Integrity Over Income: Why Doing the Right Thing Pays Off

“Integrity is doing the right thing, even when it costs you. In this business, that’s how you earn trust - and trust builds a reputation that money can’t buy.” -Brandon Gore

Most people think success is about strategy. But more often than not, it’s about character.

In this heartfelt episode of The Concrete Podcast, Brandon and Jon sit down for a raw, real conversation about the moments that test your integrity - and define your legacy. When a client comes to you after working with another maker, it’s easy to chase the win. But doing right by others, even when it costs you, is how you build a career that lasts.

They’ll unpack lessons from the early days - what they got wrong, what they made right, and how those pivotal choices shaped who they are today. You’ll hear stories that sting, moments that taught, and why showing up with honesty will always outlast the short-term hustle.

If you're a builder, artisan, or craftsman looking to grow a business and sleep well at night, this one's for you. And if you're tired of half-baked mixes and fly-by-night brands, they’ll share why tools like Kodiak Pro are made by makers who live what they sell.

Because in this game, character is the concrete.

#CraftWithCharacter

#ConcretePodcast

#MakersMindset

#KodiakPro

#DoTheRightThing

#BuildToLast

#StoryDrivenBusiness

#SelfDevelopmentPodcast

#EthicalEntrepreneurship

#GrowthThroughIntegrity

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello, Jon Schuler.

Hello, Brandon Gore.

How was Las Vegas?

It was great, man, it was great.

I mean, it's seven and a half, eight hours drive.

We always turn it into a big family trip.

I mean, we laugh, we have a great time.

This year, it wasn't too hot, so I didn't have a whole lot of complaints from the ladies, me and my wife and my daughter.

And overall, every time is a learning experience.

Anybody who is watching, my son was out there shooting trap at the Nationals Championship.

He did well, learned some things, and we'll keep moving along.

But it was great.

Thanks for asking.

Yeah, man.

And you had a dead mouse in the rental car?

You got a rental car and it smelled like death?

Oh my god, man.

You know, I think I even post something.

I have no idea.

Even when I dropped it off, I'm like, you guys, someone needs to look at that in, either the cabin filter, something, because literally each morning when we go out there and turn that car on, I know I have to go out there early, open up all the doors, turn on the air conditioner.

Oh my god, it was gnarly.

It was just gnarly.

I don't know how to say it.

You know, you can't even say it smelled dead.

It smelled like someone's rotten, stinky, sweaty feet.

Weird.

Dude, I had a Russian roof rat climb into the frame of my Toyota Tundra in Phoenix.

So there's Russian roof rats in Phoenix.

Tons of them.

They're the size of like cats.

They're massive.

And it crawled into the frame of my truck.

I used to park outside.

It crawled into the frame of my truck and died in the frame.

And I got in my truck.

It's summertime.

It's like 115 outside.

I get in my truck.

I'm like, man, it doesn't smell good.

What's that?

Like the first day in the morning.

And then, you know, go to work.

I go and get my truck in the afternoon.

It smelled like 10 times worse.

I'm like, oh dude, that's bad.

Like, where's it coming from?

And so I go home and it's getting worse.

I have my windows down.

I'm driving down the road.

It's like 115.

All the windows down.

I get home and then I end up pulling the seats out.

I could smell it was in the back.

So I pulled the back seat out.

I pulled the back carpet and all the panels off.

And I could smell, I found it.

I'm like, it's right there.

So I go to the dealership and they're like, yeah, dude, it's coming from right there, but there's no way to get to there.

So they had to cut a hole in the truck to get to that spot.

And they scoped in and they stuck it into the frame.

They could see the frame there.

They stuck the camera in a hole.

And there was a dead roof rat.

And they had to pull it out piece by piece, just like little pieces.

And they said, You're not the first, man.

This has happened many times.

Because the way they designed the frames on the tundra is the rat could get in, but it couldn't get out.

There's like no exit hole.

And it couldn't back back out.

And so anyways, you know, I've been there.

We just laughed.

I mean, that's all we could do is laugh.

Like, and then we just made up all these stories that were we were just laughing our butts off.

The other time you get in, you know, your wife, you're like, really, really, you know, you had to do this in the car, right?

Yeah.

I left this little sweaty butt underwear in there or something.

Oh, my God, man.

Yeah.

But it was great.

Yeah.

We have a good time.

That's good.

Awesome.

Well, we're a week behind because of that, but that's all right.

We're trying to stay on a two week schedule.

And so now we're on week three.

But that's all right.

We get the industry a moment to breathe and see what's going on.

And, you know, it's kind of fun.

It's very interesting.

And I use that a lot, the word interesting to see what transpires.

So straight up for a week, I was engaged somewhere else.

I mean, we were we were literally out there at the club early in the morning, you know, doing our thing.

And then the first day was completely shot.

We had to run around and find a way to fix his gun.

So that's where morning, evening, you know, trying to get used to the, trying to get him used to the environment and stuff.

And then you pretty much stay out there most of the day, you know, during the thing.

So access to the Internet is just not a thing.

It's nice, you know, sometimes.

But it's also it's interesting to see what transpires in a week when things are quiet.

Yep.

Yeah, there's some funny stuff to happen.

I think we'll talk about it.

Hey, before we do that, I want to tell you, don't ever drink a 300 milligram coffee drink.

It's like Monster has these coffee drinks, so 300 milligram caffeine, 300 milligrams of caffeine.

So don't ever drink that and then take a ZEN nicotine pack, because that's what I did yesterday morning.

I didn't eat any breakfast.

I grabbed 300 milligram caffeine.

Dude, let me tell you, before we get into this, I want to tell you what happened to me yesterday.

I was supposed to go on a podcast for the hotel that I'm working on.

I have a hotel project, personal project, passion project.

And I was going to go on a hospitality podcast, talk about it, and at noon.

So I came in at 8.30, I have concrete in my shop.

I have to de-mold, I got to do stuff.

I got to work before I do this podcast.

So I stop at a gas station, get a 300 milligram caffeine coffee drink, come in, I down that.

I'm like, just chug it.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And I drink those things all the time, but I kind of sip on them late in the day, not first thing in the morning before I've eaten.

So I just down it and I'm like, all right.

And I get in here and I, you know, I don't like pop zins all day, but one or two a day, whatever.

So I pop a zin in, I start working.

I'm like, man, I don't feel good.

It's kind of weird.

And all of a sudden I just got like hot and sweaty, like drenched in sweat, just boom.

And I run to the bathroom and I puke three times.

And the last time I puked is probably like five years ago.

I got food poisoning the night before a workshop, like a big workshop in Eureka Springs.

I got food poisoning and I puked all night long and then had to go in and teach class next day.

That was the last time I puked.

I hate puking.

It's like my least favorite thing.

Some people don't mind it.

Same, I'm not a fan.

Yeah, I will fight it all the way.

I hate to puke.

So anyways, puke three times.

So then I'm like laying, I have a couch in my front office.

I'm laying on the couch.

I turn AC down like 60 degrees.

I'm just like, laying there.

And I call my wife and she's like, well, do you want me to bring you some anti-nausea medicine?

Because we have this stuff from like when she was pregnant that you put underneath your tongue and it keeps you from puke.

And I'm like, by the time you get here, whatever, don't even worry about it.

But I saw a TikTok and this doctor is saying that if you get Dramamine and put it underneath your tongue, it's pretty close to the same thing.

So I'm like, all right.

So I go to Walmart and get Dramamine, get a Sprite, come back to my shop, pop the thing underneath my tongue.

It's like you put like a bleach tablet underneath your tongue.

It tasted horrible, horrible, whatever.

So this is like 30 minutes for the podcast.

Now it's like 1130.

So it dissolves.

But what they didn't say in the TikTok video is like, it's like anesthesia.

It was like I went to the dentist and they like numb my mouth.

My tongue was all swollen up.

It's like, I can't even talk now, bro.

My wife called, she's like, she's like, how are you feeling?

I'm like, I don't know.

Dude, so I have like 30 minutes to the podcast.

I'm walking around my shop, just trying to get my tongue to like loose up.

I'm like talking, like just trying to like.

So anyways, finally, it's noon.

I'm still I'm like 60 percent like I feel still feel like death.

My tongue is still swollen, still drooling out the side of your mouth.

So I jump on this call with this guy and only have it on audio, like me and you do.

I hate video.

I only have it on audio on my computer.

And you guys are like, hey man, do you have video?

And I'm like, yeah.

And I turned it on.

I'm like, dude, it's been a rough day.

Like I've already puked three times, like, you know.

