Concrete Trends Unveiled: Are Concrete Countertops Still in Style?
Greetings to 2024! While the Chinese Zodiac designates this as the year of the Dragon, our Concrete Zodiac declares it as the year of the mighty Kodiak Bear. Join us in the latest episode of The Concrete Podcast as we delve into our vision for 2024 and explore strategies for industry success. We take a reflective journey, examining the foundational reasons behind the downfall of numerous concrete companies.
Our main discussion centers around the timely question: Are Concrete Countertops Still in Style? Uncover the trends and insights that shape the answer. Additionally, we tackle the risks associated with building a career and livelihood solely on YouTube tutorials. Tune in for a thought-provoking exploration of these topics and more!
TRANSCRIPT:
0:15
Happy 2024 Jon Schuler.
Happy 2024.
I was blowing my streamer there.
You're blowing something sounds like, yeah, yeah.
I don't know what you're blowing.
So it's the Chinese.
So you know the Chinese always have like a it's a year the Zodiac, the year of whatever.
0:31
I think last year was the year the rabbit.
I can't remember.
But 2024 is the year of the Dragon, which I think is awesome because Dragons are rad, right.
But I looked it up.
The concrete Zodiac is the year of the Bear.
Not any bear.
0:47
Not just any bear, Jon.
It's the year of the Kodiak bear.
The according to the concrete Zodiac.
So what that means for the concrete industries?
It's going to be a phenomenal year for concrete and I am psyched, but yeah.
I'm excited about it.
You know, the other thing is you just got back.
You were on vacation for a few weeks and I was in my shop working away for the last few weeks.
1:07
But you know that the last few weeks of my shop, it was a time of reflection because this year I've been in business now for 20 years.
And so this is my 21st year in business.
I look back at the last 20 years and everything that I've gone through and one of the things I was thinking about being in the shop is day one.
1:25
What was day one like?
And I remember day one.
I remember the feeling you do too.
You know, we're both self-made.
Yeah, you know, we we didn't have family members bankroll our business, buy business for us.
We we had a very different trajectory and we had the trajectory that most of people going into this go and that is I.
1:41
Basically had whatever room was on a credit card.
Exactly, yeah.
Plus or minus, that was it.
No more, no less.
On my first day in 2004, open my shop door and there was nothing.
I didn't have a festival Sander.
1:57
I didn't have a mixer.
I didn't have anything.
I the I ordered a drum mixer, an Imer drum mixer, and it got dropped off behind my shop.
Always even there.
I pulled around the building, there was a mixer just sitting behind my shop.
But I remember that and I remember the pride and I remember, you know, working so hard for that first year and struggling in my first customer and buying my first Festool Sander and the pride I had in that and the trials and tribulations and that is something that that everybody goes through.
2:29
But unfortunately, there's a super high attrition rate in this industry.
There's a, yeah, attrition being a failure and there's.
Not lack of demand.
I mean that's that's what blows my mind.
There's not like a lack of demand, so.
Exactly.
For people to fall out, like I was just on I think in the Australian forum here, just a minute Australia forum and yeah, I mean, you know, there's a couple guys that's selling, selling all their equipment.
2:55
They're just, you know, they're falling out.
And part of that reason is, again, not lack of demand with their cases, lack of good quality information and product.
So.
Losing it, Yeah, it's a bummer.
Well, they're the failure rate, the attrition rate in this industry, it hovers between 80% and 90% per year, per year, 80 to 90%.
3:17
Well, statistically, that's what we saw from Blue Concrete Buddy Rd.
So there's no question.
And I see it, you know, for for two decades I've watched so many people come into the industry.
They're excited.
You know, they got stars in their eyes and big dreams and you know, they're they're going to make it and they start off great.
3:37
And I'm seeing great photos and I'm seeing, you know, all the stuff.
And then a year, year and a half, they're posting, hey, I'm selling all my tools, Yeah.
And it's sad.
And there's lots of reasons for it.
But what I'm going to say at least what I've seen over the years, some of the biggest reasons continue to be the same.
3:54
You know they whatever they they end up on a path listening to somebody or you know, taking advice from people with that were never successful in it either.
Maybe they'd move on to other things and then they try utilizing that advice while they, you know, slowly circle around the drain hole.
4:15
Yeah, it's.
Yeah.
And I mean I've seen that time and time again.
I don't know how to ever change that and I'm I'm hoping you know continuing into 2024, you know we that as an industry continues to transition.
It would be exciting.
4:30
I mean, it's going to be exciting.
You you just said something that I haven't, so I haven't been able to move past Sean.
I didn't hear the last couple sentences.
You said drain hole.
Yeah, the drain circling the drain.
Drain.
Yeah, you said drain hole.
Do you call it the drain hole?
It's a very strange term.
4:48
I've never heard anybody call it the drain hole.
What?
Do you call it the drain drain?
The drain?
Yeah bro, it was a weird, I don't know, I think sometimes when I got.
A hole in a pipe, dude.
So you just call it the hole.
It goes down, no question about it.
5:05
The hole is clogged, honey, But there there's two things that contribute to it. #1 is going to be bad information from salesman.
So a lot of people get into this industry and they find a product whether it was recommended or they saw a video or whatever, They They come, they come across a product and they contact that product manufacturer and they say, you know, how do I use your product?
5:26
And chances are they're going to be talking to a salesman and a very high chance somebody that doesn't actually make concrete for a living, but they're selling products to these guys, right?
So this person's going to give advice and they're going to go back to their shop.
You know, this person with stars in their eyes and they're new, they're going to cast.
5:42
They're not going to be very happy with the results.
So they're going to call back, you know, hey, so and so I followed your advice, but this happened and this happened.
You know why?
And what can I do to fix it?
The problem is the person they're talking to doesn't have the depth of knowledge.
They don't have the experience to give a meaningful answer.
6:01
This can resolve the issues right?
So.
Yeah, that's that's long since been, at least in this niche industry, a problem since day one.
Which is exactly why Blue Concrete and what became Buddy Rhodes products stood behind.
6:17
I mean everybody in that business, even though a couple of them may not have, you know, their businesses ended up becoming unsuccessful.
But they still had experience even in that to help people a follow the path where they began with using the products because they were very passionate what they do.
6:37
And even the, you know, the the land mines that they stepped on, which ultimately led to some of their demise to help people navigate and maintain a success.
And then they went on to find successes in other ways.
And that that was pre the purchase by smooth on so the buddy roads back correct blue concrete they they employed people.
6:58
Everybody in house except, you know, except the owner, Sean Hayes.
No, no.
Whether a person was talking to me again, the chemist, the designer, tech support or or Jeremy or Phillip, I mean both those guys came from, I mean times when their shops were busy, busy, busy, busy, busy.
7:17
And then life happens.
Yeah, life happens to them and they needed to move on to other things.
But it still doesn't change the fact that everybody supporting that business from inside the warehouse to sales to, you know, designing the materials, Yeah, I mean, these were all experienced individual and that was a rarity.
7:36
Well, it is a rarity, yeah.
