A Chat With My Estimator & Project Manager - Ep.76

Hey everyone, it's Mike Andes. You're listening to the landscape business course Podcast. Today is a special episode. It's only going to be for the audio audience that is listening to podcast. No video today because basically this show.

Is really a little bit impromptu.

Basically what happened is last week I was out of town and I had really raised up one of our new estimators and project managers to kind of fill in my shoes while I was gone as far as being the estimator and doing a lot of smaller estimates on the day to day basis. And he's also a project manager. So you're actually going to hear kind of a recap of what he learned that first week of being the estimator solo. And he really was thrown into it kind of. He was a project manager. But within a few weeks of me leaving, we threw him in estimating and gave him some training. And he's explained kind of how that process went, what he learned, and some of the experiences he had when I was away. So it's gonna be really useful if you are looking to get out of the field, if you are looking to get an estimator of your own, if you're looking to hire project managers to start getting them to think. The way that we talk about today and getting some insight is a little bit different from my perspective as far as you're able to hear from one of our team members. And so I think it'll be valuable for you a little bit of a different style of a show today. But really all I did here was I just put down my recorder and taught and recorded as we talked just in the office. So you'll actually hear the phone ring a couple times. I had to cut some stuff out as far as he was working on the clock and was in the office. So I cut some of that out. But other than that I just set down the recorder and started recording. And so you'll just hear us kind of gab about stuff. He learned about our process a bit. He did. He didn't know we were recording, but we weren't really formal about it. Basically just sitting at the desk chatting about kind of just what about what he learned about estimating and his first experiences with the whole process. So I didn't have any questions written down or anything like that. We just want to. We're kind of talking away and so let's just go ahead and jump right into it. But before we do, I want to make sure that everyone has signed up for the webinar that is coming up in less than 48 hours. So if you're listening to this in a few weeks or months, this is obviously old. However, if you're listening to this right away on March, May 20, that's in two days, we're gonna be having a webinar on how to find, attract and hire great staff. And so if you're like me, this time of year is not a time to be sleeping, it's the time to be working. It's the spring and you are working crazy hours and you're trying to find people that will join your team and you can hire to be on your staff to mow lawns, do your landscaping, et cetera. And it's not easy. The, the labor market is super hard right now because the unemployment is so low and it's very hard to find people for entry level positions, labor positions, et cetera. And so it's very important that we can find these people, that we can keep them engaged, challenged, pay them enough by having.

Enough margin to pay them, give them benefits, keep them on and retain them on staff. And so we're going to be talking all about that in this live webinar. If you haven't, you know, been on one of my webinars before, it's very, very basic. I don't do anything fancy. I'm gonna get behind a video camera and microphone and basically share how my company has attracted and hired and retained a great staff of individuals and a great team and how that has, has formed and functioned and how we have our career fairs and how we attract people and then how I do my interviewing process, how I do my reference checks for our new hires. And really the process in which I use to find great people and then fire them if they don't work out and fire fast. So it's gonna be some great tips, a lot of actionable advice. It's not just gonna be all theory. It's gonna be a lot of like, do this on Craigslist, don't do this, put this on Facebook. And exactly, just walking through exactly what we've done. Not necessarily say that's how everyone should do it, but I guarantee you'll get some sort of tidbit that will lead to a great, a good hire, that will lead to a revenue, a stream of individuals coming your way. For instance, one of the things we did this year was put signs literally in all our trucks that said, want to join our team?