So we start the podcast and-

You got corn, you still got corn and you're a good beard.

Yeah.

So we start the podcast and he had audio issue on his side, like a clicking noise.

He's like, is it okay if we do this tomorrow?

And I'm like, yeah, please, let's do it tomorrow.

So I guess my lesson, my life lesson is don't do 300 milligram caffeine drink and then is in without eating any food, first thing in the morning.

It's a bad, bad combination.

So anyways, I just hopped on Facebook while we were talking, while you were talking, I hopped on Facebook and this ad popped up from this company and it's from a training, concrete training organization that I will not name.

But it says drop it like it's GFRC.

And it's a video of this person dropping this thing and breaking, but not shattering.

And they're trying to say like, that's good.

It didn't shatter.

It just broke, blah, blah, blah.

And it cracks me up because this person that's doing this video, two things, three things.

First thing is they railed against GFRC for years.

When I taught the first class on GFRC in 2005 or 2006, I got to look back.

But back then, they railed against it.

You don't need to do GFRC.

It's overkill.

You know, now they're on the GFRC train, which I love.

Second thing is, I was thinking about this the other day.

The same person, we did a podcast.

We were talking about equipment and scales.

And I said, you know, I just use an Amazon scale.

It's like 10 bucks.

You know, it's down to one gram accuracy.

For what we do, that's more than enough.

When we're weighing out TBP or pigment or whatever.

And the same person went on this tirade about how you have to get like a $300 or $500 laboratory scale that's down to, you know, a tenth of a gram or a hundredth of a gram or whatever.

And I always thought that was weird, except a few weeks ago, I made these really small color samples.

Each one was like a pound.

And the pigment was such a small amount, like such a small amount of pigment for each one.

And I was doing all these different color samples.

And I realized the reason that person needed that scale is because they only make little tiny samples.

They don't make any-

Little stuff.

They don't make any big.

They're not making a sink or a countertop.

They're making like little hockey pucks.

And they have to have something that will scale down to that size.

So then it made sense.

I'm like, I get it.

He's a professional or whoever it is, a professional sample maker.

Yeah, you're not making sinks and countertops.

That's why you need it.

Because if you make anything of any substance, even a small sink, one gram accuracy is fine.

It's only when you're getting down to like the one pound samples that you need something that small.

So anyways, then that all made sense.

Yeah, yeah.

And then the last part, it was just, you know, just experience matters.

I sent out an email a week ago talking about training and just talking about if you're going to go learn from somebody, learn from somebody that does this, learn from somebody that knows what they're doing, that's in the trenches every day and actually cast things for real customers.

There's a big difference between making hockey pucks in your shop or in your apartment because you probably don't have a shop in your apartment versus somebody's been doing this for 21 years that makes stuff for customers every single day, you know, client projects.

There's a big, big, big, big difference.

And that plays into the other thing.

You know, the thing about this three weeks you've been off or we've been away from the podcast is these messaging coming from some companies out there.

And another message came from this other company that sells materials is 4pros by pros.

I saw this message pop up and I started laughing.

I'm like, who's the pro over there?

Is there any pros?

Because as far as I'm aware, there's nobody casting anything for customers in this company.

Right.

Or has or maybe they did for a minute.

Yeah.

But they're not.

Yeah.

A long time ago.

But you haven't done anything in a long time for anybody.

So it's this this really deceptive and disingenuous messaging from companies of...

You're claiming something that isn't yours to claim.

And you're trying to sell it to people.

And you're trying to get new customers by saying, trust us, for the pros, buy the pros.

Who's a pro?

Who's the pro?

You know, and you had a conversation with a guy this morning, and I'll let you take over because I've been talking this whole time, but you had a conversation with a guy this morning that was buying materials from this company and having nothing but trouble and did not feel confident enough to call the company to get tech support because he thought, I know more than them.

You know, I know more than these guys.

Yeah, I have so many stories, so many stories like that.

You know, talking to a guy, well, not talking to him anymore, he's completely converted over, that was literally for what, six weeks on SpeedDial, I think with the same person you're talking about, that, you know, who ultimately then, that person just blamed it on him, like, ah, you just don't know what you're doing.

But anyway, you know, had bought all his products, followed everything to the letter that he tried to do, called him straight up, even had a nickname for him on his phone, as the person that he was calling.

I mean, it's just literally insane.

And then finally, after six weeks of everything not working, essentially just was told, well, you just don't know what you're doing.

And then anyway, we could go on and on and on.

And then he finally gets ahold of us.

He's good.

And next thing you know, he's what casting seven foot verticals coming out.

He's like, oh my God, guys, I didn't even know this was possible.

Well, because it wasn't with A, the person that you thought was knowledgeable, who has no knowledge.

And I'm going to give an analogy to that here in a second.

Something very similar to what I just was around this past week.

So not knowledgeable in what they're talking about.

So the materials that they're putting together, yeah, I mean, they have cement in it and they have sand in it.

And ultimately I'm sure it's going to get hard if you put water with it, right?

I mean, come on, it is what it is, but you're never going to achieve the results that you're trying to achieve by this educated person.

Because again, I will admit, they are educated, which will come to my analogy in a second, but they've never done it.

So they don't know what they're looking for or why they're looking for it.

And my analogy is this.

So we just got back from Vegas.

My son, God bless him, he's right up there with the top shooters.

One of the things we struggled with early on was which, I'm going to say, nobody told us.

And we went, you know, we had these instructors, and they were, you know, they're smart and they read and they read and they watch videos about trap shooting.

Hell, they even wrote papers about trap shooting.

But nobody taught my son that like, well, you don't shoot with one eye.

So although he was doing good to begin with, he really struggled specifically with consistency, right?

And then we finally went to some place that had been multi-national champions in a bunch of shooting clay sports and et cetera, et cetera.

And the first thing that these people did is they started asking my son questions.

And within the third answer, the guy looked like, well, you're shooting with one eye.

And my son's like, well, yeah.

Well, there's your answer right there.

And so my son spent his last, well, two seasons ago, really struggling, re-adapting himself and learning and forcing himself to learn a new technique.

But it should have, you know, if, I guess what I'm saying, if he had started with someone who did more than write papers and read books, had a great education, if he actually had started with people experienced legitimately in the trenches for years and experienced in what he was trying to achieve, he would have learned to do it right, right from the beginning, instead of having to try to re-figure it out halfway through.

And I'm glad this is something he's doing on the side and it wasn't his business because that's the stuff we talk about is, even the person I'm talking about, like he spent all kinds of money on various products.

He spent all kinds of money on training, ultimately take all those things home, spend weeks on the phone with a supposedly brilliant individual and had to throw away everything and start all over again.

I mean, what is that cost?

And I don't mean cost just monetarily, but we all know, man, that that beats on your confidence.

Like what am I doing?

Where am I going with this?

And if this is the best I get, and when the other end of that phone keeps telling you, it's you, well, it's just you.

You just don't know what you're doing.

That's completely, you know, it's user error.

Try this, try that, I don't know, man.

It's, yeah, buy the pros from the pros, come on.

For pros, buy pros.

You know, your son, what I think about is like, your son needs to learn from somebody that is an experienced, accomplished shooter.

Somebody that's been doing it for a long time.

And if somebody put out like, okay, I do trap shooting training, you know, or skeet, was it trap or skeet?

What is it?

Yeah, he does trap.

Okay, trap.

So you're doing trap and I do lessons.

You're like, great, great, great, great, great.

What's your experience?

Well, 20 years ago, I did it for like six months.

I wasn't very good, so I stopped, but I was a barista, so I thought, I can teach this.

You're like, huh?

You do what?

20 years ago, he did it for six months and he weren't successful?

Yeah, and you're a barista.

I read, I got a degree in trap shooting.

You're a barista and that gave you qualifications.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a professional barista.

I went to school for it.

I got a degree in being a barista.

Oh, well, but those two things don't correlate.

It doesn't matter.

I got a degree.

Look at my degree, it's right behind me.

It's hanging on the wall.

Professional barista.

So I'm going to teach your son how to trap shoot, but you don't know how to trap shoot.

Don't worry about that.

Look at the degree, look behind me.

My friends call me Yoda.

I tell them to put me in their phone as Yoda.

And you're like, what?

What are we talking about here?

You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And by the way, I also sell mix.

Now I don't make the mix, but you know, you can buy my mix.

I put a label on a bag and you should buy it.

You're like, but what?

What are we talking about here?

Anyways, this is the craziness that is this industry.

And unfortunately, like you said, people believe, which I don't blame them.

I mean, if you don't know, you don't know.

So you believe what somebody's telling you, and you're like, okay, great.