Whereas going with this, Jon, is we get a lot of people that come to our workshops that have been doing it for a while.
And they're struggling and they're struggling.
They're struggling.
And when we talked to them, the source of the struggle is the information they received from the product manufacturers they've been purchasing from.
7:56
That's where this bad information was generated for a lot of them.
Now there's a second source to that I'll talk about, but that's where a lot of the bad information came from.
Now, I don't think, you know, we think of like Ernie back when when Smooth on bot, Buddy Rhodes had a salesman named Ernie.
Ernie was a nice guy.
8:13
Ernie was, you know, everybody liked Ernie, but Ernie never done this.
And you know, there's so a lot of people talk to Ernie, get this bad information from somebody that was a salesman and.
No, I remember plenty of conversations with Ernie.
And I'm like Ernie because he would call me and I'm like, no, well, this, this, this and this.
8:29
He's like Jon's.
No, no one's going to do that.
So I'm going to tell him this.
And like, don't do that, Ernie.
Man, if you can't, yeah.
Please don't do that.
I'm telling you the right way.
Call me.
Yeah, have him call me.
We'll walk through it, walk through these kind of things because you know you're you're going to send him down a whole another path that's just going to be frustrating for him.
8:49
And but again, it's because he was a salesman.
He's a salesman.
I guess my point is, is these material vendor companies, they're not intentionally given bad information.
They they have no vested interest in you going out of business.
The problem is they're not in the business of doing what we do.
9:08
They're in the business of selling products.
And unfortunately, because of that, they're employing people that again aren't professionals in this industry that don't have the experience.
And so the information being perpetuated to the people coming into this industry is incorrect and bad and ultimately leads to the the person's demise.
9:24
The second source of that information is going to be training.
So unfortunately there's training out there from people that never ran a successful business.
You and I were talking about this a little bit earlier today, but I was liking this too.
You know, if if you want to hit your wagon to somebody, you want to hit your wagon to somebody that's successful, you know?
9:42
And if you're going to go down a a road, like let's say I want to become a chef, Am I going to go take lessons from somebody that wasn't successful as a chef, but this person is going to teach me how to be a successful chef and how does it even work?
You don't even know what a successful chef does.
9:58
You've never done.
Manager at McDonald's.
Yeah, I mean, I I just.
I don't get it.
That's not a chef.
But if I wanted to be a successful chef, I would find somebody that's owned and operated a successful restaurant for a long time. 20 years would be great, right?
So anyways, I know it reminds me of some of the, you know, let's say, some of that that goes on in this industry.
10:17
And I've always said this for a long time.
You know how sometimes you'll, I don't know, let's say you'll read something and it'll be like, hey, you know, for 1599 I'll teach you how to be successful with crypto or whatever the case may be, right.
10:33
And how to be a major success.
You're like, oh damn it, you know what for 1599 or whatever that number is.
Yeah, I'll do that.
Let me check it out and the answer comes back, well, start your own ad by selling crypto and get someone else, you know, like a Ponzi scheme kind of thing.
10:52
That's that's what I've seen and continue to see not with every again, not not product demo kind of stuff.
I think that's amazing and I I think in so many ways that's that's necessary.
But I don't see that as training per SE as opposed to if there's somebody out there see how I politically correct put that, put that in there.
11:14
If there's people out there with, you know, no success, instead you know, found their success by essentially you know, bringing people in to sell them on their success, that's that's always been difficult for me.
My point with this whole thing, Jon, is that's fine, that's fine.
11:30
But there's a reason why the attrition rate is as high as it is and it's not due to lack of demand.
There's a ton of demand for concrete.
We're going to talk about is concrete still in style and have that discussion, but it's not due to a lack of demand and it's not due to a lack of quality materials, quality sealer has nothing to do with that.
11:49
It has to do with the quality of the information in the direction that people new to the industry are receiving.
And it's unfortunate, but in 2024 I'm hoping that we can help get people on the right path, get you going in the right direction.
12:05
I've been doing this for 20 years.
Jon's been doing this for 20 years.
We're self-made men.
We don't use daddy's money to to do what we want to do.
We didn't run a business 20 years ago that failed.
Now we're going to teach you how to do what we did, run a failed business.
We're not going to do those things.
We're going to teach you the right way to do it.
12:20
And so that's my goal in 2024.
I just want to get that out of the way because it's a new year.
I've for 20 years, I've seen the churn.
I've seen the people come in.
I've seen the cycle again and again and again and it's frustrating and it's unnecessary and I hope, I hope with the, you know, we have a a big audience.
12:40
With the podcast, I'm hoping we're getting to people before they make you know, the ultimate mistake and take a class that leads in the wrong direction and hitch their wagon to the failed business.
Now they're going to teach you how to do a failed business.
The other thing I want to tie this to Jon is we have the Fundamentals workshop coming up February 10th and 11th here in Wichita, KS.
12:59
And that workshop is designed specifically as the entry point for somebody coming into the industry to get the foundation to get the the basics right.
Because if you know you finish how you start, if you start off the right way, you're going to have a great success.
If you start off the wrong way, you're doomed.
13:15
And so this class, 1 1/2 days, small investments, it's not an expensive class.
We do it on the weekend and flying on Friday night, come to the class Saturday, come to half day, Sunday, fly home Sunday afternoon.
You didn't miss any work and get started in the right direction, so if you're interested in that.
Go to country, I mean, even with what seems to be and I saw.
13:34
I've said this in previous podcast, seasoned professionals, you know, I I mean there's there's still conversations continuing that I have with seasoned professionals where you know, I have to go back, we go back to the foundations like no, what made you decide that like this is the reasons for that, like even something as crazy as you know, plasticizer loadings and what the expectation out of that.
13:58
And So what made you decide to go the other direction and why that doesn't work?
I mean these are all padded part of the foundations.
So my point being is not just for newbies.
If it was ever, you know, pointed towards people entering, yes, absolutely become part of the foundations.
14:15
But you know, I truly believe for all of us, you know, going back and spending some time on the foundations is is a good thing.
It can't hurt at any time.
Exactly.
And if you're interested in that, go to concretedesignschool.com and you can read more about it and register there.
14:33
So there's that.
So the topic of today's podcast Jon Schuler is.
Yes, Sir.
Is concrete still in style?
Is concrete countertops or our concrete countertops still in style, Our concrete sink stone style, our concrete tile still in style.
14:52
And I had this, this came about from a conversation with an interior designer, us having, you know, they're always on what is on trend.
So interior design, they're always what's on trend.
And you know, it got me thinking, what makes something in style #1 and how do you maintain keeping it on trend?
15:10
Is that even possible to keep something on trend?
And I, you know, I have a few different thoughts on that, but I'm going to get your before I even tell you my side of it, I want to get your side of it.
In your opinion, are concrete countertop still in style?
What do you think?
Boy, that's a wide open question.
My first of all, my simple answer is absolutely, you know, and why is it in style?
15:31
I might have a different answer than you, but you know, because I see it from even the smallest to the largest meaning that is it still in style.
Even for people who, I don't know, think they got their information from a YouTube channel and you know, they're going to make their own vanity, well, that's in style.