What does it say? Oh yeah, want to join our team? Now hiring, apply online. And we put that on the tailgate. Of all of our trucks. And so keeping that stream of constant applicants is important. And then how do you screen them out? And then how do you hire and get them onboarded and then retain them for the future? So that's what we're gonna be talking about in this webinar. And so I highly encourage you. It's gonna be about 45 minutes to an hour. I highly encourage you to get on there if you are wanting to hire more people for your team. If you're stuck trying to find people and you can't get enough quality individuals to be on your team, I highly recommend you hop on there. I guarantee you'll get a good tip, something that you can use. And in the Q and A, I want everyone to be jumping in with questions. So if you're coming to the webinar, make sure you have at least two questions about hiring that you can bring to the Q and A. It's just gonna be a small group. It's gonna be less than probably 20, 30 people. And so, you know, I want two questions that you have about hiring that you can bring to the Q and A that we can bounce ideas off of. I can talk about, people in the chat room can discuss. And there's no right hook here. There's nothing I have to sell. I will be giving away some tickets for the conference and in January, as well as having some flash sales on those, so you'll definitely want to check it out for that one hour. We'll be doing some sales stuff for the conference, but other than that, I have nothing really to sell. It just. I really want to help individuals. I've been getting so many of these questions about hiring people at this time of year because we're all so swamped, crazy busy. And so I hope that this will help someone out there find a great project manager, a great laborer, a great mower, a great office manager.

And how.

How to go about finding those people is important. So how do you register? Just go to landscapebusinesscourse.com@the very top of the page. If you're on desktop, you'll see a link that says, register for the webinar. Click that, or it's really easy. You can just text. Now just text Landscape Business. That's Landscape Business. One word, no space in between. Landscape Business. Just text that to 44222. Just pull out your phone, and you're gonna text a number called 44222. That's 44222. Landscape business. One word. And that will put you into the registration. Then they'll ask you for your email, you'll send your email and then it'll automatically sign you up for that webinar and make sure you come in live. It's so much more cool when we get more of the individuals on live. That's why I did it on a weekend so that everyone can get in there. It's in two days. It's Sunday on May 20th. Just in a couple days here. So make sure you're ready for that. I really am looking forward to it. But let's jump right into this episode. This is again just a very informal sit down chat with a project manager turn estimator last week. Someone that has really only worked at our company for about eight months or so, but has really flourished, really grown with the company, embraced what we do and embraced the culture of the team and what we're all about. And take taken it very personally. So I want you to hear from someone other than my own mouth is one of our team members. And again we're just sitting in one of our offices and it's actually our second office location that we just started. And so pardon any distractions, noises, et cetera, but here we go. Let's go jump right into this. Name of the project manager estimator I'm talking to right now is Lee. And here we go.

It went good. I mean it was definitely kind of thrown in the deep end, but it was for, for my style. I appreciated that. Like I kind of like being thrown in the deep end a little bit. I feel like I learned better when I'm kind of in the hot spot. So it was tough, I think adjusting to like having the full responsibility of putting an estimate together. Not necessarily like talking to the client or like understanding what they want or like working through their language to like put it on paper what that would look like for us. Yeah, I think the hardest thing was was like compartmentalizing it and then itemizing it and figuring out what that would look like as a big picture and not just like a little item here and there, if that makes sense.

Was there a couple that were bigger on your.

I was gone.

I didn't even look through the ones that you did.

There was the. Well, the biggest one as far as pretty price was a pet paver patio and that came out to like almost 9,000 after tax.

Did we get that? Do you know? I don't know.

Liz didn't say anything to me. So.

Yeah, there was that one. There were two that were like in the four thousand dollar range. There were two cleanups and I think.

We got the one cleanup.

Right.

@ least one of them we.

Did. I don't know. I don't.

Know. I think we got that one. One of those cleanups that was pretty big. She put it in jewelry lot June into.

June.

Okay. Yeah. There was two big cleanups. One, the one had that like bamboo and pond.

Thing. Oh, did we actually get submit that for.

That? I don't know if that's the one we got because there were two. There was that one that was really. They were both in the four thousand dollar range. That was hard because it was all like technical work. Like doing that bamboo be a lot of.

Work.

Yeah. The other one was like 4,000 because it was a massive property and she wanted like a lot of BlackBerry bushes and stuff removed. Yeah, I know, It'd be huge. So what was up.

With. Explain the bamboo thing a little bit. Like what was.

That?

Exactly. So basically this guy had like flat ground and then like a steep drop off into like a.

Pond.

Yeah. And the bamboo had been growing like in like a field and he'd been cutting it himself. But then the bamboo had like grown into the pond and so he thought he might be able like push some of it over with the.

Tractor. Are you.

