How To Start A Construction Company: The Complete Guide

everybody let's go thanks man that was a solid hand clap I'm back y'all remember me Jesse Lane glad to be here so how many of you know your first a thousand dollars it's gonna come from you working hard your first 100 000 is going to come from you working smart your first a million dollars is going to come from you building a team to work harder and smarter than you so the ultimate goal here is to have a business that works for you but first you guys have to understand I think a lot of you do you have to understand what Financial quadrant that you're in how many of you know about the espi let's go Matt yeah get some head nods okay you guys have all read Robert Kiyosaki your Dad Poor Dad yeah so but also the cash flow quadrant so the cash flow quadrant is another book by Robert Kiyosaki that I would heavily recommend reading along with how to retire Young retire Rich uh what's another Robert book why a students worked for B students and why C students work for the government [Laughter] fill the book so you have to understand which quadrant you're in and some of you might be in the E quadrant right now as an employee which is time equals money so you can't ever make more money than the time you put in there's only you know 168 hours or whatever in a week but you can only work so much it's a there's a cap here's a tagline that an employee might say I need a safe and secure job with benefits okay this is the words coming out of their mouth out of the heart the mouth speaks a core value is security an employee wants security a self-employed person this might be a real estate agent it could be a doctor a lawyer anyone where again time equals money they don't employ people they don't have a system that works for them they have them that works for them they own not a business they own a job what does job stand for job just over broke so at a self-employed tagline is if you want to do it right you have to do it yourself and their core value is perfectionism which thank God maybe not my tattoo artist but hopefully maybe your your tattoo artist that's he's a self-employed perfectionism right your dentist your doctor your surgeon thank God for us people a business owner's tagline the B quadrant is I'm looking for the smartest people to hire for my company and their core value is hiring the best people one of their core values now there's the I quadrant so well the B quadrant there's employees equal money the I quadrant money equals money okay because they're investors I'm looking for a good investment that's a tagline a core value is making their money work for them so if you want to be an entrepreneur you have to know that you're an entrepreneur at the core and that's why I'm leading this off with just this concept because you have to know that you're a born entrepreneur like garyvee him and I share a little bit similar upbringing where he was selling in baseball cards making deals with the kids at eight years old similar to me I had my mom drive me around to uh people's doors in the neighborhood now I would knock on the door and my mom's in the car and I'm like the answer to her hey I'm Jesse Lane and I have this book of candy for my school and like I would sell them to buy candy for my school when I was a top sales guy at school that was like 11. and then I was like 10 or 11 same age and I bought a vending machine I paid I think I I somehow earned 100 or 200 something like that and I bought this vending machine then I went to Costco and I bought Reese's and I bought Dorito whatever the stuff was and I put it in my parents real estate office and I was stoked when I came and I said whoa I made these quarters I didn't have to be here this is awesome at 14 I I used to buy and sell wild horses that was one of my first businesses in Texas how many of you here have seen my documentary yeah Okay cool so half through if not it's called the first 30 years it's on my channel so I would buy them and I would add value break them I got bucked off a lot it was not easy it was hard but I made it happen I also had lawn care business like when I first started I would just drive my mower around and knock on people's doors and say Hey you could be doing something else let me know your lawn give me 60 bucks also walking sticks never stopped hustling right so who here I'm just curious raise the hands was born or a young age had an entrepreneurial spirit nice so we're in the right room but I want to emphasize that if you're a Craftsman you have to know that at the core so if your passion is to work with wood you have to know that at the core if you're an employee you have to know at the core so don't try to change who you are everyone is a genius but if you try to judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing that it's stupid and I was the fish in school and there were the monkeys climbing the tree and it was like you suck you're getting SDS even C's hardly I couldn't fit into the box and I got kicked out let's get into the business Basics what you have to know there's business licenses there's insurances according to your local jurisdiction so call your city and find out what you need to do there's accounting it is vital to the excess of your success of your company you need to dedicate time to accounting to get the numbers straight and make sure that they stay straight or else you're not going to last very long then you can again delegate that like we talked