15:50
From that point of view, the others meaning, you know, they may not be, they want to do something themselves.
They're not necessarily looking for something that you and I would, you know, stand behind from a business point of view.
But on the flip side of it, from a designing point of view, yeah, I would say they're absolutely still in style in the clientele base.
16:13
That's who who doesn't want to be part of what's become ordinary?
Does that make sense?
Absolutely, yeah.
Yeah.
You know, so absolutely.
I think of a live edge slabs, you know, that was hot ten years ago.
Live edge, everything was live edge, live edge, live edge that, you know, Noguchi was a master of it.
16:33
But then all these people, you know, you can buy live edge slabs at Home Depot and Lowe's now in the woods section they have them.
But that became the trend.
And for a while it was very on trend.
And now when you go to a Starbucks, they have fake live edge slabs and Starbucks, you know it's it's only a minute before McDonald's will have them and and before Love's truck stop has them.
16:53
And the live edge that you'll see at these places if you look carefully, which I think is interesting what they do, they take a hollow core door, essentially a slab.
They take a hollow core, hollow core panel and then they just laminate on bark along the edge.
And then they stain it dark brown and put a high gloss lacquer on it.
17:11
And from 5 feet away it looks like a live edge slab.
But when you get up here, you're like, oh, they just glued bark to the edge and it's, it's it's a hollow core door.
See, once you bastardize it or continue to bastardize whatever it is, then yeah, it's then.
17:27
It's not going to be a trend for very long anymore.
It's not going to be in demand.
But what drove it down?
And so I think, I think to look to what makes something on trend and what makes something in style, you have to look to things that failed that were once in style.
And for for me, what drove Live Edge to the bottom was a race to the bottom as far as price and value.
17:47
And you know, Live Edge originally came from a woodworker that had slabs stored in her shop and it had a premium on it.
And he came in and went this and, oh, that's going to be $20,000.
Great.
And that that kept it exclusive, that kept supply low because it wasn't at Home Depot and Lowe's, it was at a artisan woodworker shop.
18:05
And the price was high because there was a lot of work into a lot of craft into it.
When the price came down and the availability went through the roof, like I said, you can go to any hardware store and they'll just have slabs of them in the back.
Then the demand, as far as what's on trend, what a designer's looking for, what a homeowner's looking for, for, you know, what's on trend, that went away 100%.
18:28
They don't want it anymore because it's cheap and because it's readily available because now you're going to see it in Starbucks.
I don't want that anymore.
So, well, I'm.
I'm willing to say also the quality plummets.
Oh, the quality plums.
Yes or no?
But hold on, you can still go to any woodworker shop.
You can still go to a worker shop and get a live edge slabs.
18:45
You can still get high quality, but the.
Fact where I'm going with it is no, but the the slabs that are coming out of forest today are not the slabs of old growth wood.
So meaning the quality of the woods gone down and that's pretty easy.
I mean, you look at the, you look at today's 2 by forest man versus 2 by Forest were built in a home in the 60s and they're night and day.
19:09
Nah, I'm with you.
I've demoed the planet.
My house built in 1927, I think 1923, I don't know.
But when I demoed, yeah.
I mean you.
You take out two by fours in the the ring.
The growth rings are like a millimeter apart.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Yeah.
I mean, it's crazy, yeah.
And.
19:24
And you see that in today's new homes and the the shrinkage and the cracking and the, I mean, it's nuts.
Yeah, but I'm still there's still quality out there.
If you seek it out you find it.
I'm going to Arkansas this weekend.
I I have a property there that I'm looking at doing a a new build on and there's a local fabrication shop here.
19:45
It does really really high end wood and metal fabrication are called tin works.
TEN tin works and I I've I've been talking to the owner Nick and I met him a super nice guy.
And anyway, see I posted about my rammed earth house that I built in Arkansas, and I have another project and I actually have two projects I'm working on there.
20:04
And I said, I'm going there and he's like, hey, can I go with you?
I'm like, yeah, OK.
And so he's going to ride with me.
I'm going down there.
I'll be there for two days.
He's going.
To go with me, Are you bringing snacks?
I'm bringing snacks, but he better be bringing snacks, yes.
But my point with this Jon isn't, isn't I think it's awesome.
20:24
You know, I'll just say this, I mean we've kind of gone on a Segway, but it's an interesting Segway is in life.
Opportunities come up and for me some of the best things I've ever done have been when an opportunity presented itself and I said yes, that's been the best that happened with me.
When I did the show framework that happened with me when I did a Ted Talk, that's happened to me so many times my life, when something came up, I said yes.
20:46
I've never had anybody just say to me, hey, can I go with you.
That's never happened.
I was like at first I was like because I'm, I'm just used to like being by myself and listen to a podcast, you know, and and just cruising down the highway and I thought, yeah dude, yes, because I probably have a lot in common with this guy.
21:02
It'd be great conversation.
I'll get to know more about him and his business and everything he's working on and it's just a good opportunity.
But where I'm going with this, Jon is I went to.
See, I'm picturing your Yes, man.
I'm thinking of that Jim Carrey movie.
Remember that?
Yes, man.
I never saw that movie.
No, didn't see that was hilarious.
21:18
Didn't see it.
I'm not a huge, huge Jim Carrey fan.
I like some movies.
Jim Carrey But I'm not the biggest fan, so.
OK, well you should watch it because he he goes through a period of he's like, that's what someone teach you, like you need to start saying yes and he ends up on quite some adventures just saying yes.
21:37
Well, OK.
Let's stay on the Segway for a minute because that's a good thing about a podcast.
It's kind of long format.
We can go where we want to go.
So for instance, Framework, that TV show I was a judge on, I originally said no, and I said no a bunch of times to them.
And that that dates back to I'd been cast for a show for NBC and that was a bad experience for me.
21:58
And when that was over, I said I'll never again am I going to go through this again, you know?
And so this, this producer started reaching out and wanted me to come interview for the show.
And I said no, no, no, no.
Again and again and again and again.
And it was summertime in Phoenix.
You know, if anybody's ever been in Phoenix in summer, it's miserable.
22:17
My shop was an A seed.
It's it had a swamp cooler, which is an evaporative cooler.
And so it's muggy, it's 100° and just high humidity in the shop.
It's miserable.
It's miserable.
And so I kept getting these calls.
And Aaron, my wife, we weren't married yet.
22:32
We're dating, but she was working with my company and so she would sit on the other side of the desk for me.
And she kept hearing me say no to these people.
You know, I get a phone call.
Yeah.
I'm not interested.
Thanks.
And finally she said just, just go, just say yes.
Just go out there, meet with them, tell them, you know, you appreciate them, Have me come out.
22:49
It's not a good fit.
But if they have something in the future to keep you in mind, you know, don't say no, go out there and do that.
And I did.
And that's what led to me being a judge on the show.
And I originally wasn't cast as a judge, which is another crazy story.
I was originally cast as as a cast member.
23:05
And I told them in that meeting, listen, I know you want me.
And they're dying laughing.
I thought it was hilarious.
