0:06
company and I’m letting the last employees go because we got a clear no she calls us and said my cancer is back
0:12
it’s terminal I don’t I only have a few weeks to [Applause]
0:18
live today we’re joined by a small business owner who’s got an incredible construction business uh with his wife
0:24
and his five kids living out in Idaho he began his construction career early on
0:30
first as a laborer then moving up to a foreman eventually as a project manager however he got fired as a project
0:35
manager and decided you know what screw this I’m going to start my own company bringing five people around him to start
0:41
his team over the years he learned the ins and outs of how to run a business properly we’re going to talk a lot about that and he discovered what his own
0:47
strengths and his limitations were he realized that his own abilities made him better suited to run certain things
0:52
behind the scenes So eventually he put the hammer down and he dedicated himself to running the business the best way he
0:59
could what’s cool is that his eventual freedom in time led to creating and owning a business and allowed him to
1:05
delve deeper into the tax code so that he could learn the secret tricks that every American needs to be aware of
1:11
welcome to the show Nathaniel elely so happy to have you on with us today man Richard you uh you summed it up there
1:17
man that was good I think it’s really it’s really valuable to have you with us today because you know so much of the
1:23
population in North America are are in the construction world you know I I I
1:28
personally am a recovering electrician as as you know so I’ve spent a good number of years in that environment love getting my hands dirty in fact literally
1:34
I was building a fence yesterday uh cuz every once in a while I have to get it out of my system and I I I just really
1:40
appreciate what the construction trades really do for the world or they’re there sometimes the unsung heroes you know
1:46
without them coming in to fix things and build things we don’t have a lot of the stuff around us that we need and it
1:52
there’s a lot of hard work that’s available there but there’s also a lot of great opportunities and it’s a really great career to have regardless of what
1:58
trade you’re in so your first foray into construction was it you know the job that was available at the time or was
2:05
there something that pulled you into going that direction early on in your life yeah I uh you know I had the
2:10
fortune of growing up in a construction family so uh which means I did not have a fortune but I was fortunate so uh I
2:18
grew up in northern Michigan my dad uh is a Carpenter and he’s bad Carpenter for going on literally 53 years I think
2:26
uh this year so uh he’s done full-time his entire adult life and uh which meant me and my my siblings
2:33
got pulled into it and we had to do construction work evenings weekends Summers you know whenever Dad need had
2:39
needed help and uh we even homeschooled a couple of those years which meant I was doing construction work when my homework was done so we uh we did a lot
2:47
early on and really learned a work ethic even though I did not enjoy a lot of the
2:52
work I enjoyed some of it but my mind was on you know my next sandwich or uh
2:58
you know thinking about girls or or uh other things besides construction at the
3:03
same time I picked up some skills definitely learned some work ethic and then thought man I never really want to be in construction again and uh you know
3:11
went to Germany as an exchange student you know went off to college uh but at
3:16
the same time that was the skill I had so even at College I was broke needed to earn money so I kept doing construction
3:22
a couple days a week for somebody here locally who would pick me up take me to the job so bring me back you know I
3:27
didn’t even have a vehicle or anything but I had some skills so uh got to use those but uh you know fast forwarding uh
3:35
the reason why I ended up launching a company is because and you know as in your summary you mentioned kind of some
3:41
some uh steps that were taken first I had a skill it was a hot construction
3:46
time so I got hired on as a foreman in a company right out of college because I it was one of the first times in my life
3:51
I didn’t have a plan of what I wanted to do next I was skill stacking though I finished College a semester early so I
3:58
thought you know what I’ve always wanted to learn how to weld knocked on a welder’s door had him teach me out of weld you know went over and did another
4:04
thing for another guy and picked up skills and then jumped in as a foreman because it paid the bills um but within
4:11
six months though I was uh head hunted to be a project manager and actually launch a construction company for
4:17
somebody else because they saw my work ethic uh they they had got to know me a little bit thought they could trust me
4:24
and then my second to last day in the field I decided to uh shorten these two
4:30
uh fingers with a table saw so literally a Thursday when Friday was my last day I
4:35
lopped those guys off uh while not paying attention to what I was doing because again my unique ability is not
4:42
to focus in a in a trade um but it is to have you know 30,000 fo level pictures
4:49
and strategies and vision of where we could go and take things as a team and build a team but I didn’t know that at
4:54
the time I just thought man I should have paid attention and so after I those off and
5:00
started in an X company uh I was six months there and I wrote a business plan which i’ never written before in my life
5:07
and I was getting paid to do this that was the cool thing um however the payment was deferred let’s put it that
5:14
way because I actually requested that I not get a wage in this company so I
5:20
that’s a very unique statement to make to a new employer so yes I’m sure they they looked at that and they said sounds
5:26
great when can you start exactly exactly said don’t pay me I want equity and so
5:32
they said oh okay and then we had a conversation around that and it was a continuing conversation and uh I worked
5:39
oh easily 12 hours a day six days a week most of the time to get this company launched because I was so excited and
5:46
someone was literally you know allowing me to have a blank canvas you know create a company I didn’t have any risk
5:52
in it and I could get Equity out of it by working my tail off such a cool opportunity and so I would work eight
5:59
hours a day or 10 you know in the office getting things set up working on the business designing uh you know a 77 lot
6:05
development working with a city working with an architect to design the homes I mean tons of stuff even meeting with
6:11
potential buyers and then I’d work another you know two four six hours in the evening remodeling a Showroom on on
6:18
Main Street here in old toown and then uh as things progressed I was doing more and more work and I started hearing from
6:23
my my boss the owner less and less the point where at the end I literally didn’t even hear from them for three