Serious? But essentially he like made it tip so that all of it was just growing over the pond. Oh.

Yeah. Did you just like try to.

Push it into the lake.

Then? He was just trying to like break it, I think. But then he didn't want to keep getting his tractor close to the edge of the pond so he just left it like that. So it's just like was this big tilted.

So. Well, when, when you did the.

Estimate, what were you thinking as far as what were you going to do? Because I know I'd mentioned the boat.

Thing.

Yeah. Well, I was thinking like you could, you could do it most like mostly by hand is what the plan.

Was. Or.

They. Yeah. And then you would have to like, you could stay on land and do it a lot of it by hand. And then maybe you could have like one person spotting someone on like a track loader or something to like know where the edges of that of this pond. But I would say most of it have to be done by hand. And then eventually, yeah, you'd have to put like waders on and then just get into the water. And I was like, okay, so what was.

It? Why didn't he just like take.

It with his tractor and push it into the water? Like he thought previously, oh, he's getting too.

Close. He was getting too close. And he couldn't tell because he had like a small. His tractor wasn't much bigger than like skidstier like bucket and everything. So like he didn't want to get his front wheels too close to the edge. Especially if it's like soft pond ground. Yeah. So I was like, I just basically had him the estimate for a lot of.

Hours. What'd you.

Do? How many hours did you do.

That? I think I did like 40. Cause it was like mean. I just think with two guys there and then you think he said we could throw them all into a burn pile on his property. But you still got a thing. Moving it all by hand right to the burn pile would take time too.

Yeah. If you have to take a track letter.

Too. Yeah. So I got in like 40 hours because the.

Excavator. Could you have reached down from the box at the top and like pull them out maybe.

Like. But it was just like I said, it was all tilting and growing like over the pond. So you need a pretty long.

Excavator. Oh.

Really? To grab everything. Yeah. And it was like, I don't know, you have access for machinery. But I just like didn't think it was something we could easily.

Do.

Right. How is it trying to.

Balance? Because I know you're managing the park.

Job. We were building the disc golf course. How is that like bouncing from there to project management to.

Estimating.

That was a big learning curve for sure. Because. Because.

I think I've only been a project manager for a short period of time. But it's easy to manage a project when you're there the whole time. It's super easy because you get to see everything from start to finish. You can make a checklist at the end of the day. Here's what I need, here's what I don't need. But not being there for more than the first day, I was maybe there three hours. The second day and the third day. I was there for maybe an hour or two each day. And then the last day. Thankfully I was able to stay. Stay there most of the day. But those middle two days was just I had to rely on the guys that were there. And then I felt bad because they were having to make decisions and decide and figure out what was best. So that was tough. I think figuring out like time wise management of like how could I be there supporting them but also be doing the estimates at the same time. I think definitely communication is key in that and maybe communicating from the first day on to like one of the guys like, hey, I won't be here that much. When initially I thought I might be able to come and bounce in and out and check up, but I really wasn't able to. So I essentially had to, like, pass off the role of project manager to Ben. But Ben didn't really know that initially, and then he kind of realized, like, he was taking over. So, yeah, it was.

Tough. Yeah. Because I think there's definitely areas.

We can improve as far as. Even for our estimating routes. Because, like, for instance, right now we book the estimate as soon as possible, like the day of or next day. Right. But the thing is, like, I'm wondering if it'd be better if we almost did, like, Blaine on, say, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then like Ferndale, Bellingham, Linden, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, or like even just Tuesday.

Thursday.

Right. Because most of them are still up north county up in the north part. But like, then that way you're not like, going like, from the top north and then like 40 minutes south, and then the next one could be like, right. 45 minutes again north.

Right.

Yeah. And you waste an hour and a half of.

Driving. Yeah. That was the second day, I think, of doing that park job was I had like two estimates in Blaine in the morning, and then two down in Bellingham and then two back in.

Blaine.

Yeah. So like you said, it's exactly. That was an hour of driving that I wasn't able to work or do estimates. But if, like, those Bellingham ones were at the end of the day or if they were just on a different day.

That'S. Well, the.