Mikey, I know you want me.
I don't want to do your show.
I appreciate it.
But if you guys need to judge, I'd be the Simon Cowell of concrete.
You guys have a great day.
Peace.
And I get up.
And I left.
I just left right and and then it came up, knocked my room and they said, listen, until you said it, we didn't think it.
23:27
But you said you should be the judge.
And we're like, yes, you should be the judge.
So I'm going to send you right now to go do a screen test.
And I'm like, dude, I was joking.
They're like, doesn't matter, We've been looking for a judge and like you, your personality, we're looking for it.
And I guess my point is, had I said, had I stuck with no, none of that would have unfolded, none of those, none of those life experience would have happened, right?
23:50
Well, that's what I say, yeah.
Life experience.
Yeah.
And so this, this weekend, me going out to to Arkansas and Nick going with me, I'm looking forward to it.
It's going to be fun.
It's going to be fun.
It's like when you hear these stories of people being on a flight and the flight gets grounded and they end up renting a car together and driving across country.
24:06
It's kind of like that, you know that that experience.
Trains automobiles.
Yeah, these aren't pillows.
So anyways, where I'm going with this Jon, and how I even got on Nick is I went to their shop here and they have a beautiful shop, this big brick building, historic building, like a barrel, wood ceiling.
24:24
You know, I'm talking about this curve.
Yeah, it's huge.
It's great.
And they have racks and racks of live edge slabs like walnut and oak that are drying.
But these are quality slabs, big, thick, you know, massive slabs that are that are high, high quality.
24:39
So my point is there's still people out there that are working with that type of wood and doing high quality work.
The point I'm trying to make is the demand and the price has plummeted because the supply has gone up and the price went down and due to that designers, it's no longer on trend like it was 10 years ago.
24:58
That's my point.
Interesting.
Well, but when I look at our industry and again maybe I'm jaded, I'm, I'm willing to say this.
Maybe I'm jaded what I have seen living, you know, my own story is that although even where I'm at, in fact I was just who I was just talking to somebody here recently at Starbucks in Angels Camp, CA outdoor, you know, out in the outdoor area there, the seating area.
25:27
Of course.
This is, this is such a Jon Schuler experience every time around Jon, for anybody listening anytime around Jon.
Jon talks to everybody.
Everybody.
Hey, good morning.
How's it going?
I'm like, Jon, you don't know this person.
Shut up.
Leave him alone.
Hey, Jon.
25:42
I did before before you finish this.
Before you finish the story, because I want to hear the story before you finish the story in Eureka Springs.
I lived there for seven years.
Seven years.
Didn't know a soul, right?
Small town like 700 people live there.
I live for seven years.
I go down to get a coffee one day at this like little tiny coffee shop hidden and really nice barista.
26:03
She's like making my, my drink and she's like, so are you.
Do you do you live here?
Are you on vacation?
Like, no.
I've lived here for like 7 years.
She's like, oh, OK Where I'm like, no, like a quarter mile down the road that big rammed earth building looks kind of stone.
She's like, Oh yeah, I know what that is.
I'm like, yeah, that's me And she's she's like, So what do you do?
26:21
I'm like, I do.
Jon, are you cutting out again, Jon?
I can hear you.
Partner.
All right, you cut out.
But so anyways, she's like, she's like, So what do you do?
And I'm like, oh, I do concrete, like concrete sinks to countertop.
26:38
She's like, really?
Do you know a guy named Jon Schuler?
I'm like, I do, actually.
He's my business partner in a in a concrete company called Kodiak Pro.
She's like, Oh my God, I love Jon.
Jon's the nicest guy.
Of course, Jon Schuler, a guy that lives in California, who's only in Eureka Springs for a couple days a year, knows everybody in the town.
26:57
I've been there for seven years.
I don't know anybody, of course.
You there, buddy?
All right, let's try this.
27:14
Again, well, there we are.
Yeah, that was weird, dude.
All of a sudden you get all like, I'm like, oh, I know he's talking.
And then and then that was gone.
That was your side somehow weird?
So you're at Starbucks, sitting outside and you started talking to somebody.
27:30
What happened?
Well, so, yeah.
So what I was going with it is outside this in the seating area are these, I don't know who made them these GFRC, it's a metal base and these GFRC tables, right.
27:45
And they're kind of like planks.
I don't know who made them and I don't care where I was going with it is anybody who sees those and that that's the perception of what concrete countertops is because that's still such a, you know it's such a wide, wide verbage to use concrete countertops.
28:06
You can see where literally people have gone up and I'm going to say poke their finger and broke through and the glass fiber showing and and they're all cracked and micro cracked and you know stained and etcetera etcetera That's all I.
28:22
Was saying, well they're probably a lot of stuff is made like Restoration Hardware.
They make a lot of it in Malaysia.
Well, that was my next thing is where where I think the demand will continue since this is what we're talking about, where I think the demand and and quality will continue to reside isn't in those tables that I see at Starbucks.
28:45
In fact, I'm probably going to talk to the manager and just on my own time, my own dime, just to replace them.
Not expecting anything out at.
I'm just one of those.
I hate stopping by there and see them.
Well, you better get free coffee for life, man, if you do that right.
But it reminds me of the time when Joe Bates was making these tables and, you know, very high quality, you know, selling them at, you know, high end and demand.
29:12
And the next thing you know, you mentioned Restoration Hardware.
Restoration Hardware knocked them off and was having let's say the the same table and looks and design features made somewhere else and brought in at like you know a fourth the cost.
29:32
And they were selling them for about the 4th, the cost as Joe was.
And I actually know people who bought them off Restoration Hardware not not knowing that Joe Bates and SC Fabrication had them but bought them because of the price.
And when they got them into their home, the quality was so bad, it completely turned them off to buying anything else, you know related to something called concrete countertops.
29:56
Now that changed.
That's a whole another story and and they went other directions, but so I think the demand will continue to stay high for quality product at a price point that shows quality product.
You know, just as I always say, you know, Rolexes are not going out of style.
30:14
Yeah, but if Rolexes were available at Walmart for $50, they would.
They're going to go out of style exactly because.
They lose their status.
Yeah, became the RU Lox instead of the Rolex.
Well, you know.
Here's my Here's my view on a junk is as long as supply is restricted and as long as the price is high, there's a market that responds to that, the wealthy market, the people that the things that are on trend, that's what they they aspire to have.
30:44
And I what's great about what we do is restricted supply is built in.
There's not a whole lot of people around the world to do what we do.
And there's been some people have tried to mass manufacture it.
They failed.
When people try to make slabs of concrete and fabricate it like they would stone, it never goes well, never ends well.
31:00
Yeah, it doesn't work.
Yeah, several people tried to, yeah.
And it just it's not worked out.
So by default because this is a handcrafted product, it the the supply is low, the only thing that can drive it down is if across the board everybody drop their prices dramatically and I don't think anybody would because you wouldn't be able to sustain as a business.
31:19
You know even at 150 a square foot in 2024, you're just you're you're getting by but you're not, you're not getting ahead, you know so if people are trying to drop it to say 50 bucks a square foot, you're going to go out of business.