about yesterday but it's about seeing the bigger picture it's about working with people there's a lot to business one thing a major thing of business Basics is sales sales is the lifeblood flowing through the veins of your business to be a construction business owner you have to be able to sell if you can't sell you're gonna have a hard time starting your own business maybe you can start it but how are you going to keep it running right you can hire out sales people but most of the time the owner is the leader in sales again like this is the last Hammer that I'm going to put down eventually you guys want a trail of hammers right that you keep look at all those hammers that I've dropped you know and the last thing might be sales but again do what's best for you and what you're best at but sales is the lifeblood so read books on sales read seller be sold by Grant Cardone that was a huge aspect of me learning about sales like for example when I used to convince my parents to stop for ice cream after they said no so getting anything you want in life involves some sort of sales process even from when you're a kid business is p people so become a people person life is people when we get to end of our life it's not like oh money money dude it's about people that's why I'm here with all you guys because I love all you guys so much your network is your net worth it's the number one point in life is people it's people are the key to happiness fulfillment and major success so learn how to communicate with people and coordinate with people to accomplish big things in your business so here's one idea when I first started my business I had a couple 1099 people and just a few W9 employees but I had some 1099 people like maybe a bookkeeper we talked about someone over here with book kind of Outsourcing a bookkeeper and you can do that you don't have to hire this eighty thousand dollar W-2 situation but some pillars in your company would be sales admin bookkeeping like general labor superintendents project managers c-suite the executive level eventually you'll get up to that point so when I first started so like you might say who who should I hire first what I did was I hired a super slash pm he was more kind of make like a super 89 super I was the PM I was a sales guy I was the bookkeeper I was the marketer I was the pretty much everything else in the first bunch of years but the thing about him was he could be on site and I could be out selling and doing doing everything else but he was low cost and one thing Bill said there's this conundrum I remember yesterday was just get that nice big guy but what if you can't afford that you know what I'm saying so you might only be able to afford the 40 000 guy which is what this this guy was to me he's not with me anymore because some people are only good for a certain season you know you have to know like which tool to put where and so now I have the team that hopefully will be with me forever because they're awesome people and they're making lots of money you know and but this guy didn't and that's why you can only see half of his face it got me what I needed at the time but I was still watching over every little thing that he did and it was exhausting but it was cute but it was somebody you know to go out and be on site and let the subs in be careful how you handle your reputation also when you're hiring you have to make sure this person is representing your company the right way so people will always be a huge part of your success and always treat people with respect especially when I had to let this guy go I had to kind of wait until it was good for him maybe his family's in a bad spot you know maybe his personal situation blah blah his car just got broken into not the right time even though I know it's really not going to work out in the long term as an entrepreneur things are going to go wrong in your construction business you have to realize that everything is your fault which is a crazy statement because you're the owner it's your business you're signing off on all the mistakes that people are gonna make on on your behalf so it's risk and reward and you have to you when you wake up you have to realize that you hired an estimator and you're trusting him you hired a project manager and you're trusting him and there's risk associated with that but you can also make major money when things go right so you have to be willing to accept this fact of the risk to make the big reward so it's all about being an amazing leader putting in amazing systems and then finding amazing people to work those systems and understand that the harder you work the least amount of money that you're going to make so the people that work the smartest make the most amount of money okay learn to delegate effectively and build systems according to how you figure out the best way to do things so other people can take your place that's the ultimate goal of Entrepreneurship so what is your role as an entrepreneur how do you be a construction business owner Your Role is to train coach teach and guide people and to build systems that's it and to make sales but those that's what you do on a daily basis it's your job to do those things it's all about the people and getting it into their brain how you want it done once you realize that it's not just about you anymore it's about other people running your business with the systems that you've built that's the true key to success so understand each step of