Listen, there's one out of a billion people that can actually do that or that have that opportunity, but the reality is if you want to succeed, care about your clients first. Care about your employees. Second, move with integrity and, and in my case, do things with a Christian minded way. Welcome back to The Art of Connecting Podcast. This is your host, Haydynn Fike, back here with another episode for you. And today with me, I have my good friend Johnny Rodriguez. How you doing Johnny? I'm doing good, Haydynn. How you doing? Good. I'm glad we get to do this. It's gonna be a lot of fun. So a little story about how me and Johnny met. This was probably back like over a year ago now. One of our mutual friends shot us a text message connection together. He knew I was doing real estate. He had come to the meetup and he was like, Hey, I this contractor you need to meet. He texted me, connected us together, sent me Johnny's contact and. I waited like six months to text you.'cause I didn't have a project. And then I, I always like when someone says contractor, I save it in my phone as contractor. I was like, what's that guy's name? And I research, I looked for like 30 minutes to find your phone number and I called him and this big Puerto Rican guy shows up and his BMW at my, at my new house. And. And we ended up jamming together and he ended up doing multiple jobs for me. So that's a little bit of a backstory about how me and Johnny met each other. So why don't you introduce yourself real fast? Yeah. So my name is Johnny Rodriguez. I'm the owner, proud owner, actually of flooring company and remodeling company here in Chattanooga called Select Flooring and Remodeling. Which, you know, really excited about the new location I'm gonna be opening soon in Cleveland. So that's big growth for me. I, I feel very blessed about that. But yeah, I've been doing this for years. I love what I do and I love being able to specialize working with a lot of investors like Haydynn realtors and so forth. You know, I've done a lot of, i, I wanna say commercial accounts per se, because I'm dealing with people in the industry. But I'm excited to know that I'm expanding now into the retail market. So that's my next launch, man. Awesome. Cool. So how did you originally get into the flooring business? Oh, well, let's see. I started, I was 18 years old actually. I started working for Mohawk Mohawk Industries. And it was funny. I actually a true story on this one. I actually was working in customer service. Okay. And one day I was standing outside and I was talking to this guy. Never met him, didn't know who he was. He started asking me questions and I told him what I wanted to do in the business. I want what I wanted to do with Mohawk. And coming to find out, he was one of the VPs of Mohawk. Oh, wow. So he ended up putting me in touch with this amazing guy that was very instrumental in everything that I know about flooring. His name is Randy Mosell. Love to death. I would do anything for him. And Randy just took me under his wing and taught me everything he knew in sales. And I was in promo goods. And then I ended up running two regions for'em. I had the Northeast and Florida region. And that's where everything started in flooring. But you know, like I said, somebody's gotta take you under their wing. And I feel very blessed that Randy was able to give this big old Puerto Rican guy that opportunity because it's impacted for the rest of my life. That's awesome. And so you started out in the flooring industry in customer service and sales. Mm-hmm. So what would you say like the differences are being on the owner side now of, of an actual flooring company? Well I will say this. There, there's a lot more stress that comes with it. Okay. Mm. But there's also a lot more reward. Right. And, you know, I've, I'm a big believer that I always tell everybody, listen, everything in life, you've gotta sacrifice something. Whether it's good or bad, there's always a sacrifice that you must make. Mm-hmm. So, you know, when, when you go to the line of ownership, it's rewarding because you feel accomplished, but understand that there's tolls that happen in your life and you've gotta learn how to balance that and how to work through it. But overall, I, I wouldn't have it any other way, to be honest with you. I mean, I love what I do. I'm proud of the team that I have, you know, everybody that works for me is amazing. So on that aspect, it's easier than average just because I have the right people in place right now. Hmm. And it's making it easier and, and little by little when you're an owner, it's, it's almost like you are having to learn how to bob and weave and you're learning the processes, which mean you have spoken about that before, being able to improve the processes. So, you know, that's something you gotta go through, you know, when you're working for big corporation, all that's already set. But when you're doing it on your own, there's definitely a learning curve that you have to go through. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And something I'm gonna have Ted on the podcast soon. So Oh, that's exciting. Yeah. My mentor just spoke at the real estate unit that I have, and Ted focused on systems, processes, and routines. He's a great guy. That's, that's a great guy. He's exactly what he spoke on was what, what kind of systems, processes, routines do you need be to have put in place to have success? And I asked Ted because. You were doing Q and a, we probably did about 40 minutes of q and a. I was like, you have 30 LLCs. How do you keep your head on straight? And he was like, systems, processes, and routines. That's what it takes. So I'm excited to, to talk, to, talk with Ted about that. Oh, I bet that's gonna be great. And get to learn from. Yeah, I bet that's gonna be great. We're gonna record in his in his barn there. It'll be really cool. So well, cool. So tell me, I, I wanna talk about really what the podcast is all about. Art connecting right. So I want to hear how, how important has the people, you know and, and connections been in growing your business? Oh, huh it's instrumental. I mean, honestly speaking, I I, if you're not able to make connections, if you're not able to network yourself, you're dead. Hmm. Point blank and simple, you're gonna be dead. You know, even if you do marketing, at the end of the day, you have to network and you have to surround yourself with the right people. But. You know, before you can tell somebody or ask anything for somebody, you gotta have something to offer. Mm, okay. That's right. So the approach should always be, what can I do for you? Not what can you do for me? Okay. And that's how you really connect with somebody. When you show interest in the person that you're trying to assist, it's how can you help the person that you're approaching and when you gain that reputation. Then that spreads and the connections become stronger. But without, for example, I mean, my connection with you, you've brought plenty of business my way, you know, so you've been instrumental in my connections. Yeah. You know, my real, my real estate associates that I've had years of being in the business, you