Only. The only advantage of having, like, of not segmenting days is that you can get the estimate per person, like, right.

Away.

Yeah. Which is.

Nice. But, like, on the other hand, to drive 45 minutes for one, even two is, like.

Annoying. Right.

Exactly. When you're project managing as.

Well. Well, yeah, because that's a part of it, too. Cause not only is it like, you know, like, yeah, Bellingham's 30 minutes from shop, but the job is 15 minutes away from.

Shop.

Right. So from that Bellingham estimate all the way back up to the job site was a full 45 minute drive. Because I was like, south Lake.

Waco. So tell me a little bit about what happened with Alex versus the other guy. Well, so the project, basically, we're building a disc golf course for the city, and there's a club of disc golfers that are kind of involved in volunteering, and they want it a certain way. They want it perfect and flat.

And all this other.

Stuff. But then we have the city, who's obviously watching costs, and we already cut the budget for them by a couple thousand dollars and things like that. So tell me how that went down. Was it Jesse, that his.

Name?

Randy. Randy.

Randy. Randy's the guy from.

The disc golf club that is involved and wants it perfectly and beautifully. And then Alex is obviously from the city. But tell me a little bit how that happened. I know he came in, like.

30.

Yeah. So I think it was. Randy came in. Actually, I think it was Friday morning, and. Yeah, it was Friday morning, and he came in, and he had some concerns about, like, what we were.

Doing. What was it? Was it the levelness of.

The. Well, yeah, there was a couple. He was worried about the level, and he said, you know, some of them were kind of off the original angle that he had wanted. And, you know, we're going off these stakes that could have been moved or, you know, like, when we came in to level the boxes, we had to pull the stakes out, right. Because we. We had to be able to get the machinery in there to level. So the stakes were replaced to where we thought originally. They were exactly what Randy put. They might not have been perfect for his liking, but we went off our best judgment. So there were issues like that, slight tweaks. He wasn't generally upset. He did say that he thought we were doing a good job. He did start with that. So he. He was like, it's looking good. He had concerns about a couple that were. That weren't level to his liking. And then part of it was also the level of the limestone within the boxes was his biggest concern. And so I tried to explain to him that we're doing the best we can with the product. Material and time and resources were allowed by the city. And there was a slight professional disagreement. And then he kind of came at our work because he was like, well, if we want you guys to do a job, we want it done right. And so I said, we're gonna do it right within the means we have of the people who hired us, which is the city. And so the city is the one, ultimately who we're working for. And I try to explain it to him. So he had his concerns, but ultimately, like, we tried to meet in the middle. Like, we fixed a couple of the ones that weren't perfectly level. We did try to raise them and change the levels a little bit. And then Alex, the person who works for the city, came at the end of the day, and he kind of re. Encouraged me, saying, it looks great, and that you're working for the city and not for Randy. And if he has any other questions, we can come to him. And I appreciated Alex. So it was tough. Yeah. Balancing that, you know, and then that as well as with the people that are using the park while we're working. We had comments from an older gentleman who was upset that we were destroying the.

Park. I didn't know.

That. And then we had comments from an older lady who thought it was fantastic that we were like trying to use the park for different things. So, yeah, there was a lot going on with that job, trying to please everyone. But ultimately, person who hired us, Alex, the person who works for the city, was extremely happy with where our work was with.

It. So as far as when it comes to estimating, I know like you basically within the first couple weeks before I left, you were thrown into it and stuff. But like, how do you think the process of us creating estimates works as far as learning it and what was the learning curve? You kind of like how we do the numbers versus dollars, stuff like.