your business you are the master business Builder and then find the qualified people so how do you keep employees fulfilled because I'm talking a lot about people talking about systems you guys get it but how do we keep employees fulfilled it's about what are they looking for and each person sell these people they're all different people they all imagine a cogwi on top of their head and this one spins this way and this one spins this way well this is what that's my brain this you know so you have to know what keeps them fulfilled is it money status challenging work take a picture of this job security a fancy title A trustworthy boss recognition is it the type of work that they're doing is it the working conditions that they're in is it the culture of the company is it a flexible work schedule is it getting more PTO so every day you wake up as an entrepreneur you're trusting these people you're banking on the mindset and the actions of these employees you're trusting them to do the right thing you're trusting and verifying that they aren't missing details if they mess up they're still going to get their what paycheck but you take the losses right so it's not just when you started your business that you take the risk it's every day that you wake up as an entrepreneur that you take the risk when hiring people try to find sixes and sevens if this is zero and this is ten you guys are the tens right and I don't think you could ever find other tents that really have the experience that you do that are crazy enough to get on the bull of building a business I just hopped on here one day and I was like I didn't even think about it I was just like okay and then it starts bucking I'm like oh crap oh well everyone's looking oh Jesse started a business and I'm like I better just hang on okay whoa all right then let's put some okay let's figure this out so it's a more streamlined and then I started doing the systems thing but I always think of this bull analogy for some reason it's just like crazy wild ride but try to find those sixes and sevens maybe eights you know that can work for your business and I think I have everyone that I have is in this up top here you know really close to what I do and some of them I need to become tense I think Mark and Ron and those guys are gonna are tens or to become tens you want to get rid of these people you know down here on the on the graph that is blank but anyone below three twos and threes just get rid of them they're they're gonna they're gonna drain Mark I just count I called you a 10 bro you're becoming a 10. so so you want to get rid of the threes in the force quickly but try not to hire them in the first place which is what this internal systems thing and blah blah you can build those quizzes which is what we've done the culture fit quiz the personality quiz priority rankings construction knowledge quiz those are all things that you can you can get for your company you can tell a lot about a employee before they even start you don't want to just hire everybody and all right we'll see how you know and then two or three days we'll fire them because then it's like you know figure out beforehand the personality do they understand construction Etc it's your job to be the Visionary you need to cast Vision to your team articulate exactly where you see the company headed quarterly monthly yearly or in on even on a weekly basis and we have a meeting every Monday at 10 and sometimes on those meetings throughout the the months I'll come with hey guys this is where we're going these are some numbers here's some satisfied clients there's a big win here's a big loss we talk about it so it's your job to cast that vision and articulate that hold people accountable to those goals so everything we talk about in those meetings gets documented and then we hold people accountable and so there's financial goals there's budget goals there's Project Specific goals there's timing goals there's inspection goals like no failed inspections or something like that and those are all bonuses that come with the internal spreadsheet thing or template website thing and you want to create gamification as much as possible you want to create a gold board and this could be this could be a Google sheet that you share viewer access it can be that simple you just say Google sheet here's our goals or whatever and and create kind of like a game like hey whoever does this many daily logs before 5 PM or whatever it is gets X and I used to do that we have we've had uh daily log award like when people weren't doing it I'm like you know what you get 500 bucks every quarter Whoever has like the most accurate detail mark one every month so we just stopped doing it but it's your job to create the culture right and so that's one thing that I did in my company by you know even that example is that that's a culture item everything's culture you as the business owner set the tone of your company and the business is a direct reflection of you so how can you go from a construction worker to a construction business owner the first step is to stop picking up the tools so that phrase can be translated to anything in the company and we've talked about that it doesn't have to be actual construction tools are you doing your own bookkeeping are you doing your own payroll are you creating all of your own pay applications are you doing all of your own invoices are you scheduling the project inspections are you doing all the project