know, has been instrumental. Everything from even the guys that work for me, you know, making those connections to get the right crews in place. Mm-hmm. You know, literally communicating with the world basically is, it's a must do if you wanna survive in this market. Yeah, I, I agree wholly I mean, when I think about all the things that have happened in my life, it almost always weaves back to a connection. You know, it's, it's someone that introduced me to somebody or someone that invited me to come to this event where I met someone and that's exactly why I started doing this was I just started to realize, we can't live in this bubble. We have to share what we're doing with others and we have to also like sometimes, you know, be a little fearless in in our conversations and talk about what we're doing, but in the light of seeing how what we do can help someone else. That's right. I think that's the approach. That, that's the approach I take. But I've seen many that do the opposite approach and, and they end up failing because it's, it's almost a sales pitch, right? Right.'cause they're just saying, Hey, this is, this is what I need from you. Okay. But the, the thing you gotta ask yourself is what's motivating them to help you for one thing. Okay? Why are they having to give something when they're not receiving nothing from you? Right. What people like to know is that you care about their success and you care about what they got going on. Yep. So my approach is, hey, my name is Johnny. This is what I do, and I would like to know how I can help you. Mm-hmm. How I can, how what I do can benefit what you are doing. Absolutely. You know, and I think that's a different mental approach, and to me it's an approach of caring because I think if you do the opposite, it's more of a selfish approach. And it comes across that way. Yeah, no, 100%. There was a guy I was just on a mastermind call and one of the, one of the groups that I'm in, the founders of this mastermind were absolutely pissed.'Cause there was this guy that said he was gonna come on and teach us AI and how to, how to utilize go high level which is A-C-R-M-C-R-M that I use. So I was super excited to see that we were gonna get some training on high level and I was like, this is gonna be awesome'cause I have so much that I need to learn about this software. Mm-hmm. And then he goes into his presentation and the whole entire presentation, the whole thing was about his company and how his company does this, does this, does this, does this. But there was not a single bit of the presentation that talked about how to utilize what you have today. There was no value given. There was no value at all until at the end. One, the, the lady who runs it was like, hold on, hold on. Before you get to pricing. Let me stop you there. We need to ask some questions. I ended up leaving the meeting'cause I, I wasn't getting, it was a sales pitch. I wasn't getting anything. Yeah. It was a sales pitch. It was a sales pitch. That's all it was. And so and I, I'm guilty of it. We've all been there. We, you, we've all made that mistake, brother. You're just like trying to pitch what you've got and, and you're really just so focused on how do I sell my product, but. To, to anybody that has a brain, it, it automatically, just like I checked out five minutes into that and I was trying to get nuggets of value out of it because this guy clearly knew what he was doing, but he was so focused on trying to sell his product that he didn't give any value, you know? And, and that's that to me. Now listen, you, you're right on saying we've all made that mistake, right? I mean, I remember making that mistake. When I was in Mohawk, I would approach people like, Hey, I need you to do this for me. Or, Hey, would you do this for me? Can you, can you buy this from me? But at the end of the day, things changed when my mental perspective changed. And it's really simple. If you just care about the person you're speaking to, they will take care of your company, okay? So you don't really sell your, your company, you sell yourself. And the way you sell yourself is just by, listen, what? How can I make your life easier? What can I take off your plate? What are you gonna benefit out of having me in your world doing this for you? Hmm. You know, and when you do that, it changes. I mean, look, I approached Ted at the meetup that we had, you know, which, by the way, he's an awesome guy. I'm just throwing out there. The guy's amazing. You know, and, and I spoke to him and my first approach was, I will love an opportunity to help you. To help what you got going on. And we've got a meeting this Tuesday, I think we're doing for dinner though, tomorrow. Yeah, yeah. We're meeting for dinner tomorrow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tomorrow. Yeah. I think he said around five 30 or so. So yeah, which I'm excited about that opportunity, but again, the approach wasn't, Hey, what can you do? For me it was, Hey, this is what I can do for you, you know? And, and I think once that. Once I learned that, and once I understood that, and once I got the basics of understanding that success is not driven by who you convince by who, but by how you assist people. Which is the truth, you know? That's why many companies will tell you, and when you're looking for a product, you find you look for a solution. Right? You're always looking for a solution. That's what we have to do when we're approaching people, when we're going to network, we are finding solution for the other person. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. It's not who you convince. Mm-hmm. It's who you assist. It's who you assist. That's right. Yeah. And when we first started working together, there were the, I think, I don't know how early on you were in your company when we first started working together, but it was pretty early on. It was, and there were some things that didn't go right, like I'll, I'll just say it, you know. Oh, a hundred percent. There were some things that fell through the cracks. There were some. Some small issues that we had, but throughout the whole entire thing, Johnny was always asking and open to hearing what can I do better? And that's why I've sent you so much business. Yeah. And that's why we work together on every project that I do, is because if you can it, we're all gonna make mistakes. Mm-hmm. When you're starting your business, when you're starting something, you're gonna screw something up. I've screwed up so much stuff like. Untold amount of stuff, but it's not about what you mess up, it's about how you recover. And that's why me and this guy worked together super closely is when things went wrong, I didn't have any type of uncomfort'cause I knew that Johnny was gonna take care of it. And that's the type of person you wanna be. Yeah. But you know, Haydynn, you gotta understand also that, or not, you don't have to understand. I'm just saying that people need to understand in general that. Mistakes are going to happen, right? Mm-hmm.'cause you cannot expect perfection from imperfect humans. But how you deal with those problems, that to me is what makes a difference. Mm. Okay. Because if