I mean that's just, yeah, I've seen that happen for 20 years.
You know, we're talking about the last two decades.
31:35
I've seen so many people try to sell based on price.
You know, they're trying to be the low cost leader.
They're trying to be Walmart, they're selling because they're not selling based on design.
They're not selling based on whatever it is scale, you know, like I think of Michael Carmody, who does Massive Pieces, or Dusty Baker or Dusty Creek.
31:51
They're not selling price.
They're selling something else all all together.
To go along with that, sorry I'm interrupting you.
But to go along with that because I've talked to some of the people over the years and I hate to go back to where we started.
But with a few of those individuals having that conversation, a lot of the information that they thought they were gleaning from as the successful, experienced information was coming from people that were not successful.
32:21
And what do I mean by that?
Well, what I mean by like if you come sit down and talk to Jon Schuler over the, you know, whatever, 16 to 20 years, 20 years running my business, actually 22 now, but 16 years designing product and said, well, you know, jeez man, why do you charge what you charge?
32:40
I'll have a story for that and I'll have a reason why it necessitates that everything from the quality produced to going into the clients that I want to touch bases with and so forth and so on.
Now if you have that conversation, as I've heard many times with these individuals that found themselves at Lower Square foot prices or whatever they were doing and and quickly finding themselves on a hamster wheel of not making money, is because that information was coming from somebody who was never successful for it to begin with And is not, how would I say is not wading in the waters.
33:15
Maybe again, maybe then instead they're selling on instruction or whatever the case may be.
But because they're so disconnected from the things that are truly happening, their information is so inconsequential that it's leads people down a bad track rather than than helping them be successful.
33:36
That's what I've seen, and I'm not, you know, I just just stopped me in to point directly at anybody.
So if anybody takes that, like I can't believe, no, I'm not pointing that at anybody because there's a lot of bad information on it out there.
Tons.
I posted a a little meme.
33:54
I guess it's a meme.
It's a quote on my Facebook from Seneca that said men can be divided into two groups, one that goes ahead and achieve something and one that comes after and criticizes.
And I think about, you know, there's another really famous speech called the the the man in the arena that talks about, you know, he's the one that matters.
34:12
The guy that actually goes out there and does it, That's the that's the guy that that matters, not the people that criticize and belittle after the fact, right.
But yeah, I mean, there's there's definitely a lot of that.
There's a lot of that that happens.
You know, I was talking about Dustin, I was talking about Carmody.
34:27
But it got me thinking about something else before we continue this conversation about style.
But it got me thinking about scale.
And that scale is a selling point.
So Michael Carmody does massive pieces.
He did a video like 12 or 15 years ago called The White Whale that's no longer on YouTube.
34:47
It was, it's gone.
I don't know where it went, but it was Michael Carmen D casting this huge white concrete countertop probably weighed 2000 lbs.
Three 1000 lbs.
And him and one other guy were flipping it over and then they maneuvered it.
They loaded it in a Ryder truck.
35:02
They drove it to the job site, they unloaded it, they got it.
They had like 2 inches of clearance on each side of the wall.
They got it around and then they used just two by fours and winches to get it up over the the cabinets and set it two guys.
It was amazing.
It was an amazing thing to to see and I wish that that video was still on YouTube because it's so good.
35:20
But my point is that was scale.
Dusty Baker does massive scale pieces.
I mean, I don't think there's anybody out there at this point in time that are still anything bigger than Dusty Dusty's doing.
Islands that it would give me a nightmare.
It would give me a nightmare.
Dude, I would have so many things.
35:36
I I'm pretty pretty sure I have a ulcer right now.
I'm calling the Doctor in a few days, but that's where.
He pulls some of that stuff up and you know the way it from the forklift, just it's like he's standing next to it, next to the, you know, the big whale.
And they're freaking human.
35:52
They're.
Huge.
But I I don't think there's anybody anywhere in the world doing pieces bigger than than Dusty Baker.
Where I'm going to this is, you know, talking about the bad information.
There's people out there that have you believe you need to have an engineer sign off on it.
They need to review it and give you the OK.
36:09
Dusty Baker's highly successful.
He doesn't ask an engineer for approval.
You know Michael Carmody.
As far as I know, and I've known Carmody for a long time, he's not going to an engineer and asking them to review his pieces and sign off on it.
So there's there's this bad information that leads you to believe leads you down the path you hit your wagon to to to the wrong person, leads you on a path of seeking the wrong thing and focusing on the wrong thing, and ultimately leads to your demise.
36:33
I don't know one single successful person that relies on engineer, especially a geotechnical engineer.
My father is a civil engineer, a structural engineer and a geotechnical engineer and he doesn't know Jack about concrete mix design, right.
Nothing.
36:49
Those engineering degrees mean nothing in the world of what we do.
And he would say that, you know, yeah, he can design A bridge for you and he can design a dam for you and he can, you know, do a soil analysis and and recommend the footing design.
37:05
But if you say, hey, can you make me a concrete mix design of this?
No, none of that applies.
It's completely irrelevant.
So anyways, my point is bad information, Bad information in, bad information out.
Hit your wagon to somebody that's a failed business owner, You're going to be a failed business owner.
That's that's.
37:21
What I also say those without the egos.
I think I I mentioned this before.
My neighbors just just literally built a house right behind my house, right?
Super, super nice people, Mike.
I can't think of his last name, but amazing.
Anyway, he works.
37:39
Oh shoot, I can't.
You know one of the chip companies, right?
We were over it prior to going on vacation.
Having dinner with these great, great people down to earth is pretty amazing.
And I don't know what his specific engineering was, but we ended up in this conversation where he was just laughing about how you know the true value in what he does now because he's way up there in.
38:06
What he does is he specifically targets people with experience.
Not degrees, not pH, DS, not, you know, hey, you know, I got all these years and you know, maybe, maybe points to their degrees to say, hey hire me because of this.
38:24
This is what makes me important.
He doesn't look at any of that anymore, and he hasn't for a long time.
He's found time and time and time again that the people who come in of value to the company are people with experience, not not degrees.
38:42
He still hires degrees because sometimes you just need that as a part of your letterhead or something.
But the people who truly valuable are the ones with experience.
Yeah, applied knowledge.
Will always went out.
I I built my shop.
I built a massive garage which could have been a pretty big house out of rammed earth and I built my house out of rammed earth and I didn't have an engineer sign off or do anything right.
39:09
I did all the stuff myself.
I did all design myself and so I'm working on where I'm going through this.
I'm working on a project right now in Missouri Rammed Earth project and the structural engineer reached out because this is the plans need to be need to have engineering done and stamped and all that kind of good stuff for the county to approve it.
39:26
And I drew up what I recommended I recommended grade beam.
I recommended this rebar schedule in this layout and he he ran all the calculations like it's overkill but yeah I like it and that's what we're going to do.
My point is you don't if you if you know what you're doing if you have real world experience an engineer can look at it like this guy did and look at it and say no that's perfect that's great.
39:49
Yeah.