6:28
weeks like not a word and I’m running everything uh and this went to my head because I’m just a young 20s something
6:35
Punk and I thought well man I’m just in charge of this I got it but what was happening is my boss’s Vision was was
6:43
different um he was hearing some things from people about uh you know the way I was communicating to them which was not
6:49
uh in a professional manner it was prideful uh to be blunt and uh then he just fired me out of the blue so I don’t
6:55
hear from him and then he comes back and he just fires me on the spot and so here I am I worked for six months for no pay
7:02
and I was living on 400 bucks a month which at the time was feasible with my 15250 C uh a month rent $152.50 I still
7:12
remember that and the rations I put myself on and
7:17
uh and in some truck insurance that was like my only bills and yep and I had
7:23
some savings so I was able to live on that for the six months and and take this risk uh fortunately uh through some
7:30
tense conversations and negotiations I did get paid what would have been a base salary because this guy fired me he
7:38
chose not to proceed with the business Etc so I ended up with about like $166,000 you know after taxes and uh
7:45
used that to launch uh my own construction company not because it was
7:51
the next logical thing but because I didn’t have a job and I needed to earn
7:56
money and I had really good friends and mentors around me who said
8:01
Nathaniel why Haven you started your own company you basically just started one do it for yourself by the way I have
8:07
this massive historical remodel you can jump right into tomorrow wow that’s how
8:13
I got I got pushed into it there a few things that stand out there is that there’s there’s a combination of belief
8:20
in yourself and your work ethic and and just the kind of the knowledge that that’s eventually going to take you somewhere maybe not knowing where it’s
8:26
going to land but that creating an environment of people beleving in you to be able to set up the position where you
8:32
literally could start a business but fundamentally you you had a job ready to go you know uh Dan Sullivan says find
8:37
out who the check writers are and get the first check and and that’s a great way to start launching a new idea yeah
8:44
absolutely now and that’s I’m looking back that is absolutely key to uh you know the success that I had over time
8:50
and it sure going to look like success at the moment you know just spell like I was like you know stumbling and and
8:55
failing a lot of times but I had people around me had relationships I had uh you know people that I had been a giver to
9:02
in advance and so they wanted to invest back in me uh and then a lot of times there were people that for some reason
9:08
saw something in me and I had given them a thing and that’s probably the majority and they just wanted to help me out um
9:14
and and that’s I contribute a lot of of of our success to that just kind people
9:19
uh and putting yourself in community with other people is massive so nobody
9:24
wins in life alone that’s that’s for sure and especially not in the construction industry it is a te team
9:29
sport so and we and we’ll get to that so um so then I I I here I am it’s me I’ve
How to Become Your Own Banker during the Recession
9:35
got some tools and a truck that my my grandpa had given to me and I’ve got a job to do and I start doing it and I I
9:41
need some help so I start talking to people I know and and Gathering people around me and within six months I’ve got
9:48
five other guys on my team and you’d think okay five other guys on your team well great you know you’re building
9:53
something and it’s happening super fast well what I had was five guys who are 1099 subcontractors
9:59
and this is kind of a Hot Hot Topic in the industry and has been for years um they should have been employees but I
10:06
thought man employees are expensive you know I’ve got all these extra expenses I’ll have to have and all this extra
10:11
paperwork which was true and so I had only 1099 contractors and I continued to
10:17
build that way and then uh I think at within another few months I had like eight or nine of these guys and were
10:23
jamming and uh we’re growing but I am more and more disengaged from the business because I’m just running around
10:30
with my head cut off you know trying to give quotes to people and I won’t even call them bids because they were quotes
10:36
they were estimates and they were terrible estimates you know we would run over on our our costs by like 30 to 200%
10:44
on a quote I mean just ridiculous amounts because we weren’t taking the time to actually line out what a job
10:51
required and of course uh it’s the classic contractor conundrum you’re trying to close sales because you’re
10:57
you’re starving while trying to finish a job that you underbid and uh you just
11:03
are squeezed on both ends and and you don’t have the time to fix it and for me I didn’t have the desire I just like oh
11:09
I can’t stand this I like I liked that I was earning some good money I liked that
11:15
you know I could bring some guys in and have some friends to work with but now I just want to like sit in my little uh
11:21
basement cave and like read these business books these are super fun this is cool this is cool stuff I just love
11:26
reading these books but you know I’m not going to apply in here I’m just going to read it because it sounds so fun so
11:33
that’s basically what I did and at the same time I thought it would be great to lach a concrete division because I had a
11:38
guy come to me who is an unbelievable Concrete Finisher so we got that up and running got that lost for selling
11:44
concrete jobs but I neglected to uh you know screen for the fact that he was also an alcoholic and a coke addict and
11:53
I and I of course discovered these things very quickly but I just thought oh he’s working on it no problem which
11:59
is you know one of those also uh classical situations in uh construction
12:04
so this continued for way longer than it should of and then mercifully the recession ended it all uh so the
12:13
recession in the year 2009 my life completely and totally
12:20
changed something momentous and incredible happened to [Applause]
12:25
me that thing was this incredible book becoming your own Banker it was written
12:30
by my mentor an amazing friend of mine R Nelson Nash it completely revolutionized and changed my entire
12:37
life you can learn all about it by registering for a free on demand webinar at learni ibc.com
12:45
take the initiative you won’t regret [Music]
12:52
it on so by the time it hit our Market it was 2009 and so I lay off all of my guys who
13:01
are oh are I should mention now employees because to make things even more fun I did get some advice and the
13:07
advice was you have to turn these guys into employees so I turned them into
13:13
employees of course we have we’re not uh charging enough to make them employees and then the recession comes so my bills
13:20
radically rock you know rock it upward our work load drops by like