somebody approaches me and says, Hey Johnny, you should do this better. Only ego tells you that you know everything. Okay. And ego is a business destroyer. I'll go ahead and tell you right now. Mm-hmm. If you guys want to short your business. Let the ego drive your business. You're gonna make every wrong mistake there is, okay? Yeah. You're gonna fire the wrong people. You're gonna hire the wrong people. You're gonna make the wrong decision with customers. You're gonna lose your customer base. Ego is a destroyer, okay? But if you're humble enough to say, you know what, you are, right? How can I do it better? What's your opinion? Even if you're not in the business that I'm in, right? It doesn't matter. You might have the solution that I'm looking for. Well, your customer is oftentimes the best person to ask. What you can do better many times because your customer is seeing things from a different perspective than you are as the provider. So, you know, it's like if, if you ask your customer, Hey, well what if you know everything? Assuming everything went right, it's like, I know everything seemed to go well, but if there's one thing that I can improve on, what would it be? Maybe say there's a few times where I called and, and I didn't get an answer back for a day, you know? And it's like, oh, okay. You know, you need to work on your communication or. You know, maybe there's, there's a small issue with a pain imperfection and that gives you an opportunity to go back and fix it, you know, or delegate it. Ask Yeah. You know, delegating responsibility. You know, and I'll be fair, I'll be up front and tell you, bro, that's been my hardest struggle. Mm-hmm. Okay. Because I, I know how to do what I do, but it took me a while to understand that for me to grow, I have to delegate a lot of these responsibilities and literally entrust them to people. That I knew could do it, but I was afraid to allow them to. Hmm, okay. And I remember when you approached me about that too, by the way. Yeah. You're like, Johnny, you gotta delegate. You gotta delegate. Yeah. And I sat about it. I thought about it all weekend, guys. And he was right. I was, I was, I'll tell the story. I, there was a property I was looking at purchasing and I had Johnny go look at it and I was waiting on an estimate back and it had been like a week. Yeah. And I was like, Johnny. I need this estimate'cause I've gotta decide whether I'm purchasing this house or not. And, and we had a, we had a hard conversation'cause I was like, dude, I want to use you on my projects. But yeah, I can't wait a week for an estimate. I've gotta have something at least a few days. I know it takes time. I understand, but how can we make this process more efficient? And instead of Johnny being like, oh, don't tell me how to do my business, he said, alright. Let me figure out what I can do. And now he's even, you're hiring an estimator, you know? Yeah. To be able to, to crank out. If you can't give someone a price they cannot buy. Absolutely. Right? Absolutely. But see, that's, that's where I'm having to adjust and had to learn to adjust. Mm-hmm. And had to be humble enough to listen. Right? Yeah. Because my job is to take care of people's needs. Right. So for me to keep doing that, I have to keep listening. But, you know, listen, a, a small estimates. You know, 25,000 under pretty quick. The ones that I noticed that are, that are more intense is when you got complete cut jobs and, and some of those do take a week to get when you're waiting for materials costs from different manufacturers and things like that. Right. You know, which is perfectly acceptable as long as you set expectations. As soon. Yes. Yes. I see. That was one of my things that first I wasn't sending the Right, exactly, exactly. Set the right expectation. Okay. Yeah. Under promise and over deliver. Over deliver. Deliver. Yes. Yeah. So don't say two days if it's gonna be a week. Exactly. Like, I've got one that I gotta do today. So them know what the podcast Yeah. Brandon. Yep. Yeah. I gotta go with my guys. Go see Brandon's house. But but no, it's, it's, it is been a learning curve. It's been a, it is been a really fun ride going, but I feel like every day things are getting better and better and better. Yeah, that's exactly what I read. Just why I post on my Instagram every single day is like. Me doing something hard, you know, you just gotta get a little bit better every day. Yeah. And if you get a little better every day, you'll look up in six months and you'll be like, holy crap. Man, I am miles away from where I was when I started this thing. Oh, that's incredible how quickly you can grow if you constantly am asking yourself, how can I get a little better every day? Growth is important, man, but you know. I, I, I tell everybody, it's like, like, I remember when I first met you, man. I mean, you were just, you're very eager, you're very driven, okay? And I tell everybody, you're probably one of the most welcoming persons in Chattanooga. But how did you accomplish that? Is you didn't stop. Hmm? You didn't stop. Still haven't stopped. You don't stop. Guys, this calendar is ridiculous. Okay? Like, I don't even know how this guy breathes. I mean, seriously, I got eight and a half hours of sleep last night. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. I don't know how I did, but listen you know, I, I stay busy, man. I'm working like 75 hours a week, but the difference is I love what I do, but I, I'm a true believer that if you do things with passion and you, and you move with integrity, right? You do things with integrity, you have a passion for what you do, then you're going to succeed. Mm-hmm. You know, and I've heard other people debate that and say, oh no, you don't want to be too into what you're doing. I say, they're wrong. They're wrong. You want hundred wanna be fully into it. You wanted to be a part of who you are. Mm-hmm. And it's not because it, it's not like it's who you are per se, as a person, but you wanna take it so serious that it's, it becomes a part of you. Right. Right. Because then at that point, when you're moving in that fashion with integrity. You're not gonna do the bad choices or the, or the big mistakes that someone who just has grief in their mind is gonna do. Yeah, I mean, I, I, my, my belief structure is really simple. I believe in doing business the right way. I believe in having integrity. When you speak, you accomplish it. If you say you're gonna do something, you do it. You know, and it doesn't mean, I, there's been times, you know, that I've slipped on that. And you have no problem. Problem. And I called you out on it. I called, but I'll, you'll always call me out. But I appreciate that. Yeah. Right. Because it only makes me better. That's right. Okay. I need people to call me out on stuff. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. We all do. You know, you need to surround yourself with those kind of people. Dude, listen. You need to call me out in every mistake I make, because sometimes I don't even realize I'm making a mistake. Yeah, okay. Because you get so caught up with life and what you got going on and this and that. Then you really need somebody that can sometimes check you. You know, that's why you gotta surround yourself with positive people that you can trust, right. When they're checking you, it's because they're looking out for you. Right. And not check you in like a rude way. Right? No, no, no, no, no. But no, just remind you professional way. Like, hey, you know, you said you'd have this to me on Monday. Well, it's Wednesday, you know, and, and then you know, it's all about, it all just kind of circles back to that system, process and routine, and it's just a learning experience, right? When you. When you have an expectation that you put on yourself, right? You say, I'm gonna have this project ready by Wednesday, and then Wednesday comes and goes. It's like, okay, what went wrong? Right, right. And sometimes there's things that go wrong in our, you know, in the business world. Oh, every day. Not just sometimes every day. There's things that go wrong and you just gotta figure out, like the best way possible is set expectations. And then when things go wrong, just making it right no matter what it takes. And something that I really admire about you is a project that, from my business partner that, that you did, everything went wrong. Right? Everything went wrong. The, the guy that was in charge of the project, you know, ended up in the hospital, ended up in the hospital, wife was in the hospital, everything went wrong. Right? And you were dealing with some customers that were. A little demanding, right? And, and had high expectations. And so instead of just waiting until that person got back on, you sent somebody else and took a loss to complete that project, and you end up getting a tip at the end of the project, you know, because you were transparent and said, Hey, you know, this project ended up being a total. You know, total shit show, but I'm gonna make sure it's right. And when they went and looked at that house at the end, they were very happy with the result. Yeah. Which is what, that's what really matters is the end result. The end result. Right. And how people feel as they're walking away. Yeah. Right. Well, you're gonna have struggles. Listen, and I'll tell this to everybody out there, there, there's a lot of value to having the proper contractor. Okay. I have many crews that work for me. And I'm very blessed in that. But every once in a while, you're gonna have this miracle job that just everything seems to be going wrong. But I tell everybody it, it's not, it's not what goes wrong, but how you deal with it, that makes a difference. Right. You know, I will gladly take a loss if I have to, if it means that I protect my reputation. And in the long run, it pays out. It's, it's what I call the cost of doing business. Obviously, it doesn't happen on every job. But every once in a while you have those moments, but those are opportunities for you to show the integrity that you carry as a company. Okay. That's how you gotta look at it. You can't look at it always as loss. You gotta look at it as, here's an opportunity for me to show we're made of, you know, that I'm willing to take a loss. I'm not attacking that onto the customer because it's not the customer's fault. Right? Okay. That's an ownership that I have to take on, and that's what good business is about. My whole goal is that as I progress in the business world and things grow and God blesses me. You know, people want to do business with me. Hmm. Investors want to come to me, I don't have to go to them. Right? Yeah. And that's by building a solid name. Yeah. I mean, reputation is everything. It's everything. Right? And if you have a reputation of being the person that, like contractor that I worked with, maybe you've listen to this, but maybe probably not. But you know, he walked, walked off the job and it cost me$30,000 because he walked off. Right. So that person had an amazing opportunity to work with me and work through that issue, but instead he decided to just walk away. So tell me about that. Why, why did he walk away? What was the reason? So, well, he had underbid the project in the beginning. Okay. This was a, a flip I did over in Ringold and, we were buying the property for 125 or$130,000. And to hit my numbers where I wanted to be, we needed to be around 80,000 on the rehab. And it was a, I mean, it was a pretty decent job. I mean, we resided the house, new garage door full. Well, not a full gut inside, but a lot of work inside. Okay. New kitchen, bathrooms, everything. We re, we move some walls. New flooring paint. So he, he came and bid the property and we, we were getting bids back around like a hundred to 150.'cause I got like probably three or four bids, right. And I was like. This is gonna be too high for us. That was new to the game. You know, this is my first flip in Chattanooga. I didn't have any partners here and so I wasn't getting any investor pricing. I was getting retail pricing. Wow. Which is a big difference, you know? Huge difference. And so I'm getting, getting retail pricing on this renovation and I'm like, we're just gonna have to wholesale it.'cause we could, we were gonna be able to wholesale it and probably make like. 20 grand. 30 grand to sell to someone who had crews that could do it for half the price of what? Right. Right. And so this contractor, I won't name this contractor, but this contractor came in and bid it like 110,000, if I remember right. So it was like 30 grand, more than my budget. And I was like, ah, man, we're just gonna have to wholesale it. I'm sorry. Like, I know you put time into this bid, but it's just not gonna work for us at that number. And he came back, he's like, no, no, no. I'll make it work. Whatever I need to do, wherever I need to cut, I'll make it work. Mm. And so we get into the project and we found some rot underneath the siding, so we replaced. Bored on the siding. I knew it was gonna be a change order. I knew it was gonna cost 11,000 more than I expected because we had to go in and do that. Not a problem. Like I, I saw the rock, like it's, you knew it had to be done. I knew it had to be done. He, he never sent me a change order. He just asked for his final draw to pay out of that. I was new. And a little hint, he hint for you guys never pay out your final draw until the project is finished, completed, completely done, and you're happy with it. Because once that final draw hits, unless you're dealing with somebody like Johnny, they can just. They're off in the distance. You know, he never sent the change order. So I sent the final draw to cover the materials and he started becoming very slow to reply. Like a week, two weeks. And bear in mind, every week that I hold this property,$600 flies outta my pocket. You're paying, yeah.