management are you managing the project site are you calling all the subcontractors Etc so it comes back to the cash flow quadrant where are you naturally gifted are you built to be an employee or do you enjoy building these systems and managing other people which is the heart one of the hardest things in life to do is managing other people especially if they don't have the right training if you're a Craftsman at heart blah blah we talked about that but just know this if you're an e and you really aren't a b it's going to be extremely frustrating and you're you're going to give up because that's the 90 that you hear about or even if 97 whatever the some people have different percentages of what businesses actually make it right it's because a lot of the employees had an entrepreneurial entrepreneurial seizure or whatever you want to make sure that you are the right core value knowing who you are at the core so the biggest part of getting off swinging the hammer is understanding how to get your point across to various different people as you learn how to coach them you are the coach and eventually you'll be the owner of the league watching from up top in the Box I was swinging a hammer for the first few years of my business I would say after the year two or three that you guys should be off the tools really you should be off the tools hopefully in year one but you should be really hiring people having built the money up to do that because you have a lot more percent probably if you're doing all the work yourself you're keeping more percent they can only do one job at a time because you're only one person entrepreneurship is about hiring the right people to take your place because management is a full-time job so now I have a senior executive staff a c-suite my goal is to manage them and make sure everything is getting done right beneath them so I don't necessarily need to go talk to the field guys or get all involved with i i minimally go out to my job sites I'm not necessarily saying don't go to your job sites I'm just saying my I trust my team and definitely trust my c-suite managing the team and so of course the daily logs help with photos videos and all that stuff on build so my ultimate goal is to have a completely TurnKey business that runs whether or not I'm there or not and I would say for me personally that might take another five to seven years maybe at your 15 or 18 of the company I'm at you're almost nine I think maybe I can get to that point where it's just like we're good you know but I believe it'll be worth the grind so if you're just starting out how to start a construction company you got to start opening a lot of you are already past this point so I'll buzz but separate business banking account of course you guys all know that you have to keep your personal transactions out of your business and vice versa everyone knows that correct so then you gotta choose a business name a lot of you already know that what are some of your business names Silverstone Construction Mastermind love it what else from the ground up I like that that's the new one right that's perfect one more Sunshine State so unfortunately mine's Jay Lane Construction you think I'll have a little harder time maybe selling that one day Maybe But ultimately it doesn't matter because it's all about building your brain right so if it's silver whatever in sunshine state you you want to build the brand so when people think about commercial general contract they think j-line construction when they think of what do you do sunshine state general contractor and you're here in Jacksonville right when you're at your bank getting your business checking account get a business credit card start building business credit and then that you can do your LLC from there as well this is a great book by Garrett Sutton this is in that Rich Dad kind of vibe Roberts brand or whatever but anything any questions you have just read this book LSC S Corp C Corp how do I tax it my LLC it flows through to my personal because I set it up as an S corporation it's taxed as an S corporation but it's an LLC so depending on what trade you specialize in definitely make sure you're licensed and you just heard from JD and each state each county has different rules and regulations so I researched that call the local building department if you're shooting to be a general contractor not just maybe your drywall license or you know framing or concrete then the stakes are higher and you got to complete rigorous testing and all of you guys know that but also a huge Point make sure that you're hiring a licensed subcontractors almost got burnt real bad really bad the Lord had a sovereign saving of my company it's just mechanical electrical Plumbing Roofing there's trades that are sub trades that need to be licensed and it's your job as a general to verify that they're licensed so we have a system for that and build a trend does help with that but our system helps with that by the way Dalton I know you bought the the template congratulations and Ryan Bittner just bought it and had to go to his flight but you guys all get it probably tomorrow because I I have to do it on the computer but I'm excited for you man I use QuickBooks Online there's many accounting softwares out there but like we talked about earlier with this line in the middle and build our Trend and then QuickBooks talks to build a trend it can bridge that divide but make sure you're getting QuickBooks online