13:26
25% and uh I would is just not sustainable so I lay off all my friends
13:33
because these are all friends it was devastating and it’s just me and my
13:39
little cave in the basement and all these business books that I didn’t act on but that I had read and thought were
13:45
interesting so one of the takeaways there is that knowledge does not equal
13:50
understanding it’s good it’s good to read a lot but application of knowledge is you know they say that knowledge is
13:56
power I believe that the application of knowledge can be become powerful and
14:01
there a little bit more detail that they miss out in the quick statements there and so I mean you know you mentioned
14:06
things like you had to lay off you know people that were your friends and I think you know again anyone in the construction industry or even people
14:13
whove just been around you know folks in construction the the jobs shift and change pretty dramatically and some jobs
14:19
end very quickly um you know there’s there’s you know residential we’ve got commercial we got industrial
14:24
construction there’s all these different Avenues and it it really can be it’s very economically dependent and it’s
14:31
also geographically dependent so there’s a there’s a tendency to have to move around you have to move from job to job
14:37
from company to company because some you know somebody gets w at the big job in town but everyone was buy you know
14:42
bidding on it and then everyone that was working for the companies that didn’t land the big job they have to scramble
14:47
for other work and so there’s like this transition of oh well hey I used to be working for these guys I got to go over here now because they’ve got the work
14:54
and it’s a it’s a really weird kind of scenario with the industry and so you you would have seen all of that and been exposed to it but the impact of having
15:01
people that you you know you love and they work with you day in and day out to have to make that big call and say I’m
15:06
sorry like I I literally can’t afford to pay my own bills I certainly can’t afford to pay yours that’s a difficult
15:11
conversation to have yeah it was very difficult so and to uh you know add to
15:17
the pressure I just got engaged and was uh supposed to get married and so my
15:22
future Brothers in-law and I found this out later are you know looking at my wife and saying can this loser provide for you you know and
15:29
so uh we ended up you know did get married and uh which is amazing because
15:35
my wife is the Lion Share of God’s grace in my life since I met her and uh she
15:41
got an inheritance of like I don’t know little little over 20 grand and we just like threw it into the debt hole you
15:47
know that I had created this Crater of debt you know shutting things down mostly that that concrete division with
15:52
the uh you know cokehead alcoholic that was entirely my responsibility for
15:58
employing and uh so I think we ended up just paying off the 10 grand that was left in
16:03
debt just by you know hustling and working myself swinging a hammer you know still had enough work just to keep
16:09
myself busy and then that continued for the first three years of my marriage where just me and a hammer maybe a
16:15
helper or two here and there temporarily and just hating it I just hated it and I
16:21
would apply to the jobs I would actually get multiple interviews I would get awarded the job and then I would just be
16:28
like I can’t take it I just I just don’t have peace that this is the new Direction and that happened at least
16:33
five times with five different Industries and then finally after three years I just I just said all right God
16:40
if you want me to continue as a carpenter the rest of my life I will just like oh you this is terrible
16:48
kind of thing but okay if that’s what’s what’s happening because this is clearly not going anywhere and amazingly within
Head Trash Around What I Need to Do
16:55
I mean just weeks or even a couple months after that um you know that realization and that Turning Point um I
17:02
realized that I had all the tools I needed U I was just trying to reinvent the wheel constantly and you know you
17:09
know the the Colby assessment some of the viewers may or may not there’s an assessment that assesses your your your
17:16
mode of operation essentially how you initiate action and mine’s a quick start so I just I just go and I iterate and I
17:21
try new ideas um and the danger of that is you try to reinvent the wheel and everything when there’s areas that have
17:27
been completely charged and you should just follow best practice so I had to get over myself just follow best
17:33
practice and start building a company from scratch um that was only about
17:38
seven years ago when I got there because there was a long period of time where I had all kinds of head trash around what
17:44
I needed to do and I wasn’t changing even though I had read all these business books I had the knowledge I was
17:50
not acting on it um I had had head trash around what I could charge in my market I thought the max I could charge was $40
17:56
an hour which is ridiculous but for for some reason that’s what I thought and I thought that because I was attracting
18:02
clients that didn’t want to pay more than $40 an hour but there’s a whole another Market there I didn’t know about
18:08
I had head trash on what helping looked like I thought helping was always having an alcoholic or a drug addict or a
18:14
convict or xcon on my team at all times and trying to to elevate them in their
18:19
life and well there’s a place for that it is wonderful to help people and I’m and you know I’m glad that I got to help
18:26
you know at least one guy I know literally one guy who is sober today of that of the hundred or so guys I uh
18:33
employed over a decade um but uh I realized at the end of that through a
18:39
whole another story which I probably won’t relate here unless you want me to dig into it um that by loving these guys
18:45
and I put quotes around that too like loving these guys I was hating my clients that was a powerful realization
18:52
and that’s when I pivoted and that was about seven years ago so head trash run what I could charge head trash run
18:57
helping looked like and then I guess that third one is head trash around employees I thought they’re too expensive and that I couldn’t possibly
19:04
go there and so I had to get past all three of those things and then I did uh
19:10
through a horrible situation which you know I mentioned before the the rough sketch is that two guys stole
19:16
prescription narcotics from a client of ours painkillers wow lied about it to my face took drug tests they both tested
19:23
hot for them I could not tell they were lying and then the client turns to me and says Nathaniel my brother overdosed
19:29
on that drug and killed himself and I Belle felt likeing yeah and I said this
19:34
will never happen again and I never again hired a guy who was a down and outer and said I got to figure this out
19:42
so um you know we we pivoted from there and sought some advice amazing well the