That? Yeah, I think the biggest thing honestly was not being trained as an estimator in like a formal sense. And this could be a personality thing, but I wasn't trained as an estimator in the formal sense. I was trained as a field worker who then learned how to do estimates. And so that helped me a lot because if I had to stand back and look at a job or when I got in the truck after talking, talking to a client, a potential client, I would go, okay, I would visualize that bed that I was going to clean out or those bushes I was going to trim and say, if I were to get out of the truck right now with a trimmer, how long would it take me to trim those and haul that all away? So that was huge for me is just like knowing how the field work goes before knowing how to estimate. Because with the way we estimate and bring up the total pricing isn't necessarily something I need to know. I just need to know how long it's gonna take and what we're gonna need to get it done. The biggest thing though is just experience with it, because it is hard to tell exactly how many hours because I can think how much can I get done in one hour, but it's hard to think how much could a three man crew with a track loader and a sod cutter get done? Right? That's where it comes into play. Like, is that three hours, Is that two days? So that was really hard for me, I think. But otherwise the process of just being an estimator. I was comforted, I guess, in the fact that I've worked the field and knowing what it's like to work in the field and how long it would take me personally to do certain jobs made me more confident in making an estimate, if that makes.

Sense.

Yeah. And I think too, with an estimate has been the.

Field. It's better for the field workers.

That are actually going to install the work.

Too.

Yeah. Then they don't feel like disassociated or that, like, there's always that tension between production versus the people actually install the.

Work.

Right. And so when they know that you can do the work yourself and you've been in their shoes and that you're not just gonna, like, give them a crazy number just so you can make a.

Sale.

Right. That's like, like, well, we'll never do commissions on estimators because then they have an incentive to basically sell more at the. At the risk of then the production team not be able to meet those limits. Yeah.

Right. I think one thing that I might have done is just kind of, you know, a rookie mistake is a learning curve, is I might have on a couple, overbid them because I was nervous, Right. Like, I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to do that to the guys. I didn't want to do that As a company where I say, yeah, we can knock this out in two days. It's da, da, da, da, da. It takes us four days. And we'd lost a ton of money. Right. So I. I think I was a little conservative with the bigger ones with some of the smaller ones. And one we got accepted that I think came out to, like, right around 1400. Like, I'm confident that I hit that price point right on. But some of the bigger ones, it's like, ooh, this is gonna be four or $5,000.

How much more or less hours should I give? So the process we use would be the estimator goes out, gets all the information they can from the client, the product, potential client, and they itemize it essentially. Like, what are the services we're going to providing, what are the products we're going to need to bring? Materials, machinery, if we need to bring machinery, certain things, itemize it all together. We kind of put it in like a bullet format. And then once that's all finished, and we put kind of like the idea of, like, if we're going to use one day of a track loader and how many hours it'll take and how many debris loads we're going to need to take away from the place. We kind of put all that into the estimate, send it to the office. The office then makes it look nice. And that's something that I learned first working in the office versus being an estimator. We basically take all that. We format it, fold the titles, number everything, make it nice and easy for the client to read, and then we take the itemized things, such as the hours, the machinery, all that, and then we add up the totals based on our standardized pricing list and put that together. So then going from knowing how that process works to an estimator was nice in some ways, because in the back of my head, I could go, okay, I can see, like, I already know I'm going to need this thing, this piece of machinery, or I already know I'm going to need this product, which is good, because if I hadn't done that before, I might skip those things when visiting with the client. Like, I might see it and I might think, okay, cool, we can do all of this. But I might not think to itemize, like, oh, yeah, we're gonna need a sod cutter. Or, oh, we're gonna need this thing to do this specific.

Job. And we use the estimate really, as our job.

Notes.

Exactly. Yeah.

Really. Like, if you look at it like, really, we use our estimate as job notes. That's why, like, I'll even put, like, use sod cutter to remove lawn. It's half of it. So the guys. Right.