$600 every single week, like just lighting it on fire. And so I started getting stressed out and it came to a head where. I looked on his website and he had his mentor on his website. So I called his mentor and I asked,'cause I was like, dude, I can't get ahold of this guy. I can't figure out what the heck is going on. He's not responding to me. And you know, I'm just sitting here at this house, it's half done. And he called me real fast, he called me real fast and said maybe it's better if we just part ways. And so we parted ways and I brought in another contractor friend of mine and it ended up, yeah, I've had to pay for a lot of stuff twice. Oh, wow. So, yeah, that was there, there was a lot of lessons learned and, and 30 grand is, you know, about what I paid for college. That's much. So, I mean, it's, it's, it was a great lesson and that's why when you asked for the deposit, I was like, I can do 30%. I can't do 50. You know, but that's, that's the thing, Haydynn, see those, those stories that you're telling me, that's the uphill battle that I gotta deal with on a daily basis. Yep. You know, even though I've been doing this for years. And I've gained a good reputation and thank God I've gained a good reputation to know a lot of, now, now a lot of investing, a lot of people in the business. But you know, when I'm dealing with a consumer, I hear the nightmare stories. Yeah. My story's incredibly common. It very common. Which is why I try to be very understanding of people because I understand the fear they're dealing with. They know there's a lot of, I wanna call'em bogus contractors out there. Okay. Because what they'll do is they'll, they'll promise the world. They will make you believe that they got it. They'll get the money and they run. Mm-hmm. And, and it makes it tough for people like me that move with integrity that are not trying to have a fly by night company, but actually this is what we do for a living permanently. Right. Trying to build something for my kids. It makes it tough for us. It really does. And there's a lot of honest, good contractors out there. There really is. I, I, I'm not gonna pretend to say that I'm the only one. I'm happy to say there's more of us good ones out there. But it takes one bad one that makes you lose$30,000 to always question what? Whoever steps in front you. Well, there's a lot of bad ones. There's a lot of bad ones out there. I, I mean, it's, it's not even like. Like, like you talk, you talk, you know, all this like the, with the police officers, there's one incident, one bad apple, and you know, now everybody hates police officers. No. There's more than one bad contractor. I would say that like, there's probably about 40% of contractors are bad actors. If I had to guess, based on the amount, you're probably right. Okay. You're, you're, you're, you're pretty close to the number and a lot of these people just work out the back of their truck, literally. Okay. I, I do have a storefront. But it's still, it makes it a challenge, you know, when we approach customers, that's why I have to be very sensitive to the feelings of the customer. I have to understand where they're coming from.'cause as soon as I start digging into something and I can see them get nervous, all I do is, is I can ask them, simple question, have you ever dealt with a contractor before? And I will. Then they will pour out their heart and tell me exactly what happened. And how this person took him for 10, 15,000. Mm-hmm. Or 30. Or 30 and, and never heard back. Yep. Okay. And I'll tell you what's worse, and this happened to one of my customers. I actually know the person that did the job at this customer's house. I didn't even know that they were contracting. I just know him from years ago, never even knew he was in the business. What's bad is when it's your own friend that does you bad. Yep. And I had to go in and fix somebody, not my friend, but the customer that was their friend. Mm-hmm. Man, you know, so when, when you've got, when people are out there even mess, messing over their own friends, in, in the contract world, people get nervous. So what are some ways as a contractor yourself, that a customer protect themself? Oh. From a, a contractor who's a bad actor. Okay, so here's what you wanna do, guys. Okay. Make sure they at least have a remodeler's license. Okay. Second of all make sure that they have general liability and, and, and workers' comp insurance. And you might say, why do I need to make sure they gotta have insurance. Little secret guys, if they get hurt on your property and they don't have workers' comp or general liability, they're gonna sue your homeowner's insurance and now you are liable for whatever they did. And they can so much as cut a finger and they'll try to sue your homeowner's insurance for a quarter million dollars. And they're not gonna have no problem doing that. So one word of advice. Make sure the person that walks into your home is fully insured. Get a COI, that certificate of insurance. Okay? They should have no problem supplying that to you. All right? Bottom line should not be an issue. Protect yourself. Second of all, when they go to get money, what I try to do, okay. Like for my investors, I do it in, in portions, either half or thirds. Okay? For consumers though, it's a little different. Alright. What I do is I get up front the cost of the materials and then a portion of the labor. Okay? And if somebody tells you to pay the final payment before it's done, don't do it. No matter what the story is, no matter who's in the hospital, don't matter who died, no matter who got in a wreck, do not pay your final draw until the job is done. If they're asking for their final draw before the job is done, it's because they don't plan on coming back. Okay. That's why they're trying to get their final draw. They no longer have a motivation to finish, so you want to keep that final draw so that way they're motivated to hurry up and get it done so they can get paid. All right. But one thing I'll always tell you, make sure their insurance, make sure their license like I said, I mean, you don't want somebody getting injured on your property and then they turn around and suing you, and that happens every single day. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so those are two ways you can protect yourself and if someone's shifty about not providing you insurance run, you know, if you ask for that COI. And they're like, oh, yeah, no, I, they gotta wait a week until that means that they're not insured. They're not insured. Right. Yeah. If they have any hesitancy, I would be proud as a business owner to show you my COI, because I pay a bit, you know, a ton of money per month for No, you know, it, you know, so it's like when, you know, if you spend two grand a month for something, you'd be like, absolutely. Here you go. You know, this is, this is the insurance right here. Yeah. And, and, and I wouldn't tell you it's not hard. All I gotta do is I call my insurance provider. And I'll literally call'em and say, Hey, I need to make so and so a certificate holder. This is the address we're gonna be working on. Can you please email it to the customer? I'll do it right in front of the customer. They'll email it. They'll have it typically within an hour, and it's done. Okay. It's, it should be that simple. If they make it more complicated than that, it's because they're not carrying insurance. Mm. And believe me, if there's gonna be power tools being ran at your house, that's gonna be a problem. Another thing, don't let them bring minors to the job site. That right there will cancel the insurance. Even if they have workers' comp