I'm I'm totally fine with that that's this is if this what you do and I ran the Calx, you're good.
Perfect.
Great.
Right.
So that wins out.
But anyways, we got off track.
Let's get back on track.
You ready to get on track, Jon?
OK, OK.
So let's get on track.
Let's bring this back.
40:04
And back to the conversation at hand is, are concrete countertops on style?
Yes, they're on style based on restricted supply and based on price.
Like I said, the only thing that I think we'll ever get it to.
Drop in that demand would be if price came down, but price cannot come down even if you manufacture in Malaysia, even if you manufacture overseas somewhere in a Restoration Hardware, they're having a hell of a time.
40:30
I I talked about this on a very early podcast but I was contacted by Restoration Hardware through through a third party and there they had a massive failure rate with the concrete they're having manufactured in Malaysia.
And they have a return policy where if somebody had they they did a table or they did a fire table or whatever.
40:47
If it cracked Restoration Hardware would like they have like white glove service and go and remove it out of the out of the house which could be on the 10th floor in San Francisco or New York or wherever it is.
You know they'd have to go get it, replace it and something like 30% or more of the pieces coming over were already broken when they arrived.
41:04
So they had a huge rate of breakage.
So anyways, and those, those, even Restoration Hardware, they're cheap, but they're not cheap.
I mean, they're cheap for concrete, but they're still not cheap for a table, no?
You know, I don't.
I don't think they're inexpensive.
No.
No.
And and if anybody's interested in ever working with a company like that, don't.
41:23
And the reason is I worked with another company that is like that, like Restoration Hardware, but like that.
And they wanted me to do a collection of furniture and I designed a really cool chair and a really cool side table and coffee table.
I did all the renderings.
I worked with the company to to 3D model everything.
41:40
I I mean I came prepared.
They wanted pricing.
They want to order 1000 units of this, 1000 units of that.
They wanted price on delivery, you know, they they wanted all the stuff.
So I got the whole presentation together.
I flew to San Francisco, I sat down with him, showed him the chair.
The chair had a bronze base, cast bronze base, beautiful UHPC concrete shell, a formed leather seat pad which was super complex and I sorted out how to do all that.
42:07
And anyways my price on that chair in mass like at 1000 units was like $770 and that was pretty much my break even point.
You know it wasn't it.
Retail would have been like 7 or $8000 OK for that chair so but if I was going to make 1000 of them I'd done all the math on I set up 20 molds and do 20 a day and I you know all this kind of stuff and OK I can make this work.
42:29
I'm not going to make a ton of money but will be cashflow positive and if I'm doing they wanted the lamp as well so I did you know lamps and lamps.
I want like 5000 units of the lamp and all this kind of stuff.
So anyways I go down and meet with them.
My first slide is the chair and and I have a breakdown of the cost and they're like, oh, Oh no, no, no, no.
42:49
Because it's like my wholesale rate to them was like 770 unit without freight and they're like, no, we need to be like $147 on that.
And they already told me, no joke.
They already told me and I'm going off memory so my number's probably not not correct.
43:07
They're they had planned to put the price point of the chair and they gave this to me in their original briefing of like $7000 or $8000, right?
That's their price point for the chair.
They told me that that was irrelevant to me.
I'm going to give them my price based on that number of units but so already know their plan of retail and they're like, no, we need to be at 143 dollars, 147, whatever.
43:26
It was some ridiculous number ridiculous and I just told them we're a bridge too far.
I mean I'm giving you guys my absolute like if everything goes as planned and you know we don't have massive issues we'll make some money.
Not a lot of money.
But at 147 I'm, I'm throwing money into it like mass amount of money.
43:45
I'm losing so much money.
I just ended the meeting right then I even though I'd flown there and I'd put all this money into putting together this proposal and generating all this stuff.
I just it's a bridge too far.
There's no point even talking about it.
And I had a partner on that, the guy at the third party that brought me in for this meeting and I just told him there's there's no way to even, we're not even close.
44:06
So I ended it right then.
So anyways, my point with that is, again, we're off track, But if anybody's interested in doing that type of work, it's a world of pain and the only way to do it is to do it in Malaysia.
And then then you're going to have 30% breakage and you're going to be breaking into people's houses and it's going to be a big, a big train wreck.
So it's.
A Well, that was the ultimate demise of the Trazo as well.
44:23
Yeah, like I told you, I went out.
I mean, you know, spent time with them, really turned it all around.
But the reality was at the end of the day although they had a they had hired a a great chemist at the time to that they brought in house.
44:41
So I worked with him and we really turned it on.
But, but that time, yeah, their their breakage rate was so it was just so big it it just it couldn't be it was not sustainable.
Yeah.
And one of those companies to get like big federal grants to get off the ground, you know, because they're a green technology employing green jobs, all that kind of stuff.
45:02
Yep, it lasts for a few years and then they they burn up that that fond and then, you know, got a closed shop.
But anyways, so damn it, we've gone on like 20 different Segways.
Let's stay on point, Jon.
I feel like I'm ADHD today.
45:18
Like I need to.
I need to take some what?
What does that pill that people take?
What is it for?
For ADHD?
What are we thinking of a roofie?
No, not a roofie.
What the hell am I thinking of all the kids taking these days?
45:34
Adderall.
Adderall.
I need some damn Adderall, man.
I've never taken Adderall, but it probably helped me anyways.
So the other part of this too, is positioning the product.
If you want to stay on trend, if we want to keep concrete on trend, on demand, we got to position it as as a community, as a premium luxury product.
45:54
Now there's a caveat.
There's going to be business segments of this industry that don't need to be positioned as a premium luxury product, such as wall caps, such as bollards, such as.
I mean, there's a lot of things in this industry that are using the UHPC concrete, they're using high quality, but they don't need to present themselves to the public as being a premium luxury product.
46:15
I get that.
And so if that's what you do, great.
You know you can Fast forward.
You don't need to hear this part of it, but if you're in the business of making concrete sinks, countertops, furniture and tile, you're probably going to be wanting to position yourself to your clientele as a premium luxury product because that's where the price point is, that's where the demand is.
46:36
And the way you do that, you know, the easiest way to do it is look to other companies that do that.
So look to you, brought up Rolex, that's a great example.
Look to Rolex, look to Bugatti, look to Mercedes, look to to brands, you know, Cartier, Hermes, there's a lot of different brands out there that are focused on the luxury demographic.
46:56
So look to what they do.
And the first step of that, in my advice to the listeners is focus on photography, focus on quality photography.
This is something that I can't stress enough.
It's one of the tenants of when we teach a class, we talk to people about, you know, what is need to be needed to be successful in this industry.
47:13
Photography is number one.
I look at so many people's websites.
I see, you know, comments on Facebook and these threads back and forth and I'll click on a person's link and click on their business and photography is horrible.
It's horrible #1.
So right then, a client looking at that.
You've dropped your your perceived quality and value and and your place in their mind of like luxury dramatically if the photography doesn't match.
47:39
So get a professional photographer, don't use your iPhone, don't go out and get a DSLR even if you have a fancy camera.