And they fall down at rabbit hole.

And so the person that you had a conversation with this morning was buying products from this company, was struggling.

Well, actually, no, it wasn't that company.

It's a different company, the one you talked to this morning.

No, a different company.

Yeah.

Was struggling.

I mean, similar story, of course.

But yeah.

Well, when I started talking to her, I was talking about two different companies.

The four pros by pros was a different company.

And that's the one this guy was struggling with.

He was buying products from this company, was making sinks for customers, and sometimes it had come out good, other times it had come out bad, and there was no rhyme or reason to it.

And he didn't feel confident calling the company because he knew there was nobody there that did this.

He knew that it was just salespeople there, and he's not going to get good advice.

So he thought, well, I'll figure it out.

So he just kept trying to figure it out, kept trying to figure it out.

And went down that road, and he was getting customers wanting refunds.

He's getting customers that weren't happy, and one of them remade.

He was getting customers leaving bad reviews on his products because of the mix.

And somebody made a post recently on one of the Facebook groups about, they'd switched to Kodiak and how everything had changed.

And I made a comment that, you know, cost, if you think that this mix, which isn't that expensive, I mean, we're right in the middle actually for pricing.

We're not like, we're not 10 times more, five times more, we're even double what other mixes are.

We're like right in the mix.

But if you think that this product is expensive, wait till you use a cheap one, or wait to use the one that you can get locally.

Speaking of the last podcast.

Well, wait till the first bad review.

Yeah, but what I'm saying is, you know, the last podcast we talked about when I did the demo day, we had some guys here that were really nice guys, but they were using, what am I thinking of?

CementAll, CementAll, yeah.

Because they could get it locally, because that was convenient and it was cost effective.

But if you want to find out how expensive a mix can be, use a cheap mix.

Because when you do it twice, when you give a refund, when you get bad reviews, it costs you money.

How expensive was that cheap mix?

Or how expensive was the readily available local mix like CementAll?

You know, that's the most expensive product you'll ever use, ever.

Well, that's how we feel about it, yeah.

I mean, you and I and people probably roll their eyes sometimes when they hear us, but I have this conversation so often with people, like once again today.

We have a, it's a great conversation and I get it.

And I'm get, there's lots of people out there.

So, you know, he, he would lean on his own knowledge, right?

He makes some of his own mixes.

I get it.

You're familiar with silica fume, you're with your cement and some of the multi admixtures are out there from plasticizers, defoamers, you know, whatever the case may be.

And, and you feel very confident in what you're doing.

But at the same time, you're always, you feel like you're always chasing, you know what I mean?

Like just when you think like, oh, hey, maybe I just got to need a, just going to pick one.

I need a better defoamer.

Oh, that's what I need, a better defoamer, because I'm getting air holes or whatever the case might be.

And like, okay, yeah.

And then, hey, you mix up one day and like, oh, hey man, I solved this.

I got it.

Yeah, I got it.

That that cast came out great.

And then to the best of your ability, you follow it all one more time.

No, just the opposite air holes, bug holes.

And what did I do wrong?

Okay.

So then you're back on the chase again.

Well, maybe it wasn't the defoamer.

Maybe I need a better defoamer, a liquid versus a powder, or maybe it's a polymer.

Like that chase gets old.

I mean, it really gets old.

It is, and that's what I see still.

A lot of these small companies promise that the chase is over, but it's not over because, yeah, they stay right into the chase.

And it's just interesting.

It's interesting to me to see and have these conversations with people as maybe we were the last choice.

But I give them credit as part of our conversation today.

And I said, hey, man, about your cost, you know, I saw the difference of three bucks.

I go, hey, go four bucks a square foot, you find the difference.

And I'm like, you know, it's crazy to have this conversation and find out that you're pushing to the edge of some bad reviews and customers wanting, you know, some kind of refunds or discounts or, you know, da da da da da da over even four bucks a square foot.

So let's say on a 50 square foot kitchen project, you know, the difference of $200 in material cost.

And it's just, I don't know, it's, I'm gonna say enlightening, but yet difficult to put things into that context.

And because I feel for it, I have all the empathy in the world, cause we've all been down these roads, to see that at the end of the day, like, yeah, wow, why did I go through this?

That's crazy.

And it's sorry to put all these other companies on blast.

Hey man, and I'm hoping you're listening.

You know, sincerely, I'm glad you're using maybe probably federal white cement.

That's awesome, good for you.

And maybe you've found a local cement that you're building, and sands, hey, that's awesome.

And I'm glad you did.

And at the end of the day, I'm glad you put a product together that when you put water in and it quote unquote cures in the mold, you know, that it actually gets hard.

You know, that's fantastic.

But what I'm going to just, you know, kick you in the crotch every time is the absolute lack of fieldwork and experience that these companies continue to push.

And I know it's directed at them personally, but they do it without empathy and understanding the difficulty in the small business people that they're hurting.

And that's a bummer.

It really is a bummer.

And the same could be said for the sealers, the same conversation, man.

Hey, I'm glad you put this coating on there that, you know, anyway, I mean, I could go on and on, but at the end of the day, it is what it is.

You know, it's not going to stop.

We'll try to keep a message out that doesn't sound like a bunch of cocky pricks.

And, you know, just keep moving forward.

Yeah, that's right, Jon.

So I have something I'm going to talk about.

Is there anything you want to talk about besides the shenanigans on Facebook?

No, no, no, we could keep circling around, but hit me.

What is it?

Yeah.

Well, it's something that happened to me recently.

And it's something that's happened before.

But I think it's a good conversation to have in the industry as a whole.

So before I tell you my story, I'll tell you what happened leading up to this, like three weeks ago, two, three weeks ago.

A friend of mine hit me up via text.

Hold on a second.

My alarm system's telling me I didn't arm it.

I know I didn't arm it.

I'm sitting here, you idiot.

I have motion detectors.

It knows I'm here.

It says, don't remind me.

Anyways, so a buddy of mine hit me up via text, and he was asking what my opinion was on how to handle this.

What happened was he had a potential customer ask him to quote a project, and the customer had sent him another concrete company's quote, had sent it to him, and asked him if he could beat it, right?

So he was asking, he's like, how would you handle this?

And he attached the quote, and I looked at the quote.

Now, number one, the quote was really good, like as far as the professionalism of the quote.

The other concrete company had quoted it, had put a lot of time into that quote.

You could tell.

They had detailed everything, and I think they even had a sketch, like a shop drawing, but they'd put some time into that quote.

So the fact that this customer was such a dirt bag, that they would A, shop it around, but B, share that quote, tells me everything I didn't know about that customer.

You don't want that customer.

Number one, that they would do that to them, they'll do it to you.

It's like the girl that's cheat on her boyfriend, she's not the one you want to keep, because she cheated on him, she's going to cheat on you, right?

Like that's not the one.

But the second thing is, just as professional courtesy, you should never step on another company, right?

So I told my buddy, I would tell the customer, he's got a great quote, that's a good company, he's in good hands.

And if for some reason, they can't take on the project, then call me back and leave it at that.

Don't quote it, don't step on them.

He's already engaged them, he's already taken up a bunch of their time.

And now he's shopping around, he's a dirt bag.

Years ago, when I was in Tempe, a customer hit me up, that was in Bozeman, Montana.

I'm like, that's weird.

And he wanted me to quote this big project.

But the guy up there, Jared Enlow, Elements Concrete, he's in Bozeman.

And it's a small town, Bozeman's small.

And I'm like, this guy has to know that there's a concrete company there.

So anyways, he hits me up, and we have this long conversation.

It's gonna be on these emails and photos and plans and stuff.

So I called Jared.

I'm like, hey dude, do you know this guy?

He's like, yeah, I know that guy.

He's like, he's been wasting my time now for like three months on this project.

Huh.

I was like, well, do me a favor.

Send me your quote.

And I'm gonna exactly send him that number down to the penny, because it was like down to the penny, you know.

So I sent him back a quote.

That's exactly the number that Jared Enload quoted to the penny.

And so that way, the guy would know that I know.

That way, when he compared the two and they're identical, he'll know that I know.

And that's what I did.

So I sent it back to him, never heard from him again.

He didn't contact me back.

But it's a dirtbag move.

Okay.

So let me tell you, that brings me to where I'm at right now and what's going on.

And I want to get your opinion on it, but I also just want to kind of throw this out there to the industry as a whole about this kind of situation.

And it's going to be more prevalent as time goes on.

So I had a customer hit me up a while back.

At this point now, it's about two months ago.

And it was for a really big project, over $100,000 project.