19:47
advice is important and you know people get advice from usually someone who’s
19:52
got an experience there but often we seek or ask for advice from just people that we know that have zero experience
19:59
so the quality or the the direction where you seek advice I think is important for people to understand and
20:05
when you’re seeking advice or some maybe some mentorship you’re you’re probably want to go to a source where you know
20:10
there’s there’s some proven track record or expertise in that zone versus you know calling up your brother-in-law and
20:15
saying hey uh I’m thinking about you know building XYZ in this house and they’ve never touched a hammer in their
20:21
life like maybe not the right place that you want to be asking that particular advice yeah that’s spot on now we
20:27
decided to hire a a consultant who was in the industry and was respected and it cost a ton of money even even at the
20:34
time it was an astronomical amount for us I would still say it it’s expensive today from what we paid um and they did
20:40
give us good advice the irony of the advice is that we just needed to have the self- discipline to do the things we
20:45
knew to do you know and and so that’s what it came back to for me and it has time and time again to the point where I
20:52
realize now that sometimes I do need to pay what I call the self-discipline tax oh you know and so like when I go to I
20:58
go to the gym I joined only a year ago and I literally told the proprietor I’m just here to pay myself discipline tax I
21:05
I have a weight set in my basement but I stare at I’m like oh Waits you
21:10
know but I go down to the gym and they tell me what to do for an hour I don’t have to plan it I don’t have to think
21:16
about it I don’t read ahead I I don’t even record what I’m supposed to be doing which is probably best practice I don’t care it’s getting me the result I
21:22
want I go in I work out for an hour I leave so I pay my self discipline tax and in this situation we had to pay a
21:28
hefty self-discipline tax and to be told yes you need to do what you know you need to do and then to actually
21:34
Implement and this is when we actually did start the same traction though so instead of having I got rid of all that
21:41
head trash because I had someone look at and be like no you can do these things you just need to actually Market you need to actually build systems and have
21:47
some standards and uh we went all the way into the other ditch in terms of hiring
21:54
Personnel so now it was going to be full employee and it was going to be top quality and uh you know we got a great
21:59
lead Carpenter and we were starting to run and then uh you know we cast this Vision with the consultant and we were
22:05
going to hire two more lead Carpenters by May and this was like you know the end of the year and so we uh started
22:11
putting the word out we started conducting interviews and uh our lead Carpenter that we have comes to us like
22:17
it was the day after Christmas I think and he just says hey nethaniel got some bad news man uh my mom got in a car
22:24
wreck uh back in California and my brother’s taking care of her now but I got to go back and help care for her so
22:30
I’m going to leave no later than July and we were just and we felt terrible for him you know how can we help and
22:36
then of course after he leaves we’re just like oh man this is terrible huge setback thought hey we’re interviewing
22:42
let’s see where this goes and so um uh you know I’m a big believer in and uh praying specific prayers so he prayed a
22:48
specific prayer he said Lord help us hire not one but two lead Carpenters on
22:53
May 1 and if you do this Richard whether you believe in praying or not you have a
Find Your Natural Talent
22:59
cockre ghou with a coochy timeline and you know if you got a yes or a no and so uh we are interviewing people and
23:05
interview after interview none of these guys are are quite fitting um and I’m investing of course a ton of time into
23:11
this and money and I think we’re posting on like Craigslist and just super basic stuff I mean I doubt we were even on
23:17
Facebook for any of this but we’re getting people to come in it’s it’s a tough time for for guys to find quality
23:22
work so we’re getting uh leads and then there’s this one guy interview and he is just so experienced
23:29
he was perfect and we get to the end of the interview he says hey Nathaniel I know I’m the guy you need
23:35
and I can’t take this position after interviewing with you I just need to find like a corporate role because I don’t know if my wife is going to have
23:40
tenure and we’re going to be here so I just got a decline the position just want to be up front with you you know I really appreciate what you got going on
23:47
here I don’t want to just jump in and leave on you so I’m like H okay all right so we just keep interviewing and
23:52
then we get some guys in our pipeline that kind of Advance on some stages and May’s approaching and then on May May 1
23:58
we have two guys in our Pipeline and not one but both of these guys absolutely bomb out of the out of the process on
24:05
the same day just like hard fails they’re gone and so I turned to my wife and I’m like well that was a clear no we
24:12
got nothing you know and so we were actually gonna wind our Construction Company down we are gonna let this thing
24:19
you know go to bed um at the same time we had been buying some foreclosure properties and turning them flipping
24:25
them U keeping some as rentals but I’ve been doing that outside of my company um
24:30
and just you know employing subcontractors to do most of the work uh so we could run both simultaneously so I
24:36
thought I’ll do more of that I’ll do some real estate but we’ll figure it out um what I didn’t know is that my
24:42
mother-in-law’s uh cancer would return and as I’m winding things down in the
24:47
company and I’m letting the last employees go because we got a clear no
24:53
um what is this incredible thing called the colba index I keep hearing about
25:00
I’m a certified Colby consultant and I can’t wait for you to discover what your
25:05
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business owners in families with our kids the more you can develop and understand your knowledge of how you go
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[Music]
25:51
canfield.oh with our our few little kids at this point we got I think uh two little kids with a third one we we were
25:58
just going to have at that time actually maybe three at that time yeah three kids and I’m home watching them so my
26:04
wife can be with my mother-in-law at her deathbed and she passes six weeks later
26:10
and my wife got to be at her side almost the whole time um an unintended blessing and what we thought was a horrible
26:16
situation for us professionally and literally the week my mother-in-law dies I get a phone call hey Nathaniel I don’t
26:23
know if you remember me I interviewed with you way back in the winter and uh you know I I really appreciated our
26:30
