Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Well, good day everyone and welcome to the Cutting Edge Install podcast brought to you by Omni Cubed, where innovation meets installation and quite frankly, everything in between. I'm your host, Merv Campbell and it's an absolute pleasure to have you with us.
What's this podcast all about? Well, if you haven't listened to it before, you're about to learn from a pro and an expert and a game changer in the industry.
We're going to dive into some stories, we're going to share insights and we are going to have fun. Now you can probably tell by my accent, the Irish do know how to have fun, maybe more than they should, but we're going to make us as light hearted as possible so you don't fall asleep or whatever else. So whether you're on the job, whether you're on the road or you're just looking to stay sharp, you are in the right place. So let's get cracking. I'm going to leave the floor open and you can take it away, my friend.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: My name is Darren Davies and I am the CEO of a company called Blackline Glazing.
I have been in the industry. I celebrated 40 years in May of this year. It's crazy. So I started out when I was 2. I so I'm not that old. I feel old. I am old. I'm 59 years old. So I started when I was 19 years old.
The typical story of started sweeping floors is literally that type of thing and then moved up. So.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: But I've always been on the kind of the, the ownership, management side of the business.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: Gotcha.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: As an actual glaz doing, the guys always get a little freaked out when they see me walking around my office with a tape measure going, where's he going?
So I do have a I, I've got a small amount of glazing experience, but most of it's just in the office.
My primary role is leadership and estimating those are kind of my two main roles.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: Awesome. So that's, so that's 40 years. Wow. That's a long time. So you've obviously been in it 40 years.
You've kind of told us you began sweeping the floors. But what, what's kept you in this for that amount of time? Like that's 40 years is a long time to be in the same thing.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: You know, I think what happens with a lot of people I've talked to the Ben, the industry, whether they be newer or long time, there's something with this industry kind of gets in your blood.
You I don't know what to say. It's.
There just becomes a passion or there should be a passion with it, and you just can't get away from it. It's like, yeah, he just, it's, it grabs you and holds on to you.
What I really like about this industry is that it's constantly changing. After 40 years, literally, there isn't very rarely is there not a week or two that goes by that I don't learn something new, which is crazy.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: I look at other industries, you know, like, let's say brick or masonry or something like that. It's like, how many change? I mean, they been doing Brick for 5,000 years. You know, I know not a whole lot has changed. I mean, I'm not a mason, but yeah, with glass, there's something new all the time.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: All the time. Yeah. So kind of that change and that shift in things, what have you. What's some of the biggest changes or shifts that you've seen in the industry since you began?
[00:03:12] Speaker B: Well, in 1985, when I started, you know, I, I, I still, I did a project that was cool quarter inch single glaze, which I notice they were still doing that in Texas and California, but in Oregon, we had to be. That had to be the, one of the last projects that went with quarter inch. And then from there it went with the insulated, then the low ease and all that, that stuff. And then systems from aluminum to fiberglass to vinyl to all those things.
So I'd say, at least in Oregon or, well, in the industry, but really it was a press in the Pacific Northwest was the need for high efficiency when it came to energy.
And so everything has driven that with the type of products that are out there. That's been the biggest change, I'd say.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, that's, that's helpful information. So how did black line glazing come to be? What's the original version? How has that evolved over time? How have you gotten to where you are right now?
[00:04:09] Speaker B: Yeah, so, I mean, I, you know, this is my third job in the industry or third position. I started out with a, with a company that, like I said, I started off from the very bottom. And I was working with a home owner or home builder, a big developer in this area that for whatever reason, saw something he liked in me at a pretty young age and said, hey, would you ever be interested in starting your own company? And so he helped finance start of a company in 1991.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: And I had, I had that business for 27 years. I was a Minority owner. He sold his majority ownership to someone else that it just ended up not being a real great fit. Yeah. And so after 27 years, he bought me out and I started off blackline in 2019.
The term black line is kind of weird. You know, we were. I don't know, reason we wanted something black. Black Mountain.
[00:05:10] Speaker C: Yeah, there you go.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: Whatever. And yeah, this is getting a little obscure, but for those who really know construction, you know, you've got your chalk lines, you know, and yellow or green or all the different types of colors. Chalk lines.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: Totally.
[00:05:25] Speaker B: Well, the black. When they use black chalk, that. That type of chalk is a permanent black.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: Wow. That's it.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: And so, you know, you'll go to a large project and you're looking for your.