because you it literally syncs to build a trend but also syncs your credit card transactions all of them right there you don't have to like manually input them like QuickBooks desktop it just you just say hey it goes to this cost code this job and then boom and it flows the Builder Trend you add the receipt that they put in on the form on your new internal systems website so business building is all about streamlining your accounting software is going to give you vital reports like profit and loss balance sheets Project Specific reports AP and AR accounts payable accounts receivable you can also manage your chart of accounts categorize credit card expenses like we just talked about you can even use this to manage payroll I personally have a leasing company handle my payroll so they do a 941s my 944s my rt-6s and they pay them each week on direct deposit so I'd recommend getting a payroll company or a leasing company for payroll because I used to do it on myself like you guys know I did everything myself which I've quickly got away from which is my whole brand like streamlined your business but I did do it on QuickBooks online for a while and I would do the quarterly reports in the unemployment form once a year and the rt6 and the 944s which quarterly monthly all that stuff so I want to touch on this formula gross sales gross sales minus your cost of goods sold right anything that's directly rated related to the job okay this is job costs gross sales minus costs of goods sold equals what come on give me a shout gross profit so gross profit minus your overhead rent software fees office rent utilities office expenses pens papers printers desks chairs ping pong tables we have one in our office gas vehicle maintenance Insurance Bank fees cell phones computers companies shirts continuing education legal fees recruiting fees licensing marketing company meals and events your website the internal systems website is a write-off I'm serious that's a business expense it's overhead so all that equals net profit and what do you do with your net profit you pay taxes on it yeah so as a business owner you need insurance you need general liability workers comp auto insurance maybe bonding payment performance bond bid Bond okay for larger jobs so you need a really good insurance agent that understands construction companies get a construction specific one if you're a subcontractor you need to add the GC as additional insured to your policy and if you're a GC you need to ask your subs to add you as additional insured to their policy which is the same thing I just said just different perspectives so you also need a workers compensation and policy for who your employees can I have workers comp on me of course do I have to have workers comp on me no exactly you guys get it you owner can be exempt can I make uh Jose the employee workers comp exempt no okay cool make sure you're also paying yourself a reasonable wage the IRS determines or requires that you should you need to pay yourself a reasonable wage I've actually made the same amount of money out of my company um just reasonable wage I think it's 65 000 I should probably pay myself double that but like why would I want to pay extra taxes so marketing and sales okay this is where your business is formed in the womb this is where it all starts you you start with this this is the baby steps of your business you won't get sales without what marketing exactly marketing leads to sales sales gets spit over to the estimating Department that's the main Department spits to your your project management project management spits to your super then your super gets those client reviews or you do and then It All Leads back to marketing so you want to start with marketing we've heard a lot about branding and marketing online but you want to start making it just use your phone your iPhone YouTube Instagram Facebook Tick Tock LinkedIn Aaron's blowing up on on Tick Tock it's just cool she picked a niche it was like wedding planning which you're going to Date and Switch now but then she gets hundreds of thousands of views and they're like all these likes all these comments like more than me ever had you know it's like within two weeks on on Tick Tock she just it's really cool seeing her brainstorm about the content and stuff too so you should be on all these platforms making quality content be the thought leader in the industry provide Insight provide value use your phone to grab little Clips I did it with yeah it was scary I grabbed your phone at the brewery last night I was like this is how you make content this is what Carrie's about to do you just put on selfie mode because what we did was we went to your Instagram and had a bunch of pictures of drywall being finished I'm like bro where's your where's your face he's like well I'm taking pictures of my job guys it's they're buying you they're not buying the drywall okay it's a personality it's a trust level they know me before they call me because it's my face it's my personality on the screen that they're watching make sure your website is epic it's the online brochure it's the first thing client sees it's the first impression of your business it's your online billboard it needs to look amazing it's like an online magazine people need to know you before they call you include photos of projects reviews from past clients develop an amazing logo if you don't already have one people need to come to your website and say to themselves