interview but I I couldn’t take the job do you still have that position open and I said’ that’s incredible that you call
26:36
right now you know we’re kind of going through some tough times right now um I really don’t intend to to open the
26:42
Remodeling Company again because we got a clear no on on hiring but uh if you would entertain really running the whole
26:48
program then then we would entertain opening a backup I said yeah that’s what I want to do and so we hired him and
26:53
he’s still with us today seven years later wow yeah and uh so we were company
26:59
was you know was going to die and got resurrected and then uh the things that
27:04
were key from there were uh again just getting rid of that that head trash and then being super disciplined on our
27:11
hiring practices um we would complain just like every other contractor out there that we
27:17
couldn’t find anybody to hire there’s no good candidates you know it’s impossible to find them until we said you know what
27:26
we got to stop complaining and do something about this and started getting serious about learning so I literally took sales
27:32
copywriting classes we looked into what do recruiters do we started researching
27:37
and reading on it and uh developed a process to attract talent and uh that
27:44
evolved and we got to hire another person and then and then that person would step into the hiring process and
27:50
each person we hired would actually add to our ability to hire better the next time wow Building Systems and processes
27:57
the point now that we have a detailed written hiring plan there’s 10 distinct steps with five interviews and an
28:04
example of its Effectiveness is uh we acquired another company January 1 a window and glass company we needed to
28:10
hire a general manager and we had 60 candidates within 10 days and hired the
28:15
one that’s running the company today amazing incredibly effective so we literally built the tool that we were
28:20
lacking and we now deploy that as a unique ability across all of our platforms that’s in our construction
28:27
company so our con Construction Company still hires for all of our other companies because we’ve built that ability inside of it um yeah that’s been
28:35
phenomenal um well that’s also a clear Innovation and it was driven by the need
28:40
the need was you you can’t build and you can’t complete and you can’t grow if you don’t have the right people on the bus
28:46
and it’s it’s really built into you know a decade of experiences of having the
28:52
wrong people and constantly bumping your head against the wall and challenges where you know was there was there was
28:58
no other way that than to make a change and so the the key thing I want people to take away is that you invested in
Don’t Complain, Stop Buying
29:04
number one looking at the problem differently calling the problem for what it is okay getting clear on the problem
29:11
and then saying what is what are some possible solutions let’s go deep and do some research so we can do things
29:16
differently what are other people doing that’s working in demonstrated areas that are outside of construction how can
29:22
we take that knowledge base and then act on it in this in our own business and so there’s there’s some really key
29:28
fundamentals there that I think are important to not glaze over for a listening audience yeah and that’s spot on and the thing that I would highlight
29:34
in all that is these are the things that we complained about for years or failed at for years and you don’t need to do
29:41
that you know if you notice yourself complaining about something or you know with like I’m not talking just like
29:47
whining we were just we would just be the whole like ah I guess this is how it is it’s just terrible if you find yourself saying that pause and think is
29:55
there anybody out there who solved this is is there anybody out there who is worldclass at solving this problem and I
30:02
guarantee you there are guaranteed right and so then you just go find best practice don’t reinvent the wheel and do
30:09
what they did and then after you nailed it then you can iterate you can reinvent
30:14
a little bit as needed so I think that’s the the biggest thing I could pass on on top of what you said to the audience is
30:21
don’t keep complaining stop find best practice execute then iterate so and if you’re
30:28
not the person to execute make sure you hire or find a person who is execute worthy and does that naturally Richard
30:35
yeah I often say that I’m slow but I’m worth waiting for that’s good that’s right and and
30:43
I’ll highlight uh that point as well even in our hiring process I’m barely involved in the hiring process my team
30:49
does all of it I see a candidate at something like step seven and like nine
30:55
or something like that so I don’t even find out about them until they’re basically going to be hired I love how
31:01
little attention to the details you pay you don’t even of the 10 steps that you know there’s 10 you don’t even remember what step you get in at which point you
31:07
get involved with that’s how well it’s working as a machine yes correct that’s correct you know they they present the
31:12
candidate to me they know how to present the candidate I cover a couple basic things you know meet and greet um and
31:19
then we you know have them over for dinner at the end like that’s it so the rest of my team is running um so that is
31:25
the way to do things is finding people help helping them discover their unique ability you know taking away the things
31:32
that are not in their unique ability the things that drain their energy that they’re not good at giving them war with that what’s in their unique ability um
31:39
and we’ve as we’ve done this and we committed to doing it uh seven years ago without having the vocabulary around
31:44
that we have now but we were just like we dead set on only hiring the best and just slowly building um we have
31:51
literally not lost a single team member we have not wanted to leave the company in those seven years I mean astounding
31:58
in the construction industry well it’s it’s more it’s even more uh I think compounded from that vantage point when
32:04
we think about that what’s happened in the last seven years three of those years was a covid situation where we had
32:10
massive overruns in construction costs pricing of lumber and a whole host of other challenges to the construction
32:16
industry on as a whole you know everyone’s stuck at home and saying boy I really don’t like it in here I need to do some Renovations so there there’s a
32:23
number of things that took place there and and to be able to maintain and keep people during a tense time frame says a
32:29
lot awful lot yeah and it really goes back to our team I’m just so impressed with our team members they are amazing
32:36
and I and I think you know if you’re an owner listening to this just having the utmost respect for your team members
32:42
makes all the difference like I look at what each of my team members does I think I can’t do what you do how you do it there’s no way and so that builds