Your lines. The.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: Those will be black.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: Those are the ones that are permanent. Plus, we figured the black line, financially is much better than a red line. So that's how we get the name.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: There you go. You learn something new every day.
[00:05:50] Speaker C: That's awesome.
Oh, that's so cool.
[00:05:53] Speaker A: Within a company, then, kind of like yours, culture can make and break a work environment. We all know that. And so as the leader of the pack, so to speak, what's your philosophy when it comes to building a really strong team culture?
[00:06:07] Speaker B: You know, when I. When I got the opportunity to kind of start over from scratch again with Blackline after the. After I left the other company that I had started, I really wanted a company that I wanted to come to work for. I mean, even though I owned it. Yeah, I. For the first time in my life, from the exiting of the previous company, I had, for the first time in my life, I saw a.
I dreaded going to work for a very short period of time. So I really wanted to have something that was uniquely different that, that my employees would want to come to work. I often will tell them. I say this in a lot of meetings. You know, I don't expect going to work being like Disneyland every day, but it shouldn't be like cleaning the toilets at the Pentagon. If you feel like on Sunday afternoon you're dreading going to work, there's something needs to change. Life is too short. We spend too much time at work to be miserable.
So we do some things, you know, we. I mean, they're minor. We. We have a break room that's full of every snack that my wife can find. You know, every type of drink that you'd want, and we don't have any. There's no. There's no vending machines. You know, it's Just whatever they want. Just we, we do a cool T shirt. I think every year we, we create a custom T shirt that kind of looks like a rock concert shirt. It has. Has all the jobs we did the year before.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:07:44] Speaker B: It's got different themes, you know, like, like when we had Covet, it was, you know, masked up tour.
[00:07:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:50] Speaker B: Then we had the unmasked tour.
[00:07:53] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: Those kind of things. And that's our scripture verse that we use for the bot.
So.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: That's awesome. That's so cool. Yeah, we, we like to eat around here and I love to barbecue and so does my boss, who's the owner. And there's many a day we'll whip out the barbecue and there's tri tips on there, or there's chicken or there's something. And it's the small things that actually make it really awesome to work somewhere.
And it's that culture of. Yeah, like you said, it's not always gonna be Disneyland or Disney World or wherever you wanna go, but it should be. You should actually want to get up to work most days, not every day. A Monday morning's a little bit tough, but that's okay.
[00:08:41] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: Or a day after a vacation. But, you know, it's like you said, you are there most of your life and you gotta enjoy it. So talking about leadership, then you being the leader of the group and everything, what qualities have you found that are important that are really needed for running a successful business?
Especially today when things are changing and there's challenges, Basically, it feels like every hour there's a new challenge thrown at us.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. I think it sounds so basic, but you do what you say you're going to do. Um, I just, I gotta be careful. It's not pride driven and. But it is something that I'm. I work really, really hard on. I just, I always tell people, hey, if I didn't call you back or if I didn't respond to an email, I died.
You know, I mean, I just, I'm really, I'm really careful about that. I stress that with my people here as a project managers and estimators, you've got to respond to your customers.
Even if it's something quick saying, hey, but I had a couple of those this morning. Hey, I'm not gonna be able to get back to you until this afternoon, but we're gonna do that. So I think, I think doing what you say is just so critical and not. Not doing any shortcuts. We have a lot as an ownership estimating, have a Lot of opportunities to take advantage of, of people, frankly. You deal with numbers and stuff and.
[00:10:18] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: And I was told this a long time ago. You know, the relationships that you're building in construction are.
It's a marathon, it's not a sprint. And yeah, you might be able to take advantage of this situation, but you may never do work again. And.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: And so, you know, when I started over, I was very concerned about am I going to be able to, you know, what, how, you know, we kind of built a business model. How long is it going to take for us to be profitable after 27 years before start off the very, you know, literally like the next week with a new company. And those relationships that I had built for so long at that point, 34 years worth or 35 years worth, I was able to, I mean, we took off like a rocket. Mostly just because of things I built for 30 years. It's just so critical and it can disappear so quickly. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's sad.
You screw up one time and people don't forget.
[00:11:17] Speaker A: No, they don't. They're like elephants. They don't forget, sadly, and you're very true. We have a saying around here in this business where fast is slow and slow is fast. And so the more time you put into even employees or customers, the better it is.
