And it's just true.

So, I mean, yeah, you were working on the business, but the real work— again, this is my opinion from experience and, you know, observation and study, but it's the more work you do on yourself, the better your business will do.

Absolutely. In 1997, I had a dirt bike accident. Okay. The business was moderately successful at that time. It was making very good money. But I hurt myself pretty good and I was out of work 3 months. Now, I was in and out a little bit, but, but I lost a lot of people. And instead of looking and pointing fingers at them, I began to realize, you know what, I must not be a very good leader because nobody stuck around. And I really delve into leadership. I found John Maxwell and I ate him up and I made an effort to, to make myself a better leader. And it took a lot of years. I believe at the end I was a very good leader because again, when I sold the business, it was amazing how many people called me to tell me what a difference I had made in their life. And I looked at it really, Brian, and felt like all I did was give them an opportunity. I put the tools in front of them, I gave you whatever help you needed, and they took the opportunity to do something with them. But apparently it was reciprocal where they believed that I added value to them and they certainly had added value to us. And so again, leadership is so crucial. And when I'm with people that I'm working with, that's through, through Dave Yoho, I try to get them to understand two things. You got to make decisions by data. You know, your data needs to be accurate, but you need to make your decisions by the data because the data will show you trends. And you need to learn how to lead your people because if they believe that you value and appreciate them, that their input has, you know, value and worth, man, they will fall on the sword and go into battle with you every day.

Wow, that's good stuff. So what's interesting So what's interesting about that is talking about leadership and creating an environment for others to be successful.

Yes.

So how frustrating is it? Because you probably come across this a lot where you ask people, you know, what they want and they claim that they really care about their people on the one side. On the other side, they have total disdain for this idea of, oh my God, I got to go hire more people. And it's the same symptom, I think. And the thing is, is that do you— have you created an environment, a culture, a place where people can come and become better? Do you have the tools in place? So for example, I'll give you an example here. So the— our mastermind groups were here a couple weeks ago, and there's one 2 guys, business partners. They built a nice business, but they've muscled their way there. They're working 7 days a week. They're stressed out. The one of them has 2 little kids. You know, he gets them a couple days a week, and he's not focused on the kids. He's thinking about the business. He's constantly connected. So his— one of his biggest issues, one of his biggest issues is his selling system. It's like we gave him an opportunity. He's been there for a couple of years. In every meeting, it's like there's this whole new talk about a new selling system and a new— and it's like, dude, pick the damn— I don't care which one you pick.

Yeah.

I don't care whose it is. Pick one. Pick one and run with it. Develop, run your, you know, create the— he's got 2 salespeople for $6 or $7 million in revenue. I go, are you out of your flipping mind? I go, why aren't you hiring more people? Well, I can't find people. Well, I said, yeah, because nobody wants to work for you. You don't have a good system. You can't show them here, boom, boom, boom, do this, do this, do this. And it's good people that want to do good, that want to help other people. And yet they have a crappy system in their business that first off isn't providing for them and their family. But then now they want to bring in other people and provide for them and their families. And it's like, dude, if you can't provide for your own family, how the hell do you think you're going to be able to provide for somebody else's family? So whatever you have to do, if somebody's got a system or you're going to bring somebody in to help you with the business, listen to what they have to say and take the good, like you said, take the good nuggets and just flip and go with the mechanics and the fundamentals that work in the business, then that will help you attract better people. When you attract better people, then what happens? The business becomes— anyway, you know, absolutely.

You know, I look at it this way. You know, I know there's variations of poker, but I just grew up with 5-card, you know, draw. And, and again, when you start out, you're hiring D+, C- people because it's all you can get. Okay, your A players will not go to work work for a C team. But if you focus on getting better, you'll take those C-minuses and make them into C-pluses, B-minuses. Now, when I get to a C-plus, B-minus, I can attract a little better talent. And if I develop, then suddenly now I can start attracting A players. And when you start attracting A players, look out because you're fixing to go. But, you know, and you got to keep your eye on what's important. Okay. Again, the individual selling $6 million, he's getting $3 from 2 different people. You know, all that takes is somebody looks left and forgets to look right. Now he's a $3 million business. Okay. And you got to look at Sam Walton. Just look it up. Sam Walton's dying words, last words were, 'I blew it.' Wealthiest man in the world. Look it up.

He said what?

'I blew it.' He's laying on his deathbed. You know, all his success meant nothing. You know, that's one of the things I did. Again, my dad provided a lot of things for us except his time. I made sure when I was installing, and even when I did the business, not as much as I would have liked to, but I made sure I attended my daughter's volleyball games and whatever else it was. Because again, you got to keep your— you got to keep balance and you got to understand. Now don't get me wrong, I used to go in at 3, 4 o'clock in the morning and I'd work till 8 o'clock at because you know what, at 3 o'clock in the morning, here's one thing you're assured of: nobody's calling you and nobody's knocking on the door.

Yeah.

And you got to pay the price of success. This nonsense of we're just going to hang a shingle up and people are going to come— you got to pay a price to get to where you want to be. It's a part of that commitment. And it is, like you said, it's a commitment to yourself. Yeah.

You know, talk a little bit more about that, because that's not talked enough about— the price you have to pay for success. Talk a little bit more about, about that. What— a little deeper on that.