And so he sent me plans and I put together quotations.

And then he was kind of a middle guy between the big company, the big client and me.

He's in between, he's essentially going to take my quote, mark it up, and they're going to think he's doing it.

It's like business to business.

They're going to think he's doing it.

He's not telling them, I'm subbing it out, whatever.

I don't care.

I don't care what you do, do however you want to do it.

But he needs my help to secure the job with the client.

So I send him the quote and he starts having questions.

Great.

And he's sending me texts.

He'll text me like 10 o'clock at night and I'll text him back.

Hey man, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I'll text him back.

I had to go to Arkansas for some meetings.

When I was down there, he was like blowing up my phone and, bro, I got to hop on Skype real quick.

We need to go over this stuff.

And I had to leave my meetings, go to a Starbucks so I could hop on the Internet, so I could FaceTime this guy or Skype this guy to go through what he needed.

And so anyways, my point is, it's been a lot of handholding, a lot of handholding to get him through to where this project was ago with the client.

So, you know, a couple of weeks ago, I get a message from or an email and he's like, hey, everything's great.

It's a go, you know, they're going to do it.

I'm just waiting on a check.

Great.

And that was like on a Wednesday or Thursday.

So on Friday, a friend of mine, somebody I consider to be a friend, a pretty close friend in the industry.

I've known him for a long time.

He sends me a text and just says, hey, have you been talking to so and so about this project?

Yeah, I have.

Why is he talking to you?

And he texts me back, yeah, he is.

So I call him, this was on a Friday, I call my friend, it goes voicemail.

I call him again, it goes voicemail.

Okay.

And I send him a text, hey, give me a call later when you get a chance.

So that was on Friday.

On Monday, he calls me up.

I didn't talk to him until Monday.

He calls me up and we're talking.

And apparently, this guy was known to him through a third party.

Somebody he knew knew of this guy and said, hey, I know this guy's working on this big project.

We should reach out to him.

So they did.

And the guy came down and met with him on the weekend to talk about stuff, walk around the concrete shop and wants him to quote the project, right?

Wants him to quote it.

But he says to my friend, I've been talking to Brandon Gore, right?

So at that point, my friend knows I'm in the mix.

He knows this guy's been talking to me.

And so my friend on Monday called me up and just said, would you be upset if I took that project?

Yeah, yeah, I would be.

I would be.

And that's why I said to him, I said, I would be upset.

And here's why.

It's not that this guy hit me up one time and I just quoted it and it was just a passing thing.

At that point, it had been like six weeks.

For six weeks, I've been holding his hand and carrying this guy across the finish line.

And you know, you stay with the person you go to the dance with.

If you go to the dance with this person, you do not leave and change partners at the end.

And I felt like I got you across the finish line.

I've put in all this time and energy.

And at the eleventh hour, you're going to switch to somebody else.

That doesn't feel right to me.

It doesn't feel right to me to do that.

So I told my friend, yeah, no, I'm not good with that.

I'm not happy about that.

Now, I can't make this customer use me.

I can't force him to use me.

If he wants to use you, that's his prerogative.

And the reason he'd use my friend is they're local.

They're like in the same general region.

I'm not.

I have to ship stuff across the country.

But I said, you know, I understand why he'd want to use you because you're right there.

But at the same time, you guys haven't put any time into this.

And I've got at this point many, many hours, 30, 40, 50 hours, I don't know, of actual time working on this project, just to get it to this point.

So my opinion is you should add a percentage to this project, whatever your quote is, and pay whatever you want to call it, a finder's fee, a consulting fee, whatever, because I'm the person that got this project secured to begin with.

It was the time that I put into it that got it there.

And my friend's like, well, I really think he should pay, the customer.

I'm like, well, I don't care who pays.

I don't think he will, because I feel like this guy's a dirt bag.

At this point, if he committed to me and said we have it and we're done, and then he came down and met with you, then that tells me that this isn't somebody of high integrity, you know?

So I don't think he's gonna do the right thing.

It's gonna be on you to do the right thing, and that's to put a percentage on top of the project.

You don't have to tell him you're putting a percentage on it, you know?

But you put a percentage and you pay a finder's fee.

And I've done that for people.

I've gotten jobs for people and I paid them a percentage of the project as a finder's fee for bringing that large project to me, right?

So anyways, that's where I'm at.

And nothing's happened since then.

My buddy that met with this customer, you know, I followed up with him about a week ago, and he's like, yeah, I haven't heard anything.

I haven't heard anything from him.

So I don't know, maybe he's talking to a third company, a fourth company, a fifth company.

Who knows?

Well, that's what I would say.

I mean, what this sounds like to me, and I've seen this happen before, is prior to you, someone else has probably put in as much time as you did, or more.

Already made samples, already did all this stuff, yada, yada, yada, and then for whatever reason, maybe somebody fell through, maybe he lost his shop, something like that, which made this guy go, oh, well, this isn't gonna work.

And in the meantime, while he was working with you, not telling the other person that he had to move on from, who also prior to coming to you was the first person to the dance, and then most likely your friend, again, not knowing you were involved, probably knows this person and said, well, and hey, why don't you come do it at my place?

Because you already had this project secured, you already made samples, you already went through all this stuff, and then that's when they found out like, oh, but Brandon's involved.

Oh, well, how did that happen?

I thought, whatever, Mike was involved.

Yeah, but Mike lost his shop.

Oh, well, who made your original samples?

Well, Mike did.

I mean, again, it's a weird, convoluted thing, but most likely something like that.

That happened, and I agree with everything you're saying.

Except in this situation, you got two people who are brought to the dance.

One really was the original.

And so, but at the same time, this is something all of us talk about.

It's like being called out to come to an estimate.

You know, I do believe people should be compensated for their time.

There's no question about that.

And it's, so you should be where it's compensated at, assuming anybody else got the job, or the original person got the job, or however this thing pans out.

I believe I am a full believer in fairness, and that's hard for any of us in any industry, woodworking, whatever the case may be, to be in these kind of situations and put a lot of time and energy into something to walk away with nothing.

And that's an unfortunate thing for all of us, right?

Well, it's contractors.

Because you obviously know what I'm talking about and who I'm talking about and what's transpired.

But let's say Mike, the original guy that made the samples.

The funny thing was this customer sent me photos of the samples, right?

And I'm like, whoa, those look really good.

Did you make those?

He's like, yeah, I did.

I said, well, why are you hiring me?

Like, you obviously know what you're doing.

Those are really, really good samples.

He's like, well, you know, I just made these small samples for the customer and I don't want to take on this project and it's beyond what I can do, blah, blah, blah.

The customer told me he made the samples.

But it turns out he didn't make the samples, right?

So, but...

Oh, that's the same, man.

But hold on, but hold on, but hold on.

But yeah, so I get that this other company originally made the samples, but the other company fell out of the equation and they were out of the equation for a long time, for several months while I was the one filling in, doing all the heavy lifting and carrying and, you know, all the stuff to get it there.

So I would say like, well, if you were so involved, why haven't you been involved in two months?

Why have I been carrying this whole damn thing for two months, you know, and getting it going?

So I get it, I get it.

What I'm saying is, do the right thing.

Always do the right thing.

And don't step on other people.

If you're a concrete person, I'll tell you, dude, I think I have some karma on this, where I've had good friends, or who I consider to be good friends, but hindsight's 20-20.

Sell me out for a dollar, right?

I've had some good friends that I really, really thought highly of.

For instance, this one person in Phoenix, I mentored this person, I taught them, I let them work in my shop.

I went out of my way to help them be successful with their concrete business.

It turns out they were contacting customers.

They would see my shop drawings.

They'd come in my shop.

I paid them to be in my shop.

I paid them to help me.

I would go to their shop on my own time and help them for free, just to help them be successful.

But when they were in my shop, they were looking at shop drawings and calling the customers I was doing projects for and saying, I worked for brand or I worked ED.

I worked for Brandon Gore.

I do the same quality for less money.

Please use me for your next project.

And I had an architect call me and say, do you know so-and-so?

I do.

Yeah, he reached out to me and said, he used to work for you and he does the same thing, but for a lower cost.

Really?

That's weird, because no, he still works in my shop.

Huh, that's really messed up, right?

That's really messed up.

So when people start doing things that benefits them at your detriment, that's what I'm saying is as a industry, we're a small industry, a small group, if you find out that somebody else is in the mix on a project that a customer reaches out to you for, the thing you should do, my opinion, the thing you should do is you should say, you're in great hands.

I know that person, they do great work.

You're going to be fine.

If for some reason they're unable to take on this project, please call me back, but otherwise, you're going to be fine and walk away from it.