If you're quick and sharp and, you know, do a hodgepodge of a job, you're either coming back or you're never, ever coming back again. So, yeah, it's good to, it's good to take that. So with your background then, in estimating, what are some things that newer estimators, they often overlook when they're bidding a job or something that has held you in good stead over the years?
[00:12:01] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. You know, I think with estimating it is an art.
It's not.
At least in the glass industry. It's, it's.
And I, I think, I, I think a good estimator is very unique in that they, you know, get to, it's so more, so much more than just number crunching. Yeah, it's. It's knowing your market, it's knowing all the ins and outs and it's, it's really hard to teach that. So when I'm trying to teach a new estimator, you know, how do you teach them, you know, where our competition is, why this job is one that we can be. Have a tighter margin on those sorts of things. I think that.
And you have to realize that there's risk in estimating, obviously. And you're going to make mistakes. And a lot of times the estimators I all struggle with are the ones that want perfect estimate.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: And I'm pretty open with saying, dude, I have done this for so long, I've made some pretty major mistakes. And you know, they, hopefully they're not fatal. Yeah. One of the worst mistakes I ever did. This is no lie, a five story building. And I knew it was five stories and for whatever reason, I only bid it four stories.
I missed a whole floor, whole floor on a big project. And I'm pretty open with that when I talk to my people that it's just going to happen. And I think a lot of times estimators want that perfect estimate and they'll, they'll overthink it.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: They'll overthink it and they will.
Yeah, it's, it's okay to admit to mistakes as long as you learn from them.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: And a lot of times issues happen when they try to cover it up.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: Exactly. Oh, you're absolutely right. You know, just, just admit it. We know going in right away that, hey, we've got this blow. Let's see how, how we can make it. Maybe we can go back to the contractor and say, I just screwed up. I got, I gotta know.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: You know, I will say, you know, if I have an estimate that's consistently making problems, you know, making errors, then we probably have to have a sit down conversation, say, maybe you should be doing something different. Yeah.
[00:14:17] Speaker C: Maybe this isn't quite for you.
Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:14:22] Speaker A: And sometimes that's actually the most loving thing to do to someone.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Oh yeah.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: You know, you just said, listen, you may have gifts somewhere else. Let me help you over here.
[00:14:31] Speaker C: And that's, that's definitely true.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: So you're, you're estimating you're out there on the job.
How do you ensure sort of accurate competitive bids, but yet keeping that quality, keeping the company's margins, keeping all of that kind of in your mind as you're doing that.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's, it's really difficult. I, I learned with estimating. One thing is I, you know, it's so weird is if I have a job that I estimate poorly, I know pretty quick, you know, it's like, oh my God, I got this job. Yeah, I hope I make money on it. And it's usually when I do shortcuts and I, and I know it, I've been doing this long enough. But sometimes I get in a hurry and I've got four jobs to do and I think hey, with my 40 years experience, I don't need to take the time to run this thing long.
And I'll just, I'll just throw out. Well, you know, I think this is going to be $30,000. I'm just going to put $30,000 in.
And so it, it's, it. It takes discipline to do the hard work. And I will tell you, I still screw up sometimes, and I know it at the time. I go, why are you doing this, Darren?
[00:15:42] Speaker C: Why are you doing it? Oh, yeah, I'm so quick to, you.
[00:15:46] Speaker B: Know, I want to get that number out, but I think just, you know, I double check my work. I do. I.
That doesn't mean I have someone else double check it because it's really hard to double have someone else do it. But I double check myself all the time. And I would say, unfortunately, probably 5 or 10% of time, I'll find a mistake that I did. Oh, man. Shoot. Yeah, miss that. Hi, Mr. Floor.
Oh, dear.
[00:16:18] Speaker C: Oh, that's hilarious.
[00:16:19] Speaker A: But yeah, it is good to double check your work. It's like we often joke about even a tape measure, you know, measure twice, cut once.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Yeah, right, right.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: That's. That's a rule. You can kind of put in every. All the aspects of life.
[00:16:31] Speaker C: It's kind of, it covers a lot.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: But.
[00:16:33] Speaker B: And unfortunately, my personality, I'm a little bit like a bull in a china shop. I, I have a tendency to just plow ahead and. Yeah, you have to stop and think and go, okay, you know, I need to slow down yourself a little bit here and go double check yourself.
[00:16:49] Speaker C: There you go. Oh, that's funny.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: Obviously, running a glazing business, it has its challenges, it has the difficulties, and there's a lot goes on behind the scenes that many people, they never see or know.