32:49
such a respect when that’s Mutual across the team and I think that’s one of the pillars that keeps our team together
32:55
that Mutual with all this activity I mean you you talked a lot
Having Time Freedom at Strategic Coach
33:00
about the the the phases that you went through in The Learning Journey you talked a little bit about mentorship and
33:06
at some point in time you got involved with strategic coach and that’s how you and I came to know each other U credible
33:11
organization big shout out to Dan olivan everyone strategic coach but what what were some of the things that you began
33:17
to see and Implement what first of all what was the decision to make to to to move forward and join coach as an
33:22
example for you and then how have you seen the implementation of the the tools and the resources and the knowledge base
33:28
there start to infuse its way into your business systems yeah no great again big
33:34
fan of coach as well very grateful for the organization uh for me uh one of my goals early on when I actually had a
33:41
business was to have time Freedom so I wasn’t necessarily earning the big bucks although definitely we want to make a
33:47
profit it was time freedom and so when I encountered coach and they’ve talked about how you can have time freedom and
33:54
you can actually have a profitable company and have time Freedom um I was pulled in right away and then when I
33:59
added to that the concept of that people have unique abilities and you can discover them you can work in them and
34:05
you don’t have to do the stuff that just drains you I was pretty much sold um what I had because I’ve been so focused
34:11
on time fortive ahead of time I wasn’t one of those contractors that worked you know the 100 hour weeks the the long
34:17
hours I worked were back when I was launching the other guy’s company once I launched mine I really wasn’t working
34:22
crazy hours you know maybe 50 hours you know maybe 60 like a couple times early on but then then after I got things kind
34:28
of up and running I was more like a 40 45h Hour Week guy um for most of that
34:34
that career and then uh you know as we got serious about building our own team those hours have just you know gone down
34:40
to where we have a self-managing company now the last three years and Coach basically gave me permission to do what
34:46
I was already doing I already had quite a bit of time Freedom you know 40 hours a week is like a vacation amount of work
34:52
for for a lot of owners so I had that but when I came into coach it gave me permission let go of all those other
34:59
things to the point where I remember the the day that I went into my office and I came in I looked around and I thought
35:05
I’m not needed here and and what’s interesting is we often run towards a
35:10
goal that we think is so powerful and it is so powerful for us and then when we get it we think this is terrible like
35:17
there’s actually a moment where you have kind of a panic where you’re like I’m like useless here so I had to get over
35:24
that um and and and progress but in doing so I freed up more and more of my
35:30
time did make myself redundant and I actually checked my hours and I was down
35:37
to sub five hours a week in that business a couple years ago and not like three hours a week right now because it
35:42
literally runs itself um and Coach helped uh you know it helped again get permission but also present tools that I
35:49
could then bring to the team that buildt a lot of that infrastructure there you well what’s incredible about that is I
35:55
mean I think that’s there’s anyone watching this wants to be able to be in that position to to to have that time freedom but the the that feeling of
36:04
being redundant and there’s a little bit of an emotional connection to that oh like I’m not needed sort of a scenario
36:09
but what that does create because you have space and time and you still have energy and drive and determination work
36:15
ethic is you’re not going to sit on the sidelines and do nothing you could take all that energy and that effort and you
36:21
could refocus it into something else to try and solve new and creative problems and that’s where we find our elves with
36:28
you going deep down the rabbit hole and figuring out what could you do around some of the tax problems that you have
The Augusta Rule
36:34
so let’s talk about this one of the things that really one of the reasons I want to have you on the program is because you know I learned from you
36:40
about the Augusta rule something that I was unfamiliar with granted being Canadian it’s not something that we we operate with where in Canada but I was
36:47
fascinated by uh how so few people understand what it is but also what when and how to utilize it in their life and
36:53
it’s something that’s really fundamentally available to pretty much every uh every American uh in the states
36:59
that they can Implement so talk to us a little bit about what what caused you to go down this track to learn about it and
37:04
and then what’s kind of come up of that Innovation from that Vantage Point check out this great book cash
37:10
follows the leader it’s all about uninterrupted daily growth with high cash value life
37:16
insurance we unpack what people need to know about how you can grow and store
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and Warehouse your wealth in a totally different way than what we’ve been trained to do go ahead and download a
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free copy by going to coach canfield.oh
37:34
[Music]
37:58
we got profitable and when I saw my tax bill for the first time that exceeded
38:04
what I actually earned as an income all year I thought this is insane there’s no
38:10
way this is correct and uh so I went down a journey of okay first do I have the right account and I so I I switched
38:17
accounts and I think I had done that you know even even high to seven years ago I I looked at this I thought man my
38:23
account is not saving me the money I need what’s going on and then sure enough I hired another accountant and they saved me like an extra 15 grand by
38:31
refiling my taxes which you know I I don’t I don’t know who where our listeners are at but for me 15 grand was
38:36
a lot of money still and still 15 grand I I I’d B over to pick that up so yeah
38:42
if it was just laying there on the ground land on the ground I pick it up what’s in that briefcase that’s there oh take a look take a look yep so and and I
38:49
got that just by switching accounts so I I started thinking well this is nuts if I if there’s that much difference in tax
38:54
professionals what else am I missing here and so I started having conversations with other tax
38:59
professionals asking questions and seeking advice and uh and then I went to
39:05
a real estate uh uh get together and uh this was also in 2017 and while there I
39:11
met a a tax attorney who’s who was uh specializing in rentals and real estate
39:17
um had had some a little bit of construction clients as well mostly real estate but he gave some great advice and