and general liability, if there's power tools on a job site, if they're doing remodeling, if they're on a roof and they bring a minor to the job site, that minor will not be covered through their insurance. That'll go through your homeowner's insurance. Hmm. So be aware of that even though it's negligence on their part. Yeah. If you see someone who looks a little young. Ask some questions. You listen, you have to, yeah, you have to protect yourself, right? Because it's, it sounds like, oh, I don't wanna be extra, you know, I'm just thankful these guys are here working. But we have to protect ourselves because in, in the real estate industry, you're not dealing with hundreds of dollars. You're dealing with tens of thousands of dollars and potentially hundreds of thousands or millions. If there's something that goes horribly wrong and people are sue happy, have you not noticed that? Mm-hmm. Nowadays, people are sue happy, they're ready to sue you for anything. Okay. But you know, that, that situation is something I even had to deal with once, you know, I went to a job site one time and one of my own crews decided to bring his kid and I had to look at him and say, Hey, that's gotta go. Yeah. I said, I, I. I love you to death, brother. I appreciate your son's interested in what you're doing, but even on our side, if I see that on my side, I have to literally tell him a minor's not permitted. Okay? Because every once in a while you'll have parents that had to pick up my kid from school. I get it. I can appreciate that. I'm a father also. I have kids, but there's what is permitted and what's not permitted. And you have to be that cut and dry. Mm-hmm. At the end of the day, you know, my, what I would tell the consumers and people out there, you gotta remember that they try to, A lot of contractors wanna make you feel lucky that you're working with them. Okay. That psychology 1 0 1 guys, don't fall for it. At the end of the day, it's an honor for us to have you as a customer. It's a different state of mind. We appreciate the business because you could've went to anybody else. And yet you're letting me do the job. So always remember that you have to make sure that you protect yourself, protect your valuables, protect your assets, you know, and make sure that everything stays professional at the end of the day on the job site. Yeah, yeah. When I first was getting started looking at real estate deals, it was, you know, you felt lucky if you get got to buy a house or you felt lucky if you got to buy a storage deal. And that's led to me in my storage facility deal. I mean, we are just now profitable like two years later because we were so hungry to get a deal. We looked past some things and some people lied to us about some things and we didn't do our due diligence. And I've been working for free for the last two years. You know, now I got some great tax deductions and you know, some, it gave me a lot of reputational value. Value. So it's not like I worked for free for free, but like I still haven't taken a check for that. And so don't get in a rush to feel like you need to work with a contractor or buy a deal because you're lucky to buy, like we are the ones who are in power. If you're the one purchasing something. You have the power to choose. Yeah, it's your money. It's your money. And don't let somebody tell you that you have to buy this or else it's gonna be gone. It's just a tactic to get you to spend more money than you really should be. What I try to do when I'm talking to a customer or when any of my people are talking to a customer is pretty simple. Our first concern is what's the need of the customer? We address the need first. After that, we start speaking on the want of the customer. And many times we'll do is we'll do a phase one to phase two. You know, we'll do the, the the have to be done, which I could, I always tell people is the structural, anything structural on a property is a must. Alright? If it's foundational issues, framing issues, roofing issues, whatever it is, plumbing issues, whatever. So whatever structural that can cause damage must be done first. Then. Then if they've got wants, then cool, we'll address it. If we can handle all at once, we'll do it. If the customer's ready. You know, one benefit that I offer, of course, is offer financing, offer interest financing. That's been really valuable for my retail customer base because, you know, unlike Haydynn, unlike you where you're doing investing, you are funded, you know, a lot of consumers are almost like when they buy furniture. Mm-hmm. You know, they'll go spend five or$6,000 on furniture, but they'll only do it if they can finance, if furniture is free. So, yeah, that's, that's why the interest free, that's the unfortunate truth about. What the, where we're at, you know, is I, I bought my furniture in cash. Well, I put on the credit card, but I paid off my credit card in cash. So, well, what I do, what I do is I try to offer the, the reason I like our financing, and I'll be honest, I like our financing setup because I put in the code to make it interest free. So I call that clean debt. Mm, it's same as cash. Yeah. Okay. Whereas like what you did, if you put it on a credit card, unless you pay it off in 30 days, you're paying 21, 22, 20 3%. It is cheaper to do that. Now you now with what you do with your funding, you've got the funding to do the the house, to do the remodeling and all that stuff, but on a consumer basis, they typically don't. Right. So what I've been doing is, like we spoke earlier, I listened to what everybody's needs are and I try to address them accordingly. You know, and I know opening the new store in Cleveland. That's gonna be a big, you know, everybody wants to be financed with no interest. Mm-hmm. Nobody wants to shell out five, six,$10,000 outta their bank account. No, but they're good shelling out three or 400 a month, right? Yeah, for sure. So it's the buy now pay later phenomenon. It it is, you know, but at the end of the day, it could be, you gotta do what your customer is asking for. You gotta do what they want. But you know, you gotta make sure you're offering a good value for that money. Mm. And that's another thing guys that I would I wanna speak about is that I've seen so many people just gouge people. I mean, just how a robbery on some stuff. I've went and looked at estimates and I've estimated, I did one estimate on a customer and it was like$15,000. I'll never forget it. And I looked at her and I said, she goes, you know, somebody else come look at this. I said, did you really? Yeah. And she goes, yeah. Now I knew, and I'll be upfront, my cost on it was gonna be around eight or 9,000. So my company will make about five,$6,000 on the deal. Okay. Which is a good return. It's a good return. We all need to make money. We're all gonna make money, you know? Right. But I'm not trying to make a million dollars off everybody, although I wish I could. Okay. But you know, I was talking to this lady and she goes, Johnny had this other company, I'm not gonna mention their name, but they're very well known in town. Okay. And they quoted over$50,000 for the same job. Wow. And it's the same