What are some challenges that you faced or issues that have come up that people maybe don't know or don't see? And they may not fully understand.
This.
[00:17:17] Speaker B: This business is, it's. It's got so many moving parts. It's a, it's. It's really difficult. It's a.
This is not a turnkey business.
You know, when you look at selling, you'll have. I'll hear, I'll hear that someone bought this shop and they have no glazing experience.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: And it just, it's, it's. It's a very difficult business, I would say, to get into from the ground floor. It takes a lot of experience. It's, you know, probably, probably some of our biggest challenges, which you always hear is People, you know.
Yeah, people are great, but they're also, you know, with things that will keep me up at night oftentimes are personnel things challenges, decisions you need to make. I'm really slow to make decisions when it comes to personnel.
[00:18:10] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:11] Speaker B: Like to give, you know, 5, 10, 16 different chances.
[00:18:17] Speaker C: Chances for someone.
[00:18:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And then also I, you know, it's always a challenge, especially right now is just the, is the economy that's, you know, construction is very cyclical.
When I went through 2008, I thought, okay, that you know, I'm not gonna have that again. And right now we're in. They're not talking recession, but sure does.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: Like recession feels like it. Yeah.
[00:18:39] Speaker B: And it's really, really, really, really competitive. So it's, it's hard to make money currently right now in this environment that, and that gets, that's tough. So you gotta be able to, you have to be able to roll with those slowdowns and.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:55] Speaker B: And, and in, in the, and in the really good times when things are going well and you got all this money hopefully rolling in, it's tempting to say, hey, you know, it's time for me to go buy a new boat or whatever like that. Yeah. Again, to have that discipline to go.
[00:19:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:10] Speaker B: You know, I don't know what next year is going to bring. I'm going to try to keep my retained earnings in this company because I'm going to need to weather a storm that I don't see yet.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Yeah. So yeah, no, that's very wise. That's if any of your employees listen to this, you have a very wise man at the helm. So. Because a lot of times owners.
[00:19:32] Speaker C: You.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: Know, it is their company and they think of themselves and so yeah, they do land in with a, you know, 60 foot long boat and they're, you know, they're either, they're never out of the business or whatever, but to, even in these days, to think longer term, we have to plan for the future. And these days it's difficult to plan when you don't know what's coming in the front door to plan for. So like budgets and all those things. But no, it is good to, it's good if, you know, if the Lord blesses us and you know, provides that we do hold on to some of that even for the years to come for our employees. But you kind of talked there a little bit about like technology and things like that and like new things that are coming on the horizons and it's constantly changing. Like every day there's some new tool out there to do something greater and bigger than it was yesterday. But how is you? How have you as a company adapted and like what tools or what systems have really made a difference for you?
[00:20:31] Speaker B: Now you get my eyes to sparkle because this is what I really enjoy. I love, I love new stuff. So yeah, I get, I can easily get bored. So I'd like to think that I'm pretty cutting edge. I'm probably not.
I just, I like to be the trailblazer. I like to take those risks. A lot of times people go, I'm not going to take that chance. And then you look, you know, like Kodak cameras that didn't pick up on the digital age and got left behind. So, you know, I think I use a system called GDS estimating which those listening probably are very, very familiar with that. I think I was one of the first GDS users back in probably 1986 when they first came out.
And then, you know, we, we had CNC machinery software. I think when most glass shops weren't doing that Tiger stop. All that type of equipment. Yeah. I think it's, I think there's a, even the fax machine way back when that. Now I'm really dating myself. You know, we were the first person to have a fax machine. Oh dear.
[00:21:38] Speaker C: Oh, that's funny.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: But I, I think a lot of times we'll look at it and go, man, you know, we've been doing it this way for a hundred years. Why do we, you know, it's like when the cordless drills came out, you know.
[00:21:49] Speaker C: Oh yeah.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: You know, I'm not used to do, you know why, why do we have to have cordless drills? They're expensive. And do a corded one for a.
[00:21:55] Speaker C: Lot, you know, cheaper than everything else. Yep.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: And you know, you have to do that return on investment anal.
And sometimes there's intangible. So yeah, again, we use it. We, you know, CNC machinery we use.
I would say that's probably on that side of it. But then as far as actual systems, you know, we recently, I've been to Belgium twice. We recently brought over a European product line which is really done well for us.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: We also are now working with Luxwall, which is a really, really highly thermal vacuum glass.