I promise you, professional photographer with an iPhone will take a 10 times better photo than you with the highest in camera.
That exists, right?
So hire a professional.
47:56
Somebody that is good at their craft photography is definitely.
There's talent involved.
It's not just equipment, it's not just lighting.
There's talent and there's people everywhere in in this country that are talented at it.
Find that person, hire that person, pay their price, get those photos.
48:12
Those photos will pay dividends.
So number one, professional photography, #2 professional website.
Again, we live in a day and age your touch point with the customer.
Most customers if you're shipping your product and you really should be shipping your product.
The problem with being a local company, if you're Jack of all trades, master of none, you're only going to be selling within a 10/15/20 mile radius of where you are.
48:33
OK, If there's an economic downturn, which I've lived through, and you've lived through.
If there's an economic downturn and you're stuck to your local demographic.
I was in Phoenix when the crash happened in 2007.
Everybody went out of business.
I was the only company that existed in Phoenix when the crash happened.
48:49
And the reason was Phoenix and Las Vegas were the two hardest hit markets in the United States.
My house went from from 350,000.
They were auctioning on my street for $35,000.
My house was worth 110th what I paid for it.
OK, so Phoenix was one of the hardest hit markets.
49:05
Concrete dried up immediately.
Nobody was building.
Nobody was putting concrete countertops, concrete sinks, nothing.
The the whole city.
Just it was.
It was crazy living in Phoenix during the crash.
But the reason I, I, I survived that was because Phoenix wasn't my demographic.
49:22
I was shipping, I was shipping to New York, I was shipping to Seattle, I was shipping to Bozeman, Mt.
I was shipping all over the place.
And because of that, those clients as wealthy clients, they weren't affected by the the economic downturn, right.
They were still building their nice luxury homes and they were still specking the products.
49:39
So my point is your touch point with these customers, they're not going to come down to your shop.
It's great to have a nice shop.
It's great to have a nice showroom.
That's all all good, but for the most part, if you're shipping, you're never going to have an interaction with your customer face to face.
So your touch points are going to be your website, the photography on your website, which is critical.
49:56
And if those two things are lacking, you're going to drop your perceived value.
And they're they're not going to have confidence that when you say this sink is $10,000 or this table's $20,000, they're not going to pay those prices because your your website doesn't reflect that level, OK?
Or you don't reflect.
50:12
Yeah, that's the difference of showing up, you know, looking professional.
I mean, again, as as much of us, as much as any of us doesn't want to admit it, the reality is, you know, first impressions matter.
And that's just the way it is.
50:28
Yeah, you know, way it is.
That's why.
Yeah, that's why I spend all this time.
Everybody knows how pretty I am and it takes time, dude.
It does To make your mascara, yeah.
Yep.
50:43
You know it.
You know it.
Anyways, Jon, I was on A roll, man.
I'm on A roll.
I'm in it.
I'm in a zone right now.
So websites.
My my last bit of advice on websites is there was a time I've spent, no joke, over over 20 years.
51:00
I've spent close to a probably $100,000, no joke on my websites because I've gone through several redesigns over the years, hired professional companies, They're raised 20,000.
We did one website.
There's $70,000 and never even launched.
It's for a business.
I never even did.
That's a whole nother story for different day.
A lot of it was in trade, we did a lot of furniture for this company, custom desks and what not.
51:18
But it was a big cash payment as well to them and we built this crazy website, insane website and I never ever moved forward.
I just didn't have the time.
I still don't have the time.
So anyways, but my point is I've spent a ton of money and today in 2024 you can go to squarespace.com.
51:36
You can build a professional website.
I have no affiliation affiliation of Squarespace.
I don't get paid a penny from those guys.
My point is I've I'm using their platform right now to build the website for Momo.
Make Momo the modern mold website and it's super easy and you generate a very high quality website for like 20 bucks a month and it's completely on par with a $20,000 website.
52:01
So you don't have to have a big budget.
So there's no excuse, there's no excuse to to have a GoDaddy tonight or a Wix website or any of these things that I see, these low budget websites, these free websites, they they feel low budget, they feel cheap.
And if that's what you're presenting to a client, they're not going to trust you with making a table that you quoted $20,000 on.
52:22
They're just not going to do it.
So my last, well, I have two more pieces of advice on this.
My next piece of advice is, so they go to your website, great photography, right?
Website's great as far as layout and design and everything like that.
But if you have typos and I see this dude, it's insane.
52:40
I go to not not just concrete related, but I went to a website some super famous like business coach and visionary you know of like he he was in architecture magazine.
His house was, it's this crazy house.
And so I got interested.
I'm like, who is this guy?
I've never heard of this guy.
52:55
If I looked him up and has a website and you know all this kind of stuff.
And I was reading his website and it was just riddled with typos.
His copy that the, you know, the verbiage just riddled with it.
And this guy is like supposedly, you know, this world leader of of business coaching for super successful CE OS and whatever.
53:13
But his website didn't convey that it it was just typo after typo and grammatical errors and punctuation errors, I'm just like, whoa, whoa, like this.
There's a disconnect here, right.
So my point is, good photography, good website, good copy.
53:30
If you ever heard the term copy, I'm not talking about copy paper.
I'm talking about the verbiage.
On your website there are people that are copywriters, you know, ChatGPT, you hear about chat GB, Tai, all this kind of stuff, ChatGPT, AI, it's cool.
But don't let a robot write the verbiage for your website, OK?
53:47
Hire somebody.
There's a difference.
There's a difference.
Hire somebody that's a good copywriter to write the copy, a professional copyright to write a copy of your website.
There's a difference between a human and a robot on this.
And that is the third part of this to generate image of luxury and quality to a customer that you'll never meet face to face.
54:06
OK, the 4th and final part of this, Jon, is the touch point.
You have that customer, so at some point you're going to send them something, you're going to send them a submittal, you're going to send them a material sample, a brochure, something.
You're going to send them something at some point.
When you do that, be thoughtful with what you send them.
54:24
Meaning, generate a label, professionally designed label, higher graphic designer for the back of your sample.
Make a nice sample.
Don't just, you know, cast a big slab and cut it into squares.
I see that so many times it looks bad.
Like actually make something that's cool, OK, have a nice box, have nice packaging, have a nice business card.
54:44
You know, we talked about business cards, but you know, you see, Realtors handing out these aqueous coded business cards are super high gloss.
They feel cheap.
They look cheap.
They get those for like, you know, a penny a piece on whatever it is one day printing.com or something.
55:00
That is not luxury you need to hire.
I mean, even MU moo.com will do letterpress cards now that you know they're $1.50 a piece or whatever, Order 100 and 150 bucks.
They'll last you for years because you're not throwing them out at every person you see.
You're only give them to an architect or designer or to to a client that is a serious person.
55:18
So dollar fifty is a small investment that can pay dividends to to a big project.
But you need to convey your level of professionalism and luxury and quality, and it's through your touch points, through your photography, through your website and through your copy.
That is my Ted talk.
That's my master class.
55:35
If you do those things, position yourself, that's going to pay dividends for running a successful business.