quality. My guys are fully licensed. Like I, my quality will stand up to anybody's. Okay. Now I understand I've, the reason mine is so much cheaper because I've tailored my business when it comes to investors and realtors and builders. So, you know, when you're pricing out a realtor or an investor, you can't retail price them. Okay. You just, you can't Yeah. We'll never use it. You'll never Right, right, right. Because what I do is I base my, my, my profile is set up where I'm basing it more on continuous business. Mm-hmm. I believe in earning the right to doing business with somebody. Right. So it's not a one-time sale. It is the relationship that I'm building with that person. So, yeah, you're gonna get a discount on it. But my intention is to get all your business little by little as it grows. Yeah. Which is exactly what happens. Right? Right. We did the first deal together and then there was a second, and then there's a third, you know, and then there's referrals and there's been more out of those. Yeah. But that's, that's the way I position my business, you know, and then I know even with what you do and even though we're in a different industry, bro, but like. We are, but we're not. We're both in real estate business. I'm just do the fixing. You do the buying. Right. Okay. But even in your world, your relationships is how you've survived. It's never been just, I'm gonna do this one time thing for you. Right. And I will attest to that guys. Haydynn's the best at building relationships. He needs to write a book so I can buy it, but if he ever does, everybody on this podcast needs to go online and buy the book. Okay. The Haydynn Fike Art of Connection book. That's a good name for it. The Art of Connecting. Yeah, the Art of Connecting. I my first book I wanna write is the Job Security Myth. What is that about? So my, you know, my story goes. I had the dream job in corporate, right? Mm-hmm. I, I had the job that everyone in the company would dream, dream to have, and that ended up coming to a very quick end, unexpectedly, right? And at the time I thought I was, you know, I thought my poo poo didn't stink, right? Because I was a, I was an up and coming guy. I was going into the professional development program that people compete for 10 years to get into. And then I got a slice of humble pie, and that made me realize that there's no such thing as job security. There's people out there that have a job and they think that, oh, I'm a nurse. I'll never get fired. I'm a, I'm a lineman. I'll never get fired. I'm a whatever, you know, whatever the occupation is, I'll never get fired. I work for the government. I'll never get fired. Right. And in reality. One misplaced word, one misstep, one misplaced look, one boss that doesn't like how you look or doesn't like your color of your skin or any number of things, your job security can vaporize. And I'll tell you it, it's even worse in Georgia and Tennessee, by the way. See, there's a little law called The Right to hire. Right to fire. Yeah. So I'll give you an example. So Haydynn's trademark is the Hawaiian shirt, right? That's you see Haydynn anywhere. You will recognize them with a Hawaiian shirt. But let's say that you go, you're working for a company and they don't want you to wear the Hawaiian shirt. Do you know that in Georgia, Tennessee, they don't have to have a justifiable reason? They could just say, we just don't want you working anymore. Yep. I don't like the shirt you're wearing it. Is that simple? It's no longer based on just, you know, oh, it has to be due because I made a mistake. Or, you know, if it's due to sexual religion, they can't fire me. No. There's literally the right to hire, right to fire if I don't like the way you walked in the door. I don't need any other reason. Yeah. And, and, and it's scary. I don't think it's necessarily scary. I think I'll, I'll, when I write the book, I'll say, why doesn't it have to be scary? And that is because if you realize that job security is a myth and it's not a thing, you can be prepared. So if something happens, like what happened to me? Happens to somebody else, then they can read this book and know what the next steps are to either build their own thing or go and rebound and have it be an open door opportunity. It is scary for those that feel very comfortable. Mm-hmm. Okay. It's, it's scary for those people that feel comfortable. Yeah. You know, that's one of the reasons I left where I was at. You know, I had a, I had a cushy corporate job, six figure job, all my four one K benefits. And I stepped outta that to pursue my own business. Mm-hmm. Okay. Was it hard at first? Very hard. Is it still hard? Yes. Is it, is it fruitful? Is am I getting benefits out of it? Yes. God has blessed me and I'm, I'm very heavily a Christian man. I'll be honest, I'm not afraid to say that at all. I'm frank, I'm proud of that. Mm-hmm. But you know, it, it's, it has paid off in the long run and God has put the right people in my path. And he's blessed me the way I feel that he wants to bless me everything to bring glory to his name. Okay. But I, but I will say if you're wanting a shortcut, and I'll say this right now, if you think that business that there's a shortcut, that there's a quicker way that this is just gonna be easy piece of lemon squeezy, you're just gonna work two hours a day and that's it. You are literally lying to yourself. Oh, okay. You are listening to some video on Facebook that some company's trying to sell you for 3 99. Okay. They're, they're course there's some, some mad genius course that somebody makes a hundred thousand a month working one hour. Yeah. Okay. Listen, there's one out of a billion people that can actually do that or that have that opportunity, but the reality is if you want to succeed, care about your clients first. Care about your employees. Second, move with inte integrity and, and in my case, do things with a Christian minded way. Okay. And when you stay in line with all that, the people that you care about will care about your business. That's right. It's, it's really that simple. When, when you stay in mind of integrity, other business people see it and that's when they are motivated to give you an opportunity. But when you're gonna go do connections, when you're going to an event, like, I'll be honest, one of the biggest events in Chattanooga is, is one of Haydynn's events he does every month. You've got the top of the top of everybody in Chattanooga at this event. Okay? You've got hundreds of people that show up. It's done to the nine. It's an amazing event. I love going there, but you know the approach you gotta have when you speak to people. And I, and you know, I've had people approach me at these events and the first thing they're doing is, Hey I want you to use me. They're trying to sell me. Yeah, okay. But, which is, I get it. You know, they're new, they're trying, they're, they're figuring things out. But the way you really get an impact, guys, is do not ask people to do for you, but ask what you can do for them. Tell'em, Hey, this is what I can do for your business. This is how I can help you, whether it's a service. How you can help them with a service and gain