Okay, well, some of that payment is again realizing what your weaknesses are, you know. I mean, again, some of the things I learned over here— we all have strengths and we have weaknesses, and most people want to focus on their weakness. But a weakness is a weakness because of one of two things: either we're not good at it or we don't like doing it. And those are things aren't going to change. So focus on your strengths and your weaknesses will come up, but find things that benefit you. Learn to implement things that again, make other people feel important, make other people important. Take people, you know, again, John Maxwell, I believe, is probably one of the best leadership trainers that I found. And he had two sayings. If you see a turtle on top of a fence post, You know, he didn't get there by himself. And if you get to the top of the mountain and nobody's with you, you're not a leader. It's the journey. Again, I do not regret selling the business. There were some things that were happening. The opportunity was the right opportunity for us to take. But you know what? We took people on the journey. And if I look back at Fairbanks Construction, it was the journey. Now, it had its moments, trust me. You know, I didn't have any hair when I started anyways, so I won't tell you it made my hair fall out, but it will certainly age you and wear you down real quick. And it's just going to test you to see if you're really committed. Okay. Nature abhors a vacuum. Okay. And when somebody else falls out, somebody will replace them. But boy, it's going to do everything it can to make sure that you are really the right one to be in that position.

And how do you become the right one to be in that position?

I think it's by focusing. For us, it was simply just focusing every day on being better. You know, when, when things went wrong, Brian, all I cared about was two things: what do we got to do to fix it, and what do we got to do to make sure it doesn't happen again? Yeah, you will focus on that, you will control 80 to 85% of the things that happen every day. Because I go into businesses, and I seen them when I was you know, building Fairbanks and you go into these offices that are just chaotic and you're looking and going, I want to be a doctor's office. You know, I don't want to see four-letter words coming from behind the girls behind the desk and files strewn everywhere. I want to see systems of order. I don't want to see chaos. And, and so we learned that if we just learned to fix the things and did not what we had to do to put a Band-Aid on it, Drill down and find out what the root cause was. And if you can take care of that and get that into your people, because again, once you start creating this culture of excellence, this culture of trying to be better, man, culture trumps strategy every time. Yeah, that culture's in there again. Look out, you're fixing to rock and roll.

So I'm going to stop there.

Okay.

And I want to invite you back. I would certainly enjoy it because we didn't get to a whole bunch of stuff.

No, we didn't.

I think that there is so much stuff here, and I do this once in a while, and you listen to the podcast, those, you know, they, they know this is one you got to go back and listen to 2 or 3 times because there's a core piece that nobody talks about.

I agree.

And it's all of this stuff that we've been talking about here. The price of success. Are you convinced you're going to be successful? Discipline, leadership, working on yourself. You know, how do you become a great leader? Well, you become a great leader by learning the qualities of a great leader, by modeling the qualities of a great leader. Well, how do you do that? Well, you got to read. Well, I don't have time to read. Well, then get up an hour earlier. You know, you know, what are you listening to in the car? Instead of listening to music in the car, listen to Flippin' Earl Nightingale in the car, John Maxwell, or Whoever the other, other people, dozens of other people that you could listen to that'll help you grow into somebody that you weren't yesterday. Because better to me, when, whenever somebody says I'm getting better, to me it's you got to get better inside and then it'll start to show up in all around you. Because if you were an asshole, you could try and build this great organization where you're going to create these leaders that are going to come after you and all of that. But if you're an asshole or if you've got pretender syndrome, imposter syndrome, it isn't going anywhere. Yeah, it's going nowhere. And too many people are stuck in this. Like, you know, they're looking for the magic bullet. They're looking for the next shiny object. Absolutely. A couple of weeks ago, again, in the, in the, when the mastermind groups were here and I'm not easy on them, I'm all about tough love. I am not easy on these when they come in. But you line them up and they're doing well. You know, they're doing well. But I told them, I go, don't, don't— I don't know where this came from, but I called it the illusion of accomplishment. You know, don't get caught up in this illusion that just because you start work at 7 o'clock in the morning and you go till 8 or 9 o'clock that you accomplished anything that day. It's all an illusion. You listen to a podcast. Okay, now I listen to a podcast. Great. What are you going to do with this podcast? What are you going to do with everything you just learned from Gordon Fairbanks? If you're going to just listen to it once and move on with your life and think you got any of it, sorry, you're sadly mistaken.

I was just going to say, if you don't listen, I mean, I would listen to things over because if you pick up something, you miss something. Yep. And you just listen to it. And again, going back to what you were saying, if your people have to draw straws who's going to come down and tell you bad news, you're not a good leader.

That's right.

People look— people want consistency. They want to know whether it's good news, bad news, that that person I'm looking at is the same every day. Every time they react with consistency, they don't let their emotions— they don't yell and scream. I can tell you, in 29-plus years in business, I lost my cool twice, and both times were installers. You know, coming from an installer background, I didn't have a lot of room for, you know, excuses. I always believe that excuses made to satisfy the person giving it because it wasn't doing nothing for me.

Yeah.

You know, I know we need to wrap it up. I would love the opportunity to come back, Brian.

No, for sure. You got— we got to go. We're going to schedule it after, after we're done here. But thank you so much. For, for being here. I appreciate everything you shared with us, and I, I'm really looking forward to having you again. So to everybody listening, this is one— go back if you're really serious about being successful in this business. First off, there aren't very many people like him that you could learn from that, that'll be better for you. I mean, this guy has been through the whole thing, and that's number one. Number two, he said some amazing stuff here. Stuff that you don't normally hear. And so go back and listen to it. And Gordon, thank you again. I really appreciate it. And until next time, this is Brian Kaskavalciyan, and this is the Wealthy Contractor Podcast. Thanks for listening to today's episode of the Wealthy Contractor Podcast. Let me ask you, did it help you look at your business in a different way? Did it spark an idea or ideas that you hadn't thought of before? Do you have a list of action items that you can take and implement into your business or your life today? I really hope so. If it did, I'd like to ask you a favor. Would you leave a 5-star review of the podcast? By doing so, you'll help other contractors find the podcast more easily so that we can help them achieve more success, wealth, and freedom. So until next time, this is Brian Kaskavalciyan.