how could I not hire this company well what if you don't have past jobs what if you're just starting out maybe you work for someone else until you're 100 comfortable in your own abilities to complete a project and then go to Thumbtack Craigslist HomeAdvisor Angie's List Etc until you complete enough small little projects that turn out perfect and put those beautiful photos on your website get five star Google reviews of obviously it starts by you doing great work you have very happy clients generate a link that brings them straight to the review section ask for that review make it super easy for them that's sales I'm going to sell a client on spending their five minutes doing a review so I'm going make it easy push the button bro hit five give them a little starter hey J Lane Construction was great and they could fill it in whatever it takes to make it easy for them that goes with using DocuSign or something like that for a contract you want to sell a client then a medocusign and be like hey just click the button bro then you get those you want to film interviews like this with your client just grab a little DSLR camera and film your clients it could be the Thumbtack client maybe you do a fifteen thousand dollar job on the Thumbtack thing or maybe you guys are past that point and you already have a project but maybe you want to go from residential to commercial what do you do I only have the residential I've talked to a lot of you guys in person about doing it in tandem here's commercial here's residential don't just kill residential right away if you've never done one commercial project take and do one to five commercial projects and leave residential chug in and then eventually okay you get some calls kind of see if you can get that off like that and then you're just all in words and upwards with commercial okay boom so man the first Brazil's waxing Center was the first job I ever did six commercial job ever did it was six thousand square foot commercial renovation and I filmed a client testimonial video then the phone rang for commercial this is the number one thing that has brought me new clients there's no reason that they wouldn't want to call you so this is the gold that will bring your clients in the door I've also when I first started I did about six seven of SEO search engine optimization to get your backlinks set up to get everything plug in the right way towards your Google my business listing which Google my business if you don't have that there's so many contractors I talk to I consult them all across the world and like bro let me see your website all right cool I search general contractor in Alabama or the specifics um you know the area and they're not even on there they're like oh yeah I meant to set that up I'm like they're like I can't get any clients I'm like this will get you on the map getting your Google my business set up then this is a really cool hack check this out have your clients or future clients follow you online add them as friends on Facebook connect with them on LinkedIn follow them on Instagram and hope that they'll follow you back engage with them online these people are going to see the YouTube videos that you make then you share that on your personal Facebook you'll be like hey look what my company's doing and you have okay five likes you have 10 likes all right cool but that person who didn't like was that developer right and he's like and then you then you run into him at the event whatever or the coffee shop man I've seen your YouTube videos and the things that you're doing you're doing some you're doing some big things I saw you did a commercial build out I got to build out you did a commercial build out can you build me a ground up six thousand square foot situation heck yeah that's how the business is built network network network so you want to be networking digitally and in person with property managers this is commercial mindset property managers real estate brokers developers Architects Engineers structural mechanical electrical plumbing and civil engineers these are people that are going to refer you to new clients right for example I built the dessert shop in a strip center and we did a really fantastic job she was a raving video a raving review we even came back and fixed small things after the fact Mark and attest to that that guy has referred us to 15 probably build outs in the same strip center then they built a whole new thing which I meant I didn't build up but there before they met me but he wants to talk to me about building the next Granite strip center but then that one we're gonna do all we're you know he gave us our name to all those people in the strip set so even after that I brought him Jaylene cookies Jalen Koozies mouse pads shirts job site signs pens metal business cards brochures digital brochures videos on your websites all those things are a part of your brand I didn't bring him all those things but I brought him cookies and they're stoked then that's why I got this I got the second thing oh yeah Jay Lane oh I was like Jaylen tastes good they just leave a good taste in my mouth you know so it's all about brand okay brand brand Alex talked about it everyone's talked about it bring those things to those people the Brokers The Architects the past clients the future clients the developers if you're not designing it's a new word hashtag hop on Fiverr upwork get that 1099 situation going with building your brand that can help with all