That's the best thing you can do.

I've done that and I encourage anybody else to do that because do what you would want somebody else to do for you.

Always.

You don't want to invest your time and your gene in doing something, just have the customer shop it around everybody else and try to undercut you by five bucks.

It's just the wrong thing from integrity, from a moral viewpoint.

Always do the right thing.

Always do the right thing.

But anyways, that guy in Phoenix, I'm the bad guy now apparently in his story.

I'm the evil one.

So yeah.

Well, when you were telling that story, it just made me think of the rest of them, right?

I mean, years ago, you had somebody you were going to do training with them.

And they got offered to do training with somebody else.

Well, I'll tell the story right now.

I don't even give it.

I know, but hold on.

Let me finish my own version.

And then that person turned around, and you're saying, dude, but that dissolves any agreements we have.

And good luck to you.

Not good luck sarcastically, but like legitimately good luck to you.

And I hope it works out.

Only then to turn around, turns out it didn't work out for one reason or another.

And you didn't just become the evil in that person's stories.

There's a pretty core network to this day.

Sorry, I'm laughing because it's just so wild to me that there's a...

I mean, I think it's a fairly small group anymore, but...

No, I'll tell...

Dude, it's a true story.

It's a true story.

So I don't mind telling the story as it happened.

Okay.

So here's the true story.

How about the abbreviated version?

Only because I've heard it a thousand times.

Well, I don't know if you've heard it a thousand times.

I don't know if you've heard it a thousand times.

But there was...

I was working on...

I'd already been doing training at my shop, and there was a guy in Phoenix that wanted to come do training with me.

I said, great, great, great.

What do you want to teach?

And he's like, well, you know, GFRC.

I said, well, I'm already teaching GFRC, so we don't need to do two GFRC classes.

He's like, well, what if we did like architectural elements?

Because he's working at this place that was making bollards and wall caps and that kind of stuff.

And I was like, yeah, great.

Fine.

That sounds cool.

So we like list this class.

And at the time, I was the only person teaching GFRC in the world, in the world.

And there was this guy, FuTung Cheng out in California that was teaching classes on like, you know, using Quickcrete to make fireplaces or whatever.

And so they were looking at my photos, the Cheng group, people over there, and they were seeing people that they recognized that had been in their class.

And they were reaching out to these people and saying, hey, will you come teach us what Brandon Gore is teaching with GFRC?

Which is a pretty messed up thing to do, right?

And one of these people called me and said, hey, I just want to tell you, I got contacted by Mike Heidebrink.

Mike Heidebrink is a guy that used to work with Cheng.

I think he still owns something like the concrete exchange or whatever, which is the product line.

But he's like, I got contacted by Mike Heidebrink, and he asked me to come teach GFRC that you taught.

And I was livid, livid, livid.

So I called Heidebrink, and I said, hey, I got a call from so-and-so, and he said that you'd reach out to him, and you wanted him to come teach.

He's like, no, no, no, we would never do that.

That's unethical.

We wouldn't want people to do that to us.

He misunderstood.

That's not what we were asking, blah, blah, blah.

And he's like, so, you know, what are you up to?

How's life?

And I was like so naïve back then, you know.

I was like, oh, everything's good, you know.

I'm doing GFRC, as you know, and me and this person are teaming up to do an architectural class.

And he's like, cool, cool, cool.

He's like, you know, well, we don't want to burn bridges.

And, you know, so rest assured, we're not trying to get into that market or whatever.

All right, cool.

So I hang up.

And I called the guy that I was doing the other class with, and I said, hey, this is kind of weird.

Just kind of keep your ears open.

He's like, yeah, that is weird.

Okay, great.

So later that day, the guy that I was going to do the classes with calls me up and says, hey, can we meet in person?

I said, yeah, we can meet in person.

Where do you want to meet?

Starbucks, great.

So I meet him at Starbucks.

So we sit down and he says, hey, Heidebrink called me.

Really?

Yeah.

They want me to come teach GFRC.

Really?

Yeah.

They're going to pay me, I can't remember now, it was like 30,000 bucks, which was way more.

I mean, our split on the class would be like 5,000 bucks, right?

Way more than I could pay this guy because we're not even coming close to making that.

I said, okay.

And I know he had kids.

I know he struggled financially.

I get it.

I got it back then.

I said, dude, I get it, right?

That's a lot of money.

But you're under contract with me.

We have a class coming up.

So if you want to do this, that's your prerogative.

But you and I, the contract is torn up.

You go your way, I go my way, and we both are on our own and we no longer have any obligation.

He's like, thanks, bro.

I appreciate it.

I knew you'd understand.

Like shakes my hand, walks out.

I was livid, livid, bro.

I was thinking about like, how can I go out there and, you know, punch futong in the mouth?

You know, I was like trying to figure out like what I was going to do.

And I was at lunch with my crew of guys back then.

I had a pretty big crew of people working for me.

And I was just so pissed off.

And like I said, I was the only person teaching GFRC in the world at that time.

The only person teaching it for this industry.

I mean, like Hiram Bal is teaching factories in Dubai how to make paneling, but they weren't doing sinks and countertops and that kind of stuff.

Right.

Nothing in this industry, right?

Exactly.

I'm the only one in the world teaching it.

And I just blurred out, you know, I should just give it away and have nothing to sell.

And one of the guys with me said, yeah, you just said it.

That's what you do.

I'm like, what?

He's like, give it away.

Take away what they're trying to sell.

They're going to steal this.

Oh, you know, Fu Tung Cheng at the time was like the 900 pound girl in the room.

Now he's pretty much 100% gone.

But back then he was massive.

He was the one that was the biggest in the industry.

And my guy's like, just give it away.

If you give it away, they can't sell it.

I was like, you know what?

You're right.

So I called Ben Mikkelsen at Concrete Decor and I said, listen, I want to do this, this how to article and how to do GFRC.

I'll hire a photographer.

I'll pay the photographer.

I'll write the article.

I will give you all nice and packaged, a complete article on how to do GFRC, but you can't let anybody know.

Okay, you got to keep it quiet because Fu Tung Cheng was a big advertiser with him and they would, you know, put the kibosh on this if they got word of it.

And Bent said, fine, cool.

So I do the article.

I sent it to Ben.

Ben publishes it, decides to break it up into two parts.

What I sent to him was just one article, but he broke it up into two parts, part one and part two.

And when the article came out, I guess Futung went ballistic.

Went ballistic.

Oh my God!

You know, he was just going crazy.

And anyways, but it worked as intended.

Essentially, it just completely sucked all the air out of the room, and there was no longer a market to sell the knowledge of how to do GFRC, because now you can get it for free.

And that article, Bent told me years later, was the number one article they've ever had.

That issue, those two issues actually, issue one and issue two, was the number one issues they've ever had, that they've ever printed.

But that's what happened.

Now, time goes by, and the person that told me that Heidebrink had contacted him, I guess, one night got drunk or whatever, got on Facebook or the old forum, the Concrete Countertop Forum, started writing stuff and said, I reached out to Fu Teng Cheng and offered to come do teaching.

He said this like in his post.

And all of a sudden, it came clear to me.

It's like, no, Heidebrink didn't reach out to this guy.

He reached out to Heidebrink, right?

He's the one who went behind and did this stuff.

But anyways, so that's what happened.

But yeah, according to a group of people that were friends with this person, I was the most evil person in the world.

I screwed everybody over or whatever.

I don't even understand what it is that I did, but according to them, I'm the bad guy in the story.

So anyways, yeah, that's the whole story.

Yeah.

And unfortunately, it didn't work out.

I mean, at the end of the day, whether all of us believe in karma or what anybody wants to think, if for whatever reason, and in my opinion, this person knew he wasn't doing the right thing, but I think he was trying to do something to give himself a leg up, and it didn't work out.

And anyway, he had a bunch of difficulties and was no longer around, so it's a bummer.

Yeah.

Yep.

But it's a crazy industry, man.

That was years ago.

That was a lot of years ago.

That was almost 20 years ago that all that happened.

But I don't think...

That's funny, right?

I mean, to a degree, this industry, unless maybe it's just because I've been around it so long, pretty tight-nitched, you know?

I mean...

Well, this goes back to just stay in your lane.

If you have something...

Where I see everything go sideways in this industry, and I'm sure it's in every industry, is when people look around and they say, that guy is doing good with that.

I want to steal that from him.

Why don't you do what you do?

I only know one person that was doing quite a bit of that.

Exactly.

Do what you do, and we can all coexist, and we can all be successful, and we can all just keep moving forward.