39:23
he also gave us a bunch of uh different areas of the tax code we I focus on to
39:28
save money and one of those areas was known as the Augusta rule that’s a nickname it’s a nickname for Section 28a
39:35
subsection G for the Nerds out there that want to look it up and it is it has been in the tax code literally since
39:42
1976 unchanged so we’re going on almost 50 years unchanged from you know uh
39:48
liberal to conservative governments and in between and this section of the tax
39:54
code basically says you can rent your home for up to 4 days a year 100%
40:00
taxfree okay well what’s the big deal well the neat part about that is is as a
40:06
business owner your business is a separate entity and so what you can do is you can actually rent out your home
40:13
without actually renting it out to somebody externally like a third party so what I do is I rent my residence my
40:20
personal house to my Construction Company up to 14 times a year for actual
40:26
business events emphasis on actual business events so for example we’ll
40:31
have a quarterly meeting with the team or we will have a client appreciation uh
40:37
dinner or we had a a trade partner uh lunch where we you know taught them how
40:42
to hire uh you know gave some economic updates you know talks about things that
40:47
pertain to each their trades uh and each one of these things is a legitimate business function that a business would
40:53
otherwise rent a space for and conduct a meeting and so by doing this at your home you can take advantage of this
41:00
portion of the tax code and your business then pays you money for the use of your home without you having to move
41:07
out or rent it to anybody uh outside of the family uh the cool thing about this
41:12
is you’re having a deduction in the business of income right so let’s say you uh you can rent your home for even
41:19
just a thousand bucks uh a day which by the way is is fairly conservative for
41:25
people who have a decent home and a decent are road so you do that you can do it 14 times a year so you’re reducing
41:31
your income $14,000 so that comes out of the business you’re which means you’re not
41:37
taxed on it but then when you receive it personally you’re also not taxed on it it’s one of the very few things in IRS
41:44
code that you can do a left-hand rightand deal and it’s allowed um and people think nah that’s
41:50
that’s garbage or whatever I’ve heard about this on Tik Tok and my CPA shot it down well most CPAs most tech
41:57
professionals still don’t know about this rule amazingly if they know about the rule they’re nervous because they’re
42:03
super super conservative by nature and they haven’t delved into the ins and outs of it and if they have delved into
42:09
it and theyd understand that it is legitimate then you as the business owner are still left to execute
42:15
everything all the paperwork all the hurdles you know not screw it up not create more liability for yourself and
42:21
you know distract yourself from your business to executed and so Nobody Does it and when I say nobody I mean like a
42:27
fraction of a fraction of the business owners in our country are aware of the rule aware of it properly and are
42:33
actually doing it and doing it properly properly is key here because you know like anything in the tax code
42:39
if you’re not documenting properly like the burden of proof is always on the taxpayer so there are very specific
42:45
steps and sequences you need to do in order to to to utilize this properly and you mentioned the word like legitimate
Do you pay too much in taxes?
42:50
several times so you gave a perfect example of that within your own business you know trade trade Partners okay so
42:56
you have you know plumbers and other individuals that you might hire as sub trades come out to your property you put
43:01
on an event you put on a spread of some food you do some training everyone’s got a workbook it’s it’s no different you if you would have went into a hotel room to
43:07
do that otherwise yep that’s exactly right I would have rented some sort of you know uh convention uh you know room
43:14
or something like that or a you know meeting space that was commercially available and would have paid for it so you may as well use a resource you
43:20
already own to then reduce your income in your business and receive income
43:26
taxfree so it’s a very low hanging fruit it does take a little effort to to set up in the beginning it’s a new habit new
43:32
habits always take a little bit of effort and I think the thing that we need to think about as business owners is you know what’s the compounding
43:38
result of this you know if I’m bothered that I’m paying too much taxes and why I G to continue just being bothered like
43:44
we talked about these other things just like oh I’m bothered I’m not gonna do anything about it or you could do something about it and this is one of
43:50
the things that you actually can do and if you start today the future value of the money that you can save in the
43:57
lifetime of your career is massive because this isn’t just a a onetime event it’s 14 a year and it’s annual
44:04
every it’s 14 times every single year going forward so if you’re going to be in business another decade that’s 140
44:10
potential tax savings events you can have if you’re going to be in a business another 30 years you know you’re you’re approaching almost 500 events you can
44:17
have to save taxes between now and then and that adds up massively so well I think it’s important
44:23
for people to understand you know how did this you know how did this rule even come in into being there’s it has to
44:28
have come from somewhere so maybe that is part of the the answer and the solution in itself yeah so you yeah
44:34
that’s a good good segue so you’re you’re giving me a softball to talk about the background of the August rule um so the background of the August Rule
44:41
and like why is it called this you know why does it exist why does it still exist so back in 1976 and the you know
44:49
the year or two preceding there were people around the Augusta golf course in Georgia where the Master’s tournament is
44:55
held and that’s the Augusta that a lot of people know about and the rule was nicknamed after the Augusta course
45:01
because the residents of the course successfully lobbied our Congress back in the day to not have to open up an
45:08
actual business entity in order to rent their homes out for the tournament instead they said hey can we please just
45:15
do this and not have to open up like a separate business we just rent our home out you know for like a week or two a
45:20
year on this tournament and we would really like to do that and not have to do a bunch of paperwork and I suspect I
45:27
don’t know this Richard but I suspect that a fair number of residents on the course were congressmen legislators
45:35
judges Etc and I also suspect that they still might be to some degree so this rule has
45:41
remained unchanged regardless of the policies of each uh you Administration that have gone through over the years so
45:48