those little things okay you know what I'm saying the business cards all that stuff brochures even website so what does the word brand mean to you guys I'll tell you it's about developing a reputation that's strictly focused on your Niche so for me it's commercial General Contracting it's written on my truck you guys saw my truck it doesn't say I do I'm a general contractor but then people are like always bathroom renovation calls I already have too many of those they just sit in my inbox and my lead sheet so effective branding for your construction business has less to do with your logo or advertising campaigns it has everything to do with how you connect serve and relate to your class you want to hire the right people that only do commercial projects or whatever your Niche is if you do Residential develop a brand for that and then follow your clients on Facebook we went over all that stuff become the top rated in your area you'll blow up when you're the top rated believe me I know become known for being the best get really good at tenant improvements or commercial Renovations Mike does all these tenant improvements and he helps the people know if I want to open up a new business I'm coming to Mike because in Arizona Phoenix Phoenix Arizona he's the guy to talk to because get me through the problem there's a problem I don't know how to do I don't know how to open a donut shop I'm going to call Mike if I'm in Arizona I'm going to call Jay Lane if I'm in Jacksonville or anywhere in Florida so but you might ask finding jobs do I use bidding platforms I square foot construction Journal Blue Book Etc no I've tried it for me it doesn't work I just feel like if it's on there it's already too late you know what's your guys experience with that I'm curious it doesn't work yeah so it's just like I want clients that see my value and call me because they want to work with Jay Lane they know who Jesse is I they say my name Jesse my business is Jay Lane they say I want I want to work with Jesse you know but of course my team helps with all that stuff now I'm getting out of the anyway so but the clients see your value and I just feel like if it's on here it's too late because everyone's bidding on it and you want the people that see your back so one mistake I made when I was first starting my construction business was and this was this was not the actual picture but I made the mistake of this extra expense of getting an office too quick okay raise your hand if you're under two years in your business keep it up do you have an office no like none of you guys okay I mean and that's probably good in your first couple years because what's wrong with your house well fortunately I didn't have screaming babies and I still don't not yet but that was a huge benefit to me starting my business what I did of course work from home but what I did was I got a virtual office and I still have that today I've had it for nine years they answer all my phone calls man if your main business number is your cell phone you got problems it should be like mine's 904 or 500 Lane and it goes to Intelligent Office and there's all these ladies and some guys that sit there and go okay it's a residential commercial if it's residential they throw in the trash no just kidding they say how many square feet what's the address what's your budget sometimes a lot of it's blank but sometimes like you know they'll put it a little in there if it says 30 grand not going to click it but um that is a description of what it is so if it says commercial or multi-family there's three things residential commercial multi-family if it says multi-family I'm calling back it says commercial I'm more likely going to call them back depending on what's written if they're like wow it's commercial but we need help uh five thousand dollars is our budget and we just gotta get a permit because our last Contra messing everything up and the city's mad at us and we got to get our certificate of use and I'm like no no that's just not my cup of tea my minimum it says my website hundred thousand dollars but I like quarter million to 750. I will consistently make 30 to 40 percent on my 500 to 700 000 jobs on my quarter million dollar jobs something a lot of those jobs I've made 20 to 30 grand which I don't know but that's a low percentage less than 10 whatever but on the million plus million to five million man it's like way less percent I don't know what it is it's just my experience and I'm just sharing that with you guys something I've picked up I don't know but I'm I've crushed it with those five to seven hundred thousand dollar jobs so consider getting a virtual office people can't hunt you down register your business with that address people can't find you at home right your work you might work from home and people you can meet your team on Google meet maybe you have one superintendent project manager superintense run around job you don't need an office for that running around for jobs when you become a business owner you have to know what you're doing knowledge right like Tai Lopez in his garage knowledge this is my Lambo you know and like he's trying to sell something so if you're going to be a carpenter you got to know how to frame the house you gotta be a great framer if you're going to be a general contractor you need to have solid working understanding of every single aspect of the project site work concrete masonry Metals framing windows and doors mechanical electrical