[00:22:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: So you have to do something to differentiate yourself from the other guy.
Because everyone is buying, for the most part they're buying their metal about the same price.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: And they're buying their glass for pretty much the same price.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:52] Speaker B: So now it's just a matter of okay, who screwed up in the bid or who wants to make less money on this job. And it just, it's tough. And so you gotta go, how can I differentiate? How can I make myself different?
[00:23:04] Speaker A: Totally. Well, that's awesome. Yeah. Stay on top of it. It's. Technology is, it's exciting. It's scary for some, Some people are very slow to adapt to it and they're fearful. But, you know, nine times out of 10, it pretty much works out a lot of the time. So. Yeah, so we've kind of talked about. Technology excites you, but in the industry as a whole, what's going to excite you in that? What's going to worry you, even for the future and whether that's materials training or even new markets that we need to go into?
[00:23:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I think one of the things that a big risk. We do SWOT analysis. So I think one of our biggest threats is, we're seeing, at least in the Pacific Northwest, is the use of punched windows, like fiberglass vinyl on these big projects. Where in the past these be aluminum that we were doing. Now the contractor is buying them from the company direct. They're getting their carpenter, carpenters to install them. Yeah, that's, that's pretty concerning to me in an industry. I mean, I think there will always be a need for glass. I'll be. Need for glaciers. But I think our, I think, I mean, that's, that's coming pretty quick in the Pacific Northwest. I mean, we're seeing, in fact, I looked at a job today and I'm going, 10 years ago, this would have been all mine. Yeah, we're just doing a little bit of the work on the floor.
[00:24:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: So, yeah, we, I, I look at the, the, the, the, the T and swat often times and yeah. Analyze that. What is, is, you know, I've only got about, I don't have that many years, so we'll let the next group of guys be concerned with it.
[00:24:59] Speaker C: But. Yeah, but it's good to leave a good legacy behind.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: But kind of putting work to the side, outside of work, you know, what keeps you grounded. Do you have any hobbies, any passions you have or any routines that you have that kind of recharge your batteries?
[00:25:19] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, and I would say after 40 years of, you know, I don't want to be this way, but I'm just gonna be honest with you.
This, this business sucked me in.
I have a tendency to be workaholic.
I enjoy work. And so for me now at 59 years old, I'm, I'm doing A little bit more of that. I'm taking a little bit more time and that kind of stuff. So I love to travel. Been to Europe, you know, several times.
So anytime I can do that, go camping. I'm a big, big into hunting.
Just came back. Hunting.
[00:25:56] Speaker A: Right on.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: I play poker. Oh, there you go. It's one of the few activities that when I'm playing poker, I really don't think about work, and so it's really important.
Yeah, I think it's really important to find something that when you're in it. Mm. You're able to completely disconnect.
[00:26:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:18] Speaker B: And then I'm extremely involved in our church, and so that takes a lot of my time as well. I'm good in leadership at our church.
[00:26:27] Speaker A: Awesome. Good, man.
So you talk about hunting.
I like to hunt as well.
It's totally off script, but obviously in the up where you're at, because I have a friend who lives in Oregon, in Woodburn.
He actually works for benchmade, and so.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: I've got a benchmade knife right here somewhere.
[00:26:52] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:26:53] Speaker C: Boom. Yeah.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: Josiah's a dear friend of mine, and we go up there during the summer to visit them.
They're friends of the family for years, and we've kind of just hit it off, and we'll go up there, spend a week with them. But it's absolutely gorgeous up there. When I drive up there, I'm like, man, this is something else. And then you hear the stories of, like, the big elk, and you're like, oh, man, I'm in California. I'm not even allowed to hit a.
[00:27:23] Speaker C: Squirrel, let alone take out anything else. So, yeah, it's kind of annoying, but, yeah, I like to.
[00:27:28] Speaker A: I'm a bow hunter. I love shooting. Yeah, I like shooting the bow.
Yeah. So, yeah.
[00:27:35] Speaker C: Yeah, I like to fire the bow.
[00:27:38] Speaker A: And itunes leadership in my church, so we have a lot in common.
[00:27:42] Speaker C: So that's good. That's awesome.
[00:27:43] Speaker B: Do you do any waterfowl hunting? Any bird. Bird hunting?
[00:27:46] Speaker A: A little bit, yeah. I've done some duck.
Some other. Yeah, but it's.