them peace of mind, whether it's I can save you money and help you on your bottom line. Be something that is a value to them. Hmm. Become a value to them. Become that guy. Like, I don't know. I know that growing up, everybody's always had like that mechanic that they know. They have that guy, oh, I got a guy. And whatever business you are in, like Haydynn, he's in the connecting business and he's in the finance world. You know, he has a great finance fund. Guys, great. Return on if anybody wants to holler at him about that. Oh, hey there. It's me again. I know you expected Morgan Freeman to come on and talk about the biggest company in the world. Well, I'm sorry, but you get the next best thing. This show is sponsored by the company that I co founded, Acadia Capital, and acadia is a hard money lending fund originating loans in Southeast Tennessee and Northern Georgia on residential one to four unit renovation properties. We are regulation D five Oh six C fund and are actively seeking accredited investors. We provide fantastic first position real estate back returns. If you're ready to get your tired and lazy capital to work with a minimum 8 percent return, go to Acadia loans. com backslash invest. Not only do we accept standard investments, but we can also accept self directed IRAs and other self directed retirement accounts to take advantage of tax advantage investing. Thank you so much for listening to Art of Connecting now back to the show. Yeah, so, but you know, but listen, at the end of the day, it's about the value that you bring to somebody. You know, even when I brought one of my friends over, you know, that I'm doing a job for and that's an investor. Mm-hmm. And I, and I plugged you two up. Yeah. You know, and I started thinking to myself, you know, dude, probably around July, I'm probably gonna start dealing with you on and getting some properties. Yeah. But it's a service. You're not just providing the funds, but you're providing a service. Okay. And that's how you wanna approach, no matter even what I do, you know? Yeah. I supply building materials. Yes. I supply flooring. Yes. I supply the labor. Yes. I can do anything in a house. You can imagine. I can rebuild. Okay. But the way I approach it is not, Hey, use me because I got guys that can do it. It's, Hey, so what do you got going on? And how can I help you with that? Mm. What can I do to make your, to make your life easier? You know, totally different approach. It's like that anything, if you have a cleaning service, approach it the same way. If you're gonna, if you're gonna tell somebody about it, don't tell'em about how good you do cleaning. Be like, listen. We do so many properties a day, and I understand that you have about 30, 30 houses that you're renting out. I would love an opportunity to be able to help you out. I can make it a lot easier when people move out and I can take care of that for you. Can make me a list. Show them how you can make it easier for them, right? Tailor to your customer needs. Like when I approach sales people, when I approach real estate people and I approach investors or builders, I'll take a day and I'll approach like realtors. But it's a totally different language I use with them because they have different needs. Realtors need things done now. Yeah. They need things done very inexpensively. Right. It has to be 100% licensed and covered and insured where their name, the reputation is on the line with their seller or their buyer. Okay. And that approach has to be different than when I'm looking at dealing with someone who wants to build houses. The needs are different. Mm-hmm. So when you're gonna approach people, understand who you are approaching and understand, do your homework guys, understand their needs. Don't just come at them to sell a pitch. Okay? Do your background research that shows that you care, that shows that you have real interest. Okay? So do your homework first before you step to somebody. That's all I gotta say on that. All right. Well, with that, we've come to our time, so if people want to, actually, I need to ask my last question here. Yeah. And that is, what is a connection to a person or group of people that's changed the trajectory of your life and business or business? I remember when I was studying computer pro engineering, a girl that I was tutoring looked at me and said, Johnny, you're so easy. Gonna talk to you, need to let your mouth make your money. That from the very beginning changed my trajectory. Another one was rainy, mos stellar. You know, he gave an 18-year-old boy literally an opportunity that people were twice my age, you know? We're good. So that changed my trajectory. Morton Center, you know, he, on previous company I was with you know, I, I love, I love Morton Center. He was, he's such a great guy. He, he gave me an opportunity and which I bought his assets out, you know, but he was, he was a great a great mentor that I learned a lot from. You have been an invaluable connection. I mean, like, your connections are better than anybody I've seen in Chattanooga. Thank you. But yeah, no, even just, you know, out of you, I became friends with Matt Beans. I became friends with other people and what you brought to the table in my business, even how you've, how you have helped me realign certain things in my business. Mm-hmm. Not just the connections, but you've given me advice on how to change things to improve. That has been invaluable, and that's allowing me now to grow to Cleveland. Yeah, that's awesome.'cause if I can't handle one store, I'm not gonna be able to handle two. That's right. So, yeah, it's only going up. Well, man. If people want to reach out to you and get in touch, what's the best way to do that? So you can always, you know, you can always call our store select Foreign Remodeling Tennessee, but, you know, I'm always welcome to people calling me directly to myself, to be honest with you. You know, I, if you guys have a question, you guys want me to go look at something? I'm gonna go ahead for Haydynn's podcast, I'm gonna give you my personal cell phone number,(706) 463-8989. I'm Johnny, you can text me, call me. I'll answer any questions you might have. If you want me to go look at some properties, whatever question or advice you might ask me, just feel free to call me. Awesome. Well, Johnny, thanks for coming on the show guys. Thanks for listening to the Art of Connecting. If you got value out of the show, please do me a favor and leave a five star review at the top. If you're on Spotify or if you're on Apple Podcasts down at the bottom. This show is nothing without the listeners. It's just me talking into a microphone. So thanks for listening to the show. Super excited for some of the episodes we have coming up as well. We've got Kim White coming on today. She ran for mayor in Chattanooga. Oh, wow. Mitch Patel coming up who owns all the half the half the hotels in Chattanooga. And then we got Ted as well. So stay tuned. We're gonna have more and more high quality guests coming on. I'm just so excited that we get to be here with you guys. So thank you for having me here, by the way. Thanks Johnny. Thank you. You guys have a blessed day.