But when we start trying to steal from each other, when you start trying to take, and you're doing these chess moves to take from this person, because the only way your candle is going to grow brighter is by blowing out that person's candle.

And that's what you believe.

Yeah, that doesn't work.

Yeah, and that's where it all goes sideways.

And so that's what happened here.

That's what happened here.

And the funny thing was, I guess, let me back up a little bit.

I could tell the whole story of what happened with that, but it's something more worth telling.

But essentially goes back to just treat people with integrity.

But as far as Fu Tung Cheng goes, which is kind of to tie it, well, not even tied it together, but just to finish it.

Jeremy French and I were at World of Concrete one year.

And it's when I did the Concrete Cartel Magazine, right?

So we're walking around, handing out cartel to people.

Come on, that was funny.

Oh yeah.

That was funny.

And Jeremy sees, so Fu Tung Cheng has a booth of SakCrete, and Jeremy sees all the Fu Tung Cheng people there, and he walks up, and there's a countertop with an ammonite, or ammonite, and ammonite is like the little snail shale looking fossil, right?

And Jeremy goes up, he's like, Brandon, look, there's a snail in the concrete.

And they come running over, like, no sir, that's an ammonite.

He's like, it's a snail.

Look at the snail.

He's just yelling it.

And they are like losing their minds.

I'm dying laughing, I'm dying laughing.

So, Futung is doing like a, you know, every hour coming on doing like a 10 minute talk on some little stage there in their booth.

And so I'm like, hey man, Futung is coming on in like 10 minutes.

Now, at this point, I had known that Futung had said some pretty bad stuff about me because he'd sent some emails to people that I knew that they'd forward the emails to me where Futung was like running me down, talking trash.

So he obviously is aware of who I am, right?

Because he used my name and talked some trash.

So anyways, I'm like, let's just hang out.

Let's just hang out.

So Futung comes on and he has like his little headset on, his little microphone, you know, and his Tony Robbins microphone, and he comes down and gives us talk.

And I'm just right up front just staring him right in the eye, just staring him in the eye, right?

And he sees me.

And, you know, so the second it's done, there's like a little room that they've built in the booth where he can like go and shut the door and, you know, get on TikTok, whatever you do in that little room.

I don't know what you do in that room, but he makes a break for the room.

And I step right in front of him, like, Futung Cheng.

Now at this point, we've never met face to face, right?

And he's like, hi.

I was like, my name's Brandon Gore.

Maybe you've heard of me, maybe you haven't.

And he goes, Brandon Gore, no, never heard of you.

I said, OK, that's fine.

I said, that's fine.

And I had a business card.

I said, well, here's my card, Futung.

If you ever want to talk about anything, call me directly.

We can talk about it.

OK, just me and you.

And he goes, OK, thank you.

I'm like, all right, thank you.

And he like made a break for the door.

But that was it.

Never heard.

There was no trash talk again after that.

So there you go.

And it's funny, because those are all good times, man.

You know, they really were.

But it was different, dad, you know, then here we are today.

And a lot of that backbiting, I think it stopped to a certain degree, or it just moved a different direction.

But you know, it is what it is.

Yeah.

I agree, John.

So anyways, good times.

Yeah, still good times, man.

I didn't think I'd be in this fight this long.

And when I mean fight, I mean, you know, this whole concrete thing, I didn't think I was going to be in it this long.

Well, just do the right thing.

That guy in Phoenix that was calling the customers that were on my shop joints, right?

When I left Phoenix, I always make it a point to try to like leave things.

The bridges you burn along the way, right?

I try not to burn bridges.

I personally would rather not burn bridges because you never know when you need to, you know, work with somebody.

So I reached out to this person, the person that burned a bridge with me, the person that was selling me out to make a buck.

I reached out to this person and said, hey, I'm moving to Arkansas.

Before I leave, I'd love to sit down and just clear the air with you to like leave things on good terms, right?

Now, why do I need to clear the air with this person?

He's the one who's screwing me over.

Whatever, it doesn't even matter.

Let's just sit down and chat.

He said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd love that.

Great.

Where do you want to meet?

Starbucks.

It seems like Starbucks is the place.

Great.

Starbucks when?

Noon on Tuesday.

Great.

So Tuesday, noon, I'm at Starbucks.

12.15, 12.30, 12.45, one o'clock.

He's a no-show, right?

1.15, 1.30.

Finally, I'm just like, dude, I'm not gonna sit here all day.

I've already been here an hour and a half.

So I sent him a text.

Hey man, I've been here for an hour and a half.

I got stuff to do.

I'm gonna take off.

Let me know if you want to get together.

And then the next day, he sent me a text.

He's like, yeah man, I didn't want to meet up.

Okay.

You couldn't have said that before I sat there for an hour and a half.

You know?

When you were the jerk that sold me out, that was going behind my back, I never did anything to you.

I only tried to help you.

I was only your friend.

So yeah, just do the right thing.

Do the right thing.

And you never know.

That guy, you burned a bridge where there was nothing to burn.

You know?

There was no reason to do what you did.

So...

But that's where we're at.

I think that's all when we were kids.

I'm just saying, you know...

Maybe, but I haven't heard a peep from that guy since.

I've never heard an apology.

I had...

Every now and then, I guess these podcasts are good, where you just kind of like air the dirty laundry.

But I had a guy...

Yeah, right?

Just...

I had a guy that worked for me in Phoenix.

This guy worked for me for a couple years in Phoenix, and I liked him a lot.

I liked him a lot.

But he lied to me.

Let me tell that story, because it's kind of funny.

So I gave the guy a key to my shop.

He worked for me.

I trust him.

I gave him a key to my shop.

I said, you can use concrete mixers.

Keep track.

If you use stuff, just let me know, and we'll just take it out of your check.

But you have free reign, you can come use the shop.

You can do side work.

You have buddies that want concrete countertops.

Do it.

We don't need to do it through me.

You can do it on your own, coming on the weekends.

I'm totally fine with that, right?

Who does that?

Who says you can moonlight doing what we do as a business in the shop using my tools, using my...

Nobody does that.

Nobody would do that.

You have an HVAC company.

Hey man, yeah, do HVAC installs on the side.

Use my tools, use my trucks.

They would never allow that.

But I'm just trying to do the right thing and let this guy...

I already paid him well, but let him earn some extra side cash, whatever.

So I'm very meticulous.

I always put stuff back in my shop, very organized.

And my shop back then was really tight.

So every day I'd have to move stuff around to work and I'd have to move it back in to shut the door and do all the stuff.

Yeah, I remember.

It was like Tetris.

It was.

And I always put it back exactly the same for years.

I always went back exactly the same.

So Monday morning, so Friday, we finish up.

I put everything away, shut the door.

Monday, we come walking in.

This guy that worked for me comes walking up to the door as I'm walking up.

Hey, good morning.

I'm talking to him.

Hey, good morning.

How's it going?

He's like, good, good, good.

Have a good weekend.

Yep.

Cool.

We open the door.

We walk in.

I turn the lights on.

Everything is backwards from the way I'd left it.

Right?

The mixer is in the opposite spot.

The tables are in the wrong side of the room.

Everything's completely opposite of how I'd always done it for years.

And I look at him and say, hey, did you work this weekend?

No.

No, you didn't come in?

No, no, no.

You didn't come in at all?

No, bro.

I didn't come in.

That's weird because I didn't leave the shop like this.

He's like, I don't know.

Hmm.

And this is like really grinding my gears in the back of my mind.

I'm like, you, I'm going to ask you.

It's from pretty simple.

Yeah, I'm like, yep.

I'm going to ask you again.

And if for some reason you lied to me in the beginning, like just come clean.

Did you come in for any?

I don't care if he did.

Did you come in for any reason?

Like, dude, I did not come in.

Like, why would you gave me a key to the shop?

Why would I lie to you?

I'm not lying to you.

I'm like, I know it doesn't make sense why he lied to me.

But like, I'm telling you, like everything is completely opposite from how I put it in.

And so, if you didn't come in, somebody else that worked here years ago that I gave a key to, and I've given keys to people over the years, came into my shop, moved everything around for some reason, shut the door, locked the door, turned the lights off and just left.

Why would they do that?

He's like, I don't know, but I didn't do it.

I'm like, okay.

So we start working.

And dude, I just can't get this out of my head.

I just can't get it out of my head.

So I say to him again, dude, please, if you came in, just tell me, because I'm gonna tell you what I'm gonna do.

My neighbor has security cameras facing my shop.

I'm gonna go have him pull the footage.

I'm gonna look, I'm gonna find out who came into my shop.