That's quite a skill. Like, people think I'll just point and press. It's easy. You're like, no, it's not. It's a lot harder than that. Here, go. You try it.
[00:28:00] Speaker C: Yeah. See how you get on. No, that's cool. That's legit.
[00:28:04] Speaker A: So kind of keeping going here.
You've been in the industry 40 years.
You have a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge. Obviously, you're training that next generation. But what advice Would you give to some young person, maybe some later teen who's possibly thinking about going into glazing, even into project management, even perhaps starting their own business?
What's one bit of advice that you would give them to kind of start them on their journey?
[00:28:32] Speaker B: Think again.
[00:28:33] Speaker C: No, I thought you might say that.
[00:28:37] Speaker A: And I was like, I got. I think he might say rotten.
[00:28:39] Speaker C: Yeah, that's hilarious.
[00:28:41] Speaker B: I literally, I remember my first day in the industry, I really do. And I was working with a guy, his name was Gil, and he literally said that to me. He said, what would make you want to get into this crazy business? And so. But no, I think it's a great business.
I think that you just need to go in with your eyes wide open. But it's great. I love it. I would recommend it to anyone. But yeah, you, I would say, you know, you got to be prepared to put in the time. This is not a part time, especially in ownership. You see a lot of owners are kind of half in, half out, especially if they found success. I mean, to do it right, you need to be very, very, very committed.
What we already talked about is, is, you know, do what you say you're going to do.
Be, Be a man of your. Or woman of your word.
It's just so critical. It's.
Even the littlest things matter. And so.
[00:29:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:29:41] Speaker B: And then I think the other thing is, man, if you can find yourself a really good mentor early on, especially in business.
I did that early on.
I, I think the people that get the most mistakes just think that they've got all figured out. And I, I tell myself all the time and I do not have it figured out. No, I, I need advice. I need, you know, if I hire someone that does it has no industry experience.
I can, I can learn from him.
[00:30:09] Speaker A: I mean, you know, so yeah, there's, as we both know, there's, there's wisdom and many counselors and you gotta have those mentors who will actually tell you that you are being stupid and you need to wise up.
That's a true mentor. Someone who always fans your ego and says you're doing a great job. That's not a true mentor.
[00:30:34] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: There is aspects that you should get that. But no, they should be able to clip you around the back of the head and say, what are you doing?
[00:30:41] Speaker B: Exactly.
What I learned, which was really interesting is, you know, they talk about blind spots and people have blind spots and all that kind of stuff, but a really true blind spot. This is really scary.
True blind spot. And you'd have people around you that can point this out. But a true blind spot is something that you think you're good at, that you're actually not good at. Yeah. And exactly. I. I know a few of mine now over years, something that I thought I was good at and find out that.
Darren, you suck at that. You should not be doing this.
[00:31:15] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:31:15] Speaker B: Doing this.
[00:31:16] Speaker C: So I try not to.
[00:31:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: And then surround yourself. Surround yourself with. With people that are smarter than you.
[00:31:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:26] Speaker B: Don't be threatened by them. I mean, I'm terrible at math. Well, I should say that I'm an estimator.
I'm. I. I'm terrible at.
I don't want balanced budgets. I don't want to analyze.
[00:31:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:38] Speaker B: But I know how critical is in this business, so I've hired for that.
I'm not very good at HR stuff, so I pass that on.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:31:49] Speaker B: But a lot of times I think CEOs especially think, well, I need to be doing this. I. Yeah, this is what I'm here for. I'm CEO, so I should be analyzing numbers. I should be firing people. Well, maybe There are some CEOs that have that gifting, but they're no good at sales.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:05] Speaker B: Get someone else to do the sales side of it.
[00:32:07] Speaker A: 100.
[00:32:08] Speaker B: We can't be everything.
[00:32:09] Speaker A: Yeah. You can't wear all the hats because we are only. We're finite creatures and there's only so much we can actually do.
And there is only so many hours in a day as well. And so do the ones.
[00:32:24] Speaker B: One guy can do it. But it's going to really limit your ability to grow. You know, you're only going to grow outside of what you're.
What you don't, you know, delegate off your plate.
[00:32:35] Speaker A: That's very wise.
And anyone who's listening to this, who is in leadership, it's okay to say, hey, I'm not good at this. I need help and delegate it to someone.
We like to do that here at omnicubed, where we see people's gifts and we let them loose with that gift that they've been given.