Right. And I think that was huge for me because you could go out on one. And even my first couple estimates, charity, who works in the office, and Liz double checked me on a couple times and were like, hey, you said this, but you didn't put it in your pricing. And I said, oh, good catch. Like, yeah, we need to charge for a sod cutter, or we need to charge for those five yards of mulch. It's easy to see it when you're with the client, but to, like, actually itemize it for the price was really helpful. The flip side of that being is that I know some of the prices, which is frustrating because on an estimate, I want to be honest and just clear, be with the client and give them the appropriate price for the appropriate amount of work. But knowing prices, in my head, I go, man, but if we need this piece of machinery for two days, that bumps their price up to that. And so I second guess myself knowing some of the prices, which is frustrating because I don't want to do that because I Think a lot of it too. One thing I learned with estimating is a little bit of going with my gut, because the first couple I went on by myself, I had my phone or notes and I was taking notes rigorously to make sure I didn't forget anything. But then by the end of the week, I wasn't taking any notes because I think it was just. It's more of a gut check. You just kind of have to listen to the client, know what they want, and then at the end of that, be able to walk away and say, alright, how long is it going to take with how many guys and what do we need? And instead of having this huge detailed list of everything when it doesn't really help me, it almost just clouded my judgment a little bit. And then it's not going to translate over, like you said to job notes for the guys where they're just going to see this huge list versus, alright, we just need to knock out one, two, three things.

Right? And then going back to the job at the park, I know it was a lot of work and we were way over time. And like, for instance, when I was gone, I was two hours ahead, right? So like, it's kind of perfect because I finish my training and then go back and work on the dispatch board. But with Liz. But like, my big thing was not necessarily that like, like friends. Even now, like, when we're so busy, it's not that, like I feel burnt out. It's like when I know the guys are feeling burnt out, it's like super.

Stressful.

Mm.

Right. And so like, even when, I know, like when it came like Thursday, Friday, and you guys were like, you know, behind on that job to get it done that week and like coming from your standpoint, being the project manager and kind of the leader on that job, what was it kind of like, balancing with the guys, their morale. Because I know they were like. And what you said to Liz is true about, like, we're the type of people, we're just, we're not gonna like say no, we're just gonna like do it. But like, there comes a.

Point. Yeah.

Totally. You're gonna burn out.

Right?

Totally. So tell me about.

That. Yeah. One of the biggest things with that is that's like the beauty of the team that we're on is that like, we're not gonna say no to something. But it's also can be a huge weakness because you need to like humble yourself and admit, like, yo, I'm burnt out. Like, guys, I need, I need to check myself Like I need to just sit down and take like a 20 minute break, eat some food and relax. And so, yeah, noticing that one, I felt the stress of being the project manager doing estimates and also trying to like lead the guys and help the guys. One of the things I decided to do was the guy who essentially became the pseudo project manager while I wasn't even there. I specifically sat down with Liz, who was organizing the schedule for guys to be on what jobs, what days. I said, hey, don't put him on Friday. I said, you can't put him on Friday. He's already burnt out. He's already frustrated. I can tell he's frustrated. Just let him go, mow, get off at a decent time and like enjoy his Friday. And she said, okay. And so that was one of the things that was like kind of a tough call because I knew he knew the most about that project other than me. But I also knew he needed the break mentally and ultimately, like physically from, because it is a pretty hard job. It's a lot of walking, moving, heavy material. So I knew that he needed that break. So that was tough. But also, yeah, bearing the stress like by myself was tough. But I think one of the things I did that was good for me was I would do my estimates and then a lot of times I would do all the notes for my estimates or just sit in the truck and voice record everything that I saw in that estimate and then put the estimates aside for a second, figure out what the guys needed for the time being. And then I went to the estimates later when I had time. I think that was good one to relieve stress for them to know that I was still putting them kind of first, communicating with them. And then I don't mind if at the end of the day I had to stay an extra 20, 30 minutes to go back and retouch up those estimates because I want to make sure like those guys felt like they were prioritized too. So it's tough. There's no easy balance, especially when you have a team where no one's going to say no. Like we're all just going to say yes until we stop, like until we just drop. Right? So that was tough. And I think I'm still learning how to do that, especially with if I'm going to step into a bigger role of estimating or project managing, like learning who needs a break or who needs to switch up what they're.

Doing. And then like for instance, this month with mowing, obviously we're looking at the dispatch board. It's like, we not only are not making money, like, literally most of the crews are losing money or some of the crews are losing money on some of the routes. Right. So, like, I was thinking about this morning because, like, this is. This is the craziest it's ever been. Like, we were looking back at like last year, it wasn't this big. Like, it was definitely an increase. But I think it's because, like, it was so wet and it came so nice, like so fast. I think it just really took off. But like, I was. I was trying to think, you know, next year how to get around it because I can't hire three or four extra people. But then come July, when all these modes are done by one person, you have like a bunch of.