And if it was you, you need to tell me right now.

He's like, it wasn't me.

It wasn't me.

I promise you, I swear to you.

I said, okay.

All right, dude, I'm gonna go.

So I start walking out the door.

He's like, it was me.

Okay, why did you lie?

He's like, I don't know, dude.

He's like, I don't know.

He's like, you asked me and I just said no.

And then once I said no, I just had to stick to it.

Okay, that's weird.

Yeah, he couldn't break.

But okay.

So we work all day.

And I'm making it a point not to make it awkward.

I'm making it a point not to bring it up again.

I'm making it a point not to treat them any differently than the way I had ever treated them.

So all day I'm treating them totally normal, keeping it jovial, keeping it lighthearted.

And at the end of the day, he's like, hey, can we talk about what happened this morning?

I'm like, yeah, I'm thinking he's going to apologize.

Yeah, we can.

He's like, I didn't really lie.

I'm like, what?

He's like, I didn't really lie.

I'm like, but you did.

He's like, well, so at the time, I'd bought this positive air pressure respirator from 3M, like the kind that has a little pump that pushes air through it.

And they're like 3000 bucks.

And if you go to buy one, they're $3,000.

Now I had bought a ton through this company called Zorro.

And because I'd bought so much every now and then, they give you like a 15% off coupon if you buy a certain amount with them, right?

But it's not a coupon that's available to everybody.

It's not a coupon that, you know, it's just it's only if you buy a certain amount of volume through them.

So I had used the coupon to buy it.

So I'd gotten like 15% off.

But somebody on Facebook or Instagram asked me like, Hey, what are those costs?

I'm like, well, they cost $3,000 because that's what they cost.

If you go to buy one, it's $3,000, right?

This guy says, remember when you bought that respirator and you got 15% off that Zorro coupon, but somebody on Instagram asked you how much it cost.

He said, $3,000.

That was a lie.

And I said, well, that wasn't a lie because that's what it costs.

If anybody goes to buy one, they're going to pay $3,000.

I had a coupon because of the amount of business I do at this company, but that coupon isn't available to the public.

So no, the cost of $3,000.

He's like, well, I feel like you're lying.

I said, are you trying to make me the bad guy?

He's like, well, you know when a customer calls and they say, how's the project coming?

And you say, great, but we haven't started on it yet.

That's a lie.

I'm like, what are you talking about?

I've never been late once on a project.

I always deliver on time every single time.

So if a customer calls me, I just say everything's fine.

But what are you trying to imply here?

You're trying to like make me the bad guy?

You're trying to say that I'm a liar?

I said, dude, you are on like really slippery ground right now.

You lied to me.

You lied to me repeatedly.

I gave you chances to tell me the truth.

You didn't tell me the truth.

And now you're trying to paint me as the bad guy, which is insane.

I said, so I tell you what, and this was on Monday, take the rest of the week off.

I don't want to see you.

I don't want to see you.

So come back on Monday and we can chat.

So on Monday, I had a meet me.

We met at a coffee shop, Cartel Coffee and Tempe.

I still remember, because I didn't even come to the shop yet.

I'm going to have a conversation with him.

And so I said, how do you feel?

What do you think about what transpired?

He's like, I still feel like I didn't lie to you.

I said, okay.

This guy had interned at a really big architecture firm in Phoenix.

I said, when you worked at this architecture firm, would you have lied to them the way you lied to me?

He's like, yep, I would have.

I said, okay.

I said, you know what, dude, I can't be around you at all.

Like I can't even stand to see you.

So we're done.

We're done.

He's like, okay, fine.

And that was that, right?

Again, this person, for a while, the talk around town was, I was the evil in his story.

I was the bad guy in the story.

But this person reached out to me about a year ago with a very, what appeared to be sincere apology letter, and just said he was so sorry, and he learned so much from me, and he handled that completely incorrectly, and he feels horrible about it.

And I thought, well, you know, it's never too late to do the right thing, and I appreciated that.

It's never too late.

But the other guy in Phoenix that was selling me out and contacted my customers and then made me the evil in the story, I've never heard from him, and that's been, how many years ago is that?

You know, it's been over 10 years.

It's never too late to do the right thing, but that person's never done the right thing.

So yeah, we were young.

Yeah, we were kids.

But at some point, you grow up a little bit.

At some point, you can say, hey, I made a mistake and I need to write that wrong.

And some people don't do that.

Yeah, some people don't.

That's a hard thing to do.

Some people just turn around and open a business under a new name.

Yeah, exactly.

That's crazy.

It's always going to be crazy.

But that being said, how about something positive now?

You know, we've had a few podcasts like this episode over the years.

And it's been a while, though.

It's been a while.

It's been probably, you know, when we started the podcast, three, four years ago now?

The early days.

Well, here's the thing.

This is why I would say probably, at least where my head's at.

I don't think it's any mistake out there, talking to a lot of things.

You know, things are slow right now.

Things have slowed, you know?

And it looks like market indicators and things, and hopefully rates change and people get back on their, you know, backyard projects and et cetera, et cetera, whatever's turning around.

But, you know, things have been slow.

The difficulty for me, though, is for what we do, is knowing when things are slow, and then where we started this podcast, seeing some of the advertising that comes out from some of these other people who are trying, you know, and again, they're businesses too, so I get it.

But to read and see what they're doing, it just, it's so shifty.

It's disingenuous.

I hate to call it a lie.

It's misleading, it's misleading, it's disingenuous.

It's very misleading.

And the difficulty of that misleading information draws back to the couple of customers that I just spoke about again, that we started with a person, you know, six weeks of phone calls and, you know, and buying, and he's not getting any of that back.

And time, and in this way, talk about a lie, you know, that what you're spending in time, all of these things.

But this is why it matters.

This is why it's passionate to us, because we're in, and have been in those trenches.

I've been there.

I know what it's like.

I know what it's like to, you know, pull a weekend and I know what it's like to have a customer come and go like, yeah, you know, because I, you know, slurry filled a bunch of holes and, you know, I mean, I know what that feels like.

I know what it's like when that final handshake and a check, and I'm taking 300 bucks off, you know what I mean?

We know what that's like.

These other companies don't.

So they may empathize with it, but due to the fact that they're not, that isn't what they've done.

Maybe they have a career as a salesman or, you know, whatever the case may be, but they haven't done it.

So it's, you know, that's why this passion, at least with me and Eme, it runs pretty hot when I see these things, when I take these phone calls, when I see what's going on and watch somebody turn around, I don't just pat myself on the back and go, oh yeah, dude, that's what I, undeniably a seven foot vertical.

Of course, that's what you should see, which that's how I feel today.

But then I, before we get there to go, you spent what?

Well, you went to what training?

You're leaving out.

You've been what?

Yeah, but you're leaving out what you're saying.

What you're saying is what we talk about a lot about Kodiak Pro is how the surface quality is so great, how you don't have pinholes, you don't have bug holes, you don't have to slurry.

And other companies say they have the same thing, but what they're saying is they have it on the flat surface of a countertop, like the big flat surface, which that's easy.

You can get that with QuickCreate.

Yeah, come on.

Yeah, who can't?

We're talking about the verticals.

I could cast QuickCreate and get a bug hole free finish.

Let's just be honest about it.

On the top, but not on the sides.

The sides would be a hot mess, right?

And so what we're talking about is like, when I used to pour the Muskoka chairs using, you know, traditional GFRC and then Buddy Rhodes GFRC and all those things, was all the air on the sides, all the fissures and air pockets, and it just looked like the surface of the moon on the vertical sides of that chair.

The inside of the chair, the flat surface, was always perfect.

Of course it was, but it was the verticals that were a big mess.

Now when I pour that with Kodiak Pro, the verticals are beautiful.

There's like one little pocket here, one little pocket there.

It's literally 1,000 times better than I could ever get with any other product.

And that's what we're talking about.

We're not talking about the flat surface.

And if somebody else is trying to say that, then we're not talking apples, apples.

We're talking about the verticals.

So when you're saying like a 7-foot vertical comes out clean, we hear that from people.

We've heard it from Gabriel over in the UK.

He was pouring these big pieces, and it was like 7-feet verticals.

And they were coming out super clean, and he'd never seen it before with the products he's using before.

That's what we're talking about.

We're talking about that.

That's where the time savings is.

Yeah, that's what we're talking about in surface quality.

But the bigger picture is, what is that costing you in time?

I mean, could you imagine having to go back to where we were in and slurry a seven-foot vertical?

I mean, oh my God.

Or, and that's why your masochist, you didn't do them.

Yeah.