what they did is they said okay we’re going to put a caral on the code that says you can just Rite your home for two weeks you don’t even have to record
45:53
paperwork you don’t have to have an entity you don’t have to uh pay taxes out of even go ahead you’re good to go
46:01
and then because uh your your entity actually is considered a separate person you can then rent to that separate
46:09
entity your business and this is black and white Allowed by the IRS in fact the
46:14
first time that it was actually challenged and when I say it I mean using the Augusta rule to specifically
46:20
rent to your business versus actually just renting out to a third party um like most of the people around the
46:26
course we doing was actually literally last year and it’s a case uh where the
46:32
copoly family uh was using their business uh to then uh rent their home
46:39
and applying the Augusta rule this got challenged in court and the court said absolutely this is a legitimate
46:46
application of the rule what the court also said is you had no paperwork syop
46:52
like none so we are going to smack this down and you are going to pay p
46:57
however we will allow you to Value the house at $500 a night and uh and the IRS
47:04
or the tax Court when they got done looked at that and and the Ines interpreted that and said you know what
47:09
that was generous like they were kind because you had no paperwork so couple takeaways one the
47:16
rule is 100% legitimate two you better have your paperwork you better have a
47:21
legitimate business event which they did have which is why they did Grant them some uh you know red money but they had
47:27
no cables they had no rental agreement that I know of they had they had nothing
47:32
and so uh even prior to hearing this case I kept running into other entrepreneurs and you we’re trading
47:39
different things that we’re doing to to optimize our take-home to optimize our teams to optimize the missions that
47:45
we’re accomplishing and so this is one that would come up from time to time I’d ask guys hey you guys know about this auster Ru thing because uh for for me my
47:53
house um I’m currently renting mine for $3,000 a day it’s it’s a really nice house um I’ve got a large meeting space
48:00
I can have large groups here and it’s got construction elements on the house that I can show potential clients that I
48:05
can’t I literally can’t find anywhere else in town so it’s got a high value and so that’s a $42,000 deduction every
48:12
single year on autopilot for me so that turns into a real savings when I have already built a habit around having
48:18
meetings and using my home um so getting back to what I was saying uh you have to
48:25
have all the paperwork you have to have all the infrastructure and so i’ mentioned this to other business owners and one they didn’t even know about the
48:32
rule two of course they have no idea about compliance no idea about anything and after I did this like six eight ten
48:38
times and I even talked to a guy who is a a very successful wealth wealth advisor and he administrates the austa
48:45
rule for his clients like teaches them about them about the rule has them do it and I’m talking to he and his wife in an
48:51
event um just said hey you know do what do you guys do for your paperwork on this what do you do for this that and
48:57
they look at each other like oh yeah we don’t really have any paperwork we just have them do the take the deduction and
49:02
that’s what I thought you kidding me like if you get audited not only are you but all of your clients are going to get
49:08
just smoked okay and so I thought well I could I could I could help people with
49:13
this and uh and that and I’m passionate about uh business owners and entrepreneurs keeping more money because
49:19
I want the most productive people in our country to be even more productive and be rewarded for their work and so this
49:26
isn’t just just like oh let’s turn a buck it’s like a mission to put money back in the pockets of business owners
49:31
and so at first I thought well I could build something and you know I can get like you know virtual assistance to kind
49:37
of process this and I thought oh it just sounds like a ton of work forget that and then time went on and I’d have more
49:44
conversations and realized the need was you know was huge and so I I ran into a
49:49
guy at coach who had an app building company and uh and and started talking
49:55
to him and that led to another thing and pretty soon we start building an actual
50:00
app to automate most of the processes and all of the paperwor for the Augusta
50:06
Rule and you just have to enter your information one time then it autop populates all the forms it autop
50:11
populates all the forms for every you know every event besides the details of the exact event it communicates with
50:17
your tax professional tells them how to file properly so that you don’t have risk and we’re even working on rolling
50:22
out an audit guarantee where if in in the the Terrible situation where you did
50:28
by chance get an audit um you would be entirely covered up to a million dollars for the audit
50:33
defense you gu the rule so not only can you use the rule um we have different um
50:39
add-ons that if people want to they can you know reduce their risk even further in case of an audit and know that uh
50:47
everything is being filed properly and benefit from it so that is literally the
50:52
software was literally delivered last Wednesday and we are about to roll it out so the timing is is perfect to talk
50:58
about this to an audience yeah you’ve been you know since I met you I mean probably about a year ago we were
51:04
talking about this and you were starting the process the app was in testing phases uh it’s gone through multiple
51:10
iterations you’ve been you having people giving you great feedback that whole beta process so to be at a stage where you’re able to launch this is absolutely
51:16
fantastic and what a gift to be able to provide the citizenry of your country by helping them understand how they can
51:22
legally and legitimately uh create an opportunity for more capital to be in their hands so that they as productive
51:29
members Society can stimulate the economic machine of the country I it’s absolutely fantastic what you’re doing and what a tremendous Innovation on
51:35
something old that existed that you probably never would have delved into if you didn’t create time time freedom in
51:42
your primary business to be able to seek other problems that you’re naturally gifted to solve so with that in mind I
51:48
want everyone to consider what’s a problem that you could be solving for the benefit of everyone else in the way
51:55
that Nathaniel has done and make sure to look up the Augusta rule learn more about it we’ll put a link uh in our show
52:00
notes about that and man can’t wait till our next episode Nathaniel thank you so much for dropping so much value talking
52:07
to us through your journey the problems you’ve overcome and where you’re going moving into a brighter and much bigger
52:13
future thanks so much