Plumbing Roofing Structural Engineering reading and understand the architect's plans the structural plans the Civil plans some aspects Beyond construction specific knowledge are that you need to know in the general contracting world are like communicating with the city pulling permits filing notices of commencement obtaining lean releases building a schedule of values doing your pay applications paying your taxes don't forget about that one Insurance Audits and then entrepreneurship skills in general which is kind of everything I talked about prior develop your processes it's the most important thing you can start small get that simple proposal down pat have a solid system for it make it a company standard boom you got one system out of the way you don't have to worry about that you don't want these simple things to get in your way in the day-to-day spend your time now to make them better to eliminate future holdups remember that like me sending something in front of the door for my future self in the morning it's the same thing with building a proposal template or someone's just asking me should I buy the internal systems website now and my question was well do you have the money for it and he said yes I said well then buy it because it's not going to be this cheap for the next couple days but he's like yeah I had the money but I don't have a lot of employees I'm like well that's great you can get it now if you don't have the money don't buy it save the money and build and be careful with that but then once you have the money you can have that because then when you hire people what are they going to do you can just point them to that superintendent page or the project manager page or the sales necessary page and to have them take the quizzes so of course if you guys can buy that you all heard about it and you we did the whole thing on that so how do we gain and maintain and this is in closing how do we gain and maintain true fulfillment I feel the most sad and unfulfilled when I don't accomplish anything towards my North Star goal it's so important to find that North Star goal that purpose for your life that passion that light being that I talk about everyone here on purp on Earth has a purpose I believe you can find that thing that's that's burning inside of you it just needs to come out and it needs to be alive so for me this was growing my construction business investing in real estate and helping others like you guys along the way so when I'm successful and I made progress each day towards this life Venture that I set out to accomplish I feel the most fulfilled don't you guys feel fulfilled at the end of the day like when you come home you're like man I just accomplished so much but I wasn't just accomplishing so much in the wrong direction you want to focus on your North Star goal so this is not to say that there won't be major battles and obstacles there there those are a natural part of being a human here on Earth but those struggles just make us stronger remember the circle of capacity stronger you're bigger you're better when your circle grows and you can attack those problems that are larger in the future because it's within your circle of capacity because you know how to do it when I was younger I would often spend time playing video games or doing things that were meaningless and I quickly learned as I got older that those things were completely depressing we aren't built to be unproductive I believe we're all put on Earth Here for a very specific reason and when we find that it's a secret sauce to living a truly fulfilled and meaningful purposeful life full of happiness and true inner Joy isn't that the whole point money helps but so does health health wealth family spiritual the quadrant it's all important but when you find your North Star goal and you work towards that in the passion Light Beam work no longer feels like drudgery I mean it's hard but it's not drudgery I've been in drudgery like when I worked at like Olive Garden when I was like 18 19 when I moved to Iowa that was drudgery oh I need a fork oh gosh you need one oh my gosh like not what I'm built for okay I quickly realized that after like a couple weeks so work towards your North Star goal every day and stack knowledge on that subject like the growth rings on a tree put your focus on reaching that goal and help others do the same you're going to feel even more fulfilled that's why I'm so fulfilled it's because I'm fulfilled over here then I pass it on to you guys watching and it's extra fulfillment because of helping others along the way and it's really the best feeling when you're able to help others so laziness is the epitome of depression because nothing's progressing in your life we're built to build that's why we're contractors build and accomplish so don't waste your god-given time progressing towards your ultimate goal brings true fulfillment and joy so try things if you don't know what your North Star goal is set timelines to achieve them think bigger than you ever thought possible and watch what happens in your life so thank you for coming to my first ever business conference cheers to many more [Applause] I love you all so much ask me any questions that you have about systems people business God thank you guys [Music]

Channel: Jesse Lane

Views: 67,381

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Id: uRwG4sf3iv4

Length: 43min 29sec (2609 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 01 2022