I think it would have taken away from the way it looked if you would have tried patching all those holes and then they don't match in the same colors.

Well, patch looks like a patch.

I mean, that's the problem with slurring air holes is it looks like you slurred air holes.

That's what it is.

You'll never get it perfect.

It will always look spotty and messy.

So the right thing to do is just not have to do it to begin with.

You know, it's when we're talking about, again, powdered polymer or liquid polymer.

It doesn't matter.

Polymer, just polymer.

And we've been on a mission or a crusade to tell people, polymer is not needed in what we're doing.

It's not that polymer is not bad in other applications, but in this application, it's detrimental.

And the reason is you put the polymer in, which is injecting all this air and whipping this air into the mix, and then you're trying to put a defoamer in to offset the polymer.

So you're putting in this problematic ingredient, and then you're trying to bring in another ingredient to offset the problematic ingredient.

Well, how about you just take out two ingredients that you don't even need and not even start with that problem, right?

Right.

And that's what we talk about.

Yeah.

Well, see, my analogy to this is this.

So I have a father-in-law who's got type 2 diabetes, right?

He's 85 years old, and he's constantly fluctuating in and out with his blood sugars, and recently I actually ended up in the hospital with some things.

And I get together with him, and we start talking about stuff, and he's like, well, you know, I'm eating this and I'm eating that, and, you know, I get this one, it's really tasty, and it's no sugar, and then you read on the back that it's loaded with maltodextrin.

I mean, and then the loopholes that go along with it, like that says, well, because it's not really a sugar, it's a carbohydrate, and that a little anyway.

That's how I feel these other companies, they play this game that's so misleading, but they still lead to your harm.

You know what I mean?

Sorry, I used the maltodextrin example, but I couldn't think anything.

It's something I'm dealing with right now with my father-in-law.

And like, no, man, like your body tree set is sugar, insulin spike, that's what's gonna happen.

But it says right here on the label, it doesn't create any pinholes.

It makes void free, you know, easy to mix and dah, dah, dah.

I'm like, oh yeah, but you just ended up in the hospital over this, man.

And you just threw away three projects over this, and you just had to give two refunds to customers over this.

And like, I don't know.

So do you say that the, I mean, how would we say if the label told us that?

And again, I'm just talking about any snack cracker, sugar-free or whatever.

And you're like, oh, the Mottodextrin.

I don't know, is it a lie?

You know, if they filled the loophole, I mean, so is it, I guess that's what I'm saying is, is it mean of us to say that these other entities lie?

Or is there a nice way to say that there's just, there's loopholes in this whole system that says like, well, yeah, I don't know.

What about the time you bought the, you know, the, the error contraption and you know, you didn't spend $3,000 Brandon.

So I feel like you lied.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's, I remember when he was saying, I'm like, what are we, what are you saying?

Like, what are we talking about here?

What are you trying to imply?

Like, and you know, he, he ran that whole gambit at the time.

And maybe that's what it really boils down to is he ran that whole thing at the time.

Cause for whatever reason, and has whatever insecurity, whatever the case may be.

And so, you know, he's grasping at things instead of just stepping up and going, yeah, dude, yeah.

Well, let me tell you, I didn't, so I figured out, so after I let him go, I still had these projects in the shop I had to finish.

And there was these sinks that we had cast with him that were there that weekend that he'd come in and done stuff in the shop and moved everything around.

And so I sealed, after I let him go, I went to seal him, right?

And when I went to seal him, one had all these stains that showed up when I started sealing it.

You couldn't see it when it was dry, but when I started sealing it, you could see where stuff had been splattered all over the concrete and cleaned off.

And so what I surmise happened, and I'm 99% sure happened, is he had come in, as he had the right to, come in to do something, he messed up, he'd spilled a coke on it, something happened, something got splashed all over the sink before it was sealed.

He freaked out, he cleaned it off, he thought, okay, it's fine.

He put everything back and he left.

And had he just said, dude, I came in to work, I knocked a coke over, it spilled over that sink, I cleaned it off, I think it's fine.

If it's not, I'll come in and redo it on my own time.

You know, that would have been the right thing to do.

But instead, he tried to cover it up, and he tried to just lie about it.

But he got caught in his lie, and then he just kept on with the lie, instead of just coming clean, right?

That's interesting.

The only thing I can say out of all this is anybody listening, again, I shouldn't say I don't care.

I really don't.

I don't care what products you're using.

I don't care what you're backing.

But I can tell you that at least with the direction we are going, the direction we continue to go, it is 100 and has been 100% based on hands-on experience, any modification and changes continues hopefully, not just to set the bar for the industry, but mostly set the bar for my shop, for what I'm making.

And if that does a service to everybody else, and you don't have to slurry and patch, and you don't have to worry about a refund, and you don't have to recast a project over stuff like that, maybe you have to recast it over your own mistake, and certainly that happens, but we'll be here for it.

That's what I'll say.

And we'll continue to push the direction that we're pushing.

Like the two innovations we're getting ready to release next week.

Yeah.

Which, by the way, I posted a little thing about the program that we're going to be doing.

The program essentially is just if you want to be one of the people that test it for free, we have stipulations.

The stipulation is you have to be a current user of Kodiak Pro products.

You have to use our line of products.

The reason being is if you try to use these new products Jon's developing on Quick Read or on some other mix, you're going to get inconsistent results versus people that are using it with Kodiak.

Definitely different.

Yeah, no question.

So the feedback won't have any relevance to us if you're using it on something else.

We need feedback that's relevant to us, to our products.

So you have to be part of the Kodiak Pro ecosystem, which most people that want to use these new products are.

They're using MakerMix and RadMix and TBP and ICT.

But you're going to...

Essentially, we're going to take 10 people and they need to buy the product at retail with shipping.

And it may be more, man.

I mean, the list seems to be growing and growing.

I know, but I say let's limit it to 10, because beyond 10, it's going to be diminishing returns for our feedback.

I think after 10, we'll kind of know what the general consensus is.

But so the 10 people, you'll ship it to them, and they have two weeks to use it, to make a short video, to take some photos, and they share their honest feedback.

Share your honest feedback on social media, on Facebook and Instagram.

Yeah, maybe it was hard to use.

Maybe it smelled funny.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know.

I'm open to anything.

Whatever it is.

Whatever the feedback is, but share it.

And at that point, we'll refund the product cost less shipping.

And the reason less shipping is because some people, the shipping is ridiculous wherever they live.

And so we can't cover shipping on this stuff.

But we'll cover the product cost.

So we'll refund the product cost less shipping.

And I want to add something why I'm excited about this.

OK.

And have been for a while.

Yeah.

We've been talking for a while, and some guys are doing some soup.

Bold colors have really come back, bold colors.

And what's the downside that I keep getting feedback from people is to maintain the bold colors, even though Kodiak, I mean, again, it's a night and day difference.

When you put a certain mix against ours, it's still how would I say it?

It's still not vibrant vibrant, you know what I mean?

And oftentimes they're using an enhancing sealer.

I'm not a fan of that.

Sorry to say and I say that because enhancing sealers, they just don't last.

It is what it is.

It's part of the makeup of what it is.

But within a few years, they start dulling out and it is what it is.

So I've always been a huge fan of finding ways of getting that first into the concrete because we know that's going to last.

And then from there, then you use an enhancement or let's say a manipulation where your sealer is working with the concrete.

So now you have something incredibly durable.

So that's why I'm excited about man.

I'm excited to see these bold colors.

That was someone I was talking to today who's same.

He's doing a lot of bold color stuff and blacks, right?

Blacks always been, we've always talked about, you got to use a mixed glaze in or some black pigment to your ceiling steps.

I'm excited to see black actually come black.

Yeah.

So yeah, I'm pretty pumped about that.

Yep.

Same.

All right.

So that's that, Jon.

The last thing I want to hit real quick is we have two classes coming up.

Basics Fundamental Workshop, September 20th and 21st, Goddard, Kansas, and a Ramcrete Workshop, October 18th and 19th, here in Goddard, Kansas.

Go to concretedesignschool.com to learn more or register for either one of those.

All right, Jon, I got to hop off here.

I got another podcast to do with this hospitality thing, so.

Oh, that's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you know, now, just for fun, throw another Dramamine under your tongue.

That was rough.

That's awesome, man.

Yeah.

Now, I'm going to go try it just to see.

It's horrible.

It's horrible.

But it did stop me from puking again, which was good.

So it works.

It's just, it's miserable.

No fun.

All right.

Well, two weeks from now, let's do it again.

All right, my friend.

Bye, buddy.

Adios.

Adios.