Crews.

Right. So.

I was almost thinking like, forcing or like making a policy where the clients have to be weekly during March. Or even like where we put people on schedule saying, hey, you're weekly unless you tell us otherwise. And then they can if they want, in June, July, August to be on bi weekly. Mm.

Right.

Yeah. Like, I know we charge differently though, because, like, we do technically make more on a bi weekly.

Mo.

Right. But not three times as.

Much.

Exactly.

Right. But then obviously come August, they're still mowing and they're bi weekly. It's not any really more time to do it weekly versus bi weekly. So that's all gravy. So really how I've always looked at it is just basically during the spring, we lose if break even. And then in summer, that's when you actually make money. And then you just hope everyone doesn't cancel because it's not.

Growing.

Right? Yeah, but anything else when I was away that kind of like stood out to you as far as estimating project management, dealing with Liz the office.

But I know the tough part about the position that we do is.

You'Re project manager and your estimator, which is nice in the fact that you.

Get to manage the job that you estimated, so you get to be with the client. That's a cool part. But then the hard part is you're trying to think about two to three jobs a day that are big with. With multiple guys on each. You gotta know what their materials are, where each of them are at, where they're all at mentally. Like, for instance, knowing that Ben was tired.

And then you also have to be in the moment and talking to a customer, making sure they're happy, getting their needs and requests down on paper for an estimate, talking to people for far too long when you know they're not gonna ever buy anything. And then communicating with the office, kind of juggling all of those things. Things is definitely the harder aspect of.

It. Right.

Right. The nice part being that you can see the job all the way through. The client sees the same person all the way.

Through.

Right. And then there's less errors made.

Because you're panning things.

Off.

Right. But I would say, like, you know, the negatives are definitely that you have to balance a hundred thousand.

Things. Yeah. I think it's not just balancing them, but it's also like you feel. Feel like you have to be at a hundred thousand things. Right. You know what I mean? Like, you have to. Yeah, you're balancing it by the same time. Like, you know, you need FaceTime with Liz at the office, because there are things that you just can't communicate over the phone. Like, you just need to have that face to face conversation. You know, you have to go to the work site, check on the guys, what do they need, where's. Where are their holes? You know, and, you know, you have to go to your estimates. Like, you have to meet with those people face to face. And so it's. It's an interesting balance. And I mean, I haven't found it, but I mean, I'm gonna keep working at it. Obviously, if this is the direction I want to go, then I definitely am gonna work on finding that balance. I think. I think part of it too, like. Like, just talking about our team is like, we don't have people that are gonna say no. We all say yes to everything. We're gonna keep going is in that role is also, like, humbling myself and saying, like, you know, when I had that really hard estimate with the bamboo, like, I reached out to you. I was like, hey, like, I got no idea. And I talked to Liz, and then I was like, okay, I gotta talk to Fenton too. Like, I. And it was like, kind of like I wanted to handle it on my own, but I realized, like, I can't. Like, I. I physically couldn't bring myself to, like, come up with a price for that guy because I didn't know. Like, I just didn't have the experience and, like, letting the other people in and be like, hey, what do you think we should do? Because this is like a big, weird estimate, right? So, yeah, I mean, using your team is huge. Like, for your benefit, but for the team's benefit, Right? Like, we can all bounce ideas off each other whether we have the experience or not. And I think that was huge for me. Was. Was learning that and knowing.

That. Well, it's like, the hard part, though, about, like, as we add more people to the team, making sure that we retain that, you know, culture. And because, like, for instance, we had Tara started this week. Next week, Luke starts Monday and Austin starts Wednesday. That's three new people onto a fairly small team in.

Comparison.

Right. So, like, you know, there's definitely downfalls, and there's areas that we could definitely fall. And what's his face? Riley just.

Started. Right.

Yeah. So, you know, he's not even ready for solo MO route yet, really. But, you know, the downfalls of that, too, can be when you're adding that many people.

Right?

Yeah.

Sat.