And that's. We have one young man who recently came into our customer service department, and he is phenomenal with customers.
He can strike up a conversation with anyone.
He talks to them about everything.
There's one customer's called up and they've offered him baseball tickets because he's a Diamondbacks fan. And so, you know, there's that conversational. But that's a gift he has. So use that, like, as a company. And that actually puts Wind in his seal, because he's able to use the gifts that he's been given. So, yeah, it's critical to be able as a leader to say, you know what? This isn't a strength. There's someone else who can do it and give them the tools to do it well and let them loose and see what can become of it.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: We run all of our people through what they call a cvi. It's core Value index, and it's not personality, but we run everyone through this and what it does, it puts them into four categories and not this black and white. But you find out what your core is and you're either a builder, a merchant, a banker, or innovator.
I am a profound merchant. And it sounds like the guy that works for you is a profound merchant. So merchants are.
Merchants are. They find that their best day is mean people, green people like that. A banker, give him a spreadsheet and analyst. Well, if you take a merchant like myself and tell me, hey, Darren, I want you to go balance this checkbook, that would be disaster. That'd be hell on earth.
[00:34:36] Speaker C: Yeah, totally.
[00:34:37] Speaker B: Now you give that banker and say, hey, I need you to make a sales call on this person.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: Precisely.
[00:34:44] Speaker B: Then that's terrible. And so we try to fit the people as best we can into what we know they're going to enjoy.
[00:34:51] Speaker A: That's so helpful.
[00:34:52] Speaker B: You know, their job should at least 80% of the time, I think, be touching into work that they enjoy doing it, they find value in or they're going to be burned out.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
[00:35:04] Speaker B: So that's.
[00:35:06] Speaker A: Oh, you're a good man. You are a good man. I tell you. Because there's a lot of times people get, they get stagnant where they are and they think it's where they should be. And then their, their work performance is what it should be. And they're depressed and they're grumpy and then we always say one bad apple ruins the whole barrel and all it takes is one disgruntled employee and it's a nightmare.
It's a disaster. Yep.
[00:35:30] Speaker B: It's a cancer.
[00:35:31] Speaker A: Oh, it is kind of last question.
We'll wrap it up here. But what would you tell a 25 year old you, if you could go back in time, if you were able to jump in the DeLorean, go back, what's one bit of advice that you would give yourself?
[00:35:51] Speaker B: That's a good one.
I would say, I know we already touched on this, but I would say, you know, Darren, you just stop and enjoy life Work isn't everything work. You know, the business is great, but it can only it doesn't love you back.
[00:36:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:09] Speaker B: So make sure you, you, you leave time to balance yourself. I figured that out, but it was, you know, not until end of my, end of my 50s to a certain extent. And then you start, you start to develop patterns and habits of, you know, working on, you know, working late and that kind of stuff. So yeah, I would say that that would be probably my biggest thing. I would tell myself at 25, say that, you know, you don't need to, you know, give you, give yourself time to enjoy what's around because life does, life is short.
[00:36:44] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:36:45] Speaker B: So I remember my first day in the business like it was yesterday and here we are 40 years later.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: So yeah, our life is but a vapor.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: We have to, you know, we've got families and people that care for us and we need to be around to.
I have a 16 year old daughter and so I'm like, well, I would like to walk you down the aisle. So, you know, I gotta get, there's gotta be work balance because you see a lot of people who just, they do so much and they don't have anything outside of work and that's, that's kind of scary for me. But Adaran, this was an absolute pleasure.
Thank you so much for coming on. It was really awesome to meet you, to talk to you.
I sure am gonna come find you when I'm up in Oregon the next time.
[00:37:35] Speaker B: Oh, far from me. You drive right by our place probably if you go to Woodburn, so.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: Oh, right on.
[00:37:39] Speaker C: That's awesome. Well, that'll be cool.
Yeah, I'll get your number and we could, I could see what's happening the next summer, but.
[00:37:47] Speaker A: Well, that's a wrap on this episode of the Cutting Edge Install Podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode. Follow us, subscribe, Leave a quick review, share it with whomever and whoever and keep an eye out. We launch these every other Thursday at 8:00am Pacific State Time. So keep an eye out for them on YouTube. And for more information about Omni Cubed and the tools that we design to help fabricators, installers and glazers work safely every day, go check out our website, it's omnicubed.com and until the next time you hear my dulcet tones or see my face, I say to you, stay safe, Cheerio and God bless.