And you're not going to hear that from somebody that ran a failed business 20 years ago because they don't know what they don't know.
I'll.
Just leave it at that.
Yeah, leave it at that.
Leave it at that.
There you go.
All right.
So anything else, Jon?
55:52
No, no, I think that covers most everything for the moment.
Yeah, 2024, baby, I think it's going to be a great year.
I'm looking forward to it.
Yeah, there's one more thing I want to hit.
Another thing.
It's not bad, but it's just it's something, well, it's just something that I thought was interesting back and forth on on Facebook.
56:13
There is a on on one of the Facebook pages.
There was a conversation go back and forth and somebody mentioned to the person who was asking a question, you should take a class.
And then there's a lot of, a lot of negative comments to that poster.
You know, calm and egomaniac and stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
56:29
And you're like, I don't need to take class.
I'm just going to watch YouTube, OK.
You know, again, we live in a free world.
Do what you want, Do whatever you want to do, Take the path you want to take.
But staying on 20 years of doing this and watching the way things go, here's what I'll say about YouTube and I'm I'm not a YouTube hater.
56:47
I think YouTube has a place in society.
I use YouTube.
You know, yeah, I'd go to YouTube.
Yeah, I'd replace.
I put LED bulbs on my truck.
You know, first thing I do, How to replace headlight bulbs on a RAM 2500, right?
I go to YouTube and look for that.
57:03
But if this is your career, this is your livelihood, this how you provide for your kids, your family, your retirement, your kids, college, whatever it is, This is your livelihood.
This isn't changing bulbs on your truck.
You know, this isn't anything like that.
This is your livelihood.
57:20
I would highly encourage you not to build your career based on videos posted to YouTube, because most of the videos on YouTube are well meaning people, but they're hobbyist.
They're hobbyist, They're weekend warriors.
Those are the people making videos, publishing videos for the most part on YouTube.
57:36
The real professionals in any industry, no matter what it is, the real true high level professionals are not making free videos and how to do what they do every day, and they provide for the families and post them on YouTube.
There's no vested interest in doing that.
So if you want to build a career in any business, go to the people that are successful and if they have training, which not all industries do.
57:55
When I started my my business in 2004, there wasn't any real training.
Buddy Rhodes had a class.
Buddy Rhodes, a man, had a class.
I didn't teach anything and I love Buddy as a person, but that class didn't teach anything.
It was dump concrete in a mixer and spray water with a hose.
How much water, Buddy?
That much.
58:11
How much is that?
Is that a gallon?
Buddy looks about right, but what is that, Buddy?
Is that is that a gallon?
And 1/2 right there.
I didn't learn anything meaningful to run a business in that class, right?
I met Buddy.
I love Buddy.
I think Buddy's a great person.
My point was there wasn't quality training at that point.
58:27
If you're lucky enough to be in an industry, whether it's metalworking, concrete, whatever it is, and there's quality training from people that successfully been in that business for a long time, it might be a good investment to go to that training.
OK, so YouTube has its place.
58:43
But I would never.
I'd never built a career that I'm going to base my livelihood, my family's future on by watching YouTube.
I wouldn't do it now.
If I'm just going to cast something from my backyard, I want to make a a fire pit.
OK, yeah, go to YouTube.
That's fine.
Great.
Do that.
You're probably going to get hobbyist results by watching a video made by hobbyist.
59:02
But if you, Yeah, that's OK.
Yeah, if that's what you're.
Looking for that's what I'm saying and I've done that plenty of times.
But if you want professional results, either higher professional or attend professional training and and get on the right track and learn how to do it the right way.
That's all I want to say about that because those comments of like, oh, I'm not going to, I'm not going to go to class.
59:18
I'll just watch YouTube.
I'm just everything like, man, you're just, it's one thing to do a project for your house for the weekend.
It's a different thing to build your business but only rely on YouTube videos made by hobbyist, you know.
So I agree.
Anyways, all right.
On that note, Jon, oh, the last thing we haven't talked about it but we should is going to be the craft concrete cures.
59:38
We still want to do this health challenge.
You know you're back from vacation.
I need to get healthy.
You know, my belt's still a little too snug for my liking, so.
Well, I don't know if you heard it the whole time I've been sitting here and if you heard that noise going on, that's my belt loops.
Popping.
Actually going.
59:58
Has your your button just popping off your pants and flying across the room?
I'll tell you what, though.
I mean, now that we're talking about this for a minute, I've had some great conversations since I got back from various people who are in a I'm going to say a similar mindset, man, not just oh the new year, but everything from nutrition, you know, cold plunging vitamins.
1:00:23
I've had some fantastic.
So, you know, I I'm excited to move something like that forward with all of us.
You know, same thing now.
It's not necessarily concrete.
It's, I'm going to say, you know, well-being, self, you know.
1:00:39
But again, it's, I don't know how that could not be, again, a very integral part of what a person's doing in their business life as well.
Because if you're feeling better and if you're making strides forward, then you know that all of that is I I don't know how you're going to say it.
1:01:01
It's just going to flood into everything you're doing from your relationships, personal relationships, business perspective, the whole, you know, the whole gambit.
So it's, I think, yeah, I'm really excited about it.
Well, I mean, we'll see if other people are excited about it, but if you are, reach out to us, send us a text, send us an e-mail, comment on Facebook, whatever that you want to do, the, the health challenge that we are going to do here.
1:01:25
So we're going to set up an app, set up a group, and we'll track our progress and we'll set some benchmarks and you know, we'll do some prizes in there.
We'll do like a set of diamond pads for whoever wins this, this benchmark and whatnot.
So we'll figure that out.
But you know, we want to make it fun.
But make.
It fun at the same time.
1:01:41
Yeah, But you know I'm just as somebody that's that's self-employed, I need to focus more on my health.
In addition to running a business, I need to focus on me as well-being healthy, taking care of myself.
That's all part of it as well.
So there's that.
1:01:57
And you know, I mentioned, I mentioned to you last year I was sick for like 4 months.
You'll see on the podcast last year there was that whole period all winter where I, you know, my voice was just, I couldn't talk.
I was so sick.
This year you turned me on to vitamin D3.
1:02:13
With K2, you're like, dude, just try it.
I I've been taking it.
I'm not saying that's the reason I haven't gotten sick, but my kids have gotten sick numerous times.
You know they go to school and they'll come home and they'll be sick for a few days.
I've I've somehow skirted it.
So was it that?
1:02:29
Maybe, maybe not.
But it hasn't hurt anything.
I just know what is it 9090% of all of us are lacking in those vitamins because I mean, realistically, we're not out in the sun with our skin producing the D3, so it is what it is, yeah.
1:02:45
So anyways, all right, buddy.
Well, let's wrap it on that and then we'll catch up next week.
All right, man.
All right.
Good talking to you.
Adios.
You said it when I said that.
We'll say it.
We'll say it a different time, no?
No, I got to get it.
In quickly, man, I'm going to say it.
1:03:01
No, no, I know it's why we in this.
So I'm going to say it.
Then you're going to say it.
You ready?
OK.
Go adios, amigo.
Adios.
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